Wilkommen in Deutschland

Surrounding us at the moment is snow, horses, giant cats and wild dogs. Two hours outside of Berlin, us Ravens are gearing up for our intense month ahead. On top of recording and writing and designing and having a few visitors, we've booked six shows. One show we're excited about since it's something we've never done is a massive outdoor live show right under the Brandenburger Tor, where we will be supporting a demonstration against genetically modified food...

Our TUORavens career got me quite nostalgic in these last few days. Maybe it's something to do with the cosy snow outside and the time to fill with not much more than my thoughts that I've come to remind myself of all of our successes. It's just been a little over two years when Ravens came together rehearsed a few songs and had our first gig... And now, here we are, in Germany, getting ready to try out a few scenes in Berlin and recording our Album.

Can life get any better?

What's quite astounding as well when I look at our journey; we originally started off as a band, creating innovative music in search for labels to sign us and make our dreams come true. Eventually we decided no one could do it better than us. And that's been our attitude ever since. It's a way to help with our self preservation, so that when we do work with other people, they will be the right ones, the ones who get what we're about. We are more than just a band now, we're a record label, producing our own records, being our own managers and soon we will be signing other bands that we believe in.

We're a business.

We're a creative business.

So yea, we won't get too ahead of ourselves just yet, but just enough to outsmart everyone else...

Step On It

I slam the back doors of the van. Turn the key, hit the gas, drive this shit south. Our equipment is on it's way to Berlin. We won't be far behind. Gotta rip this Christmas thing up first but, you know, we deserve a little calm before the storm. Gonna drown in red wine awhile before leaving this blown out speaker of a year for dust. In two weeks time we'll be holed up in our Berlin apartment burning harddrives with noise, and sailing down streets that promise new ways to frame our souls. On the sixth of June 2011 our album will be hanging in the sky and it will be dripping with a sense of wonder that I still can't shake, a desire to live and love better than what I see around me in anticipation of adventures that no one can promise but I know are there, because they're staring straight back. We're gonna make the best record in town, pure and simple. Have a great Christmas everyone, we can't wait to have a ball with you in the new year. X.

DIY with Quality

Ravens were asked to be a guest blogger on ABOF (A Badge of Friendship) blogsite. We shed some light on the realities on what's it like to be in a DIY band and running an Indie Label. Happy Reading!

http://www.abadgeoffriendship.com/blog/entry/guest-blog-the-unkindness-of-ravens

NYLON

Check out our video 'I Used to be so Pretty' on NYLON blogsite. Please leave a comment! Sticky love!

http://nylonmag.com/nylonblogs/blog/2010/12/09/music-video-the-unkindness-of-ravens/

Note To Self

The digital age has killed my attention span. And yours. So I'll keep this brief. I'm gonna rescue my attention span, and watch as the real world and my real desires come back into focus. From now on in everytime I check out a band's song online I'm gonna listen to the whole thing because you know, some people take a lot of pride in writing middle 8s and outros. I'm not gonna check my emails when presented with a couple of inconvenient minutes waiting, queuing, when I'm bored on a bus, when my girl's at the bar. I'm not gonna hang around on Facebook waiting for nothing to happen or wonder why the hell when people eventually reply to my emails they don't actually answer the things I asked them. I'm gonna look out the window and let my mind go, I'm gonna fix a lyric, remember who my favorite painters are, take a breath and trace the air, remember all the things I used to cook, think about the first time she took off her dress, wonder how the hell we evolved to be able to construct these buildings around us, write the first and last line to a book... I'm gonna remember that I'm intelligent and that I'm gonna die and that if I'm gonna be remembered as a great songwriter I better pick up my guitar more often. I'm gonna go listen to a record in it's entirity and think about how cool it is that those tracks are in that order, how amazing it is that a couple of circular vibrating pieces of cardboard attached to magnets inside wooden boxes inject rock'n'roll into my veins and make me wanna grab my girl and give her the attention she deserves. I need to give my mind the attention it deserves. Thanks for listening.

Berlin Berlin

The developments in our musical career as a band from the future are growing into something fast and furious, but slow enough to enjoy every single moment with a bleeding kiss.

Sometimes when I look into your eyes I can't help myself but get lost in dreams I've wanted to turn real and share together with you. So much do I fall inside you, I wear your skin like a coat and my insides turn to a milky mush.

The EP 'I Used to be so Pretty' is happily uploaded onto our myspace player. It's official release will be November Twenty 9. So grab it on iTunes for you to own.

Our EP launch party will take place 23 October at The Roadtrip bar (downstairs in the Workshop) on Old Street. There will be an array of other Bands playing on the night of industrial and electro genre. All this followed by our EP tour in November round the UK.

