First off, the fine folks at Glasgow’s independent radio station, Radio Buena Vida, have asked me to come in this coming Friday, 4th June to do a Soft Riot set of some select tracks live on air for an hour starting at 4pm UK time. This day also happens to be my birthday! It’s be a selection of tracks from my record collection, including a bunch of new acquisitions acquired on my travels over the past few months as well as some deeper digs into the record shelves. It should be fun. You can tune in at buenavida.co.uk on the day or there will be an archive posted online when it goes up in the days following the initial broadcast, likely added to this news entry when the time comes as well as the Mixes section. Tune in if you’re around!
In the meantime there’s been less shows this year, mainly as there’s so much other stuff going on, and this includes getting things ready for a new album which will likely be out in early 2026. Things are happening somewhat differently this time around, with the production and mixing not only being handled by myself, but with the addition of emerging production engineer Owen Pratt of the production collective Shepard Tone coming into the mix (pun intended) for this one. Owen was the electronics guru in both Női Kabát and Uncanny Valley — both bands now no longer active but touring companions in the early days of Soft Riot — and the 2015 release You Never Know What Might Come Next being to date the only Soft Riot album that I’ve worked with another engineer on. We’ll see what unfolded but sometimes you need to change things up in life if things start feeling stagnant, and I’m looking forward to working with him on the new material.
There are some shows coming up though, locally in the UK as well as some dates in Vienna and Budapest in early September. An Italian tour is in the works for late October and the possibility of other live performances are always bubbling up in the pipeline. You can check the details of what’s coming up in Live Events.
As things start to come together for these new recordings, attentions will start to turn back to playing out more live as 2025 starts to transition into 2026. In the meantime there’s other projects going behind the scenes, as well as possibly working on new musical ventures with other musicians, which is an exciting prospect at this time. After working inside a self-contained bubble for many years, there’s a need to shake things up and try new things. Life is, after all, best enjoyed when there’s new challenges and new experiences coming into the fold.
So that’s where things are at for now! In the meantime you can check out the archive of releases or see what music is being mused about in the Track Of The Day section of this site, which gets new additions added to it on a somewhat regular basis. Take care of one another.