Always super quick off the mark, the ever lovely Frans over at Vital Weekly has posted up the first review of the new(ish) album.
He's wrong about it being my first album of shorter tracks, there've been 6 others, but on the whole I think it's a pretty fair assessment.
IAN HOLLOWAY - HANDLE THIS WINO LIKE HE WAS AN ANGEL: BAUBLES & GEWGAWS 2002-2008 (CDR by Quiet World)
As far as I can remember, I think that all of the releases by Ian Holloway had just one track. Usually a drone based piece of around forty minutes. That's about the extend of his work, with minor differences here and there. Then this new release comes a major surprise. Apparently Holloway sometimes creates weird, little pieces on his computer, which he calls 'little diversions, games, distractions and brainstorms' which never fitted on any 'real' release. All of these little pieces were kept over a period of eight years and are now collected here. This is by far not the Holloway we know, no long form drones here, hardly any organ like sound, but something which is probably best defined as plunderphonics. Lifting his sounds from various types of media (CDs, TV, internet: who knows) he cuts and pastes them together in a highly vibrant manner. The CD opens with 'Why M', which seems to be more a click 'n cut piece, but quite soon after orchestral music comes in. Looped, transposed, shifted in true plunderphonic fashion. As said sometimes things are more abstract, in a clicks 'n cut manner, but these tracks are all pretty short. Its a pretty interesting release, but perhaps a bit long for the limited amount of ideas that these pieces have. I think Holloway could have been a bit more selective with these pieces, throw out those with the weakest ideas and over the top effects, like 'Monday's Time', and have with ten or so (instead of fifteen now) a much stronger album. Now its all a bit too sketch like and a bit crowded. I am pretty sure his dedicated fans will be shocked by this release, but I thought it was pretty good as well as funny. (FdW)
interestingly Darren Tate said something similar about it needing pruning but the whole point of releasing ths album was that it was a folder full of tracks that i'd grown to be inordinately fond of and so to leave any out would have felt odd.
It's always nice to get the first review back i'm not overly concerned with them but it is a good feeling when someone says something nice about your tunes.
.....................................
have spent most of today discussing the impact of punk music on subsequent genres with a bunch of music technology students. there are definitely worse ways to spend a day.
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Monday, 8 March 2010
some photos from Oxford
I got to be disgustingly old back in January (40 if you must know) and so sue decided to indulge my passion for all things brass and victorian and took me on a jaunt to Oxford to the Science museum and the Steampunk exhibition they were running. We also got to check out the new look Ashmolean - notable only for the slice that the staircase took out of my finger - and the beautiful Pitt-Rivers Anthropology museum and the Natural History museum which had the best roof i've ever seen.
anyway, here's some photos - i hope you dig them.
* The photos in landscape are getting clipped by blogger so click them to see the full version.
this is the Pitt-Rivers. check out that amazing totem pole. You could lose weeks (and children) in this place. It's jammed with stuff.
T-Rex at the Natural History Museum
Just the most amazing roof. i could have stared at this for days.
The Science Museum goes pseudo science.
This is a real exhibit (not part of the Steampunk stuff) and my favourite thing there. it's for measuring skulls. Isn't it wonderful.
An 'Eye-Pod'
I want one of these suits.
peace
ian
ps - it's my brother's birthday today. Happy birthday Stuart here's to many, many more.
anyway, here's some photos - i hope you dig them.
* The photos in landscape are getting clipped by blogger so click them to see the full version.
this is the Pitt-Rivers. check out that amazing totem pole. You could lose weeks (and children) in this place. It's jammed with stuff.
T-Rex at the Natural History Museum
Just the most amazing roof. i could have stared at this for days.
The Science Museum goes pseudo science.
This is a real exhibit (not part of the Steampunk stuff) and my favourite thing there. it's for measuring skulls. Isn't it wonderful.
An 'Eye-Pod'
I want one of these suits.
peaceian
ps - it's my brother's birthday today. Happy birthday Stuart here's to many, many more.
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
New album out now
Between 2002 and 2008 I recorded and released 7 albums, 2 EP's and various compilation tracks under the alias of Psychic Space Invasion. They were, I'm happy to say, a stylistically varied bunch that ranged from the sinister (This Quiet World) to the cosmic (Pendulum) with excursions into minimalism (All God's Children Got Space), noise (Lullaby For Rhodri) and musique concrete (In the Mean Time) with a few other detours along the way. It was undoubtedly the most creatively rewarding period of my life to that point.
All the time I was making this music there was, hidden on my PC a separate and very oddly named folder into which I fed all the interesting little diversions, games, distractions and brainstorms that simply didn't fit on whichever album I was working on at the time.
