The School of Unthink

My photos came back from Jessops last night. Had absolutely no idea what to expect, so was quite excited to see what might come out.

As promised, no matter the outcome I will publish all photos on here for you to see. Start scanning tonight :)

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‘40 years in a building in the northern suburbs of this little version, but never naked and cowering behind a rock from the red threat. I was seen as if I had become the red threat, retreating from the old ways, of factionalism, fighting the fractional destruction of the mighty north east when the overseas came inland. I did as told but only when I thought it wise, and moved away when I thought it not. We held him, shivering on the hillside, and made the pact to battle with all, united across the vastness of peoples…when light was split between what is today (well a loose version of it) and what could have become – an unending war. Betrayed as straying from my own gun shaking khaki capped allies, and moved/removed to the east four years on from the war to end all wars. There was always conflict though, even after ninety three, when the other two were gone and I could sail further east, to volcanic land and distant recollections. They called me. Ignoring pleas to return, to bestow, to grant credibility to faltering ideology. Neither/nor. Asleep one year after the turn, and enshrined as addict, abuser, failed peacemaker; not simply following my old Generalissimo to the summit, but making him see, if only for a moment, a differing path.’

____ _____ was born in Liaoning province on or around 1898. Liaoning was made using piano fragments from a recording by a well known resident who grew up in the second city of the province.

1. SG was shot by a pellet gun here. The woodland that I once knew as The Icehouse Plantation is part of the Putteridge Bury estate, now owned by The University of Bedfordshire, which is a University of sorts. They have a miniature steel observatory in their garden. My brother and me ran around there in the days when Dad ran his business out of the Victorian glasshouse. People shot pheasants nearby. I recall this as being similar to ‘Danny, Champion of the World’ only with a large amount of Japanese vineweed around the small pond at the entrance to the estate and some fat faced kid jumping on a trampoline in the caretakers house nearby. We played a lot of football on their lawn when they were on holiday. The actual Icehouse Plantation is to the left of the long drive that leads to the old house, perhaps a half mile or so south on the map from No.1. The reason I was there with SG is that he had some porn stashed there, and obviously this was interesting. They turned out to be the unpleasant readers wives style publications, women with the sort of tits that resemble two fried eggs hanging from a nail. He took a piss up a tree at some point. When he was new at our school I went to a birthday party of his where I won a cassette of Showaddywaddy. I never listened to it. He had incredibly short finger nails, and bit the cuticles away until he was bleeding. I saw him occasionally when we were older as he lived nearby. For a while he had a problem with heroin, but after kicking the habit at some stage in the last five years he set up a business which prints use-by dates on to the surface of eggs. Eggs have been mentioned three times.
2. This woodland/copse never had a name. It ran along Selsey Drive up to Wandon Park, mostly hidden behind a wall. We rarely went in to it. A man lived there, in a cardboard and plastic sheet house. He apparently collected carrier bags, perhaps to shit in to. He had a ferret which he used to walk on a lead around the small patch of grass on the other side of the wall. He tied his trousers with a rope, which used to hang down to nearly his shoes. A telephone company has built a mobile phone mast on the small patch of grass.
3. This is the most significant woodland for me, always known as Great Hayes; it turns out this name is an accurate memory. There are perhaps too many recollections associated with this space to write down now, so I will go with two important ones, and return to others another day. From these tree-based memories, it is clear that pornography was clearly an important part of growing up. The numerous dens constructed by myself and our little cabal were usually facilitating the protection of Club and Razzle (and other titles I’m sure Stokes will remember) from the likes of PE, KO’K and alike. The number of times porn was stolen and rediscovered is impossible to count. One instance involved myself, Stokes, RL and IS. Porn had once again changed hands, and we had lost out to the aforementioned letters, PE, KE and KO’K. They had a hiding place somewhere. I am in the wood with Stokes, RL and IS in front. The wood is snow covered, the field barren and enveloped in dense freezing fog. RL and IS have an argument sometime after we have build ice foundations to a temporary hideout. IS chases RL in to the field where they scuffle. I watch on, Stokes alongside. The figures grapple in the snow. RL picks up a log, and swings it at IS, hitting him in the head. He falls to the ground. Everything is silent and cold and looks a lot like the opening to Fargo. RL runs. On our way back home with the injured IS, RL emerges from amongst pine trees with a bag full of porn, the collection we had lost in the last battle. He holds it out to us as an apology. The other memory is of some sort of chase, with JE (who resurfaces from time to time, largely so Broughall can ‘kick the shit’ out of him metres from his home), but I’m not sure if it is him we need to hide from. We’re out of breath, stung from nettles, my ankle throbbing from a fall over a tree stump. Panting, sweating, we lie on the rough earth in the wheat field, hidden by the tall swaying crops. In amongst the high grass, thin trees and shining bracken, a man with a golf club hacks and slashes away at everything, periodically stopping to listen and yell. Is he looking for us? Is he related to the earlier chase? A summer afternoon spent running and paying attention to the sound a man makes on the ground when he walks, or when a metal pole passes through the air. We eventually leave, once we are sure the angry man has also left.  A week later I find a discarded golf club, minus the top, which I decide to use as a weapon for myself (others had makeshift weapons too…MH has a slingshot of some kind, made with a goggle strap…there was also ‘Brick-on-a-Rope’). Being chased happened often.
4. This small bit of woodland sits in the middle of Butterfield Green, equidistant from the carpark on the A505 and the Stone Age hill farm remains that no-one seems to know about around Bradgers Hill. Someone was sexually assaulted there once (in the wood, not the hill farm); I was barred access by police tape and fear of what might have happened. A path ran through the middle, opening up in to long grass at one end by some old rusted football posts that had been stacked together. I sat there one summer’s evening with Michelle, Mick, Cherelle and Zoe before we all moved away to University. This became the opening to Sunshine and Power Lines, a book I wrote whilst at University. It was/is a catastrophic romance set in a city that is constantly rearranged by sand and steam from underground fissures. Nearby to this spot was a tree I had once thought of as a good site for a den, but many other people used it for the same thing, so it was ultimately worthless. I find it interesting to think that without ever meeting the other people, we all managed not to destroy each others constructions in the tree. Much later, I went there with Chris, who didn’t remember using the tree for such a purpose; to be fair, it could have been a number of different people other than Chris who were there originally. We hooked up contact microphones to the trunk and branches, and struck them all about using a variety of different woods from the area. We recorded the results. The tree sounded like a xylophone.

uzybee

aftersunday:

shimizusaki:

Amazon.co.jp： GAME&WATCH ミニソーラーキーホルダー オクトパス

I need to get the Donkey Kong version of this

(Click image for larger view)

Artwork for Offtopic meets Humeka - SoCo LP.

For download/purchase early March from “We Are Another Us” run by Mark Burton, who is better known as Oblio.

The artwork was a collaboration between myself and artist SuzyBee. Suzybee provides the intricate illustrations in this artwork. I really enjoy working with her as I feel each of styles naturally compliment one another.

Today has been a day of clearing out old files from my mac and I found this.

This was taken by Thom, practicing at Daniels house pre gig (Horselover Fat) probably sometime in 08, . Not sure why but I’m quite fond of this photo.

Tokyo, Japan 2007

© Chris Stokes

New York 2009

© Chris Stokes

Boy on Bus, New York

This boy stared at me the entire journey

2009 © Chris Stokes

Found on the street in Manhattan

2009 © Chris Stokes

Staten Island Bus,

Summer 2009

© Chris Stokes

I found  7 or 8 used rolls of film after I moved. Took a trip to Jessops this afternoon, will take a couple of weeks for some of them to come back.

I have no idea what’s on any of them, but will hopefully post the results up here when they arrive.

An interim post perhaps…

Just to say that the February Provinces track by Silk and Dogs, titled ‘Anhui’, is now available. For more information on both track and artist, go here.

Also, a little experiment I tried over a lunch break – putting together a song using the old fashioned technique (by my standards anyway…the first song I made with a drum beat was done this way) of painstaking lining up individual beats over a track…hence it being less than 2 minutes long. The results can be heard here. An undisclosed amount of cold hard cash goes to the first person who can name the sample.

And next…woodland/tree based map with detailed annotations coming in around March 1st.

So I went away for a while, hence a mammoth post of four things in one. Briefly, they comprise;

1. Ten albums that I consider to have played a sizable role in forming my musical taste and, more importantly, are tied to specific memories and transitions at various points in my life (though largely spread from 1998-2002)
2. A short list of what I have been listening to in the past week+
3. An example of one of five maps I have been working on, and an explanation of why.
4. An explanation of the several projects I am contributing towards.

It’s long, at over 3000 words, so feel free to cherry pick. Without much further ado:

1. Recollective Top Ten

One of the directions I am taking in terms of my research is to look at the relationship between certain sounds and certain memories, and how the formation of a transient idea of self is influenced by past events, spaces, places, sounds. As a way of breaking this in to a more managable chunk, I thought about what I would consider to be a top ten of formative music, that is an album that has made a lasting impact on me and instantly reminds me of a specific place and time, and the people I shared that with. I’d be quite interested to develop this further, and I’ll discuss possible directions for this in section 4, so feel free to avoid that if it’s of little interest. The psychogeographical maps are part of this too I think,a cartography of social memory that I hope I can plot with the assistance of a few close friends before we start forgetting where the things we say and do come from.

For this blog, I decided the most effective thing to do as way of demonstration would be to list my top ten, and briefly mention the associated memory with each album. Some are hazy, vague, barely there; others are fully formed to the extent I could probably tell you the exact day if I needed to…

Led Zeppelin IV – Led Zeppelin

The second album I ever bought, The Bends being the first. I wasn’t especially interested in music until mid way through high school, content to simply listen to whatever was presented to me, so this symbolised the beginning of making my own choices. It was primarily chosen on the basis of hearing it mentioned as a ‘classic’ and liking the confusing art work on the cover. When music eventually started to burrow in to my body, and I decided I could contribute something, I went for the drums, unable to really master anything but one song on piano (though I’m better now). I learnt to play the drums listening to Bonham and trying, and failing, to emulate him, that booming far away bass drum, the power in the restraining of the fills. Bonham started playwith four drums, so I played four drums. Led Zep IV remains one of my favourite albums of all time; it marks the point when I knew I was able to contribute something (though it has moved away from percussion to computer production…if I had the space, I’d try the two together again)

Music Has The Right To Children – Boards of Canada

This album is inextricably linked to a memory, most likely a composite one, of myself, Liam and Pank playing Quake 2 on a spring afternoon (or many afternoons), in the back bedroom of my Luton house. I bought it from HMV, though Our Price was still in existence then as I recall, after reading about it in an old issue of Mojo I had found. It was probably my first experience of electronic music, or rather music that was solely electronic rather than just music which incorporated electronic elements, like synths in prog or what have you. It is the sound of long brown corridors, a noisy lift, the ping of an explosive round bouncing of a wall and the curled cobalt trail of a rail gun. It is also the first of three albums tied to Liam and Pank, the other two being detailed below.

Texas-Jerusalem Crossroad – Lift to Experience

Indistinct, but reminiscent of the Refectory, occupied by Mark De Caux, Ben Barry, my appalling attendance record and skipping lessons, hiding from Mason the history teacher with one good eye, and possibly even meeting Tom and Danny for the first time (which returns as Danny mentioning something about me being a good drummer, and Tom reading either Stand on Zanzibar or Infinite Jest in the Lower Refectory where we tended to loiter…not sure how accurate this is). The occasional presence of Pank, who started and finished at random times, never completing anything. Lee, and Liam and myself being exposed to a larger world, new friends, new ideas.

Madonna – And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead

Football on Butterfield, Pank dazzling everyone by being simultaneously adept at scissor kicks and a complete shit for punting the ball in to the same group of trees near the car park. We listening to this afterward, astounded at the ferocity of some of it (obviously now considered tame by all our standards). This was also the soundtrack to afternoons spent playing Perfect Dark, my penchant for guided rockets against Pank’s love of the Farsight. Yet again, Liam proves he is the master of angles and trajectories using the grenade launcher, a skill on par with my deft positioning of remote mines in Goldeneye (and I suppose Pank’s accuracy with the Golden Gun on Basement).

