I was asked to take part in this short piece by the BBC Archive that focused on Peter Zinovieff‘s computer-made music and the role computers now play in everyday life. You can follow the archive on Twitter as they regularly post fascinating clips of unsung pioneers and oddities from yesteryear.
Film
Fantastic new official video created for ‘Glass Onion’ ahead of the reissue of The White Album next week.
This is a bit special – Howlround’s ‘A Creak In Time’ soundtrack to Steven McInerney‘s film of the same name – remixed both aurally and visually. The third release on Steven’s Psyché Tropes label, it features exclusive new tracks by Howlround, Dan Hayhurst, Tom White, Merkaba Macabre and Ian Helliwell. 180g Toxic Yellow LP, available now in a limited edition of 275.
The film component has been reworked from 16mm film reels that didn’t make the final cut, resulting in a zero waste film project. The album features two exclusive Howlround tracks, one brand new composition and one outtake from the original sessions.
Another great poster from La Boca for this year’s Beyond fest – see their incredible line up here
I know I post about Sculpture a lot but I just cannot get my head round how they do some of their stuff – this video has so much work in it that my brain hurts. The comic of the album gets the animated treatment with a couple of tracks from the album including ‘Nite Flight’, my favourite. Listen and buy a copy on cassette or DL here as well as this free remix
AV series #3
inquiries [email protected]
We’re really excited to be hosting The Karminsky Experience Inc. for a DJ set at Further on Sept 15th but got even more excited when they revealed that they’d be giving away some of these VR viewers to punters at the gig too. This pair of Cardboard VR glasses, beautifully illustrated by Dry British, lets you view their new 360 degree film to go with ‘See Inside’ from their last LP, ‘Beat’ which they should also have copies of on sale. I’m told this will be the first time you’ll be able to get your hands on these beauties but numbers will be limited.
After extracting and assembling the glasses, you scan the QR code on the side with your phone or find the video on YouTube via the URL they provide – adjust the settings accordingly, press play and pop the phone into the viewer. From then on you’re taken into a Karminsky world whilst the music plays and you look around. Obviously it’s impossible to convey in writing, you really have to experience it first hand. Come along and maybe you can have a Karminsky Experience of your own.
Tickets for Sept 15th w. The Karminsky’s, Markey Funk (Delights), Pete WIlliams and myself are available here.
Glasgow friends, I’ve finally managed to sneak in a performance of my ‘O Is For Orange’ AV set in your fine town, during the two days I’m in Scotland with The The next month.
I performed the 1st AV mix – Selected Aphex Works – last year and Glasgow was one of the best audiences ever.
This is the 2nd and if you like Boards of Canada then this mix is for you…
Sept 4th, McChuills bar, limited tickets here
Seeing as I never got round to posting these at the time (I moved house the week after) and with a new event upon us in a month’s time, here’s a quick look back at the last Further at the Portico Gallery, November 2017 with guests Sculpture and Simon James (The Simonsound). Photos by Martin LeSanto-Smith and myself
Simon James at the Buchla 200e Electric Music Box
Here’s a film of Simon’s performance by his brother, Curtis James
Simon James Buchla 200e performance at Further from Simon James on Vimeo.
The record and merch stall was kindly provided by Michael and Dorian from the local Book & Record Bar
Sculpture at soundcheck and during their performance
Tickets for the next one – Sept 15th, 2018 with myself, Pete WIlliams, The Karminsky Experience Inc. and Markey Funk (Delights) are available here.
This is last week’s news now but I finally found myself in Elephant & Castle underground station this week and went in search of the Aphex Twin adverts that had appeared the previous Monday. Nestling in a corridor near the lifts below the shopping centre end of the station are the two op-art-esque logos, seemingly tiled into the wall although closer inspection reveals a carefully designed paste on advert like any other, just with special attention made to the scale of the tiles being rendered.
It really is a great example of advertising assimilated into its environment and having all the more impact for it, it’s beautifully done, even if whoever pasted it up couldn’t quite be bothered to line the tiles up on the right hand side (see above). Other, similar designs also started popping up in other countries too, follow #3 aka Paul Nicholson, the original logo designer, for pictures and locations.
By now we know that this was advance warning of a new release, the ‘Collapse’ EP, scheduled for release on Warp mid September on vinyl, CD, cassette and limited foil-covered 12″ which intrigues me the most because the French company who used to produce those foil sheets you sometimes see on old record sleeves went out of business about a decade ago. Someone must have found a way to make them again and it’s a custom Aphex logo design rather than a pattern, very interesting…
Anyway – there’s a new video by Weirdcore that references the design above and the various formats can be pre-ordered here. (Beware – really awful website design alert – probably intentional)
With odd timing I’m pulling my Selected Aphex Works AV set out of retirement this weekend for an outing at the Space Theatre in Bangor, N. Ireland so I’m including the new video in the mix and then also playing a bonus club set at The Hop House nearby afterwards.
Just missed out on one of these gorgeous 2001 posters by Raid71 via the Bottleneck Gallery the other week, printed on foil no less. Selling for $65, already on eBay for between $200-300 – gutted.
There’s a new, double vinyl repress of the Jerry Goldsmith score to Logan’s Run just out from Waxworks. This is the expanded score that was released on CD by Film Score Monthly in 2002 boosting the track count from the original’s 12 to 23. The beautiful artwork above is by Martin Ansin who has done many a Mondo poster, see his takes of Alien and Prometheus below. Transmission still have copies in the UK.
