a head buried in the sand

Ok. This is the recording Alex and I made at the Jam Hut last night. I'm glad we got to do this as it was a healthy opportunity for us to see what came up immediately and work through some stuff and try a few different things completely on the fly. Just a quick not of personal reflection - one thing i must try to be aware of is how i sort of play it safe and keep doing the same thing and then play a strange kind of role. Like a tough rock star punk role or something. This is the recording of our first session with a PA and Alex doing some crazy instrumentation and some rock bass and just getting down with a microphone. There are some pretty wild bits and a whole bunch of stuff i will try to avoid in later sessions. Be warned - there is some explicit language. Don't listen if you think you might find this a bit hard to bare.

Ben vs Alex.mp3

Oh well... i guess i wanted to put it all out there.

See ya.

Rafael - the troubled turtle.

It has been an odd week and part of me wants to write and put it all down and then maybe the horrid gaping ulcers that sing and weep like toothless angels within my mouth would deflate, diffuse and drift away... as the tiny paper boat that a young boy puts upon a quiet lake when the sun is still watching from between the trees. It bobs and floats and melts between the bubbles bursting - as crows becoming bracken as they flap and fold, flap and fold within the tree.

When i sit to write i want it to come out like the sudden assault of perfume when a vial is shattered on a black stone floor. I thirst for it to come out and with such furious burning passion that i can feel the gushing torrents of existence and ecstasy and see the twisted face of one who leaps defiantly into the void, flickering between the flames. And rarely will it come. Instead it gets stuck in my throat and i can taste the embers and the ash as it settles on my tongue and between my teeth and there the skin sizzles and boils and opens like the mouth of some newborn mammal, blindly sucking for the tit. I find myself tucked up inside myself, like Rafael who could never reconcile the terrible gulf that separated the world as it was with the world in his heart, a world that would satisfy his heady, romantic idealism. The nausea, it would seem, does not spare even a hero in a half shell.


Yesterday i decided to ignore the pain in my mouth and go and get another lesson with my singing teacher. She pushes me because she has terrible worries of her own but somehow we keep it real and i find that line that runs taught like a guitar string from behind my top front teeth and the chakra that winks just above my head. She belts that piano and the string is quickening as i hold that line through each ascending scale and into the falls as we plunge deeper and deeper. My guts push and my collar is stiff and that chakra is winking like a vector on the screen. I was so exhausted but feeling all the life inside i knew i had to go back into the city and make those new recordings. Flinders Street Station. Degraves St. Trains and trams and coffees and car radios. It all seemed to be happening at once and i realised that it always is but we just shut it all out so we can deal with one thing at a time. We find this phenomenon in philosophy: Bergson and Huxley knew that the role of consciousness is not simply to perceive the world and enable action/thought within it. The first role of perception is to reduce, to siphon, to minimise. The brain, as an organ of sense, is a huge station for processing information as it manifests to the nervous system. In the moment, it catalogs and arranges this information according to the needs and interests of the body as it exists in temporality. That is, the utilitarian function of the brain is to sort stimuli according to the present interests of the subject. From within the whir of this stimuli, some is seized, much is discarded. I guess it just depends on whether you're listening to an announcement, walking someplace, or looking for a toilet.

So many sounds are going on and it was like i didn't really pay much attention to them until i started to listen through the headphones of my microphone - then i started to hear the voices, the rhythm of traffic, the shuffling trams and the always breathing wind. It all seemed to make one deafening symphony and my skin tingled when the seagulls sang overhead just as the ticking of a crossing slowed. It got me thinking about how our brains sort and reduce perceived information so we can manage ourselves in the world. How we spend so much of our lives thinking about something else, not here, not now. But it was suddenly all of interest when i clicked that mic "on". Is there a zen of field recording?

And so i have uploaded another recording for your ears to hear and this comes from the streets of Melbourne as i was walking from Federation Square to Missing Link Records. For the first bit i was just walking along, letting it all happen and swell around me. But after a bit i realised i could alter the content of the recording by stopping to capture a truck parking, or following the pins of high heels pricking the pavement... until the walker noticed my device pointed at her shoes. It is sort of like a divine child got this toy city for an instrument and he is just twangin away here and there like the haphazard fall of an avalanche making sound.