Ok Computer – Radiohead

Aside from being a defining album for the odd generation I consider myself to be a part of, between Xers, Yers and The Millennials as I believe Mr Lippard put it once, this album also reminds me of working at the fire station in Stopsley where a short fat man who shared my first name says ‘…all we get is washing machines on fire…’ or more significantly, the after school prep for the Duke of Edinburgh award, in an upstairs Maths classroom next to what became a computing room, talking to Chris about Climbing Up The Walls and how grubby and brilliant it was. It somehow became the favourite song of the Moonface.

Godspeed You Black Emperor! – Lift Your Skinny Fists

A very specific recollection. Sixth Form College, cleaning, midweek. I worked in the computer classrooms, C Block, which afforded me a nice view of the office where Les and Colin the ‘overseers’ were housed. I had this album on on this particular afternoon when Chris Baker and cohorts came in to explain how free internet was available. It resulted in pretty much the entire cleaning staff (well…Ben, Simon, Chris etc.) being reprimanded for skiving and taken off to the office for a bollocking. Using my observational skills on the office, I managed to hide in one of the teaching offices like a coward. All cowards hide in teaching offices.

Cinematic Orchestra – Every Day

Vague – Driving across fenland between Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, eventually heading in to Thetford Forest, when I started University, or indeed returned via back roads that magically emerged in Hitchin. The voice of Fontella Bass echoing across fields and hedgerows. Not necessarily formative, but one that has etched a mood in to me. It came about at a period of transition, when I moved away from familiar places and began to realise how much I had to do to go where I wanted. The destination is still somewhat obscured.

Camel – Mirage

Mirage is here as a distinct reminder of Dad attempting to educate me in the ways of prog, which coincides with his ‘education in the way of ale’. It comes at the same times as the discovery of Umma Gumma and Echoes by Pink Floyd, Argus by Wishbone Ash and much of what I later discovered to be part of ‘The Canterbury Scene’. Properly going through Dad’s extensive vinyl collection of prog classics was a revelation. I think my Dad was definitely instrumental in forging an interest in numerous differing musics, which is now a symbiotic relationship of suggested listening; I will produce an occasional play list which he will download and vice versa. As a result, a man who is 60 this year continues to enjoy Boards of Canada, Sonic Youth, Do Make Say Think, Mogwai and Antony and the Johnsons, whilst firing folk classics in my direction (Planxty, Pentangle and so on).

Japan – Oil on Canvas

Listening to an old reel to reel  when my Dad was at work (ancient, precious machine…do not break) and Nightporter was what he had recorded on to it. I learnt to play it on my little keyboard, making it possibly the first and last piece I ever bothered to learn, and off by heart, just from listening and trying to hit the keys that sounded right. I picked up this CD, it being displayed at the front of the Japan subsection and seeing Nightporter on the tracklisting, I immediately bought it. I remember being a bit miffed at it being ‘live’ and then also happy when I subsequently discovered that Nightporter was actually a rerecorded version that they had made sound live to fit most of the rest of the record. I also remember being concerned that they were horribly unfashionable, and later deciding that it didn’t matter if they were or not, because I liked them. This was also true of Madness, and much later The Pet Shop Boys, as I’m sure Chris will recall/dispute.

Talking Heads – Stop Making Sense (1999 Release)

An amalgam memory. I played this album at one of the many parties that happened at Zoe’s house on Long Close, so it is tied to numerous memories of the time before we started seeing each other, including; Darren Taylor throwing himself down a flight of stairs, a cat being shot by some unknown man with an airgun, drunk rugby players gatecrashing and watching porn in the living room, my attempting to form some sort of relationship with Lisa despite the now obvious futility/pointlessness of such an attempt, Ben Barry putting his hand through a door, Dalmatian babies, DJGJ in a former life cleaning the kitchen with a teatowel tied to his waist, Michael pissing in an airing cupboard, Liam and Isabelle gradually coming apart, my eventual development of the courage to talk to Zoe, certain hostilities with close friends as a result which are resolved nicely by the passage of time. And, of course, the conspicuous absence of Stokes and Sweeney.

Other albums could be added to the list, including The Bends, Different Class, some ASMZ and perhaps even some of the shit that resulted in us going to The Rock and being gloomy, sitting under tables, being banned, drinking disgusting coloured/tasting booze, dancing like twats, developing confused love triangles, making and losing friends. Perhaps another time.

2. Recent Listening

I have still managed to get in some semi up-to-date listening. In the spirit of my favourite pastime, namely ‘listing’, here they are, in order of preference.

Christian Wallumrod Ensemble – Fabula Suite Lugano

Gowns – Stand and Encounter

(no image for that one, but it does sadly mark the end of Gowns as a group. If you’re not familiar with their output, please go and grab Red State)

Gil Scott-Heron – I’m New Here*

*see ‘4. Plans’

Scuba – Sub:stance

Tindersticks – Falling Down A Mountain

I say order of preference, but over the last week or so pretty much everything I’ve listened to has been enjoyable. I’m not sure whether this means I am losing any sort of power of criticism, if indeed I ever possessed any, or if I am simply feeling a little mellower. Either way, I shall purposefully listen to some real shit between now and the next post in an attempt to add some sort of scathing personal attack up here.

3. Mapping for Beginners

So this map is part of a series of 5 sketches I have done in the past week that relate to certain places I remember as a child/teenager. Like a normal map it is seen from the top down, and is to some extent accurate, but only to the degree that my memory affords it. The woodland detailed crudely above sits with Wandon Park to the west, the school playing field to the north (along with a haunted house that was eventually redeveloped in to a weird gated property with security cameras etc.),  the housing estate of unpleasant new builds called Copthorne where Lee lived for a while (I still have the keys to his house for some reason) in the east and the curve of Telscombe Way/Hayling Drive to the south/south east. The field behind Copthorne (to the north of it) was set on fire once, and I cycled through it with some friends who may have been called Phil and David…people Clare Gale knew I think. I had my eyebrows burnt and got covered in soot. A similar thing happened on D of E.

I’m hoping to create a large canvas of similar maps of recollected locations associated with my childhood. I’m hoping to put them together with the help of those who were there at the time. Part of the reason for this, aside from my interest in the nature of space and memory, and how perceptions alter or are transformed via social experience (in the sense that, for example, I remember differently depending on who I am with), is that, as Chris has pointed out elsewhere, these things are starting to slip away, largely because we have all moved away, and the idea of basing a project around such reminiscence is an effective way of cataloging and discussing formative experiences. It is, I feel, also important in being able to analyze and develop a narrative of transition. The friendships I have developed are maintained now over long distances, and on the infrequent occasions we reunite, shared recollection is a tie that seems to continue to hold things together, in the wake of our constantly diverging lives. I think many people from outside our little gang find the constant self referencing a little annoying, or more likely alienating, but it is something that we are unable to escape, a scaffold for self definition, and a method for distancing ourselves when we need/want to.

Actual Map of Selsey/Fire Field

From the actual map above, you can see the track of the sports field, and the features mentioned above. You can also see that I have drawn the map from the perspective of Telscombe Way, which is probably because that is generally where we came at it from. For a long time, I thought this wood was called Slaughter’s/Slaughterer’s Wood, but that is in fact to the south. Robert Lavender, a one time hanger-on of ours who got a pin through his hand for the trouble, was told that the hut in Slaughter’s Wood was the entrance to a secret underground nuclear testing facility. This is not true.

Much of my childhood involved woods in one way or another, which probably account for my continued fascination with them. A post on tree based recollections may appear in the following weeks.

4. Plans

Currently, I am working on:

• A ‘hip hop’ album, under the I think provisional guise of ‘Mic Hammer and Doctor Ironfist’. This will possibly be completed by the end of Feb, when Tom returns to York to perhaps record some vocals, and perhaps collect his things. The music is somewhat about the place at the minute, but contains a tasty selection of samples from the likes of Smokey Robinson, Gil Scott-Heron’s new work (particularly track 2), Autechre, Deathprod, Sa-Ra Creative Partnership, Shape of Broad Minds, various musicians from the Anticon label, Samuel Beckett, William Burroughs and Baby Dodds. Track previews will emerge in March I think. This album also fulfills one of my New Years resolutions, which now take the form of projects – produce one funky album.
• An EP of Heroines material, currently four tracks, loosely based on the cycle of the day, but not in the way the Dawn of Dogs EP was. I am going to attempt to get this released by an actual label.
• Aforementioned maps for potential exhibition.
• A series of composite songs culled from personalised memory soundtracks, similar to the one above. I’m interested to explore the potential to have a past summed up in one piece of music which comprises parts from songs related to specific times/places in peoples memories. Am not sure how practical this is, or whether people will offer up such details.
• Continuing writing ‘Amputee Angel/Last Night Tree’. 56000 words and counting.
• PhD, obviously. Much reading on CCCS, the idea of tribus, Thornton’s development of Bourdieu’s idea of capital, where hauntology sits in amongst this. Up next, the sociology of space.
• Have recently completed a short soundtrack for a short film called Sky Attack, using Tomytronic sounds. Took ages, but am happy with the results.

The purpose of having this written down is largely as a tool for me to understand a perennial problem I have; thinking I am not doing enough. I have a semi-constant nagging feeling that I am ‘wasting time’, and that I should be, at least whilst I am a part-time student, using the time I don’t spend at work (Uni or paid) doing something constructive. Writing down a short list elaborating what I actually have going on at any one time is a good way of reminding myself what is actually happening. It also makes me virtually accountable. If I say I am doing something, even in the realm of the relatively small number of people who read this regularly, and I don’t, someone somewhere will know, and this bothers me in to action. Odd perhaps, but ultimately helpful.

So, as I began by saying, I went away with work etc. for a while prior to writing all this down. The same is sadly true in the coming weeks, with posting sporadic, though I have numerous pointless ideas and such to share. I am likely away until a week Thursday, with work, Uni work and various minor organizational tasks demanding more attention.

To conclude on a brief stylistic note, I’ve decided to go from preformated text to default, owing to my own annoyance at manually changing text sizes etc. Despite the fact I prefer the look of preformat, I simply cannot be bothered with making things line up. Plus this is easier to read.

New York New York –

Montage of photos taken in NYC summer 2009

New York New York –

Montage of photos taken in NYC summer 2009

Have neglected updating for a while. Apologies.

Creeping Jaw Society has successfully delivered a sound track to the Sky Attack video I’ve been working on and I’ve been able to start editing some animation to match the sound. However not enough progress has been made to show on here.

In other news:
I recently cycled through some photos of my summer trip to New York and found that there were several sequences of photos taken in quick succession that lent themselves to animation. I fed the whole album into Final Cut and the result is quite interesting. I shall post a version on here soon.

This made me wonder if I could do something similar with more of my photos, and so I began working on compiling my photos from my time in Japan (1 year) and it turns out, so far I have found over 9000 photos from that time. I will be compiling these into an animation and soundtracking it to sounds that remind me of being there.

This will take significantly longer as, due to technical obstacles, many photos are missing or out of sequence. Much of my time recently has been spent recovering these photos from various discs and hard drives, and will likely require some neg scanning at some point also, so it may be a few weeks before any results come through.

Thanks for coming x

Have neglected updating for a while. Apologies.

Creeping Jaw Society has successfully delivered a sound track to the Sky Attack video I’ve been working on and I’ve been able to start editing some animation to match the sound. However not enough progress has been made to show on here.

In other news:
I recently cycled through some photos of my summer trip to New York and found that there were several sequences of photos taken in quick succession that lent themselves to animation. I fed the whole album into Final Cut and the result is quite interesting. I shall post a version on here soon.

This made me wonder if I could do something similar with more of my photos, and so I began working on compiling my photos from my time in Japan (1 year) and it turns out, so far I have found over 9000 photos from that time. I will be compiling these into an animation and soundtracking it to sounds that remind me of being there.

This will take significantly longer as, due to technical obstacles, many photos are missing or out of sequence. Much of my time recently has been spent recovering these photos from various discs and hard drives, and will likely require some neg scanning at some point also, so it may be a few weeks before any results come through.

Thanks for coming x

VIBRACATHEDRAL ORCHESTRA-LINO HI, CD, 1999, UK: “



One of the earlier and harder to locate titles by this preeminent drone syndicate and cosmic improv mafia. Shivery susurrations from the cosmic ether channeled by ethnic instrument-armed freaks that fulfills the promise made by The Theater Of Eternal Music and Limbus 4 and runs circles around a lot of the second generation freak folk/communal inprov whatsis that they helped usher in by their example.

