sunday@etay || vicky: update #02

february 28, 2005.

[quick link: Etay web site]

I still owe you, at least, a report on my last evening in the Etay loft, and the second 'loftconcert', on sunday february 20th ... Sunday evening was a more than worthy closure of the week, even more intimate than the first 'public' evening, on saturday. It was great, for one, to have jhave drop by, and to be able to welcome (four of) the members of Dreamteam, who had just arrived in Montréal, and who would 'take over' the loft on monday ...

Esther Bourdages was so kind as to do a second 'vinyl intervention', this time presenting her historical overview of the use of vinyl (records) as a medium for artistic creation not in french, but in english. (As both presentations were recorded, in due time, I think I will combine these into one bi-lingual version! :-) ... ) ... Earlier during the week, on friday evening, when she came over to the loft to meet, chat and eat my spaghettis, I gave Esther the present that - of course! - I had brought for her: a plastic Albert Heijn shopping bag filled with vinyl to 'destruct' ... a selection of our 1980's Amphibious Records releases, and a couple of lp's that I found lying around in the streets just recently (each came in bunches, actually: a JC Tans + Rockets release on BV Haast ("Dance of the Tadpoles", BV Haast 069), some ten (coverless) copies of it, in a cardboard box on the pavement not far from my Amsterdam apartment, and five - also coverless - copies of a 'Wide Open Cage' 12" (Polygram 1998, 'disque promotionnel interdit à la vente') that were lying around on a Montreuil parking lot ...)
And so, yes, it was a very nice surprise to then see and hear Esther actually use some of the old Amphibious releases in her sunday evening performance!

Also i8u had a special treat for me. As her contribution to the evening, France had prepared a 'play with Vicky' ... More so ... she actually had worked on two versions: one using ProTools on her 'old' black Mac G3-Powerbook; and a second one using a patch she wrote for Max, the infamous software package that she is currently attempting to master (and I really think I should as well, if not to use it, then at least to know it), on her new TiBook ... During sunday's 'loftconcert' she eventually ended up using both, in a 15 minute play.

Quite an experience, it was ... As for the other performances, you can listen to a fragment of i8u's 'play with Vicky' as part of the fifth (and final) Raudio Etay Podcast. And it of course later will be included in presentations of the harvests of the, slowly, slowly, continuing Vicky's Mosquitos project ...

Kathy Kennedy was the third contributor to sunday's event. She presented two tracks from an 'all vocal' surround-audio DVD project that she is working on; in the loft these were 'stereo projected versions', that is, with Kathy adding vocals live. The first one, 'Soupire', is composed from recordings of Kathy's breath, and web samples of 'bronchical conditions'; the second one, 'Howl', which I especially liked, had Kathy howling with wolves ... (If you're in the Montréal area, do have a look in at Kathy's ongoing vocal improv workshop, 'HMMMM', sunday's from 3 to 5 at the Kandy Bar, 4147 St. Laurent ...)

After Kathy's presentation it indeed was up to me. To wrap 'this whole thing' up ... both the evening, and my week's stay in the loft ...

I improvised a rather lengthy 'lecture type' presentation, talking about the Sound Chronicles project, about the Found Tapes Exhibition, about my fascination with 'found things' in general, and did a 'walk on the Isle of Sounds', picking up and layering Ameland sounds on my way ... That is what I especially like about this interface to the collection of sounds recorded, in 2003, on Ameland: the sounds actually stayed on the island, and whenever I use the Flash-island interface to use them, I have to find them again, and pick them up there where I left them ... There is some sort of an echo of the actual physical distance between the different spots: if I would want to use in an improvisation with the Isle of Sounds, say, a sound recorded in the lighthouse, together with a sound recorded on the extreme eastern side of the island, their 'starting points' will always necessarily differ by at least the time it will take me to 'move on the virtual island' from west to east ... which is ... well ... nice!

My 'final loft presentation' did overlap to a certain extent with my presentation, on thursday 17th, at the Upgrade. There was much more sound at the Upgrade, but - surely at least partly due to the far smaller and intimate setting - the loft's talk was more elaborate, more relaxed and certainly also more coherent ... :-) ... I'm very happy though to have been there, at the SAT, and at the monthly Upgrade event ... The first part of the third Etay PodCast will give you an idea of how the 'performance' there started - listen to it ... and then close your eyes: picture a guy wearing headphones, bent over a laptop and fiddling with a couple of old cassette machines hooked up to small mixing console, set up to the far right of a quite sophisticated but un-manned DJ-setup, with his back turned towards two huge, but unused video projection screens, in a somewhat dusky, hip and largish bar/lounge type of an environment, with to your left a glass wall looking out onto the Montréal Saint Laurent district by night, with the occasional strays staring in, traffic passing by, and neon-lit snow, snow, snow ....

I ended my 'set' at the Upgrade with an unusually - for me that is - long and 'rhythmical'/'drony' piece (composite). I 'found' it the evening before, on wednesday 16th. While preparing for the Upgrade's presentation, and making a set-up in the loft, when I turned on the FM on my Sony Cassette/Radio Walkman (WM-F46), I hit upon this amazing up-beat noisy drone, that just went on and on. The beat made me think of the 'occupied' signal of a telephone (it must've been the tempo), and this in turn made me think of the answering machine tape that I got on the Montreuil flea market some months ago, and that was part of the small collection of tapes that I had brought to Montréal. I baptized this found tape 'Canon NP1215' ... once you've heard it, you'll know why ... but I don't want to give away the 'narrative' here, for those who haven't ...

I had used 'Canon NP1215' before, as part of my 'k-lounge' performance, on a boat opposite the Notre Dame, december 12th last year. There I had contrasted it with percussive, atonal, improvised 'answers', that I played live on an acoustic piano. The 'FM-drone' that I was hearing on my wednesday Etay-evening, suggested a second, very different 'opposition' ... As probably the interference 'drone' sounding from my small FM-receiver would no longer sound again - or in precisely that way - the next day, and most surely not in another part of town, I recorded it ...

Tobias C. van Veen shot the picture, and wrote an interesting (and funny :-) ...) report on this month's Upgrade and my appearance there in his blog. Do click it, read it! Good to hear (see) this through someone else's words (eyes) ...

Oh, btw, if you are in Paris this friday evening: Emmanuel Ferrand and me do an 'electronics unplugged' improvisation event; each of us will play solo (but we also plan to do a duo set) in the, very small, Espace Jemmapes, Paris X. Here's the flyer:

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[More sounds and pictures from the loft are available at the page dedicated to the project by Med'i.ate Network's Project Soundwave.]

[ Next related SB-entry: Vicky: update #03 :: previous related SB-entries: back from@etay ; vicky's mosquitos: update #01 ]

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