Inspired by Yoko Ono's "Sky TV" (seen in her 1997 retrospective: Oxford Museum of Modern Art), these are sonic puns, weird twists, & re-imaginings of 'classic' pop records / tunes through the lens of contemporary and electroacoustic art.

Sub(vert_ Pop

The intro of 'Substitute' by The Who - ten iconic seconds - reimagined into the full length of the song, with the use of granular synthesis software.

Granulated Substitute (2010)

Two versions of four bars of Clyde Stubblefield playing drums on the James Brown song 'Funky Drummer (Bonus Beats Reprise)'. One version is 0.2 of a BPM slower than the other, causing a phase shift in the rhythm/pattern. Steve Reich used this as compositional process: aka 'Phase Music'. http://www.stevereich.com

Funky Drummer Phase (2015)

A sound-activated TASCAM captures 4 hours of New York ambience from my hotel room window, leading up to the time of 12:00am. The resulting recording is time-compressed using time-stretch software into 5'20'', the length of the Elbow song 'New York Morning', which would take over the theme at exactly that point...

New York Evening (2015)

Inside computer systems, spinning past asteroid belts, into the majesty & perspective of open space - What a trip it must have been for the 'New Horizons' probe...

This is a musical projection / imagination of that journey - to an unedited 7-minute live take of drums (played by myself).

NASA 'New Horizons' journey - Soundtrack

Monday, 1 August 2016

Here’s something I did using Ableton Push 2

In Ableton as with many DAWs you can ‘slice’ a sample into many different parts, creating a palette of sounds from which new sounds and patterns can be created. Very often people use intros to a pre-existing track, or the entire song, even. For this one I used a field recording: this means sounds recorded outside of a studio, in the place where the sounds ‘naturally’ occur.

I tend to find myself making field recordings around building sites (!). This one I recorded on 29th Sept 2011, I think I was in Summertown in Oxford. 

Sliced up into Ableton, and using the Push 2 controller, I’m able to re-imagine the sounds in rhythmic and harmonic ways. I made this track in minutes, then went back to pick up and tweak the arrangement. It’s rough, but you can see here how you can take a general field recording of construction and turn it into a musical piece. I haven’t gone overboard with either the quantisation or the melodic content, instead just content to noodle with the sounds I had.

The original field recording was about 30 seconds but sliced up and playing around with the sections I have made a 3 minute piece. Listen to the sliced version before the original, it’s more interesting that way!

Building Site Slice

Building Site:higher Vol:hammering:rhythmic

Had a go using Ableton Push 2 to slice up a track - I chose 'Leave Them All Behind' ! I only used the organ intro, the first drum fill, and the first guitar entry. Great fun, endless fun...

Leave Them All Mashed Up

First sound spotted in doing a recce at OVADA in Oxford for a performance piece on 7th March

OVADA timer

22nd May 2012. 09:21am
Sample Rate : 48000 Hz
Rec Format : WAV 16-bit             
File : XY Mic      
Centre of factory floor next to 'build area' hand tool finishing.
Orig Code: 0522 092155 1


Factory centre near 'build area' ambience.1- Omni microphone recording

4am: Distant thunder and close rain, by a window in a hotel on the outskirts of Chicago

Chicago Rainy Window

Found this the other day - my acoustic version of Beck 'Lonesome Tears'. One of my favourite tracks ever, from one of my most favourite albums ever 'Sea Changes' (2002). And an by an artist I really admire. I recorded this really simply - two tracks really on Logic Express (!) back in 2009. I never usually do covers, but: I just love this track and its string arrangement. Something of a glorious mystery to me was how the outro string section on the original was always rising - a shepherd effect or something. I wanted to get closer to it and try to understand it. So I did this as an exercise really, it wasn't meant to be released. Getting the outro drove me mad! But I still had fun doing it. I only had two instruments and I think you need three, I later found out. :)When I came across it the other day it felt just right, so - enjoy for these melancholy times...

Loz Acoustic Arrangement of Beck 'Lonesome Tears'

Recording of the busker Marion playing a Kings of Leon song in Oxford City Centre, adding a new layer of significance to their lyrics as he does.

Laurence Colbert

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