Feral Media

Some things, but not many things, are more important than music.

Almost completed in 2007, INSIDE THE SKY was shelved when Danny’s son, Lewis, was born. In 2009, just as Danny resumed making the finishing touches to the album, his number came up in the Green Card Lottery run by the US State Department.
He and his young family decided to pull up stumps from Sydney and move to New York City. The Feral Media recording studio and HQ in inner Sydney were dismantled & sold. During 2010, Danny rebuilt his studio on Manhattan and mixed INSIDE THE SKY.

INSIDE THE SKY is a beguilingly simple electro-acoustic hybrid, a natural successor to Alpen’s acclaimed 2005’s debut album Overdub. The Sopp Collective created the design and packaging and have sculpted another outstanding limited-edition release.
Recorded in Sydney, Melbourne & New York, the all instrumental album features regular Alpen collaborators Greg Seiler (Comatone), John Tjhia (ii, Aleks and The Ramps) & Martin Kirkwood (Splinter Orchestra, The Sacred Cows).
The album title was inspired by the book INSIDE THE SKY by William Langewiesche.

Background

Since 2004 Alpen has released:
Overdub (2005, full length album)  “starry-eyed pop to bent beats and sublime atmospheres.” 2SER
The Ongoing Moment (2008, full length album)  “a rare seam of gold” Bob Baker Fish, INPRESS
and the EP, Lost Friends (May 2011)

2010-11
Most of Inside The Sky precedes 2008’s The Ongoing Moment project, and is the sister to 2005’s Overdub. Inside The Sky is an unashamedly studio creation, though many of the tracks origins are ramshackle jams that just ‘clicked’, were (luckily) recorded, then edited and revisited over the years, slowly transforming into new pieces with new found energy. Significant contributors are Jon Tjhia from ii (on three tracks), frequent collaborator Martin Kirkwood (Splinter Orchestra/Drip Tray/The Sacred Cows) and Greg Seiler (Comatone) who collaborates on one track and also mastered the release.

2008
Alpen’s  The Ongoing Moment, involved the Sopp Collective (a Sydney-based visual art and design crew) and was a major musical coming together of many friends. Danny’s idea was to record, mix and master an album over a single weekend, with Sopp and ten other audio-visual practitioners providing the visual inspiration. Danny hand-picked his musical collaborators for their ability to listen and improvise, drawing on members of Underlapper, ii, The Longest Day, Restream, Clairaudience and Morning Stalker.  Although the tracks produced were improvised and mixed quickly, the quality of the creations has encouraged Danny to further explore his idea of ‘rapid composition’.

2005
Alpen’s debut release Overdub was also collaboration with members of the Sopp Collective.  While a handful of musical performances were contributed by label mates from Comatone & Plankton, the musical aspects of Overdub were primarily Danny’s creations. The Feral Media alliance with Sopp (begun with Sopp’s 2003 The Undertone album artwork) produced a stunning stop-motion video for the Alpen single Start Now! and the Overdub album artwork and typography.
Sopp’s video for Start Now! was selected as one of the best of 2005 and toured around the world with Resfest Magazine’s Videos That Rock showcase. Watch the video for Alpen’s Start Now! on Youtube or Vimeo

2000-2003
Danny focused his energy on Alpen when his previous band, Plankton was in hiatus.  (“Plankton is a very mature approach to the use of tech…sort of like a more modern Necks.”  Tim Ritchie, Sound Quality, ABC Radio National. “A beautifully mesmerising example of four creative musicians interacting – Sydney Morning Herald).
Danny’s role in Plankton had been as on-stage producer, an amalgam of ‘playing’ the mixing desk and real-time sampling.
Plankton released one full-length album, 2003’s acclaimed The Undertone, (a deceptively complex, coherent, mature album – 30music.com, A very courageous and impressive debut – Brag Magazine) which was painstakingly recorded and produced by Danny.  Forming Alpen provided Danny with a dedicated outlet for his musical ideas and concepts, while leaving the door open for collaborative works.