Creating and playing music whilst raising funds for charity

The Oceans the EP by local musician and singer songwriter Guy Valarino - its creation and release - was made possible by his amazing community of supporters and corporate pledger  U-mee which pledged and supported the EP by pre-ordering it alongside a whole load of other exclusives via Pledge Music. Via the Pledge Music element of this project, £300 of the funding goal was donated to Cancer Research UK - a charity that’s very close to Guy’s heart. “A huge thanks goes out to everyone who backed the release of Oceans EP to not only make its release possible, but to raise this money in aid of CRUK,” he says.
The project was a direct-to-fan platform which brought artists and fans together to share in the experience of music as it was happening.
By pre-ordering the EP during it’s creation, pledgers were able to gain access to exclusive content and updates giving them and insight into the recording of the EP and how it all came together.
Guy explains how the majority of the EP was recorded at home using a basic home studio set up with the drums and main vocals being recorded at City Sessions studio in Twickenham. “I am very grateful to have Adrian Pozo who came over to the UK to record the drums for me and to Anthony Martinez who recorded the bass. Dani Fa mixed the EP and additional production and it was mastered in the Isle of Skye.”
... this gives the EP a very local feel... and as Guy says, “it was very much a London via Gibraltar via Scotland kind of project!
The lead single and title track ‘Oceans’ is a personal song but one that he feels many people can relate to.
“It’s about the opposing emotions that one feels when dealing with the the loss of a loved one, while its very difficult and sad there is also an immense feeling of warmth, love and gratefulness for everything these people have brought to our lives.
“One of the early drafts of the lyrics had a line which mentioned ‘Oceans’ and I just started using that as a working title for the song. However, even though that line didn’t make the final cut, the title had really grown on me, so I kept it,” he tells me.
As he describes the tracks he says - that ‘Oceans’ and ‘Nargis’ have more of an indie-folk influenced sound with ‘Woolfe’s Beach’ and ‘Out There’ having a more pop-rock sound.
‘Remember Me’ has an acoustic feel which is the sort of sound he usually brings to his solo live performances.
“I’ve attempted to put this EP together is as a body of work rather than just a collection of individual songs and I hope listeners will enjoy the musical “journey”.”

In an ideal world, Guy says, he would love to be able to tour this EP with a full band in order to have the same sonic elements and energy/ feel that are present in the recordings but logistically and financially that can be could be quite tricky/
But he is hoping to undertake a solo tour in the new year and add in a number of house concert dates along the way... “just me, my guitar and trusty loop-station hitting the road again!”
Oceans EP is available on CD from local music shops and also from http://po.st/GuyStore. Digital version is available on iTunes, Amazon and it’s available for streaming on Spotify.