Tenniscoats, For Barry Ray, Lawrence English – Live
Thanks to Room40.org Armidale got a little live music treat last Saturday at The Armidale Club. Supporting their new albums, experimental and avant-pop acts Tenniscoats, For Barry Ray, and Lawrence English played to a well mannered appreciative crowd of 30-40. And as an extra bonus, all members mixed and matched their presence in the sets to make for deep, human and dynamic renditions. Music of this level of delicacy, sensitivity and freshness doesn’t happen here often, so I naturally gave thanks at the end and picked up the following:
A little more about Lawrence…
I had the chance to meet and chat with Lawrence. I passed on copies of my albums Futurology and 2 Smargaid Maerd’s Unconsciousness half – which he seemed encouraging about. We discussed the opportunities of playing soundscapes live in Brisbane and about some people I should network with to make that a possibility.
In the weeks since getting my RAM established I’ve been working probably harder than ever at generally every project. Nothing to boast of yet in the way being finished, but some new twists and turns are leading me down new avenues. My previous soundscape work (linked to above) was largely based on automations, samples and in some cases noise. Now, things are moving in a much more melodic ambient direction. I am getting deeper into using tape-loop processing to build large progressive pieces using my guitar as the main input, not dissimilar at all to Robert Fripp’s method. I’m working on being able to perform this live. It may prove to be a more direct voice for my unrestrained ideas, being less of the compromised-commercial variety (like some of my works in progress, ala Paradox). Ideas are floating about to play in conjunction with art-gatherings, or non-pub venues.
Along with everything else being worked on, I will share some of these slow melodic pieces soon…
