January 2018 is the 15th Year or our Dark Januaries project. "Beards getting thicker, and hair a little thinner!". We meet again for 2 days, to rekindle energies spark off new ventures, and start the year with a piece of artistic research and reflection.
This year we arrived independently at the same idea; to revisit our 1st ever Dark January in 2004 which focused on voice and horn. At that stage we'd just emerged from the break up of E8, directed rather too much towards short, undeveloped vast ideas for us and we felt liberated by the joy of exploring 1 note for a 20 minute duration. Thus this year, we adopted a more performance mode of creating the work, and largely because now our new studio is completed we have a glorious acoustic to play with. This years play results in a series of improvisations with live voice, flugelhorn and live electronics, that have emerged into 6 pieces, totaling 45 minutes of music.
The Visible Breath ...... 14:55"
Skirr..................................7:04"
Mulch ...............................5:09"
In the Air..........................4:46"
Pithy Pithy Pear.............3:1"
Berry's Are Few .............5:37"

We have chosen 1 track to load up here, running out of souncloud space......  
Title: "Skirr" which means: to go into for the purposes of discovery. 

We are also trying to work out how to make all 6 parts available to anyone interested, and muse with the thought: could we make a bit of money out of it?!!  We always talk about what troubles us each year, and this year its the crushing affects of austerity. No work for artists. One sentence captures it all from 1 reluctant payer this year who'd given us £350 for 2 shows. "You've had enough!" Then other people of our age, with the difficulties inherent in a proper job; how many years to run before final salary pensions can be cashed in, eeking out redundancy pay outs, and the difficulty of managing 2nd and 3rd homes. We've laid down nothing there, only a life in sound; surely if we'd started a collection sooner we'd have pennies in the pot for next years marmalade!!
We ponder.......

January 2018. Part 2 Skirr ........7:04"

What is Dark Januarys......
well it happens in January! and now in its 20th year! 

A place for play, a location, an improvisation, a collection of thoughts, discarded sound files, field recordings, be together & organically grow a body of soundart work

The People
2022 onwards... The New Generation Dark Jans: 
Gwilym Jones, Paddy Fitton Jones, Robbie Fitton Jones, Blue Firth, Isabel Jones

2004 - 2019 The Original Dark Jans: Duncan Chapman, Isabel Jones 

Concept: Isabel Jones
Co-Produced by Salamanda Tandem

In the early years the annual gathering of two took place at Unstone Grange. Later when resources were scarce, we moved to our home studio in Nottingham, as a source for Dark Jans creativity. 

The January sessions are a process of re-generation, research, finding clarity, space, friendliness in a professional field of ever increasing complexity. An organic compositional process emerged which suited and the resulting works are composed collectively. Conversation is always a starting point, and a place: then working in isolation to collect material (sound, text, concepts, trawling through individual recordings made independently, preparing treatments, creating patches, sine waves etc) then composing the final track through playing together live, drawing materials together using various emerging computer software/individual live mixing, responding through improvisation, exploring the material in combination & juxtaposition, drawing on our roots as live acoustic musicians; horn, voice, viola, found objects, classical guitar, flugel horn, ekta....

History Behind Dark January's
In 1996 Isabel & Duncan, individually became part of a new collective music group: ‘Ensemble 8’: 8 band members included: Ray Lee, Biant Singh, Ben Dalgleash, Pete Shelton, Nikki Kate Hayes, Andrew Williams (e8 founder), Isabel Jones & Duncan Chapman. The first album produced was called: Ensemble 8.  By 2000 the ensemble had become a quartet of 4 musician/composers: Andrew Williams, Pete Shelton, Duncan Chapman & Isabel Jones who produced a new album called "Where Are We Now'. 

In 2002 ish, the band became rocky; the men faced eachother competitively in the arts/music industry, & it became impossible to continue the collaborative methodology that made E8 successful. 

In 2003 Isabel wrote….

“I've been away, then in-between a bit confused, I suppose the issues here are tricky, but rather than continue in limbo … can I make a last ditch attempt to get us together this January, as I can see we are slipping irrevocably apart. "Where Are We Now"

I know my proposed ‘8 January’s’ idea didn't exactly hit the mark, as Pete has pointed out ‘lets get tangible not live in false hope’, 
I continued: "for me 8 Dark January’s' are tangible. I've always been an optimist, lets remove all preconceptions: a band that gets together once a year to make a track?... it could be really cool. What about those visual artists we admire who stick to the same idea year & eventually they've photographed one particular tree for 20 years. Isn't our problem now something to do with expectations. This idea is a kind of acceptance that E8 pared down is still intrinsically interesting & worth having. 
How this could work? Dark January’s is easy to care take, a short punctuation in our lives, we’ve always made little documents, & those were interesting. In this way one starts to gather those materials / recordings or a series of snapshots that expose this falling apart phase: '8 dark January's' or 'E8 the Dark years' '8 tracks for 8 dark nights'. Could become a web site, an album, a new work eventually what ever or just a process for now. I could get excited about this kind of thing, it isn't really intense or complicated it’s just an essence, arising out of a need to make a mark once a year collectively" any thoughts? 
Is 
 
The band did break up. 

While the ‘8 Dark January's’, project long surpassed 8 years to become 16 and now 20! and still has a value. Initially prepared to call it a day, my family of 4 nephews, grown into accomplished musicians, have faith that Dark Jans is tangible and exciting. Let us continue!

This is the home of Gagarin and other projects. Gagarin is the solo project of Graham “ Dids” Dowdall.  He makes instrumental electronica that doesn’t adhere to any particular scene or style and draws on influences ranging from contemporary classical to techno and every point in between and beyond. The music is atmospheric, melodic and sometimes beaty. 
 Graham also creates more sound art focused work with an emphasis on using field recordings and other source material to create installation based pieces  reflecting particular geographical or other environments. A particular obsession is birdsong and interfaces between rural and urban sound worlds. In 2014 he released a cassette Outside Broadcast through Touch’s Tapeworm imprint  based on sounds sourced from analogue radios - a eulogy to that dying format. In 2016 he was commissioned to create 5 sound pieces for 5 hills in Surrey for project Inspiring Views .
Currently a member of avant rock legends Pere Ubu and Welsh-Iranian folktronica duo Roshi ft. Pars Radio, Gagarin has a long history of left-field musical promiscuity. Including a long period of collaboration with Nico ( Velvet Underground) and many dalliances along the way include John Cale, Ludus, Eric Random, Suns of Arqa, Band of Holy Joy, Low Bias, Zor Gabor and many more.
As Gagarin he has released several albums and contributed to numerous compiIations and remix projects.

His last album Aoticp received widespread acclaim and was described by Boiler Room as " sparkingly new " and " magnificent genre hopping " in Impulse as well as great reviews in Wire, Quietus and airplay across Europe including repeated BBC Radio 3 plays.

His latest album Corvid was  released in late 2017and has been featured on BBC Radio 3 and BBC6music, Electronic Sound Magazine and lots of European and US outlets.
All Gagarin material including new album Corvid can be bought here - https://gagarin.bandcamp.com


Gagarin gigs regularly in UK and Europe with a hardware combination of drumpads, samplers, iPad and FX.