Get it via megaupload Here

Get it via Rapidshare Here

(Via MUTANT SOUNDS.)

HARLASSEN-A WAY NOW, CDR, 2006, UK: “Following my posts of Richard Skelton’s hauntingly lovely string based drone works under the guises of Caroussel and A Broken Consort, here’s another piece of his bewitching puzzle, the Harlassen moniker being deployed for the work of his that both rubs up against the edge of structure and conventional ‘prettiness’ perhaps a tad more than work under his other aliases and which seems to accumulate a greater density of his lovingly arranged pluck/stroke motion.

Get it via Megaupload Here

Get it via Rapidshare Here

(Via MUTANT SOUNDS.)

Bill Bruce-Changing,Mini LP,USA, 1982: “ Fantastic minimal synth by one called Bill Bruce, released through Interior records(possibly private label) in 1982. I have first introduced this artist in the ‘tribute to some bizzare vol.10 ’ compilation (that i have compiled myself actually),with the song ‘chanching’ and here’s the full mini LP. Seems (sadly) that this was his only output.Bought it in late 90s in a used records store for almost nothing (i think was less than 1 Euro!) but seems to be mch sought after lately fetching up prices higher than 200 USD.

(Via MUTANT SOUNDS.)

Sadly I am stupidly busy with work this week and have
been unable to get around to five albums etc. Next week is
largely the same owing to covering for a sick colleague. By
Monday the 15th of Feb I hope to be able to put up some
preliminary sketches for a memory map I have been working
on, mixing psychogeographic exploration, faulty
recollection and concealed histories. It will hopefully
form part of a larger work that I am aiming to finish in
2010 seeing as I have slightly more free time this year
than next (teaching, PhD etc.) To fill the gap between
today and two weeks away, or thereabouts, here is a
brief list of 5 things I can  recommend listening to.

• The Knife - Tomorrow, In A Year

• Pangaea - Self Titled EP

• Robert Curgenven - Oltre

• Weird Tales for Winter

• Seasons (Pre-Din) - Stars and Lights Together We Fall

See if you can find them out, have a listen and tell me
what you think. Back in a bit...

New concept imagery for new music work by Vesica Piscis. (me)

This week, what I've listened to, helpfully listed
in ascending order:


5. Jaga Jazzist - One-Armed Bandit


4. Kaito - Trust


3. Various Artists - Pop Ambient 2010


2. Four Tet - There Is Love In You


1. BJ Nilsen - The Invisible City

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I have gone for a new Touch
release this week as my personal favourite. BJ Nilsen's
work for me has been a bit hit and miss so far, with
the occasional outstanding piece mixing up against some
pretty standard ambient stuff, but The Invisible City
is much more focused and consistent. The shorter tracks
like Phase and Amplitude and Scientia combine an
effective blend of constructed ambient textures with field
recordings from across the globe (Iceland, Sweden etc.)
with the resulting sound a compelling one, belying the
miniature duration. The standout track for me is the
15 minute Virtual Resistance, which begins life as a
haze of reversing peaks that subside in to a chilling
pulse of cello and synth, punctuated by a distorted
guitar which oscillates across the stereo spectrum,
with the crunch of pebbles underfoot.
It's wonderfully produced, with real attention to the
details in each sound, particularly the field recordings
that include a chair being dragged across a room and
some kind of ship hitting a harbour wall, recorded
under water (well...that's how it sounds...it could be
something else entirely).
The only down side is the title track, which sadly falls
back in to the aforementioned ambient trope of earlier
work, but this is a small disappointment in comparison
to the work as a whole.

Four Tet's new album is more straightforward than the
Everything Ecstatic, in that he's pulled back the
unnecessary layers and focused on making sure all the
individual elements work as a whole. He has clearly
benefited from his time spent with Steve Reid and Burial,
as the tunes feature occasional percussive flourishes
and distorted vocal samples, adding a new depth missing
from earlier work where the intent was seemingly more
in favour of cramming as much in as possible. The beats
are pretty much 4/4 throughout, but this isn't a problem
because the synth lines and bass work so effectively to
shape the songs. I think this is the sort of record that
will work as a good introduction to Four Tet, before
moving to more cluttered release.

Pop Ambient 2010 was a disappointment. BVDub's tracks are
the best thing here, as expected, and with the notable
exception of Jurgen Paape's 864M with its haunting brass
line and distant percussion, the tracks are two or three
samples worked together with a bit of delay/reverb. Perhaps
this opinion has developed as a result of listening to
this record after Nilsen's (much like the mistake I made
last week), but there seems little to delineate the
contributions.

Jaga Jazzist's album is all over the place. The production
is an unpleasant fuzz, the arrangements are complicated
for little more than the sake of doing so, and the tiny
tricks and twists of previous albums have been left out in
favour of making a record that sounds like Jaga, rather than
one that is made by them. Kaito's album is not much
better. The production is pedestrian, the arrangements are
streamlined and in doing so lack any real flair or
imagination. All in all a mixed week. I'll choose more
carefully next week.

Just a quick one to say that Robin has completed a
visual interpretation of a Creeping Jaw Society track I
made a few years back called Piano Tragic. You can
see the video here and read more about the how and
why of the video here. The video should have an
epilepsy warning, so consider yourself warned.

End

Piano Tragic by Robin Van Rijn music by Creeping Jaw Society.

Please watch in HD mode which can be done by watching the film on Vimeo’s site.

This post is about a new film work. “Piano Tragic” is a track by Creeping Jaw Society. This is what creeping Jaw Society has to say about the track: “From the album Nine Works for Piano) Piano Tragic, which was the second track of the nine, was constructed using left over piano parts I had recorded five years previously at Luton VIth Form College, as well as single notes culled from a friends piano. The idea was to create a piece that had some emotion to it, but one built around the development of generative effects, and not just ‘a man playing a sad piano song’. I like to think it works…it at least turned out the way I heard it in my head.”

The track to me felt so composed, ordered, sequenced and filled with emotion but I could understand how it was quite self generative the way the notes and sound were so stretched and bunched together they took a life of there own forming patterns and fragments of a tune. I had wanted to do a video for music such as this for so long. My previous work with Canidae used so little precision and accuracy and was haphazardly edited with just a rough idea of how the piece structured together to form a loose narrative than typical screenplay or story-boarded animation.

With this piece I wanted to tie the sounds and editing to be precisely edited so that there was an entirely fluid, hypnotic and immersive in feeling and become completely engrossing in nature.

It was not until after 10 months of deliberating after making just 30 seconds of the animation before I found out this was the best way to go. I originally started this video in early 2009 and plotted out the animation until I got tangled around a trying to have a big idea. I felt the need to subject a theme and story into the animation to give a better cohesion between the visuals and music I was attempting to make and give the piece the same dramatic tension that that music has. Then I realised it would be pointless to give a piece such as this narrative and literal story as music of this type is far better left for the listener to interject his own ideas to the meaning and themes to the abstract nature of film and music.

Surrendering to my subconscious I just listened to the music with my eyes closed and worked out how the music could be represented visually as shapes and texture. The animation then only took a month to make and was a enjoyable and rewarding process. On that note I leave you with some still images. The full video will be uploaded soon.

Video: Sky Attack (Update)
A test to check how realistic/easy to achieve the superimposition was

Video: Sky Attack (Update)
A test to check how realistic/easy to achieve the superimposition was

It’s been a bit since my last update. Apologies.

Progress has been slower – been collaborating with Creeping Jaw Society on sound and he has rather helpfully provided several possibilities to work with, which once settled, will provide the guide to which I can edit.

In the mean time, I did some quick trials with the footage, which I will post shortly. As the game unit had to be shot with no batteries, I had to shoot actual game play separately and comp it on to the shot. I wanted to be sure the footage would look realistic enough to use. So far I’m quite please with the rough results.

It’s been a bit since my last update. Apologies.

Progress has been slower – been collaborating with Creeping Jaw Society on sound and he has rather helpfully provided several possibilities to work with, which once settled, will provide the guide to which I can edit.

In the mean time, I did some quick trials with the footage, which I will post shortly. As the game unit had to be shot with no batteries, I had to shoot actual game play separately and comp it on to the shot. I wanted to be sure the footage would look realistic enough to use. So far I’m quite please with the rough results.

My selection for the week is largely based on things
I have been sent, or albums I missed at the arse end
of last year (Evangelista). I was hoping to have
something more insightful than simply selecting a
favourite, but have annoyingly had my time eroded by
various concerns. In the spirit of honesty, I thought
it better to post than avoid. Next week, when my
schedule is clearer I'm going to mention something about
my formative musical experiences, how they have occupied
specific mental and physical spaces, and how the memory
of which obviously informs present choices and
continuing bias.


Pantha Du Prince - Black Noise


Thee Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra
- Kollaps Tradixionales


Evangelista - Prince of Truth


Owen Pallett - Heartland


Beach House - Teen Dream

My choice of album of the week is going to be Owen
Pallett's Heartland. This choice is largely the
product of it being an amazing undertaking, the
sort of album where I struggle to understand how
one person could not only have had this in his
head but also worked with so many people to edit
and produce it to near perfection (credits to Rusty
Santos and the Czech National Orchestra).
One review mentioned a crossover between Andrew
Bird and Neil Hannon, which I can definitely see.
The vocal has that flavour to it, and the subject
matter (a violent fictional farmer) is pretty left-field.
The arrangements are clever, and occasionally amusing in
that way where you laugh but aren't 100% sure why the
sound combinations are funny. Overall, it's just a
very enjoyable record fully of impressive twists
and informed orchestration as you'd expect; with
violins gradually falling apart, the occasional burst
of brass from the gloom. Having said that, it's
not that easy to get in to, but is certainly worth
the effort. I expect to see it on top ten lists at
the end of the year.

The other reason for picking it is because the
other albums sort of corralled me in that direction.
Black Noise is lush, in the non-slang meaning of that
word, the production (which seems to be an obsession
for me with electronic musicians) is crisp and un-
cluttered. It sounds beautiful...but isn't in the
same league as This Bliss. Not that I expected much
of a departure, but I still wanted a little more than
refinement on its own. Teen Dream was equally pretty,
but will perhaps be damaged by those suggesting Beach
House are 'doing an Animal Collective' this year. I'm
not certain if this is meant as a compliment. As I
recall as many people hated Merriweather as liked it.
Teen Dream just sounds a little inconsequential to me,
coming after Heartland. Perhaps I should have listened
in a different order?

Finally, ASMZ and Evangelista continue that trademark
Constellation sound tradition. Prince of Truth is a
good follow on from Hello Voyager (Crack Teeth being a
particular highlight for me), but the nature of the
production means it sounds a little too samey. Again,
I think this is the Owen Pallett after-effect talking,
as on any other day I'd probably have listed it in a
different order, but there we go...I can but judge in
the moment, as hypocritical and ill-informed as that
makes me. ASMZ fall in to the same camp in this respect,
as Efrim's ordering, FX choices & instrumentation
remains stoic, the songs failing to pull away from the
presumptions I have developed about where-the-songs-are
-going over the past 2 ASMZ records. Live performance
is a different matter; having seen them a few years
back at The Scala in London, I urge people to go out
and have a listen during their brief European adventure.
Tickets via ATP website I think. I'm guessing the songs
on here will spring to life in a live setting, in much
the same way that they did on This Is Our Punk Rock
when I saw them...it seems odd that the new album acts
as a sort of introduction to the performance and not the
other way round, but there we go.

Just some advance notice of a week of special programmes on
Resonance FM at the end of January called 'Weird Tales for
Winter'. It's a hauntological exploration featuring music,
stories etc. and promises not only to be disconcerting, but
also the perfect late night accompaniment to nocturnal
worry and new year fear. If you're in London, Resonance FM
is on 104.4 FM, and if, like me, you're not, it can be
streamed live here.

It all starts on Jan 25th, and runs for 8 nights. The
full schedule, as well as other curious can be found
here.

Next week, Friday's '5 Albums' feature will return, as
I've received some of Feb/March's prereleases (the small
bonus of having made a few contacts whilst working on
the radio all those years ago) that I'll be listening
to/casting a semi-critical eye over. Didn't have time to
get around to it this week as I managed to both get a
job as a librarian and complete my teacher training
course so I can now bore/lie to undergraduates. Score. 

CD cover design completed in 2008 for Doom Metal band Infrasound.

