Friday 31 August 2018

Upcoming gigs

Ian will be performing - in a duo with Susan Matthews - at this years Nawr at Swansea International Festival on October 3rd - more details here...

https://www.swansea.gov.uk/article/43881/NAWR-at-Swansea-International-Festival-2-Angharad-Davies--Lee-Patterson--Susan-Matthews--Ian-Holloway

and in Aberystwyth on November 1st - which is all the details i have on that for now.

It's been extremely quiet around here lately as I try and get well and get my little business off the ground but hopefully i'll be able to dedicate some more time to the label again sometime soon.

Stick with us and we'll see you soon.

ian

Tuesday 17 October 2017

Philip Corner

After a very long hiatus following various accidents, injuries and illnesses Quiet World is finally back in the game with our newest release by the incomparable Philip Corner.

'Gong/Ear:Natura' is a set of recordings dating from 1995 of Philip interacting with two locations (an orchard and a courtyard) with gong and assorted other less immediately identifiable sound sources (there's definitely a drink being slurped during 'Courtyard').

The recordings were made using a Sony Walkman and a Sennheiser microphone and so are quite noisy in places.  They've been cleaned up a little but we kept it light so as not to lose the spontaneity and the very nature of the recordings.

The album has been released on CDr and as a download and can be found here...


Phoebe, Rhodri, Philip, David, Ian, Jenn (photo by Daryl Feehely)
 Philip and his partner Phoebe Neville recently visited Swansea as part of Nawr at the Swansea International Festival and performed two concerts in the town. I was honoured to have been asked to perform with them at the first of these, 'Metal Meditations', alongside Rhodri Davies, Jenn Kirby and David Pitt.

When I first moved to Swansea in 1994 one of the first places I visited was The Mission Gallery and immediately fell in love with the place (in particular it's acoustics) so to finally get to play there - especially playing Philip's fabulous score on David's fantastic gong collection with five amazing musicians in front of an appreciative audience - was a dream come true and they were fantastic hosts.

We were hoping to have the new album available for the concert but a series of broken promises by the printers meant the discs didn't arrive in time.  Instead I spent the afternoon hand making copies of the album using blank discs, card and coloured cases that I had around the house; I managed to make 16 (8 purple and 8 blue) before my printer ran out of ink.  Each disc was signed by Philip with 6 being shared with the performers and the rest offered for sale.  We still have a few of the blue left - purple proved very popular - and these will be put up for sale at a future date

The second concert was at the Swansea Studios and featured a selection of Philip's works performed by the trio of Philip, Phoebe and Rhodri.  Each piece was wonderful but for me it was the physicality of opener 'Piano Movement' and the delicate and beautiful 'Petali Pianissimo' that stole the show.

Huge kudos must go to Rhodri for organising these concerts (and the other two in the series) and a massive thanks to Philip and Phoebe for making the journey. 

Sunday 23 July 2017

You can call it Al

Hi folks.

Good evening from the land of thunderstorms and sudden and intense monsoons.  Here on the Welsh coast, contrary to popular opinion, we generally get fairly mellow weather but the last couple of days it's been alternating between blazing sunshine, lightning storms and sudden torrential downpours, it's very confusing and soggy.  I've even bought a pakka mac,  I've named it 'Al'... Al pakka (sorry...not sorry).

Other than the weather this week has been mostly dominated by work. I'm in the process of setting up a new business (wish me luck) and so my focus has very much been on getting the plan correct and in place.  I have managed, for the first time in recent memory, some time to make some music.  I had a couple of sessions during the week and two new tunes have emerged; one is a finished piece whilst the other is most definitely a work in progress.

My plan for the coming week is to find time to work on a couple of new releases for the label, one of which is an exciting return by an old friend.  I'm not going to tell you any more at this point but this has been on the backburner for a few years now whilst I recovered from my accidents and learnt to walk again (twice) and it's about time it came out.  It'll hopefully be released to coincide with an upcoming event.

