31/07/2009

pocahaunted

i've become mildly obsessed with pocahaunted over the last couple of weeks. their releases are pretty much impossible to find as they're generally in very small runs and sell out but are pretty great (thanks, soulseek). some, especially the cassette only releases, are pretty murky and so i don't find them as immersive, but more sharply produced stuff can be pretty mesmerising. they basically improvise droney instrumental things with wailing, wordless vocals, and i particularly like when the bass gets really dubby and repetitive. i can imagine enjoying doing something along these lines at some stage, though i would imagine being much more satisfied with more robust rhythms (i sometimes find the drumming pretty cliched in building atmospheres like any hippy/jam band would do it). perhaps mixing dubstep beats with this kind of noisy free-form improv? anyway, here's a live clip to give you an idea. this ones not particularly noisy, and only lasts 2 1/2 minutes (their tracks are often 15 or 20 minutes long) but gives an idea...



oh, and as an aside, speaking of archive.org - for all the history/nostalgia buffs out there, try here orhere.

30/07/2009

from jenny...

Adrian,

I have finally got to listen to your song - it is totally amazing, just like Blake's song, it is just what I was hoping for - you have both done your unique take on the song, but still managed to maintain the feel of the songs!! I love it and I am now so bloody excited about the album!!! Please pass this Email on to the rest of your group!

Thank You very much!

Jenny, Label Manager
Forthesakeofthesong
myspace.com/forthesakeofthesongltd
forthesakeofthesong.co.uk

29/07/2009

album update and what to do beforehand

having had a chance to listen through, i'd be keen to get everyone's fine print on what else needs to happen or change on the recordings. here's what i've got so far...

i can't make you love me
record tibetan bell for ending
what does eliza normally play in the ending live?

smells like rain

but i lose myself
re-record cowbell
record shakers

the quest for love aboard the belafonte

æowyn & the absolute truth
re-record all vocals
originally, i had thought that we'd do 4 voice harmonies on this one, but from what we've attempted of that so far, it doesn't seem to be working as it's all pitched to my voice. bec suggested everyone just make up new harmonie which best fit their voice which we could try. another option may be just to leave it at my voice overdubbed for everything. it seems to work fairly well as such at the moment. the actual singing would still need to be redone as the current ones were all first takes using my laptop built in mic. thoughts?

cover
the current version has both bec and eliza singing the main melody from the outset, at equal volume levels, and i think is the best vocal solution for this so far. bec's vocal probably still needs re-recording to iron out a couple of wavers. should any of the harmonies be taken by male voices, or does the subject matter of the song work best if it's just female voices (bec?)?
i feel like the acoustic guitar parts still need to be made more obviously as a loop. should the ending of each riff be cut off more roughly?

time to move the nest
record piano (current recording is a synth piano)
second verse piano changed to toy piano
second verse record abstract piano cluster chords (eliza)
re-record blake's voice?
mix eliza's voice higher in ending

don't speak for me
lift volume of claps to sit better with kick

the separation prepare this for another marriage
re-record eliza's voice
more beef in drums/bass


also, are we settled on the title?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

i've also been thinking that it would be good to release a single maybe 6 weeks before the album, to help promo the album. the quest for love aboard the belafonte seems the most obvious choice as an early version has already been fbi playlisted so we can use that fact in promo-ing it to other places. i was thinking that a free download single with maybe 4 tracks would be nice. but what should those other tracks be? could it include blake's original skeleton of what became the song? remixes by other people? songs we have that aren't going to go on an album? old tracks from other releases?

27/07/2009

in b flat

this is one of the most insanely brilliant things i've found to do with youtube so far. basically, the guy asked his friends to each contribute a simple, random piece of music in Bflat. he then uploaded them, compiled them on a single web page and you can mix and match as you please, endlessly if you desire.
click on the image and play with it - it does take some time to load everything so you can 'play' it properly, but it's well worth it.
brian eno would be proud.

26/07/2009

bandizmo

just testing out a new mp3 storage and playing system. it's a website called BANDiZMO. as everyone may have noticed, the imeem players will only play 30 seconds remotely - that is, on our website. to hear the whole track you have to click the link and go to the imeem page. so this is a possible alternative. no idea what it looks like etc - i'm just about to find out.

the track is 'scarecrow in the melon patch' from the most recently received 20th disc (from june 20). i'll give a better write up soon.


11/07/2009

New Weird Australia Vol One




This release is available for free download from New Weird Australia. Click here or use the links below.

______________________________

New Weird Australia Volume One, July 2009

Geography dictates that, to some, Australia may forever remain as the Romans once saw it, as the “unknown land of the south”. However as technology conquers territory, distance becomes increasingly insignificant – a fact that is clearly illustrated on this first instalment of New Weird Australia. In borrowing (and expanding) ‘new, weird’ terminology, we hope to shrink the notion of distance between innovative Australian artists and their international compatriots; between the dot points on the vast map of our own land and between definitions of genre, taste or style.

