This month I'm going to promote three posts from each of my other blogs. Here's a taste of my First Three Songs No Flash blog, which features a little of the gig photography I did for BMA Magazine in the '90s.
Some of the pics were in my exhibition of the same name as the blog at Wagga's HR Gallop Gallery in 2007. I've been considering preparing a follow-up exhibition of my colour pics from the Big Day Out, Vans' Warp, Satellite and other festivals.
This month I'm going to promote three posts from each of my other blogs. Here's a taste of my hghlght blog, which shows off some pretty photography as well as the occasional rant. Wired for sound - posted 11 June 09
Among other distinctions, the Murrumbidgee catchment is home to two sound sculptures built by Dr Alan Lamb, a Western Australian whose career has combined neurobiological research, medicine, art and music.
Most recently Lamb has been working in Muttama, outside Cootamundra. There he has designed a massive aeolian harp with stretches of high-tensile wire up to 300 metres long. In 2004, Lamb worked with Scott Baker to build a smaller aeolian harp of around 50 metres in length at ’Pindari’ outside Wagga Wagga, where he worked with the present author in 2006 for the Wagga Space Program’s Unsound festival - see the video below.
Aeolian harps have a long history and were first recognised by King David when his stringed instrument was stirred by the breeze. Similarly, St Dunstan of Canterbury enjoyed the strange music produced by the wind on tightened strings (although that led to an accusation of sorcery). Aeolian harps have been widely popular in previous centuries, particularly among the Romantic poets, including Coleridge, and also among Victorian composers, such as Elgar. You can find many designs for windowsill and doorway harps, which were the styles popular in those times.
The principle behind the aeolian harp is simple: the wind blows, creating vibration on tightened strings, leading to harmonics that resonate a shifting pitch higher than that of the strings tuning. However, this simple science still creates a sense of wonder. In Victorian times superstitious types considered these sounds to be ethereal voices, possibly from those deceased.
Alan Lamb calls his large-scale aeolian harps “the wires” as they have evolved from his fascination with telegraph wires. His introduction was as a child in Scotland, when his nanny would stop and put her head to the poles to listen the “sound of the universe”. In the 1976, Lamb discovered an abandoned one-kilometre stretch of Telecom infrastructure and, after purchasing it, began experimenting. Since then he has released records, featured on soundtracks (most recently Wolf Creek) and indirectly influenced popular culture when he was contacted by the sound designers for the original Star Wars film — where the distinctive 'ping' of tapped telegraph wires was used for the sounds of laser blasters.
Alan Lamb has some interesting views on the subject of aeolian harps and has stated that “the underlying principles show commonalities with biological systems such as embryonic body plans and brain function.”
As a musical instrument, ‘the wires’ are something of an acquired taste. They are characterised by shifting patterns and have a huge range, from soft breathing sounds to high-pitched hums. They are also a bit magical, as Coleridge observed:
This month I'm going to promote three posts from each of my other blogs. Here's a taste of my bassling blog, which focuses on some of my musical output and discussions of music production.
Five years before Chris Anderson published Free, three years before Radiohead released their album In Rainbows for a donation (of potentially nothing); bassling was inspired by Creative Commons to offer his first LP for free.
Trash Audio have this cool regular section called Workspace and Environment where they ask artists a series of set questions. I always like reading it and imagining my own answers, so I thought I'd write my own response.
Background I grew up in Canberra, the capital city of Australia. I spent my teens playing bass guitar and was in a few short-lived bands in my early 20s, like the Pongrass Brothers. When I left town I sold my bass but ended up buying another one a few years later. Then I started making music on the computer. My track Cycleslut is one of the first things I wrote, built from samples off my CDs.
I've now lived in Wagga Wagga for about seven years and, as much as I'm ready to leave, I don't think I'll be able to go anytime soon. Having kids and another on the way means the decision isn't mine to make anymore. Luckily I live on a beautiful hill outside town.
The name bassling came to me when I misread something and it seems apt since bass is where I started and where I keep coming back - although these days I prefer synth bass sounds, the wires (a large-scale aeolian harp) and different things through an octave pedal or similarly manipulated with software.
There are two bassling albums so far, SHAKES (2004) and YOUR (2007).
What are your current favourite pieces of hardware? Macbook, drumkit, Zoom H4, Rode NT4, Epiphone 335, Boss OC3 and Nintendo DS.
What are some softwares or plugins you prefer? Ohmboyz has been a huge part of the bassling sound, I usually only use the presets but the filters and the tempo-locked delay create a swelling sound that's in most things I record. Thinking of Ohmforce software, everyone should have their Frohmage VST since it's free and does interesting stuff to sounds.
