just like now - nov 7, 2010

soundclash again

the soundclash grant is open again. which is good news as it means the australia council sees it has benefit. it was originally there as a kind of 'see how it goes' type thing, but it must have had positive feedback.

anyway, we should apply. remembering that you can't apply for money for equipment! and the project is for march of next year on. which might tie in nicely with the timing for a new telafonica album or two. though you can't apply for money for cd pressing. but you can use it for things like vinyl pressing, or maybe packaging (i just got the deluxe edition of underworld's new album and it's truly beautiful). or touring costs. or something else more creative than the stock standard costs. like commissioning a dvd/film for a whole album (like anton cornijn's 'linear' for u2's last album). we've got a couple of months until the deadline in early december, but it would be good to have something definitive and concrete. and a bit ambitious, i think.

cover previews

samantha, you are a genius.

quake aid - 27.11.10

has something gone wrong around here?

no posts for far too long. it really must be a hiatus.

we have a gig in a few weeks time and if we'd like to get some new things ready, as blake said, we should have a few rehearsals. any preferences for times? i'm free most nights except every second wednesday (this week being one of those), and the next 2 fridays.

i have booked the red rattler theatre for sunday, november 7. telafonica, lessons in time (?), karoshi, st jambience will be playing, and hopefully andy rantzen will do something in some guise, as might andrew maxam/loopsnake. i've also been talking with marcus whale and we're thinking it might be a good opportunity to launch the 3" cd-r ep on his curt label at the event. i'm reviving the 'just like now' moniker for the thing.

the tibet benefit thing looks like it will include telafonica, that's on saturday, november 27.

the bon scotts

would we be interested in supporting the bon scotts. they're coming up from melbourne to launch their album at a venue called raval and the booker, leyne (ween keen/landsdowne/etc organiser) has asked us if we'd like to play. it's on friday, october 15.

bon scotts here.

ask me

ask me

the liquid fact
the literary fact
the literal fact
fact fact

the liquid real
the literary real
the literal real
real real

is not truth
the liquid truth
the literary truth
the literal truth

it's just not
and that's the way it is
not a simple head
but a simple heart

august 20th, 2010

another month, another couple of tracks.

bec and i did this one. i had heard a dj on fbi radio the night before playing some old-school house/acid bits, and that's where the music started - very simple and minimal with tiny bits of syncopation to make it swing. bec then gave me some words, and it immediately started to veer into territory reminiscent of some band we saw a few weeks ago. bec's had a dead throat for a few days and couldn't contribute the required female vocals, so i dragged imojjen out to the studio at quarter to nine to fill in...

the next piece is blake's. i do know it features the samples i made of his old yamaha keyboard. i don't know if it's telafonica or lessons in time, we'll have to wait for blake's input...

4-4-2 music mixtape vol. 1

4-4-2 Music Mixtape Vol. 1
442-mix-001
August 2010
23mins 25secs

Download mp3 version here (31mb)
Download .wav version here (237mb)
Download flac version here (115mb)
Download ogg vorbis version here (15mb)
Download artwork jpg here (809kb)

A layered mix of demos, sketches and otherwise unreleased pieces of music. All music by Telafonica. Mixed by Telafonica.

Tracks (in vague order):

Elec 25.12
Near Foregone Conclusions
Does It Know
The Thickness Of White
Circumvent The Obvious
I Heard A Ring So I Buried
Home Song
Simple

demo mixtapes

i had an idea which i pitched to clan analogue. the response there has been a bit lukewarm, but it might get up and running. the idea was that people could upload bits of music in progress and then, every month or so, someone can come along and pick out different bits and make a 20-30 minute mixtape from any of the bits they's like to stick together. i was imagining that, because they were work in progress and might be reasonably minimal, they could be layered quite extensively to build up the sound. one of the places the idea came from is the oneofour collective, which some of the guys from seekae and ghoul, amongst others, are a part of. anyway, as i said, there's been a little bit of a response at clan analogue, so i'll probably get something up and running, but whether or not it progresses there is another story. however, after doing that, i figured that telafonica actually has lots of bits of music lying around in different stages of completion - some that may never go further, others that have already had lots more work done to them. but i thought we could use that idea just using our own bits of music. so i've done one to start it off, and i'll upload it soon. but i thought it might be nice, if we do it semi-regularly, to actually name the series and then just have each one as a volume.

