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.

the perils of a brittle epidermis

Been quiet around here lately as we yet again have an inspection going on in work.  Colleges (and schools) in the UK are subject to endless bureaucratic interference and we go through these really intrusive inspections with tedious regularity.  anyway it'll all be over tomorrow (Thursday) and I can go back to relaxing a bit and doing fun things.

there are a couple of new releases in the pipeline - three that are very imminent - but in the meantime I'd like to present you with a new digital only release.

this is a extended version of an aspect of one of the upcoming releases.  As a component in the piece it has a purely textural function but I liked it on it's own also so it's become one of my little pieces of digital ephemera that I like to throw in the direction of your ears.

hope you like.  more news to follow soon.

peace
ian

Sandbanks

It's Quiet World's (and Wonderful Wooden Reasons) 10th birthday this year and to start off the festivities here is our first release of 2013

Matthew Shaw - Sandbanks

Disquiet World

So, the question at hand is what to do with myself this year?

And, I must admit I'm at a loss.

I have some ideas for new things for Wonderful Wooden Reasons which should be a bit of fun as long as I can get people on board with them.  It'll hopefully make the new issues a bit more of an event rather than simply a set of reviews.  More on this as it happens.

I've also a series of releases lined up for Quiet World by some really interesting folks starting with the delayed Matthew Shaw album in about a fortnight.

What I can't decide on is what to do with myself.  I've always loved teaching and I'm generally pretty good at it (even if I do say so myself) but this year has, so far, been a real chore.  Now this may well be a malaise following on from the hyperactive turmoil of the last two years but I'm bored.  I'm just not connecting with the subject matter or the students to the extent I usually do.  I teach in a rolling, interactive documentary style that relies heavily on my enthusiasm for the subject matter at hand and I'm worried that without that enthusiasm it just becomes a bloke droning on and I would rather quit than let that be the case.

So, what to do?  Lecturing is the one job (of many tried) that I found I was good at.  Do I leave and throw myself into something new or do I stick at it and try to reconnect. If it's the former I'll need to think what it can be. If it's the latter I think I'll need to redouble my outside interests to find a balance between work and play that will allow the good feeling that one of them engenders to infect the other.

It's something to puzzle over for the new year.
Decisions, decisions, decisions.

basilisk stare

i have a hangover so bad that I'm pretty certain I could kill with a single glance.

while you're not feeling sorry for me you may like to check out the Wonderful Wooden Reasons Best of 2012 issue which is now online.

hope you all have a fabulous new year.

Friday geek out.

Dredd.
The Boys volume 12: The Bloody Doors Off.
The Walking Dead volume 17
Captain Swing and the Electrical Pirates.
coffee.
warmth.
satsumas.
peanut M&Ms
more coffee.
embryonnck cd.
happy geek.

50 today

I've just uploaded the 50th issue of Wonderful Wooden Reasons.

It's taken a long time to get to this point but it's been a laugh and I've got to hear lots of cool music and meet lots of cool people along the way.

thank you all for your support and music. I hope you've enjoyed reading and found something good to listen to. 

here's to the next 50.

peace
ian

i have a little red notebook...

into which I write my reviews for Wonderful Wooden Reasons.  I find I generally write easier with a pen and paper.  i think the inability to constantly edit / delete / rewrite focuses me more and I generally am more productive that way.

There is a drawback though.  Typing the damn things up when the deadline is looming is a massive pain in the arse!
I really don't dig typing at all.  I'm ridiculously bad at it.  I sometimes think I'd be more accurate if I used my forehead.

Anyway, all being well and assuming I don't throw my keyboard in frustration, the new WWR will be online sometime tomorrow (Sunday).

Peace
Ian

One more day to go...

and then two glorious weeks of holidays.

it's been a long term this one and my head is frazzled.

I'm going to spend as much of the next fortnight as possible reading.  maybe get some walks in, drink some booze, listen to some tunes, get a couple of issues of WWR online but mostly read.  i have shelves full of unread novels and I'm going to give them a kicking this holiday and just escape into as many fictional places as i can possible fit into.

there'll be the last actual issue of Wonderful Wooden Reasons for 2012 online this Sunday with a best of following a week later.

going to make some additions to the zine next year.  it's something I'm looking forward to and I hope you'll enjoy.  there's a few things in the pipeline that'll be added in slowly through the year.  the main priority though is regular monthly (at the very least), hopefully more often, issues.

O Tangletree! O Tangletree! Much pleasure thou can'st give me

Just a quick fly-by message to let folks know that the new album from me (Ian) and Darren Tate called Tangletree is available now.

You can find the usual limited edition (50 copies) signed and numbered physical version at the Quiet World website or for those of you who prefer their music in byte sized chunks it also available fro the Bandcamp site at the link below.

stupidityness abounds

Went Xmas shopping in Cardiff today and managed to buy a present for my mother, a couple of stocking fillers for the nieces and a Carnacki book for me.  It was pretty claustrophobic there and it got to me at times (I'm not a big fan of crowds) also my left shoe sprung a leak which wouldn't have been too bad except that it was pouring with rain for most of the day.  
The place was all trimmed up nice though and if it had been less wet would have been really xmassy. The photo is one of the shopping arcades.


we missed the deadline for the carpark though and didn't have chance to grab any food before we left so we stopped off at a chain eatery on the way home. On the table behind me was a group of 4 young and ridiculously macho chav lads.  For the most part their conversation revolved around how hard they are, how hard their brothers are, how hard their "crews" are and how soft everyone else is.  This was all pretty tedious to have bellowed over the top of the terrible food I was eating.  There were however two absolute gems that I think are worth sharing with you.

the first...

"Are you left handed?"
"No why?"
"Cause you're holding your fork in your left hand"

and my absolute favourite...

"I don't like eggs in my omelette!"

it takes all sorts I suppose.  
I'm home now and have just finished listening to the new Scott Walker album and now Desertshore by X-TG is having another airing.