Cover design for Felicia Atkinson & Sylvain Chauveau - Roman Anglais

Not much to say about this one, just trying to keep updating until I get all my old works up!

Sketches are by Felicia Atkinson. The material for the cover is not card as appears but actually scanned card.

From Boomkat

“Accompanied by Sylvain Chauveau’s beautiful instrumental backdrop, Felicia Atkinson intones captivating, mesmeric spoken passages in both French and English. Ordinarily, this reviewer tends to find it hard to truly embrace spoken word albums, but Atkinson’s bilingual tracts unexpectedly draw you in. There’s an aesthetic congruity between these withdrawn, strangely emotive utterances and Chauveau’s opium haze background noise, which at times sounds like something from Charalambides’ “A Vintage Burden”, while at others you’ll think you’re listening to the pulses and bleeps of hospital life support machinery. It’s all quite strange, and often unsettling, yet beguiling all the same. The lulling electric guitar passages of opening tracks ‘Aberdeen’ and ‘How The Light’ transplant you to a mindset somewhere on the brink of consciousness, only for ‘Dans Le Lumiere’ to confuse and disorientate you over the course of its ten-minute journey toward the static absoluteness of its droning coda. The eighteen minute title track that closes the album is probably the most remarkable of the four pieces, with Chauveau fashioning a far more densely woven musical setting for Atkinson’s voice. Interlocking, sustaining guitars meet and overlap while soft electronic activity hums in the background, retaining a blissful harmonic cogency throughout. It’s all very poetic, and the kind of album you could happily immerse yourself in for hours at a time. Highly recommended.”

Liam Butler's fashionably late review of last year's
Bill Callahan release. Danke schon.

When I first read what the title of Bill Callahan’s next release I took a deep breath. “Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle” sounded at first both wistful and inane (perfectly suited to Callahan’s style). Ever since hearing Smog (Bill Callahan’s previous moniker) on some probably now defunct magazine compilation in my early adolescence I’ve been hooked on his dark introspection (Drinking At The Dam), bawdy humour (Dress Sexy at my Funeral) and intricate and complex character creations (The Prison Guard). Callahan often draws inspirations from unique personal revelation, growth and reminiscence (). Why is SIWWAE my album of the year? Well, he’s grown a beard which can only be a good thing. However, if lush arrangements and warm instrumentation combined with melancholic and often sombre tones is your thing, then this is the album for you or certainly me anyway. This album will not rock you, this album will not make you twist and shout. It might make you bob your head though and that will be more than enough because too much movement might render your listening to the album a waste. The opener ‘Jim Cain’ will endear fans of ‘A River Isn’t Too Much To Love’ with the simple chord progression and Callahan’s stream of consciousness “I started out in search of ordinary things, how much of a tree really bends in a wind?”. The second song ‘Eid Ma Clack Shaw’ stands out, like a key ingredient, perhaps like red currant jelly does on a venison steak. A song about the memory of one has been lost and the impossibility of shaking a memory, especially in dreams. “Love is the king of the beasts and a beast must kill to eat” the beautiful imagery of love’s destructive and animal instincts. I’m not entirely sure what ‘Rococo Zephyr’ is about but it works, a dainty little number. ‘All Thoughts Are Prey To Some Beast’ is a dark reflection of how falling prey to cynicism and negativity in the aftermath of destruction is a lonely and thankless path. ‘Faith/Void’ is an almost 10 minute mantra with Callahan singing not much more than “It’s time to put god away” drawing on his leanings toward atheism which he also does in a previous song ‘Mother of the World’ “god is a word and the argument ends there. Many of the reasons I love Smog/Bill Callahan and his ilk. This album is so fucking good I’m going to go upstairs right now and listen to it now and leave this summary somewhat conclusively….

And that is, I believe, the end of the New Year.
Apart from Chinese New Year, which is at the end of the
week...

Snippet from the footage captured yesterday

Snippet from the footage captured yesterday

I finally got some decent shots of the inside of the headset and now I’m beginning to get ambitious.

This has grown from a simple documentation of a game in play to a potentially animated music video.
I’ve reshot most of my external shots for consistency and improved quality, but now I have some decent shots of the game-action, I’m reconsidering its role.

I was going to display the footage “as is”, and then considered editing the game to the beat. I am now giving careful consideration to hand painting out each graphic cell and animating the game to follow the beat, tanks dancing around and bullets flying in sync.

It might look quite good, but it’s gonna hurt.

I finally got some decent shots of the inside of the headset and now I’m beginning to get ambitious.

This has grown from a simple documentation of a game in play to a potentially animated music video.
I’ve reshot most of my external shots for consistency and improved quality, but now I have some decent shots of the game-action, I’m reconsidering its role.

I was going to display the footage “as is”, and then considered editing the game to the beat. I am now giving careful consideration to hand painting out each graphic cell and animating the game to follow the beat, tanks dancing around and bullets flying in sync.

It might look quite good, but it’s gonna hurt.

Video: Sky Attack (update)

I managed to hook the Tomytronic up to my 4-track and get a few minutes recorded gameplay out of it for Creeping Jaw Society to use.

Here’s a snippet of the original recording.

Video: Sky Attack (update)

I managed to hook the Tomytronic up to my 4-track and get a few minutes recorded gameplay out of it for Creeping Jaw Society to use.

Here’s a snippet of the original recording.

Provinces is essentially a year long project, the aim of
which being to produce a new piece of music, once every
calendar month, that focuses on a particular province of
China, and highlights a story from that province. Thus
far Xinjiang, Guangdong and Beijing have been covered.
This month, Qinghai, the province bordering Gansu,
Tibet etc. is the focus, or more specifically a man
currently imprisoned in Xining, the state capital.
There is some crossover here with another Silk and Dogs
project titled 'Laogai' that will start up again in the
summer, focusing on the use of forced labour camps
(Re-education through labour) in China. Visits the main
Silk and Dogs site for more details and links.

As a precursor to Laogai, this 4 minute composition
features a Tibetan singing bowl reverberating through
numerous filters in a 10 x 10 room. The idea is that it
reflects the confinement and inescapable decay of
the physical and mental environment; it is a small,
short piece, and in no way does justice to the thousands
imprisoned on exaggerated charges in the People's
Republic. Rather it is designed to create a moment for
reflection and consideration. It is also a tool for
highlighting one particular case, that of Dhondup
Wangchen, a Tibetan filmmaker who was sentenced to six
years in prison for filming interviews with Tibetans
about their hopes and frustrations of living under
Chinese rule. He was sentenced on Dec 28th, in Xinjing,
Qinghai, without the knowledge of his family and
friends, and has until January 7th to appeal the
conviction. Rather than my simplified ramblings, here
are some links to the Reporters Without Borders site,
where you can read the back story to the case, and
Leaving Fear Behind, a site featuring some of Dhondup
Wangchen's work. Finally, I would urge people to sign
the Writers Without Borders petition for his release.

- Qinghai (Right Click to Download)

Links

- Sign the Petition
- Reporters Without Borders
- Leaving Fear Behind
- New Ghosts, Old Ghosts: Prisons and Labour Reform Camps 
  in China
- The Laogai Research Foundation

Today, Lee Broughall contributes his own uniquely ordered
thoughts on The Death of The Album...

“This week, I are been mostly listening to David Bowie.”

Conclusion

Every time I return to the following collection of sentences, questions and notes on this topic, I find it less clear to understand what the aim is. To summarise, it seems that I have only listened to four albums this year – none of them for the first time. So I couldn’t fully participate in Spokes’ request to advocate an album first heard in 2009. As a result, I appear to be attempting to outline how the format of the album has changed and is changing. Firstly, I have asserted that albums are borne of technical restrictions such as the size of discs and lengths of tapes requiring a certain number of tracks to be heard in a certain order. Then, I go on to assert that some of these technical restrictions continue to apply to digital music production and distribution in the form of limited connection speeds and physical storage capacity. Whilst such limitations gradually recede, it is individual tracks that will ultimately flourish in the legal download distribution model.

Online distribution methods such as iTunes naturally compete with more physical forms of music. Most of my music listening is now accomplished via Spotify, to expose me to unfamiliar albums – primarily mainstream offerings that I have not wished to purchase. At some distant future point, CDs will likely be replaced. By physically smaller, higher storage capacity USB Flash drives, or by 10TB memory cards, or by an all-encompassing Internet. Without the comforting restriction of 74 minutes on a shiny silver disc, will albums evolve?

The whole topic is too vastly multifaceted for a complete argument to be addressed. It needs discussion and a comprehensible train of thought.

Introduction

For a (former) musician, my listening habits have become stagnant. I stopped purchasing CDs around the time Napster, Soulseek and Bit Torrent started gaining momentum, though that’s not to say my downloading habits have been particularly virulent. The concept of the ‘album’, as a curated collection of music, has become less essential.

2009 avoided furnishing my ears with new music. Four albums rotated consistently:
Elbow’s ‘Seldom Seen Kid’
Kings of Leon’s ‘Because of the Times’
Ryan Adams and the Cardinals’ ‘Jacksonville City Nights’
David Bowie’s ‘Hunky Dory’

Rather than engaging with a new album, this article converses on the death of ‘the album’. I am neither inclined nor willing to advocate either side of a potential argument. It’s the possible death of ‘the album’, rather than The Death of The Album, in categories of popularity and quality.

The Rambling Saggy Middle Nonsense

The distribution of music is hierarchical. A variety of materials are brought together in varying configurations to create instruments. Instruments are played in varying configurations with varying structures to create songs, tracks and tunes. Tracks are structured in varying configurations to form albums. Albums themselves are established conventions.

Rules do not exist to qualify the content of an ‘album’ beyond a collection of tracks. Rather, technical restrictions have shaped its accepted face. The physical format of vinyl discs, tapes and CDs indicates a particular order for the tracks and defines a finite length. Similarly, the process of music digitisation and Internet distribution relies on physical storage and connection speeds. The connection speeds in 1999 restricted music downloads from the Internet to individual tracks and singles. Whilst infrastructure improves to enable album downloads, increasing regulation of the download market to defeat an acceptance of the ability to download for free may suggest that the digital download/purchase of individual tracks (the best tracks on an album) will prevail.

Albums epitomise a battle for power and control between producers and consumers. The production of a music collection with inherent technical restrictions gives the artist the ability to control how the consumer listens to the contents. The continuing development of consumer technology and affordable equipment, from reel-to-reel and cassette tapes to recordable CDs and mp3 players, enables the listener to carve up and curate their own collections. The same technology that has restricted, and therefore created, the album could be employed by artists to retain specific features whilst space, quality and speed issues become less of a burden. Technology could be developed in order to force a collection of individual tracks to play in a certain order without a Playlist.

Supposing albums are becoming less relevant as a format, what are the alternatives?

Is the issue of sound quality relevant when considering if albums will continue to be popular?

Are mix tapes and CDs classed as albums?

Does it really matter?

Largely Ignored Outline

1. Intro.
Have only listened to three albums
‘death’ in certain senses: popularity, quality, sales, listening to as wholes
2. What is an album? What is its appeal?
a. Curated collection of music, designed to be heard in a specific order.
b. Physical collection of music, accompanied by other artforms/artwork
c. Defined by technological constraints, eg. Size of CD/Vinyl/Tape
3. What are the threats to the future of albums?
a. Dilution as a result of availability of music via the Internet
b. Internet radio and ’shuffle’ function and Apple’s ‘Genius’ shuffle mode
c. Balancing control of the album between listener/artist/record company
d. Mix tapes/CDs
4. Why will the album continue to be popular?
a. Mix tapes/CDs – self curation
b. Question of the audio quality of mp3 compared with CD or vinyl
c. Internet provides new approaches to the album concept – curated collections of music not subject to physical and technological limitations. Future technology could force certain tracks to play in order.
d. Longer individual tracks could create mini-albums or EPs
5. Summary
a. Why have I only listened to three albums in 2009?
b. How are / Which of the above points relevant?

Other Notes

- Dilution of the concept of ‘the album’ via mix tapes, mix CDs, mp3 players, and downloads
- Does dilution = death?
- Other forms of dilution – Polaroid film… Now no longer in production.
- Photo film generally being phased out in favour of the convenience of digital technologies.
- Quality of film still far greater than that of similarly priced digital devices…
- Does the quality question affect the debate on audio generally? An acceptable trade off in quality/price?

Tomorrow's largely unrelated final contribution, will not be
a review or discussion, but Silk and Dog's January Provinces
contribution, this time focusing on Tibet.

