simple Drone, Crediton

John - mandola, acoustic guitar, acoustic bass guitar, voice, percussion, low whistle
Henry - percussion, acoustic bass guitar
me - saz, balalaika, acoustic bass guitar, percussion, The Purple Lunchbox


A somewhat different-sounding ensemble - the Crediton Town Band of 1862
The first piece involved a riff John had just been playing at home, something he'd made up to sing to his little daughter Laura after listening to some new material by Donald Fagen - so a bit of uncharacteristic (Steely Dan-like?) song structure there.

On the penultimate piece we switched instruments - John taught Henry a simple bassline, I had a brief stint behind Henry's kit, then John and I switched back and forth between strings and percussion.

Rather like the previous Drone session this felt a bit tenuous. Large chunks of it didn't work very well, but then others worked very well. Somehow the smaller ensemble lends itself to more experimentation. At one point we were playing a sort of sustained "out-of-phase" rhythm which felt quite interesting at time, but which sounded completely unlistenable in retrospect.

Also, like the last Crediton Drone, I didn't pay sufficient attention to the recording levels on the new MiniDisc recorder, so there's a mild clip in some places (but nothing too unpleasant):

Listen Here

Drone-inna-dub-style

Keith's mate Gordon, a.k.a. DJ Radio Bush Telegraph, is going to be doing a programme on Exeter's wonderful (but temporary) 'festival radio station' Vibraphonic FM - mostly punk and reggae I would guess, not sure...

Anyway, he asked if Children of the Drone could provide him with some reggae-influenced recordings for broadcast, so I compiled four pieces from 2004-5. I've decided I might as well make these available as an IAA collection, so I have:


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second trio rehearsal

Henry, Keith and I got together again last Thursday, ran through the five pieces we worked on last time, plus a couple of new ones: "Ambee Dagez" (an Armenian tune I've been playing for a while [here's a version recorded with the Dongas when I'd first learned it, back in '97]) and "Mingus/Fungus" (one of my own [here's a version recorded with Inge in 2001]).

It's progressing nicely. Henry's particularly keen on the five rhythm we've been jamming in, and Keith's (fretless electric) basslines are starting to take shape and suggest great things to come...

Exploratory Drone, Oblique House

Henry - percussion, vocal percussion, acoustic bass guitar
Keith - acoustic bass guitar, mandola, percussion, keyboard
John - acoustic guitar, acoustic bass guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, low whistle, voice, balalaika
me - saz, acoustic bass guitar, percussion, synthesiser drones, The Purple Lunchbox


The kitchen, Oblique House
Last night - quite an unusual session. I was struggling to feel physically comfortable, so took a while to get into it. Henry didn't bring his kit, just some hand percussion plus a mic and amplifier, so he could experiment with vocal percussion. He even had a go (very competently) playing a simple bassline on the last piece, during which I got very much into The Purple Lunchbox, particularly using a Northern Irish voice whose tonal qualities sounded quite extraordinary when cut up in this way. Unfortunately my amp wasn't turned up loud enough, and this stuff hardly comes through on the recording.

Listen Here
Afterwards I felt an urge to watch TV - something I rarely do, but sometimes feel like after an outpouring of creativity. I caught a couple of interesting music related items: One involved East London grime MC's working with a BBC orchestra as part of a project called "Urban Classics". The other was a British Asian youth culture programme called Desi DNA which focussed on supposed inter-racial tensions in Handsworth, Birmingham (following riots last year). They chose to look at positive examples of grassroots cooperation between the black and Asian communities, including an 'anti-bling' gospel-ragga MC called Witness working in the studio of a local bhangra producer on a remix. These brought back to mind some rather hopeful thoughts I had about a year ago, and which had a lot to do with the creation of this blog - they're sketched out in this post.

I was also very pleasantly surprised when part of Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden album (one of my all-time favourites) was used as music for a linking section in the latter programme, accompanying evocative imagery of the Lozells Road area. An extremely 'un-urban' choice which worked surprisingly well.

