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A few months back The Sound Evotion Competition caught my interest enough to explore the possibility of making a submission for Round 10. The basic gist of the competition is to use a ’sample pack’ (of basic useful sounds) and make any song within the given guidelines. I normally wouldn’t do something like this, preferring to work unrestricted: but I liked the usability of the samples and thought some composition-rules, plus a deadline, might actually aid me in producing something unique. So away I went…

Unfortunately, because of the busy activities of the end of the year, only half a song was created. I missed the deadline. Nevertheless I have recently had time to finish it off, fairly much as I had originally intended. If the round were still open this would be my submission. You can download the mp3 here:

New England mp3

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New England xrns file – This is the raw file that plays perfectly in Renoise 1.8 – You will be able to see exactly how I put this together. The requirements of the competition stipulates that the song must be able to be played in this raw fashion, and is considered an ‘old school’ scene way of doing things. This also means, if you are a Renoise user, that you are free to remix the work however you want.

What of the song itself? Because of the competition restrictions it does not contain all the analogue elements I’m working hard at putting into all my other songs at the moment, e.g. voices and guitars. So I’ve tried to counter that by making the tune rather curly and odd. Yes, the dedication is to the place where I currently live, New England Australia. The attempted aim is to capture ‘the vibe’ in instrumental form – I’ve gone for a dreamy tension exploring both the open nature and the alienation of the countryside. The rest you can make up for yourself.

The release is trying to buy myself some time while I work on bigger long winded projects. This is my way of saying “I’m still here! Here’s a goody!”.

Now, some organising to do and then we can begin with releasing the old catalog in podcast form.

I have recently returned from a lovely long weekend away up north mostly in Brisbane. The aim on paper was to survive the Gold Coast Big Day Out, but most of the time was spent touring with Richelle and being pinned by humidity at levels previously unexperienced. Naturally some inexcusable shopping was done (when you live in rural Australia this happens on visits to the big smoke(s)) for some archival CDs, as well as some fun looking “Hot Rod” drum sticks and sexy purple jazz brushes. Recent inspiration from King Crimson’s Discipline means that drums with Jarrad this year is something to look forward to.

While I tend to prefer seeing small venue live music or electronica-festivals, the Big Day Out was a last minute choice in order to catch one of our long time favourites Tool. The rest of the bill did not have any acts at all we really wanted to see, but we figured it was worth trying to discover cool unknown acts. We set out, we being Richelle and friends Renee and Toshi, to survive the hot dust bowl and gathering of inane T-shirts and “look at me” antics of the BDO. Big festivals draw a fine line between ‘a good time’ and ‘hell on earth’. The pro of the venue was maximum visibility of many stages from a distance, while the con being a lack of shade outside the jam packed stage-tents.

We rummaged around from act to act being disappointed by the large amount of ordinary DJs, rock standards, and predictable hip-hop yelling. Two little unexpected gems came through. My Ninja Lover impressed doing lively electronic dance-pop music with Primary esq female vocals and cool electro-drums being played standing up. Even more surprising was That 1 Guy doing very funky electro blues on one of the most innovative electronic instruments I’ve recently seen, ala The Magic Pipe. Both acts engaged the crowd and at the same time gave us something fresh and new to think about.

After cowering under a tree for most of the afternoon we eventually moved camp over at the main stage to prepare for Tool. The involved witnessing The John Butler Trio, The Killers, Jet and Muse. I’m not a fan of any of those bands, but I was impressed with talent on offer – not a note wrong from anyone. The cooling evening bade welcome to Tool, and we were well placed but far back to soak up the event. What follows is my take on the proceedings:

- Sound was good considering it was a festival, and the mix improved at the night went on. I was back on the grass-rise and had a great view of the crowd and the stage. The sound was tolerable.

- All songs, save for Vicarious, were about 2-3% slower than their studio versions. I am guessing that this was done intensionally to give the band room for precision for complex phrasing. Pro: deeper and more hypnotic renditions – Con: dampens excitement.

