Sound Art Experiment number 11

Music can be a powerful force when used correctly.

Full of the joys of summer and the sounds of diplo I made my mixtape comeback with the latest instalment of Tayalarz, and the news of Dr Dre finally delivering on his long-awaited promise of a new album that fans have been waiting more than a decade for had prompted me to make a start on a 'Compton' influenced mix.

And even tho that creation may be in the extremely early stages and may eventually be lost to gestation, with the computer fired up and the hours growing small I chose to revisit a few neglected folders on the harddrive.

Lo and behold did Saturday morning creep up on me and shake me from my bed with a new desire.  

In this age of stealth albums nobody was expecting the penultimate SoundArt to grace the world with its presence.  Very few people were even wanting it.  But regardless.

The SoundArt project was a simple idea.

Instead of giving my brother my music and asking him to produce artwork influenced by the sounds he heard we would flip the script, he would provide artwork and I would be influenced.  12 images and 12 tracks produced over 12 months to create a full length experimental album within a year.

Track 1 debuted in December 2008....

(ahem)

SoundArt11 is a curious creature.  Staring at the stars and asking the ultimate questions as the artwork seriously suggests that we are not alone.

Other tracks have been much more of a sound collage, this perhaps could have been but now sounds more of a sound presentation... Taking it's musical cue and liberally borrowing Doorly's dubstep remix of Calvin Harris' 'Not Alone' as theories jacked from YouTube play out over it.

Previous instalments have heaved with creativity, either pulling things apart or putting them together, SoundArt11 was always intended to play out that way too, but the whole ethos of this expression of art was to let it find it's own way...

Only this morning was the majority of this track spun on its head to give it a more complete feel, choosing to play with a larger chunk of the original remix than originally intended and then swinging by the buena vista social club to provide a backdrop to a healthy discussion on the intelligence of our species that had been longing for a dancing partner for a long time.  The last piece of the puzzle fell from the sky, hailing from a planet that no longer exists.  I rented Man Of Steel two years ago in order to reuse a message that seems to resonate throughout this track, and also through the entire project.

Anubis approaching

I can't help but feel excited as little pieces of everything (in my creative world, at least) seem to be falling into place.

The resurrection project that began last year has fulfilled its purpose, and then some..

I was genuinely surprised by quite how far along with my music I had come, even if in terms of quantity rather than quality, although that isn't too shabby either, and a full length album didn't seem such a distant stretch of imagination and ambition.

And now I am very proud to admit that the debut Hunchbakk album is at a completely incomplete demo stage.

12 tracks running consecutively that are now just in need of a bit of a spit and polish before they can be unleashed on the world.

As is keeping with tradition, I wanted my girlfriend to be the first person with a copy of the album to listen to... and since the demise of her previous car stereo, we have been rocking a tape deck, resulting in some rather throwback listening experiences and meaning that I had to record my album demo onto cassette for her

She hasn't always been the biggest fan of my style of music, so I was surprised, and I think she was surprised when she actually said that she likes it, probably down to the not quite so heavy presence of the 'soft suicidal' genre of music that I had previously pioneered and she had the good grace of naming.

And while I keep busy with bringing the finished product up to a standard I am more or less completely happy with, I am keeping with tradition in sending my brother mp3s of the full album, so that he is able to toil away on accompanying artwork for the final release.

This is all bloody exciting for me, it may not be the grandest of releases, but it will certainly be a milestone in my creative processes and make what is essentially a hobby feel a little bit more real.

Sound Art Experiment number 10

bloody hell!

well, according to my soundcloud profile, it has been 7 whole months since i graced you good people with any new music, and over a year has passed since the last SoundArt was completed.

considering that the SoundArt project was supposed to be completed within just one year, twelve tracks, one a month since december 2008, this is extremely bad form on my part...

regardless, it is here now, and it almost wasn't here now since i had considered mucking around with it a little longer, but enough is enough, it is ready (to some degree) and therefore i saw fit to debut it over at the byford family blog along with our other creative outputs




when i was given the artwork to create a track for, i originally intended to compose it in the ipad that i had not yet purchased yet had been planning to as soon as the latest model launched, i think it may eventually been march when they finally chose to launch the new model, and then a handful more weeks until i got hold of it, and then a few months where i pretty much messed aroud with it and read comics off it and only glanced at the music apps once in a while to make a little bit of noise and then return to facebook or twitter

the plan was that the ipad would be my idea station, a one stop shop where i could plot out and compose my music and elevate myself to the level of Labrynth and Calvin Harris, heck, things ain't over yet, but so far... so quiet

and yes, the SoundArt that i thought would be composed entirely on an ipad turned out to be an entirely different first for me, it certainly was entirely mixed on an ipad, but only the violin sound that opens the track is courtesy of garageband, the rest is entirely me, albeit recorded into garageband and then manipulated

it is infact the first track that i have ever composed on guitar (yes, i realise it is probably out of tune), played by myself, with lyrics written by myself, and consequently sung by myself (not very well, hence the massive amount of effects layered upon it) and although i originally believed 'Teenaging' to be my first ever song, and although i sung on my cover of the xx's 'VCR' i think i may actually have to retroactivelly adjust my own history to consider SoundArt10 my first ever song, heck, it features me playin three chords on a guitar, so it's gotta be.... right

good!

the first thought when i saw the art provided by my brother was to write something poetic on needing a sidekick, and from there the idea developed to be influenced by that famous little bit of writing about God and the footsteps in the sand, and then went on to be something slightly less religious, yet remaining completely true to my original inspirations depending on how you choose to hear it

and here it is, to hear, whether there is someone by your side or not.....

the recording studio

working on the next installment in the much delayed SoundArt series, that is thankfully now taking shape and hopefully shouldn't keep you waiting too much longer

originally shared on Byford365

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