Six Preludes and Six Postludes to a Meeting with the Giant Murray Cod - a new album - available NOW!

Just released on the VicMod label, my digital-download-only album "Six Preludes and Six Postludes to a Meeting with the Giant Murray Cod."  It's an exploration of resources available in Martin Fay's venerable softsynth Vaz Modular, as well as exploring some more microtonal scales, and is, hopefully, just plain fun listening.  There are plentiful program notes (of course) and the whole thing is available on the VicMod website at http://www.vicmod.net/index.html.

 Listen for free, or download the whole album for $3 (that's three bucks) or more if you wish.  This is an interesting new model for me - free streaming, and pay-if-you-wish for the whole thing.  They also feature downloading in a whole bunch of formats, so audiophiles among you are bound to find a format that will please your discerning taste.  So if you want to make me rich, a million of you should pay to download the album!

And copious thanks, of course, to Ross Healy of VicMod for asking me to do this, and for his support during the long process of composition and production.  While you're at the VicMod site, check out the other great albums they have there, including music by Richard Lainhart, Todd Barton, and Ross himself - recording under the moniker of Cray.

Radio Music - August-October

In August and September I was invited on to two local community radio stations to perform music and talk.  First, in August, was a program on 3MBS-FM, where John McCaughey, Robin Fox, Eugene Ughetti and myself discussed the late Music Department of La Trobe University (1975-1999).  As part of that, Robin and I played pieces of ours, and John presented a tape of the Astra Choir.  Then in early October, I was invited by Michael Smith to play and talk on his radio show on 3CR.

 

On the 3MBS show, I played 2 new pieces, "Flaming Yellow Shirts with Red Polka Dots is the new Black - Melbourne Fashion Police Take Note!" which used the Jasuto softsynth on my Android Tablet feeding into my netbook running AudioMulch and GRM Tools software.  "Hand Held Hong Kong Hero" which used the LAS9 sample player on my Android Tablet going thorugh other GRM Tools plugins was the other piece. This used vastly stretched samples of Hong Kong pop singers along with stretching and transposing of their spectra.  On 3CR, I played these 2 again, as well as a new piece "Music for an Imgainary Dance" which used AudioMulch to filter noise and make microtonal chords as well as mixing in various experiments I'd done with sampling clicks to make very active musical textures.  

Here they are:

Flaming Yellow Shirts with Red Polka Dots was recorded by Terry McDermott and produced by Penny Manwaring at 3MBS on 13 August 2012.

Music for an Imaginary Dance was recorded and produced by Michael Smith at 3CR on 3 October 2012.

Hand Held Hong Kong Hero was recorded at home by me on 6 October 2012 (it took a while to get all the kinks out of that one).

Many thanks to Penny Manwaring, Eugene Ughetti, Terry McDermott, and Michael Smith for their help and support in the making / asking for / recording of these pieces!

Enjoy.

Upcoming broadcast - interview with WB on 3CR

Aplogies for the short notice for this - on Saturday afternoon, Oct 6, from 5:30 - 7:00 pm, on Melbourne Community Radio Station 3CR, Michael Smith will present an extended interview with me, along with 3 new pieces, which he recorded at 3CR studios last Wednesday night.  The show is called "Let Your Freak Flag Fly," (which has been going for the better part of a decade), and features experimental, noise, new, improvised, indie and other hard to find musics.  3CR, a venerable part of Melbourne's cultural landscape can be heard on the AM band at 855, or on digital radio 3CR, or worldwide, on the web at www.3CR.org.au.  Michael did a wonderful job recording the pieces, and the interview with him was a delight.  Many thanks to him and 3CR.  I'm looking forward to listening to the result, and so, I hope, will you.

William Duckworth 13 January 1943-13 September 2012

On my commute home this evening, I heard of the passing of Bill Duckworth, a wonderful and loyal friend, a lovely human being, and a fantastic and imaginative composer.  My condolences to Nora Farrell, his partner, and shared grief with all of us in the new music community who valued Bill so much.

I was working on this when I heard the news, so this is for you, Bill:

In Memoriam William Duckworth

Nightshade Etudes, Book 2, available now

Earlier this year I began working on a series of electronic etudes based on the use of DNA patterns from the Solanum family, and made the first six etudes available in a blog post about 3 items down.  Now I've finished the next six, so Nightshade Etudes Book Two is now available by clicking here.  It's a 24MB zip file, and it contains the 6 tracks totalling 18 minutes, the album cover, and some brief program notes.  Once again, it's part of a longer project which I hope to complete later this year - 4 sets of 6 etudes each, which will then become a CD.  So download away, and enjoy, especially the bit where I get to play a celesta with a capsicum (bell pepper).  Art-science music for your dining and dancing pleasure.