- Rhythmically the band improved as the set progressed. I noticed a few dragging fills and slightly loose phrasing. Just saying “they are human” doesn’t quite cut it: performance is mastery over a subtle state. Generally, many young bands accidentally hone this by way of intuition and uncontrolled enthusiasm. Older performers can over-think, under-practice, second-guess or just loose touch with that ’subtle state’. Whether these issues concern Tool can be debated, but their younger recordings seem to hint at the larger pattern. Just how responsible is the band (any band) in the task of achieving that state of flow for maximum performance?

- Maynard’s pitch was really spot on for most of the night, which was a blessing: I was fearing that he would struggle through as I have heard him do so in some of the bootleg media. Some of the high chorus work in Sober was not quite par (continuous long high notes is killer on the diaphragm). He also only half did the Vicarious crescendo. Touring self-preservation? Nonetheless, I am thankful that he sung at all – singing is the hardest, most subtle, musical task. Bar none.

- Extended versions and improvisations were great. Opiate’s bridge was double length, where MJK’s lines where sung every second chord set instead of on each set. Schism’s double time section is very juicy to finally hear. Either Adam or Maynard played a very spacey keyboard part between two songs I can’t remember, but it was a nice moment of looking around at the massive crowd and thinking “wow, all these people are experiencing this release: high volume reflective art-moment”. The band’s future recordings could certainly benefit from these pad sounds, exploring similar paths they’ve visited with Reflection and Intension.

- Light show was good, moved with the music and mood well.

- Video was probably not as interesting at the Lateralus tour which I saw in 2002. The angle of attack seems more subtle, although still surreal and sinister. But we’ve got to ask ourselves the question: are we there to listen to music or to watch TV? A few times in the set I looked away or closed my eyes. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages. Opiate’s take on the Christian cross being repeated in the 8-sacred-geometry patterns was an interesting spin.

- A good strong feel to the set list. Left feeling satisfied and with much thinking material. Not quite as good as 2002’s Disposition/Reflection/Triad epic. I hope they tour here again so we get to see Wings For Marie/10000 Days soak though a large audience.

- Good to see the crowd singing along to most of the words. I even saw some people moving well with the complex time changes. The vibe was great, despite many men and women (boys and girls?) stuck in their little alcohol narrow-verse. I had a good time and it was a rewarding end to a day that is otherwise just a plain struggle.

So there you have it! I’m now back up in New England (safe from humidity) and enjoying some time with Jarrad who is visiting on PhD business. I’m currently working on a quick little track which will be released for free very soon. Then we have some sorting to do to get the year’s bigger projects underway.

I am sitting here at work looking at this blank blog entry wondering what to write first. I am back in Armidale from my summer holiday down in Taree. Much needs to be written about, so I’ll try to address it all in order.

The Bring David Hicks Home Gig in some regards was the best executed performance by myself, alongside Becky, Iain and BJ, since moving back to Armidale. I don’t have any gig photos, but here’s some rehearsal ones:


In the opposing regards, it only confirmed the finality of my efforts playing live in Armidale – having virtually no audience with the logistics and equipment strain being significant factors deterring me from pursuing live projects at all in 2007. This is a shame, as I enjoy playing music with these people and like their company. Maybe I can somehow divert their energy into recording?

In detail, the night was unforgettable and in many ways fun. In the afternoon’s preparation Armidale experienced a violent hailstorm that left the town covered in unseasonable settled ice and shredded the plants.

Perhaps this deterred the publicans from venturing out of their homes to check out some rather new-ish open minded music? At any rate it was really good to have Jamie (who was back from Alice Springs) and Simon turn up and listen to the ambient-Arabic-funk-hiphop avalanche. The band started up the set despite the fact the Club was almost empty, save for a bunch of manly men playing pool in the other room. Weaving between improvised material and songs that have been taking shape with Iain for a while now the actual performance part was fun. I even attempted improvised vocals – doing much more confidently than my disastrous gig back in 2005 doing my solo material. I would go as far as to suggest my vocals are now finally getting on what you would call ‘a good track’.