This is an idea I’ve had for a while, but am yet to act upon.

On a drive around Birmingham, I passed a billboard in disuse. It had the remnants of previous advertisements spattered across it like a jagged collage of colour, as well as the bare back of the board, some steel, some rust.

The mix of colours from the different campaigns was quite beautiful and thought the board should be preserved as it was, far better than any commercial message that could be plastered on its face.

I began noticing more billboards without any message on them, each one unique in its composition of tattered paper.

It occurred to me to start taking photographs of them and start a collection.

I haven’t been able to as yet because:

a) I haven’t had a camera on me when I’ve spotted them
b) I have been on my way to somewhere (like work) and have been unable to stop
c) I have been unsure of exactly how to capture them

I had originally figured they should be shot in a very straight, neutral fashion, much like art in a gallery is shot for postcards. But I don’t really possess the means to do this as billboards are quite large and quite high, so I don’t have the height and due to their proximity to busy roads, I can’t gain the distance necessary to take photos like this.

I may resort to wide angled close ups, if at all.

This is an idea I’ve had for a while, but am yet to act upon.

On a drive around Birmingham, I passed a billboard in disuse. It had the remnants of previous advertisements spattered across it like a jagged collage of colour, as well as the bare back of the board, some steel, some rust.

The mix of colours from the different campaigns was quite beautiful and thought the board should be preserved as it was, far better than any commercial message that could be plastered on its face.

I began noticing more billboards without any message on them, each one unique in its composition of tattered paper.

It occurred to me to start taking photographs of them and start a collection.

I haven’t been able to as yet because:

a) I haven’t had a camera on me when I’ve spotted them
b) I have been on my way to somewhere (like work) and have been unable to stop
c) I have been unsure of exactly how to capture them

I had originally figured they should be shot in a very straight, neutral fashion, much like art in a gallery is shot for postcards. But I don’t really possess the means to do this as billboards are quite large and quite high, so I don’t have the height and due to their proximity to busy roads, I can’t gain the distance necessary to take photos like this.

I may resort to wide angled close ups, if at all.

Today I'm offering a diminutive review of Kevin Drumm's 
Imperial Horizon:

‘This album, which is a 64 minute track named Just Lay Down and Forget It, could be viewed as a follow up to 2008’s excellent Imperial Distortion, or rather an elongated post script that develops ID’s later tracks to their logical conclusion. It is not my ‘Album of the Year’, but one that I think people should take some time to get acquainted with. The single track here, along with We All Get It In The End from the aforementioned previous album, has a distinct filmic quality to it, which is obviously a challenge to sustain over such length. I was reminded of an unpicked and extended Badalamenti piece from Mulholland Drive, or perhaps the Philip Jeck track Wholesome, though this sort of simplistic comparison does a disservice to a piece of work that clearly took a long time to develop and produce. The problem with much ambient music is the attention it requires (the term suggests the opposite of what it needs); this piece needs an hour plus to morph, merge, expand, but many people I suspect will drift off, or skip ahead to hear how the track changes. I would urge listeners not to do this. It defeats the point. Put aside the time for it.

To condense the sound in to a few descriptive phrases seems somewhat redundant but nevertheless: perambulating bass sweeps, crackling synth tones, shimmering spaces, coalescing textural shifts. IH is unlike the noisier Drumm works people may be familiar with, and is an impressive display of control, tonal progression and development. It is simultaneously grounded by the lower notes, and ethereal, wandering, drifting in upper registers. This album is best experienced on good quality headphones, so as to pick up the subtle tonal shifts and warping distended oscillations of the track.

My initial listening experience was unsettling, owing to the presence of a tune I could not place, evolving slowly over the first five minutes. Oddly, I’ve identified that nagging spectre as my own ‘York Is Burning‘ composition from 2004. The similarities aren’t that massive, but it was enough to remind me. I played the two simultaneously to reinforce the differences…it’s probably best not to waste the time. Essentially I’m saying ‘give it a go’, but put some effort in to it. There are rich audio rewards to be had.

As a postscript of my own, it’s worth doing a search on the story of Christine Chubbuck, who features heavily on Imperial Distortion (both on the record and in the liner notes), and lurks beneath the surface of this release. Just don’t try and look for the video.’

Tomorrow, Broughall discusses The Death of The Album...

At last, Final Cut Express arrived yesterday. I tried it out last night and it handles the footage perfectly, though I was rather cautious over the differences between Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro.

I’ve been working in Pro for around 5-6 years now and never even considered Express as an option until my version of Pro became obsolete. The good news is that so far there is very little difference between the two. I’m just anticipating getting to the end of an edit and realising a particularly important button or function has been removed. My balls sweat with anxiety.

Getting back to Sky Attack. I want the video to serve dual purposes – as background visuals to a live musical performance, but also as a stand alone piece edited to its own sound track.

To this end I have asked Creeping Jaw Society to provide a musical soundtrack of “pop-song-length” based on the noises the Tomytronic produces.

This means I have to record its audio clearly with as little interference as possible.

My options are either:

Place a microphone next to the built in speaker and play the game

1. May have a lot of background noise caused by the movement of the handset housing
2. May sound tinny

or

Rewire the sound unit to record directly to my 4-track recorder

1. May not work
2. May cause irreparable damage to the unit.

I opt for rewiring it.
My proposed plan in visual form:

At last, Final Cut Express arrived yesterday. I tried it out last night and it handles the footage perfectly, though I was rather cautious over the differences between Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro.

I’ve been working in Pro for around 5-6 years now and never even considered Express as an option until my version of Pro became obsolete. The good news is that so far there is very little difference between the two. I’m just anticipating getting to the end of an edit and realising a particularly important button or function has been removed. My balls sweat with anxiety.

Getting back to Sky Attack. I want the video to serve dual purposes – as background visuals to a live musical performance, but also as a stand alone piece edited to its own sound track.

To this end I have asked Creeping Jaw Society to provide a musical soundtrack of “pop-song-length” based on the noises the Tomytronic produces.

This means I have to record its audio clearly with as little interference as possible.

My options are either:

Place a microphone next to the built in speaker and play the game

1. May have a lot of background noise caused by the movement of the handset housing
2. May sound tinny

or

Rewire the sound unit to record directly to my 4-track recorder

1. May not work
2. May cause irreparable damage to the unit.

I opt for rewiring it.
My proposed plan in visual form:

Today's contribution comes from D.Lippard...

‘Nostalgia is a common trope amongst purveyors of electronic music. From celebrated veterans Boards of Canada, through Tricky’s ‘Maxinquaye’ to the less canonised (but more recent) Ghost Box roster or Mordant Music, there is a clear aesthetic that has developed in the synth-led spectrum for wistful, forlorn melodies and/or a cut & paste style bricolage approach to directly referencing the past via the use of sampling technologies. Even some of the earliest users of synthesizers from the progressive rock of the 70’s often laced their lyrical content (admittedly mixed in their success and reception) with a longing for lost innocence and a return to childlike wonder. Despite this long history, nothing prepared me for a record as intimately distant or alienatingly personal as the latest record by Telefon Tel Aviv, entitled ‘Immolate Yourself’.

To immolate is to offer the self up as a sacrifice, most often associated with suicide by setting oneself on fire. This is an achingly poignant title, since on previous records Telefon Tel Aviv were a two piece. ‘Immolate Yourself’ is the result of a grief-stricken Joshua Eustis, who has lost his writing partner Charles Cooper in mysterious circumstances, with reports ranging from suicide to accidental overdose.

Understandably, then, nostalgia plays a huge part in deciphering the subtext of this album. In a similar way to how Robert Wyatt’s masterpiece magnum opus ‘Rock Bottom’ (another album about loss and the struggle to find oneself again following a traumatic experience) begins with a swooning and hazy evaporation of traditional song form, the opening track on ‘Immolate Yourself’ (entitled ‘The Birds’) is the stand-out track and sets the tone for the emotions evoked throughout the procession of songs which follow. Trilling layered keyboards repeat a five-chord sequence throughout, all pitch-bent and woozy, complementing the breathy looped vocal line – “the Birds remind me of what we made/missed”. Instantly, both the lyrics and arrangement evoke the nostalgic element which anyone familiar with the group before this album and anticipated its release would be aware of. The song is highly reminiscent of the club hit this year by Deadmau5, a single called ‘I Remember’. However the pithy lyrics in ‘The Birds’ are far more restrained than the verse-bridge-chorus structure of it’s twin sister record, and serve as an excellent counterpoint to Deadmau5’s euphoric sense of interdependence between two close parties since the prevalent image is one of isolation and introspection.

This isolated introspection is a theme which then continues. The chords become sharper, more Gothic, and the rhythms alternate between jittery and pounding, which both serve to call a smacked-out 90’s-era Depeche Mode to mind. Vocal lines are either sparse or indecipherable/incoherent, but delivered in cantillating waves, saturated in reverb and echo. The sense of distance garnered by these production techniques magnifies the undeniable loneliness at the heart of Eustis.

Interestingly, Eustis decided to ditch the digital laptop-based production style which had formed the basis of his collaborative work with Cooper in favour of analogue equipment to make ‘Immolate Yourself’. This is probably why the album feels like a rock record, whereas they were very much in the electronica lineage as a duo.

It is certainly structured like a rock record, and this fact in itself is a clear move towards the home listening ‘album’ as self-contained artefact rather than a compilation of songs, but the sonics of the record also indicate that this may be a commentary on the state of electronic music today. The heavy reliance on shimmering keyboard textures throughout read like an homage to the golden electro-house sound of 2004-05, when the Get Physical and Bpitch Control labels from Berlin (Booka Shade, DJ T, Modeselektor and Ellen Allien in particular) progressed in their status as zeitgeist trend-setters. Clubs and parties in those years seemed to be populated by truly open and joyful revellers, at once mesmerised and exhilarated by the fresh blood that the Berlin scene had transfused into a previous sterile techno climate. Since that sound has been appropriated into the more mainstream ‘electro’ moniker which still lingers now, and diluted copycat records began to appear in the charts (examples being ‘Put Your Hands Up for Detroit’, Sam Sparro’s ‘Black & Gold’, David Guetta’s butchering of a classic Tocadisco remix with a sentimental Hed Kandi-crowd-pleasing full vocal) and the ‘Indie’ crowd decided to start taking ecstasy at the behest of Kele from Bloc Party, those same haunts now seem to be less a place of wonder and adventure than frazzled cattle-markets smelling of stale beer and amyl nitrate, where clubbers congregate just to make lazy passes at members of the opposite sex. ‘Immolate Yourself’ appears to pay homage to the golden Berlin sound by faithfully replicating it’s complex emotional depth, while also pointing a finger in the direction which the sound must inevitably take now in order to retain it’s magnetism.

It is this impression – that things that seemed fresh and full of life one minute can decay the next – that ties Eustis’ personal trauma with the ear candy of the production values to hand. It is like a template in hollowing out the form of dance music, so often energetically pulsating and openly about debauchery, physical contact and libidinal desire (a great example being John Tejada’s ‘Sweat on the Walls’). Those misty-eyed keyboards in particular dissipate through the speakers like tendrils emanating from a blind, crouching, lonely child as if trying just to reach something external to himself, to at least prove that there exists something beyond his alienated being. Yet all they end up actually touching is empty space, receptors for the dry ice of the dancefloor rather than the writhing bodies which populate it. ‘Immolate Yourself’ evokes perfectly the sense of alienation that occurs when the lonely mourner wanders from dancefloor to dancefloor seeking salvation, but only to find distance and isolation from others who seem so close physically but are in a different emotional galaxy. ‘

In tomorrow's piece I'll be reviewing Kevin Drumm's
Imperial Horizon. On Saturday, Broughall deconstructs
the task, reforming it as 'The Death of The Album?'.
The week will conclude on Sunday by deviating
completely; Silk and Dogs January 'Provinces' contrib-
ution.

Proposed plan to stabilise game image on camera: strap the game to the camera.

See if it works…

Proposed plan to stabilise game image on camera: strap the game to the camera.

See if it works…

Further development

In order to remove the obstruction of the eye piece, I began to dismantle the headset.

I found the inside is quite appealing in it’s own right, and decided to include it somehow in the video. In order to keep it upright during shooting, I glue-gunned it to the table and shone a light from behind (as is required).

