August (and some things after)

Thanks for all the kind words and replies to the first newsletter. It means the world that you take your limited time to read my ramblings. I promise to continue to make it worthwhile. 

I just returned from a week by a lake in Wiarton. I made this piece of music while I was there, please enjoy it while you read, or whenever the mood strikes.

🎵 nauticalartifacts - wiarton 🎵

Music

Lots of fun music things happened in August. First, Mike released the stuff we were working on (he did most of the work). You can find it here. The flower mask in the artwork is also incredible. Mike spent countless hours on that. He’s a talented artist and a fantastic producer. I look forward to more of this in the future. 

Next, I was privileged to take part of the first “Thingking” workshop put on by Music Thing Modular and Theodore Gordon (author of The Composer’s Blackbox) where we explored some of the musical techniques of Paulive Oliveros. After the workshop we were paired (I ended up working with Ken Little, gong artist and fellow Sound Maps alum). Each person started by doing a field recording and sending that to their partner. Their partner then added their own response on top of the field recording using their Workshop System. The results are varied and eclectic and the artwork generated (see on YouTube or with Bandcamp purchase) for each track is a work of art in its own right. Here are our two pieces. 

Finally, my friends from Geopatra released Breakwall last week. This is very special to me because, first of all, I love this band. And secondly, it was the first full band recorded and mixed in my humble basement studio. I can’t think of a better group of musicians to christen this space and I’m really proud that they trusted me to capture their art. Go see them live when you get the chance, you won’t be disappointed.

I’ve got a few more music things in the queue but I’ll save them for the next edition. 

Coding

The new Music Thing Modular Computer site has been live for a while now and we’ve been actively improving it. I also shipped my second card (pictured above), which I went into some detail about last month. If you’re listening to the track that I linked at the top, it’s made using this card and a few other things, reply to this if you want me to go into detail about any of this. In other personal Workshop Computer news I’ve started work on my third card, but it’s going to be a bit of a mystery for a while. Let’s just say I built a second standalone Computer module to help with testing ;) 

To close the loop on the WebMIDI thing I’ve been working on that I mentioned last month, I actually ended up having a call with one of the maintainers of MIDIWeb and I decided not to release it. They have already built something that does what I intended (and then some) and they promised to add a few additional features and some links to my projects on MIDIWeb Hub. If you’re an iOS/iPadOS user, I highly encourage you to check it out. On that note, since I have a bit of free “MIDI Time” (horrible pun alert), I’ve revisited my Zoom L6 Companion app and I’ll be adding the rest of the missing features that are currently exclusive to the “official” app. I hope to have those out in a week or two. 

Finally, I built my own little field recording app for Android. Nothing that already existed did exactly what I wanted, so I figured I’d have a go at something that would suit my (probably niche) needs. It’s loosely inspired by Fields, which will only ever exist on iOS according to the creators. I probably won’t release it publicly, but if you’ve got a reasonably recent Android device and you’d like to use it, just reply and I can share it privately. One novel feature is continuous GPS recording, like Strava or Garmin. I’ve played around with sonification of these gpx files in the past (generating MIDI) and I think it will be fun to explore this coupling of field recording and location data. Everything is stored on your device, there are no accounts, and I’ve made it easy to export files (wav or compressed), which is one of main annoyances of something like Google Recorder. The field recordings used in the piece linked at the top were recorded using this. 

What I’ve been listening to (music, shows & podcasts)

Music

DOMi & JD BECK - YOU ASKED - The vocals on WHO ASKED really weren’t doing it for me (maybe I will come around eventually), but I’m digging this. Definitely some of the oddest drum production I’ve heard in recent memory, but it’s interesting in a sort of James Murphy kind of way. 

Ulysses Owens Jr. & Generation Y - Kind of Grunge - Born out of Drumeo and Musora sessions, there are a few standouts here, mostly notably Interstate Love Song, in my opinion. If you like classic Bad Plus covers, I’m sure there’s something here you’ll enjoy. 

Jogging House - Really - Everything Jogging House puts out is like a warm hug from an old friend and that friend somehow also puts on a warmer and warmer sweater every time you see them. Need permission to just exist? That’s why stuff like this was created. 

Protest The Hero - Kezia - My problem with most artists is that whichever album is the first to leave its imprint on me will be the one that I always come back to. Protest has a new album (which I’m told is great) and they’re playing Supercrawl, and I’m stuck in 2005. I like it there. 

Russian Circles - Nine - It’s new Russian Circles, it’s good. Go listen to it. I’m still absorbing. 

Shows

NFF preshow (Fester/Constrain/Demersal/Joliette/Cease) @ Collective Arts - Technically in July but too good not to mention. A wonderful grab bag of heavier genres and a mix of locals and (very) out of towners (Mexico! Denmark!). 

Wolfe Island Music Festival @ St Margaret’s Hall - WIMF for many years was one of the highlights of my summer and I have so many fond memories of it. This felt like coming back to camp, as a slightly different person after several years. My parents even joined on the second day! It was really lovely to see Brodie open day 2 (go listen to Big Feelings right now) and it was just generally quite heartening to just enjoy essentially every band that played whether I knew them previously or not. Outside of the festival, I also got to jam and hang with some old (and new friends) which really rejuvenated me. If you’ve never gone to a smaller music festival like this, I highly encourage it. There’s something about it that is hard to encapsulate with words and it’s truly special. 

RHYMETHiNK: Lee Reed//Cee.Reality//Tarek Funk//D.Liberate @ The Gate - Political hip hop in an Indian restaurant from some of the best to ever do it. I can’t think of a better way to spend a Tuesday evening.

Griller Chiller 10th Anniversary @ Doors Pub - A grindcore BBQ and some old and newer friends. Gutvoid were amazing and it was great to see T.O.A.D. do their thing after so many years. 

Podcasts

Trashfuture - Call it a sign of the times but I think this is one of the best podcasts going right now and I don’t even live in the UK. Poignant, funny, angry and depressing, like any good podcast should be. 

What I’ve been reading

Salt: A World History - Mark Kurlansky - There are few things I enjoy more than a deep dive into something seemingly mundane. That seems to be Kurlansky’s whole thing. I’m a little late to the game, but I really enjoyed this. 

Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky - I’m nearly finished the second book in this series after flying through book 1. Tchaikovsky is quickly becoming one of my favourite SF authors. Check out Service Model if you get the chance as well. 

Villain - Natalie Zina Walshots - The sequel to Hench, which was a fantastic debut.

Other stuff you should check out

Under the Surface @ Vero Gallery - I was at the opening and there are tons of great pieces

Accidents on Purpose: Creative Practice in an Uncertain World - A course on improvisation from Justin who I hung out with at WIMF. If you’re in or around Toronto, enrolment is open until Sept 20. 

Grit @ B-side Gallery - A group show featuring my partner and so many other talented artists and friends. And it’s during Supercrawl at a great bar.

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You made it to the end. I know I said it would be shorter this month, but I was wrong.

Thanks again, I appreciate you.

Phil