Steinberg's Cubase and Nuendo have a lovely sound about them but are a bit of a pain in the arse to use compared to Ableton Live. And I'm still shitty that I forked out all that cash for Nuendo 3 only to find it runs like a dog on Mac. Glitch DS is genius IMO. I enjoy it lots and have been meaning to figure out how to make my own samples, probably of the wires and quartz percussion.
Also, for generative sound applications, I like jamming along with Forester on my drumkit. Since it's winter at the moment, I'm not inspired to take my drumkit up to play along with the wires, so I find that putting recordings of the wires into this software gets similar effect.
How does your physical space surroundings influence your workflow? This is a really interesting question. A few years ago I hung out with some noisemakers who called themselves the Wagga Space Program and they had a philosophy about recognising how the rural environment shaped their practices. It's something I've come to appreciate through living with the wires that were built on the property where I live by Alan Lamb and Scott Baker as part of their Unsound festival in 2004.
In 2006 I was fortunate to be invited to be part of Unsound but it wasn't until last year that I found myself more fully appreciating the stuff they were doing. Sadly, most of them have left town so there isn't going to be an Unsound 2008.
Could you describe what you might think your ideal location would be? I'd really like a room of my own to set up my gear. It'd be good to not have to worry about my kids getting into my stuff but it's also fun seeing them bash on the drumkit and sometimes we make music together.
Other than that, it's pretty inspiring to play drums on top of the hill on a warm evening.
What is on your current 'wish list'? I've been lusting after a Musicman Stingray bass but don't really play bass enough to justify the expense. I'm also looking at the Alessis Performance Pad in the window of the local instrument shop but they're asking almost twice what it can be found for online. I'm also considering buying Native Instruments Komplete but might wait until I'm studying again so I can claim the student discount.
Do you have a setup for live performances No, I've only started thinking about live performance in the last couple of years and at the moment it's usually just one-off sketches that I videotape and put online. I like making music but I hate the late nights involved in playing gigs and, frankly, there isn't much of an audience for the stuff I do locally.
Are you involved in any other projects? Yep, I've always got a few things on the boil. There's an album of guitar-based songs I recorded for the RPM Challenge this year under the name ShowcaseJase that needs to be re-evaluated and produced and possibly re-recorded in parts.
Mic Main$tream asked if I'd make some techno tunes for his label and I was so flattered that I agreed but it's been hard to find the hi-NRG needed and also hard to find the time to work on them since I returned to full-time work. I decided to use the bassling moniker for my more experimental acoustic electronica-inspired stuff with drums and the wires but the dance music I've been making for him is more like the bassling albums I've released. He suggested calling it Jase of Bass, it kinda brings together all my alter egos.
Here's the three-hour ambient drone soundscape I've edited together from over 70gb of field recordings for the 2010 RPM Challenge.
You can hear a variety of birdsong along with 'the wires' -- a large-scale aeolian harp built by Alan Lamb and Scott Baker for the Unsound Festival. See http://hghlght.blogspot.com/2009/06/wired-for-sound.html for more on this amazing instrument.
Haven't seen any hate tattoos on young women, let alone tattoos with a political message. In fact, the only tattoo that's been remarked upon recently was my partner telling me she'd seen a bloke at the pool with "Shaz" tattooed in gothic font over his heart.
There are a bunch of climate change skeptics writing in the papers this weekend but none with the lame arguments made by Keith Wheeler in Wagga's Daily Advertiser.
Since Keith is usually a good photographer, especially when accompanying his travel articles, I thought it was best to use this medium to share his work. (And also because it's not online to pass along.)
Temperature records are made to be broken, although this has nothing to do with climate change.
Yep, "very few people truly believe the 'global warming' story" -- aside from many in the scientific community and I'd guess a large number of atheists who have reason to believe God isn't going to rescue the good among us who've finished with the Earth's resources.
Recently I saw a play about Griffith's hermit, written by Scott Howie and Matt Schulz. The play was okay but what really got my attention were the photos in the Griffith Theatre's foyer of how the cave looked when the hermit lived there. He had extensive gardens and rockwalls.
Here are a couple of pics I took when I visited the hermit's cave a few years ago. I like the irony in the top pic, now that suburbia is within a few hundred metres of the former refuge from society.
Old flame never tamed still alive in my chest your name sounding plain could still quicken my breath It aches a whisper quakes on my soon remembered lip as the thought is finished quickly my guard no longer slipped
Why should I even care? about something that was never there
Do you remember the blue moon? it was the night you made me swoon you probably never knew you were in another room
Ease back from that flash brought from the depth of my past to steal back into a self-conscious laugh For your memory will still exist after this moment has passed It's my lacklustre tale of a romance at half-mast
Why should I even care? about something that was never there
Do you remember the blue moon? it was the night you made me swoon you probably never knew you were in another room dancing to a different tune with some other dude
