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Good article about early Gavin Bryars pieces http://www.bmic.co.uk/features/bryars_parfitt.asp

I'm especially intrigued by "Far Away and Dimly Pealing" not least for the sublime title (dunno about you but I can hear the piece just from the title) but for it's lovely instructional score and note about never being performed (has anyone tried it? [checks google] yes)...my own mind started running ideas...does radio control count?

Annoying night where having booked studio time I find myself locked out by someone else. Grrr. I used some choice language then stomped home, convincing myself that I must have booked it for next Monday and it was my own fault etc...of course it wasn't. I should have banged on the door and demanded my three hours, but it said "booked for marking" and I'm too f'ing polite...fantasy of getting all Blairite and telling them I pay their wages, I'm buying a service etc...the natural upshot of charging fees, methinks.

Earlier in the day I went cool Coffee shop in town, where they weigh your coffee out on old school balance scales (replete with ancient brass embossed weights), grind it up for you there and then package it up tight in a stiff brown paper bag. My work bag still smells deliciously of French Roast. This is no bad thing, although I was tempted all day to keep sniffing the package. Also got Darjeeling tea bags so I can continue my afternoon no milk black tea habit at work. Noticed they had loose Russian Caravan too but thought I'd save that for when I'm a bit short at home. Didn't want to seem like a glutton. Resisted the urge to have a cup of French Roast, fearing insomnia.

Sorting out seed packets in the kitchen, despite the frost and iced over birdbath, I feel a great wave of optimism. I'm going to go shopping for my seed potatoes soon too. I don't know what it is, looking at seed packets, walking home from work in daylight again (although I did leave early...) but spring feels within reaching distance.

Speaker Hang @ PRISM 5, Bank Street Arts







I learned a lot from this, about presentation and how ideas in your head become something else when you put them in a gallery. They become art, for a start. Funny, the pictures don't show the fishing wire and the speakers are floating. The wire was really obvious under the lights, which I didn't mind. When we got there the overhead hanging wires had expanded under the heat of the lights and dipped a good 20cm or so....it altered the composition but seemed to make it better, more spaced out. We played it quite quietly too. We tested the level with one of the loudest portions of the 1/2 hour loop but in a full gallery the more subtle parts of the soundtrack were a bit lost in the chatter. This had the side effect of having people listen really close up, which was kind of cool. I suppose I learned a) to think about dynamic range more b) to have the volume still accessible once the gallery box (do these things have a name?) is sealed. One more notch would have made the work a bit more assertive I think.

Totally addictive.

Much excitement the Brian Eno Arena doc on BBC4 last night. I think I spent a great proportion of it looking at the background at the stuff in his studio thinking - I wonder what that is? I noticed he had a trellis like structure of unhoused speakers. Was that for an installation or something? A tantalising look at his notebooks....a very funny bit where the interviewer brings up the "Ferry was jealous of Eno getting all the girls" canard...eye roll from Eno and evasive "I don't know whether he was or not"...then brilliant follow up "but did you get more girls than him"...Eno..."Yes". I laughed out loud.

Blurb:

Speaker Hang is a work that takes a tongue-in-cheek swipe at elaborate multi-speaker set ups. Suspended speaker cones are arranged in a haphazard manner with the emphasis on their sculptural qualities and little attention paid to problems of acoustics, positioning and phase. This gently mocks those who strive for the ultimate high fidelity set-up, seek a fabled ideal listening environment and make perpetual adjustments to their equipment in search of an unobtainable perfect listening experience.

The music playing through the sculpture is a complementary original composition which uses sound sources which are usually considered undesirable. It is constructed from manipulated studio ‘noises’ such as amp hum and feedback.