The British Space Group at Nawr 7 (photo by Daryl Feehely)
Last night was the latest in the series of 'Nawr' concerts organised by Rhodri Davies here in Swansea.  I made one of my rare live appearances (photographic proof included) in my BSG guise at the last one alongside Deaf Pictures, Bill Thompson and Olivia Louvel.  It was a fab night in a lovely venue. I've been wanting to catch Deaf Pictures (or Dan and Rose as I prefer to think of them) for a while now as I've missed them every other time they've played here.  Bill and Olivia were both new names to me and what a joy they turned out to be; Bill's immersive guitar improvisations and Olivia's suite of song based electronica were a beautiful counterpoint to each other.

Burkhard Beins & Rhodri Davies at Nawr 8 (photo by me)
Yesterday the very fine line up was swn-dial, The Swansea Laptop Orchestra, Burkhard Beins & Rhodri Davies and cellist Hannah Marshall.  I thoroughly enjoyed them all but it was especially wonderful to hear long time collaborators Rhodri and Burkhard as they're improvisation was seamless and unless you were watching closely - which I wasn't / couldn't from my seat at the back manning the merch desk - it was impossible to tell where one musician ended and the other began.

To return to Dan and Rose for a moment, in their other guise as film makers they interviewed me (and a host of other Welsh musicians) for their next documentary.  I'm completely fuzzy on the whole experience and can't remember if I talked a load of old tosh or not (probably).  I've had the distinct pleasure of watching one of Dan's previous films and am excited to see all the bits that don't include me of this next one.

'Til next time.
Be well.
Ian

Saturday 15 July 2017

Hello

Ok so some of you who've used the .co.uk links to Quiet World or Wonderful Wooden Reasons might be a little surprised to find yourselves landing here.

Basically it was time to renew the website and it simply wasn't economically viable to do so so I had to kill them off.  I did save all the contents so much of it will reappear here in some form.  the WWR content is going to be turned into a book so you if you appeared in the pages of the zine then you will soon appear in the pages of a book,  which is cool, yes?

After several years of incident and accident and associated recovery times I am starting to return to the world.  Quiet World is starting to emerge from its enforced hibernation with a couple of releases on the horizon - the first one around September time.

I'm also going to start trying to use this blog more - potentially as a weekly roundup of what's been going on so if you're so inclined you might like to click follow to keep updated.

More soon

Peace
Ian

Saturday 16 April 2016

The Phantasmagoria

About 6 years ago I came to the painful realisation that I probably was never going to soundtrack one of those cool gothic Doctor Who episodes of the Philip Hinchcliffe era full of robot mummies, dilapidated country piles, mad scientists laboratories and Victorian sewers.  The bird hadn't so much flown on that one as much as that the egg from which the bird would have to hatch in order to one day fly away had never been laid. So, I made my own.

The process was simple.  I came up with some characters led by a Thomas Carnacki, John Silence, Doctor Who type chap and a list of plot points that I thought gave a suitably vague story arc (so that I didn't have to do any actual story writing) and then composed around that list.

I wanted this to be a fresh new start so I used an entirely new (to me) set of musical tools both to avoid slipping into any old habits or any of the same old compositional tricks I've used over the years and also in order to get a more appropriate sonic pallette and so armed I set about writing a suite of tunes that would evoke the music that had defined my ears.  In line with the soundtrack idea I deliberately kept the music short and, in order to evoke an air of suitable menace and otherness,  fairly atonal but on a couple of tracks I tried my hand at a tune or two which was a big step for someone who'd spent the last 12 years avoiding them like the plague.


That first Phantasms EP came together over the course of a couple of weeks and the response was enthusiastic enough to plant the seed to make another one.