At the half way mark we got up Bruce (locally well known Green-advocate) to give a little speech about human rights and the David Hicks situation. Once of the ‘men’ came over to agree with Bruce at the top of his drunk lungs, interrupting him as if the 600W PA meant nothing. This assenting but annoyingly drunk character kept hovering around us for the rest of the performance, at one point attempting to grab my vocal mic and doing some of his own yodeling. He seemed well natured enough to accept my glare and behave. On the night went, playing only to Jamie and Simon, until the barkeep, Jessie, made it clear that he wanted to pack up and go home because no one was buying drinks. Iain insisted on two more songs, as BJ had finally turned up to deliver rhymes for the revolution. Some excellent playing ensured, only prolonging the long pack-up of the excessive amount of equipment. That part wasn’t fun. Friends made it easy.

Getting home to Taree the next day was a relief. Everything has been tied up, arranged or ended – I could peacefully wait for the calender year to end. That pretty much describes the quality of my last three weeks – gentle, uncluttered and developmental. I set up my little temporary studio upstairs, looking out on a nice view.

Some of my equipment was long overdue maintenance and alterations. Dad and I saw to the problem solving tasks, some of which had a mysterious nature. My monitor amplifier has bizarre patterns of signal loss on one channel. After going down long deductive roads of trying to replace sensitive op-amp chips (as you do) the problem was a simple as a filter coil of wire not being connected at one end. Problem solved, but the other side seem to have an unwonted bass growl. Embarrassingly, this turned out to be a simple loose screw on the bass cone! Goodness knows how long that had been going on, affecting my mix. My embarrassment was compounded when I discovered I was using the Delta’s bass management slightly in the wrong way unnecessarily adding to the left channel bass! With these three issues properly sorted I may now have a chance at accurately mixing and mastering the subsonic frequencies correctly. It shows you how long winded and windy the learning process can be!

Later on, I made the trip south to Sydney for a day. I had a really nice lunch catching up with Clinton (the El Supremo Music Appreciator) and had a good ramble about the state of affairs. It would be nice to have lunch with Clinton once a week, but unfortunately Armidale is a long way from Sydney. I then headed up to Narabeen to meet Simon to undertake my real purpose of the trip: to test microphone equipment. Simon is the proud owner of a Rode K2 microphone and a SPL Goldmike 9844 preamp. The combination of a good microphone and a good preamp can make all the difference in beautifully capturing a vocal (or instrument) performance that will sit sonically ‘right’ in the mix of a song. Famous pop singers have their preferred combinations depending on how their singing voice works. The aim for Simon and myself was to determine if the K2 and Goldmike were up to the task of my voice. If the two items were up to the task, then an advantage is that they are less expensive than some preamp and famous ‘high end’ vocal microphones like the U87.

In short, after a little testing, I found I loved the feel of the combo. The K2 is round and crispy while the Goldmike took care of providing both a clear clean sound with the necessary warmth to make the recording sound like it was actually really sung right back at me. After going back home the purchase was made.

I’m still waiting on the Goldmike preamp: but once I have that it will squarely be up to me to finally get all these vocals recorded. There will be no more excuses like ‘my equipment is flawed’ – time to do it!

Other small highlights from my break was spending time with Warwick, back from his round the world travels, and recording some little musical demos with him. Riki showed up and proved that he is alive. Mum and I did some fabulous star gazing, both up in the mountains with clear skies and with some software that allows you to fly all over the galaxy much faster than the speed of light (really, who needs narcotics?). Even a little music editing flowed, including a massive conversion of, wait for it, Corporate Whore Part II… I simply have too many songs to finish!

…Let alone doing covers as well. Guess -