There was too much ambient light in my living room, so I dragged the table into the spare room and on my way I tripped on a light box type thing that I had stolen from work a year ago. It turns out it works as a pretty nice prop, so I used it as a base instead of the table.

Most enjoyable. Reminiscent of a Chris Cunningham video I feel.

Trouble is now, I can’t play the game live as my hands will be shot, and gluing the handset in place will look messy on this new ‘clean’ set.

I filmed the gameplay separately in close up, now with the intention of compositing it onto the midshot of the handset. It turns out, without the eyepiece in place, the gaming screen is actually split into two fields, from slightly different perspectives.

At first I thought this was going to make it more difficult to film, but then it became part of the aesthetic. There is also the added benefit of potentially viewing in 3D for those who are good at stereograms, which I am.

After loading the test clips onto my Mac, I found my software was refusing to play ball and after 3 days of research, testing different setups and pestering all my video associates for answers, it became apparent my software was simply outdated and needed updating to handle the files. Great.

So while I work on an upgrade, here is an example of how the composited video will look.

I just need to find a way to keep the game screen more stable during play as it’s slight movement is a dead giveaway that it’s a composite image…

Hmmm…

Further development

In order to remove the obstruction of the eye piece, I began to dismantle the headset.

I found the inside is quite appealing in it’s own right, and decided to include it somehow in the video. In order to keep it upright during shooting, I glue-gunned it to the table and shone a light from behind (as is required).

There was too much ambient light in my living room, so I dragged the table into the spare room and on my way I tripped on a light box type thing that I had stolen from work a year ago. It turns out it works as a pretty nice prop, so I used it as a base instead of the table.

Most enjoyable. Reminiscent of a Chris Cunningham video I feel.

Trouble is now, I can’t play the game live as my hands will be shot, and gluing the handset in place will look messy on this new ‘clean’ set.

I filmed the gameplay separately in close up, now with the intention of compositing it onto the midshot of the handset. It turns out, without the eyepiece in place, the gaming screen is actually split into two fields, from slightly different perspectives.

At first I thought this was going to make it more difficult to film, but then it became part of the aesthetic. There is also the added benefit of potentially viewing in 3D for those who are good at stereograms, which I am.

After loading the test clips onto my Mac, I found my software was refusing to play ball and after 3 days of research, testing different setups and pestering all my video associates for answers, it became apparent my software was simply outdated and needed updating to handle the files. Great.

So while I work on an upgrade, here is an example of how the composited video will look.

I just need to find a way to keep the game screen more stable during play as it’s slight movement is a dead giveaway that it’s a composite image…

Hmmm…

I’ve been ‘out’ of video for around two years with the exception of the odd dabble, largely consisting of visuals for musical performances.

I started making quick visuals based on old Atari games, partly for their retro-nostalgic appeal, but also because of their simple visual beauty. This was relatively easy to achieve via games romz and hooking my old consoles up to my Mac. These were usually rushed affairs and of poor quality, so it occurred to me to start working on some now, to avoid a rush later.

My cousin had a handheld game that amazed me as a kid, due to it being based on Tron and being 3D. And it being the 80’s. The game was Sky Attack by Tomytronic.

I bought one from eBay relatively cheaply and in pretty good condition and did some test shots on it to see how easy it would be to turn into a video for visuals.

Here are some sample visuals:

It turns out it’s harder to shoot than I first suspected as the eye piece is somewhat of an obstruction. It’s also difficult to hold the game still, while playing it and filming it.

Hmmm

I’ve been ‘out’ of video for around two years with the exception of the odd dabble, largely consisting of visuals for musical performances.

I started making quick visuals based on old Atari games, partly for their retro-nostalgic appeal, but also because of their simple visual beauty. This was relatively easy to achieve via games romz and hooking my old consoles up to my Mac. These were usually rushed affairs and of poor quality, so it occurred to me to start working on some now, to avoid a rush later.

My cousin had a handheld game that amazed me as a kid, due to it being based on Tron and being 3D. And it being the 80’s. The game was Sky Attack by Tomytronic.

I bought one from eBay relatively cheaply and in pretty good condition and did some test shots on it to see how easy it would be to turn into a video for visuals.

Here are some sample visuals:

It turns out it’s harder to shoot than I first suspected as the eye piece is somewhat of an obstruction. It’s also difficult to hold the game still, while playing it and filming it.

Hmmm

Comic 2 Brown Notebook - Late 2006 Kumamoto, Japan

Comic 2 Brown Notebook - Late 2006 Kumamoto, Japan

Comic 1 Brown Notebook - Late 2006 Kumamoto, Japan

Another blogsite, another blog.

This one is about all the ideas I get in the day and fail to make into anything tangible. I will of course keep this blog posted with any progress I actually make. Hopefully.

So yes, any ideas I have or any projects I initiate will hopefully go on here in some form or other. Either as a way of me keeping track of things, or as a way of just letting people know what I’m supposed to be up to.

I’m hoping my projects will cover the realms of:

• Video
• Music
• Illustration
• Photography
• Possibly Comedy

Anyone who wants to collaborate is free to offer.

Works inspired by new band “Lottery in Babylon”

I’ve not done any real watercolors since perhaps sixth form. It’s nice to do something that’s not digital. After an experiment recently with acrylic I confirmed a thought I had years ago once at six form. Acrylic paint is shit. I can understand why they force six formers to use it. It just can’t be combined with much else than a canvas. Semi forcing students to stick to the curriculum of Sketching » Life Drawing »  Final piece in acrylic.

I managed to the only person in a class of twenty to refuse to do this and created retarded burger sculptures, ugly close ups of fruit painted with poster paint, screen printing, charcoal etchings and finally the first ever digital art final piece that my school had ever accepted as a final piece.

…all just because I could not stand or get along with acrylic. I don’t see what I did as any kind of rebellion or thinking outside the box as I was uncouth and uncultured in what I did without any real informed artistic talent, but it’s nice to think I was “different” back then even if it was because I was generally just a difficult person.

“Golden Snake”

“LU1 3RZ”

About Meek Tiger

From the theschoolofunthink.com:

Meek Tiger (the origin of the name is a story for some future date) sounds like disaster movies, opaque and dimly lit hollow caverns, the noises made by heavy objects impacting against brittle ones (and vice versa) – imagine, if you will, that all geologic sedimentation observable in the world today was actually a product of the US government performing a seance, resurrecting Alberto Giacometti in1987, and getting him to paint all the patterns in by hand – then claiming they had always been there, and proceeding to use this as an argument for creationism.

The title of his debut release, SyNkr07iK N3kr0N124t10n splits the difference between synchronic necrotization and necrotic synchronisation: the timed and simultaneous death of all life, or a snapshot of the death of one organism. (The School of Unthink would like to be noted, however, that misreadings using other words, such as syncretic, synthetic, and Necronomicon, remain both welcome and encouraged.) Copies are available: contact daniel@vstmrecords.co.uk .

Meek Tiger explores dub soundscapes in search of a sense of self, joining the front lines of the sonic conflict that currently characterises community dance music.  Multiple sound sources — guitars, keyboards, samples, pure accidents of MIDI programming — jostle against each other, struggling to make their voices heard in the mix.

About the Artwork/album cover

Daniel is fellow member of the school of Unthink trusted me to re-create from his sketch what the album cover of his albulm “Meek Tiger - SyNkr07iK N3kr0N124t10n” should look like. From my own listening experience I devised a textured and warm artwork, I wanted to put across how surreal and warped the music was but at the same time how it seemed to follow a linear plot with pathways, scenes and meeting points.

The city forms a paradox looking inviting and unhabitable in the background, whilst in the foreground I wanted the cryptic clues given to me (which to this day I still don’t understand) to be very prominent and static within the artwork.

This artwork was quite possibly one of the longest and most detailed pieces I have ever made with a photoshop layer count of over 300 layers! Shadows within shadows and very finely cut, warped and manipulated objects that I tried to give some realism to and somehow map as a collage to fit into a very unrealistic photo of a large lake.

I really like how I’ve tried in my minds eye to create a photo realstic version of the sketch but failed miserably but at the same time created something with the sonic elements of the music and it’s surealism that do not fit together quite right but seem to make this sonic map and drawing that I feel perfectly aligns to the story and music.

I’m actually really proud of this artwork and I still to this day feel it’s one of my best!

Sketch by Daniel Lippard of the potential album cover.

CD Package photos and description

Cd package includes Arigato pak case, green watercolour hand painted.

Front artwork – glossy full colour photo print

Back artwork – Hand Calligraphy and spray-painted Godzilla footprint.

Cd-R with inkjet green Godzilla footprint.

Linear notes 12 page green booklet 100 gsm, staple bound.

Fistfull of Wistfullness

This artwork is for the net label release of “Fistfull of Wistfullness”. The label in releasing this work is called “We Are Another Us” run by Mark Burton better known as Oblio.

The artwork was a collaboration between myself and artist SuzyBee.

From mindtours.co.uk:

Suzybee is originally from London and now lives in the beautiful countryside of Wales. With a background in painting and fine art, she has explored the combination of art and music ever since her first experiences of dancing to techno had a powerful effect on her life.

She founded the Mindtours record label in 2000 as an outlet for the music of her friends, and became involved in organising dance events, providing backdrops and decor. This led to experimenting in hand-drawn animations, video and effects, and using VJ software to fully explore possibilities in the audio-visual imagination. She now VJs live with Steevio’s music, and continues to create paintings and portraits.

—

Suzybee artwork can be found at her gallery page.

Here is the original illustration that Suzy provided us to create the cover:

Here are transcripts of the artwork process between myself Suzy and Mark.

Mark:

For me, the direct experience of listening to music is important. But I can see why it’s a sensitive topic (especially when trying to assemble a collective interpretation of a personal experience). Also it’s not always easy to find a personal connection… it took me ages and ages to listen to Dan’s record without any preformed opinions. Only a few weeks ago I managed to directly connect with it.

Anyways, I think I have personally listened to these tracks enough times to have a decent handle on what they mean to me. I will say a few things here, but I totally don’t want to influence too much how the tracks would make you feel. Maybe though it’s hepful to know of my personal experience with these sounds.

It has this really childish innocence in some places. Obviously ‘Kidonamerrygoround’, but also on ‘What Do you hear’ and floating around in other places too. There is a kind of dreamy wistfulness (‘If Ui B 1’ and obviously ‘Somnus’). Sometimes a bit druggy and swampy too… obviously (‘Nitrous Frenzy’) but more often it’s kind of in the background with more uplifting and joyeous sounds at the front.

The tracks are kinda rough sounding but I think that adds to their charm. I think it’s quite a personal sounding record, maybe one to listen to on your own or in close company. I like how lots of the instrumentations are kind of similar on different tracks… it feels like quite a complete journey.

‘Oath of Mutual Protection’ reminds me a lot of fallen seaside towns in Essex where I was at Uni (and so was the musician). The whole thing someow brings up the ghosts of the once majestic seaside elegance with powerful buildings and rides and piers. i don’t know if that was his intentions for the track. Maybe it’s just that the birds singing set my mind off on a trail of filling in blanks.

‘Sugar Sugar’ is cover of a commercial pop record I think. I guess there’s a sense of humour in turning it into a huge wall of distorted sound.

OK hopefully this is kinda helpful. Don’t wanna go to crazy but maybe these words might be kinda useful.

i hope you are well guys.

Mark

——————-

Suzy

Hi guys,

Here’s some drawings I did relating to the Fistful of Wistfulness release.
If you do use them, I imagine Robin using them in a collage with bits from seaside photos and images of funfair-type lights or something like that? -I could send some images (photos of mine & images from the net) to throw some suggestions your way?

The music evoked for me feelings of peacefulness, nostalgia, melancholy, happy memories, definately wistful, perhaps a deserted beach, early evening, dreamy, also images of people enjoying themselves outside but in the past -childhood memories perhaps?

Please see what you think of the drawings & if you can see how you might use them.

Cheers, Suzz xx

————-

Robin

Thanks for the positive comments about the artwork I’m really happy that you like the images and we have found a nice way of combining our individual styles and elements together to create something that gives both of our worth more depth.

Best regards.

Robin

On behalf of Silk and Dogs:

“As of this very month, October it is, Silk and Dogs will be undertaking a year long project titled the ‘Provinces’. On a non specified day each month, Silk and Dogs will release a track of no specific length, constructed from sounds (field recordings, samples, misappropriated instruments) recorded in a specific province of China. Each track will be accompanied by brief elucidation on the notable (or as some say ‘notorious’) story associated with the track and province in question.