The Purple Lunchbox

I've decided give my "percussively-triggered radio device" a somewhat 'snappier' name. As it was recently re-built inside a purple plastic child's lunchbox (20p from Exeter Recycling Centre), it's now "The Purple Lunchbox":


The Purple Lunchbox
Those are two 'doorbell'-type switches which are wired in parallel across the output of a small radio contained within the box. This may soon be supplemented by an MP3 player so I can trigger various pre-selected voices, drones, horn sounds, etc.. There's a headphone jack which bypasses the switches so I can "cue up" the sound I want, a tuning dial, and an output jack from which I can run a cable to an amplifier.

The two switches allow for a much freer hand-percussion style than the previous one-switch model. The idea of this device is to generate a new kind of percussion, using any sound (music, speech, noise) which might happen to be in the airwaves at the time the switches are depressed. Percussively-broken up speech is particularly effective (I first noticed this listening to an Eno album - was it The Shutov Assembly?)

At the moment I have to open the box to change radio band (from MW to FM, for example), but this device is still in any embryonic stage. Still, I think I'll stick with the current container. It has a pleasing compactness, a handle and a certain charm...

The Serpents

I've just discovered "possibly the strangest pop group of all time" - see this article.



One of our Children of the Drone compilations got reviewed (see bottom of here) recently, and compared to Ectogram, Stëllä Märïs Drönë Örchësträ, and S/T. I had a look at their various websites, and found out about The Serpents via Ectogram's.

There seem to be some parallels with us, although they've got better costumes, Will Sergeant and Robert Wyatt's old drum kit!

Here's a review of their album You Have Just Been Poisoned By The Serpents, from Julian Cope's 'Head Heritage' website.

Wisconsin recordings all processed

I've finally finished up the processing of all the MiniDisc recordings made during my recent visit to Wisconsin. I've uploaded them to the IAA as four separate collections under my usual 'catchall' name A Tiny Window.

• Madison improvisations, winter 2005-6 - jams recorded with Maggie, Ken and Pete Fee at either end of my visit


• Stevens Point open mic sessions December 2005 - recorded on the Winter Solstice with banjo-playing friend Gavin, and a week later with percussionist Ryan Biesack at a couple of friendly local venues


• The Yoga Studio, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, 29/12/05 - a solo set I played to accompany an intermediate yoga class in a wonderfully peaceful, resonant space (among the nicest solo saz recordings I've made)


• New Year's Day session at Stef's, 2006 - A rough-but-spirited psychedelic/bluegrass/old-time/reggae/folk fusion jam recorded out in the country with Gavin and friends from local band Sloppy Joe

UW-Stevens Point's 'Old Main' building in the snow
I've burned CD's of various selections to for the people involved in the recordings and posted them off. The visit was definitely a success, musically and otherwise. The one thing I'm not going to make public is the recording of my solo set at The Mission Coffeehouse, opening for The Deadlies on the evening before New Years Eve. I was quite nervous at that time, having expected to be playing as part of some kind of group, and finding myself along on a stage - not something I'm really used to. I thought I'd played quite well at the time, but the recording just makes me cringe and want to just go away and practice a lot. Oh well...

Other pleasant musical memories the trip:

• The hilarious and inspiring John Lennon tribute gig hosted by Madison's The Gomers
  
• Hearing the last minute or so of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks coming from out of nowhere as I walked down Pine Street in Stevens Point in the snow one morning. I gradually realiseded that it was coming from a parked UPS van (they have no doors), and just as the last freeform bass notes sounded, the driver re-appeared, started the engine, and drove off...
  
• Being surprised to hear a couple of songs from Nick Drake's Pink Moon when I was in the Stevens Point Co-op looking for a jar of local honeybee pollen (wonderful stuff). I don't think I've ever heard Nick Drake in the States before.
  
