Everything here has been done before so it can't really be avant-garde can it. Two tape recorders side by side, record on first, playback on second, routed to record on first.  Tape @ 7.5 ips - about three feet between the machines gives around five seconds for the repeat.  Setting levels is critical.  I was happy I got this almost infinite entropy - it goes on a lot longer than the recording!

Fripperpianer

A demo by my band 'Seventh Seal' from around 1977. Composed by Roger Briggs/Seventh Seal.  Guitars: R Briggs, G Redfarn; Keyboards: T Dale; Drums: D Humphrey; Bass: J. Devere; Vocals: Daniel Death.  Produced by T Dale. Recorded at Majestic Studios, London.

Prisoners Of Time

A virtual trip to hell as part of our show back in '77, the Opening of the Seventh Seal.  Listen to it in the dark on acid.  

Composed by T Dale and G Redfarn 
Guitars: G Redfarn, R Briggs
Keyboards: T Dale
Bass: J Devere
Drums: D Humphrey
Vocals: D. Death
Backing vocals by the band
Produced by T Dale

'Diminished' by Seventh Seal

Kinda gritty live recording in Totnes of my band 'Algebra' in 2002.  Electric guitar/oud - Darren Eve, fretless bass - Fergus Ryan, beats, samples, keys - Tony Dale.

Cairo Quickstep Live

The top string of the giant Baroque guitar is the same as the bottom 'A' on a piano. The lowest string is infrasonic. The neck is about three meters long so it will take two 'guitarists' to stop the strings, playing in hocket and one standing by the sound-hole to do the plucking. It's a light-hearted exploration of the origins of the guitar - other 'tar' instruments - and ends with a lop-sided folk dance.  Virtuosity required.

Concerto For Giant Baroque Guitar, Harpsichord And Bassoon

For Keith, from the PiL roadie. RIP JKL 18th July 1957-11 November 2022. A groundbreaker.

Keith Disco

Written in 2001 following the death of Carlo Giuliani, an anti-globalisation  protestor who was shot by police at the G8 summit, Genoa, Italy.

G-H8

Harbinger

Setting of words spoken "by anonymous" heard at the beginning of a video talk at http://www.ted.com - "Hire the Hackers" - Noisey.

Anonymous

Written for a burial and performed on a lithophone.

In Memoriam

Britten's "Peter Grimes" contains the funkiest riff from the 1950s, pre-echoes Bowie's "Fame" so I stretched it a bit.  Written for, but never played by, the Bristol contemporary group "Ultrasound".  The plot to Britten's opera is obscure and Ellen Orford's role, kind of  elusive.

The Complicity of Ellen Orford.  (Proteus 2000 sequence)

Dartmoor.  I lived there for a few years.  Got lost and very scared once when walking.  The landscape always shifts, changing shape as you move.  Navigate by the tors, by the ancient lines that exist between them from thousands of years ago, when industry thrived here and drove an independent economy.  I am pleased to see people are listening to this!  You can download too!

Landscape (Proteus 2000 sequence)

Temporary version - I hit my head on the mic.. Lithophone is made from Welsh blue slate.

Yoyo

A drunk driver in a stolen car crashes at 60mph in a residential road writing off three cars - including mine.  He then jumped out and ran away.  Played here by Ultrasound Contemporary Jazz Orchestra live at The Purcell Room, Royal Festival Hall, London.

Write Off (live at Purcell Room)

This is me trying to write like Mike Gibbs.  No shame in that, the guy is an understated genius.  Originally I wrote this in 1977, voiced up for a synth sometime in the early 90s.

Thoughts For You

Written for the Band 'Chester Himes' named after the American crime writer.  I tried to enter the spirit of things withthis piece.  The solo is given to the violin.

Right Thing, Wrong Place

Jazz Freaks circa 1979: Tony Dale, composition/keyboards, Gareth Redfarn, composition/guitar, Mark Anderson, drums, Mike Cartwright, bass.  Heckled to death by the audience, we played this stuff in the middle of the so-called 'punk revolution' and got second prize in London Band of the Year.  So there, Johnny Rotten!

Do It Do It

This cassette demo from 1979 is of the band 'Seventh Seal'.  This is a piece I wrote for the band.  On drums is David Humphrey who later joined a band called 'Public Image Limited' - he can be heard on 'Death Disco' and 'Albatross' on an album they did called 'Metal Box' - check the fills at the end of this piece.

Raindance

This is a triptych. A setting of two poems: "Return to Zero" and "Index", followed by an instrumental coda.  "Return to Zero" takes the form of a prayer of denial and paradoxical statements. "Index" is introduced by what I hope would be recognised as Bowiesque backing vocals.  I still describe Bowie as the world's greatest living pop star.  It's all the rest of us that are dead.  Bless you David.

Return To Zero

Another co-composition with guitarist Gareth Redfarn for the band 'Jazz Freaks'.  Special mention on fretless bass is Mike Cartwright.  More bass players should get to know the fretless instrument in my opinion.  Just listen to it!  Recorded and produced on 4 track reel to reel by yours truly 1977.. or 78.. hell i can't remember anything.. Gareth told me recently we gigged this and got called 'boring'.  I don't remember that either.

What Is What Is?

SYNOPSIS: In particle physics a photon, for example, can be measured as a particle or as a wave - shown as a series of video graphics on screens.  Symbols turn to dollar signs and 'greeks', stock market graphs.  Fades to images of Aral Sea, an evaporated lake. Images of derelict rusting hulks of abandoned fishing vessels loom in a desert landscape. A boy walks onto the stage watching the images, raising his hand to the screen like the boy in Bergman's 'Persona'. The words "A rising tide lifts all boats" float across the screens. The boy ascends a staircase. To Scene 1 'The Boy'.

WAVE Overture Excerpt

A bit like the picture.. which is not photoshopped by the way.  The sky went purple one night back in 2012.

Lockdown No.2 Improv 1

Off-beat composer with awkward social manner and an unhealthy interest in hedge funds.

Network Nineteen

Popular tracks