Kavus Torabi + VÄLVĒ

This is coming up in April....

Link to event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1806670899344439/

Tickets: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/429609

2017 into 2018 action

It was a busy end to 2017 and it's a busy start to 2018 - loads of action!

December started with an experimental outing at Corsica Studios playing bassoon with effects in an improv set with Gnod (R&D), John Doran, Sam Barton, Mark Pilkington and Mark Dicker. It was psychedelic and immensely fun.

Shortly after that, I guested on soprano sax with Daniel O'Sullivan's band, Dream Lion Ensemble at Servant Jazz Quarters, filling in for an injured Alex Ward. Such beautiful music - it was a priviledge to be a part of it and I hope I did Alex justice! You can find Daniel's album here - it's super lovely... https://dosullivan.bandcamp.com/album/veld

I was also super chuffed that VÄLVĒ track, 'lights', was voted at #18 in The Quietus's top 50 tracks of the year - what an honour!

2018 starts off pretty excitingly too. First up, Knifeworld are doing a double set giant show at The Lexington on the 20th. We're rehearsing up over two and a half hours worth of material, some of which has never been performed live before. An endurance test!

Next comes a VÄLVĒ show in Tufnel Park as a trio once more, supporting Ciara Clifford. January then ends with a spot of bassoon guesting with Mally Harpaz in Kings Cross. Mally will be supporting the glorious Jack Cheshire band. It's the first of two nights I'm putting on at Westminster Kingsway College theatre, the second of which sees Charles Hayward's Data Quack with Alex Ward in support. I'm rather excited as Data Quack at The Albany in Deptford was one of the best gigs of 2017 - my tiny mind was completely blown!

Then the big comes up in February - Knifeworld are off to play Cruise To The Edge, setting sail from Florida to Belize City and Mexico Costa Maya! 3 sets. 3 countries. Potentially some dolphin sightings. Most exciting!

Silent Reflux

The first V Ä L V Ē full album is now finished and at the mixing/mastering stage. Here's a snippet:

Earlier this week John Doran of The Quietus played recent release 'Lights' as guest presenter on BBC Radio 3's Late Junction - you can hear the whole show HERE. What a show - much love to John for including us and do check out his amazing selection. Some treasure there for sure.

Physical copies of EP #1 [The Theosophical Society} are now completely sold out but digital copies are available from HERE.

V Ä L V Ē action is in the pipeline; new instrument building, new songs....further new on this in due course!

EP release, Supernormal and London date.....

We finally released the VÄLVĒ EP! It's a snapshot of what we are currently performing live in advance of the actual album - which is unlikely to be performed live more than once due to the ridiculous complexity of the instrumentation! It features 4 tracks - a soundscape, a nod to Hilma af Klimt, a tarot game and a song. You can find it HERE

Last weekend, we had the super lovely experience of playing Supernormal Festival at Brazier's Park in Oxfordshire. What a festival! Such an honour to pay there. John and Luke of The Quietus featured tracks from the festival in their show - you can hear it HERE. We were particularly excited to finally unleash 'the smells'!

Next up is a london date at The Harrison (Kings Cross) on 29.08.17 with Bob Drake, Kamura Obscura and Flying Saucer. Details HERE. Smells will be happening. Obvs.

VÄLVĒ & other news

Lots has been happening. Firstly, many thanks to A Sweet Niche and to all who came down to Servant Jazz Quarters last night - what a fun evening! Here's a little glimpse of what we did, courtesy of Kunal of Chaos Theory...

Pretty sounds from @chloeherington's VÄLVĒ last night #electronica #music #harp #saxophone… https://t.co/RsKk9VIpdr

— Chaos Theory (@Chaos_Theory_) July 26, 2016

The next VÄLVĒ gig will be 3rd August at New River Studios - it'll be a slightly different set as no Elen on harp so I'll be trying out some new stuff that I'm working on at the moment.

Knifeworld action is also in full swing. We've recently played the o2, Night of The Prog (in a beautiful Amphitheatre in Germany!) and Festival 23 in Sheffield - next stops are Supernormal and ArcTangent.

Practise is well underway for Half The Sky with Chris Cutler, Dagmar Krause and Yumi Hara - my goodness Linday Cooper's writing is complicated!!!!! Such an honour though and I'm learning so much. Can't wait for RIO!

Next up, some writing and recording for a NecroDeathMort track, more practise, more writing and then a much needed little holiday in France....

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.

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:

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.

Dark Continent: Part 3

Last week I performed part 2 of Tai Shani's piece at The Hayward and the final live instalment will be happening twice on Dec 6th.  Entry is free with a ticket to the exhibition.

http://mirrorcity.southbankcentre.co.uk/tai-shani-dark-continent-performances

MIRRORCITY

For the next three months, you can see the new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, MIRRORCITY, which examines our digital life in the city. Tai Shani commissioned a new music score for her piece, The Dark Continent. It's composed for synths, found sounds, bassoon and harp and exists as part of a headphone based installation featuring video screens through a viewing window and there will be 4 performances, 2 per evening of the 14th Nov and 6th Dec. The exhibition as a whole features some fascinating works, many of which involve multimedia.

http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/mirrorcity-23-london-artists-86590

Be, be, the 7 darknesses.

