One of the best things about making and doing art is making connections with people. It’s especially nice when one of those connections leads to something entirely different. Sir Magpie, the working name of Ana Stefaniak, has used my song Sing to Me (from Humming New Time) for her graduation animation. I really like the dreamy elements of her work so am chuffed to bits she chose some of my work to accompany this. Be sure to visit her site to see more of it.

When I think about it, I’m sure I knew that dusk is a great time to go out for a walk, to look around you. I can recall quite readily walking at this time in rural Kent, gazing across the fields. I have plenty of memories of walking at dusk in Norfolk – going out across the marshes to record the birds; sitting on the jetty watching the tide come in and the channel swell as the sun disappears in Wells next the Sea. I’m just not sure I ever noticed it where I live until this week. I was walking up to the school. The sky was doing that subtle shift in colours where, looking up and then down, it goes from a deep blue to this indescribable orangey-browney-yellowy sunset that you know will soon be gone. All the trees on the horizon stark and black then barely visible at all. The shining silver of Jupiter slowly becomes brighter. Then, the sky becomes night.

Still trying to record. Still nothing concrete to show. Recording a conventional song has proved to be really difficult. But I still can’t quite let it go……

Managed to remember to take my Zoom into Leicester a few weeks ago and recorded some of the spaces I went to. The one below is of me walking around Leicester market in the City Centre – a definite cultural highlight of Leicester and an ever changing place in itself. If you ever visit Leicester you must wander through the market.

You should also check out the Leicester Soundmap

I’ve been trying to do more out and about recording of late – both of playing and capturing the sounds around me – and although I’ve got my trusty Zoom H4n, I tend not to take out with me much. The reason for this is it’s a little bulky to just slip into bags and I get worried about breaking too! It also looks quite conspicuous when you’re walking around with it.

To this end, I decided to get hold of the new Tascam IM2 mic for iOS devices. It’s a small stereo mic that plugs directly into the 30pin connector of your iphone/ipad/ipod. I thought this would be the perfect thing to carry around with me to capture things. Which it is. But I also found it had it’s shortcomings too.

Soundwise it is a great microphone. I loved it’s tonal quality and found it’s stereo seperation wonderful. I didn’t have a chance to try it out with any instrumentation but I’ve no doubt it would perform excellently there too. The fact it allows me to capture sounds so easily and integrate them with all of the audio apps I use is amazing. Composing suddenly becomes much quicker and immediate, as does having the ability to store and edit and organise at your fingertips at any time.

Sadly, i didn’t hang on to it. I found that the handling noise for the situations i intended to use the phone in were so great it made the recordings unusable. Now some of this could come from the fact I use a protective case around my iphone – a Switch Easy Nude polycarbonate shell – and it may be this that makes most of the noise that the microphone picks up. The size of the iphone doesn’t help here either as it really doesn’t give you much to hold steady too when recording so one always finds that you slip it around in your hand.

If I was too use it solely with it resting on something or clamped up, where i wouldn’t need to touch it, it would have been a keeper. You should definitely give it a try if you think that applies to you. And they’re pretty cheap too.

Here are some rough recordings for you. First the IM2 outside

then the Zoom H4n outside at the same time

Here’s an example of the handling noise of the Tascam – I’m not doing more more other than trying to position it in my hands

And finally, here’s an example of the handling noise of the Zoom H4n. I’m deliberately scratching, scraping and tapping at the device here to see what noise the mic captures.

(you’ll also notice that the Zoom produces much louder recordings)

Little to report I’m afraid. Have been working on all sorts, with some success in places. To make up for no hard evidence of this, here’s a picture of a cat on a stamp.

So last week I played a gig at Leicester Central Library with Her Name is Calla. I was majorly excited about this gig because, well, it’s in a library!! I have another reason too. This library used to be known as the Leicester Reference Library and it used to be the library I would go to when I was doing my A-levels some time in a different century (the 1980′s to be a little more precise). My school was in the city centre of Leicester and this was the best placed to go to. I have strong memories of being holed up there with books trying to fit the words and the meanings in my head. Like many towns and cities much of Leicester and Leicestershire’s library services have been downsized and/or amalgamated with other services, a consequence of local authority cuts and a change in how people access information.

For me, it was a massive privilege to be offered the opportunity and the time and the space to play in a place that is, essentially, a repository of information and ideas. I felt really lucky.

Photos by David Wilson Clarke. Video below by Real Spleen

'Ghost ending' amongst some books

I’ve been way busy of late recording stuff (don’t ask, don’t ask) and so haven’t been posting as regular as I was previously, for which I apologise. This last week, though, recording has stopped for rehearsing for a gig I’ve got next week I’m very excited about. I’m playing Leicester Central Lending Library with Her Name is Calla. A library!! It’s took me 25 years to get there but at last I’m playing a library!