Quick Update – 30/04/2012

I’m leaving Paris today and I’m heading for Lille. I expect it to take 2 or 3 days and am hoping the weather is going to be nice!!

Yesterday, I recorded an actor reciting two poems – the recordings and videos will be up by the end of the week!

Finally and of no interest to those of you who are already following the project, I have just finished a video explaining Record and Ride. It’ll be in the project section of this website:

Voilà! See you in a few days time!

 

Paganini at El Golea – 23/04/2012

After all the chaos of the past week here is a piece named Sonata Concertata by N.Paganini performed early on monday morning by Anne-laure Boutin (guitar) & Geoffrey Powell (violin). This was a  rehearsal for a concert happening in two weeks time so there still are a few mistakes. The concert will take place on the 13th May at Eglise Saint Wandrille at Le Pecq. I hope you enjoy!

 

 

 

Quick Update

Hello.

So I am still in Paris and I am hoping to leave this coming Saturday. In the meantime, the Music Hack Paris project I was involved in was invited to be presented at the UNESCO International Jazz Day festival on the 27th April (the actual International Jazz day is on the 30th). So we have a couple of days to reduce the size of our sculpture, make it less splashy and easily mountable and dismountable.
I also would like to meliorate the electronic sound generating side of it, thus, I will be joining the sculptors from Okhaos to work on this project for the next few days!

Finally, I am stuck for leads after Paris and was thinking of going back up north towards Belgium and Holland, does anyone know any artsits in that general area!? I have one definite stop at Lille but that’s it so far!

Music Hack Paris

Now you may be wondering why you haven’t heard from me all week-end… There is a reason and this is it: Music Hack Paris. I could not explain what the event was better than the Music Hack Paris website:

“Participants are free to experiment on any idea related to music. The goal is to demo a working prototype on Sunday afternoon. Participants are allowed and encouraged to bring laptops and music instruments (synthesizer, guitar, saxophone, theremin…). Recording equipment will be available on site. The word “Hack” is to be read in its original meaning: makers, coders and inventors come together to build something new, ruthless and brilliant in a short period of time.”

I ended up working with a couple of funky sculptors called Okhaos. We built and remixed some of their old sculptures to make a cycling powered, water activated and computer augmented instrument. We called it “Exprimetal” . Hopefully, I’ll soon have a video to better show you what the machine did! In the meantime here are some photos:

Although I was extremely busy working on the above project I did my best to get some recordings done!

Luckily, the event was graced by the presence of Lina Stalyte a Lithuanian singer songwriter who maintained the musical sanity of the event! For more recordings have a look at her website.

Also, I discovered a interesting new Digital Musical Instrument called the Dualo. It is based on a clever spatial reorganisation of notes making music easier to understand. If you want to find out more please visit their website: http://dualo.org/.

Finally, I would like to thank everybody who attended the event! It was a very fun and inspiring few days during which I met a lot of interesting people! And big thank you to the organisers:

+ Google cultural institute

+ Joshfire

+ UNESCO

for more photos and videos:
https://plus.google.com/photos/101849881795550119650/albums/5733612686741207329
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikiane/sets/72157629876033477/with/7102975251/
http://photo.rootbox.fr/albums/music-hack-paris
http://vimeo.com/40829039

Bambino Dell’Oro at Los Belvos – 06/04/2012

Not officially part of the project but I wanted to share these with you especially since some people were asking for them! This is Evan McGregor and me in a flash recording session at our house before I left.

Recording King of Cats – 16/04/2012

After London came Brighton where I recorded King of Cats under some arches in his campus. Then we moved to a quad like place. There we had a fantastic reverb (listen to it on track 4 – Upon the earth)! It was quite windy so there is bit of wind rumble on the recording but nothing too unbearable!

Give King of Cats songs a good listen! they will grow on you!

Quick Update

Hello!

Just a quick one to inform you what has been happening during the last few days.

Firstly, I cycled on the 16th April from London to Brighton where I met King of Cats.  We recorded that same evening. I left the next morning and visited Brighton for a bit, then, left for Newhaven – it was a beautiful ride! From Newhaven I caught a ferry for France at 11pm and slept on the boat. It arrived at 4.30am at Dieppe.  Then started a long day of cycling! I cycled a total of 115km against wind to Gasny. The last 10km were very wet!
Exhausted I found it hard to resist the temptation to call home and arrange a pick up… I did. Thus, I am home and exhausted! So tomorrow is rest and then Thursday to Paris for some recording!

PS: tomorrow I’ll upload King of Cats tracks. 

Brighton Update – 17/04/2012

Round and about London with Jack Durtnall

I have spent the last few days with Jack Durtnall going round London trying to find nice places to record. Here is a little collection of what we did. The promised videos are also on their way.

If you like what you hear ( I most certainly do ) please follow his Facebook page!

Susie B at C4CC London

On the 11th April 2012, I met up with singer songwriter Susie B to record a few of her songs. We recorded in this great space in London called C4CC. It is a Center For Creative Collaboration and is an initiative from the University of London, the Central School of Speech and Drama, Goldsmiths, the Royall Holloway and Complexity Partners. Anyone is welcome to use the space for their creative collaborative project – all you need to do is submit a proposal. It is free and they are very helpful and flexible with times!

As a recording venue it isn’t ideal  because of a tube line running right next door! However, for the purposes of Record and Ride it was perfect! It reflected a true London environment.

The discovery of initiatives like C4CC made me reflect about collaboration. My chain of thoughts led me to think about how we create content nowadays:

The tools for creating content, like video and audio recordings, have become highly accesible. It has got to the point where an artist can do everything on his own with no need of true technical knowledge. A good example is that of a singer songwriter who can now write music, record it, produce and distribute it all on his own. Although I have nothing against this, I feel it drives creativity towards non-collaborative content. Which, again, I do not think is a bad thing but I think it makes it easy to miss out on the power and joys of collaboration.
What I find particularly interesting is how content creation fits in with internet. We now have a common platform with a huge scope for collaboration yet most of the content still seems to be centered round individuals. Or maybe the cheer act of using the medium itself is  more important than the actual content?

I don’t know (One thing I do know is that I like collaborate and would like to encourage you all do try it out!)! What do you think?