Erstlaub

So, just a short update on a few things.

Tickets are now on sale for the n_ilk Festival in the Botanic Gardens in Dundee on Saturday, September 11th. Priced at just £6 for a whole day’s worth of great music in an awesome location, you can get tickets at the University Store online here or from Grouchos from 25th August 2010 and in the PLUS@Dundee marquee outside DUSA during the week leading up to the event. Get on it. I’ll be performing ‘The Last Few Seconds Before Sleep’ which I’ve been tweaking away at and is really beginning to take on it’s own form.

On the same day, excerpts from two of my longer pieces ‘I Am The Line Drawn In The Sand Between The Living And The Dead’ and the forthcoming DVD release ‘Sleepwalking Into The Underworld’ will be shown as part of -SCAPE at the Alchemy Film Festival in Hawick which has been curated by the ever awesome Alastair Cook. -SCAPE runs from 9-11pm at Beanscene, Hawick, free entry.

I’ve finally got around to opening up a Souncloud account to take a bit of strain off of my meagre hosting and have posted up two full live sets including a never before heard performance from ‘Towards The Singularity’ at Cafe Oto, London in August 2008, at which I premiered ‘I Am The Line…’. I’m hoping to get some snatches of ‘Last Few Seconds…’ recorded soon that I’ll also post there.

D

Work is well underway on the next big project for me - “The Last Few Seconds Before Sleep” which is starting to take shape properly now. Here’s the conceptual schtick behind it:

Just before sleep, in the Limbo between the conscious mind and the great abyss, I become aware of a tiny sound. A minute burst of white noise lasting just a few seconds in linear time, this is the gap between worlds. Aware but powerless to act, I know this sound inside out, a minute piece of sonic cartography that contains all the information in the universe, the whirring of a vast organic hard-drive as the processor performs a memory dump between logic and something much bigger and weirder. delay lines feedback to Omega Point, choirs of particles stream towards event horizons, linear time holds no sway here this vast but tiny sound contains all of time and space and possibility.

It will be getting its first (and possibly only) live airing on September 11th at the n_ilk festival at the Botanic Gardens in Dundee and will be coming out on Broken20 at somepoint thereafter. There will also be a full set from The Village Orchestra and we’re planning on pulling together a bit of improvised collaboration, there should also be a DJ set from Production Unit so Broken20 ends will be fully repped,  all taking place inside a big greenhouse full of quite mental plants. The event runs from 3.30pm - 10.30ish and there are a load of other interesting people doing things.

n_ilk site
Facebook listing
LastFM listing

Do come along. In the meantime, I cannot recommend heartily enough Erik XVI’s latest podcast for Broken20 which you can get here. Techno classics under heavy sedation in a dark tunnel. Get on it.

D

Just a little influx update really.

I’ve just relocated Erstlaub HQ to a lovely new flat in Dundee which I’m sharing with wonderful fellow TBA student Rebecca Clark. If you’d like to send me any nice things by way of a housewarming present then hit me up via the usual channels and I’ll give you our address.

I’ve finally dragged my lazy arse back into some sort of productive position and have made the DVD menu for Sleepwalking Into The Underworld and posted off the master copy to Highpoint Lowlife. I know I’ve been banging on about this for what feels like an eternity but I promise there will be release news soon.

On HPLL, at the risk of coming over all weepy, in light of Th0rsten’s not terribly recent announcement to wind down operations, I just want to thank everyone who’s been involved and supported the label over the years. It’s an amazing thing as an artist to be involved with a label who have given us the belief, support and room to grow without any hassle whatsoever. I’m genuinely proud of the releases we’ve done together and hope that Sleepwalking proves a fitting requiem to our time working together. It’s pretty corny but over the years, Th0r and Mat and all the other artists have become like family to me. I wish everyone that’s been involved all the best on new endeavours and look forward to sharing them here. //weep

So, phoenixlike, we move onto new things with Broken20. I’ve started preliminary builds of some new pieces, I don’t quite have my concept nailed down yet but am pretty confident that its nature will reveal itself in the coming weeks. Keep an eye out for developments and maybe some cheeky exclusive sketches as they develop. There’s some amazing artists on the roster and some fantastic releases in the pipeline so watch these spaces.

I’m without proper, regular internet for another month until Rupert Murdoch’s evil henchmen come and connect my internet so communications may be sparing for a little while (although not sure if it’ll be any more noticeable than usual).

Hertz

D

I am pleased to announce that my long term nemesis and occassional techno and sushi partner The Village Orchestra is launching a new label.

Here’s the website chatter

“Broken20 is a new label from ruaridhTVO, with assistance from production unit and erstlaub

Broken20 will release all sorts of music. Rather than be genre-tied, we will be releasing music rooted in a particular aesthetic – releases concerned with decay, erosion, entropy, mistakes and errors, line noise and tape hiss, hum and buzz.

