Second Square to None is a project I'm involved with here in Dublin. We had a great time the other day at our latest gig in Twisted Pepper, great livesets from Gland & Conduit, who put the brand new Void sound system through its first N-O-I-S-E test (at which it performed admirably); Ventolyn & Becotyde (the first of hopefully many times he'll play in Dublin), Bluefood, and the last gig Sunken Foal will do with Rod on live beat-tapping. There was tonnes of other stuff on, which you can read about over on the Second Square to None blog.
The next one is on Sunday 9th August, and I'm in the process of booking people for it. Myself and Fyodor are planning on doing a set where each of us has one side of the stereo system - where I'll have the left speaker(s) and he'll have the right - and try to approximate what the other is doing. It's going to be a bit of a noisefest! Probably have a few beats in there at some stage...I'm going to prepare a time-based technique "score" for it, which we plan to practise seperately then together closer to the time of the gig. No pre-recorded sounds...
Drawing on wall
I did this for A4 Sounds, an art/music collective who have put on some extremely fun gigs in Dublin and more recently Belfast, where this picture was taken. It's deliberately lacking in detail as I knew it was going to be transferred onto a wall in a skate park (with the aid of a projector). Lisa, a.k.a. iheartwillies and a couple of others spent a week doing all the hard work of transferring about 10 pictures onto the rough surfaced wall. Then we had a gig, at which myself, Kachanski, Rory St. John, Ronan Dunne (who still hasn't got any sort of website), Scurvy Lass and Jimmy the Hideous Penguin played, with our gear set up on the top of a half-pipe. Meanwhile coloured chalk was made available to the audience to colour in the murals as they wanted. Great craic!
I've only started drawing again recently, it's something I used to spend a lot of time doing as a kid but like nearly everything else I used to spend time doing, gave way to making noise. I tend to think in 3 dimensional terms moreso than 2-D so will be undertaking various attempts at sculpture in the coming months. I'll post pictures here as I know my legions of avid followers are dying to see photos of bits of wire stapled onto bits of wood. Fascinating stuff...for me, to make...for now the process tends to be more satisfying than the end result but I am planning on building various technologically enhanced kinetic sound sculptures...just need some money so I can buy loads of stuff from this shop.
A track that found its way onto a blog
...that wasn't meant to. Ah well, I hope people listen to it, that's the main thing...
I wrote this while living in Barcelona a few years ago. I was working in Hertz Rent-a-Car at BCN airport, and having to get up mad early in order to get there for 7am, hence the title, which in Spanish means "(doing something) in the early morning" (the wee hours). The vocal is by Susana Peralta who currently is singing in Rain Lickers in Barcelona.
Madrugando
Madrugando by Ed Devane is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
I wrote this while living in Barcelona a few years ago. I was working in Hertz Rent-a-Car at BCN airport, and having to get up mad early in order to get there for 7am, hence the title, which in Spanish means "(doing something) in the early morning" (the wee hours). The vocal is by Susana Peralta who currently is singing in Rain Lickers in Barcelona.
Madrugando
Madrugando by Ed Devane is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Older livesets that are floating around online, collected
Yup yup, as may be becoming clear by now, I want to collect everything I've made that is online, whether it's meant to be or not, in this one place. So by the end of this, the day I made my blog, there will be approximately 6 fucking hours worth of my music....ugh!
You don't have to listen to it (all in one sitting) so relax!
This is a mix I did for (you guessed it!)!kaboogie in spring 2008. It's a live recording of a practise in preparation for a gig I did in 4 Dame Lane in Dublin supporting Boxcutter. It's fairly heavy and dubby, but not the most banging set ever.
March 2008 liveset
Next up is a recording (a very distorted recording) of myself and Scurvy Lass live at the 2008 Mantua Festival...which I have to say was one of the best gig experiences I've had, though again I had no soundcheck which resulted in it being a lot more distorted than it was meant to be. Luckily that didn't detract from it all! This was made to keep people moving violently and features lots of heavy beats and bass, and noise zithering.
Mantua 2008 liveset
This is the first proper liveset I made using Ableton Live, in 2007, for the first gig I did in Dublin of club music, again for !kaboogie, this time supporting Drop The Lime. It was also probably the first time I started experimenting with the techno 4/4 beat...this one starts spacey and ends pretty fast and hard.
Summer 2007 liveset
I think that about covers all the sets of mine online that are in any way worth listening to. There may be some of the same tunes in these mixes, or versions of the same tunes, but most of them reflect what I was working on at the time.
You don't have to listen to it (all in one sitting) so relax!