Fed sq - Missing Link.mp3

Later that day Alex and i met up and had some coffee and then talked about playing music and on a whim decided to go to a rehearsal space and set up the bass and the mic and just have a bit of a jam. I cant wait for the whole of Chotto Matte to be back in the studio and we'll weave our way through sunsetting stations and the call to and fro of fields and forests. It gives me a shiver and i cant help but smile. But we're still in the ideas phase and probably will be for a while even when we've got heaps of stuff on file and maybe do a show for whoever wants to come. It is a strange and stringy embrace this making and doing - a lot of the time i feel like i don't have a clue and it is all rubbish and i should just stop and let creative people do it. And then i thin k about how much fun we're having and how all the noise seems to stop hurting when we forget ourselves and just let go. And even though the ulcers burn and bite and i still struggle with this furious anger inside my chest - maybe one day i'll be able to sing it all into something i am proud of and makes me glad and not so pissed off i'm here in this strange, deafening symphony of so many objects, just wanting to be heard.

Requiem for Rajasthan

It seemed wrong to not post a sound piece and make you read my words and not hear nice things. This recording was made in the Bhundi Palace in South Eastern Rajasthan, mid Feb, 2008. Noises are made by Jasjeet Singh and me. That palace had its own voice. Enjoy.

Bhundi palace session.mp3

Nothing new has been recorded in the past two weeks. No entry to drains or under bridges. We did make a feeble attempt at the abandoned Melbourne brewery on Swanston Street, but razor wire and padlocks kept us out. There are ideas in the pipe and potential venues are being sought... but everything is so busy all the time it makes it difficult to get together.

Still. I go to my singing lessons and practice jazz and opera. Unless i change my mind i will buy a cello sometime in the next week or so. I think that strings will sound very nice in a drain or under a building. And so we have perhaps loosened the soil and know that something will grow but we know not what fruit it shall bear nor when shall be the time for harvest. It is interesting and exciting and as i talk more and more about the work with more and more people the more and more lines of flight seem to open up. A plant room. An emergency access tunnel. Sewers and ports. Seaside and drought stricken. I have only been back in the country for five weeks and already so much has happened. I put off making decisions about moving to a new address (my parents turn out to be very agreeable house mates), and making coffee is an ideal floor upon which to make my meditative dance. So much is new and i don't know what yet but i shall keep looking and thinking and reading and writing and making those noises when the time seems opportune.

What else? The other night i went to see a performance of Don Nigro's The Scarecrow, billed together with Imp of the Perverse, a twining to Poe's dark threads. After being disappointed by my recent attendance to the professional stage, it was a delight to discover some deliciously focused performances by young actors on a stage that was uncluttered and thoughtfully composed. Though, i must admit a twang of reluctance emanated from my forehead when i heard those put on American accents. I hate accents in the theatre. And there was the odd moment when the picture became little more than a mantle arrangement of talking heads... but never for too long. And, given the hypnotic beauty of the words, it was perhaps appropriate for those bodies to remain so still, hovering in the dark. Certain Cowells would do well to take note of the inherent power of a poised and restrained presence.

Of course. I have spoken with others who admit enjoying the latest Bell Shakespeare mockery of Hamlet. I find such admissions difficult to comprehend. The production only whithers, becoming less and less of a disappointment, as it sinks slowly from memory. Some even told me i should give the High God People another chance. But i gave them two already. It is interesting that they choose to present their work as theatre at events geared towards sound art and experimental music. A sly suggestion slips between the sentences. But the emperor is left naked on the steps. The designer cackling among the pigs and swine.

I just finished reading Sartre's Age of Reason and must say that i have no idea what to read next. He is very good and perhaps i will have more to say about it later. But for now i must slink away and prepare for my next singing lesson. That is enough words for this time. But if i may offer a recommendation, then make sure you go and get a listen to J.P Shilo's album, Happy as sad is blue. John Brooks of the former Hungry Ghosts weaves a haunting and emotive web of wonderful meditas and crescendos.

Until next time.

Under the tracks into the river

This morning i woke from troubled sleep to hear the irritating voice of my alarm at 4.20am. I wouldst not rise without agenda for such an hour and assure you it was for a noble cause. But why the restlessness? The reason is unclear. Alas, there has been little time for despair and angst, no quiet longing for those distant shores that inspired my fancy but three weeks ago. It has been weird being back in Melbourne. I miss India and the mountains, and i really loved wandering about the streets of Paris - flannuring is the appropriate term i believe. But it is very good to be back and there are lots of wonderful things happening - some of which i have written about here and shall continue to do so. Other things which are not in the spirit of the blog and so shall go unmentioned.

In the wake of my travels, new and exciting ideas have rushed to ease the transition from movement to station, and i am feeling INSPIRED. But not in ways i ever would have anticipated. My mind fizzes about the novelty of my H2 microphone and the possibilities it presents. Being back in rehearsal with musicians and doing the singing lessons and getting up early to do a field recording. It's all full of vivacity and life and the cool winter breath on my tongue and my cheek. And yet it could not have been without the travels i have had. It was then that i discovered the joy of making sounds in strange environments. A palace in Bhundi. A storm water drain in Kew. By the Yarra under a bridge beside the Melbourne Arts Centre. What ghosts would whisper between our random acts?

