Imminent exhibition...

Coming up...

Noise Above Noise: Day 2

I've just started a week long residency with The Penthouse NQ in the run up to the Noise Above Noise event on the 27th. Here are some images of the initial stages of set up. I'm going to be making some form of artefacts that will be broadcasting the sounds I'm making. More images and sounds to come...

http://thepenthousenq.com/post/59866254179/noise-above-noise-an-evening-of-experimental

RIFF/T

Tim Croft and I recently projected a performance in Baltic 39 as part of their RIFF/T exhibition. A brief video on the event is above. More to follow when we've decided who we're going to document the performance in full...

Cold Land Records

Here is a compilation of sounds (with a Dolmen Dweller track nestled in there as well). Go have a listen/download/purchase and support interesting noises. 

Loarr

I've been playing with running feedback through old, somewhat noisey hi-fi's through a looper unit, and modulating what it picks up. This coudl well develop into a performance. In the meantime, here are some recorded results. Named after the planet in Terry Carr's 'The Dance of the Changer and The Three'.

Drone Tubes

I've been making some noises with bits of metal tubing recently. Sounds quite satisfyingly like a didgeridoo at longer, but with a faint metallic twang. Shorter lengths yield an eerie drone that works well over the top. Three tracks making use of looping, delays and reverbs in varying amounts.

These may well develop into some form of automatic horn installation, if not some recorded sonic output in their own right.


Drone Tubes by Within The Dolmen

Motors and Drone

I've been playing with using electric motors to generate tones. Here are the results of the first experiment. I've run a low pass filter on the signal from the motor to smooth the tone out a bit then multitracked it. Five recordings layered over each other. The end result of this should yield some form of sculptural installation/group performance piece...

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.

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:

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F96710524"></iframe>

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

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!

Atmospheric voices

One of the other voice related things I've been up to recently is this:


This is an as yet unnamed 'sketch' for a track I'm putting on a tape with Joss Humberstone. It was done pretty much 'live' using Circular Lab's Mobius Looper and now I've got the idea of what I want I'm going back to tidy it up somewhat in the next week or so. Watch this space.

I'm also going to make a big lumpen thing tomorrow. Photos will be forthcoming.

11 days

I better make my first post about something productive I've been doing. So here it is.

11days by Within The Dolmen

I've been down in Manchester for the last couple of weeks. The original plan was to do a bit of recording, then wire up the remains of an old electric organ I'd taken apart into some kind of droning monstrosity. Unfortunately, I brought the requisite 6 tonnes of parts and then forgot two very crucial sets of wires, leaving me with just my voice and laptop with which to do any appreciable sound work. This was actually an incredibly interesting opportunity to see what sounds I was able to make, and the above was the one of the results of the exploration.

For twenty minutes each day I've been recording my vocal explorations in a meditative fashion, layering each days recording over the previous as I listen to it (I'd added in reverb when I started and all sound was played back via headphones). This has made a fairly cacophonous wall of voices that I'm not entirely sure is successful as a track, but as an experiment was invaluable. I plan to do more stuff like this, perhaps adding in rules or conditions to control the output.

Any (constructive) feedback is greatly appreciated.