Any parent with young children in the UK will be able to tell you what a wondrous thing CBeebies is – the BBC's own channel caters for ages 2-6 and is also available on the iPlayer service. And now it comes with added Devin Townsend. Really.
The Canadian progateer recently confirmed he'd soundtracked all 14 episodes of new series, Colours – and it was no child's play.
Somehow he managed to take on the commission while making two forthcoming solo albums - more on those below. "So yeah, during the making of Puzzle, I made the soundtrack to a kids show on the BBC," Townsend confirmed on Twitter yesterday.
"It's 14 episodes," he added. "It was a big learning curve and lots of work, but the people who produced it were very cool."
So yeah, during the making of Puzzle, I made the soundtrack to a kids show on the BBC :) https://t.co/R0COQH1qfyMarch 21, 2021
Its 14 episodes. It was a big learning curve and lots of work, but the people who produced it were very cool.March 21, 2021
Prodigiously talented with an ear for the grandiose, as well as the ambient, Townsend is a natural fit for soundtrack work. We wonder if a Trent Reznor-esque chapter in his career could be on the cards one day.
But his next album Puzzle will also encompass that. In January Townsend confirmed on social media that he'd been working on "a film, two albums, and a graphic novel, among others things, called The Puzzle."
He confirmed those two albums are Puzzle itself ("chaos and meant to represent the internal dialogue in a fundamentally absurd time") and Snuggles, that Townsend liked to "a beautiful balm that acts as a conclusion and something you can listen on loop to feel better."
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We await these to surface in 2021 but for now, series 1 of Colours started on 21 March and UK TV licence payers can watch it over on iPlayer.
Rob is the Reviews Editor for GuitarWorld.com and MusicRadar guitars, so spends most of his waking hours (and beyond) thinking about and trying the latest gear while making sure our reviews team is giving you thorough and honest tests of it. He's worked for guitar mags and sites as a writer and editor for nearly 20 years but still winces at the thought of restringing anything with a Floyd Rose.
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