Open Sound Group #4: Tape Music

I'll be doing this on Sunday.

Open Sound Group #4: Tape Music
A one-day open workshop and networking event for artists and musicians working with analogue tape.
1pm – 8pm Sunday, 16th September 2012
Elevator Gallery, Hackney Wick, London

it’s all done with tape recorders consider this machine and what it can do … you can study and analyze every pause and inflection of a recorded conversation … a tape recorder can play back fast slowly or backwards … play a sentence backwards and learn to unsay what you just said… such exercises bring you a liberation from old association locks– William Burroughs, The Invisible Generation.

Open Sound Group events give participants the opportunity to share ideas; talk about and demonstrate their practices and methods; form potential collaborative connections; and create sounds and record together. While the format of the day is open and flexible, one expected outcome is a series of recordings which will be released through the Open Sound Group netlabel. The event will take place at Elevator Gallery in Hackney Wick, East London.

The event is open to artists, musicians, composers and performers from any background. The one restriction specific to this event is that only analogue tape can be used, both as input source and recording medium. Four-track cassette and domestic reel-to-reel machines will be available on the day.

http://opensoundgroup.wordpress.com/

Record Prints [A5 card]

Prints from 7-inch records. Black block printing ink on A5 card.

Record Prints [A3 paper]

Prints from 7-inch records using black block printing ink on A3 graph paper.

The last two images are prints from pieces of a broken record.

Record labels collage

Untitled collage of graphics from old record covers, mainly the names of the companies, with a found frame slightly bigger than a 12 inch record sleeve.

Live at Chorlton Arts Festival, 27-5-2012

"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.

"Cold War Relic"

Recorded and mixed on 4-track tape recorder in 2011. The first home recording I made for a while that was composed using over-dubs rather than a live recording of a continuous improvisation. Each track has a few different instruments recorded at different tape speeds with loops and delays. The picture is of the Chapman Gallery, Salford, 2010.

Guest on All.FM Anything Goes Breakfast show

Fellow EVERYTHING'S GREAT! artist Louise Woodcock and myself were live guests on the show hosed by Fiona Ledgard. Chatting about the exibition and choosing some music. The show also features a recorded interview with the other artists Jen McDonald and Helen Shanahan. Listen to the recording of the whole show here:
02/02/12 The Anything Goes Breakfast Show with Everything's...

EVERYTHING'S GREAT! group exhibition

Named after a ridiculously upbeat and unintentionally ironic shopping bag design this is an excellent group exhibition at The Hive- a gallery based in a commercial unit in a Rochdale shopping centre. A strangely attractive, slightly unsettling and somewhat tasteless affair (tongue firmly in cheek, of course) with a fittingly shambolic and camp opening ceremony and some excellent work from all the artists involved. I could go on and on about this exhibition. Just read this great review by Matt Dalby: santiago's dead wasp: everything's great! reviewsantiagosdeadwasp.blogspot.com 

and check out the facebook group: EVERYTHING'S GREAT!

Live pictures 2008-2011

Some live photos from the last few years.

A full list of performances and events is at the "About/CV" page

Stroke Club at Gulliver's, Manchester, 2011

Electronic Organica 9 at Briton's Protection, Manchester, 2011

Counting Backwards at Fuel, Manchester, 2011

King's Arms, Salford, 2010

KRAAK Gallery, Manchester, 2009. With Graham Dunning.

Startrunning at Sandbar, Manchester, 2009

WOMB Live, Briton's Protection, Manchester, 2008

Pics from the studio: on the wall

Some more phone pictures of my wall in the studio. Some graphic scores, collages and a violin with a nail and fircone.

Pics from the studio: desk & modified guitar

Some phone pictures from the studio of what's going on on my desk at the moment.

Pics from the studio: new sculptures/instruments

Some recent phone pictures from the studio...

Two hanging sculptures / percussion instruments constructed found objects.

Anything Goes Breakfast Show (from 30/06/11)

30/06/11 The Anything Goes Breakfast Show with Gary Fisher by Anythinggoes on Mixcloud

30/06/11- I was invited to go on The All FM Anything Goes Breakfast Show by presenter and friend Fiona Ledgard. Here I am talking (quietly) about my work and playing some of my favourite music.
I know this is a bit old by blogging standards but I'm not that good at keeping it up to date or remembering everything I've done. It was well worth posting though.

