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……

You should also check out the Leicester Soundmap

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)

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

London is amazing, incredible, complicated, grimy, noisy, confusing, busy and many many other things. I’m not sure I could live there but I love going there all the same.

The photo above is of Kings College, Cambridge as the snow was falling down. The photo below is of locked bikes outside, the snow piling up agaisnt the wheels.

When we came outside everyone was moving about, pulled up collars and hoods, heads down, glimpsing up a few short seconds at a time, catching the snow in your face. Voices were raised some in dread and some (most) in giddy excitement. Through pub windows you could see people huddle into seats glad to be inside, talking about outside. The journey home was a bit hairy in the snow but, that’s the thing about snow – it changes everything. Each step you take, how you drive, how you see things. It is a leveller.

The following morning we saw this all the more clearly. Dad’s are playing with their children. The light has a new quality to it. Everything sounds different. There are fewer cars. Amongst the new soundscape birds can be heard, more excited voices, the crunchy sound of the snow beneath your feet. Everything you do is new but it’s only there for a short time and then it’s slush and then it’s gone. A memory.

I love the snow.