Artwork and Design by Cheri Freund. Cover art initially conceived by Greg Rolfes.
We have some interesting release news for you! On Friday 6th November we will be releasing something a little different for us which is an instrumental version of our 3rd album ‘Smoke & Mirrors‘.
Several people had mentioned the idea to us and when we had the album mastered by Justin Weis at Trakworx in San Francisco back in 2015, we also had the tracks mastered as instrumentals as a useful tool for getting the music put forward for inclusion in TV and films in the future. Listening back to them recently, it became apparent that they stand up extremely well as pieces of music in their own right. Of course, it may not be of interest to those who prefer the vocal versions but we thought it would be a nice option. There is also a fab alternative cover which has been given a new twist by Cheri Freund for this release. There will be no pre-release instead, it will become available immediately on Friday 6th November as that is the next available ‘Bandcamp Friday’ where BC waive their revenue share to assist musicians in these difficult and strange times. We’d also like to thank you for supporting the recent EP2 re-release, it was very encouraging to see and hear so many people discover and enjoy the songs! We hope you are all well and enjoy the instrumental album.
Best Wishes – Pete & Geoff xx
We were honoured to receive a few words from guest blogger Chris Payne who is featured playing his outstanding violin on the song, “What Do You Want?” on EP2 (original release 2011).
Photo by Meemz Numancub
“I first met Peter Steer during the after-show party for Gary Numan‘s London O2 show back in 2009 when I was a guest playing violin for Numan.
I remember talking to my ex-Numan guitarist friend (Rrussell Bell) and Gary’s ex-girlfriend (Tracey Adams) who I hadn’t seen for years. Suddenly this guy comes up and is chatting away (and photobombing us) and I thought to myself, “Hmm…Who the hell is this jovial nutter?!” It turned out that he was with this band called tenek and he asked me if I would consider playing some violin on an EP they were working on.
Continue reading “EP2 – Chris Payne’s Blog [Sept, 2020]” »
As Peteʼs blog goes into some details about the other tracks on EP2, which were different versions of previously released tracks, Iʼve chosen to take a look at the two
‘NEWʼ tracks on EP2, namely, ‘Elusiveʼ and ‘What Do You Want?ʼ… Continue reading “EP2 Digital Re-issue – Geoff’s Blog [Sept, 2020]” »
Tenek ‘EP2′ [Digital Re-issue]
Back in 2017, we finally managed to get our back catalogue returned to us from Toffeetones Records who we’d been signed to from 2008 until 2012. Most of our material from that period has now been re-released on all digital platforms. However, my own personal favourite EP has not been available yet so it’s definitely overdue.
EP2 was released in October 2011, 13 months after we’d released our 2nd album ‘On The Wire‘. It was intended to bridge the gap between the 2nd and 3rd albums although it ended up taking a lot longer than it should have done to complete ‘Smoke & Mirrors‘. Continue reading “EP2 Digital Re-issue – Pete’s Blog [Sept, 2020]” »
We just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has been pre-ordering EP2, we really appreciate your support! Even though we are still busy working on our other projects away from tenek, it is very important to us that our complete back catalogue that was regained in 2017 gets reissued on all digital platforms. There are still more releases to come which are the ‘Where’s The Time?‘ and ‘Submission‘ singles. These will be minus the remixes from Shaun Brooks (Toffeetones) as he will not let us use any of them or the original artwork which is a shame. We may join the two releases together to make them better value for money and there may be a bonus track(s) as with EP2.
There have also been some early discussions about a rarities EP or album, probably for Bandcamp only, we had loads of different versions of tracks plus early demos and even some plain daft things too! It will require a bit of sifting through the archives but will be intriguing to see what we find? Please let us know if this is something you might be interested in seeing happen.
We also hope you enjoyed the new ‘Chameleon‘ track that was released on the final Electronic Saviors compilation album (ES6) which was our first new material in 4 years. All proceeds go to a very worthy cause.
We hope that you enjoy the bonus track on EP2, something a little different, and an insight into some of the ways we tried to write and record back in the day!
Once again, thanks for all your support.
Pete & Geoff xx
In my last blog I wrote about the writing and recording process of the album. But that was just one part of all that was going on regarding Tenek in 2010 and also 2011 which proved to be a pivotal year for the band.
The artwork and promo pics for the album started as early as March 2010. We’d been discussing with Shaun who we’d like to take the pictures for the artwork and I was very keen to use Ed Fielding who at the time was doing a lot of work for Gary Numan. We thought his Continue reading “Pete’s blog (Part 2) – On the Wire Re-release [April 2019]” »
Pete’s Blog – On The Wire (Part 1) – The Music
Artwork redesigned by Cheri Freund
It seems hard to believe that the ‘On The Wire‘ album is approaching it’s 9th birthday and that many of the songs on the album began to form over ten years ago. This was a new situation for us as we had to write an entire album from scratch whereas ‘Stateless‘ had been a collection of tracks from our work as Alien Six Productions and several had dated from as early as 2005.
Without knowing it we had started in January 2009 when we were given a tight deadline to complete a bonus track for the ‘Submission‘ single which was due for imminent release. Shaun Brooks from our label Toffeetones was insistent that we should have a decent ‘b-side’ to break up the various remixes for this release. Having just finished ‘Stateless’, we scoured the hard drive for anything that we thought might be usable. We found a basic demo of ‘No Time For Fighting‘ which seemed to have some merit, particularly the chant type chorus. We then spent several Continue reading “Pete’s Blog (Part 1) – On the Wire Re-release [April 2019]” »
Artwork redesigned by Cheri Freund
I remember “On the Wire” came together pretty quickly and contained a lot of influences – Nine Inch Nails, Nitzer Ebb, Cabaret Voltaire, Thomas Dolby, Ultravox to name a few.
My Waldorf Blofeld was used a lot throughout the album. I bought it to use live when touring with Mesh. It’s a small unit, but has a massive sound and the wavetable type synthesis gave the sounds a nice edge. Which I don’t doubt added to the 80’s vibe that runs throughout this album.
Anyway, I thought I’d dig out the old hard drive that all the album files reside on and make a few notes for each track… Continue reading “Geoff’s Blog – On the Wire Re-release [April 2019]” »
Greetings Everyone!
We’ve appreciated all the ongoing support you’ve given and we felt it was about time to start sharing some of the exciting news that’s been stirring behind the scenes.
As some of you know, tenek are taking a bit of a hiatus. Things may seem quiet on the outside, but that’s definitely not the case! We’re pleased to announce that in late 2018, tenek have some of their music signed up with a couple US-based publishers for film & television. Also, some of you have been making enquiries regarding availability of their back catalogue, so we will be making another announcement about that as well in the not too distant future. Continue reading “What’s S.U.P.? [March, 2019]” »
I was grateful for the opportunity to write some new material without any agenda. It had been a while since my previous projects, The Nine and Alien#Six13. Pulling on influences from my favourite era of music, the 80’s, but giving it a new twist with modern production and mixing techniques. Writing the album allowed me to have a creative freedom and try all sorts of approaches on the production side of things. Continue reading “Geoff’s Blog – Stateless Re-Release [March 2018]” »