After our (very enjoyable) experiment in the drain last week, Alex and i were keen to have another crack. Originally we had planned to make noise on the platform of the Parliament train station. I arrived early and it seemed an opportune moment to sneak a preview of those subterranean sounds. Paid ticket in hand, i entered the station to discover drabness and disappointment. Metros and loop station designs tend to be as lifeless, austere and conformity inducing as possible. I recorded the escalator. Twice. But then decided that the commercial background music would prove... distasteful to our exercise. And so when Alex arrived i said let's try by the river under a bridge or something. And so we went there and discovered that there was much more life by the Yarra than there is in a storm water drain under Kew. Indeed, there is more life under a river than there is under Parliament. And so we nabbed a morning jogger and shoved him in a large chest and proceeded to record ourselves taunting him with sticks, tools and devices from the outside.

Okay... that is not strictly true. But if you listen closely, you may find that that is what it sort of kind of sounds like. Or maybe i am just a twisted egg. As a cheap alternative, we placed the microphone on a bin with the cavernous underpass on one side and the river on the other, allowing the recording to oscillate between claustrophobic and wide open spaces. For noise we utilised the walls and metal fences for scratching, a guitar, a snare drum, bits of paper, plastic, vocals and leather gloves. Accidental sounds included birds, joggers and the familiar rumble of trams above. The sample lasts nearly 25 minutes and is a much more agreeable listening experience than the sky gashed open sonic torture column of the other day. I have already listened to it a few times and must say i find it highly agreeable. I hope you will too.

By the Yarra.mp3

That is sort of all for this time. No cutting asides about offensively bad theatre. We have some good ideas about prospective venues for future field jams. I will be sure to post them here when they eventuate.

Thanks for listening... and reading.

Benjamin

Calibrating the LK-540

LK - 540.mp3

The past week has been full of things. Mostly things i have enjoyed. Some things which have been less than satisfactory. Irregular sleep and strange dietary cravings. Last Wednesday i had the unpleasant experience of attending the latest Bell Shakespeare production of Hamlet. For anyone who is not aware of the production currently in performance, Hamlet is played by an emoesque Brendan Cowell with quiffy rock star hair. Failing to embody the existential tension of the role, Cowell deftly substitutes the philosophical reflectivity of Shakespeare's anti-hero with the ridiculous leap-froggisms of a performer who has an extraordinarily inflated opinion of himself. That said, there are some very strong actors in the cast who do what they can with the very little they have been offered. It is the first time in my time as a spectator that i have sided with Claudius. I have no doubt that this result was unintentional. The staging was sloppy and the design was meaningless. So let us move on and discuss more important things.

The following night i attended Liquid Architecture 9 at the North Melbourne Arts House. Liquid Architecture is an event concerned with bringing the most progressive and challenging artists in sound and audio technologies, local and international, to Melbourne audiences. Suitably, the venue situates the artist at the center of the space with the spectators seated in a spiral leading outward. At the periphery, the speakers of a 5.1 surround rig stand like sentinels guarding a portal to another dimension. The first, Melbourne based artist, Nat, produced many beautiful sounds but was a tad underwhelming. His role as MC implied that his set was intended to get everybody "in the mood." Following, Alex White from Sydney generated an incredible and intense vortex of ascending forces with distinct crescendos and falls. The piece was composed from a relatively limited palate of tones and textures, and was skillfully managed within a twenty minute time frame that left me aching for more. As i sat there in the dark with my eyes closed, i felt the room hurtling through space, digitized. A thousand tiny machines were screaming in the air, like magnetic cogs holding the universe together, making time go.

Marcus Schmickler from Koln, while incredibly powerful, was not as successful, in my opinion, with his 45 minute movement. Indeed, the rushing use of infinity scales and terrifying drones generated an overwhelming visceral landscape. At times I felt myself consumed by the piece and soon memory and thought gave way to the collision and collapse of colour and force in an internal, visual realm. For the first 20 minutes i was completely engaged, engulfed and at the mercy of the German. However, i soon found that the audio textures were moving in too many different directions to be managed, and by 30 minutes he seemed to be running out of fabric. I could not say that he had too little material for the piece. Rather, when the narrative structure had exhausted itself, he was still trying to include new sounds. Sounds that might have wanted to initiate a new movement or narrative, but were suddenly swallowed and forgotten in the mess of noise. Finding an ending was a struggle, but he got me back when he finally did.

