Word!
Just finished my last project of the semester. Just need to write up some sketchbooks stuff, present it for assessment next week and it’s game over on 2nd Year TBA.
There’s a bit more exposition over at the Youtube page.
Remember I’m playing in Dundee next week, it’s in Drouthy’s rather than Braes as I earlier thought. Details here.
D
Another artschool project to post up here. If you follow the link, it explains the brief and my concept. It is in flash (as per the brief) so apologies to the iPhone peoples as it won’t work.
The more eagle eyed/die-hard among you might have already picked up the rather good 2010 Mixtape from Highpoint Lowlife which features some greatness by some of my favourite musicians such as Erik XVI (with TVO on the dub), some ghostly anti-wobble from Production Unit, some of Mandelbrot’s new noisy as fuck guitar histrionics and the enigmatic legend that is 10-20, everytime I hear new stuff by him it just blows me away, awesome. Oh yeah, there’s also a little bit of new Erstlaub on there which must mean……
Yep, consider this announced! Sleepwalking into the Underworld will be coming out on Highpoint Lowlife this year, plans at present are to do a DVDr release with the full visuals but we still have a few things to iron out before I can say for certain. You’ll know more when I do.
<3
D
I’m escaping out into the real world to subject members of the human race to a completely new set of bleeps and rumbles in a few weeks time. I’m playing in the afternoon of Sunday 31st January at the Hidden Door festival in Edinburgh (my first Edinburgh show actually).
The set and accompanying visuals were largely constructed in a pique of bleak mid-winterness so expect an even higher than normal noise/grumbling ratio. Here is a little preview to give you an idea of what to expect.
Please do come, it looks like it’s going to be a really interesting event, if you do, be nice to me eh?
D
So, latest artschool shenanigans has been an audio project. Having never used ProTools before I threw myself at it and mostly got my head around the nuts and bolts, yeah it’s a bit funky sometimes with the way it deals with things but all in all, not a terrible bit of software. I picked up an Mbox 2 Mini which is a surprisingly solid little bit of kit considering its pricetag. It’s nice just to have a very portable, bus powered interface that can phantom power my AKG C1000s and handle a few ins and outs.
I decided that I should strive to try something well outside my usual methods of working so decided to go or pure audio collage give or take. Here’s a brief write up for it. I should point out that it’s entirely non-commercial and for educational purposes so if I stole a little bit of audio from you, please don’t sue me (Conet Project).
“The Horsemen Crept in at Midnight
This is an audio piece produced in Pro-Tools using a variety of different sound sources to convey a narrative. A combination of offline processes and insert effects were used along with traditional editing techniques.
The piece is inspired by the Foley Art, ‘Threads’, ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ and Orson Welles ‘War of the Worlds’.
The concept is a short, imaginary documentary piece based around the idea of a nuclear bomb being dropped in the UK and after a period of time, nature enduring in the absence of human intervention.
Sources/Equipment
Equipment
Macbook Pro
Pro-Tools 8le
Mbox Mini 2
Piezo contact microphone
AKG C1000s Condenser microphone
Zoom H4 Portable Stereo Recorder
Nord Modular G2
Sources
Bottle top
Coins
Lighter
Hundreds + Thousands
A4 Paper
Computer Keyboard
Field recording taken at Dunino Den
Field recording of city ambience
Number Station recordings (found sound)
GMT ‘Pips’ from GMT Website (found sound)
Chimes of Big Ben (found sound)”
I can’t really say how I feel about this project. In terms of ’sound art’ it’s less creative than my usual sound works. It was interesting to try and paint in a very literal narrative using a variety of sound, it seems to be something that I can handle quite comfortably but, in honesty I prefer to keep it more smoke and mirrors and abstract. We’ll see where this one goes I guess.
D
ps
If you made it this far down, well done, I decided to add in a little cutup rastery kinda vibe based on bits chopped in ProTools out of my daily commute, only cut, nothing else apart from the big mongy timestretch at the end, gotta love those mongy timestretches. It’s really just a wee sketchy thing.
Here are a few pics of my installation piece in situ, they don’t really do the piece proper justice but you can get the general idea.
The rest is here, the audio is available via the post below.
D
Hot on the heels of Friday’s trumpet spazz out, I managed to get my head together today to build, perform and record the sound element for an installation piece I’m working on. I’m actually physically bringing all the elements together to exhibit this week and will hopefully be able to film or photograph it in some way that communicates is half decently.
