From the polished dancefloor of a well-loved disco studio comes something that’s been three years in the making, brewing in the back of the mind of a well-praised musician who just loves to stir shit up.
Damian Cowell. Wait until you see him in person.
Damian Cowell – one of the dudes from TISM has took it upon himself to release a third studio album, but with a degree of creative difficulty.
As per his fund-raising page on Pozible:
Three years ago, songs started appearing in my brain like spam in a junk folder – but this time I thought I’d try something a little harder than a straightforward album. Why not sauce them up with an overarching concept? Someone should have stopped me there… but no – vaulting ambition o’er leapt itself: it became 20 little vignettes, joined together by four sub plots, umbrella-d over by one big story.
Someone really should have stopped me there… but no.
I was already looking at not one album, but a double album. Twice as much work. Twice as expensive to record. But that wasn’t enough for Mr. Smartypants here. I wanted to tell the story visually, as well as musically.
“Why don’t you do a musical?” said my well-meaning friends. But musicals make me break out in a rash. No matter how enormous the budget, they always remind me of the school production. Then I thought of something much more up my alley – something lavish, complex, yet deeply childish: a graphic novel! But then, what, do I ask people to read the graphic novel while listening to the music? I guess, but maybe it could be even better than that…
Someone really, really should have… well, you get the picture.
What about an animated graphic novel? I’m no Disney animator, obviously. But if I could make it look like a comic book which has sorta… come alive… maybe I could pull it off.
And that’s when I started on the biggest, stupidest, most time-consuming and deeply pointless journey-up-my-own-arse in the history of me:
Only The Shit You Love: the double concept album/animated graphic novel/musical/Youtube series.
Enough coin collecting time later, and the guy your mum secretly hates to love has released his a double concept album / animated graphic novel / musical / YouTube series to the world – titled Only The Shit You Love.
Damien Cowell’s Disco Machine – Only The Shit You Love album cover.
Well, he’s about to. The album becomes available September 20, 2021, but Cowell is currently drip-feeding the internets with weekly posts on his YouTube channel. The 19 episode series will feature well known personalities of music, comedy, and TV, such as Tony Martin, Judith Lucy, Patience Hodgson, Aunty Donna, Shaun Micallef, Geraldine Quinn, Matt Stewart and Liz Stringer.
Once the web series is at its full blossom, you can buy them Only The Shit You Love album on CD and digital download.
If you want to know more about Cowell and how his Disco Machine works, check out more links here.
