employment is the bane of creativity (but not it's death)

work getting to be so intense over the last 2 months has meant that Quiet World hasn't been getting my full attention but it has been getting my passing attention and as such there are 4 definite releases on the horizon.

First up is an intense little drone album from the very wonderful Brian Lavelle called 'My Hands Are Ten Knives'.  Brian's been on a real roll of late - check this magical free download of his out - and this is another missive from that good place he's in.

The second is 'Love Song for Broken Buildings' a very nice guitar based ambient set from Kostoglotov who may be familiar to those of you following my Wonderful Wooden Reasons where I've featured two of his recent releases.

The other two releases both feature me and my two most regular compatriots.
The first is a collaboration with Banks Bailey called 'Strange Pilgrims'

The other is an as yet untitled split (not a collab) with Darren Tate.His track is a beautiful and restrained drone piece, mine is an anything and everything musique concrete mash-up.


Further in the year there will also be another Philip Corner album. This time featuring his work with gongs and field recordings - I've heard it, it's magnificent.

hopefully some more plans will come to fruition in the near future but that's all I've got for you for now.  These releases should start appearing sometime within the next month.

peace
ian

crackle, rattle, hum & thrum

The set for the Parrot is really starting to come together at last.  I'm relying a bit heavy on the laptop but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  It's how i originally had envisioned things working and had kinda moved away from it for a while but it does seem the best way to go for me i think.  It means there is a much closer relationship between my recorded sounds and my live sound than I'd been envisaging recently as I'd kinda moved into the idea that it was going to be an all synth sort of deal but that turned out to be a little problematic.  They are obviously still going to have a strong feature on the set but in a far more decorative nature rather than being the root sounds.

here's the poster again...

Wonderful Wooden Reasons 52

The new issue of Wonderful Wooden Reasons is now online with reviews of...

Music

brb>voicecoil - These Are Not Our Borders
Culver & Karst - Mile High Volcano
Day Before Us / Nimh - Under Mournful Horizons
John Huw Lewis - Moons of Neptune vol.2
Susan Matthews - L'Empriente de nos Regards
Monos - Age and Transformation / Aged and Transformed
Mystified & Seetyca - Suns
Yann Novak - Presence
Olekranon - Barbarians
Rusalka - Underfoot
Sonic Catering Band - A Gourmet's Slumber
Sujo & Sunhammer - Fistula
Vopat - same
Chris Whitehead - Ravenscar

Books

Dan Abnett - Salvation's Reach
Warren Ellis - Captain Swing & the Electrical Pirates of Cindery Island
Warren Ellis - Gun Machine
Mark Hodder - Burton & Swinburne in Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon
Charles Stross - Down on the Farm
Charles Stross - Overtime
Charles Stross - The Fuller Memorandum
Bryan Talbot - Grandville: Mon Amour
Bryan Talbot - Grandville: Bete Noire
Bill Willingham & Shaun McManus - Thessaly: Witch for Hire

Movies

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Red Dawn (the new one; with that guy who was Thor in it)
State of Emergency

Hope you find something you like and don;t forget there is a mixcloud player on the right hand side (under my cheeky Quiet World advert) that features many of the things featured in the issue.

peace
ian

Performance Anxiety

The back room has been taken over by synthesizers and today I began my mission to really get to grips with my toys and work out some sort of set for the gig in April.  It mostly went well.  there was a period right in the middle of the afternoon where it all came together really nicely into a big looping post-industrial jam and i got completely lost in it.  One of the main problems I'm facing is I'm too uptight about the gadgetry.  I'm so used to working incredibly slowly and self editing and correcting that when I take myself out of that mode I'm too conscious of the 'mistakes' or rather I should probably call them the unexpected little outbursts.  Still, there's a month to go and I'll have plenty of opportunities between now and then to find my path.

Spent this evening typing up the reviews for the next issue of WWR which, all being well, will be online tomorrow (Sunday) or Monday.  I was hoping to have some of the new features in place this issue but the inspection that I talked about in the last post got in the way of me chasing that and so neither of them have happened yet.

peace
Ian

performing for an unappreciative audience and a hopefully appreciative one

so, the inspection is over - thankfully.  at this point I've no idea how it went. It was an in-house inspection where I was assessed while guiding a beginners class on protest music.  The kids were doing presentations on songs of their choice explaining their background and providing an analysis of the lyrics to demonstrate why they thought they were appropriate choices.  I like this lesson.  I teach a lot about protest music and try to keep fairly relevant but obviously my choices are always going to be governed by my personal tastes and background so it's really good for both them and me if they take over occasionally and school me in some more up-to-date rants.  Anyway, the inspector (a lecturer from the car mechanics department - which I say only for information not to make any aspersions on his intelligence - i have two friends in that department) came in, didn't even acknowledge the students, sat with his back to them for an hour and then left without saying goodbye.  Personally I thought it was seriously fucking rude!  and let me just say the presentations and the associated discussions were fantastic.  Every student in the room produced their A-game and nailed it and the inspector didn't even deign to watch.  5 days on I'm still fucking furious!

from this point on I'm going to take a slight break from being all about work and give some focus over to prepping myself for my upcoming return to live performance.  the venue is booked and the date is locked in.  I'm hopeful that it's going to be a fairly low-key affair but at this point I'm not sure if that's even an option.

here's the poster...

The Parrot is a lovely little venue and record shop staffed by some lovely folk with great taste in music.  for the last few months they've been putting on these themed nights - Night with the Nurse, The Esoteric Underground, An Evening with Sun Ra.  They've been great fun and a nice way for lovers of odd music to get together in this fairly musically conservative little area of the world.
This one raises the bar (especially for me) and hopefully will be a shape of things to come.
Firstly though I have to get some practice in.  I'm a preparer by nature.  I don't like to go into things half cocked.  I want to know I've got everything I need in place and be raring to go.  As such I'm taking over the spare bedroom for the next month and am going t have my gear on permanent set-up so I can just walk in and make some noises whenever I have a spare couple of minutes.  It should be good fun.

With three new releases on the horizon but not necessarily very imminent I do have a little something to tide you all over in the meantime.  This is a mash up of three old unfinished pieces I found when going through some old discs.  I hope you dig it.