This is a mix I did for (you guessed it!)!kaboogie in spring 2008. It's a live recording of a practise in preparation for a gig I did in 4 Dame Lane in Dublin supporting Boxcutter. It's fairly heavy and dubby, but not the most banging set ever.
March 2008 liveset
Next up is a recording (a very distorted recording) of myself and Scurvy Lass live at the 2008 Mantua Festival...which I have to say was one of the best gig experiences I've had, though again I had no soundcheck which resulted in it being a lot more distorted than it was meant to be. Luckily that didn't detract from it all! This was made to keep people moving violently and features lots of heavy beats and bass, and noise zithering.
Mantua 2008 liveset
This is the first proper liveset I made using Ableton Live, in 2007, for the first gig I did in Dublin of club music, again for !kaboogie, this time supporting Drop The Lime. It was also probably the first time I started experimenting with the techno 4/4 beat...this one starts spacey and ends pretty fast and hard.
Summer 2007 liveset
I think that about covers all the sets of mine online that are in any way worth listening to. There may be some of the same tunes in these mixes, or versions of the same tunes, but most of them reflect what I was working on at the time.
Ambient/ Noise Mixes collected
I've always liked making unsettling ambient music and soundscapes, though to be honest I've never actually "composed" any pieces in this style. That is to say they are largely improvised or process based (feedback being my main process), so I don't mind giving them away for free. I see these recordings as studies for my next big project, which will be highly composed/constructed and mixed in 5.1 surround sound. To the chase I am now cutting.
Live at Lazybird, Dublin, 20-02-05
This is a recording of my very first gig in a public venue (having played tunes at parties and stuff before). I had started using Native Instruments Reaktor in conjunction with a mixer, a modified guitar and a loop sampler 2 months before, and nervously left a CD of some of the recordings in with the guys who ran Lazybird, a weekly Sunday night oasis of all things weird and wonderful on the experimental music front in Dublin. I was surprised when they got back to me a few days later to offer me a gig. It's an oddly bowel-loosening experience, the waiting to go on stage if you've never done it before! Pre-gig shit out of the way when I got on stage I realised that my MIDI controller wasn't working but I managed to get over it quickly enough and got down to making the noise.
Ambnoiund Mix
I did this one for Paul Grant's show on Power FM last year some time. It's a mix of older recordings from the archives, made with an assortment of zithers, motors, effects units and loopers.
What You See Is What You're Given
This is another mix I did for !kaboogie in December 2008. It's a .ZIP file so you'll have to download it if you want to listen to it! I assembled it from improvisations I recorded in preparation for my set at Second Square to None #1 on 30-11-08 in The Joy Gallery, Dublin. That's the next set:
Live @ The Joy Gallery
Winter...I definitely write differently when it's cold! Both this and the previous mix were made with the same gear and techniques so sound quite similar. I collected some more of the recordings made around this time and will make a mini-release of them for anyone interested in the coming hours/days. Like I say, someone may find some value in them if I make them available...otherwise they'll stay unheard on my hard drive.
So yeh...this is just a taste - the main function these experiments has is to provide the raw material I make my more edited music with. A word of advise - listen to these on headphones in the dark for best results.
Live at Lazybird, Dublin, 20-02-05
This is a recording of my very first gig in a public venue (having played tunes at parties and stuff before). I had started using Native Instruments Reaktor in conjunction with a mixer, a modified guitar and a loop sampler 2 months before, and nervously left a CD of some of the recordings in with the guys who ran Lazybird, a weekly Sunday night oasis of all things weird and wonderful on the experimental music front in Dublin. I was surprised when they got back to me a few days later to offer me a gig. It's an oddly bowel-loosening experience, the waiting to go on stage if you've never done it before! Pre-gig shit out of the way when I got on stage I realised that my MIDI controller wasn't working but I managed to get over it quickly enough and got down to making the noise.
Ambnoiund Mix
I did this one for Paul Grant's show on Power FM last year some time. It's a mix of older recordings from the archives, made with an assortment of zithers, motors, effects units and loopers.
What You See Is What You're Given
This is another mix I did for !kaboogie in December 2008. It's a .ZIP file so you'll have to download it if you want to listen to it! I assembled it from improvisations I recorded in preparation for my set at Second Square to None #1 on 30-11-08 in The Joy Gallery, Dublin. That's the next set:
Live @ The Joy Gallery
Winter...I definitely write differently when it's cold! Both this and the previous mix were made with the same gear and techniques so sound quite similar. I collected some more of the recordings made around this time and will make a mini-release of them for anyone interested in the coming hours/days. Like I say, someone may find some value in them if I make them available...otherwise they'll stay unheard on my hard drive.
