Hello Ween

It’s half-term week here in the UK, so my hectic work schedule is on pause, at last. I’ve already started working on production and mixing of Laurence Made Me Cry‘s album after meeting her and collecting the audio files on Monday. We were supposed to meet at the National Museum of Wales, but I’d forgotten it was shut on Mondays. So, the caffeine-peddling megalith which is Costa coffee had to act as a stand-in. We ended up spending more time in there than planned as my backup drive wasn’t working, so a quick dash to buy a pen-drive was necessary. The files are ultra hi-fidelity, so they’re massive! Suffice to say, file transfer took rather a long time. I was psychotic with caffeine-rush afterwards!

Courtesy of Rhys Anslow

The night before that I went to see The Fierce And The Dead play at Clwb (Ifor Bach). Unfortunately, we only arrived midway through TFATD’s rather short set, which was a pity. But I did manage to catch enough to know that they’re a formidable live act who play great music with skill. ‘Prog’ rock tends not to be something I listen to, or even particularly like; but despite the rough genre definition, this music is something else. A thing between prog rock, post rock, metal and punk; it also takes aboard influences from movie soundtracks and jazz. Cool stuff. I took a group of friends who I hoped to convert/initiate in the ways of ‘the Dead’. I was partially successful, which was gratifying. I also met two long-time Twitter buddies, Matt Stevens and John Toolan for the first time which was brilliant. Suffice to say, they’re both jolly nice chaps. Matt (TFATD guitarist) has been incredibly supportive in his comments and advice regarding DIY music over the last few years and John runs a (highly recommended) music blog as well as writing for This Is Not A Scene.
The evening made me resolve to see more independent live music, as well as made me ruminate on my own live music aspirations.

I’m starting to get new ideas for new tracks of my own….which is a relief, after a slight hiatus. As per usual, the titles of the tracks seem to come first and I’ve got lots of track names floating around my head. It helps to spur me on when music-making and acts as a starting point. Where it will end, I don’t know. But with titles like ‘Morris House’, ‘Mesnes’ and ‘A Fear of Marsh Green’, those of you from Wigan may recognize them as places around the conurbation. In fact, I’m going up there tomorrow for my quarterly fix of northern-ness (“you don’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been” etc).

Anyway, it’s Halloween….which actually means absolutely nothing to me. But here’s a John Carpenter-esque older track which you could listen to at the witching hour……..mwahahahaha!

Goodnight

“Knives Out”, Fiercely and Hoarse

Knifeworld, The Fierce & The Dead and Trojan Horse. See? ‘Stabbing A Dead Horse’. Anyway, these three bands have embarked on a UK tour. To be honest, I don’t know much about the other two bands, but I can thoroughly recommend TFATD…… thoughtful, raucous, fluent, sometimes rawk-laden, sometimes cinematic, guitars to the fore….very good stuff. I’ll be at the Cardiff gig, so I’ll let you buy me a pint if you’re there.

Anyway, they’ve enlisted the help of former snooker world-champion, latter-day DJ and prog-rock fan, Steve Davis who has put together a little promo video for the tour. A coup, I calls it.

Live on Mixlr (and a bit of ‘geeking-out’)

As you possibly know, I’ve been considering playing some of my stuff live in order to give me (and hopefully, listeners) a new perspective on my music and to promote my tunes a bit more. I also said that I was going to document the process, as I learn and/or make mistakes….so here it is (be warned: this post contains some really mundane info about my…ahem…’equipment’). I’m not sure I’m any closer to actually taking my stuff out to venues yet, but I have, at least, found a way to play my music as a performance.

I’ve recently spent a few days trying to work out some practicalities: how to recreate sequenced parts (about 80% of the music) for instance; without just sitting there and pressing ‘play’. Ableton Live is now my chosen method of recording and, as its name suggests, it is equally adept at facilitating some forms of live performance. That was its whole selling-point back in the day. Another issue was how to route the computer and the live instrumentation (such as Monotrons, my synth and bass guitar) in order to use the multiple effects my tracks rely on whilst being able to retain ‘hands-on’ control for live tweaking. Then there was the issue of streaming the audio to Mixlr.com.

Well I seem to have worked it out. The more technical adept amongst you would probably have a solution to all of this instantly. It took me a bit longer. Two days of re-arranging, trying-out and occasional frustration. But the set-up is now complete, I think. Well, except for a decent clip controller such as the Launchpad (I bought an app for the iPad which purportedly does the same, but its reliability is really erratic….not exactly what you want for a live situation). Anyway, I can’t afford to spend anything at the moment, so the Launchpad will have to wait.

