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26/06 Open Knowledge Network

Speaking about Circuit Bending at Aberdeen's Open Knowledge Network. Click here for more info.

 

30/05 Le Weekend: Shifting Currents

I'll be premiering my latest work, Shifting Currents in the first of three concerts at the end of the month as part of Le Weekend in Stirling (the other two being at the sound festival in Aberdeen, and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, both in November).

Shifting Currents was inspired by the story of an individual who after receiving a cochlear implant was able to hear various electrical fields as he moved about his daily life. These electrical fields created delicate hums, roaring thunder strikes, ticklish electronic trickles, and other astonishing sounds depending on the specifics of each situation. I thought it was remarkable that not only was he able to hear the sounds of the world we often take for granted, but was also able to hear an entirely different sound world unavailable to the rest of us with 'normal' hearing... (read more here).

 

Burning Harpsichord Media

Burning Harpsichord Media is a small independent label that I created to release various archival as well as upcoming projects. The first of which is for the upcoming event, shifting currents at Le Weekend Festival in Stirling on May 30th, 2009.

The release shifting currents:installation is a recording of the full installation running as is, without the...(read more here).

 

04/05 'What Happened' at The Arches Glasgow:

One of my text works, from, will be performed by a mixed ensemble at 7hings event 'What Happened' at The Arches, Glasgow, Monday the 4th..

For more info: http://www.seventhings.co.uk/events.php

Here's the score:

 

from

gather objects from

a walk, explore

their sonic properties

be sensitive, have courage

listen.

bill thompson

 

 

24/04 Performing at Kilau in Aberdeen

I'll be performing a live electronics event at Kilau's in Aberdeen at 730pm. Free and fun, come out. Also playing will be: The Misled Cult of Balvack, and the Matricarians. More info (and now pix!): http://kilaucoffee.wordpress.com/

 

 

21/02 Fragmented Orchestra Performance with Claire M. Singer

Claire M Singer and I have been invited to perform as part of the Fragmented Orchestra's final event, 24 Fragments. We have created an interactive sound and visual installation that will merge into a live electronic and cello performance. The installation begins at 7pm and the performance begins at 8pm. Location is the Thainstone Centre just outside of Inverurie. For more information on how to get to Thainstone click here.

Here is more info on the event:

The Fragmented Orchestra is a huge distributed musical instrument, modeled on the firing of the human brain's neurons. Made possible by a £50,000 prize awarded to Jane Grant, John Matthias and Nick Ryan, as the winning project for the PRS Foundation's New Music Award 2008, it is installed at the FACT Gallery Liverpool and 23 other sites across the UK and runs from December 12th 2008 to 22nd February 2009. 24 Fragments will run at all of these sites for 24 hours, from 10am on Saturday 21 February. This sprawling collaborative work, spanning music, art and science, has evolved from a fascination by its creators of the inherent sonic rhythms and adaptive learning of spiking neurons – ie. the electrical impulses of the human brain.

24 Fragments is a 24-hour festival funded by The Wellcome Trust, including all 24 sites of The Fragmented Orchestra, which are linked up by microphones that pick up sound at each site. All of the events during the 24-hour festival are designed to be relayed through the distributed 'neuronal system' of The Fragmented Orchestra and via its website: www.thefragmentedorchestra.com

 

May and November: Shifting Currents: A PRS Foundation for New Music Joint Commission for Le Weekend, sound, and Huddersfield festivals for 2009.

I have been commissioned by the PRS Foundation for New Music to write a piece for the Le Weekend Festival in Stirling (May 30th), the sound Festival in Aberdeen (November 19th), and at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (during the week of November 20-29th).

The piece Shifting Currents involves using special microphones to collect field recordings of electro-magnetic fields from Stirling, Aberdeen, and Huddersfield that I created a multiple speaker installation of delicate, and also harsh, shifting electronic sounds. This constantly evolving installation forms a shifting sonic web from within which Keith Rowe, Rick Reed, and myself will improvise using live electronics, found objects, and field recordings. Not only will the sounds gathered from each location be combined in infinite combinations, but they will also be combined with the improvised reactions and interactions of the musicians, each themselves using devices that often behave in unique and unpredictable ways.

