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news archive December 2006 Since completing the two recent concerts I have been in the studio fine tuning the Bibbulmun and Nullarbor works. It's my plan to have these ready for release for early in 2007. Along the way I will also be working on the next part of the Australian series of concerts which is based on recordings made while hiking/staying in the Blue Mountains region of New South Wales. November 2006
In an unrelated project .... I finally managed to complete the 'Harvest Green' track that had been on the back burner since August when I came back from Australia. It's a small work that a few friends have heard in various formats so now it's finished. A copy of the track in mp3 format is available here for free download (right click and save as is best). October 2006
In June 2006, I commenced a seven week journey that took me from Perth in Western Australia across the Nullarbor Plain and on to Sydney before traveling north to Noosa in Queensland and back to Sydney. Along the way several hundred hours of audio field recordings were made to be used as part of a series of electronic music events and other sound based projects. Event 1 Event 2 Minor Note: I've updated the photo gallery pages 10/10/06 September 2006 It may seem like a lull since returning from Australia but there has been a huge amount of background activity taking place with the music. As well as working towards some major live events later in the year, there is the small matter of the "Bend It Like Beckett" CD featuring some of the world's top Electronic musicians and Sound Artists who were invited to take part in the event. Here's the official press release from Art Trail: “Bend It Like Beckett”“Bend It Like Beckett” is the title of the second CD released by Art Trail. Shandon is a place of particular connection with Beckett who, on taking leave of Ireland, made a final call to Cork, to visit Shandon and St Anne’s Cemetery to pay homage at the grave of Francis Sylvester O’Mahony aka Fr Prout, a writer Beckett greatly admired. It seemed appropriate to mark the occasion of the centenary of Beckett’s birth by compiling this CD of one hundred works by over eighty artists from twenty countries spanning the globe. “Bend It Like Beckett” was curated by Danny Mc Carthy one of Ireland leading sound artists who last year co edited (with Julie Forrester) the publication and CD “SOUNDWORKS For Those Who Have Ears” recently listed as one of the Institute of Contempory Arts, London top10 publications and last year he also co curated with David Toop the highly acclaimed exhibition of outdoor sound art entitled “Sound Out” for Cork2005 European Capital of Culture as well as making several installations and performances as an artist in his right.. This new CD has works in a wide variety of forms ranging from electro acoustic, electronic, acoustic and voice to glitch to noise etc., and includes some leading internationally recognised sound artists including David Toop, Scanner, and Stephen Vitiello (who also contributed the cover photo of Beckett’s grave in Paris) plus some of the leading Irish practitioners David Lacey & Paul Vogel, Sean Taylor, Fergus Kelly, Linda O Keefe, miXile , Anthony Kelly & David Stalling, Danny Mc Carthy and many more. Containing one hundred works each sixty seconds or less, combining together to form one of the most unique sonic experiences of the year. Selection was by invitation and open submission and the call out received a huge response both nationally and internationally with entries from as far afield as New Zealand and South Korea proving that whilst based in Cork, Art Trail is reaching out to a global audience and that Cork is recognised a leading centre for Sound Art both nationally and internationally. The CD is currently available from Plugg’D Records and the Glucksman Gallery, Cork or direct from Art Trail (www.arttrail.ie) or can be purchased online from http://www.aphasiarecordings.com Further information from info @ arttrail.ie Or soundworksunlimited @ ireland.com Many thanks to Robbie Sinnott who featured my 'Morning Glory' album on his very cool show on Dublin's NearFM on the 29th. June - July - August 2006 On Tuesday 27 June I leave for Australia to spend the month of July traveling from Perth to Sydney doing field recordings. In early August I hope to do some recording in Sydney prior to returning to Ireland. The field and studio works created over the six week period will form the basis of recorded and live works later in the year. Roll on the Nullarbor Plain! April 2006 Some new works based on recent field recordings are currently taking place. New tracks include: 'Birds In Orbit', 'In Space No One Can Whip Cream' and a little thing that has the working title of 'A Few Pints'. I recently purchased some new equipment to help with field recordings prior to the 'big summer project', almost ready to whip the lid off that one. March 2006 I composed and recorded two new tracks especially for 209Radio
Cambridge in England as part of their recent Sound Art event held
between the 11 and 17 of February. The two works - 'suburban
spacers on the lawn' and 'in
the beginning, there was Plato' are now available as free mp3 downloads
by clicking the links. Some background work is also taking place on new music. Nothing dramatic, more a way to try out a few new ideas prior to the big summer project, but more on that later. February 2006 It's been busy of late. On the 12 January I was interviewed on Dublin NearFM by the most excellent Robbie Sinnott. The show also featured tracks from the new Morning Glory album. You can grab a copy of the interview here (10MB).