• Hearing a poignant, evocative track called "Always Coming Back to You" by Minneapolis hiphop crew Atmosphere on the local University radio station WWSP
  
• Jamming on various familiar Neil Young, CSNY, Beatles, Dylan songs with ultra-friendly local musicians at The Clark Place's weekly "song swap"
  
• hearing someone called Ed (or was it Steve?) singing a Damien Rice song several times at the Clark Place - the first time I heard it a young woman in a woolly hat was casually singing beautiful harmonies from the bar. Ed (Steve?) wasn't even sure what the song was called, but it's just gorgeous
  

Drone interpolating Pulse

John - acoustic guitar, bouzouki, low whistle, vocals, percussion
Keith - electric guitar
Henry - percussion
me - saz, balalaika, percussion, percussively-triggered radio device
Richard - electric bass guitar

  
What the world needs right now...a "peace pole" recently installed outside the Rainbow Studio. That's the moon above it in the left-hand picture.
An excellent session at the Rainbow Studio in Crediton. Initially it was just John, Keith, Henry and I, but when it transpired that John wasn't going to be able to make it to Henry's on Saturday to record the Pulse demo, Henry suggested calling Richard to see if he could come over and do it there and then. He could, so we Droned for a while (wonderfully! golden, mellow, trippy sounds, my saz through a mild flange, everything perfectly in place). Typically, the battery died on the MiniDisc recorder 10 minutes in, so we lost a good part of that one. Richard arrived as we were coming to and end, after which Henry enthusiastically declared to his brother that we'd "just been to the edge of the Universe and back"!

Richard plugged in, we ran a 3-groove 10 minute set a few times, got a take as good as anything we're likely to get on MiniDisc, then got back to Droning. I went a bit mad with my radio device, twisting short bursts of medium wave voice-babble, noise, sports commentary and opera with a delay effect (manually changing delay times in mid burst). Everyone seemed to be into that. I've got some ideas for extending the device, using an MP3 player rather than a radio, and having a whole directory of little loops of horns, accordions, voices, abstract sonic textures, etc., which I can draw from, ideally in all possible keys. Richard said he had an old iPod lying around at home, so I may end up using that.

Also, Henry's lent me a multi-effects module (it's intended for a guitar, but it should be interesting to experiment with a saz).

Definitely one to remember.

Listen Here

new project - first "rehearsal"

I decided a while ago that my musical reality needs some new, more structured ingredient if it is going to continue to grow and mature. The idea I settled on was to create a saz-bass-drums trio with Keith and Henry, with whom I've been playing vast amounts of wholly improvised music for the last five years or so. The idea is to start with a variety of riffs, tunes and half-formed ideas I've come up with over the years, as well as folktunes from the widest possible range of musical cultures. These will act as springboards for improvisational excursions. I envision this as being something which will be very much performance-based, and something which, although fundamentally a trio, could ultimately involve any number of 'guests', including pretty much anyone we've Droned with over the years, and others.

There's no name for this thing yet. I've got a few possible ones in mind, but we need to get the music working first before we worry about what we're going to call ourselves, who we're going to play for, and where.

The three of us got together for the first time at Henry's last night. Keith brought his electric fretless bass, so the sound was something like the session we did for the Respect Festival at the Phoenix. We ran through five ideas:

• "Afro-Cornish" - a riff/groove I came up with in Cornwall years ago, around the time I was listening to a lot of African music. Many rhythmic possibilities here - this one took off almost immediately.
  
• "25 Years" - a fairly complete piece I made up for Inge's 25^th birthday when we were in Constantine (Cornwall). It's a bit harder to break out of the tune and into improv territory, but we got there in the end. (There's a nice jammed-out version featuring Inge here.)
  
• "Pisci Cuspus" - a simple little tune (some people think it sounds "Elizabethan") I made up on my balalaika a couple of summer solstices ago. (A rough version can be found here). I was amazed at how heavy we were able to make this one sound
  
• "Levitating the Pentagon" - my first attempt to create something in a five-rhythm. This originated in Palenque (southern Mexico), and was something Inge, Andy Man and I used to play a lot in '96-'97. (A rough version of this can be found here). The five thing's a bit of a challenge, but both Henry and Keith are already doing really well with it, I feel.
  
