Original Bumskipper Series Press Release

We may never know whether Richard D. James is a genius, or whether he’s just gone off the boil, or whatever. Personally I’m a Selected Ambient Works 2 man. With the Analord series, however, one is forced to accept that he’s ingeniously got shot of a sizable chunk of his backlog of tracks without having the pressure of people scrutinising a new album proper. He may well have made some money out of the enterprise too. Now the last CD-R I did was Giraffe, and I’m quite proud of it still. In fact I’m a little bit worried that I may have peaked with Giraffe, because everything I’ve done since hasn’t really felt like a track on the next album. Admittedly I’ve had a lot of computer voodoo, which for various reasons has resulted in either not being able to use a PC to make music (and relying instead on reel-to-reel tape, ADAT 8-track, and even crap loops on the Line 6 DL4) or making music with a PC but in the sure knowledge that it won’t be for very long. The point is I’ve got tons of stuff but it lacks the sexy pop sheen that characterised my earlier work, perhaps, and so I’ve decided to shamelessly ape our Aphex by releasing it piecemeal. Obviously I haven’t got the cash to present eleven 12” records in a retro culture fetish binder, so the Bumskipper project, as I’m calling it for now, will consist of a series of eleven 3” mini CDs. They play in normal CD players, it’s just that they’re smaller and therefore, possibly, cuter. You can fit 21 minutes of audio on a 3-incher, which is OK for the Um sound on account of the artistic denseness, obviously. I’ll be releasing them over the next few months as the whim takes me, but hopefully on a monthly basis at least. Think of it as being like a magazine or something. Anyway, Bumskipper 1 is available now at £3. I’m kind of hoping that if you visit PayPal at www.paypal.co.uk and tell them you want to give pete.um@ntlworld.com £3+50p(p&p) then that will work but otherwise get in touch at the same address and I’ll tell you how to do it cheque-styles. Or see me at an Um gig or come round my house, innit.