Archive for the ‘Audio’ Category

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That’s the ohcheers.com manifesto

January 29, 2013

Goofy. Dorky. Lacking. Vacuous.

That’s the ohcheers.com manifesto.

The ohcheers.com blog is soon to enter its 158th year of operation. It has not done too badly, but we want more. Our page views continue to grow. 5000 at last count. Pity the pigeons.

It’s not been entirely clear, however, what ohcheers.com is about, what its writers are trying to say (or what they want), and what it all means, other than espousing and emphasising the meaninglessness of it all. Such is the wilful impact of telling you what not to think, or to paraphrase Orwell: you need to use doublethink to understand doublethink.

Here, therefore, are 5 THINGS which the Main Protagonist seeks to achieve throughout 2013. He lists sub-THINGS hereunder. This is Cosmic Ordering, so the Cosmos had better provide, or else the Cosmos gets it*.

1. Writing
(i) pretentious and self-conscious poetical lyrics (haikus have been popular – I’m available for $$$)
(ii) development of PR and journalistic technique (I’m available for $$$ or else persuade me to contribute charitably)
(iii) inane whimsy on ohcheers.com, which serves as our media outlet for our profound ideas, such as:

  • interviewing interesting people, like what we did what with Lizzie Roper, the face of Aunt Bessie Roast Potatoes. Jim Campbell never got back to us on whether he’d like an interview. We’re not pushy, so won’t ask again, but he’s free to get in touch when he’s ready for the exposure.
  • radical image juxtapositions and ‘free art’
  • stuff published in Viz for $$$
  • stuff published in Viz
  • stuff published

2. Sonic Astronic / Blackhacker
(i) EP & album – hopefully released and distributed by a certain proposed agency
(ii) gigs & interviews to support released material, build the Blackhacker brand and make a name for ourselves as a band
(iii) some really cool live sessions, like BBC 6 Music, and certain suggested cunningly cultural venues [cannot disclose at time of writing]

3. Bass Guitar
(i) daily practice: at least 30 minutes, aiming for 2 hours
(ii) weekly recording session: use a day a week to record improvisation from a practice session
(iii) gigs & interviews to build name as bassist, in accordance with point #2 above

4. Audio Software
(i) develop the hundreds of Apple Logic projects started which are incomplete
(ii) apply vocal lines to the projects, in accordance with point #1 above
(iii) apply bass lines to the projects, in accordance with point #3 above
(iv) complete the better tracks and release them somewhere, e.g. Soundcloud for starters, but ideally with the help of a third party music business participant

5. Stands Ups
(i) noting that a couple of experimental efforts have occurred…
(ii) dinner parties are the best source of material
(iii) have more dinner parties
(iv) use dinner parties to source material
(v) use material at open mic nights to test out material and get experience
(vi) have DNA sample taken against will, subsequent to arrest by police for pushing act too far
(vii) struggle to remain friends with dinner party guests

VI. Income
(i) [NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT APPLIES]
(ii) DJ on BBC 6 Music
(iii) write for $$$

Good luck to ohcheers.com and its participants in 2013!

*serious point: what happens if you put it to the Cosmos that you want the Cosmos to go away? If consciousness is required to facilitate wave function collapse and thus enact the construction of reality, then all we need to do is to block off the senses of all conscious creatures to annihilate the universe.

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gUiLLeMoTs – Hello Land!

May 10, 2012

Where have the Guillemots been recently? The British avant-garde beat combo absconded from the UK scene to write and record a new album in a mere fortnight. In Norway.

Completely unannounced till just a couple of days ago, Hello Land! has been made available for instantaneous free streaming via the marvel that is Soundcloud. And here it is…

Oh, and did you know that this is planned to be the first of four LPs in 2012? They’re going to be loosely based around the seasons.

No pressure then. I mean, hey, the Beatles chucked out 2 albums a year at peak.

Away from the limiting and highly-structured commercial music industry of the big labels, it seems to me they’ve rediscovered their experimental roots. Initial impressions of Hello Land! are of a luscious but not unsophisticated lightness.

