The Antidote (instrumental demo)

Island Wastrel

09 Dec 2025 — 1 min read

Thanks for all of you who have listened and shared We Were Looking for Someone More Youthful - it's been my most popular song on Spotify and Apple (by far!). I have a had few demos on the go since that came out, and wanted to share a bit more about where I was up to.

This song is built on top of a simple bass groove that comes in a third of the way through. It gets a lot heavier than anything else I've put out.

The rhythm of the riff is interesting to play through - it's a natural pattern under the hands, but if you try and count it, it's a little tough. First bar it's dotted notes; second it's a bit different... somewhere between dotted 16th notes and quintuplets (both versions written out below).

Anyway, enjoy!

Instruments:
- Piano
- Double bass
- Acoustic guitar (J200)
- Electric piano
- Electric organ
- Muted trumpets (harmon mute)
- Bass guitar (fender jazz through driven marshall amp, DI in parallel)
- Drums

Release day: We Were Looking for Someone More Youthful

Listen! Let me know what you think! And obviously: tell all your friends. So this one is a bright, slightly surreal indie-rock bounce: upright/double-bass and acoustic guitar carry the groove while crunched Telecasters trade lines with soft trumpets, and sparkling pianos. Those noises at the start are bowed double

Introducing the Post Folk playlist

As part of my journey, I want to bring my music to more listeners, and contextualise it as part of a wider scene. To that end, I've come up with a playlist which I've called "Post Folk" for now: Finger-picked acoustics meet fuzz pedals,

Release Day: The Haunting

Today, as a fast follow to my release of The River, I am releasing a track called The Haunting. Like The River, I had released a work-in-progress demo of the song much earlier. This one plays on memories of a village primary school, and the leap to living in London

The River - Instrumental to Finished Song

Before I wrote the lyrics to The River, I released it as a WIP instrumental. It didn’t even have a bass line written (let alone tracked!) at the time - that was overdubbed afterwards, right before the vocals. You can hear the before and after below: Island Wastrel · The

Read more

Release day: We Were Looking for Someone More Youthful

Introducing the Post Folk playlist

Release Day: The Haunting

The River - Instrumental to Finished Song