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April 2000
Each fortnight I thought I'd write a little ramble in my web site just letting you know what I've been up to, what's going on, interesting developments and so on.
The single ,"The Koran, the Ghan and a Yarn" was released today on cd and vinyl. It's a weird feeling for me...of "here we go...the roller coaster begins...expose yourself". I'm a little unsure but very proud of this record. It's what I wanted to make and hopefully theres enough people out there with a similar sensibilty... from there, who knows?
It's been kind of hectic these last few weeks...the album,"Act of Free Choice" is to be released on DVD. Next week I head to Sydney with mixer and co-hort Simon Polinski to remix the album in surround sound at studio 301 in Sydney. This will enable us to chuck many of the textural sounds into the rear speakers, kind of like a Dolby 6 film mix... so we've been test rehearsing what will sound good coming out of the rear speakers. We dont want to muck with the intent of Ian Caple's brixton mixes too much. I have a Yamaha 02R desk in my studio here at home which has a matrix which automatically sets up a surround mix. So weve been listening and pondering. I'm excited bout this, having done quite a few soundtrack mixes in dolby 6, I've often thought that it would be fantastic to release my own albums in this format, and now that enough punters will soon have DVD, this has become a possibility. DVD also has visual options. This week I've been liasing with a bunch of filmmakers—mostly people Ive worked with before—who have been given the task of making a short film to accompany each song off the album, plus one of the b sides, the title track,"Act of Free Choice", 12 in all. I gave the film makers a vague notion of the ideas I'd worked with in writing the songs, both lyrically and musically, and said take this in to account if you like or go off on an oblique tangent. We're not after "filmclip as advertisement for the artist" but more visuals to play on the tv as a background to the listening process. Use old footage you've got lying around if you like, maybe experiment with a process you've always wanted to but never had the freedom to explore; basically have fun and go for it. All this creative energy flying around. Luigi Acquisto recently ventured to East Timor to make a film and has used some of this footage for the track "Dive; Andrew Sully's clip for "The Deserters" uses a remote boxing club in rural Tasmania as a metaphor for the seasrch for beauty, Tim Cole's piece for "Talk Mister Nation" is an ambient visual of a rusted water sculpture, slow moving and abstract; Robby Douglas Turner has re-cut his film "The Woodsman" to the song "Sad". Each day a different film comes in. I'm told that this is the first album in the world to utilise DVD in both a specific surrround mix and accompanying films...whether it is or not, I'm just fucking grateful that the record company listened to me when I had this grandiose plan after a bottle of red wine.
I've also started piecing together the live show.We're heading all round
Australia starting June...trying to rework the album in a live format, not
reproduce the album but capture the essence of the songs. We'll mix live
in surround , weird shit coming out of the back speakers and we'll also
rear project visuals. Film and slide shows were a unique feature of early
Not Drowning Waving gigs, and I've missed that, besides, for these first
shows as a solo performer, my dancing and stage presence as a front person
is pretty ordinary so the footage will be a wonderful distraction! The band
got together this week and we've been planning how to generate the loops
and atmospheres; noises and odd sounds. Chris Scallan (bass), Phil Wales
(guitar) and Michael barker (drums) will make up the playing side of things;
they all played on the record and are fine musicians and good mates. We
are also on the look out for an oboeist cum backing vocais—not easy to find
I assure you—we're trying to devise the technology so that we're not slaves
to it, so it sounds organic and we can go off on tangents if we like, change
direction mid song—not just backing tapes—all of us will play keyboards
as well; we'll be Kraftwerk at some point. The venues will be a mixture
of clubs and theatres; venues with a tall enough ceiling for the visual
backdrop and venues deep enough for the rear speakers. I think the mix should
be loud so that you can fall into the layers of sound, the songs should
merge into each other, not much talking from me. I'm looking forward to
it. I think it's an album that will come up well live but quite differen.
We'll play a couple of low key midweek gigs in Melbourne to rehearse and
the do some live tv/radio performers before starting in Brisbane in the
first weekend in June.
I've also just received the finished mixes for PNG performer George Telek's
Real World album that I produced with a fella named Vic Coppersmith, who
did most of the Jams records. We recrded it in Rabaul and over at Real World
studios last September...(what a studio...a river running under neath the
control room,Deep Purple mixing down their Live with the london philharmonic
orchestra album in the next studio...i kid you not...how spinal tap is that!!!)telek's
album is to be acalled 'Serious Tam" and will be out on Real; World Records
internationally in June..this is a bit of a realisation of a dream.Ive worked
with george since the NDW Tabaran record and I guess we all wanted to see
this incredible singer from PNG be heard world wide,,this is a first for
an artist from the Pacific.he'll be playing here and in Europe this year...the
web site will keep you informed with dates...
played a song with kutcha edwards at a rally gainst mandatory sentencing
last sunday...
a good number turned out to voice their anger... bob brown,geoff clark,and rod quantock amongst others articulated clearly their concerns about how this issue shames us as a nation...ah aussie aussie aussie... mmmmmmm thats about it for now... feel like Ive rabbitted on a bit... feel free to drop a line to the website
finally colin daniels (at EMI) wanted me to list in my site a bunch of records that i'd been listening to so for those who might be interested... here's some of the stuff that i've been leaning towards of late for those who may be interested
| Boards
of Canada |
"Peel
sessions" and "music has the right to children" |
| Air |
"Premiers
Symptomes" |
| Mark
Hollis |
|
| The
Beta Band |
"the
three E.P.s" |
| Belle
and Sebastion |
"the
boy with the arab strap" |
| George
Telek |
":Serious
Tam" |
| Tom
Waits |
"Mule
Variations" |
| Kid
loco |
"Jesus
life for children under 12" |
| The
Au Pairs |
"playing
with a different sex" |
| French
paddleboat |
"conversions
in Metric" |
|
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