It is a departure from the hit-single focused efforts that has perhaps held Guillemots back in recent years (in this writer’s humble opinion). They’re not trying too hard to be something they’re plainly not. Not until they’re ready to take over the world.

(What a horribly cynical reason to make music. But baby needs shoes, right?)

Looking back on Guillemots’ output, following an erupting romantic rush of excitement felt within debut Through The Windowpane, its successors Red and Walk The River were somewhat staid affairs overall and never quite met up to the delirious bombast of their first release.

Fyfe Dangerfield has explained the rationale behind the departure from the traditional music biz mould as follows:

I was just a bit lost in the music industry, you can get very lost in the music business. It’s not like I hate the music industry. I think it’s just you can get very immersed in it without even realising and there are so many patterns and waves that you expect to do things. I think we were just used to playing the line without realising. The one thing we were really getting frustrated by was this album cycle.

You generally spend a few months at a time making a record and then you kind of sit on them for a time. It’s very hard to be creative, I think we started realising we don’t need to do this. We thought why not put out loads of music and do it ourselves!

You can support the band by giving them your money and buying their CD or MP3/WAV downloads by clicking this link:

http://guillemots.greedbag.com/buy/hello-land-0/

What’s that you say? A fiver for a whole album? I remember when non-chart CDs were £16.99 in the Rock ‘n’ Pop section of HMV back in the mid 1990s, when I were a teenager.

Oh, just whilst I remember, Guillemots are also headlining our pals’ festival 2000 Trees this year.

http://www.efestivals.co.uk/news/12/120413c.shtml

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Sonic Astronic

April 10, 2012

facebook.com/SonicAstronic
soundcloud.com/SonicAstronic
sonicastronic.com

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The Other 5… Of 6… Of The Best… Of 6…

February 27, 2012

Following on from the previous post, here are the other 5 I submitted to BBC Radio 6 Music as part of my “6 of the best” in honour of 6 Music’s tenth birthday:

Mystery Jets / Count & Sinden – After Dark
The reliably hyper-melodic Mystery Jets play through a set of perversely powerful euphoric hooks, whilst filtered through Count & Sinden‘s production, beats and mixing, defines the potential for what a new era of true indie disco could sound like. Utterly unparalleled right now, I want more of this material and if I don’t get it, I’ll have to make it myself. Wonderful Strictly Come Prancing dance competition video. A lot of fun.

Young Knives – The Decision
Taking matters into your own hands takes an absurd and intense turn in this track. Daft but at the same time intensely serious:

“I’m the Prince of Wales / And if all else fails / I am the Prince of Wales / That decision was mine”

…is still perhaps the best vocal hook I’ve ever heard as we hear the views of someone descending steadily into psychosis, perhaps as a result of a nervous breakdown induced by middle management in an office environment. And how on Earth would I know anything about that? Such power in the face of powerlessness. Talk about defining your own reality.

LCD Soundsystem – Daft Punk Is Playing My House
An indie punk rock band playing dance music about a dance band playing at their house. Which also SOUNDS as if it’s a live band playing Daft Punk. It’s a brilliantly self-aware crossover of genres. It’s postmodern and ironic but it’s still a cracking tune irrespective of ignorant critical slurs like those. Like me. Like those. Like me. Like those.

Bombay Bicycle Club – Shuffle
As a bassist I love the understated but precise lock of the groove. It’s a demonstration of rather mature songwriting with all manner of subtleties throughout the track. And lyrically it’s a celebration of loving music. Not just listening to music passively but actively engaging within it, acknowledging the temporal limitation of a song (i.e. music captures and replicates a mood but for only as long as it plays) coupled with the very human reality of any artist’s self-doubt in the face of the drive to create and engage.

Justice Vs Simian – We Are Your Friends
This cross-pollination of Simian and Justice – respectively an established indie band and a relatively-new French dance act – propelled not only these two artists to a whole new paradigm of success, but also culminated in the evolution of Simian into Simian Mobile Disco. Everyone’s a winner, especially the listener.

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