This is the first proper London show in AGES for Lobelia and I, so we’re making it a special one. We’ve asked 3 of our favourite singers to join us for an amazing night of singer-songwriter-ness… and genius Ukulele magic. It’ll be on Aug 25th, doors at 7pm, music from 7.30, at Darbucka World Music Bar, on St John’s Street in Clerkenwell, London. Continue reading “London gig on Aug 25th – the Singers Of Twitter :)”
Website Of the Week on 6Music Introducing!
BBC Introducing is a cross network initiative to get unsigned music onto the air. As I mentioned in my post on ‘What Makes Your Music Interesting?‘ I’ve been talking to Tom Robinson about my music ever since we met at his event that I live-blogged at London Songwriters Week.
Well, on last night’s Introducing Show, stevelawson.net was his website of the week, and he played I’m Lost by Lobelia and I, and said some rather nice things about it.
You Can Listen to it on the iPlayer by going to the show page, and clicking on the Sunday link in the listen again menu. Continue reading “Website Of the Week on 6Music Introducing!”
Two More Contrasting Solo Bass Experiment Videos.
Since Saturday’s upload, I’ve put 2 more videos on Vimeo for your delectation and delight, which contrast the different ways that the Looperlative can be used to either simply provide a loop for a piece of music, or be integral to the way it’s created, and the sound that emerges.
I’m fascinated by the relationship between technology and end result, and by the methods that we as musicians can use to keep our own technical thoughts and experiments subservient to the greater artistic and communicative aims… Continue reading “Two More Contrasting Solo Bass Experiment Videos.”
New Ambient Music Video
Having had the aforementioned week away from playing, I sat down yesterday to do some bass-things. I started out on my fretted 6 string bass, and couldn’t really find anything that was particularly interesting to me (though that may feel very different when I go back to watch the video!), but once I switched to the fretless, things got a lot more fun.
This first video is actually the second one I recorded yesterday, and starts out pretty spacey and mellow. There a big healthy dose of fretless melody stuff in the middle – just exploring the emotional landscape of the underlying loops (which are three overlapping loops of different lengths, so the texture keeps shifting, along with the subtle changes in the harmony as the different parts of the three loops coincide to form new chords). Continue reading “New Ambient Music Video”
More Music Video – New Public Beta experiments + Duo with Theo Travis
Here are the latest couple of videos I’ve put up. The first is another of the experimental ideas I’m working on for the new album – this time I wanted to try something a little more solidly rhythmic, just to see how the replace functions interact with a percussive track. (the part is played by muting all the strings, and then using a ‘double thumb’ technique, more readily associated with slap bass, to get the percussive pattern).
Continue reading “More Music Video – New Public Beta experiments + Duo with Theo Travis”
Two Contrasting New Musical Experiments (Video)
Here’s the two latest bits of ‘public beta test music’ that I’ve put up online.
They contrast a couple of different possible uses of the functions I’ve been exploring on the Looperlative of late – the first being using the replace functions as an ancillary bleepy effect in an otherwise mellow ballad, and the second being a full-on rhythmic bleep-fest, that veers much closer to glitch-core (though the fact that my rhythmic reference point is just a fairly slow ‘four on the floor’ kick-drum style pattern is a little less interesting than you’d expect from something more obviously IDM…) Continue reading “Two Contrasting New Musical Experiments (Video)”
Two More Musical Experiments… And a Podcast.
It’s been another very creative day – after the video that I put up this morning, I got working again on some more musical experiments using the looperlative with the new buttons that I’ve programmed.
Each day that I experiment with these glitchy replace functions, it feels like I’m getting closer them being ‘musically transparent’ – where the music is bigger than the technique… I’m trying to get so comfortable with the tech that I can employ it while focussing on the music.
Continue reading “Two More Musical Experiments… And a Podcast.”
More New Music: Video of a Looperlative Glitchy Bluesy Electronica Experiment
Here’s another new ‘public beta’ video – this time, I’m experimenting with some new functions that’ve just been added to the Looperlative LP1. (that’s the looping device I use…)
The new tricks are around the idea of ‘replacing‘ bits of a loop, with other audio, giving it a chopped up, glitchy feel. The main effect I’m using is a ‘quantise replace‘ function, that replaces bits, but switches on on and off on the beat, so when I hit the button it waits for the next exact subdivision of the loop (in this case, 1/96th of the whole loop time) before doing anything, and again to switch off again. Continue reading “More New Music: Video of a Looperlative Glitchy Bluesy Electronica Experiment”
More New Music: Cruising Towards a New Album…
I’m finally making some headway on ideas for a new solo album (or whatever a collection of music that used to be called an album is now called). I’m still not sure whether it’s going to be all completely solo, have a few special guests, be all collaborative, or what, but at least some musical ideas are happening.
I had another go at the new tune I posted on Youtube a couple of weeks ago, at the gig in Edinburgh last weekend. This new version is a lot faster (not sure that’s a good thing) and has a nice little loop/delay thing going with the melody about half way through, and then an improv section at the end where the main loop disappears, a bit of the tune continues and a few other interesting things happen around it – so here’s the 0.2b public beta version, on youtube: Continue reading “More New Music: Cruising Towards a New Album…”
House Concerts, and More New Youtube Video.
Last Friday (April 17th) Lobelia and I played our first house concert in a couple of months in Leith, Edinburgh.
It was a great demonstration of everything that’s cool about house concerts:
- It was organised very much at the last minute (wasn’t even advertised at all until 2 weeks before the gig),
- It was booked by someone who’d seen me give a masterclass a few years ago and couldn’t be bothered to wait for a ‘proper’ venue to get round to booking Lo and I, so got on and did it himself.
- It was populated by friends and family of Paddy who booked it, most of whom had little idea who we were beyond Paddy raving about it.
- It was marvellous. Continue reading “House Concerts, and More New Youtube Video.”