So, this is the primitive and Heath-Robinson-style set-up:

• iMac running Live (if I ever need to do a gig, I’ll use the MacBook instead, but for streaming from home, I need the laptop to connect to Mixlr at the moment). With clips triggered manually on the fly.
• Keyboard controller connected to iMac.
• Monotrons chained together.
• Alesis Fusion as a stand-alone synth/sampler and for some sequencing duties.
• Bass guitars fed through the mixer.
• Multi-fx connected to the mixer’s sends.
• iPad for Korg MS20 sounds.

All of this is fed through my tiny Behringer mixer and then routed into the Macbook via a Tascam i/o interface. The only issue I’ve encountered is a bit of interference from the Mac (or it could be my wireless router) when using the multi-fx.

So, this gives me the means to use Live and to tweak effects settings/clips and the mix using the mouse (at the moment, though I’ll use the controllers when I get the Launchpad or similar). There’s probably easier, more straight-forward ways of doing this, but it works for me.
This is what it all looks like at present:

The mixer is full to capacity! But this layout does make it easy to twiddle, tweak and play everything from the same spot (while maintaining a degree of tidiness!).

As for Mixlr….I recommend it. At first it seemed a little bit awkward to stream using their dedicated free software (you have to download this if you wish to broadcast. It didn’t display correctly and I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Then I realised I had some system fonts missing on my computer. Once I’d installed these, the text appeared correctly and it was easy. Not exactly rocket-science….or even GCSE Science…..but it challenged me! The site itself looks very slick and I get the impression there’s quite a bit of beta testing going on, but it works ok. It’d be nice to have more of my networking friends on there, but I hope that’ll come in time.

So, the plan is to present a series of hour-long ‘gigs’ on Mixlr with a different tracklist from my albums for each gig, also some cover versions of my favourite music and anything else I fancy doing…..synthy improv (‘Symprov?’), noise, radiophonic-style stuff, that kind of thing. I am sincerely hoping people tune-in to listen, or I’m gonna feel like a complete dick.

I did a little test (three tracks) which you can listen to HERE. A few mistakes, a bit of sound-balancing needed; but I’m quite happy with the sound quality in general.

 

 

New news….

Well, not really news as such. But an interesting little diversion, that the musicians among you (of which there are plenty) might be interested in. I discovered a site called Mixlr this evening. What Ustream is to video, this is to audio. It allows you to stream broadcasts’ live. I always liked the idea of Ustream, but the logistic/practical issues of streaming video and audio always confounded me. Anyway, this new (I think) site makes things a bit more straight-forward…so, in light of my recent posts regarding live performance, I’m going to practise/rehearse/generally ‘mess about with’ some live broadcasts to get me accustomed to using Ableton Live in a ….errr…’live’ situation as well as some proper improvisation. I’m quite excited by this, as it’s an unknown quantity and anything could happen. Some of the performances could be brilliant, some could be absolute crap….but either way, they’ll be interesting! Whatever, it’ll allow me to try stuff out, to record it and to evaluate…and, hopefully, some of you can share in it. This is where I am:

http://mixlr.com/dementio13/me

 

The ‘Live’ Computer Musician…???

I can think of two local electronic artists (well, it’s three actually, but two ‘acts’: the brilliant Jewellers and Alone) who play live and do it well. I’ve also seen the likes of LFO and The Orb play live (with massive lighting and back-projections) and I know Squarepusher gives good gig…….but I have issues with whether I can actually play live. I think there must be lots of electronic musicians who consider this at times….hopefully you’ll recognize some of these issues (below):-

I’ve been thinking about doing gigs for…well, years. It’d be great to take the music out to a new audience and to blast my tunes through a big rig. Yes, earth-shattering bass, dramatic swells and the sugar-rush that loudness brings.

However….. I’ve also been talking myself out of it for years. Why? Well, practicalities, for one.

Contrary to what I occasionally state, rather tongue-in-cheekily, I do actually play some bits on my tracks. Mostly synth, but sometimes bass guitar (I’m no Jaco Pastorius…or even John Entwistle. I was brought up in the shadow of Peter Hook, so my ‘technique’, if there is one, straddles basslines and melody lines). Now, this wouldn’t be so much of a problem, as such. Except I often layer played basslines and synthlines simultaneously within a track.

