RIFF/T

Tim Croft and I have been involved in some serious volume in Baltic 39 recently. The results of which will be shown in the project space on 6th February...

"James Watts and Tim Croft, in a literal response to the exhibition theme, will explore privately within the RIFF exhibition space the synchronisation of riff into an unsynchronised rift. The documentation of this performance will be unharmoniously imposed on to the RIFT exhibition."

Link to the events page on the Baltic site here.

Noises and reverb.

 More circuit building developments. Here is a very shrieky oscillator I've yet to house, run through a very fuzzy reverb unit found in a shed...

My First Oscillator

I put together an oscillator today. It makes some fairly harsh droney sounds - which is always satisfying. The circuit will form the basis of some kind of group instrument/installation in the near future...

It sounds like this:

Phill Niblock

Lord of drones...

Listen to the whole playlist. Loud.

Experimental Sounding board.

 

This is tomorrow. Great sounds. Expect more photos/info etc soon. Come investigate if you're about...

ESB Catalogue

Here's the catalogue for the open lab I'm involved in...

Mandible

A few tweaks, and I was able to get a good signal out of the jawbone mic, and get something recorded. Unfortunately, my effects unit isn't keen on non balanced signal it seems, so buzzed a bit (removed in most of the track below). Will tweak things and bit and try and find a decent housing for the thing. The slightly distorted signals added all kinds of worthwhile extraneous noise once overlayed. Definitely worth further investigation.

Jawbone mic?

I've yet to check this works - electret microphone fitted into jawbone. I quite like the filling of broken sections with modelling putty, which is something to look into. Sounds tomorrow. Potentially.

Labs and sounds

Here's the next thing I'm up to...

And here's some recent noises:

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UnTongues

I did a little performance on Saturday in Hoult's Yard...

For some reason I can't upload it, so here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NLqQI59kl4&feature=youtu.be

Keeper

Here' some images of what I let lurk in Whistle Art Stop's roof space in Haltwhistle for a bit (I'm woefully late at updating with this, but I'm trying....)

A Profound Encounter

I recently had a sound piece in Basic.fm and The Newbridge Project's 'reuse aloud' broadcast. Here's what I said about it:

“Perception of the profound experience has changed over time. What could at one point have been described as angelic visitation, at another time is attributed to different sources. Using altered audio from calls made to the Nuforc UFO hotline, I aim to capture a profound experience that is beyond context, shedding light on the happening itself, rather than its cause.”



Now it's been broadcast, I've put it up on a bandcamp page for free download if you're so inclined. Full info on the Reuse Aloud project available here: www.basic.fm?page_id=2516

Colony

I've had a show up in Empty Shop in Durham for a little while. I colonised the space with amorphous forms that emitted sonorous bell like tones, that became quite oppressive after enough time. The forms communicated with each other without care or concern for the viewer and illicited some really interesting reactions and comments from visitors ranging from suspicion that that sounds where triggered by people to links to social relationships in archeology. Images in the 3D section of the site and an excerpt of the sound can be heard here:

Things are happening...

A while ago I sent some work off to Basic.fm to be part of their Reuse Aloud show. Based around re-using existing material, I've done something with some old reports of strange happenings, and played with the context a bit. Look out for a piece called 'The Profound Encounter.'

There will be an opening event on March 1st when the show starts, here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/117549618424766/

And you can listen to it via the Basic.fm site, here:
http://www.basic.fm/?page_id=2516



More details to come as I get schedule information. There are also a couple of shows on the horizon - one of which is in Durham mid march. And I may even update this blog more regularly!

Plans...

Some images of a proposal I recently sent out to a gallery space in London. Large scale things.