The title, 'Handle this wino like he was an angel', was robbed wholesale and wholeheartedly from the novel 'Trout Fishing In America' by beat author Richard Brautigan which I was reading at the time. Only ever meant to be an interim title for the folder it became, over time, increasingly apt as I grew ever more enamoured of it's contents and these previously discarded compositions took on a new life.
These 15 tracks represent a period in my life of constant exploration, of trying to find a route through music that was interesting and satisfying. These little stabs of sound are the much loved bastard offspring of that search.
The album is available from the Quiet World website here or alternatively you can listen to it by clicking the play button on the mixcloud player below.
I hope you dig it.
All the time I was making this music there was, hidden on my PC a separate and very oddly named folder into which I fed all the interesting little diversions, games, distractions and brainstorms that simply didn't fit on whichever album I was working on at the time.
The title, 'Handle this wino like he was an angel', was robbed wholesale and wholeheartedly from the novel 'Trout Fishing In America' by beat author Richard Brautigan which I was reading at the time. Only ever meant to be an interim title for the folder it became, over time, increasingly apt as I grew ever more enamoured of it's contents and these previously discarded compositions took on a new life.
These 15 tracks represent a period in my life of constant exploration, of trying to find a route through music that was interesting and satisfying. These little stabs of sound are the much loved bastard offspring of that search.
The album is available from the Quiet World website here or alternatively you can listen to it by clicking the play button on the mixcloud player below.
I hope you dig it.
Sunday, 21 February 2010
new old music on it's way
over the last couple of weeks I've been toying with the idea of releasing a new album. It's a collection of outtakes dating from 2002 to 2008, the time when I was making music under the psychic space invasion guise. it's 15 tracks of music that never fitted onto one of the albums or was made purely for the joy of making an odd noise.
I'm fairly brutal with my music and if i don't like something it usually gets deleted but all of these tracks must have caught my ears in some way as instead they were archived in a folder named after a line in a Richard Brautigan book i was reading at the time. over time i found that the tunes in this folder were something that i played increasingly often when nothing else was doing it for me and so became increasingly fond of the little blighters.
So, cutting to the now and I've decided to put it out and let others have a listen. Designing the sleeve took forever but I'm pretty pleased with the one i finally settled on.
I guarantee it's like nothing you've ever heard from me before. It's playful, it's obtuse, it's angular and it's fun.
it'll be available from the 28th of February.
I'm fairly brutal with my music and if i don't like something it usually gets deleted but all of these tracks must have caught my ears in some way as instead they were archived in a folder named after a line in a Richard Brautigan book i was reading at the time. over time i found that the tunes in this folder were something that i played increasingly often when nothing else was doing it for me and so became increasingly fond of the little blighters.
So, cutting to the now and I've decided to put it out and let others have a listen. Designing the sleeve took forever but I'm pretty pleased with the one i finally settled on.
I guarantee it's like nothing you've ever heard from me before. It's playful, it's obtuse, it's angular and it's fun.
it'll be available from the 28th of February.
Friday, 12 February 2010
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
new zine now online
i've uploaded the new issue of Wonderful Wooden Reasons complete with the mixcloud podcast for most of the featured artists as one long mix.
i've opened it with a tune of my own for no other reason than i wanted to be on there.
hope you enjoy.
i've opened it with a tune of my own for no other reason than i wanted to be on there.
hope you enjoy.
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Friday, 22 January 2010
you tubing
been having a day of busy idleness today watching BSG and making vids for youtube.
they're all just single image things except Music Box which is a short video of the track that leads from the gate to the doors of my mothers farm. i'm holding the camera still it's the car that's rolling around. that damn track has already cost us an exhaust and i thought it was getting another at xmas.
they're all just single image things except Music Box which is a short video of the track that leads from the gate to the doors of my mothers farm. i'm holding the camera still it's the car that's rolling around. that damn track has already cost us an exhaust and i thought it was getting another at xmas.
Saturday, 9 January 2010
i'd like to be warm now please baby jesus.
i am indoors with the radiators on and i'm wearing gloves and a hat. It is soooooo cold here the house's heating system can't handle it.
as it was fine today we did manage to get out and have a walk along the seafront and take a couple of photos.
as it was fine today we did manage to get out and have a walk along the seafront and take a couple of photos.
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
reading
i'm knee deep in books at the moment - i usually am but at the moment it's particularly deep as Borders had their closing down sale in the run up to xmas and so i have a lot of stuff to read.
so far i've read Death of Grass by John Christopher (he also wrote The Tripods) which is one i'd been fancying for a while. It was ok, a less cosy Wyndham-esque apocalypse but without Wyndham's charm.
i'm almost through Dan Abnett's Titanicus which is typical Abnett. not his best but eminently readable.
i'm unsure as to what to read next - probably going to be either Neil Stephenson's The Diamond Age, John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things or Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods.