The aim of the project is simple; to highlight past events that may have been forgotten/ignored. The tracks will not be overtly political, as they are designed not as comment but as observation; the accompanying media however may well take a political stance.

The first track, released this week at the Silk and Dogs website is titled ‘Xinjiang’. It focuses on a theatre fire in Karamay in December 1994, in which 325 people were killed. The second track will be released at a non specified point in November.”

Test

The culmination of this year’s School of Unthink activities (aside from the possibility of a few performances here and there later on in 2009) is the Dislocation Festival, which this year takes place at The Old Shop on the 21st and 22nd of August. I wanted to use this post to share a few details and ideas about this years festival, which don’t necessarily represent those of the whole School. They are obviously ill thought out meanderings…

Luton is a lot of things, shithole of the South as some people like to call it, but a cultural Mecca it is not. As with many medium sized industrial towns in a post-industrial age, there is a feeling of malaise in the terraced streets surrounding the centre. The combination of a largely indifferent populace (many of them students who can get their better focused kicks in the capital) and an Arts Centre run by the council, does little to encourage anything but vague dreams of what the town used to be…a manufacturing hub that entertained The Beatles and produced Paul Young…and confused splutters in to more recent musical trends. A high bar no doubt. We also had Faye Tozer of Steps a little way up the road, and Kenneth Williams was evacuated here during the Second World War. We have a carnival once a year (tomorrow in fact) and the rest of the time is fallow. There are some glimmers that things might change in the future with the opening of the Centre for Carnival Arts, but this is sadly a fairly narrow contribution to be of universal appeal to both artists and audiences. Any way, I don’t want this devolving in to a pointless complain sheet about a place (that as a resident for overlong) I have no ability to comment on without the necessary objective distance…

Essentially, we thought we’d try and add something to a small, stitled debate. Last year, when we were labouring beneath the VSTM moniker, we decided to put on a festival of experimental music that would hopefully unify the disparate work we had been doing with the individual music nights we’d put on in the town over the previous year. The idea was to bring a selection of exciting musicians together and let them perform to an audience who would otherwise not have heard what was going on in this particular field (experimental music is of course a pretty broad church but still…). I personally expected little, owing to the general disinterest shown at these earlier events. Thankfully I was wrong. We had a grand turnout, and managed to highlight some of the interesting music on offer in and around Luton, as well as further afield. Briefly, the line up included Wounded Knee, C Joynes, Family Battlesnake, Dead Rat Orchestra and many more fabulous acts. We had bits in the paper and magazines and even a piece on local TV news which was all a welcome surprise. This year we will see if it is possible to create any sort of legacy from the event, to see if there is momentum enough to make it an annual occurence. I am still unconvinced, being the pessimist that I am, but I have been proved wrong many times.

This year’s festival is based entirely at The Old Shop, Justin and Neil from Filmstock’s wonderfully malleable space above Carphone Warehouse. All leather chairs, amiable hosts and old pinball machines. A perfect location, in the centre of town, where passing shoppers can hear it all and possibly even wander in. The line up is coming together nicely, and will be released via the official Dislocation Festival website over the coming months, with the first announcement made this Thursday. Tickets are priced reasonably, to cover our costs and artists costs…there is no profit in it for us, we just want to give people the chance to hear some interesting music in their own backyards as it were. Head over to www.dislocation-festival.co.uk for more information about it all.

My own feelings about the festival are a little disordered, but I would like to share them, as messy and unhelpful as they may be; there are parts of you that are incredibly disheartened at the lack of interest people have in the music we put on, but then it seems equally foolish to assume people will, or should enjoy what you enjoy. The idea for me is to just put the thing on, and make it available, and see what happens. This is largely what happened last year and it worked. This year we will refine it. We are splitting film and music to give each a day to thrive. I think this is a sensible approach and will allow for some interesting juxtapositions in the choices of musicians we have made to accompany both the films and the all day music bit. The other issue is my rapidly approaching move away from the area to the verdant North, which actually happens three days after the festival. My priorities are changing; I think ahead to the work I am undertaking (space, place and the haunting qualities of schizophobia it seems) and potential opportunities I have as a musician with this move. I am aiming to produce an aural map of a sonic underground, of disused places and people, of the vanishing areas they populate, or those spaces which never existed. While putting together the line up and the additional aspects of this years festival, I am already thinking about what will happen next year, and the ideas and explorations that could frame a third Dislocation, or indeed audio adventures in a different (dis) location. This year’s festival sort of decides a direction for me, depending on its success or otherwise. I should avoid such forward planning…

Most importantly, what I should be thinking about are the great contributions people are going to make this year, have already made even…the rest of the Unthink team who are constructing the films and the art and the words (and generally all the important bits), the musicians we’re inviting down, up and around, and the people that are going to come along hopefully. Further developments will be brushed aside for now.

Disorganised ramblings terminate here

At many of our events in the past with “VSTM Records” and now “The school of Unthink” when trying to describe our work to the outsider, on what exactly we are into and the type of music we create. The easiest way has been for us to lump our artwork, bands and style into genre’s. These genres are often more cryptic to the casual music observer than the music itself. To stop continuing to confuse our potential audience, listing these cryptic genres such as; “electro-acoustic”, “Neo Folk”, and “glitch” this and further articles will explain what exactly is the genre of music in question. So this article should be a good place to start if you want to know more about noise.

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What is Noise? and why would you use it to make music?

In common use, the word noise means an unwanted sound or noise pollution. It is a communication disable-r, a message halter and demeans meaning. In the context of music, it’s the sounds that are normally filtered out of recordings or the unwanted feedback that most music artists avoid in there recordings so there records can have clarity. In the nature of the avant-garde/experimental music and sound arts, artists and musicians will often use noise as an element to create the effect of cacophony, dissonance, atonality, indeterminacy, and repetition to great effect. Noise music could described to have a similarity to outsider art. This is because noise music can potentially be made by anyone, without the necessarily background to music to learn the scales, rules, check-sheets, tickboxes and regulations necessary. As often artists are not trained or have no formal musical training. Saying that it does not help would be silly as many well known musicians and acts dabble in the genre using there training to make potentially more coherent pieces.

I personally got into noise music relatively later than most. My first experience when I became aware of noise or subversive editing was listening to Steve Reich’s “it’s gonna to rain” at university. As my music tastes expanded over time I was drawn rather to sounds than lyrics. I preferred odder structures and ambiance to traditional music. My world was turned upside down in 2005 after a operation for a tumor in my inner and middle ear. I was left with little hearing and extreme tinnitus to this day. Even though it is without a doubt an awful thing to have for the rest of your life, I found my tinnitus to be somewhat an individual map of background material to some of my creative processes. My tinnitus has many states, one of which is where it beats rhythmically to my heartbeat with a African woman chanting something to the nonsensical word “Romtibus” in my left ear and ongoing but sometimes minimal war siren in my right ear. Noise music sometimes feels to me, like listening to the tinnitus of other peoples heads. Something that can never be possible, so the task of outputting that deeply embedded, inner but invisible tinitus to be heard by another feels to me comforting and an experience of really understanding and connecting with another’s psyche.

The following is a not indispensable guide but an informative list of artists and albums which I feel would be a great place to start if you wished to explore the genre. These are further grouped into categories to help describe their specific sound. These categories are not restrictive of the artists full repertoire of works but just the sound based on the album/s recommended. The list is a little bit n the extreme sense of the word noise, not essentially noise rock, avant electronica or variations of sound sculpture but sheer tinnitus educing NOISE.

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Harsh Noise

Harsh noise music, is as it sounds harsh to the ears. Sometimes listening to this type of music is more akin to a torture than anything resembling enjoyable music. It consists of the most aggressive static, the most horrible frequencies, erractic glitches and de-tunement of sound, structure, melody and order. i.e Not for the faint hearted!

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Filthy Turd (harsh noise)

With noise being on the fringe of obscurity as a genre of music, it comes as no surprise that there are many artists who are of an underground nature, who do perhaps never release via record label but manufacture there own pile of low grade tapes, cd-r’s and other media. Filthy Turd has a few self released recordings. He is most famous for his live shows, in which he often wears a mask, covers himself in shit and presents a primal disorder at it’s worse, normally beating his instruments or amps with large poles or creating horrible feedback and squall noise.

Download! “Menstruation, Incantation and the Boggy Land Fertility Dance” (self release)

www.smellthestench.net/net.htm

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Wolf eyes (harsh noise)

Are well known pioneers of the genre, who take the fine art nature of noise out of the gallery and throw it viscerally kicking and screaming onto the rock stage, full of passion, style and performance. They create there music using traditional instruments and voices filtered through analogue effects and custom built sound processing. Each album is well crafted and can sometimes take the form of either improvised music or carefully constructed noise songs. Sometimes abstract and gloomy and other times aggressive and chaotic. Wolf Eyes are the pinnacle of the genre.

Buy! “A burned mind” (SubPop)

Try! “Asylum Style” CD-R (American Tapes)

www.wolfeyes.com

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Prurient (harsh noise)

Is known as the king of high frequencies of noise. purifying, piercing, screeching, layered, textured static and fizzles. Prurients work is shiver enducing. Ultimately barbaric and manly with an insane live show to boot. You could do worse then picking up a couple of his records. Pruirient also runs American tapes. A well known label of noise and experimental music.

Buy “Pleasure grounds” (American Tapes)

Try! “Black Vase” – Load Records.

www.Pruient.com

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Merzbow (harsh noise)

Known to many as the GOD of noise. Trying to pin-point exactly what Merzbow does is difficult because of his sheer prolific work ethic. Some of his recordings are harsher than a wiping your arse with a porcupine whilst others hazy and psychedelic in nature. As such it’s very very difficult to pick a single recording. Oh and prepare yourself for a headache.

Buy! “Venereology” (Release Entertainment.

Try! “Pulse Demon” (Release Entertainment.

http://merzbow.net/

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Throbbing Gristle (Drone/weird)

Well known for there confrontational and their frankly quite disturbing live act. Thobbing Gristle have always sought to illustrate the darker side of the human condition, mixing industrial sounds as well as warped dark ambient feedback and drones coupled with haunting lyrics and spoken word.

Buy! MISSION OF DEAD SOULS (Mute Records)

Try! “Thirty-Second Annual Report (Industrial Records Ltd)

http://www.throbbing-gristle.com

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Nihilist Spasm Band

Improvisation is often a large part of noise, chaos creates sometimes the dynamic needed for moments of genius and mess. 5 old geezers from the  London, Ontari have been making a hellish racket since 1965. The grandfathers of noise?

Buy! “Every Monday Night”

Try! “NSB Live at Western Front”

www3.sympatico.ca/pratten/NSB/

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Nurse with wound

Prolific, 26 year old band who form now mostly around the one artist “Steven Stapleton”. They have produced over 40 records, which have covered every single genre in or around noise and avant-grade music possible. They have become an essential band to look into. The best place to start is the beginning, the album “Chance meeting…”

Buy! “Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella”

Try! “Angry electric finger”

http://www.brainwashed.com/nww/

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Drone

Drone is quite easily described as it sounds. To drone is to repeat on-oneself without constant change. Records of this genre tend to lend themselves as more atmospheric and cinematic in approach. Some listeners have found the experience tiring while others find the consistent pulse and ebb soothing and enjoyable to listen.

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Lou Reed (Metal machine music)

Although defiantly not the first ever noise music album, Metal machine music is more widely known than most noise records to this day. Metal machine music is quite simply feedback played at different speeds. With the two guitars used to record the entirety of the album tuned in unusual ways and played with different reverb levels. Reed would place the guitars in front of their amplifiers, and the feedback from the very large amps would vibrate the strings  the guitars were, effectively, playing themselves. While some parts seem harmonal and tranquil the harsher higher end sounds and screaming feedback unfortunately make it an unnerving experience to most but a masterpiece to the rest of us.

Buy! “Metal machine Music” (The orginal)

Try! Any of the new re-releases

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Machine_Music

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SunnO))) (doom metal/drone metal/drone)

They are described by most as Doom Metal. Their music is droning and atmospheric and deals mostly with low end bass sounds. Their music after there debut OO void became more satanic and black metal influenced but to this day cannot be beaten on sheer lack of velocity and power. The experience of there music is more akin to ritual and meditation than a engaging music of some other noise artists.

