I’m super excited to have been invited to play a [null+void] LIVE event in Dalston on 20 March 2020. [null+void] is a record label and club night run by the inimitable Kirsti that only goes from strength to strength. And the LIVE editions are just that: focusing on artists pusing the boundaries and bringing a live element to their sets. The line-up for 20 March is a cracker! Headlining are Welsh Futurists, Petwo Evans: sound system-primed, innovative club tracks making use of found percussion objects and consumer DJ equipment β which I am really hyped about getting my ears round tbh. As well as sets from Begg, Killig, and Kirsti herself of course! See you at The Glove That Fits.
I’ll be returning to the Rose Hill in Brighton for a live modular set on Thursday 27th February, alongside Matthew from ALM (Busy Circuits) and artist and composer Anthony Elliott. This is the first in a series of gigs from Threads, the amazing people behind Brighton Modular. The events have a visual as well as an aural perspective so expect lots of top notch audio-visual experimentation across the series.
EDIT: LISTEN HERE to a recording of the live session we put together for the night over on SoundCloud. Like, share, book us for your event π
TR-33N are back for Das Booty, baby!
TR-33N is part of a long-term collaborative life experiment between myself and Dave Stitch. Having been away working on solo music projects during 2018 and 2019, TR-33N are BACK for Das Booty NYE! We’re seeing out the decade as part of a fantastic club night that has only gone from strength to strength during 2019. We’ll be descending on their North London warehouse in extravagantstyle, combining our two monster modular set-ups with as many synths, FX boxes and drum machines as we can cram in the car, to serve up some slamming techno, breaks, acid, and all-round hands-in-the-air goodtimes with serious BANG.
Last Saturday found me dodging flying skateboards at House of Vans at the CV Freqs modular showcase event. I really enjoyed playing alongside and chatting with some of the most innovative modular musicians and weird-ass instrument builders out there! Excellent brain food and enjoyable noises from somewhere far beyond the edge of reason π€£ Thanks for having me.
LDOLS was included in October’s Best Electronic Releases on Bandcamp. Many thanks to Joe Muggs for the support. Having the release in a feature on the Bandcamp Daily homepage for 2 days was incredible!
Words: Joe Muggs, Bandcamp Daily
LDOLS was included in the Leftfield section of DJ Mag in late August 2019 thanks to AJA and Tristan Bath.
Words: Tristan Bath, DJ Mag
LDOLS was included by Bandcloud in Issue #270 (25-10-2019), thanks to Aidan Hanratty.
My first physical release is on its way! It’s a cassette made from a session recorded straight to tape at Rum Records in Ipswich on 23 July 2019. ‘LDOLS’ [pronounced ‘el-dolls’] is due to drop in late September, and is dedicated to my eldest daughter as it was recorded on her … last day of little school πΌ
Cover art is the “L” glyph from the Xenoling series by Dave Stitch.
Sonitus ran a series of workshops during May/June 2019 for Outloud Music, a brilliant organisation in Ipswich that brings music tech education to people with mental health difficulties and other access needs. Considering our remit to engage hard-to-reach groups in sonic arts, it was a perfect match π
We ran 12 ‘iHack’ sessions over 6 weeks with a different theme each week, all inspired by reading Nicholas Collins’ ‘Handmade Electronic Music’. Our aim was to use our skillset to reach beyond the usual boundaries of music tech and encourage participants to get creative with non-standard methods and tools for music-making β for example by ‘mis-using’ various bits of hardware, building our own instruments, and trying to get things that weren’t designed for music-making at all to try and … ummm … make some decent noise!
All of our sessions ultimately invite participants to sit back, close their eyes, listen to the world around them, and ask themselves the question: “… what even IS music, anyway?”
Circuit-bending toy keyboards.
So, what did we get up to?
Week 1: Using electric current to ‘twitch’ the piezoelectric crystals in speaker cones so the cones themselves make the noise. No audio signal necessary!
Week 2: Circuit bending toy piano keyboards to create unexpected results.
Week 3: Revealing hidden sounds using contact microphones.
Week 4: Data in sound: ‘listening’ to credit cards with a tapehead, playing graphic scores using the Phonopaper app, and creating spectagrams in Audition so we could see and hear our hidden handiwork.
Week 5: ‘Sliiiiiinky and Bass Drill’: sonic experimentation using a metal slinky to create a spring reverb and making sub-bass by repurposing an HDD hard drive from an old PC.
Week 6: FM Synthesis: the group customised their own battery-powered, portable FM synths by adding controls and cases, ready to take home!
Recording some twitching loudspeakers in action.
Is there an album in the pipeline?
Part of our practice is to record a selection of noises from each session with the aim of eventually creating a cohesive record that brings it all together. We have a large folder of recorded snippets with which to create a piece of music, perhaps even a selection of pieces that become an EP? Watch this space for that magic moment when time is available and inspiration strikes.
Above: During our final session together, we listened back as a group to the recordings. Members of the group then quick-fired some brilliant ideas for song titles, release titles and band names based on the sounds we heard. Lou was on hand to take a note!Customising our own FM synths. This one is light-reactive so is housed in a clear-fronted box.
Opportunities and learnings
There’s a brilliant opportunity to create more synth-building activities that use light-reactive and gestural elements to help engage more people who have limited motor skills.
Thanks to CLIP for the lend of their fantastic shocking-pink keyboards for the cirucit bending session. It was really nice to pool existing resources and work collectively rather than having to invest in buying more plastic. Re-use, reduce, recycle!
