acoustic guitars in made up tunings. the quiet between quiets. overthinking/underthinking. tape hiss/memory's static.
I was put on to this video by my good friend Stephen Hiscox (who himself put up a great video I’ll post about about soon) and am most thankful for seeing it as it captures something incredible and fascinating. I remember in my early teens getting the bus home from school and seeing thousands of starlings doing this over Abbey Park in Leicester. Yep, in the middle of a city. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anything like this in Leicester.
Enjoy.
In July I posted about how a snapshot recording I’d made on the iPhone using the Soundcloud app (and posted to my Soundcloud profile) had been used by the artist nojoined ( David Priestley ) as pat of his composition ‘a lack of faith‘.
The track track now features on a 4 track ep called ‘the colour of monotony‘ that is avaialable to download from aReW recordings for free now. Go and hane a listen and/or download here –
http://www.archive.org/details/ArewRecordingsPresentsrw-056Nojoined-TheColourOfMonotony
One of my snapshot iphone field recordings done with the SoundCloud App has been utilised by another SoundCloud user for their own piece of music.
This piece recorded in my works garden has been used by nojoined for his piece ‘a lack of faith‘. It’s fascinating listening to it how my original recording is altered and transformed as the piece moves on – this is probably due to me remembering the actual sounds whilst there, the mind trying to put the two together.
I really like the SoundCloud app and the way it allows you to share spur of the moment sounds like this and identify and log them to their location and time. That they can then be used as inspiration for something else through the sharing of is also brilliant too. A score for creativity.
Enjoy.
Do I have a fondness for the British seaside? Yes, I do.
D I have a fondness for mental seaside postcards with cats on them? Oh yes, I do!
(via Are we there yet zine)
And my favourite
On a lovely manilla envelope holding a birthday card for my youngest’s 7th birthday.
Hello.
Enjoy!
Had a day out in Nottingham yesterday, the first time I’ve been there during the day time for quite a while. Took the tram in too, another first – it felt strangely European whilst being surrounded by Notts accents. Wandering the town for a bit the things I noticed were –
∙ the trams – they make such a different sound as they rumble around the town in their tracks, the sound of the bell ringing.
∙ the architecture – there seemed to be a much wider mix of old and new and the variants of the new were many and subtle. They contrasted in such a way I’ve never noticed before which made staring out of windows, looking up at the facades interesting.
∙ there were quite a few buskers about and hearing music coming from human beings made a great change to hearing music just blaring out of shops.
∙ single speed count was 4 and I think I only saw around ten bikes in the town all day.
We then went to the Nottingham Contemporary, another first for us. The building itself is great, despite looking thoroughly modern it really sits in with the other buildings around it. Inside, the light in the galleries seemed huge. Walking around the Jack Goldstein exhibition was great. A selection of his films played out across three of walls in one of the galleries whilst on the other wall, loops of some of his 7″ vinyl pieces played through individual headphones. My children found this particularly fascinating – the ability to be taken somewhere else by sound.
Though I’m not in agreement with Goldstein’s comment that “it’s not the sounds I’m interested in, but the images” – I am interested in the sounds – hearing them and looking at the vinyl sitting next to it’s sleeve was oddly engrossing. I don’t like to fetishise audio formats mainly due the often obstructive nature of nostalgia but sound/music is an emotional experience and the whole format argument is an essential part of that – how you physically deal with it (and that includes intangible digital formats) is part of the ritual (for want of a better word) of experiencing sound/music. It certainly made me want to put out some vinyl (again). Maybe I will. We’ll see.
Of his films, I really like The Jump. Makes me think a little of Len Lye and that I want to see the exhibition at the Ikon in Birmingham before it finishes.
It’s also worth me noting that the gallery was really busy with a wide range of different looking people, a really positive thing.
All in all, a grand day out
Cloudless moonlit nights give way to cold clear crisp mornings. Frost crayoned onto pavements and the grass, fences, washing lines and roof tops. As the sun rounds the houses the frost gently fades except in the places shaded by trees or houses. It makes me think of those frost works by Andy Goldsworthy – momentary works, existing in that space for just a short while. Documenting it whilst you can.
I like it when music is like this too. That it can only exist for that moments time. That if it happens elsewhere it will be different, only the process or the materials will be the same. That the enviroment will make it something else, will guide it somewhere new. With digital technologies doing this and documenting it is easier than ever. I wonder why we don’t do it more.
I bought this from the bookshop at Oxburgh
Hall in Norfolk on a bright and breezy summers day in July but didn’t read it until December. It’s an incredible book, one wonders what Hardy must have gone through writing it and then the reaction afterwards.
The glueing on my copy has gone now and the pages are starting to loosen and fall. I don’t want to throw it in the recycling and i’m wondering if I can use it for something else. But to try and do the words justice is a difficult thing….
Being ‘time poor’ is a popular modern ailment. What makes it more ironic is it comes in an age where no end of devices exist to free up our time and make us more productive but result in us having less time as we fill it with more stuff. This is a particular problem for me – I work full time and have a family. Weekdays are full of those things, so trying to find time to be creative is really difficult. But I sat back and examined how I spend most of my time, I was pretty shocked.
The internet eats up all of my time! And it does it because I let it!!
So, i’ve decided to free up as much time as possible by totally changing my internet habits. A lot of this has come from reading Christine Bougie‘s blog – which you should read because it’s ace. As a full time working musician – one who is working on many things at one time – she need to be super organised and I’ve adopted two of her ideas.
1) No internet in the mornings – this has made my mornings feel way more positive. Believe me the pull of the computer is strong but I just sit down and listen to recordings of Radio 3 or 4 or watch education programs whilst eating my breakfast rather than ‘page flicking’ on a laptop.
2) Only check email messages once a day – Simple as that. Means I’m not constantly picking up my phone to check Twitter, means break times are made of reading books rather than mobile browsing.
3) Set timer for any evening internet use – Set my phone timer for 20 minutes. Not wholly successful so far but I’m spending much less time staring at a screen looking at bikes / listening to drones / you get the picture.
We’ll see how this goes.
peter wyeth 