Brian with Tascam 488 portastudio –  early 1990s

I am gradually putting up my back-catalogue of songs or pieces of music I have recorded (and written all but a handful of covers)  – album-by-album, EP-by-EP, compilation-by-compliation, one-off track-by-one-off track – on briansilk.com, so that everything is available; the whole of my output as a singer-songwriter/music-writer.

This will be the complete history – from the days when I had to hire a cheap recording studio, through the portastudio days, and on to the Mac-based digital set-up I use now.

There are approximately 80 tracks in all, although this includes probably at least a dozen duplicate tracks – but some of these are different or updated versions of earlier recordings.

At the start of this task, there were nine tracks already published since the renaissance of my music recording, starting with Song To Self. I am publishing the remaining recordings in reverse chronological order. This will keep an unbroken timeline of the music throughout. Eventually, it will be possible to see my progress. Some of the earliest tracks are pretty awful. The change from cassette tape-based hardware recording to computer-based allowed for huge advances in quality and the options available to a one man band like me.

I will try to put up the recordings over a period of months rather than years, but there are rather a lot of them and I also want to do a good job of presenting them. About half the tracks have been digitalised from cassette and need significant work to eliminate the hiss from having used Dolby, and mastering them to today’s standards. I also want to share some memorabilia and thoughts alongside the recordings, and that will all need recalling and gathering.

Brian Silk Singles from May 2014 to the present

This is the current, ‘renaissance,’ period. I found myself completing the basics of a whole new track, one Friday evening, and decided to complete it. It turned into Song To Self. Having put out this one track, I kind of felt obliged to carry on. I have no regrets about this. I feel I have endless music inside of me and there is no reason why I shouldn’t I do something that I love to do and see if others like it.

Theme from Leftfooters – The Movie, 2007

Music I wrote for a documentary about Leftfooters FC in 2006.

The Wedding, 2006

Two songs written for a friend’s wedding.

The Love EP, 2005

Tracks written during a relationship and after the guy ended with me, as well as spanning my move from west London to Erith.

Silko 2nd EP, 2003

An all-electronic or samples/loops four-and-a-bit tracks release sees Brian join in the ambient dance music vibe of Air/Röyksopp and the like.

Silko EP, 2001

The release where ‘everything changed’, as I started making music on a computer. A bit hit and miss in places.

Good, 1999

A compilation of what I considered to be the best songs I had written and recorded up to 1999. 14 tracks, written over a period stretching back to my teenage years!

Almost A Million, 1998

My 1998 album. The title was conceived after a few pints in a pub in Oxford in the mid-1980.