A new track, yessir...

I call it "42-Year Voyage". Baked and roasted using the best sound transformation program Soundshaper. Shined and dusted on Adobe Audition, which i think is still the best sound program around. I've written some programme notes for this composition... so read on you like. You can hear the track by clicking on the link below...

The idea of humans and travel was my first level of thinking when I began working on this composition, which I hoped to further develop into the concept of space and time travel. I felt there was such a broad palette of sounds I could experiment with that it would be almost impossible to begin, although I also believed that in this way I could achieve whatever I wanted to create. So to make a start I would have to think about reducing things down, dividing parts into sections and focusing on one or two sounds at a time. My preliminary sounds were obtained from a library, which corresponded in relation to my opening narrative. Sources ranged from musical instruments, ambient backgrounds, animal noises, mechanical noises, and a collection of human voice excerpts.

I am excited about the genre of science-fiction, and establishing this as the main style of the piece invites the listener into an unknown world (or a distorted vision of our real world) where there is no grasp of reality. I took the idea of time travel (which also can be compared to space travel) and explored this concept using time-stretch, pitch-shift and reoccurring themes. The narrative focuses on the account of a traveller embarking on a journey and the beginning section conveys the start of a progression into a territory unfamiliar to the protagonist. From here forward, the traveller ventures into a space-age future as he shows you a world through his eyes and it is up to the listener’s imagination to continue creating new images that will maintain that emotional connection until the end of the composition. I think the piece has some significance with human exploration. To compare it with sound experimentation, there’s the gradual process of adding ingredients (of which are sounds) and mixing them together (sound transformations) to produce a new sound that is completely out of the ordinary, but aesthetically appealing, like in the discovery of a different or unfamiliar environment. I was inspired by Trevor Wishart’s concept of applying metamorphosis to sounds to create 'musical metaphors'. The sound processes I have applied were done through sound transformation applications that enabled me to produce intense and extraordinary effects through filtered processes achieving a science-fictitious element as a result, thus achieving the narrative development.

http://s61.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0KDZMF7F995PO1LEF6FLNGS69B

The Mighty Booooooosh...

(top to bottom: scott, myself & neil -- noel & julian on stage -- the moon)












































Monday 19th December, went to see the Mighty Boosh in a live "warm-up" show at the Pleasance Theatre in London. Finally a chance to see the best tv comedy show performed on a stage! The jokes were hilarious (old & new), crazy dance routines and songs, brilliantly timed ad-libs and funny catchphrases, and slipups and miscues which were more funnier than the jokes themselves...

I'm definitely going to see them again in Stoke in March, which hopefully will be more rehearsed than on Monday...!