Buy! “OO Void” Southern Lord

Try! “Black One” Soutern Lord

www.southernlord.com

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Double Leopards. (drone)

Guys and gals. Sounds most like an airplane launching pad most of the day and on the off-hours sometimes. Out of one through one and to One is my favorite drone record of all time.

Buy! “Out of one through one and to One”

Try! “A Hole is true”

http://www.last.fm/music/Double+Leopards

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Closer to home

Each of the following artists are friends or part of the school of unthink.

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Horselover Fat (other)

The Horselover Fat persona has been active in the world since 2006, taking residence and making music in Devon, Oxford, York, Bristol, Brighton, and Luton. The music it makes sounds like an anthropological effort of 2437 discovering written evidence of a once-popular music known as ‘jazz’ and trying to work out what it might have sounded like. It is influenced by everyone, ever.

Dropping your own band into a where to start article is very tongue in cheek. We play a variety droney and noise material with structured and non structured pieces. We play with a range of instruments and incorporate ambient textures and utilize loops and both analog and digital processing of instruments and sounds.

Download! You can download free copy of our releases “Shreds” and  “In Elk Ivory” at

www.horselover-fat.com

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Euhedral

An impressionistic vision of a massive mechanized ocean.

Uses a drum machine and sequencer and techniques to form his rich and sonic sound with dashes of warped electronica.

Buy! “A Sea of Pulses” – Featherspines (cdr)

Download! You can still download his improvisation 1 and 2 from the VSTM archive. Euhedral’s myspace.

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Garcia

Processed vocal duo using crushed contact mics, the light cube and tribal powers! to create hazy drones and the feeling of an all consuming fire.

Garcia’s myspace.

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WARNING: This piece only really discusses music towards the end. Those wishing to avoid a selection of gumpf relating to how the author reached the particular space he currently finds himself residing in should skip as much as possible. Apologies for spelling errors

I have a brief bio on the personnel page but still…I decided that a post on my own peculiar/ill-thought-out route through the last while was in order, partially because having a record of such a thing would be of use to me (and people who I frequently under inform) but also because it hints at where I came from in terms of my music and my understanding of illusive specifics…no real explanation is given throughout by the way…and I may be able to build a sort of concrete collection of pieces on the same topic. Also, as it relates to education and schooling, it seemed appropriate for this setting.

 I am, after much rumination, returning to the University of York to study for another 4 years minimum. Between 2006-7 I studied there for a Masters degree, and have spent the time since then attempting to begin a PhD on inter-regional migration in China; how migrant communities in major cities create their own formal/informal institutions against a rigid State controlled apparatus. Obviously undertaking such a research project would be an incredible challenge, largely because a) I would have to spend the best part of 2 years learning Mandarin b) the fieldwork would involve a large amount of time abroad that would understandably nark certain rent paying people and c) I don’t feel like it’s something I’m necessarily best placed to do. Others would do a better job of it…I am not dedicated enough. As a brief aside, when I was much younger, people would ask questions like ‘What are you going to do when you’re older?’. My response would be, ‘I am going to look at China.’ China was the furthest away place I could think, and it seemed like a good way to appear clever, in the same way that using big words helps (Sesquipedalianist’s take note, though presumably you’re already aware).

Originally I was going to Warwick to study literature and how to write it. I’d done well at this sort of thing throughout my education and it seemed a logical progression. Germaine Greer was one of the teachers on the course, which seemed exciting at the time. Needless to say, things went awry, most notably the A Level marking fiasco that left myself and many of my contemporaries with poorer than expected results owing to a marking system that made sure each student had one piece of work classed as ‘ungraded’. Simultaneous to my formal education, I started to learn about music via my associations with numerous friends/wellwishers (many if not all are part of this School) at High School and College. We played in various arrangements, the most long lasting being tomfire, which despite countless line up changes has still retained a similar core of personnel. 

I’ll spare the unnecessary detail about the music I was interested in at the time, as this will filter out over subsequent posts. Any way, instead of going to Warwick, I went to Norwich, and did Politics/Sociology/Philosophy. The subsequent Masters degree at York was on Developmental Politics; you can see how this was sort of leading me along an unintentional path toward China. Again, whilst at University, I continued to play music, in new arrangements firstly and then by myself, having taught myself how to use computer programmes like Cubase, Mulch, Bidule, Ableton…and synths and alike.

After failing to get funding for the China PhD last year, I sat around for a bit, kind of despondent at the education system for being so odd (I failed to receive funding because a woman was pregnant). I realised however, that not getting the money had actually offered me a pretty good opportunity to try and combine the musical work I had been focusing on since say 1999, and the academic work I had undertaken in sociology and social theory at University. I felt a bit dumb for not realising this sooner.

So I am heading back to York, to do a PhD in Sociology, looking at ideas of space and how it is created in compositional and improvised works (site specific). I am especially interested in the already overused Derridan term ‘Hauntology’, which has a variety of exciting discourse floating about its head, all of which I shall avoid for now owing to the length of this piece. I think what I am aiming to do, and bearing in mind my research is fractured and very preliminary at present is to understand how a space, or an event, can leave a trace of itself that can be sonically referenced or recreated and understood. How can I as a musician say, create a piece of music that is in turn experienced in a certain way, intended and otherwise, by another party…how do I create a recognisable atmosphere that is still tinged with uncertainty, is both present and not? How/why do spaces hold on to their past, and why do we care? How is our perception of a thing altered by environmental/architectural/psychogeographical factors? These questions are obviously an indication of where things may head and the more focused questions I reserve for later publication.

I am in the process of drawing up a list of  people I  want to interview about this, culled  largely from  contacts made during my  planning for the  defunct VSTM Dislocation  Festival at the Hat  Factory (which  is now the  successful and smaller annual event at the  Old  Shop). The study will be  ethnographic,  looking at  a pretty disparate group of    musicians, field recordists, composers and  theorists,  collecting  data from a lot of installations,  concerts, interviews  etc. I am, however, trying  something different in  terms of the finished  production of a PhD thesis, and  I think this is why I  was given the place at York  despite my lack of  formal music training. The thesis I  am going to  submit will be accompanied by an audio  catalogue I  am piecing together to accompany the  written research. The two will have to be read/listened to at the same time. I find it a sizable oversight that sociology is almost exclusively focused on the visual (to the extent that my audio accompaniment is possibly deemed a ‘visual ethnography’…I’m thinking I maybe get license to use a video camera because of this), when the aural world is of incredible significance. I am also hoping to add my own performance of a piece, as yet unstarted, that will be site specific to either York or… God forbid… an industrial setting like Luton, and will hopefully include contributions from the School of Unthink. Much work to be done.

Additionally I wanted to ask for people to comment on this post with a personal account of a memorable experience of a sound in a space (whether in a formal or informal setting).

Fear of Music
David Stubbs
978-1-84694-179-5
Price: $19.99 / £9.99
Date of publication: 24 April 2009

Modern art is a mass phenomenon. Conceptual artists like Damien Hirst enjoy celebrity status. Works by 20th century abstract artists like Mark Rothko are selling for record breaking sums, while the millions commanded by works by Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon make headline news.

However, while the general public has no trouble embracing avant garde and experimental art, there is, by contrast, mass resistance to avant garde and experimental music, although both were born at the same time under similar circumstances – and despite the fact that from Schoenberg and Kandinsky onwards, musicians and artists have made repeated efforts to establish a “synaesthesia” between their two media.

This book examines the parallel histories of modern art and modern music and examines why one is embraced and understood and the other ignored, derided or regarded with bewilderment, as noisy, random nonsense perpetrated by, and listened to by the inexplicably crazed. It draws on interviews and often highly amusing anecdotal evidence in order to find answers to the question:
Why do people get Rothko and not Stockhausen?

I’m looking forward to this book. This is a question that has come up before in a conversation between myself and fellow Unthinker Matt.. Why exactly do people struggle to understand avant garde and experimental music as fine art?

I will be getting a copy of this book on its release, but until then here are some brief musings.

I think one of the core values of the question can be answered by taking a look at the tools for the job. It’s as if there is a Stuckism embedded within instruments, that bind them to be an object that creates music. Instruments come with the accepted knowledge that they are to make music.
They say “make music with me” not “make sound with me”. Brushes come without any predetermined acceptance of their usage. They simply say “make marks with me” To paint and make music are very different actions. How can you establish a synaesthesia between two different mediums who’s values lie in the tools for the job?

The second core value is that; Music has a stage. A painting has a gallery An abstract painting needs a gallery for it to be considered fine art. A gallery is a place where fine art is placed and people come to see it and say “I am in a gallery, this is a painting.”
A stage is where music is played. “I’m at a concert, this is music.” The two are not inter-linked as being the same or having the same values within normal society.

Lastly. Painting is an object of art. Its spiritual value lies in its original, when the art is reproduced it’s meaning diversifies. Music is not an object. It is recorded firstly to a singular place but its spiritual value lies in its reproduction to the masses, the total opposite of fine art. That’s all for now, more when the book arrives.

The developments of the Hardcore Continuum have been a burning topic of late.

Excuse me while I think out loud here: this is mostly trying to accrue to myself reasons to still be interested in these London-centric developments, in buying dubstep records, in still listening to voices who have profoundly influenced me —

While I was always enamoured with M. Clark et al’s writing during the transition into dubstep, which was totally essential, genre and era-defining stuff, I can’t help but find myself swaying far more towards Reynolds and Fisher on this one.

While dubstep was a fascinating sea-change in the trajectory of UK dance music, opening up the territory to incorporate hardcore beats with not only dub but psychedelic rock, experimental/industrial noise and later heavy metal, now that its developed into what it is and ‘Funky’ has reputedly taken its place, with Clark and others gushing endlessly about the latter, I can only side with Reynolds’ contention that

“this latest return to ‘dancing/4X4/girl-friendly/’adult hardcore’/dressing smart’ not as a drastic swing/start-of-something-new a la 1997 and speed garridge, but as the wheel turning one complete revolution… and coming to a dead stop. Back to where ‘we’ started. Or before we started, even: pre-rave, pre-acieeed. The words ‘house’ and ‘funky’ have a lameness to them, a stale familiarity. They suggest a modesty of ambition, of demand,”

 and K-punk’s suggestion that

“London…is in danger of slipping back into pre-hardcore slumber, governed by the twin attractors of Mixmag-style tasteful hedonism on the one hand, and neo-IDm on the other.”  

A quick listen to Funky favourite ‘Do You Mind? (Crazy Couzinz remix)’  by Paleface & Kyla seems to support their idea of Funky’s tepidity in comparison to 2-step’s libidinal maelstrom (Not that it’s a bad record. It’s a very very seductive piece of house, but that’s what it is: house. It bears far more resemblance sonically to, say, Fish Go Deep’s excellent ’The Cure & The Cause (Dennis Ferrer mix) than any of the syncopated burning-fire desire of the hiccuping diva operettas of UKG.) Funky’s inception was a DJ-led phenomenon. I remember standing on the dancefloor of the second room at FWD’s 7th birthday, where Funky was being played to a completely non-responsive floor, yet still it has become a favourite staple of the worryingly canonical Rinse FM.

(more…)

 This is a starting block, a staging post, a meeting hall.

We started off somewhere else; a place not far away, necessarily, but certainly different, in a summer whose date is lost to poor recollection and worse record-keeping. Memory drifts, vaporous and unsound. We’d an idea, one ill-considered and malformed, like so many before and since. We discussed the notion amongst ourselves, decided we would put our music to a world which we were convinced would, the initial shock notwithstanding, surely come to embrace us.

Things went well at first, all of us banding together to rehearse and record alike. We were heard by almost no-one. We decided, not long past, to expand and contract, reconfigure ourselves with new papers and a new set of goals. This started off well, but swiftly sunk under the weight of accumulated debts, recriminations, bad blood. We noticed we were doing everything but what we’d set out to do. We realised we were moving away from our centre: a group of people whose work worked better when they worked together.

Now we appear, again remade, the School of Unthink: noiseniks,exegetes,  purveyors of aural and cultural flotsam and jetsam. Our operations will be slapdash, certainly, and occasionally baffling, even to us: these are our virtues. we are confident in our grace. We push out from uncertain shores on untested vessels of own construction, held together with illogic and spit. We aim for every known destination at once. We argue the benefits of re-inventing the wheel. We hope you will join us.