Tuesday, October 27, 2015

New piece - 'Rhythm Strip'

So, it took longer than intended to both conceive and then to edit but it's finally out!

My mother posted me an ECG printout (rhythm strip), knowing about my interest in graphic scores, having noted that it did look a bit like something useful. 2 years later, I finally realised how I could use it. I am interested in how people, collectively and individually, interpret similar material and what the combined effect might be.

Taking the three outputs on the strip, I researched how to work out the actual bpm and then used the graph paper on the strip and each output wave to create a score with bar lines on tracing paper. The section I had amounted to 11 bars at 50bpm. The respondents to my very vague Facebook post calling for 'contributors to an experiment' were allocated one of the three parts in the order in which they responded, to ensure equal distribution. I had absolutely no idea what would come back or how I would put the parts together until they did. Thank you so much to all who contributed - so many interpretations of my mother's heart! I think it's beautiful. And she would have found it utterly ridiculous but have been secretly highly faltered, I'm sure!

Here's the final piece and links to the 'instructions' and individual scores can be found below:





INSTRUCTIONS

aVF SCORE

II SCORE

III SCORE

The starting point for almost all my work is a graphic one. Sometimes it's something I see in my mind that conjures up a sound, sometimes the other way round, but there is always a graphic.

I first started working in this way in the late '90s when I discovered that 'synaesthesia' actually existed and I wasn't mad [much to my relief!]. I spent a long while researching it and ended up writing my dissertation at Goldsmiths about the links between our senses and exploring how we could extend/enhance our experience of an art form by combining them. After much cogitating (and quite an extended fag break) I started re-examining these ideas in my own practice.

A selection of these scores can be found HERE.


Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Skip-diving

This week is pre-production week with Knifeworld as we have an album to learn before going into the studio next month. A song a day; so far so good! On day 1, I found some notation, scribbled on a bit of mdf, in a skip. So I decided to 'realise' this found score. This is what came out:


Monday, July 27, 2015

Knifeworld Tour

Tour confirmed for later this year playing with Vennart and Cleft....


Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Recent news and forthcoming dates....

Things have been pretty busy on the Knifeworld front - we did a UK tour last month and had the wonderful experience of playing at the Tim Smith benefit Alphabet Business Concern at Salisbury Arts Centre.


Other than that, we have been steadily learning new songs in preparation for recording the next album.

I have also been working on a new V A L V E piece for Tai Shani. I shall post about this in more detail when it is released - it will be in the form of a book!

Knifeworld's summer is revolving around some festivals in July and supporting LITES (Japan) at The Dome in Tufnell Park on August 19th.  

In late August, I will be performing with A Sweet Niche on a track that I co-write with them. This will happen at The Harrison in Kings Cross and will be supporting Prescott. See 'Performance' for all tour dates.