Something we're very excited about, we'll be heading to Berlin for one month in January to finish writing and recording our Album. This will be a fine break from London, giving us some breathing space, some adventure and all round excitement and inspiration.

Love is in the air for us Ravens. We can't seem to help but find love in every corner of our lives. This is how we believe the world will forever go round.

And to the NME dude who said Rock n Roll was dead - I hope you didn't write that for the money because you don't know what you're talking about!

The Space You Begin

Somewhere I end and you begin. Bound by noise, attracted by purity, addicted to the details no one else has found no one will ever look at you the way I do and I don't need no one else to look at me again. I unplug myself from the machine I use to set fire to myself, I'm done burning tonight. I need to plug myself back into you but you're caressing that place on the map that gave you to the world and so I kick back and think of you and light another cigarette and fall some more into my lake of wonder for you that was once a drop, one day an ocean, and you know I don't ever want to see the shore. I swallow and tease my lungs with the idea of filling them with water I hear it's the most pleasurable way to go I don't know whether the idea is to swim or drown I guess you only keep afloat if you need rescuing huh. I become light. The echoes of my alternative realities get softer by the drop they know they can't compete anymore, there is no more temptation left, I have cut myself out and you have cut yourself in. Light becomes me. Somewhere I end, it's the space you begin.

Faster

It's getting hot in here. The sound is dripping from the walls like the sweat that lies drying in your bed. Red hot distortion for your red hot lips. I drive this sound thru the air and thru the walls of this studio and into the streets that frame the things I tell you when we wake, weaving our souls closer and closer until you know who I am and still you beg me, for more, until the sound falls from the sky and into the sea and thru the streets that frame the things I will tell you tomorrow. I drive this sound so fast I want to burn the air into submission and make it promise to never leave your lungs. We are made of glass but I will hold us to the sky and never let go. I drive the sound faster. It's getting hot in here. You tell me you own everything you touch. I smile. You own me.

NEWS NEWS NEWS!

Dear Friends!

Got some hot news from the block!

Our most expensive low-budget video 'White Road' has been featured on the CLASH magazine website and the Panic Dots music website.

Check the links here:

http://www.clashmusic.com/feature/the-unkindness-of-ravens-white-road

http://panicdots.com/2010/06/video-the-unkindness-of-ravens-white-road/

A quick reminder that our 3rd ever single 'White Road' will be out 7 June on iTunes along with a FREE track 'Red Sun' which you can download from the X-player on our myspace. For as little as 79cents this little gem could be yours. If you want a physical copy for just 1.50quid (British Pounds) - mail us. Postage will be included in the price!

And tonight we're celebrating our forthcoming 'White Road' single with a gig @ Tommy Flynns in Camden! That place gets packed with all sorts of goodness on a Saturday night, so come down and join the fun with some live music and sweaty beers!

Sticky Love,

Nina & Ben Raven

Follow us - www.twitter.com/tuoravens

Watch us - www.youtube.com/tuoravens

Hear us - www.myspace.com/theunkindnessofravens

Dead Air single Reviews!

http://www.artrocker.tv/singles/article/artrocker-magazines-single-reviews-for-the-week-commencing-may-3rd

Above is the link to our first spotted review on Dead Air. The more we find, the more I will ad to this blog.

Don't forget our FREE track of LIFT, downloadable on our myspace page. Share it with friends and play this baby LOUD!

Sticky Love,

Nina

The Unkindness Of Ravens

www.myspace.com/theunkindnessofravens

Also, be first to find out the latest news on: www.twitter.com/tuoravens

DEAD AIR video in ARTROCKER and CLASH!

Our awesome no-budget, heart felt video DEAD AIR made it to Artrocker and Clash:

http://www.artrocker.tv/videos/article/the-unkindness-of-ravens-dead-air

http://www.clashmusic.com/feature/the-unkindness-of-ravens-dead-air

Thanks goes out to our trusty partners in crime Carly Seller and Noel Faucett. Both are professional photographers with a unique sense of visual style.

Noel is keeping his work hidden from the world at the moment, so once I get a web address from him I'll be sure to show off his work. In order to get a taste of what he's capable of for the moment, pay attention to the projections in the film, 95% of them were his. Pay especially close to the rich black and white film noir imageries...

Carly on the other hand has photographic style that carries a unique taste in attention to groundbreaking detail. Whilst most will miss it, she captures it, with a blend of angles thought out sensitively. This young lady has a fascination with birds (perfect for us, fate has brought us together after all) and her work you can discover here:

http://www.carlyseller.com/

We are using one of her images for the WHITE ROAD single due out in June.

Love,

Nina & Ben

The Unkindness Of Ravens

FOLLOW US HERE: www.twitter.com/tuoravens

Love the Courtney and Love thy self

The first time I heard 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' I think it was in that moment I lost my innocence. Hole who? Oh yea the woman with big red lips rolling around with her guitar, yea, I dig her stuff, but nothing gets my heart pumping like Nirvana.

