Arousing Bloom

A couple of weeks ago I invested in a new iPod. My mk1 Shuffle bit the dust whilst overseas so I figured it was time to upgrade. The nice thing about the Touch model (aside from the WIFI and iCal sync) is the hours of procrastination that can be spent fooling around with the many applications floating around on the net aether. Of particular note are the music making apps including a wonderful generative music making program by none other than Brian Eno and software developer Peter Chivers (read about it here.) As nice as it is on its own, I decided it was time to add my own bit of flavour to it by running it through the trusty Arouser. The results are so-so, but interesting nonetheless.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=EX69xnqJJjk

The Son's Room, By This River

Something of a different post. A couple of weeks ago I saw Nanni Morreti's masterpiece "The Son's Room" (2001) which features Eno's "By This River" as the soundtrack. "The Son's Room" is an incredibly sad film, it's about a family grieving the death of their son. The video below shows a scene in the film when the song is first introduced, where the father is buying a record for his dead son - it's Eno's Before and After Science from which "By This River" is taken. The song also features at the end of the film to a devastating and beautiful effect. Rent it out if you're curious.



So. Following this viewing a couple of weeks ago, I decided to attempt a cover of it in the wee hours after Lauren had gone to bed. It's a pure Garageband production as it was a spare-the-moment idea, with a couple of overdubs I felt it was done > replete with a discrete Eno-ish synth pad.

By This River (Brian Eno cover)

The ongoing fascination with Eno continues. Since 2004.

Familiar Strategies

Today I've been agonising over the many activities and projects that are going on at the moment. My sound assignment for Lynda Lou Murphy's EAF installation is one of these, and has been at the mercy of over-complicated approaches and strategies in putting the sound components together. Lots of flow charts, lists, weird sketches and amorpheous graphic scores are scattered around my work space at home, a good thing I came to work in my uni space then, which is model poverty pack Ikea in its cold austerity and minimalist functionality.



Anyhow, I decided to take a leaf out of the brain of Brian (Eno) and write a personal strategy card for myself - in the vien of the Eno/Schmidtt Oblique Strategies:

KEEP IT FUCKING SIMPLE.

It seems to be working - my Sumi_Matic Max patch chews up and abuses samples and Garageband (eeeeek!) crudley bashes them into sonorous disharmony. Perfect.

Eno on AlJazeera

Just so you know, this blog isn't really an occasional shrine to the wonderfulness of Brian Eno, but this recent YouTube interview with Riz Khan is very interesting from the perspective of Eno's political activism and erudite analysis of current affairs.

Jon Hassell

Brian Eno has recently written an excellent short essay on musician, composer and theorist Jon Hassell. You can read it at Guardian Unlimited. I've always been particularly fond on Jon Hassell's references to Fourth World Music and the "Coffee Coloured World". David Toop refers to this extensively in his book Ocean of Sound.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,2207299,00.html

[5-6.2.07] Milkcrate 13 + audio

It's 4:15am and we're not even halfway yet...

That's right, I'm doing my first 24 hour Milkcrate session in over a year at Seb and Lauren's around the corner from where I live. I won't tire you with the details of the sessions (click the above link if you're curious), but I thought I'd run over some observations that I've had so far regarding the creative process.

For the first time in a session I'm not using a computer to edit soundfiles. This is a deliberate choice as I've wanted to see how the creative process would be affected if I started taking away accurate visual representations of sound (such as wave form editors.) Because I'm only using a minidisc player and my old 4-track tape machine (as well as a digital delay stompbox), I've found that the change has been quite dramatic, resulting in a more linier process. It's my impression that the visual cues that I've removed from my usual process (though useful in many ways) are interruptions, presenting any number of options, directions and tangents to shoot off in. I'm thinking of this from the perspective of branch growth - I would much rather a simple branch structure as opposed to something sprouting out in all directions. This economical approach encourages a discipline of sorts - since this process is bound by the limited capabilities and inherent flaws of the technology, I'm required to concentrate more on how I wan't something to sound before I start work on it, rather than nitpicking it as I go (I find the latter is a destructive and petty way of going about things.)

Anyway, enough Eno-esque babble, I'm going to make another coffee and get back to before a brief nap as the sun comes up.

You can listen to three of my tracks so far from the Milkcrate ftp server (click links below.)

BTW, if the audio sounds a bit murky/crackly/poppy, that's all part of the old skool aesthetic - ya dig dawgs? ;)

Signals in a Snowstorm (2.5 MB)
Radio In Fog (With Strangers) (4.4 MB)
Swarm (4.5 MB)

[22.10.06] $1.69

I'm not a huge fan of the iTunes music store as its intentions with regard to pricing and artist distribution are dubious at best, though occasionally they do stuff up. I was roaming the store this evening when I found Brian Eno's Neroli could be downloaded for $1.69! (the price of a single song file.) Though it is listed as an album, it seems the single track of an hours duration is going out cheap, so if you are an Eno fan scoop it up quick before they correct the pricing error.

[20.7.06] Tyndall Assembly Concert 7

Tyndall Assembly concert 7 took place last night at the Delacatessen Gallery last night, it was a good casual affair. Two works were performed, my Translations #2 for acoustic guitar and sine waves and an improvised performance based on Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies. My piece (an extentions of an earlier version) used sine waves to resonate the guitar's strings, employing addtional effects such as feedback and treatments. The Oblique Strategies are a set of cards developed by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt in 1975, designed to help to artist in compositional and performance processes. Each of the cards contains instructions such as 'honor thy error as a hidden intention', 'be dirty' and 'what is missing?'. The improvised performance included all members of the audience who were given two cards each to use. Prior to the performance each audience member selected from a range of objects including Ukulele, harmonica, bottles, bowls, mugs, glasses and sheet metal. The performance was made up of four movements - the first was spontaneous, where the audience could play as they wished, for the second movement the audience would refer to their first card and play as it instructed. The third movement involved the second card, whilst the fourth movement was an attempted recapitulation of the first movement. The main objective of this piece for each audience member to deliberatly and intuitively shift in dynamic, altering their playing technique throughout the performance. It was a lot of fun with some wonderful, if not chaotic results. I'll post more on this performance process at a later date. Unfortunatly there are no photos from the performance as were all too engrossed in our playing and no-one was available to take pictures. But here are some others anyway:



Prior to the concert Adam Page offered a selection of tasty buns.


Some of the objects used for the Oblique Strategies performance.


Some of the crowd for the concert.


Performing my Translations #2 work.

The next Tyndall Assembly concert is Thursday next week (27-7), starting 8pm featuring new works by Derek Pascoe and Andrew Georg. Hope to see you there.