FOUND compilation out now on Found in a Skip

Just relaunched the label Found in a Skip with a great compilation of experimental sounds, improvised music, electronics, field recording and more. Previously the label was used only to release and promote my own stuff but after deciding it should be a proper label started putting together a compilation of the kind of things I want to release in the future. It took ages to put together and it's gone out minus a few artists I wanted to be on it but I also wanted to keep the label moving and start getting some full releases ready by some of these artists and others.





"FOUND" compilation out now

Found in a skip, a new netlabel that celebrates experimental sound through free downloads and absolute freedom to the artists, launches with "FOUND": an eclectic compilation of artists, groups and recordists covering (among other things) improvisation, field recordings, tape music, circuit bending, a remix of abstract sound and a load of people drumming in a swimming pool. Featured artists: Noise Research vs Herve Perez, Gary Fisher + Maxbender, W VON, Graham Dunning, Koobaatoo Asparagus, URN, Salford Media City, Christopher William Anderson, Trying to Remember Fields, The Royal House of Choke.

Listen below  Download for FREE or go to the Release- skip07 at the label.

Tracks: 1. Noise Research vs Herve Perez 1001 [Edit] 2. Gary Fisher + Maxbender Music Book [Seti-signal Mix] 3. W VON We Found Two Strings 4. Graham Dunning Digbeth After Hours 5. Koobaatoo Asparagus They Lied Starz Are Planets 6. URN Blue Death 7. Salford Media City The Lynx Effect 8. Christopher William Anderson Moskenstraumen 9. Trying to Remember Fields Trying to Remember Fields 10. The Royal House of Choke White Rabbid

About the label: Found In a Skip is a net label releasing free downloads of experimental music, sound art, field recordings and a variety of experimental approaches to sound and recording by a wide variety of artists, musicians, groups and recordists.

The label will exist only online and be promoted through various sound and music related sites such as soundcloud, last.fm, sound network and through facebook.

All the releases will be available as free downloads.

For the full releases there will be no restrictions on the kind of album they want to make. I am choosing artists I trust will make interesting releases in their own way. I will just make them all available as a collection in one place.

Hopefully the artists will find it a nice way to formulate more unusual sounds or project works into releases and it will become a way for people interested in sound and experimental music to discover some new things and get them for free. 

Beans tin synth (2008-2010)

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.

Pages from collage book. (2011- ongoing)

Some scanned collages from a small exercise book. Approximately A5 in size. 

The materials are from a continuous collection of found images and bits of paper kept specially for collage.

The "Red Mono Blue Stereo" piece was composed in a few minutes and the clock with the Chinese map of Britain over few days as the clock picture was stuck down and the map added later. Many of the collages start from a picture that has already been stuck in the book for a while. The map and images in the two black and white collages are from a Chinese newspaper found on a bus in Manchester.

Sea of Mirrors on Electronic Musik (em139)

Live recording from 'Stroke Club at Gulliver's on 17-03-11 is available on the Electronic Musik net label along with two out-takes from a home recording. Free to download.

Download: em 139- Sea of Mirrors (zip of all files including cover direct from the label)

1. Cymbal + Book    2. Sea of Mirrors [live]    3. Lime Street Station 1

Electronic Muisk is: "...a DIY label which specialises in experimental electronica and improvised music. Formed in 2000 it’s run by the Sound manipulator / Improvising musician Ian Simpson (aka Noise Research) and is non profit making which enables the label to release exactly what it wants (ie: what it likes). Ian is based in the U.K."




The recording "Sea of Mirrors" was made live at the 'Stroke Club' night at Gulliver's, Manchester using; cymbal and book with contact mics; Buddha Machine; tape recorder with Amstrad tape; reverb spring and FM radio. The piece was titled afterwards with a phrase I've had with me since I was a kid and remembered when an audience member mentioned the ocean in relation to the feel of the piece. Also on the release are two out-takes from a rehearsal recorded at home. 'Cymbal + Book' is a live recording experimenting with the two amplified objects and with panning the different looped sounds in Stereo and 'Lime Street Station' (named after the train station in Liverpool because it feels like a nice combination of words) was recorded the day before the performance and features all the same objects and instruments. The cover photo was taken in Birmingham in 2009. 