So yeh...this is just a taste - the main function these experiments has is to provide the raw material I make my more edited music with. A word of advise - listen to these on headphones in the dark for best results.
Mash up !kaboogie - "Convolutions # 1"
Every week a new mash up (that is, the mixing together of 2 or more tunes in order to make something new) gets posted on kaboogie.net. Never wishing to make life easy for myself I chose to use loads of tunes, probably more in hiphop sampling style than mash style. Whatever.
The experiment didn't have the desired effect, but sounds pretty good. In fact this is probably the only time I've ever sampled other people's music, something that personally I see as a cop out - not to detract from other people's use of samples, I just enjoy making my own sounds...a lot.
Convolutions # 1
Anyway, I used the following tunes:
Squarepusher: Metteng Excuske V1.2 ("ping" noise) / Boris: Ibitsu (feedback)
Laura Sheeran:Below is Golden (vocal)
Brian Fleming: Phuis Fluich (percussion loop)
Evan Parker / Keith Rowe / Barry Guy / Eddie Prévost: Supersession
(sound effects)
I-Sound And Dj Scud (Wasteland): Fin (main beats)
The Slits: Instant Hit (rfythmic loop)
Photek: Infinity (basslines)
Maja Ratkje: Dictaphone Jam (main vocal/noises)
Amen sample from a DJ Floorclearer mix
Rave chords from a Black Hoe showcase mix by Migu & Antichristus
Laura Sheeran: The Breathing (outro vocals)
Dj Krush: Bypath 1 (outro beats)
The experiment didn't have the desired effect, but sounds pretty good. In fact this is probably the only time I've ever sampled other people's music, something that personally I see as a cop out - not to detract from other people's use of samples, I just enjoy making my own sounds...a lot.
Convolutions # 1
Anyway, I used the following tunes:
Squarepusher: Metteng Excuske V1.2 ("ping" noise) / Boris: Ibitsu (feedback)
Laura Sheeran:Below is Golden (vocal)
Brian Fleming: Phuis Fluich (percussion loop)
Evan Parker / Keith Rowe / Barry Guy / Eddie Prévost: Supersession
(sound effects)
I-Sound And Dj Scud (Wasteland): Fin (main beats)
The Slits: Instant Hit (rfythmic loop)
Photek: Infinity (basslines)
Maja Ratkje: Dictaphone Jam (main vocal/noises)
Amen sample from a DJ Floorclearer mix
Rave chords from a Black Hoe showcase mix by Migu & Antichristus
Laura Sheeran: The Breathing (outro vocals)
Dj Krush: Bypath 1 (outro beats)
"Malinovska" - DEAF 2008 live set
For the Dublin Electronic Arts Festival last year I was asked to play in Andrew's Lane Theatre by !kaboogie. Other acts on the night were Ebola and Mad EP; earlier that evening in the same venue the legendary Nurse With Wound dazzled us with their multi-faceted sound blizzard.
Anyway due to some miscommunication with the sound engineer I never got the sound check I had specifically asked for, even though I was there for the whole day. Suffice to say it didn't go as well as it would have if I had been able to hear anything but bass...not my best gig, but one of my most ambitious. Here's the only recording I have of it, done a couple of days before at home. It's a bit rough around the edges but a lot of it is played in live...
Play it here
The structure of the set is based upon a vivid dream I had a few weeks before, with each track relating to a key moment in the plot. Attempts to describe the dream in words have failed; instead I give you the track names, which might give you an idea.
1. Mountain Walk
2. Native Reserve
3. Predicament
4. Bears!!!
5. Crawling Through Webs
6. Frozen Backpackers
7. The Being
8. The Tower (vocal and lyrics by Scurvy Lass)
9. Jinx
10."Malinovska! Malinovska!!!"
Anyway due to some miscommunication with the sound engineer I never got the sound check I had specifically asked for, even though I was there for the whole day. Suffice to say it didn't go as well as it would have if I had been able to hear anything but bass...not my best gig, but one of my most ambitious. Here's the only recording I have of it, done a couple of days before at home. It's a bit rough around the edges but a lot of it is played in live...
Play it here
The structure of the set is based upon a vivid dream I had a few weeks before, with each track relating to a key moment in the plot. Attempts to describe the dream in words have failed; instead I give you the track names, which might give you an idea.
1. Mountain Walk
2. Native Reserve
3. Predicament
4. Bears!!!
5. Crawling Through Webs
6. Frozen Backpackers
7. The Being
8. The Tower (vocal and lyrics by Scurvy Lass)
9. Jinx
10."Malinovska! Malinovska!!!"