By now though I'd satisfied my Doctor Who hankering and I wanted to take inspiration from another show from my youth, Sapphire & Steel.  A show that had such an impact on a young me that I still flinch when having my photo taken. I got far more involved with my plot points this time round and I needed to remind myself of the oddness of that particular show and the way the mundane bled into the obtuse.  Like the show, I wanted to avoid the obvious, keep resolutions to a minimum and maintain a fairly constant atmosphere of unease. This second EP duly made it's way onto Bandcamp

By now I realised that this Phantasms thing was destined, in the great tradition of science fiction, to be a trilogy and so I duly embarked on the third part and hit a creative brick wall.  To do the final entry in my holy trinity of Wyrd Britain sci-fi I'd have to have done 'Quatermass' next but that seemed to me to be a project in it's own right but I really wanted to round things off and say goodbye to these, partially formed, un-named travellers who have lived in my head for the last 6 years.

And so, in the end, I did just that.  I envisioned a story whereby the travellers are summoned to go on a journey to say a final goodbye to their comrade who has chosen to finally stop in this new place.  He stays, they depart and all eventually find their way home.

This one was undoubtedly the most difficult of the three to write and record.  Half of the music came fairly quickly but then I kept getting distracted from it by work commitments and various other projects but once I'd established the narrative the final tunes were written and recorded in a few days.  This third EP was finally released onto Bandcamp a few weeks ago, some 5 and a half years after the first one went live.

So, over half a decade on from the initial whim to do something different and having enjoyed doing it so much that  I've now adopted a new name under which to record this more, I suppose, radiophonic and hauntologically inclined music and I've decided to give the three EPs their time in the sun.  Having previously only been available digitally via our Bandcamp page I've now collected the 3, given them a spiffy new name, some smart new black and white artwork and have made them available on disc for the first time.

BTW - The three separate EPs are still online for those who may already have some of the parts and have no need to buy all three.

The Phantasmagoria is out now and available on both disc and digitally via the Quiet World Bandcamp page.

I hope you enjoy.
Ian

Monday 14 March 2016

Phantasms 3

8 months on from my accident things are finally starting to get back to normal here. There are a few releases lined up for the next couple of months as much of what was planned for last year had to be temporarily shelved but we have a couple of real treats lined up.  I'll have more details on them closer to release.

Firstly though we are happy to bring you the third and final part of my Phantasms project - incidentally now attributed to The British Space Group

You can hear the third part in the player below and parts one and two are available here and here.


As with the other parts this has been made available digitally but within a fortnight we will be issuing all three parts on one CD under the umbrella name, 'The Phantasmagoria'.  We will, of course, announce it here and on the Facebook page when it's ready but here's a sneaky peek of the sleeve just to tantalise.

Finally, I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support and kindness over the last 8 months.  It really was hugely appreciated.

Peace
Ian



Saturday 12 September 2015

Strange Orbits

Back in 2006, under my old 'Psychic Space Invasion' name, I released an album called 'Pendulum' (click the name to hear / buy it).  It was made over the course of a weekend in the back room of my flat whilst watching the snow fall on Swansea.  It was made using layers of short loops I'd made from various sources that I overlaid and overlapped.

A couple of months later I started working on more loop pieces which when finished - with one exception that appeared on a very small run compilation on the Anima Mal Nata label - sat on the hard-drive of my computer whilst I got distracted by other things.  And there it remained.

Until today.

Today I was playing around with the logo I'd made for The British Space Group - that one up there ^ and realised that it seemed to fit with the long neglected album so here it is; seeing the light for the first time in 8 years is my 'new' loop album, 'Strange Orbits'.

It's a lot more intensely psychedelic experience than 'Eyes Turned Skyward' but after spending the last 8 weeks pretty much trapped indoors thanks to having split my tibia in half that's pretty much how I feel.

This one is going to be digital only (unless I change my mind) and for those of you wondering about them, lots of my tunes start off their lives with nonsense words for titles just in the case of 'Pendulum' and now 'Strange Orbits' the titles stay that way.

Hope you enjoy.

Ian

Monday 10 August 2015

Under An Animated Sky

I'm still laid up with my right leg in plaster from toe to hip after the surgery to pin and repair my very broken tibia (I fell down the stairs) and now that the morphine has run out I'm getting increasingly bored of the view from my living room so I've been pottering with stuff.

So I've made a video for my track off the XPYLON charity compilation (see previous post).  The footage is from an old film called 'Our Mr. Sun' - https://archive.org/details/our_mr_sun - from which I edited a few of the animated segments.

