Sweeney and Louth-Robins play the EMU

Last night I performed at the EMU Space supporting Panoptique Electrical (Jason Sweeney) and the launch of his new release Let The Darkness At You. Performing once again with a combo of turntable and laptop, I was pleased with my performance aside from a couple of 'happy' accidents with vinyl slippage. Jason's set with projections was a testament to his outstanding reputation as a composer and performer. The fifty minute set was absolutely beautiful - by far the best electronic music performance I've seen this year. The EMU Space's perfect acoustics reinforced Jason's glacial and darkly atmospheric music, which coupled with slowly pulsating black and white images, gave the music a strong emotional weight. A very friendly receptive crowd made this one of my musical highlights for 08.

Thanks to Lauren for the lovely photos, there's more on my Flickr page here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7528804@N04/

I've posted some video excerpts from my performance here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUodUPAUJAs

Now for a break from performing until November, and soaking up Germany in the meantime.

Philip Jeck, Loudness and Sinking The Titanic

Over the weekend I saw Philip Jeck perform an impressive short set at the Jade Monkey with support from Adelaide's noise rock community. I have to state from the outset that the mix was way too LOUD - it made all three support acts practically unlistenable and made sections of Philip's set physically painful to experience. I know I'm probably whining, but I'm one of those individuals who wants a pair of decent ears in twenty years time, and if excessive mixes are going to be the norm from now on I'm going to splash out a couple of hundred dollars on some moulded earplugs.

Excess volume aside, Philip's set was astounding in its simplicity of process and technique. Drawing his material from two small portable turntables, Philip would pick out a piano melody, drum groove or guitar riff with a drop/lift of the needle or locking the groove, then process it using a sample and hold and a couple of effects pedals. Throughout the 30-minute set, complex textures were built up to the point of saturation, then new material was introduced as the former receded into a crackling ether. By the last five minutes it was becoming an increasingly hypnotic spectacle, then it all came to a dramatic conclusion with a sudden mute.

I also bought a copy of 'The Sinking of The Titanic' from Philip, it's the latest (and arguably definitive) interpretation of Gavin Bryer's 1969 work. It's difficult to get hold of, but I strongly suggest checking it out.

Updates

Of late there hasn't been much posted on the blog for reasons outlined very briefly in the previous 'Blog Hiatus' post. So I've decided to take some time to plug the gaps on what has been an eventful and mildly productive month of March.

Arts and Music:

Adelaide Fringe Festival round-up

The Adelaide Fringe festival was a crippling disappointment for me this year, with an uninspired vis arts/performance program and a few saving graces in the music programme. Apparently this was a very financially successful festival with attendances up from last year's festival, but the 'safe' middle of the road fare that has dominated the programme in the past couple of years (primarily comedy) is threatening to turn the Fringe into a literal joke.

Adelaide Festival of Arts round-up:

By contrast, what I saw of the more upmarket (and better realised) Adelaide Festival of Arts was consistently excellent. Highlights include the Speed of Light exhibition, the Adelaide Biennial, Hossien Valamanesh's in-conversation artist talk, The Imaginary Menagerie and Michael Riley's 'Cloud' photo montage that stretched along North Terrace.


One image from Michael Riley's 'Cloud'

Graffiti Research Lab:

Unfortunately, I haven't had much of a chance to keep abreast of the Graffiti Research Lab's movements in Adelaide, though I did get a chance to have a chat with one of the visiting members who encouraged me to check out New York sometime soon. Lauren and I had some fun with a bright blue throwie on the way home that night.


GRL opening at Artspace


The throwie finds a home on a gutter

Miscellaneous exhibitions:

A couple of exhibitions around the first half of the month were good too. The SASA gallery and Liverpool street art space offered up some inspiring and creative works including this shredded assemblage of vinyl records (below).


Shredded records

Womad:

This year's Womad was by far the best I've attended in several years. Musical highlights included the suave Mariachi Victor Valdez and his pimping white harp, the Jazz Fusion of Billy Cobham, a Japanese Drumming trio and some enormous fire murals around the festival site. It was a hot and dry Sunday - a little too much cider was consumed and the dustbowl conditions were inhospitable. I'm very glad I don't have a respiratory condition.


Victor Valdez at Womad


A suspended fire mural

Some live music:

Cat Power gave a splendid performance at the Governer Hindmarsh, prowling the stage with a hot shit rhythm and blues band backing her up. It was a distinctly contrasting performance to the depressing spectacle I witnessed in 2003 when she tearfully exited the stage mid way through her set.


Cat Power

The following night Ron Sexsmith delivered the goods at Fowler's Live in a mercurial set with a bassist and drummer forming a tightly knit trio. It was perhaps not the most appropriate venue for Ron's stuff (questionable acoustics and PA), but this couldn't take anything away from a brilliant performance.