I recently performed at The Moving Museum's 'Open Heart Surgery' as part of Tai Shani's new piece.  It was an interesting collaboration between Tai, actress Gemma Brockis and me and the music was something unlike anything I have done before as it had absolutely no bassoon or sax (other than a pre-recorded fragment) and was scored for clarinet (via harmonist pedal), electric guitar (bowed and looped) and triggered samples.




The piece we made was performed live on 14th November at the launch and was exhibited (recorded form) as an installation or the duration of the show.  Nine of the artists (including Tai) were selected to have their sound pieces released as a limited edition 9-vinyl box set in a perspex box.  You can find it here...

V A L V E live performance

I am rather excited to announce that a V A L V E performance will be happening on Nov 14th at 180 The Strand as part of Tai Shani's new work, 'The 7 Darknesses: A Very Gothic Reading' at Open Heart Surgery, curated by The Moving Museum. Tai asked me to compose and perform a live score to her text, which will be performed at the exhibition. We were delighted to hear that the piece had also been selected to be released on limited edition vinyl.

"TAI SHANI/
Tai Shani will stage a performance that seeks to test the boundary between the solitary and internal experience of read literature and the public and collective experience of performed literature in relation to the imaginary space, taste and tolerance. The 7 Darknesses: A Very Gothic Reading will orchestrate a dramatic reading of Shani’s ‘De Sadian’, explicitly violent and graphic text “Be, be the seven darknesses” originally commissioned by the metal fanzine ‘Buried’, the reading will be accompanied by a live score by Chloe Herington (V A L V E)."

Russia, London, Brighton and back to Russia via Kingston...

The last month has been hectic to say the least. But in a very good way.

It all started with an acoustic set with Knifeworld at Celebr8 festival in Kingston.  We borrowed the Larcombe's beautiful harmonium and re-arranged the set and actually played sitting down.  Despite a serious alck of desk channels, it worked out pretty well and we look forward to bringing out the acoustic action in the future. 

Shortly after that, Chrome Hoof got a last minute booking to play a party at Strelka in Moscow.  Terribly exciting stuff. The venue was actually bang smack in the centre and we were just a stone's throw from the Kremlin.  I managed to be in Moscow for less than 24 hours but it was totally worth it.





During a 2 week period of putting on shows and playing them, I did a mad dash to Luxe in Spitalfields to guest with the spectacular A Sweet Niche.  Always a pleasure.  And a massive burst of sax squarking was just what I needed.

This Friday sees Knifeworld back in Brighton for our re-scheduled 'Roast On The Coast' gig following the snowed in action in January.  We are greatly looking forward to playing with Thumpermonkey and Ham Legion.

The month is rounded off with a return trip to Russia with Chrome Hoof, this time playing White Nights Festival in Perm.  I hear that it doesn't get dark and is right by the Ural mountains.

That will be just about it for the summer gig-wise as Chrome Hoof are due to release in the autumn, Knifeworld are more than halfway through finishing the album and I can concentreate on finishing V A L V E at last.

V A L V E album update

We're getting there. Almost ready for mixing.  This project has been a pretty steep learning curve.  Despite having recorded on many albums over the years, this is the first time I have produced anything on this scale by myself and I am really discovering just how much work is actually involved.  With each step, I have gone off and learned how to do what I need to do so that I can get as much of it done myself as possible.  The upside of this is that I have been able to retain complete creative control; the downside being that it's takeing a very, very long time!  But, I've definitely learned a lot of new skills along the way.

I also am totally indebted to the numerous superb musicians who have so kindly agreed to appear on the album.  These include Kavus Torabi, Alex Ward, Ben Woollacott, Charlie Cawood, Sarah Anderson, Ivan Hussey....amongst others.  Full credits to be revealed soon.

Valve album recording update

Charlie Cawood came to valve HQ to put down some beautiful saz on one of the tracks this week. We will be doubling this on oud later. The track in question is growing by the day and promises to be pretty epic! Also featured on this track are Kavus Torabi on guitar and Ivan Hussey on 'cello.

The Occasional Table - work in progress

Silent Reflux consists of four main sections, all based on diagrams of recurring dreams.  These 'figures' are linked by short segues.  Although most of the album will be bassoon-led, The Occasional Table is for saxophones and percussion.  It's about to be re-arranged for full quartet but the working version is here.

Machines

A while back, I recorded the sounds of some heavy duty printing machines.  I love the clunking sound of the mechanism and the fact that the sounds are so repetitive but not always in an even rhythmical pattern.  I've been experimenting with chopping up the files and processing them. This is where I got to:



My friend, Colin Hill, came to Valve HQ a couple of weeks ago, armed with an impressive array of cordless drills. I'm not sure how his 'practising' went on the building site, but he had worked out what sounded interesting and how to control the pitch of the Makitas.

Today I am merging all these files to create the finished track which will appear on V A L V E's Silent Reflux album.

I've recently become obsessed with the sounds of various mechanisms and who made them and for what purpose.  Another field recording that's getting edited for Silent Reflux is one I made of a piano being tuned.  The piano tuner was very obligingly clumsy and kept dropping tools which, although he was actually trying to be quiet, just added to the recording!  I wanted the natural sounds that occur when he was doing his normal work.  Piano gizzards and tuning tools and man as instrument; man and situation as performer.  It's a shame that a building site in Brightlingsea isn't very practical for recording.

Finally I have managed to collate all info about my work in one place.  From this blog, you'll be able to see info and news about all projects including V A L V E, Chrome Hoof and Knifeworld.