For Volume One, we find ourselves narrowing the gap of the 4,000km range from the precision edit and bluegrass glitch of Brisbane’s Anonymeye, to the free-jazz of Yugoslavian ex-pat and Perth resident, Predrag Delibasich. We simultaneously compress time – moving from Pimmon (a renowned experimentalist with a significant international back catalogue) through to Kyu, a nascent duo freshly ripped from the Sydney soil. We additionally garner exclusive tracks from Telafonica, Tom Smith (of Cleptoclectics), Raven and Inquiet, and recent releases from Clingtone, Lessons In Time, Battlesnake, Loom and the inappropriately named Brutal Hate Mosh.

Neither popular nor alternative, neither one genre nor another, New Weird Australia represents a new breed of Australian musicians that find refuge in the space between us. We hope you enjoy this selection and seek out the full library of work that these artists have to offer.
Stuart Buchanan, July 2009.

Real Time Review

DOWNLOAD ZIP FILE (AUDIO & ARTWORK) (89.6MB)

1. CLINGTONE The Intruders (1:23)
2. ANONYMEYE If At First You Don’t Secede… (5:31)
3. LESSONS IN TIME Those Plastic Street Signs Are Not To Be Followed (2:02)
4. TELAFONICA Time And Distance (6:32) click to listen
5. PIMMON On The Other Hand This Carbon Fire Is (Flammable) (4:36)
6. KYU Sunny In Splodges (5:19)
7. BATTLESNAKE Shadow Of The World’s Tallest Midget (5:22)
8. TOM SMITH Settled For Less (3:09)
9. RAVEN Presumption #1 (3:10)
10. LOOM Snail Shell (8:06)
11. INQUIET Honey & Seeds (3:28)
12. PREDRAG DELIBASICH Heartburn (13:37)
13. BRUTAL HATE MOSH Roads (1:43)

Compiled by Stuart Buchanan
Artwork by Adrian Elmer

All music donated by the artists for use in this compilation only, all rights reserved.

Thanks to all the artists for the leap of faith in donating their tracks for the first volume in this initiative. Special thanks to Danny Jumpertz and to Adrian and Blake for their early support.

New Weird Australia is a not-for-profit initiative established to promote eclectic and experimental Australian music. Free compilations are available to download every two months from www.newweirdaustralia.com. Contributions from Australian musicians and artists are welcomed and encouraged – submission details and terms can be found on the About page.

05/07/2009

bandwidth

i thought i'd do the review of bandwidth because i enjoyed it so much, and because i had organised it.

first thing to say was that the red rattler was an incredible venue. a warehouse which has gone to the bother of becoming fully licensed and council approved, they've still kept the vibe of a warehouse, but with great decor, huge comfy lounges, an awesome p.a. and a nice (relatively) big stage. and the people running it were great to work with as well.

anyway, the whole thing was set up to get clan analogue people up on a stage performing for each other and whoever else wanted to come along. so it was an interesting mix of vaguely nostalgic electronics and new offshoots. i enjoyed them both. highlights for me were karoshi (as ever) who sounded great through a big p.a. - dave's drumming (the only drum kit of the evening) as jittery and creative as ever; kate carr just before them who made great atmospheric noises - i loved being able to recognise her work inspite of its apparent random nature, it's the first time i've seen her live since getting her album about a year ago; hearing loopsnake segue his wonderfully strange mash of electronic styles into telafonica via snippets of his remix of japan bell disco; bleepin' j squawkins showing that, in spite of the great things that can be done with blends of electronics and electric/acoustic sound, there's something about a pounding 4/4 beat with lots of squelchy 303 action and filters flying all over the place - they made sly rhythmic changes as they improvised with a pile of synths making all the classic moves. but my favourite part was hearing brand new, never before heard in public, itch-e & scratch-e tracks pumping over the p.a. as andy rantzen played his dj set. it's been too long since i've heard good new dance music on a decent system and just had to do some body moving. but everything was enjoyable - it was a great night of diverse music.

and talking to people over the evening was great - people introduced themselves who had heard us on the radio and come to hear us. got to have some great conversation with nic gray. got to meet some of the old school clan analogue people whom i'd always heard about but never seen or met. got to see 10s of thousands of dollars of classic synths belonging to ryan (electrofetish) who unfortunately didn't get to use them as his main sequencer failed. bec sold two more ipod covers which takes sales up to the point where we can send the money to buy a thai girl a school uniform so she can get an education and not end up in child prostitution.

as for telafonica's set, the response was very positive, but i really found it a hard slog. i missed having eliza to fill in the gaps between songs, and to have a showstopping voice to fallback on. i was also perplexed by our onstage mixer - whenever i tried to mute a mic channel, it caused horrendous feedback - the exact opposite of what should have happened. anyway... we started with cover and that was really great. we set the sequencer going to line check it while finishing off our setting up and gradually brought little sounds in even as blake was moving his gear into place. so the line check kind of morphed into the actual set and it built really organically and smoothly to a nice crescendo. the rest of the tracks went well - blake's guitar playing seems to me to be getting freer and more abstract, but synthesising really well with the electronics.

for apra purposes, our set list was:
cover
your hands
but i lose myself
89
this is the new thing

as a final coda to the night, we stopped in at laziko's for pide on the way home. then, when we turned on the car to leave, what should be playing on the radio but the quest for love aboard the belafonte.