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.