I started screenless with Wibbly Rhymes (Volume 1) in October last year, and since then have been working to expand the brand to include a variety of content for all ages. The marvellous eatsleepthink designed the screenless logo with four distinct colours, and each colour represents a category.

There's content on the way. It takes a while for one person to create, write, record, release and promote an audio series, and I am helping this in two ways.

Firstly, I am collaborating on content. I am working with talented individuals who have unique ideas and want to see (and hear) them made a reality. I'm lucky to know such people and it's been fun to continue to collaborate with them.

Secondly, as the budget for these podcast productions is zero, I have decided to open individual series for donations. If you hear an audio series for free via podcast and like it, please consider donating something to that series to help more get made. You'll find donation options on each series page on this website and in the podcast episode notes.

Thanks for reading this far. Next up is a screenless Comedy series, and if you follow in the usual places on social media you'll see details of that appear soon. In the meantime if you search for 'screenless Comedy' in your podcast app and hit the subscribe button, content will magically appear for you.

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All the best

​Gareth

The Sound Boutique heads to the garden to promote kindness and understanding

The Sound Boutique is proud to present Garden Tales (Series 1) by its audio content brand, Screenless.

From the journey of the Buzzy Bumbly Bee as she tries to fetch pollen from the garden, to the Little Bit Lost Ladybird who can't find his way home; this series of short story poems about minibeasts by Gareth Davies will be available first via podcast and then as an album on streaming services.

"The Garden Tales series promotes kindness and understanding, and explores how to accept and celebrate our differences, rather than be scared of them," says Gareth.

You can hear the first episode, 'The Buzzy Bumbly Bee', via the 'Screenless' podcast from Monday 28th January. 

Garden Tales marks the second series for Screenless. The first series, Wibbly Rhymes (Series 1), is available now on all streaming services.

About Screenless

Screenless is a new audio content brand from The Sound Boutique. Screenless means high quality audio content with music and sound design; no screen required. Screenless content is released first via podcast episodes and then as albums via streaming services. Find out more and hear previews of Garden Tales at screenless.online

About The Sound Boutique

Founded by Gareth Davies in 2011, The Sound Boutique is a creative audio company providing soundtrack services, audio branding, real world sounds and audio content. For more information go to www.thesoundboutique.com

About Gareth Davies

Gareth has written soundtracks for commissioned TV series, most recently the award-winning 'Scream Street' for CBBC. His music can be heard in ads and programming around the world. Gareth has completed sound design projects for commercial clients, and provided voice over services to companies including Disney and Elemaster.

It's around this time of year that it's natural to reflect on the months gone by, and especially if you run a small business. My year has been, well, unexpected. I started out by doing a couple of voice over jobs, launched Real World Sounds and recorded eight broadcast-ready sound packs, proceeded to make six music library albums, launched an audio brand for kids, did some more voice over and soundtrack work, created a sound environment with foley and voice over for a Ted Talk art installation and more.

It has been very fulfilling. For many creative people it helps to concentrate on one area and develop their skills and networks. For me the wide variety of work this year has been so rewarding, that I know it's the way forward. It's so easy to put yourself into a category: composer, painter, sculptor etc. If 2018 has taught me one thing it's this: it's not for you to put yourself into a category, others will do that for you. My voice over clients don't care that I'm a composer. It doesn't matter to my composing clients what else I can do. I'm known to them for that thing.

My new year's resolution is to keep developing creatively. There are things I have planned that will feed into this, and for everything else my mind is wide open.

Have a very happy New Year and a creative 2019.

​Gareth

The last month or so has been a busy one, with various voice over and sound design jobs supporting the launch of Screenless.

Screenless means high quality audio content with music and sound design; no screen required. ​You can read all about it here.

When I realised that the final Wibbly Rhyme of series 1 - 'Types Of Plane' - would be released at the beginning of December, it seemed to me to be an opportunity to Christmas it up and release it as a single. I roped in some friends for the Wibbly Rhyme and the single (shout outs are coming, thank you thank you thank you), and it is quite possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever recorded 🤔

I would like to ask for your help (note the word 'help' and not 'money'!)...it would be so appreciated if you could support this release by doing one, or more, or all of the following:

- buy the single
- stream the single
- add the single to your Christmas playlists
- rate the single
- leave a comment wherever you buy / stream your music
- tell your friends
- share the single on your social media channels
- share this post on social media
- share the release posts on social media (next week)

Like I said, even if you do one of those things I would be extremely grateful, it all helps! If it means the little 'uns spend slightly less time glued to the telly box this Christmas then I would consider it job done.

All the best,

Gareth

p.s. As a thank you in advance, here's the artwork.

Here's a story of weird coincidence and what transpired.

Earlier this year I wrote an album called 'Strange Emotions' for a new library. When I was close to finishing it I met with Ethan at the library to say hello and discuss potential follow up writing. Later that day I met up with 50 or so other composers for dinner (yes, it happens!), and I randomly sat next to a guy called Mike Holt who, it transpired, had been at the same library half an hour later, having much the same meeting. How weird is that? Wait, it gets weirder, it turns out we had both told Ethan exactly the same thing, that the tracks that seem to perform best are happy clappy, ukulele-filled whistle fests. So we decided to make an album together, and now it's been published.

Now available for licensing (just click on the album cover), this album was 'simply uplifting' to make, and hopefully I'll get to collaborate more with Mike in the future.

I'm delighted to announce a new album, 'Drama Underscores' is now live. Written exclusively for fabulous production music library No Sheet Music, it will hopefully show a more dramatic side to my music.

Click on the album cover to hear tracks at the No Sheet Music website.

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​Well, a curse and a blessing really. I realised the other day that my mood is directly tied to the amount of creativity I'm consuming. I previously thought it was tied to stress levels, general contentment etc. It wasn't until I was flicking through Twitter (oh, the irony) and seeing new things being released or created that I noticed my mood physically changing. 

I saw some new animation transitions for the next Android OS (see, the curse of the creative brain). I saw the band Lo Moon tweeting and made me think of their debut album I discovered this week. I saw Paddington 2 has been released, really looking forward to seeing that. The Last Jedi deleted scenes? I'll put the kettle on! Oh, and the look and feel of that Blue Zoo animated short 'Via'...it all came out of the brain of concept artist Izzy Burton. How cool is that?

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I then saw that Will Belcher of Aardman is nominated for an animation award for Shaun the Sheep. I saw that composer and sound designer Matt Bowdler invited female composers to make an album using his soundsets and sample libraries to celebrate International Women's Day and raise money for Women's Aid.

On top of that I'm busy creating. Two library albums are at the mixing stage and I'm gearing up to release my first Real World Sounds sound pack next week.

So if you need to add a spring to your step today, look around at all the new things being created. You won't have to look very far.