• "Cutting Bracken" - a Scottish folk tune Keith was already familiar with, which I learned from my Scottish friend Gareth while we were on The 1997 Treewalk in Ireland.
  

another Pulse gig

Pulse, Henry and his brother Richard's improvisational danceband which has emerged as a sort of Children of the Drone spin-off, had an excellent gig last Saturday - the best one I've been involved in thus far. It was at the local Cricket Club, hired for Henry's wife Lucy's 50^th birthday party (jointly with her cousin Claire, also 50).

I was supposed to record it, but my MiniDisc recorder started misbehaving the day before, and was completely useless by Saturday evening. I had a backup I'd got via eBay for £20, but when I got it out of the box, I was dismayed to find it doesn't actually have a microphone input!

So there's no recording of this one, which is a shame, as it was musically quite adventurous. We had the whole place dancing non-stop for 90 minutes, and to some pretty warped-out/avant-garde sounds a lot of the time. Richard's bass playing keeps getting more and more solid. I was brought in mainly as an additional percussionist, but I did play some saz, mostly on the reggae-ish numbers, and towards the end of the set. Henry was particularly keen on me using my "percussively-triggered radio device", which had been hurriedly rebuilt inside a purple plastic lunchbox that afternoon. It's got two 'doorbell' style switches now, so I can generate much more interesting rhythms.

The line-up this time:

Henry - drums
Richard - electric bass guitar
Philip - saxophone, electronics, novelty instruments, vocals, percussion
Matthew S - cello, clarinet, keyboard, vocals, percussion
Keith - electric guitar and percussion
me - percussion, percussively-triggered radio device, saz

We had a few PA problems, as usual, but it wasn't too bad. The most unfortunate aspect of this was our inability to get Matthew's cello sufficiently audible. We'll have to work on this side of things a bit more...

People wanted an encore after our non-stop 90 minute set, so we managed to throw together a slow, loose, trippy blues jam which was immensely enjoyable.

The set was built around the following basslines:
Ball of Fire -> Oye Como Va -> Walking on the Moon -> Mannenberg -> Cantaloupe -> Tam Tam -> Knock on Wood -> Evil Ways -> Guguletu -> Papa Was a Rolling Stone -> Surfin' -> John's groove no. 1 -> The Beat Goes On

I expect I'll be able to track down some digital photos of the event. Henry's quite keen to record a demo and take this idea further.

Some reasonably good Pulse audio (from a rehearsal last autumn) is available here.

Imbolc Drone at St. Stephens

This month, our first-Wednesday session at St. Stephens church coincided with the Celtic quarter day of Imbolc. Unfortunately I had a vast stack of paperwork in desperate need of attention, so I was unable to fully involve myself. I decided I might as well be doing it there, so I could record the session and perhaps add a few noises of my own.


St. Stephens in the sunshine
Henry - percussion
John - acoustic guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, voice, percussion
James T - poetry, piano, percussion
Jo - voice
Pete - voice, piano, percussion, mandolin, acoustic guitar
me - paper-rustling noises, whistling

Listen Here

visit from Pok, etc.

Pok stopped by again for the first time in a while. He's been busy in London processing a load of old Spacegoats material for long-overdue CD release with Mark from SoundsCollective. He bought himself a new acoustic guitar while he was staying here, and spent quite a bit of time getting to know it. We played a few Dylan songs together ("Love Minus Zero", "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine"). He'd been down in the south of Spain for a while recently, too - left his mandola there in a state of relative disrepair. We didn't record anything this time, but here are a few rough jams we've done together over the years.


The Spacegoats in their heyday - Twyford Down, July 1993. Pok, in typical boundary-dissolving mode, tests the robustness of the photograph's edge
Another Spanish connection - I was contacted by Jordi Orriols Luque in Barcelona asking if he could use some Children of the Drone music for his podcast. As he explains:

"Its a radio for the soul, the comunication, sincerity and the research of the truth..."

He'd like me to record an explanation of the music, the Drone concept, this blog, and my approach to music generally.