Amphibolous - Rubber Sole EP

Last year, Roger Hill challenged Amphibolous to come up with a track that responded to the legacy of the Beatles for his radio show, PMS. So we got together for a session and recorded a number of short, radio-friendly length tracks, inspired by our task at hand.

We'd got used to playing longer 20 - 30 minute pieces, that take you to different places along the way, so doing a short sharp 3 - 7 minutes was challenging, but fun. We were quite surprised what you can actually fit into that shorter timespan.

We picked one track to send to Roger - i'm looking through you too - but the others turned out too good to leave on the cutting room floor. And so was born the Beetles EP, rubber sole. We picked out the five best tracks, one for each of the four Beatles, plus a billy bonus for Stuart Sutcliffe, the fifth Beatle (or at least one of them).


1. i saw paul mccartney with my girlfriend
2. stuart sutcliffe left the beatles to paint
3. john lennon and i were throwing balls in the cold when i caught one
4. big in fashion george harrison
5. ringo starr was cleaning his dog with a brush when it turned black and vanished

With the EP mixed and mastered, it was time to get the artwork together. We searched the internet for beetles - an interesting activity, if you've ever got an hour or two going spare - and found André Bemand, who keeps, and runs a blog about, giant beetles.

So we got in touch with André to see if he would take a picture of some of his beetles on a boot (with a rubber sole). To our delight, not only was he up for it, he really went to town on it. In a stroke of genius, he created a little zebra crossing for the beetles to cross. And voilà!

Amphibolous are: Adam Webster, Ash Steel, Simon Jones.

Amphibolous - Occupying the Mainstream

Amphibolous' occupying the mainstream was a commission for If Only's two-week 'occupation' of Gallery 2 at the Bluecoat in Liverpool.

Adam Webster taking a spin on the turntables in Gallery 2

The piece consisted of an a cappella vocal performance by the trio that used streaming technology to create a unique audience perspective, seen from the individual points of view of the performers. To do this we taped mobile phones to our heads, sending the three video streams to a TV in the gallery and the audio to the sound system. The ultimate lo-fi hi-tech action.

The idea was to start as normal: a performance in a gallery. However, the stream allowed us to go exploring - through the rest of the Bluecoat, and out into the streets of Liverpool - while the audience inside the gallery could still watch the performance from the comfort of their seats. This also created a second audience, the people of Liverpool, who caught a primetime showing of a unique happening. Finally, after our adventures around town, we headed back to the Bluecoat for the grand finale.

The project offered a number of ideas to play with. Firstly, because the audience could see from each of our perspectives, we didn't have to always be together. We could split up, combine in different configurations, and come back together, creating a range of dynamics to be explored.

The piece was part improvisation, part composition. In order to exploit the different combinations, 'textures' and dynamics of the journey, we decided not to plan an exact route, but rather set meeting points along the way. We also came up with a number of strategies to create larger scale forms in the piece: when it would be more appropriate to start splitting up; when we should come together; points where we should run to increase the pace of the action.

The resulting piece was a lot of fun. It is always fascinating to see the response to public interventions like this. Well, you can see for yourself. Here's the video...



Amphibolous are: Adam Webster, Ash Steel, Simon Jones.

South-east Asia Tour

In February I went on a short tour of South-east Asia, performing in Singapore and Malaysia. It was a fantastic tour, and I was very impressed by the standard, creativity and supportiveness of the local musicians.

The first stop in the tour was Singapore, a melting-pot of cultures and ideas. I played at the Independent Archive & Resource Center, an artist-led project that aims to be an archive of, and resource centre for, art theory and practices in Singapore. There was a very friendly atmosphere there, as different people dropped in throughout the day to read a book, make musical instruments, eat chicken rice, or just have a chat.

Interestingly, my performance took place at the same time as one of the largest protests in Singapore history, a country where protest is largely restricted. Even so, it was a packed-out audience at the IARC as I took to the stage. The evening consisted of a solo set, followed by a question and answer session, where the audience quizzed me about my work and ideas, then, finally, a group session with some local musicians.



A couple of days before the event, I went along to be interviewed by Jordan Johari Rais, who organised the gig.



Kuala Lumpur was the exact opposite of Singapore. Where Singapore is squeaky clean, and you can even go to prison for chewing gum, Kuala Lumpur is more how you might imagine a large urban centre in Asia, somewhat chaotic and brimming with activity.

In Kuala Lumpur I performed at FINDARS. Whereas the IARC had a very homely feel, with assorted random objects strewn about the place in a slightly bric-a-brac aesthetic, FINDARS was very obviously set up as a venue for performance. The graffiti up the stairs leading to the performance space set the mood, and the black walls inside created an amazing atmosphere to perform in.

The darkness inside the venue gave the ideal opportunity to work with some visuals I had been working on during the trip. The visuals were written in Java using a kind of stochastic fractal process. The other acts were all of a very high standard, and ranged from free jazz, to drone noise, to postmodern genre-defying cauldrons of goodness.

Here are some highlights from my performance:



To finish with, here's the collaborative set from my gig in Singapore. This is one of the best bits about playing in new places, getting to meet and play with different artists, exploring ideas, developing what we do.

New Amphibolous release

We've just released the first Amphibolous single, He Leans to the Left. Well, I call it a single, but it's just over 20 minutes long, and with no B side, but then that's often the score with experimental music. It's available for free download, or you can by the mini-CD for £4.



The single was recorded in the run up to a gig we played in Manchester last month. It's one continuous take with very minimal editing, so is quite reflective of our live sound. The theme for the track was a record that Ash found in a charity show, The New Maths. Fantastic! There's some really interesting manipulation of a sine wave record that Ash used as well. Enjoy!

DJing and Free Improvisation

While I was delivering a series of workshops at Band on the Wall in Manchester recently, I was interviewed by Dan Leach for an article about the connection between DJing and free improvisation. The article explores the ways in which an improvisatory approach can help DJs, and is now available online.

'Intensity', by Karlheinz Stockhausen

I've just finished editing the audio of a recording of Intensity, part of Stockhausen's From the Seven Days. It was recorded at a Frakture workshop I led a few months ago. It was Pete Jones, one of the Frakture regulars, who suggested using Intensity for a workshop, since it was based on written instruction, rather than a conventional score. Unfortunately he wasn't able to make it himself.

I thought the idea of visual images would be something interesting to explore in conjunction with Stockhausen's piece, so structured the workshop around this, building up to a performance of the piece itself. The recording was made in the Sandom Room at the Bluecoat.

Players:
Reinhard Fuchs: voice, laptop
Myself: piano
Phil Lucking: trumpets
Phil Morton: accidents and treatments
Neil Murphy: flute
Adam Webster: cello

St Luke's all-dayer

To coincide with the Bold St Festival, we at Frakture decided to put on an all-day free improvisation event at St Luke's Church in Liverpool (better known as the Bombed-out-church). I played in four different groups on the day: i:Object, Noise Club, the Frakture Big Band, and the Infinite Monkey Orchestra.

Here's a video compilation of the day...