Then for some reason the good curators of the festival had decided to allow the High God People to close the night. This unconvincing, self indulgent circus of disparate idiocy seems to have a percentage of the arts community fooled with a contemporary exhibition of the Emperor's new clothes. Of course, there are some interesting components to the High God People's stuff: their costumes offer some potentially interesting bodies 'as symbols', and, once built, i thought the bamboo structures that housed the musicians were very cute. But...

But.

The work is completely disrespectful to the audience. It is clear that no one in the group has considered how it will look from the outside - how the narrative and its symbols can be interpreted. Antonin Artaud observes in No more Masterpieces that art that fails to engage and speak to its audience cannot hide behind the pretense that the failure is on the part of the observer. Art that fails to connect with and communicate is simply art that fails. Further, the performers seem to have no respect for the various objects they surround themselves with or attempt to manipulate. Their movements are sloppy and their engagement with the space is without focus. As a result, every aspect of the stage image appears lifeless and unimportant. This is bad performance art, ridiculous and deliberately confusing in order to conceal its superficiality. In the gesture of crowd confusion they are most successful, as the departing audience is peppered with insecure murmurs of interest. They could perhaps be equated more closely, however, with the production team for Everybody Loves Raymond, rather than the most compelling and progressive artists of their time. At least they were at the end, which i can only assume was to ensure that nobody left without seeing the other artists first.

And after that scathing review i shall now turn to my own self indulgent gestures of disrespect. Last night i got together with members of hard rock locals, TOY, for an improvised jam session. Sadly, the drummer was unable to attend, which may account for the sprawling and chaotic nature of the piece. The first section is driven by grinding minimal techno and layers of oscillating distortion. After about 17 minutes the gloves come off and we descend into ferocious noise and audio torment. I will be the first to acknowledge that this is not necessarily the most listener friendly session - but it marks my first rehearsal with musicians for a long time and may be an interesting moment in the development of our work. Noise enthusiasts and other concerned parties may hear the recording (made in 24 bit quad channel on my Zoom H2) by hitting play on the doodad at the top of this entry.

It is still impossible to get the audio through itunes, but i am working on it. If you know how and can see where i might be going wrong, then please shoot me an email and offer any advice you have so i can submit my noisy experiments to the podcast community. And it may be completely self indulgent to want to put these things on the internet and to reach a wider audience and i am as aware of that as anybody. Still... this has been a fun project for me. Making recordings and being interested in how music happens and the strange and beautiful feelings i get when i listen and get all swallowed by it. And i guess having fun is a social thing and i hope some of you understand why, self indulgent or no, i will keep doing this anyway.

My warmest regards,
Benjamin

Once back in Melbourne

And so now i have been back in Melbourne for just over two weeks and the jet has finally lagged. It is good to be back at work and making coffee and playing with ideas and music. The horizon is particularly beautiful around 5 pm when the fleeing sun seems to stretch the clouds into limbs of desperation. I ride my bike here and there. The winter is cold and beyond the houses i can see where the water must be hiding. It is funny that i never thought of where the bay was before. One can know that something is reachable by road or tram or walking and not quite register that it is there even when one cannot quite see it. Obvious. But fun to ponder.

It was often noted in conversation that everyone in India is "looking for something," and it would be false to pretend that i just went and saw and had a laugh and now i am back and that i have not been asking myself questions. Of course i was looking for something. But that doesn't mean i know what it was or is or why i don't know and probably never will. Someone asked me if i found what i was looking for and i said yes because i wanted to find some very delicious subji (curries) and on that account i was successful on many occasions. But if we are talking about philosophy, as many people travelling in India do, then that is a different question and not one i am able to answer with ease. It is certainly true that i feel very good and that things are exciting and fresh and all i really want to do is travel again and see more amazing things and meet more amazing people. It is good fun and i guess that having fun is really the only thing that makes all this living stuff worthwhile.

And in the name of good fun, i have decided to start podcasting, even though i still don't really know what that means or how it is done. This is my first try at publishing an independent audio file on the blog and fingers crossed it works.



Okay. It worked. It took me a few hours but now it is up and if you have some minutes handy then please take a listen. The file is a recording that was made yesterday, which was Thursday. Alexander Clutterbuck and I got together to make some noise and while we were playing with my H2 microphone in his studio he had a very good idea that we should go and record sounds in a nearby storm water drain. We didn't really discuss what we were going to do once we got there, but what followed can only be described as an eerie dialogue of effects both instrumental and bodily, set within a murky subterranean atmosphere. Part jam session part field recording, two guys trying to scare each other in a drain. And if we do what we say we will do then in coming weeks there will be many more audio recordings posted here and i certainly hope that is the case. I hope that i can get my head around this sound art business and computers and start to make sounds that i like listening to. And I really hope you like it too.