Category: Studio works

Hulaboom

sandyoilkit

Hulaboom is an ongoing-series of original studio releases and instrument design experiments begun in 2014. Each track begins as an improvisation on a ‘hybridized’ (electroacoustic) drum kit, through which a variety of signal processes, samples and gated ‘ghost tracks’ are activated by the drummer.

In this initial phase of development, the compositional structure and sonic palette of each improvisation is expanded and shaped by studio production methods.

Subsequent phases of development will focus on:

  • multichannel (surround-sound) diffusion of the electroacoustic material
  • increased emphasis on improvised performer interactions with generative music systems (rather than entirely pre-composed content).
  • integration of movement/body tracking data as a compositional determinant
  • integration of triggered/controlled digital video as both image and light source
  • amplification of the drum kit using binaural microphones (worn by the drummer)
  • explorations of the drummer as cultural icon and storyteller.
    (September 2014)

Beginning the design process for a new Bluemouth experience.

Book cover mockup I designed using a few found objects and a scanner. It's a starting point, largely out of the need to distill and concretize a bunch of title ideas and concepts being bandied about by the rest of the company for a last-ditch grant application. This is only a first sketch inevitably leading to more sketches and momentary appropriations. Keywords: 'disposable', 'prototype'

There is no funding for the next Bluemouth project. Yet how else does one begin to make something for its audience to experience? To find funding and support you need a brilliant vision, a seductive pitch, a way into people’s imaginations, something they can hold onto, become inspired with. An act of faith or an act of foolishness? There’s no money and hey I really need a paying job, but…so…hey…

How do you do it?
How do YOU do it?

National Exit Strategy

…this dream i had once where STEVE REID and STEWART COPELAND were driving a florescent orange schoolbus to LEE ‘SCRATCH’ PERRY’s studio in the hopes of recording a drum battle remix for AMON TOBIN (as a farewell gesture before retiring to the Hebrides). Along the way. they start listening to a Japanese import bootleg of the early electronic music of KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN and begin to argue about the use of live processing on drum kits as a symptom of sleep deprivation. Suddenly the bus falls prey to a blinding SIANSPHERIC glare and swerves, narrowly missing the tall guy from DIRTY VEGAS, who was too busy losing himself in vintage Manga by the side of the road to notice. The bus comes to a screeching halt in the middle of the road (‘RA…TA…TAT…AP…PA….RAT’). STEVE and STEWART get out, nervous and sweating in the hot afternoon sun. They look around and realize that they are both wearing their FOUR TET tour T’s inside out. They share a laugh and a hi-five, unaware that in the back of the bus, STEWART’s last bottle of Hai Karate aftershave has smashed open and is now smothering STEVE’s last box of ENO tablets. Still, it really is the perfect day for a nation-wide evacuation….

An artifact of the now-defunct Department for Personal Sonification, National Exit Strategy is psychedelic dub and techno with a live drummer, microscopically amplified and re-computed to create a cosmos of soaring tones and colours fueled by heavy dance-driven beats and and geekable-tweakables.

National Exit Strategy’s first relesase is the 6-track EP – ‘Safety Sleeper Six’ – available through CDBaby and iTunes


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