so....the question is, does anyone have a name they think might work for the idea?

parramatta sun article

well, it didn't make it to print in the end, but here it is on the website. please note - the quotes are not verbatim!

photoshoot

the photographer at the parramatta paper wants to do their own photos for the article, because none of the types of things i sent them were suitable. it needs to happen by monday afternoon at the latest. so we're booked in to meet him/her at mars hill at 3:45 on monday afternoon. bec, i've told them we have a strict deadline of leaving at 4:15 so we can get imojjen. blake, i know you're not free but the only other possible time was today at 4, at which time bec and i were the only ones free, so monday is the best of two less than ideal options. but if there was any chance of being there, that would be excellent.

blog layout

p.s. blogger has some new layout settings which i'm playing around with. the original layout was a template imported into blogger which wasn't ideal. i like the layout of that template, but because it was a 3rd party template, it had a few glitches in trying to run it within blogger (like the title image which regularly disappeared, as you may have noticed in the last day or so). so i'm trying to recreate that setout within blogger's new template structures. i'm almost there, but if things look a little strange, that's just my experiments playing out in real time. my apologies.

everything is chemical virtual 7" single

raymond collins, who runs the excellent everything is chemical blog, is setting up a virtual 7" series (kind of like the 4-4-2 music e-single of the month club) and has asked us if we'd like to contribute a couple of tracks. here's the rundown...

"The virtual 7" idea is something I plan on starting this summer/fall. What I am asking from each artist is to really step out of their shell a little bit. I would prefer mostly chill/relaxing ambient tracks, but that doesn't mean no vocals or "peppy/upbeat" sounds. I would prefer to keep it a little more on the electronic side, but that doesn't mean I'm against "organic/natural sounds". Each track must be exclusive to the EICV7". At least one newly composed track (or two), and/or one cover."

any suggestions for tracks we can contribute? there's probably something from a 20th we can polish up. a cover would also be fun - are any of the covers we've worked on suitable (i don't think any are particularly laid back that i can recall)? if not, any suggestions for a track we can cover that would fit the bill? or, actually, just a track we could cover - if we start from scratch we can make it fit the bill no matter what the original sounds like.

mars hill cafe - 11.8.10

july 20th, 2010

two tracks for this month, one i did late at night (hence its minimalism) and one blake did as lessons in time.

mars and venus is just a single bass drone which i repeated about 4 times, pitching each slightly differently (+/- about 10% of a tone overall) so they phase in and out, causing lots of random peaks and troughs. if you aren't listening with any bottom end on your playback system, the first half will probably sound like silence. it's actually relatively loud, but needs bass speakers to be present. the rest is one drum loop sped up and chopped up lots, then a little blippy arpeggio. that's about it.

blake - blunt and unreferenced versus new and black: i used an acoustic guitar recording, a couple of voice recordings, some straight percussion samples and delay on probably everything. the song is probably a little shorter than what i want it to be. it was originally a little longer but i didn't like it all, so i deleted some bits.

mars hill café

matt wakeling is playing a show at mars hill cafe on wednesday, august 11 as st jambience - his improvised soundscape music. he's asked us if we'd like to play. would we? other options might be for lessons in time to play a set as blake is keen to get that happening (but it might be too close, not sure - blake?). i've also been discussing an improvised ambient/noise thing with julian rojas which we could maybe do. my guess is it would be a bit more low-key on a wednesday than it would on a saturday. anyway, i'm keen to do something in whatever setup. what does everyone else think?

an update from sam

in sam's words...

"heres a still of how its going.. note: not complete............................."

(this is just a detail - if you click on the image it will take you to the full thing)

scissor lock

marcus whale, who runs curt who will put out our 3inch ep in a couple of months' time, is launching his own new scissor lock album tomorrow night (sunday) in a warehouse. i'm keen on going - anyone want to come with me? i'm doing sound between 4 and 6 and will head in after that if i can scrounge up any accomplices (sp?).

excelsior hotel - 16.7.10