“I am steadily working on releasing my catalogue, ‘Chronology’. Since about 2012 I have been gradually compiling and collating all of the raw files, such as audio, art and writings etc. I am hoping to begin releasing these albums from Spring 2024 onwards, I am also working on making a selection of the albums available on Cd, to be available from this website. I decided to release ‘Chronology – Story Seasons’ as a debut release, firstly because it illustrates the albums in a more accessible way (rather than a large more niche catalogue), and secondly, it brings most of the highlights together in one set.

By 2007, before I went digital, I had kept the original cassette masters and had a box of around 100 cassette tapes. From 2012 onwards I went about digitizing the individual stems from the cassettes into a digital format, i.e. separate WAV files. I took the advice of an audio restoration professional and bought a Tascam 424, had it checked out and optimized for playback and spent the next few years transferring the masters.

Although I had two failed attempts at this, I was eventually able to digitize all of the cassettes (before potential tape deterioration).  I have also kept most of the original artwork and photos etc for the albums and have been compiling those together in a comprehensible order.

The release ‘Chronology – Story Seasons’ works in three sections, or periods, the first being my early tape cassette recordings (made on simple tape decks) (1993-1997) then a Tascam Mini Studio 4 Track period (1997-2007) and finally a digital period (2010-present). Overall, this collection is in style mostly lo-fi and demo-like, rather than more mainstream commercial productions.

My first recordings were from ‘The Nunthorpe Tapes’ (1993-94) to ‘Summer Demos’ (1997). This period is my earliest songs, mostly acoustic guitar and vocal and recording with friends at various places as I travelled around the country. By 1995 I had become proficient on the acoustic guitar and knew how to play rhythm and finger pick, gradually as the albums progress, my abilities and skill improved also, these recordings show that progression. 

I have never released these recordings, through the nineties and early to mid noughties there was little to no opportunity to release and distribute music without the backing of a record label, let alone a collection of home recorded albums on cassette tapes.  However, since the internet has become mainstream, I began looking back to what I had done over the years and began organizing the masters for this collection, for a release.

‘Chronology’ will be my collected works presented together for the first time, my journey and musical story through the years … “

Dan Pettitt