Then there’s the issue of ‘what is live’? I could go on for hours about the merits of sequencing and sampling, etc. (Don’t worry, I won’t) But most of my music relies on me just pushing buttons….. I don’t sing, I only ‘play’ bits and pieces. So, where’s the performance? People go to gigs to see live music, natch. Where’s the fun in watching some bloke stood over a laptop pushing a few buttons? It ain’t exactly visual, is it. I’ve bought an iPad app which pretty well mimics midi controllers/clip launchers like the Akai APCs and Novation Launchpad as a means of acquainting myself with this more ‘live’ form of button-pushing. My intention is to buy an APC if I get to grips with this way of working; it could help allay the above concerns.

(I never really reconciled myself with DJ culture, where it’s totally acceptable for an electronic musician to just stand there, aloof, nodding his or her head.)

Then there’s the venue….. I could be totally wrong on this; but most cities don’t seem to have bona-fide (boney-fido?) electronic nights. Cardiff hasn’t, I’m sure (though I’m not hip enough to know that for sure really!).

Now, despite all these internal arguments, I do think I’m gonna do some live stuff in 2013. My list of things I’m going to need: back-projected video/animation; an APC or Launchpad; a set of tracks I know inside out (therefore, lots of rehearsal!): the help of friends; a venue with a sympathetic ear; Valium. I can concentrate on many of these things in the coming months.

And so the next 6 months or so will be spent honing, refining, learning something new, playing. Oh, and buying (tsk). I may even document it all here…..or there.

What’s Been Happening and What’s Coming Up

Yep….. time is marching on. I’ve been extra busy doing the dayjob, which I expected, it’s always a bit manic after Christmas. So I’m glad I got a bit obsessive, writing and recording new tracks between September and December. It seems like all the hard work is done on that front. The new album’s been uploaded to Bandcamp for quite a while. Preview links were sent to a few selected people; people who have supported and encouraged me over the past few years.

Over on Dementio13.com I’ve been experimenting with pre-orders, with mixed results. So, the experiment has paid-off in enabling me to realise that pre-orders are fairly pointless in my case. There’s no real benefit for listeners or for me. That’s not a universal truth though…… some bands/artists may find it works for them, particularly if they’re taking physical orders such as CDs or USB drives.

So, here’s where I repeat myself from previous posts. The album, ‘Crash St’ will be available on 1st March as a pay-what-you-want download (pre-orders are still available in the meantime for an ultra-low price). As way of celebration, I’ve got another live mix on Dandelion Radio, on Pete Jackson’s show throughout March from the 1st.

I’m also currently working (rather slowly) on a remix for Marie Craven’s project with Canadian DJ/producer Crimson Death.

In 9 days (20th Feb), Pinklogik releases her album of remixes of her track ‘Playing With Sticks’. My remix is track 12. Here’s a little preview of the whole album in bitesize chunks:

And here are four preview tracks from ‘Crash St’:

Musician/writer Oliver Arditi said this about the album:

“I listen to a lot of entirely electronic music, but most of it is either of a relatively superficial, energetic nature, or it deliberately exploits the coldness and impersonality of synthetic sound. Dementio 13 has mastered the art of creating human music, organic music that breathes, while capitalising on the power and impact of the machine. It’s not dance music, though it utilises a lot of dance music vocabulary, and it isn’t rock, although it likewise employs its language. It’s just what it is: music that challenges, stimulates and entertains, and while it’s like a lot of other things, there’s nothing else that’s quite like it.”

While Dandelion Radio DJ Mark Whitby writes:

“a sneak peak of his forthcoming Crash St album (due on 1 March) reveals him to be still moving forward in invigorating and never predictable directions, his exploratory electronica more varied in texture and mood than pretty much any of his contemporaries.”

So, there you are. Am excited, enthused and very happy about it all. That’s all that’s fit to print at the moment. Enjoy your weekend.

Recommended Reading – Live Unsigned

I’m not a great reader. I suffer a very low attention threshold and tend to steer clear of fiction and biographies (though I do manage to get through classic American crime novels by the likes of James Ellroy and Dashiell Hammett). It’s something I feel generally ambivalent and occasionally guilty about. Therefore my main reading centres on music and film history: “Rip It Up And Start Again” by Simon Reynolds; “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” and “Down And Dirty Pictures” by Peter Biskind; that kinda thing. I probably read more blogs than books, but even then, it’s an infrequent pasttime. The blogs I do read are chosen selectively for content which correlates directly with my activities (ie: music, film and art).