We’ll primarily be a digital download label, although there will be forays into highly limited cd- and dvd-r variants of our releases. We hope to eventually release some vinyl editions.”

I’ve already put together a little selection which will appear imminently as a podcast which takes in fizzy electronics, gloomy post-rock, bleeps, the occasional rumble and some other junk that represents the sort of noise that takes place in my head on a daily basis. Also coming very soon will be my album “The Long Road” which was originally a self released CDR back sometimes around, um, 2005 or 6 maybe which was so limited in edition that I’m not even sure I have my own copy anymore. It’ll be coming up on the BrokenZero section of the site for free. I’ll probably post up when they are both avaialble.

In the meantime, you can keep up with the label’s general wackness of chat via its twitter feed.

From me in the relative future then, lookout for:

• Podcast/The Long Road on Broken20
• Sleepwalking into the Underworld on HPLL (the delay of which is entirely my own fault)
• Featured bits appearing within Malin III by Alastair cook (which he’s performing over the coming months, check his site for details).
• A very special (read utterly random and improvised) live Broken20 team-up between me and TVO (diaries permitting) playing in a glasshouse (no stonethrowing please) in September (details still tbc).
• A brand new Erstlaub album for Broken20
• A live collaboration in November with Alastair Cook at the CCA for Cryptic Nights

I’ll see you in the morgue I guess, mine’s a rum and coke.

D

Just a wee thanks to all the people who came out to see me do my thing at n_ilk the other week. I performed Sleepwalking into the Underworld in it’s entirety along with the projected side of it. I also managed to try out a new finish I’d been thinking about which builds a few minutes of noise into a solid mass, draws it out and then just pulling the plug at the right moment leaving both a sonic and visual vacuum, I think it worked out not bad. From a personal point of view, I think it might have been my best performance yet. I had a couple of very brief moments of awareness but in the main I was surrendered to Erstlaub and lost inside the sound, it got pretty dark in there at moments.

Huge thanks to my man Steven James Herd who took some pics of me in action.

D

I’ve just confirmed with the nice people at n_ilk that I’m going to be playing in Dundee at Braes on Thursday 6th May. Do come along.
My sister is pretty awesome. Happy non-denominational chocolate eating holiday people.

D

“What do you play?, “Can I dance to it?”, “what else does it sound like?” are all things I’ve been asked recently and in the interest of trying to define quite what it is I do as Erstlaub, I’ve been doing a little bit of self-analysis which I thought might be interesting to record, it seems to have turned into part vanity writing/part manifesto/part pseudo-scifi-magic-psychotic conjecture.

Sound as a hypersigil

The pieces I make as Erstlaub are generally created as a response to real world ideas and emotions but the space that exists between this inspiration and the final output is more than just a straight “musical” process. Elements of musical theory, physics, maths play a part, as do the deeper concepts of chaos/pop magic, dimensionality within the omniverse and non-linear time. Most of the time, Erstlaub is a creative force from within, usually a focussing of a certain type of psychological energy, sometimes there is a less cogent process which is more akin to channelling an alternate reality persona rather than a conscious sequence of decision making.

The creative process involves taking an idea, feeling or element of will or intent and translating into sound by means of taking individual modular elements and focussing, refining and condensing them into self contained, autonomous systems, usually with an inbuilt “fail” system removing the technical purity and adding a more organic edge. Larger pieces are then constructed out of a series of these small systems and again, several of these will be combined in sequence to create a narrative in the same way that sigils are formed and sequenced into more complex hypersigils.

As with all good chaos magic practice, there are rules within the system on which to base open excursions;

• Sounds are only ever built from scratch using modular synthesis - no samples or field recordings should be used
• No additional outboard processing should take place - bar the use of delay loops to mask audio dropouts on loading a new environment
• There should be no midi sequencing or synchronisation
• Pieces should be performed and recorded in one continuous take with no post editing (trimming ends and final mastering excepted)

The real power lies in the charging of these hypersigil constructs, when performed, this series of slightly chaotic systems, each built with very specific intent, start to resonate with the others, waves stack or phase, things start to beat against each other or harmonise. The construct becomes one solid, vibrating, continuous piece of energy - there are ebbs and flows, things come into focus before pulling away again, fire, water, earth and air elements shift against each other, ghosts, memories, feelings, secrets, doubts, all hang there in space, imprinted onto time, burning, a perpetual motion engine of pure crystalised will.

Pretty nuts eh? Come and see me play at Hidden Door on Sunday, 31st January downstairs in the Engine Room in the Bowery (due on at 4.40pm). I’ll be performing the brand new piece Sleepwalking Into The Underworld along with a 40 minute projection to accompany it. There’s a sneak preview in the previous post if you haven’t already seen it.

There’s some exciting news yet to post regarding Sleepwalking but I’ll let you know once details are all firmed up.