The original Logan’s Run theatrical poster with another, possibly fan made, example below.
It’s seldom that I hear something so fresh, so immediate and so mind-numbingly good that I have to go out, buy it straight away and then play it on repeat. I found Confidence Man via a recent Bigmouth podcast (thanks Andrew Harrison), a group described as a cross between Dee-Lite and Girls Aloud by no less than The Quietus and who live up to the hype. It’s pop with a capital P, a male and female fronted quartet with two shadowy (literally) background players/producers who crank the sound up for the clubs as much as the radio (I see Ewan Pearson was on mix duties for most of the album).
303 acid squiggles vie with sampled breaks, Italo piano and singalong hooks galore, one minute there’s a dead-ringer for ‘Come Together’ from ‘Screamadelica’ and the next it’s going all ‘I Feel Love’. It’s played with a straight face but tongues are firmly in cheeks and if the basslines don’t have you from the off then you must be partially dead or deaf. The LP, ‘Confident Music For Confident People’, came out last month on Heavenly in the UK and if it’s not in every album of the year list at the end of 2018 then there’s something seriously wrong. Get a load of this
I was a guest on Bigmouth last week – the weekly pop culture podcast – pontificating/nerding out on Avengers: Infinity War, Janelle Monae’s ‘Dirty Computer’ LP, new Sky Atlantic series, ‘Barry’ and the latest ‘Too Slow To Disco: Brasil’ compilation. There are masses of spoilers for Avengers so don’t listen if you’ve not seen it yet but it is at the end of the show so there’s plenty to listen to before we start giving the game away.
SPLICE 2018 /// FESTIVAL TRAILER /// from Splice Festival on Vimeo.
An incredible line-up of AV performances to explore, workshops to participate in, films and talks to expand your knowledge, Splice Festival 2018 is back for a third time.
Tickets are selling fast, there’s just a handful of discounted joint tickets remaining for Splice Festival Friday and Splice Festival Saturday. http://www.splicefestival.com/tickets/
The Sunday features a very special family friendly performance from Graeme Miller : Moomins and the Comet Live Re-score and a brilliant hands on workshop for the yung’uns from School of Noise : Childrens AV workshop: http://www.splicefestival.com/sunday-13th-may-kids-family/
There’s an additional venue on Sunday at Stour Space which looks just as good with Howlround reprising their live soundtrack to ‘A Creak In Time’ from last year’s premiere at Further plus Mixmaster Morris DJing, and some amazing – looking film from iloobia and Graham Dunning‘s mechanical techno project.
They have limited space available for the very popular workshops so get ’em now to avoid being disappointed.
http://www.splicefestival.com/splice/2018/workshops/
Fans of Boards of Canada will probably be familiar with a long-standing fan video for their track, ‘Everything You Do Is A Balloon’ from the ‘Hi Scores’ EP. Upped to YouTube ten years ago by user nonameno5, it samples from a movie,‘One Got Fat: Bicycle Safety ‘ from 1963, and the bizarre imagery works beautifully with the song. “A group of children, all wearing ape masks, rides their bicycles to the park for a picnic. Along the way, all but one are eliminated for violating basic bike safety rules.”
I’ve used it in my AV sets before and decided to do so again for my forthcoming Boards-inspired AV mix, premiering this Friday at Archspace in London. The quality has always been an issue though so I thought I’d seek out the original video and re-edit a new version, down to the frame, to see if I could get a better looking copy.
Upon finding a copy and comparing the two I was shocked to find that not only was the detail better and colour richer and less bleached out, but some scenes had been cropped or zoomed into so that there was more to see in some scenes. The differences are fascinating and the extra details make it even more disturbing. Here’s some A/B comparisons between the original frame and my re-edit.
Whilst researching some original Boards of Canada sample sources I chanced upon these today
I’m working away on this at the moment after creating a three minute track for Penguin Books from audio book samples for World Book Day and last week’s support slot mix for the Art Of Noise. The new ‘O Is For Orange’ AV set will take the mix I created in 2013 as the starting point but add plenty of new material, not least tracks from ‘Tomorrow’s Harvest’ and newer songs influenced by the group. It won’t be 100% Boards of Canada like the Aphex Twin set of last year, more using their sound as a basis for the tone of the set and visuals.
Tickets for the Deaf Institute gig are available here. Final tickets for the London premiere at Archspace here
Updates on here are still sporadic as I slowly get my house in order after last year’s move but I can see the wood for the trees now so hopefully things will get back to normal. I’m more visually active on Instagram at the moment as it’s more, well… instant, so you can follow me there and see what I’m up to with lots of incidental stuff that doesn’t make it to this blog. The premiere of this mix is only three weeks away and there will be a second in Manchester at the Deaf Institute in June. Hopefully there will be more bookings to come, keep an eye on the column on the left or my Facebook or Twitter feeds for more info.
Now, THAT’s a poster for a comic blockbuster! Could have been a horrendous car crash with so many characters but somehow they’ve managed to pull it off. New trailer is here too – can’t wait!
The Italian quintet are back with a new album, video and tour, reaching the UK this week with a special Morricone songbook set at the Church of Sound on Thursday. The new album, ‘Decade’, looks and sounds fabulous and their new video is nuts, the weirdest one yet. If you’ve never seen a Calibro 35 video, go and check them out on YouTube, always high quality, super stylish and original. The album is available is a number of bundles over on their Bandcamp: gatefold vinyl, cassette and CD and with optional black or clear vinyl 7″ too.