A while back, I started dipping into a blog which I’d seen mentioned occasionally on Twitter. Live Unsigned is a volume of writing which is designed to aid musicians in their quest for exposure. I would normally be a tad sceptical of these sort of blogs… I mean, there are so many blogs which purport to give you some insight through self-aggrandising opinion and anecdote. Some are fronts for promotion sites, etc which charge for their promotional advice ‘services’. Not so, Live Unsigned.

Anyway, upon reading the blog, it became obvious that it is written by people who are very much speaking from experience, not anecdotally, but through proper analysis. The general tone is friendly, helpful and pertinent. “Independent Music” is very much a fragmented edifice and so, there can’t be a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution to the problems of musicians. Live Unsigned acknowledges this and offers sound advice which may not fit everyone, but is certainly based on common-sense. It doesn’t matter if you are a death metal band or an electronic ambient artist; many of the posts will strike a chord with you and hold a mirror up to your own practise as a musician. It certainly has with me from time to time.

So, whether you’re a gigging musician, a solo recording artist or just an interested spectator; it’s definitely worth a read.

No Label, No Scene….

Hello again. Hope you all had a jolly nice Christmas and are gearing up for the New Year. So, here I sit with a glass of mulled wine in the hand and Prefuse73 on the ipod dreaming of aural spires. Whatever that means.

I’ve been ruminating heavily…..on the subject of what form my next release should take. As always, there’s a bit of a concept behind the new album, a clear vision. But there isn’t as clear a vision about what media it should take the form of.

I recently had a (very flattering and appreciated) suggestion that I should submit ‘The Hobbyist’ for serious consideration for release by a fairly hefty and cool netlabel. Now, I’ve been stung by this before, letting the flattery and ease of submitting the distribution of an album take over the my need to be totally independent. So, I’m eschewing this route. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate it……it’s just not right for me at the moment.

I should make it clear to all and sundry that I’m not concerned with making money from my releases. That’s why my music is free/pay what you want. Neither am I craving any form of fame or notoriety. Maybe I should be; but I’ve gotta admit that I have a total lack of ambition in these matters. Sure, if something came along, I’d possibly accept it (given the right circumstances), but seriously, it’s about getting the music out there and heard, even if only by 50 people. I really appreciate it when folks download my music, I’m ecstatic if they pay for it, as I tend to believe that the music isn’t really worth people’s hard-earned cash. But if people are voluntarily paying for it, I take this as the ultimate compliment. Every single download means so much.

I’m reading a lot of blog posts, etc from people stating that sharing is the way to build an audience and I’ve always agreed with that. However, the means of sharing is not fixed. As I’ve noted, Twitter and Facebook are now not an option for me as I’m depriving myself of these media as a little experiment (it’s not the people that are the problem, it’s that I am getting disillusioned with the corporate nature of these sites and how much time I was spending on them, plus I found I was tweeting absolute bollocks most of the time!). My main form of communication is now through this blog, email and the wonderful Soundcloud. Also, in the spirit of sharing, I’ve enabled all my albums to be downloadable for free on Last.fm. If you’re short of cash, or just want to listen before spending time downloading hi-res versions, 128kbps MP3s are available on Last.fm. This will probably be the case with the new album too. It may be ready to release earlier than I thought, also.

On a slightly different tack….Cardiff/South Wales has a burgeoning and lively independent scene championed by the likes of Huw Stephens, Adam Walton and John Rostron. Artists such as Alone, Sweet Baboo, The School, Pulco and Jewellers are making great inroads into independent territory and gaining a decent following on the back of some cool releases and live performances. All are worth checking out, by the way.

I, on the other hand, am not planning to play live….not in the flesh anyway (I’ve got two live sessions soon to be aired on Dandelion Radio in 2012). My promotional methods are constantly changing but are mainly limited (or ‘developing’, to look on it positively). I’m a hermit. I’m not at all fashionable. My music is sometimes quite conventional but not populist, even to left-field musos. So, I think I’m not part of any scene as such. This is a good thing, you understand; but it places me on the fringe of something which is already on the fringe. This is not a complaint….it’s almost a badge of honour actually! But it means my music will not be heard by a large mass. That’s something which occasionally I regret, but is purely of my making, so no problem.

Anyway, the new album might be ready for February (end of).

That is all.

Peace out, etc, etc.