D

<2009>Ghost Frequencies, Duncan of Jordanstone, Artschool, Belonging, Nikon D90, finishing seeing all of Tarkovsky’s films, being totally proud of my friends making babies/being pregnant, making more friends than I ever have before, Comicbooks/Graphic Novels, Kick-Ass, Knightfall, Infinite Crisis, Countdown to / Final Crisis, Battle for the Cowl, Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, Pop Magic, Sigils, Tarot, yet more Cycles of David Lynch, DCA in Dundee, Antichrist, Where the Wild Things Are, Alphaville, Le Mepris, Citizen Kane, Once Upon a Time in the West, La Jetee/Sans Solei, Dead Man, Watchmen, insomnia, Coil, Broadcast vs The Focus Group, Natural Snow Buildings, The XX, William Basinksi, Tim Hecker, Fennesz, PJ Harvey, Martial Canterel / Xeno and Oaklander, seeing Stars of the Lid live, letting go of some things, Macbook breaking, Xbox breaking, spending WAY too much money on the Warp 100 Box Set, Microkorg, Abandoned Buildings, decay, ruin, hospitals, castles, dark tunnels, Sailor Jerry, self doubt, The Art Bar, Gavin Bryars - Jesus Blood Never Failed Me, Final Cut, Pro-Tools, Meeting Sleazy/Seeing Threshold House Boys’ Choir live, Keeping a Google Calendar of all the Films I’ve Watched, Updating to Leopard, Lars Von Trier’s Riget (Kingdom), Being 30, Fife, Dundee, Glasgow, Hating every single idea I have about 3 weeks into the execution of it, getting lost in the woods, capturing time in three directions at once, magic realism, the fourth dimension, psychogeography, situationist international, feeling like you are about to burst into flames on a regular basis, The Moon and Serpernt, staying up til 6am drinking rum, dichotomies, being single, accrual of good karma, Psychoville, The Thick of It, Adam and joe, brain static, Wiretap, Perseid Meteors, Marvelling at The Universe. </2009>

The ever supportive Lend Me Your Ears site ran a nice little feature on me this week which you can see here. Julian also featured long term associate TVO this week here.

On TVO chat, his FACT top 10 got published here in which he namechecks Ghost Frequencies.

In less cool news, I got a lovely ukuelele for my Christmas so am considering giving up the drones in favour of some twee strumming action (not really, it is fun though).

Hope you are having good festive times and stuff, I’m still battling off a hefty dose of man-flu, feel free to forward me your sympathies //sadface.

Speak soon.

D

Quite a few bits of news from me this week.

Broadcasting on Ghost Frequencies made the man-legend that is The Village Orchestra’s end of year honours list that he was asked to put together for FACT. I don’t think it’s officially posted yet keep em peeled for that. The podcasts are also well worth a punt, great site, good content, nice outlook on things. here

Also linked in with TVO, this month’s Wire magazine features a full page feature on the man along with a couple of my photo’s of him making this my first international published photo credit. Yayy.

Still dragging it’s phantom self around, a nice little review of Ghost Frequencies arose today on Sonomu courtesy of Steven Fruitman.

“This excellent work was inspired by a bit of quackery known as the ”Ganzfeld Procedure” in the field of parapsychology. A subject is blindfolded and equipped with a pair of headphones playing nothing but white and pink noise – static. Out of this aural assault, it is hoped the subject will discern patterns, maybe even hear voices. Maybe even real voices from the past.

More than science, it sounds like a relative to Victorian fancies like fairy photography or Edison´s attempts to hear the voices of the dead via the radio, optimistic hopes that new technology might reveal previously hidden worlds, or at least reveal the otherwise hidden beings that share ours with us.

As music, however, Broadcasting on Ghost Frequencies sits four-square in the contempary field of drone music, which for all its different forms also wishes to put the listener in a contemplative mood, from which he or she will often hear things that are not really there. Or are, but very subtly so.

Erstlaub´s fifty-minute piece appears to be playing the role of the input – the static barrage – and the output - the shapes and colours the mind suggests might appear out of the the flat, prickly monotony. Because he certainly shows an intervening hand by creating sound events which rise and fade away, or are consumed by the greater drone, with regularlity.

In fact Dave Fyans of Perth, Scotland, the man behind the attractive monicker (”first leaves”), proves a very talented composer in a field where patience and taste, knowing just when to change the pitch, send in a reverberating spiral, or add a new thread to the weave of the main drone, is the mark of an artist.

It is really quite beautiful, balancing between both stark and lush in some inexplicable - paranormal? - manner.

http://www.movingfurniturerecords.com” from here.

Finally, I am pleased to be able to announce that I will be breaking cover for a rare live performance on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at the Bowery in Edinburgh as part of the very interesting looking Hidden Door Festival. They are in the process of updating their site so I’ll post more details and times as they are solidified. I will be playing an entirely new set (which I’m also in the process of making visuals for) which at the moment may or may not be floating around in my head with the title of “Sleepwalking into the Underworld” but I can’t be sure yet.

Have a nice holiday season or whatever,

D