I’m playing with a great band called Gyratory System this Saturday 13th February at The Nation of Shopkeepers in Leeds. They seem to be an interesting mix of electronics and jazz/rock. http://www.gyratorysystem.com/
The gigs on Saturday and its 3 quid to get in. To celebrate this live fusion I’m going to be playing banjo and a home made theremin, you know so I don’t look out of place or anything.
These tracks were made at the beginning of the 2009 to mark the discovery of Stainburn forest, a wild, windswept area near North Leeds. I found the place strange, stark and beautiful in equal measure. Experiments in using cheap toy organs, my own voice and guitars to form drifting melodies mixed with electronic beats underlay
Ep Cover
the whole EP. Similarities to early Fourtet, Hood and Fridge could be made.
I’m taking the drum machines out for a spin this weekend. Kendal Calling is a weekend long festival set in a stunning Deer park near erm Penrith. Other acts include Andy Wetherall, Super Furry Animals and Skream. Its gonna be well mid-90s. I’m on the Traffic Stage on Sunday night playing some Acid and Rave classix.
Performing this Saturday as part of the open source acid night at Ginlick in Shepards Bush - more info . Going for an all hardware setup as a bit of a tester for Kendal Calling. Setup is - Korg Electribe SX, Roland 707 Drum Machine, Roland Sh-101 Synth and newly acquired Boss Dr.Groove DR-202. The Electribe has the master clock, with the 707 and 202 as slaves. The 707 sends sync pulses to the 101’s clock for arpeggiator and sequencer. Audio wise I have everything going to a small Yamaha mixer and an fx send to a Boss RF-1 effects unit. The RF-1 is running a hall reverb, bit crusher and some BPM effects that are quite mental.
This setup is amazingly flexible with room for improvisation and live tweaking. I actually much prefer moving from each machine to tweak and adjust rather than flipping menus in a midi controller. The style I am doing is simple electro/ techno but it gets quite nasty and wig out at times, even with one pattern going. The 707 cuts through everything like a champion, and although a very simple machine has a great sound and is fantastic for live setups. I was unsure of the DR-202, but the sounds are great, with some lovely lo-fi scratches and hits, also the roll function is incredible allowing you to change the speed of rolls mid roll. Will post an mp3 when i done my set.
Dominoes: Getting together a sound design project for the artist Peter van Lanschot more news when its done. http://www.petervanlanschot.com
Working on an album with the Diamond Sea, my new band with Matthew Robson from Random Number, and Lee Hooper from Inecto School. The rough mixes are sounding good and we did our first gig the other day and the general reaction was positive. Some vocals and guitars need recording, then we gotta mix it and hopefully find a deal for the release.
Kelpe has asked for a remix in return for remixing the Diamond Sea so that should be going ahead soon.
Also getting my “festival set” together for the summer months. Expect large bass lines, beats and lots of synths. LOTS of them.
