Circumnavigating the soul

“Yoghurt in houmous? Seriously? Weird.” That was my response last night when ordering some food in a Mediterranean restaurant. It worked out well though, as they gave us loads of extra stuff for free. Even still, why would you do that to houmous? Madness.

Anyhow, today is the day where we commemorate the North. To be less partisan, SLI have even encouraged some southern people to come and entertain us with their sounds, so everyone can come and enjoy a diverse range of accents and sounds. Marvellous.

Here is something I recorded this week. God knows what was going through my mind, but I seem to have been overcome by the  devotional residential estates surrounding me, from Springwood to Blackley. Or something. There’s also some electronic sheep floating up to heaven in the background, I swear. They took ages to ascend. I don’t know whether they had a lot of questions to answer at the gates, or whether their cud levels were higher than desirable for the standard metaphysical escalation.

All eight physical copies are shoddily made, constructed from leftovers, with the discs having been sprayed a thematic blue and they’re not strictly real.

Seth Cooke / Kevin Sanders split cdr

As can clearly been seen in the above image, the Seth Cooke / Kevin Sanders split cdr has finally been passed for quality by Max. It took a lot of work to get it through his rigorous checks, but I’ll concede that it was probably of benefit in the long run.

Seth Cooke, a core member of the Bang the Bore team (and whom is otherwise shamefully absent from the hXe roster,) provides more of his detailed exercises in high quality audio recordings. I’m not going to give you any more context than that, but I can get lost in this world and not feel remotely upset about my failed excersise in orienteering. An excersise in concision it is, which is then followed by the recording of a memory of a former life on Kevin’s track. All over in about 25 minutes.

Comes in an edition of just 25, each of which contains a stamped cdr, wrapped in cream paper and card, each of which contains several stamps in silver and black in ink. Each copy is hand typed and stamped by the fair hands that belong to the voice you are reading now. Not that one, this one. Yes.  Oh, and then there’s some found wool tied around it and each is sealed in resealable plastic wallet.

But worry not, it is available digitally, as per usual:

Ending in reverse

So, that was a fun two weeks off work. There was Supernormal, as described in the previous post. It really was super. The Bang the Bore crew held fast and made everything ace. And boozy.

Then there was a wedding in London. Not just any wedding, but the marriage of James (and now Michelle) Shaikh. Epic dances to Talking Heads led to bruised shins, amongst other things. And a hangover, obviously. (Big thanks to Matt and Faye Adams for putting up with me for so many days, too.)

Then I went to Whitby to stay in a Bram Stoker / Dracula themed room overlooking the Abbey and the sea. That was very nice. And Sandsend is a lovely place to wander to if you’re ever in the vicinity.

Then my brother was over, so we had a family get together, which was fun. And involved more booze.

Aside from such dalliances, I managed to record about 10 new sessions. Below is a limited tape which documents a minor portion of this. There will be more though, including a collaboration with Sheepscar Light Industrial‘s main man, Daniel Thomas. This will be a 50+ minute cdr which will be available from next weekend. It is also excellent, and took literally hours to bloom from seed to fruit.

Oh, and my twitter account was attacked by some wormy, tacky crap, so if you received any DMs from me containing a link, or anything like “wtf”, “omg” etc, just delete it. I didn’t send it. Apologies, and all that.

The process of the process

I know that given the high quality of hairdryer excommunication releases, most notably on the packaging, that you (my dear listeners) may be under the impression that we have a team of experienced designers, cutters and stickers. However, this is not the case.

As this picture shows, it is a one person merry-go-round: all typing, all stamping and all dubbing goes down solo.

This is a work in progress of the first Dead Wood / Phantom Heron Seas collaboration cassette. Following their lathe on Dirty Demos and their 3″ cdr on Dead Sea Liner, these two mystical shed-dwellers have brewed some seriously organic death knell here. Honestly, the leaves  on the lilies burst to life and then slowly wilted right in front of my eyes when they came across these sounds. Utterly brilliant stuff.

It should be ready to be procured by May. Rest not, dear listeners, I’ll keep you posted.

Flowing uphill at the speed of a Christ

Following the simultaneous celebrations of our saviour and Christ child’s birth and the annual appearance of the Santa burglar, I’ve pieced together a composition based on lots of field recordings of a walk up and around some of the moutains around the villages (née hamlets) of Ardouane and Brettes, within the Hérault which is within the Languedoc-Roussillon.

This was done today, in this newest of years and is for the fruits of the labour of a certain Seth Cooke and Sara Sowah which will come to full fruition at some point this month in the form of what scientists call a ‘child.’ Their work thus far has been stellar in all forms, forums and projects, so we expect great things and great times. No pressure…

Walking up a mountain for baby or “Crawling on all fours. Another in another dark or in the same crawling on all fours and devising it all for company. Or some other form of motion.” (Beckett, 1980) is available to download now.

Beckett, Samuel (1980) Company, London: Calder

The field recordings pt.3

Here is a contact mic recording of a Boeing 737 that I was on while heading over to France. I have multi-tracked the recording with some parts isolated and enhanced and then added electronics and synth drones.

Enjoy the trip.

The field recordings pt.2

Various field recorded in various places with various things from direct to dictaphones to contact microphones on boats into a macbook, all mangled with some minimal effects in parts. This is the Breton which you crave.

The field recordings pt.1

Here are some recordings of the river Jaur recorded over the last couple of weeks which have been mixed to form one journey. No effects have been added, just some panning.

Birdsong at the football match?

Tapes running slower, hum and fizz getting louder and all to the tune of beer soaked football and birdsong.

Luke Twyman provided one set field recordings from the Sheffield United vs. Leeds United match a few weeks ago, and I used some sounds from the park across the way. These sources were then processed and had a touch of contact mic’d filing cabinet thrown in to the mix, all live whilst trying to watch CSI: New York with my third eye on a Friday evening.

Enjoy the caustic clash of man vs. nature, electronics vs. tape and liver vs. alcohol in Nature match.

Field recordings of field recordings of doors

Over the past few days, I’ve taken to leaving a dictaphone in various places around and about in Huddersfield. Some of these were then recorded into my computer’s internal microphone in other places. The result is Field recordings of field recordings of doors.

No effects, processing or electronics. Just the recordings.