Solo

In Solitude

by K Gocebe a.k.a. The Strange & Odd Secrets Club


What is The Strange & Odd Secrets Club? It’s not a club, or even a band. It’s really just one person – Me. Hello there! I try to put an emphasis on making my songs sound like a collective effort rather than the solo project that it truly is. Through some “social experimenting” with other musicians I found that I work much better in solitude. Part of this is due to my insecurity surrounding vulnerable lyrical and arrangement ideas, but also because I love taking on the personal responsibility of creating each element of a song.

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Riff Rafting

by Ed Rawlings


I love guitar riffs. Great riffs encapsulate the chords, melody, and feel of a song. They are a force that propels the songs forward. A good song also tells a relatable story, but a great guitar rock and roll riff can draw people quickly into that story.

Sometimes, riffs are memorable guitar melodies, like The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” or  Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” I particularly like riffs that are part chord, part melody, and are often as memorable as the lyrics, or maybe more so – like Chuck Berry’s opening riff for Johnny B. Goode – one of the classics of rock and the inspiration for many riffs to come.

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How I Started as a Solo Artist

by Raging Flowers

Raging Flowers


Hi, I’m Raging Flowers, a singer-songwriter-producer from Auckland, New Zealand. My primary instrument is the electric guitar. I make jazzy self-help indie pop that celebrates the diversity of feelings. My music is about truthfulness, exploration, and hope.

My music career has had an unusual start. I’ve been a long-time music learner, but I decided to pursue a career in tech. I studied Computer Science and had a career as a Software Engineer. I worked for some of the top software companies in New Zealand. I was a star Software Engineer in various fields, including music, blockchain, and AI. Back in my programming days, my ambition was to run a small business of my own.

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Collecting And Enjoying Sonic Elements And Influences

by Camilo Palma a.k.a. Ap Ducal

Ap Ducal


Over the past year, I’ve been developing my new album, “U,” by my moniker Ap Ducal, which continues in the sonic sequence of previous records, but this time from a more personal perspective. The sound, the process, and the timing of this album are imbued with the idea of collecting and enjoying the sonic elements and influences that have had the most impact on me.

Perhaps it is a form of nostalgia or simply a tribute to music styles like post-punk, new wave, and even some compositional elements of jazz in a long-play format. I tried to incorporate these elements into the four tracks of the album. An example is the theme “UUUU,” based on The Cure’s song “A Forest.”

These four themes were recorded entirely in my home studio, using only four elements per song in a band-like format, essentially the format I’ve been most familiar with in my career. The challenge was doing this as a solo artist with unconventional instruments in my context.

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30 Years’ Worth Of Music Making… And Beyond

by Jamie Hutchings

Jamie Hutchings
Photo by Jared Harrison


Hi, my name’s Jamie Hutchings; I’m a singer, songwriter, guitarist, percussionist, and sometime improviser and producer. I’m based in Sydney, Australia.

Music was a given in my family household as my dad was a woodwind session cat. He’s 83 now, but he still gigs here and there, but as kids, it was his bread and butter. So all of us inherited his musicality in some form, but still (particularly with my brother and I), we found ourselves gravitating more and more towards rawness and originality over professionalism and technique. I was looking through my mum and dad’s record collection the other night, and it’s almost exclusively Frank Sinatra records. Sinatra is amazing, but the overexposure to music in a show-biz format perhaps contributed to us going in a different direction!

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Gathering Flowers

by Richard Thomas a.k.a. Mint Biscuit

Richard Thomas aka Mint Biscuit gathering flowers in his parent's garden


I spent three or four years as a student in school and University, playing in rock bands and organizing music events. These years were the best of my life, filled with music, love, learning, friendship, and joy. It was also a tumultuous time, with stress, illness, and injury plaguing my life. In the band “Mint,” we played loads of gigs around my University town of Durham and recorded an album, “Leaving It Late,” which marked the culmination of our collective collaboration with a flourish.

After going “off the rails” slightly for this short period, I had to force discipline back into my life. I quit the rock and roll lifestyle completely and returned to being the hard-working, sports-playing, family-oriented guy I was before. I played rugby four times a week. I completed my degree eventually and got married to my girl.

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Release It Creatively

by Simon Grundy a.k.a. Subtle Amnesia

Simon Grundy a.k.a. Subtle Amnesia


Subtle Amnesia is a one-person band prioritizing new sounds. With these sounds, I introduce philosophical ideas and the more grim aspects of reality to my music. I am a spiritual person who has had my fair share of mental health issues, and that ingrains itself into my music quite heavily.

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A Collaborative Musical Concept

by Octomusic


I remember when I first started the OctoMusic project; I was still playing in my previous band back in 2017-2018. I was kind of tired of playing in that four-piece format, and I just felt we weren’t moving the whole thing forward, so that was the perfect time for me to start working on my own thing. I began releasing different singles and working with a couple of other musicians. When you do everything by yourself, it is very challenging as you have to establish your own deadlines and you have nobody to share the workload with, like when you are in a band, but it’s also very comforting as you can produce your music with much more depth.

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30 Years of Originals

by Pedro Alsama


My mother used to say that when I was 2 or 3 years old, I was a little pest, but when music was on the television, it was silent; it was peaceful at home. I was absorbed in what I was wanting to do forever. Music.

I started my sound adventure learning sounds; I created them around me with a k7s recorder. I walked around the house reporting where I went, something like: “And now this is the sound of water, and let’s all listen…” turned on the bathroom faucet “listen, it’s the water singing…”

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Without Any Constraints

by Nethracedicon

Nethracedicon


Greetings! I want to let you know that I have an Avant-garde/Alternative Rock music project called NETHRACEDICON.

I’m sure you’re probably thinking, “Nethra-what!?” And, you’re correct. This is not a word. It’s a fictional title I have given myself, as an independent recording artist. “Nethra” is actually a male first name that can be found in India. Also, at the tail end, you can find “Icon,” which someone I used to work with pointed out to me.

When I was 20, and still in college at Texas A&M University, I hooked up with some musicians who were needing a drummer for their Reggae group, Raggamuffin. During the Fall of 2005, I became their active drummer and managed to capture multiple rehearsal sessions with a portable device. This was my introduction into “do-it-yourself,” home audio recording and I’ve been doing this ever since.

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