Ron Sexsmith

Research and extracurricular:

Sick:

The dust at Womad and a heavy schedule took hold upon my returning home from Ron Sexsmith with a mid-tempo cough and two weeks illness commenced in the midst of Adelaide's record breaking heat wave. In other words, I became sick as a puppy. Thankfully, antibiotics are pop-rocking my world.


Ink sketch "Continuum Fruit": 1st March 08


Masters research:

The research stalled dangerously at the start of the month and I've since tried to get things running again with measured success over the past week. In May I'll be delivering a research update (ostensibly an amended version of my previous research paper), so this is providing some much needed impetus to get things done.

Robin Minard Mentorship:

Lauren and I met up with Robin and his partner Susan on a psuedo-wintery night about a month ago as Sonic Youth played downstairs from a friend's studio. It was good to see Robin and Susan after about two years, and although still heavily jet-lagged, Robin was his usual erudite self, offering some helpful advice on my research as well as making some preliminary plans for when Lauren and I get over to Germany in September. The following day, Robin and Susan headed south to the Coorong on a research gathering mission with 20,000 Euros worth of audio/video gear. Robin's expected back in Adelaide over the next couple of days, it will be good to catch up and see what he's been up to on his travels. We might even be able to figure out what exactly we'll be doing together as well.


Robin Minard's 'Sounds On Paper'

Rolf Julius:

I managed to establish contact with German sound artist (and good friend of Robin's) Rolf Julius, whose been mentioned in this blog a few times. Since he's based in Berlin I'm hoping to drop by his studio during the Germany trip. Cheers to his daughter Maija for her prompt reply to my queries and her Dad's email!




EAF 2009:

The belated EAF proposal for 2009 is virtually finished, taking up the stack from my Shoot collaborators and knocking it into some coherent sense. Once it's been submitted I'll post some info on it. Lauren's on board too as a Shoot member which is nice.

ACMC Sound:Space:

I'll be attending ACMC (Australasian Computer Music Conference) this year, I just have to write a paper and put a work together. Since the conference theme is right up my alley, it would be a shame to miss this opportunity to get my work amongst a broader realm of peers.

So all in all, it's been a frenetic and frustratingly busy (and sick) month - here's hoping April is a bit better adjusted and free flowing. There's plenty to get done.

The Imaginary Menagerie & Northern Lights

As someone who has (so far) found the 2008 Adelaide Fringe to be severely underwhelming and lacking imagination, it was a welcome relief to experience a couple of performances and presentations for the opening of the 2008 Adelaide Festival which restored my faith in Adelaide's festival season.

The Imaginary Menagerie consisted of three 20 minute sets by Hidden City in the gregarious atmosphere of Elder Hall. The combination of electronics and live instruments was very good at times, especially during the quieter moments when Stephen Whittington's Satie/Monk piano came to the fore. The sound overall though was a little imbalanced at times though, as Derek Pascoe's saxophone occasionally drowned out the other instruments. However that shouldn't discourage from the good overall performance by the group and the fact that this was the first proper electronic/experimental music performance I'd seen in Elder Hall in eons. Hopefully it will be more of a common occurance in the future.

Afterwards, the festival opened proper including some lovely (albeit slightly gaudy) projections on the facades of prominent buildings along North Terrace. A nice night.

"Worgrssalk" live

I have posted a video of a live performance of "Worgrssalk" from the Earpoke concert back in November 2007. There is a bit of crowd noise at times, but you should be able to hear what's going on.

Thanks to Jake Morris (video) and Luke Harrald.

"The Sky Is Falling" and "Conversation Piece" live

Recorded at the Jade Monkey in August 07. Appearing as support for Pretty Boy Crossover, video by Seb Tomczak.



Also, more song-writery vids have been posted here: sonferous amphx journal-y thing.

[18.12.06] Hidden Village/Impulse at COMA

After a ten hour slog at work I needed some mental reprieve so I went to go and check out my friends Hidden Village (Seb Tomczak and Lauren Sutter), who were playing the Wheatsheaf Hotel as part of COMA's Hipnote concert series. Being regular performers at the Tyndall Assembly concerts this year, I was already familiar with the aesthetic of their work and kept abreast of new piece via Seb's Little-Scale blog. A range of technologies are employed - Gameboys, Atari consoles, lasers, water, effects pedals, solar panels, desklamps and Xmas lights (fittingly.) Five works were performed, To Stare At The Sun (for Gameboy), Untitled (for Gameboy), Toriton Plus (water and lasers), Duet for Desklamps (lamps and solar panels) and Untitled (for xmas lights and Atari). There were a couple of technical problems during a couple of the pieces, but this is easily forgiven considering there's so much equipment involved. These minor glitches were irrespective of their overall performance though, as I've always admired the way Seb and Lauren can pull it off without visibly freaking out. The night also featured a slot by Impulse, an improvisation group of musicians and dancers, including Hillary from the Zepher Quartet and one-man-band Adam Page. It was a lot of fun, though it maybe went on a bit too long. Then again, I can be a picky bastard when I'm tired.