In the meantime, and very much a product of the creature known as Erstlaub (it definitely turned out a bit more sinister than intended), here is the soundwork. Built and recorded in one sitting with the G2 and the first time I’ve used my DD20 and RE201 pedals in that context for ages, it felt nice to be back in familiar territory and that I’ve not lost my knack.
Here is an attempt at explaining the wider project.
“A Mind Divided is a piece that deals with the concept of awareness of time and physical space along with the more psychological and spiritual resonances that environments can hold.
An apparatus was built using two mirrored surfaces fixed at 90 degrees to each other which could be tripod mounted. The apparatus was used in conjunction with a camera to, using the law of refraction, record information from three directions in a single capture.
By reversing this process, the same apparatus is used with a projector to allow the image to be split up and projected as the three discreet elements in different directions. A box that houses the apparatus, and works as a screen, has been conceived and manufactured specifically for this purpose.
The soundtrack has been presented in a neutral form and runs on an asynchronous loop to the visuals in order to randomise the flow and allow viewers to experience their own take on the piece based on the combination of visual and sound components they witness rather than one imposed directly by the artist.”
My first piece for my Time Based Art degree in Dundee. The very open brief was to produce a sequence of stills relating to any aspect of “human”. After a few ideas that didn’t quite resolve, I had the idea of deconstructing the human body itself into its chemical elements and then compare these elements to everyday objects which are around us.
Some of the items are more of a creative interpretation of the element rather than cold, hard science fact but are still based on research that I carried out. The use of black and white images along with the uniform size and orientation and the typography is intended to emphasize the feeling of the psuedo-scientific intention of the piece.
The soundtrack elements represent the cohesion of these vibrating particles and the idea of sequences imposing structure.
Bit of a general news update I guess and some arts for your eyes. Ghost Frequencies is having a wee delay but should see the light of day in the next month or so.
So anyway, I had an interview a few weeks back at Duncan of Jordanstone Art School in Dundee and I’m stoked to say I got an unconditional acceptance for a place on the Time Based Art degree. Really exciting, and scary, but looking forward to working in such a creative environment and flexing my creative muscles. Roll on September!
I’m all but finished my HND at Perth College save for a few small loose ends. My Graded Unit project once again got an A grade which I’m pleased about although I’d have had to kick my own ass if I got anything less.
I was most pleased this year with the work I did for Fraser Stewart, a BA Popular Music Student, bass player and multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire and all round good guy. I’ll let the pack do the talking but it turned into a bit of a labour of love for me, check the rest of the set for more.
Had a little time today to do some creation for the sake of it which was nice.
Finally, the legend like 10-20 whose self titled album is already in my favourites of 2009 (along with other, more respected people’s opinions) has done a sweet mix for the folks over at Fact Magazine and, what’s this? It kicks off with some Scottish drone bloke? Splendid.
Get it here.
I’ll get round to some new material soon for you, I promise. Keep em peeled for Broadcasting on Ghost Frequencies on Moving Furniture and my guest slot on TVO’s I can hear the Sirens Singing… with Production Unit, Dooks, and Konx om Pax on HPLL.
Hertz.
D
Master copy sent over to Sietse at Moving Furniture and sorted out the artwork this week, should be available very soon.
Watch this space.
D
Just a little note to let you all know that Broadcasting on Ghost Frequencies is done, I need to get the master of in the post to Sietse this week and if all goes according to plan, it’ll hopefully be avaible on Moving Furniture Records from mid May or thereabouts. I’ll keep you posted though.
Other than that school work is all piled up over the next few weeks with the upcoming end of the academic year so I’m not expecting to get much done (other than that). I’m working on an Op-Art project at present and I’m pretty sure that all the research and stuff has broken my eyes. Oh dear!
I am super excited about going to see the legend that is Sleazy as Threshold Houseboys Choir next week at Stereo, Glasgow with TVO and have been glued to the Coil/thbc and amazing Soisong listenings all week, this morning sees me wrestling with my bank account following the new Soisong album being announced despite it being hexagonal and not having anything to play it (as it wont work on the mac due to um, being a hexagon). Hawt though.
DJ Funk is going to be ripping up the Sub Club for Numbers on Friday so I may well just have to make a weekend of it (and apologise profusely to my darling neice whose birthday I will already be missing).
Anyway, keep it dusty, here’s alittle piece of art what I made using ink and charcoal.
Oh yeah, I just picked up a MicroKorg also which despite giving the appearance of a fisher-price “my first synthesizer” has guts enough to have really grabbed my interest. At the moment it’s getting jammed with through my pedal setup in an Emeralds/12k/Dopplereffekt kinda style. If i get round to recording any of it I might treat you.
Hertz
D