What I did on my holidays and a brief meditation on mortality

"Please exit via the gift shop" was a frequently signed request on our trips round various tourist destinations last year.

It soon became my personal mantra, particularly as I realised don't we all at one time exit through the gift shop?

It became the obvious title for this hotch potch piece, partly because of the environmental recordings I made at the beach at Bournmouth, from a minature train at Bleinheim and so on that meant for me it captured the spirit of that holiday. 

The other connection was that I used it to try out various little gifts, new bits of equipment or older things I had but had never quite found a place for. All of these were added in, over doing it until I ended up with a sticky sweet mess that you then find stuck down the side of the car seat when the holiday is over.

Many things are not what they seem, the sort of distorted braying laughter that follows the girl's came from Permut8 which I think was being fed a simple synth line, the lady singings and slightly missing a note was from the Korg DVP-1 onboard vocal sounds, the frogs and grasshoppers were synthesised on the Wiard 300 series modular.  The final "sample" of the beach with the child that echoes the beach girl, is from an old BBC sound effect tape for the BBC mellotron. (My wife took the pictures)

Listen to Please Exit through the Gift Shop

Gliese 581d

Nearly a year since the last post! Actually quite a lot musically has been going on - I have about 5-6 tracks on the go, about as many other sketches but haven't been that great at finishing them.

Gliese 581d is a long open work - in the vein of "Through the Gates" but denser and with the balance more on conventional structures and harmonies. Mostly Wiard 300 series, there is an alternative all Wiard version which is on an all Wiard compilation

 http://laserpalace.bandcamp.com/album/strange-modes-a-wiard-compilation

The rough idea of the piece is a probe flying through the Gliese system and passing various worlds and finally leaving the system altogether.

http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=12081948&q=hi

K2 (2011)

Nearly 30 years ago I wrote piece called "K2" after the mountain. It became the central track of a cassette release of the same name which included a number of "scenic" works. In 2010 I started thinking about reviving the track, half remembered from decades previously. I got stuck in the track's foothills and had to reluctantly turn back.

Then in 2011 the conditions felt right and I made a final assault on the music, pushing on to the summit.





Listen at http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=11398903&q=hi

Sunburst (In the lair of the Purple Ultra Kitten)

Somehow I forgot to release this one. I think I finished it in April...anyway I decided to redo "Sunburst" and make it something that was more for a better expression, "me".

It's mostly Virus plus Camel Alchemy - and the Roland SVC 350 vocoder.

















http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=11103704&q=hi

Oxford Dawns (May day mix)

I've been working on this one for a while, actually I started it last year but didn't finish it for my deadline, went off and did some other things and then returned to it. It's a sort of aural picture of May day in Oxford, with the chimes from Old Tom, the choirs tio greet the dawn and the follow up revelry of people attempting to jump into the river.

Everything note and sound in the track has a specific meaning and everything was entirely planned.

Instrument wise it's mainly Virus and Alchemy, with a prominant Wiard Waveform City lead in the middle. Other bits of hardware (Blacet, Roland) also make an appearence.



http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=10647848&q=hi

Reunion

I've just got some of my equipment back from the tech and added in a few other bits to recreate my old set up that I had starting in 1980 with the Roland SH2 and adding the CSQ100 sequencer, DR55 drum machine and Roland Cube a bit later.

The SH2 now manages to play from the keyboard at a reliable pitch, the drum machine, a (battery) acid casualty is now working and the CSQ100 appears to be still fine. The Roland Cube's reverb is a bit dodgy but that seems to be ok too.

The Revox is still in rehab.

Clockwork UFO

“Clockwork UFO” is short sound picture, a heavily re-worked splinter from the longer piece “Through the Gates”.


Created and performed on Mr Richter's most excellent electrosonical puzzle box, the Wiard 300 series, in particular using the Envelator to create the ticking of the clocks. The Wogglebug was used to create the wind up space mice. I used a Warp Factory vocoder with the Wiard to create the alien voice.

Download “Clockwork UFO”
http://www.soundclick.com/util/downloadsong.cfm?id=8789118





Stream “Clockwork UFO”
http://www.soundclick.com/util/streamm3u.m3u?id=8789118&q=hi



Download “Through the Gates”
http://www.soundclick.com/util/downloadsong.cfm?id=8666852

Stream “Through the Gates”
http://www.soundclick.com/util/streamm3u.m3u?id=8666852&q=hi