I have started to get into a routine of accumulating bits and pieces from prior and building on top of them, finding some unfinished work that I find very important to myself and thinking about what can be done with them, keeping the work stream of consciousness to give room for both this project and the research project to coexist.

(Myblog seems to be very broken, so I am hosting the audio on Archive, hoping that it is more functional)

Particularly, I found this recording on my phone, which I think was from around Christmas last year, of a dictaphone keyboard drone. For some reason, my Dad came into the room while I was re-recording from the Micro-Cassette through my phone microphone and started taking medication while it was recording, which is especially poignant to me now that he is really not doing so great, it makes a somewhat throwaway drone that I made I’m assuming as soon as I got off the train as a kind of celebrative ritual (I like to play music any opportunity I get really) into something more personal, gives the sound more feeling and meaning. I tried adding to it, but it felt like it took away from the quality of the recording, so it has left me a little perplexed about what to do with it. (Below is a clip).

I recorded some loops to work out a basis for a sound for the album, the best being a string loop I made inside FL studio, which is a pretty obviously Celer-inspired piece with a lush loop falling out of phase with itself slowly without really any activity, a sound to wallow in, really, stretched out for quite a while until I got sick of it. (Below is a clip)

I would like to add some field recordings over the top, or to re-record the loop within a space for the final version, just so that, for this project, I feel like I have taken on more involvement than what I would usually do as a means of tackling routine and artistic comfort, as well as incorporating other interests, particularly the “raw” dogma I obsess over, where sound is given a space to live within and the recording becomes a document of that sound existing within that space…

I am making things, but at the moment, it is making things for self-satisfaction; it doesn’t seem like there’s a cohesive concept, and I’m trying to just work without fretting too much over it, an idea will emerge with more work, I feel, and it would work best to be inquisitive to work that I am making rather than to spend too much time pre-empting it, I don’t find that I can work like that, spontanaety is a key aspect to what I make, I like making music as if I am purging something, which I guess in this case where the work is supposed to be thematic and research based is coming to seem like a bit of a double edged sword; I can make things quite prolifically but only for myself, and the influences are only what I am indulging in anyway, which is always a lot of other people’s music.

Outside of University, I have got back in touch with some friends from College who are studying in ICMP, working on the rap collective they have going back in Liverpool called Staypeckish, which has completely exploded because of the popularity of Esdeekid. Luc got back in touch to see if I could play synth for a live event they are doing back home in December, which is exciting, as well as us making a track in one of their studios that sounds like a scuffed Fennesz/Oval endeavour that he’s cramming in the middle of his rap album, which I find pretty amusing. Something I like about doing this kind of work is this kind of getting Noise outside of its restrictive space; it is good to play in spaces full of people fanatical about hard sound, but for a demographic of people unfamiliar it reveals a more universal appeasement that brings into the conversation that Noise is not just something esoteric, drawing parallels betwen Noise and the Guitar solo, also demonstrated is Noise and the Car Show or Motor Rally (as touched on with The Rita’s Lake Shark HN #21, which is recordings of these shows). It was my favourite thing about College that I got to just play Noise and Ambient over tunes and get a stronger reaction than I was getting within a purely Noise context, using the crutches of music to deliver hard stuff without being alienating. It is something that I am going to have happening alongside this project, so I thought that the idea was worth mentioning, and I am thinking about how it relates to my project, making something that touches on this more base appeal.