I hope you enjoy it and if you do then please consider chucking some cash at the XPYLON compilation.  You can grab the album for £7 or individual tracks for a bargain £1 each.

Peace

Ian

Thursday 6 August 2015

[xpylon] charity compilation

One of my British Space Group tunes is featured on this new compilation released this Thursday in aid of the charity Mind; any and all support you can give would be hugely appreciated.

The title references the fabulous Exotic Pylon label and radio show which connects all the participants - in my case, the radio show.

Press release:
Once upon a time there was a radio show, then there was a series of live gigs and events. Eventually, there was a record label. They were all called Exotic Pylon. There was one man who was the creator, curator and driving force behind all these things: a man called jonny mugwump. A whirlpool of creativity and enthusiasm, jonny is as close to a raging Darwinian force of nature as you could ever meet.In its record label state, Exotic Pylon produced a series of releases that were completely unique from each other. There was no through - line of sound. No label aesthetic. The one thing they all had in common was that they had nothing in common. From torch songs to folk, from electronica to spoken word. All human life was on the label (assuming the human life was slightly lop-sided and walked with a limp). The one thing that united everyone on Exotic Pylon was a sense of comradeship. We were all proud to have been involved in some way or another. We were all members of the same invisible college. Almost without exception we all kept in contact with each other once the label had died. It may have disappeared but its spirit has remained.


Here we present XPYLON, a compilation of ex-Pyloneers. Each track is brand new and exclusive to the release. There are supergroups, individuals and collaborations, all of which evoke the heady days of the once great Exotic Pylon.


Tuesday 24 February 2015

Some not so Wonderful Wooden Reasons

I'm tired.  So very tired.

I've been burning every part of the candle that would catch light for so long now that something has got to give soon and I think that it's going to be me.

I've been down this road before about 12 years ago and it's not somewhere I want to go again so I think I need to take this opportunity to change direction.

I need to take things out of my life and make space and it looks like one of those things is Wonderful Wooden Reasons.

I've loved doing my little magazine and it's led me to so much amazing music and I've met so many lovely people through it.  At it's height each issue was clocking up thousands of hits and it was truly humbling how many of you cared enough about my witterings to come back and read each issue.  But, I simply don't have the room at the moment to give it, not just the attention I should, but seemingly, any attention at all.

So, for now,  Wonderful Wooden Reasons is turning it's lights off, closing it's doors and saying goodbye.

I'm going to be continuing with Quiet World but perhaps in a much quieter fashion but your support is always appreciated.  There's a new album available there this week which is something I've been pottering with for about a year now, I hope you like it. 

Thank you for all your support over the past 12 years.  It's been a pleasure getting to know you all and hearing your amazing sounds.

Friday 20 February 2015

The British Space Group

So after taking quite a long time out to recharge, refocus and reinvigorate I have today launched the digital copy (CDs to follow) of the first album by my new project The British Space Group.

The album - Eyes Turned Skyward - is a deliberate (but not huge) step away from the more post-industrial musique concrete style music that I've been making of late.  It's more in the spirit of the more synth driven albums I produced in a mad scramble a few years ago such as Pendulum, All Gods Children Got Space and Phantasms I & II.

The new identity is an attempt to create a home for this side of what I like to make that is distinct from the other music.  It's certainly not going to replace it - expect the long delayed Aurarora album to be available before the end of the summer - but is something I'm thoroughly enjoying playing with at the moment.

Digital only at the moment due to a delay with the CDs but they will hopefully be available by the end of next week.

Hope you like it.

Wednesday 12 November 2014

Music Review: Listening Center - Other Voices 2

(Ghost Box GBX712)
7" Single

Listening Center is the musical persona of NYC musician David Mason.  For his contribution to the new Ghost Box series of 7" delights he has brought a short set of synthesizer ditties that invoke a sprightly library vibe alongside Vangelis-esque beats and a Kosmicshe-pop sensibility.

