On 13th April 2016 I made a performance for The Other Room's 8th Birthday in Manchester.
The Other Room is a reading series presenting experimental writers at The Castle Hotel in Manchester.
I usually let some time pass before reflecting or reporting on a performance.
This was my first performance for a while and I could not have hoped for a better night. The other performers were excellent too.
I always like to try new things so this time I produced a free hand out with a drawing of my set up and list of sound sources. This was the first time I have composed live using mainly playback devices with pre recorded sounds including some of my own field recordings, a mobile phone app of relaxation sounds and the FM3 Buddha Machine. On a whim, I also brought along my lucky cat to provide some visual rhythm. And good luck.
Free photocopied handout from the performance.
During set up the synthesiser shown in the drawing was replaced by my trusty amplified book which just seemed more appropriate at the time and provided some nice acoustic sounds to go with the other noises.
The initial idea was to make a piece along the lines of Musique Concrete and ended up as something breaking probably every rule of that.
A short report of what I've been doing during the last few months including a specially recorded new track, a residency and performances at Noise Above Noise and an exhibition in Venice. I have also been recording, mixing and editing a new release of experimental recordings to be released soon I will write about in a separate post.
Hoor de Vogels / Listen The Birds new recording for the opening of Fundevogel space
In April the Fundevogel space opened in Todmorden, West Yorkshire as a new DIY venue for arts and sound events. At the opening celebration there was an exhibition and concert by specially invited artists. I recorded a new piece of bird-themed sound work for the exhibition.
"A collage of sounds from a series of 18 vinyl records of various European bird sounds. Originally released in Holland and the UK for bird enthusiasts, here the records, found in a record stall in Manchester some years ago, become a curiosity, a discovery from a time passed and a found material to inspire new compositions."
http://fundevogel.co.uk/
Noise Above Noise residency at The Penthouse, Manchester
During April 2015 I was artist in residence for the Noise Above Noise program at The Penthouse, a residency of working on new live sound works for performance. I was staying in Italy during the first few months of 2015 with a now ex-partner and flew to Manchester with a very limited set of materials from which to develop new work. These included a vibration speaker, an old pocket transistor radio and some guitar pegs.
Arrangement of objects in the studio, Noise Above Noise 2015
With my limited budget I bought a 10 metre long roll of paper and experimented with interacting with it and the kinds of sounds I could make, both with contact microphones and purely acoustic. This formed the basis of one of the live performances. I made a series of videos of experimenting with materials found around the space and on the street in Manchester including: a metal file drawer, broken digital radio and a jug full of screws.
Noise Above Noise 2015 Youtube videos playlist
Also during the residency a new series of prints were made by taking thoughts and ideas about sound that were not necessarily fully formed and then printing them letter by letter with black ink onto A3 graph paper. The process of printing them rather than just writing them down meant they became more permanent works and tangible artworks based on not particularly precious ideas.
Birdcall Print and hand-made birdcall instrument 2015
Noise Above Noise performances with Matt Dalby and Helmut Lemke
"PERFORMANCE SERIES NOISE ABOVE NOISE ELEVATES MANCHESTER’S UNDERGROUND SCENE TO THE FIFTH FLOOR OF A TOWER BLOCK."- THE WIRE
NAN Residency Special flyer
Towards the end of the residency two performance events took place with myself and friends and fellow artists Helmut Lemke and Matt Dalby as Tear Fet each performing experimental solo sound works. Tear Fet made an uncompromising vocal improvisation and Helmut set up an apparently complicated contraption for listening to the sounds of the environment through the vibrations in the glass of the windows and made a visual representation of the sounds.
The first of my performances took place in The Penthouse corridor and involved the large paper roll with two contact microphones and two amplifiers. The paper was unrolled along the corridor with the audience sitting and standing along one side, it was then pulled, dragged, scratched, screwed up folded and thrown around in the corridor causing a range of small and loud, amplified and acoustic sounds. Later I made a second improvised performance using a 'scrap guitar' made from found wood, the guitar pegs, a tuna can and some strings from toy guitar bough from a charity shop. Found objects were played against the strings in a succession of sound making actions.
The second event was held at the Fundevogel space in Todmorden, West Yorkshire and was another improvisation with the scrap guitar and some electronics. A last minute decision was made to time the performance based on a recording I found in my mobile phone of a field recording made while walking in London from Elephant and Castle to the South Bank. The phone was included in the set up and parts of the recording were mixed with the rest of the improvisation as it played in real time.
Short phone video. A self contained tape loop inside a cassette with the sound of room noise from the residency suite: a mixture of the heater, room tone and the tape recorder its self. There is a slight glitch where the loop overlaps.
"Not And" Live improvisation for Chorlton Arts Festival, 27-5-2012. Keyboard, square-wave, FM radio, cymbal, book, objects, contact mics, mobile phone, effects, loops and mixing all improvised and performed live. 26th live performance and first to feature the Casio PT-30 mini keyboard and a sample recorded on a mobile phone. This is a recording of the entire performance. The last few minutes are an impromptu ending of touching a stereo jack through a digital delay, something I will use more in future performances. Apologies for the not-perfect sound but it is quite a big file and I wanted it to stay in one piece.
Short video from 2010 0f the beans tin synth: a build-it-yourself square wave generator encased in a beans tin. Here it's played through a digital delay. It has since been housed in a hard metal case because it was not practical (though it looked good) and the knob kept coming loose. The beans tin and the new version have featured in many live performances and recordings over the last few years. At the moment I'm building a new one with a wider frequency range to be housed in a wooden cigar box.