For more information, email here.

 

25/10 Around the Bend: Circuit Bending Talk

I will be giving a talk about circuit bending, live electronics andc composition as part of the sound festival of Aberdeen. My talk is at 3:45 pm Saturday the 25th at the McRoberts Building, University of Aberdeen, but there are also numerous other workshops and talks that day starting at 10am. The event is free and open to the public. More info here.

 

26/10 The Burning Harpsichord Series #6

The BH Series returns again as part of the sound festival here in Aberdeen at its new regular time and place! The last Sunday of each month, starting roughly at 7pm, we will feature local and traveling experimental artists. Cost is a donation of £3 to £5 with no one turned away for lack of funds.

The location is Aberdeen's newest venue, The Music Club, at 52-54 Langstane Place, Aberdeen, AB11 6EN

For this event which is part of the sound festival occurring throughout October and November we are featuring Manchester based artist Rodrigo Constanzo, Jedburgh sound artist James Wyness, and myself for three intimate live electronics sets, followed by a group improvisation to finish the night.

About the Artists:

Rodrigo Constanzo was born in Madrid, Spain. He began playing piano at the age of four. Though he is classically trained, his primary interest lies in contemporary music. For the past ten years he has occupied himself by creating a number of instruments made from modifying electronic devices, in a process called circuit-bending. As a composer he is heavily influenced by visual art, and tries to make
each composition self-standing--each idea being a unique one, and demanding a unique outcome. The one thing that ties most of his work together is the surrendering of part of his control as a composer, be it in aleatoric or arbitrary decisions at the composition level, or through largely improvised forms at the performance level. For more info: http://www.rodrigoconstanzo.com/

James Wyness lives in Jedburgh but is active as an artist across the UK with works performed overseas in both directions. His main focus compositionally has been with with acousmatic listening and the unfolding of the sound object, with the integration of mimetic and more obviously musical material and with the emergence of narrative. As a sound artist he mostly explores the phonographic forms which deal with documentary and archive, and which broadly address the disciplines of anthropology and ethnography through the medium of sound. For more info: http://www.wyness.org

Come out and enjoy the show!

 

28/09 The Burning Harpsichord Series: Ressurection

The BH Series is back with a new regular time and place! The last Sunday of each month, starting roughly at 7pm, we will feature local and traveling experimental artists. Cost is a donation of £3 to £5 with no one turned away for lack of funds.

The location is Aberdeen's newest venue, The Music Club, at 52-54 Langstane Place, Aberdeen, AB11 6EN

This Sunday we featured myself using some new instruments built at STEIM and the use of live video from the The Brakanator, as well as artists SumiSumi vs Noma, The Matricarians, and video artist John Reed.

The Matricarians (plus) is a relatively new supergroup taking members for the Kitchen Cynics, Mickel Mass, and a few other local experimentors mixed in for an avant-garde swirl of experimental psychedelia.

SUMISUMI V NOMA, is a project combining the efforts of Andy Da Kipp (solo artist, member of Mickel Mass, DJ) and NOMA (well known experimental improviser and drone artist active in Glasgow) Both artists have performed in Aberdeen, either solo or in groups as part of The Burning Harpsichord Series at the Lemon Tree or at various events at Peacock Visual Arts, The Tunnels, Drakes and elsewhere. The combined efforts of these two gentlemen made the evening worth coming out for in and of itself.

Stay tuned for audio and video from the night and Join us next month, October 26th for the next installment featuring a full set from myself, phonographer, composer, sound artist James Wyness, and circuit bender and sound artist Rodrigo Constanzo. Email for more info HERE.

 

08/2008 Developing New Guerilla Street Performance (accepting performance invitiations: Email for more details.

 

08/08 Wrote article for Cultural Enterprise Office: Swimming in Different Waters

 

08/02-03 Giving Circuit Bending Workshop

Giving a beginning circuit bending workshop at Peacock Visual Arts, August 2nd and 3rd.

Pix and vids HERE.

 


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