It's a wonderful pop record that feels like it should have been released a couple of decades ago but I'm glad it wasn't because back then I was all about the fast and the heavy and so would have never gotten to hear it.

(www.ghostbox.co.uk)

Tuesday 11 November 2014

Music Review: Brooks & O'Hagan - Other Voices 1

(Ghost Box GBX711)
7" Single

Ghost Box regular Jon Brooks (he of The Advisory Circle) here teams up with Sean O'Hagan of the High Llamas for two pieces of gentle, hazy, lazy sunshine pop or 'poptology' as my brain keeps insisting I call it.

Brooks' trademark hauntological tendencies are here giving the two tracks the feel of a 'Programmes for Schools and Colleges' countdown tune (which is no bad thing in my book) whilst O'Hagan's influence (and strings?) steers the music away from imminent lectures on 'Chemistry in Action' into the sunnier warmer climes of the gentle pop of The Free Design and The Beach Boys where instead you can feel chemistry in action. 

Singles were meant to sound like this.

(www.ghostbox.co.uk)

Sunday 9 November 2014

Music Review: Delia Derbyshire & Anthony Newley - Moogies Bloogies

(Trunk TTT008)
7" Single

Here we have an unreleased collaboration between Delia and the multi-talented Anthony Newley created apparently as soundtrack pieces but remained unused due to his move to the US with then wife Joan Collins.
Side one is a whimsical slice of vintage Delia all nursery rhyme atmospheres and tooting melodies over which Newley has added a voyeuristic commentary all sung in his best mockney manner (think Blur's 'Parklife').  Lyrics here - http://wiki.delia-derbyshire.net/wiki/Moogies_Bloogies

Over on the B side is something much, much stranger. 'I Decoded You (Moogies Bloogies pt.2)' sounds unlike anything else by Delia that I've ever heard and for it's 1 minute 28 second run time it is filled with busy clangs and tootles before twisting suddenly into a calliope waltz; over it all Newley, in another (more 'cultured') accent again signs a frankly creepy love song.  The notes on the reverse of the sleeve make the claim that musically this is an example of Delia sampling which seems reasonable and these folks are far more knowledgeable on this topic than me.

7 inch singles are rarely particularly cheap these days but they remain my favourite format and combining it with an unreleased rarity by a favourite musician makes this a real treat that's very much worth the asking price.

(www.trunkrecords.com)

(please note, that's not actually Delia (or Anthony Newley for that matter) in the video below but American composer and musician Suzanne Ciani)

Wednesday 29 October 2014

Music Review: Pauline Oliveros, David Rothenberg, Timothy Hill - Cicada Dream Band

(Gruenrekorder  Gruen149)
CD

When we last heard David Rothenberg he and some friends were making beautiful Bug Music on his earlier Gruenrekorder release.  This new one finds him continuing along that unique path again in the company of vocalist Timothy Hill but joined also this time by the (as if you needed me to tell you this) accordion playing Pauline Oliveros. 

CDB is a similar sort of creature to it's successor, which is no bad thing, but this time out the instrument seem to be taking a prominent role in the recordings.  Previously it seemed that Rothenberg was reacting to the insect's cavalcade of sound. Here the critters are more integrated into the music; as though the music was assembled around their exclamations.  It works really well but it does seem more deliberate and, for lack of a better word, 'composed' (which seems unlikely to me) than the previous.

It's a really lovely set.  Rothenberg is centre stage and on fine form, Oliveros is a more withdrawn presence but her contributions are precise and work particularly well alongside Hill whose vocalisations are restrained and avoid the overt (and for me very annoying) vocal gymnastics that many avant-vocalists are prone to.

Highly recommended and another in a long line of phenomenal releases from this eclectic and wonderful label.

(www.gruenrekorder.de)

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For the last 11 years Wonderful Wooden Reasons has championed experimental and non-commercial music of all forms. Please visit to access our extensive archives of music, book and movie reviews.
It is the in-house magazine for the Quiet World label which has released music from artists such as Ian Holloway, Darren Tate, Banks Bailey, Philip Corner, Colin Andrew Sheffield and many more.