I also have a load of unread graphic novels that i'll pepper these with including Grandville by Brian Talbot which looks pretty fine.
The latest issue of WWR went online just before new year and included a huge list of other people's choices for the year. It was a great response from those people i asked. some couldn't do it and some wouldn't for whatever reason, the only thing I'm concerned about was no response from Banks, if you're reading this fella get in touch - hope everything's ok. the variety of stuff people picked was really varied, Jean-Herve Peron's list was pretty funny and consisted of 10 albums he'd like to record himself.
xmas was the usual turmoil but was fun to see the family up at the farm.
hope y'all had a good time and have a great 2010.
so far i've read Death of Grass by John Christopher (he also wrote The Tripods) which is one i'd been fancying for a while. It was ok, a less cosy Wyndham-esque apocalypse but without Wyndham's charm.
i'm almost through Dan Abnett's Titanicus which is typical Abnett. not his best but eminently readable.
i'm unsure as to what to read next - probably going to be either Neil Stephenson's The Diamond Age, John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things or Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods.
I also have a load of unread graphic novels that i'll pepper these with including Grandville by Brian Talbot which looks pretty fine.
The latest issue of WWR went online just before new year and included a huge list of other people's choices for the year. It was a great response from those people i asked. some couldn't do it and some wouldn't for whatever reason, the only thing I'm concerned about was no response from Banks, if you're reading this fella get in touch - hope everything's ok. the variety of stuff people picked was really varied, Jean-Herve Peron's list was pretty funny and consisted of 10 albums he'd like to record himself.
xmas was the usual turmoil but was fun to see the family up at the farm.
hope y'all had a good time and have a great 2010.
Britain in the snow....
is the most pathetic thing you'll ever see.
swansea has had about 2 inches of snow last night and as a result all the schools and colleges are shut. i'm not complaining about an impromptu day off but it's pretty feeble.
the rest of the country has had a little more than us but not enough to justify changing the television schedules to accomodate a show entirely about the last few days snowfall. Airports are shut, motorways are shut, britain is shut.
then you look at countries that actually have snow to a depth worth talking about and see that they continue functioning as normal. there seem to be lessons worth learning in there somewhere.
i just robbed this picture off Warren Ellis' website because it's fab.
swansea has had about 2 inches of snow last night and as a result all the schools and colleges are shut. i'm not complaining about an impromptu day off but it's pretty feeble.
the rest of the country has had a little more than us but not enough to justify changing the television schedules to accomodate a show entirely about the last few days snowfall. Airports are shut, motorways are shut, britain is shut.
then you look at countries that actually have snow to a depth worth talking about and see that they continue functioning as normal. there seem to be lessons worth learning in there somewhere.
i just robbed this picture off Warren Ellis' website because it's fab.
Saturday, 5 December 2009
today is..
wet,
warmer,
Saturday,
almost over,
hectic,
uncomfortable,
busy,
noisy,
tidier,
late to start,
pixelated,
chauffeured,
reviewed,
recycled,
browsed,
drank,
boiled,
candlelit,
surfed,
darned,
drunk,
shopped,
hoovered
and
not necessarily in the right order
warmer,
Saturday,
almost over,
hectic,
uncomfortable,
busy,
noisy,
tidier,
late to start,
pixelated,
chauffeured,
reviewed,
recycled,
browsed,
drank,
boiled,
candlelit,
surfed,
darned,
drunk,
shopped,
hoovered
and
not necessarily in the right order
Thursday, 5 November 2009
Quieter World
I have an idea for a spin off from Quiet World. For lack of a better name i'm currently referring to it as Quieter World.
The bare bones of the idea is to invite people to make a recording of their immediate surroundings wherever they happen to be at a certain time for, say, five minutes. These would then be archived via the QW site as free downloads.
a new time is then set for another week, month, whenever. kinda like a global audio snapshot.
it might be fun?
if you're interested get in touch.
The bare bones of the idea is to invite people to make a recording of their immediate surroundings wherever they happen to be at a certain time for, say, five minutes. These would then be archived via the QW site as free downloads.
a new time is then set for another week, month, whenever. kinda like a global audio snapshot.
it might be fun?
if you're interested get in touch.
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
downloading the Quiet World
Just a quick message to let y'all know that the download page at www.quietworld.co.uk has been significantly updated to be both easier to use and also to include many of the more recently sold out titles.
It's cold here but there is beer in my near future, bean stew in my nearer future and fireworks tomorrow - yay for fireworks.
It's cold here but there is beer in my near future, bean stew in my nearer future and fireworks tomorrow - yay for fireworks.
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