Dedicating your love to a band is like that t-shirt you've had since you were 17 and it's full of holes, washed out, smells funny, but hey, you can't throw it out, it's too comfortable and great memories are attached to it. Those are the kind of bands you'll always stay loyal to, because they were there for you for the better and the worse of times in your life. It took me some years to properly appreciate Hole, but maybe it took me that long because I let Nirvana overshadow them until one day I said enough is enough and opened my mind. Now that Hole's reappeared in my life, I can't get enough. Back then I listened to the pain and anger coming from Cobain's mouth and it felt good to know there was someone out there who felt the same things I felt. Hole's got it as well.

Music either grows with you, or you have to catch up to it.

But this isn't really about my undying love for the early 90's grunge, punk, rock bands. This is about the Love. The Courtney Love. A woman that I've recently begun to fully appreciate. I must hand it to her. The woman's a survivor. I think that's pretty priceless for a woman like Courtney to have been able to stay afloat for so long in a ruthless world of flesh eating journalists and tabloid-run countries. Back then I'd been dubious about Courtney Love's behavior in the public eye and her somewhat seemingly addiction to fame (amongst other things.) But then again, who am I to judge? I'm older now, wiser and have a greater understanding of people, to say the least, I've been blinded more by the tabloids than by her music... Good or Bad for someone's career?

They say it's better to have bad press than no press at all. Obviously Hole didn't suffer any severe downfalls due to poor media interpretation. Pretty much on the contrary. In other words, whatever Courtney Love managed to display in the public eye was irrelevant to the bands success. Because great music lives forever! Amen!

The reason why I've taken the time to write about this is because I found an interview with Love on the Alan Carr Show and the woman's beyond fucking cool, a force of nature greater than any hurricane Katrina. At this point we can't deny that the media's influence could somewhat have mis-guided us fickle beings.

Note to self - don't listen to the BS other people say, create your own opinion, it helps the brain grow! And if the music's good, so is the rest!

After all, Great Music Never Dies.

Peace!

INTERVIEW with TUORavens

Dear Music Lover!

The latest news on our progress; please check out an interview conducted by Panic Dots -

http://panicdots.com/2010/03/hot-dots-the-unkindness-of-ravens/#more-4076

All answers are in there! It's a treat!

Sticky love,

The Unkindness of Ravens

https://twitter.com/TUoRavens

www.youtube.com/TUORavens

DEAD AIR single May 3 2010

Since entering the womb of the devil and sucking the blood of knowledge TUORavens are coming out with another single, one of five to be released over the next five months, starting May 3 of this year.

The challenge so far has been producing our singles. Creating and writing songs has its challenges, but they come from somewhere within, a voice wanting out, needing to be heard. However, when it comes to producing your single on your own terms and yet still be able to take enough steps back to listen if it's 110 %, can be of great challenge. I say, once you think you got the mix down, play it on as many hi-fi systems you can, and listen for glitches, anything out of ordinary, be honest with what you hear, and make them right. Most of the time it's trial and error but you get there in the end.

TUORavens are trying to pull off the punk DIY ethos, we are our own label, Sonic Fire Records, which basically is a small company consisting of Nina Wagner and Ben Raine and some honest friends who are happy to listen to our work and give us constructive opinions on how to make things better. In todays time, DIY is the way to go. We are not only the creators of our works of art, we are also our own accountants, managers, promoters, producers - building an empire of skills that I am sure will always come in handy. Be ready to do the research, eventually it comes with the territory anyway, and you'll become an artist of knowledge.

TUORavens have the courage to climb the rocky mountains least taken. This takes persistence and discipline. In the beginning more money will always go into a business you believe worth while investing in. However, with the right mind set and a product worth selling, eventually money should come back. But ladies and gents, for money to fill the empty pot has to be decided by the public and if the public doesn't care for your product, then things can get difficult. So everything in life should be done for the love of it. With any business, things take time to grow and unfold in the palm of your hand, and like any child needing nurturing and care, everything takes time to grow.

Next up is our next single - DEAD AIR - to be released May 3 of this year. Very exciting indeed. We're working with a top PR company, one I believe to speak the good ol Ravens language and help us promote the life out of our work. Check out Badge of Friendship if you're searching for some music promotion. I promise you, these people stick to their words, and there's just not enough of those kinds of folks in this world.

Stay honest and true to yourself and all good things shall follow!

Currently figuring out the music video for DEAD AIR - tricky task - so any suggestions please shoot them this way.

Sticky Love,

The Unkindness of Ravens

www.theunkindnessofravens.com

www.myspace.com/theunkindnessofravens