The Punk

A classic from the Discovery album. Great use of space on this track, it's really simple; bass line, drum beat and a little synth with simple lyrics. Its the use space that ties it together though.

CDR

I made a mad dash to be at CDR at Plastic People last Thursday. Its a night where unsigned artists bring along CDRs of their music and the DJ spins it. This guy had the stand out track of the night. One to watch I reckon, nice future soul and hip hop beats.

http://www.myspace.com/franklaws

London Music Collective

I started watching this and have to admit, I thought it was a load of bollocks. A bloke ripping a piano to pieces. Kids could have used that piano to learn to play on. But, when you close your eyes and listen, it does sound pretty cool.



Although I'm still not convinced it is a good use of a piano.

Soundscape-Inspirational Listening

Inspirational pieces I have been listening to for my production piece in Soundscape. Starting off with the Daddy of ambient music, Brian Eno.



Talking about his Ambient 1:Music For Airports "I thought it would be much better to have music that said 'well if you die it doesn't really matter'........you were suspended in the universe and your life or death wasn't so important."
Brian Eno






Pauline Oliveros coined the phrases "deep listening" and developed a theory later called "sonic awareness" which is the ability to consciously focus attention upon environmental and musical sounds.



Delia Derbyshire was responsible for creating the Dr Who theme tune in the 60s, amongst hundreds of other TV scores, incidental pieces and theme tunes.







John Cage is best known for his silent composition " 4'33" ". He studied Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism and in a 1957 lecture, Experimental Music, he described music as "a purposeless play" which is "an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living"

Hank Shocklee Lecture

To make up for Hank not making it to these shores this week to give a lecture, I luckily found this online. Its a 2 hour seminar given by the man and will no doubt be useful research for an assignment I have to hand in in January. I have chosen to study The Bomb Squad as a producer and their use of rhythm, space and time in their work.



And here's a tune from French producer Debruit. I really like this one. He played in Brixton not long ago. Obviously I found out after the event. Damn.

Mos Def

got tickets!

Sample and Sequence

Worked today on the levels in my production piece which has to be handed in in 3 weeks. I didnt realise how creative the mixing stage of making a tune is. Or how complicated. Anyway, understood how to put the drum tracks into a bus to bring them down/put effects on together. Also, need to be aware of the bass issues I have. Bass from the kick drum, piano notes and bass line are occupying the same sonic space, which will probably mean it needs compression, a complicated effect to use.

On the production side, I am trying to clean up the drum patterns a little, make more use of space and time in the rhythm. Also, Justin, my lecturer taught me how to put different drum beats into the same sampler pad so 1 hit triggers them together. And also how to change the volume inside the ESX sampler. Oh yeh, also how to change the velocity in MIDI so as to get more dynamics out of the drums. Nice.

Still trying to get a more authentic sound, kind of like this as an inspiration




and I would love to do some kind of boogie funk reworking. Thats something to start looking at.

Four Tet-Joy Orbison Remix

Gilles Peterson gave this it's first radio play last night. Joy Orbison is hot right now.

Soundscape

Well, lets see how long I keep this going, but here is a soundscape put together today. It was made with recordings I made myself on the whole. The impact sound of the bike hitting the floor and also of the wheel spinning at the end were downloaded from an open source website. All other sounds were recorded using an Edirol. Traffic noises were recorded on Brixton Hill last week and the various bike sounds (bell, pedalling, gear shift click) were recorded in my back garden.

The piece is intended as a narrative. The brief was to use the Oblique Strategy devised by Brian Eno http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/

I had the following three randomnly generated phrases and was supposed to use them to inspire my soundscape:
- fear
- open your eyes
- meditate

I kind of ditched meditate to be honest. Here's the soundscape


Shit I wanted to embed a player, not a link to the file, and that was diverting from the page so I deleted it. This this frying my brain and I have research to do (on Shadow again) so I will try again tomorrow.

DJ Shadow

I was researching Shadow today for an assignment/presentation for our Intro To Sonic Media module. This guy here, David Axelrod was a big inspiration as well as source of samples to DJ Shadow.



Also, I was very excited this week as I did have a place booked for a lecture given by none other than Hank Shocklee of the Bomb Squad. Being a big fan of P.E. I was really looking forward top hearing him talk about his production work. Unfortunately Hank had to pull out of the lecture, apparently he injured himself and is unable to travel. So, hoping he gets well soon and can come over another time.

In the meantime, here's some classic Public Enemy (who I am researching for another assignment-oh how I love my course)

Secondhand Sureshots

Coming through on Stones Throw in early 2010, this DVD could turn out to be really interesting. Four beat makers (including Daedelus and J Rocc) are sent out on safari to LA thrift stores (thats charity shops if you're from round here) to dig for unwanted vinyl and make recycled music from it. But isn't that what beat producers are meant to do I hear you ask? Well yes, but this time they filmed it and made a documentary so we can watch the process rather than just hear the results. Personally I'll be very interested to see what they go through from selecting what to buy and what to ditch in the shop, through to listening to the vinyl, sampling and re-arranging, and of course the finished product.



And you can hear a J Rocc Secondhand Sureshot here

Oh, by the way, this is my new blog. Bienvenidos. Wilkommen. Bienvenue. It's going to be more about what I am listening to and what I am producing for my studies, as well as what is influencing me and my producing.