(See also: post 23-3-11- live review by Cath Aubergine)

Hiss Heads zine interview.

A very idiosyncratic interview by Florian Fusco for his self-published magazine 'Hiss Heads'. (know what I mean?) Not exactly in depth but touches nicely and lightly on my process, influences, general ramblings etc.

Click the image to see the full-size scan.

Hiss Heads is an interview 'zine on experimental musicians and recordists who work from home in the Manchester area. I'm not sure of the availability of the publication. 

Florian Fusco is an artist and writer from Germany and was the Kraak Gallery artist in residence during November 2010. florianfusco.com

Stroke Club at Gulliver's, 17-3-11 live review.

Here is a lovely review of my set for Stroke Club at Gulliver's, Manchester. 

By Cath Aubergine.

"...anyone wandering in unawares would be forgiven for thinking "what the fuck?" - there's a bunch of people sitting about on chairs or even (god help them) the carpet while what initially sounds like a rather quiet aeronautical flypast emanates from the speakers. The sound is coming from the fingers, electronic equipment and imagination of Gary Fisher, a locally-based sound and visual artist whose general philosophy is, as he puts it: "objects, images, sound recordings and live performances may be seen as individual pieces in their own right as well as parts of a bigger 'work in progress' that is the process itself". Tonight he is working in a field somewhere near the far boundary of "ambient music" where, what could be heavily processed found sounds or could be waveforms designed from scratch (and how processed does a sound need to be before it is no longer found but manufactured? You don't find yourself in this kind of thought process watching indie bands, do you?) build, overlap, fold back in on themselves. More abrasive and discordant than, say, Machinefabriek but equally entrancing, this is probably as close to a synaesthetic experience as a person with regular senses will get: these sounds definitely have shapes, of sorts. The room's small glitterball spins slowly above, tracing strings of light across the floor and audience, absorbing and hypnotic."

 Photo by Kane

The full review by Cath Aubergine including a set by the mighty WOMB can be found at: www.music-dash.co.uk/live

Stroke club is a regular night of independent music at Gullivers, Manchester.

Record sleeves

Some selected scans from the Record Sleeves series of drawings, prints and collage onto found paper 45 sleeves.

The first is a laser-jet print of a transcript from two tape recordings of journeys. Typed onto a till roll as part of a 2008 project of recording random journeys and later typing from the tapes, the text is a mix of describing what I heard on the tape and the memory of what I heard, saw and did on the journey. At the time I was only vaguely aware of Situationism and the similarities in my work. It has since become a valuable reference point.

The second is another re-used image from a previous stage in my work- part of the Mechanical Drawings  series from 2007-2009- is laser printed onto the top corner of the paper sleeve. The old sticky-tape, number 37 and signature of the previous owner become part of the new composition and of course the hole which has removed a large part of the original drawing.

These two circular drawings are made by fixing drawing media- a black marker pen and graphite stick to the arm of a record player and letting the turntable do the drawing. The graphite was so light that the record player had to be left running for some time before the pattern became clear. The writing crossed out in blue felt-pen was already on the sleeve when found.

Electronic Organica IX 28/01

Electronic Organica IX at the Briton's Protection, Manchester
28/01/2011


The piece went well. Even though a the tape recorder didn't work the sound of the buttons being pushed was good. Starting out with a clean cymbal and then gradually introducing delays and loops. Made a nice collage of textures with scratching, scraping, tapping sounds along with more metallic sounds from cymbal and a reverb spring (removed from a guitar amp and mounted in a cigar box) with some sounds building up and some dropping in and out. Made a loop between the radio ariel touching the cymbal with both going through the mixer then touching the cymbal with a skewer linking myself to the ariel. Moving the skewer around the cymbal changed the tone of the static. A bit of experimenting during the performance is always fun. Built up  loop of loud rumbling clattering cymbal and that electronic whipping sound from the reverb then dropped everything to reveal the textured sound of the brush bristling and scratching on the cymbal.

^ Phone pic by Ian Simpson.

     Notes for the composition.>

Objects / insrtuments used: Cymbal with contact mic, skewer, book with contact mic, pocket radio, reverb spring, Buddha Machine, tape recorder, workshop brush, 'beater' (a rubber ball on a knitting needle), digital loops and delays.