This is a page that keeps evolving; it initially started as a kind of humble set of excuses for why I'm wasting people's time with inept bedroom music, but I figure that now after five years and dozens of CD releases, I should grow a pair and make this a little less apologetic. So, hey, this can be like a biography.

Enough Rope initially grew out of bored days when I was supposed to be at university and elected instead to plug a guitar into the PC and record some stuff for posterity, for no-one else's ears. In late 2001 I decided it would be cool to do a CD, and asked a girl I knew on the internet if I could use one of her photos, which became the 'Surface Scratches EP'. That girl eventually became my girlfriend, the long-standing artistic arm of Enough Rope, and saved Christmas. Suddenly I was making seemingly endless amounts of songs; 2002 saw five albums, two full length compilations, two singles and an almost-album-length EP. All this came at around the time I was really getting into Mogwai, Mono, GY!BE and all that good shit, with a few traces of my background in listening to Smashing Pumpkins dotted around.

2004 is where it changed a little for me; 'Unrarites', 'Monsters On My Lawn' and 'The Disquiet' saw things get a little less straightforward and kinda running on a tilt. The Necks, My Cat Is An Alien, Sunburned Hand Of The Man, No-Neck Blues Band, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Six Organs Of Admittance, Growing...all bands that I started to take things from. Enough Rope does always keep a fairly distinct melodic centre in everything, but these days it's more likely to be feeling its way through a maze of droning noise or improvised clatter. A lot of it is a product of technical limitations; I've never found a way to be able to really attack the guitar and make noise because of the shittiness of my computer and the fact that I have no drums to anchor any kind of heaviosity, so it's all about making layers to achieve that and letting things clash and build.

There is a set of fairly ad-hoc principles surrounding the music. Never taking a penny for it is one thing, although granted it's been forced on me to some extent by obscurity, before you laugh and point that out. But I always want to maintain the principle of giving CDs out free to whoever asks, to remain a hobbyist rather than tainting it with the grim spectre of cash. It crushes my heart to see unsigned bands desperately whoring themselves on myspace, posting banners to their shop as comments instead of interacting, using forums as fucking PR windows to hawk their wares to people they don't care about. What little glimpses I've had into the world of unsigned bands trying to get somewhere have been bleak and depressing; people forced to lie about their bands at the behest of PR teams, interviews with people who neither know nor care about your music, having to be nice to shit bands in order to pay dues and climb the ladder, trying to fix internet votes for that bit of exposure...it's fucking grim, really, and I fear that if I turned this into a proper band (y'know, other people, gigs...), I'd get sucked into all that shit which takes music away from the realms of fun and creativity and into the black pit of commerce.

So, for now at least, this is amateurish, self-indulgent, spontaneous stuff, with admittedly shaky quality control as I try to forever get out new ideas. Whatever else anyone can say about this shit, what is inarguably true is that it's all done out of a love of music and with the right heart, which has to give this at least some worth. I'm fairly happy to stay obscure for the rare occasions when someone writes saying they really liked it and reminds me that it is worth throwing it out there.

Sincerely,
Enough Rope