I was a little unhappy with the sound levels on a few of the tracks so pulled the Morning Glory CD so as to make a few changes. Once I started then I decided to move around the track listings and add an additional track that I had forgotten about. So, you may consider the release date to be January 2006. Free mp3 downloads of the entire album are now available here and the CD quality version may be bought in the shop here. December 2005 The 29th of December is always an important date in the creative calendar for miXile. It was the date 4 years ago that I started the project that would grow into the White Horse album. December 29, 2005 is no exception as it marks the release of the new album by miXile. The work which is entitled 'Morning Glory' contains 12 tracks recorded over a period spanning September 2004 and September 2005. From September to December the tracks were enhanced and mixed and made ready for release. Morning Glory is the fourth studio album by miXile and marks the close of a chapter in my creative endeavors. I can state this with some certainty in that 2006 will see a more regular return to live work and the prospect of some planned collaborative projects. As of writing (29/12/05 15:16), I don't yet have audio downloads or sleeve notes available but will rectify this over the next few days. A pic of the CD cover is included here just to add some colour to the space. November 2005
I performed an 8 hour long set of 45min compositions based on the Phaedo by Plato. The works were a combination of live keyboards, laptop and electric guitar. I was at times joined by son Peter on guitar and daughter Jennifer on keyboards. Christine in usual fashion made sure everything was arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner and took a few photographs along the way. A recording of the event was made and I'm currently looking at working these into a 1 CD live release. If all goes according to plan I should have this ready by January 2006. The work is part of a series of planned live events which will all have a literary/philosophical theme. Preparations for the live show had the effect of slowing down progress on works already in late mixing stages. These I'll get to over the next few weeks and have them ready for release by mid December 2005. Party on. October 2005 Some new material is in the mixing stages and hopefully will go live by the first week in November. Also, important news to follow regarding a return to live performance work due to take place in November. August 2005 A number of new tracks have been completed over the summer period. I've been busy incorporating field recordings into synth and guitar based pieces. A new track called 'From The Top Of The Hill, You Can See The White Line' will be posted here over the next few days as a taster for the next full length release due some time in October. May 2005 A slight lull in proceedings as far as finished material is concerned. I do have some cool stuff completed and am waiting till time allows me to deal with the volume of partly finished tracks and field recordings as well as the 'Les Paul into the Marshal amp and out into the wired up Tibetan meditation bowl' recordings made in April. A newly finished work 'Off Record' did surface recently on a Podcast by sometime-colaborator and partner in crime P W. Rather than release this track on the web at the moment I'm holding it back till the next full project completion. A limited edition album of recent and unreleased tracks is currently being made available to long time friends and supporters. Hi Clodagh in London! I'm hoping to do some field recordings in the UK in June and hopefully will have something to show for all the effort by August. p.s. Yea, I did notice that the White Horse album is being torrented around the place. March 2005 The new mini-album (A Place Called Place) is available for download in the discography section and as a CD purchase in the shop. Sleeve notes are also now in place. Thanks to the folks who dropped by on the launch date last week and sent in their comments after hearing the new work. Work is now progressing on the next project which is likely
to include more drum n' bass as well as acoustic works. That's the plan
anyway with a few tracks down and a hankering for the old 'git-fiddle'. February 2005 Over the last few months I have been working on some larger synth projects. It's hoped that at least 2 of these recordings will be ready for release within the next few weeks. Part of the work involved spending a few grueling days in Kinsale, Co. Cork, writing music and being forced to eat the finest food and swill down some choice red wine. The hardships of composing ;-)
08 September 04 A major new project is now ready for release. After spending some few months working with keyboards and natural sounds culminating in the Strawberry EP I decided to 'hearken back to the old days' and do some guitar based works.
Anyway, over a period of around 24 hours I had recorded and completed all the tracks that now appear on the Aftermath EP. Most of these are one-off recordings with little or no post-live trickery. The title track was recorded as a live improvised rhythm track and then played back once while the live improvised lead track was recorded. The two parts were then combined and I was finished. The whole process took around 10 minutes! One of the titles - QuarTrack is collaboration with my son Peter who plays guitar while I just 'twiddle the dials'. The track was recorded live and then broken into four parts that were each assigned to various quadrants of the top hemisphere of the head. During the next few days I'll make these available for download as mp3 files and as usual will have full quality with artwork and extras versions available on CD.
Some new works completed and ready to go. As a background, I'd been working on some natural sounds + keyboards projects since January and these were completed in August. These works were then paired down to my three favorite tracks and released as 'The Strawberry EP'. During the next few days I'll make these available for download as mp3 files. As usual I'll have full quality with artwork and extras versions available on CD. 18 April 04 New work in progress uploaded. 31 Mar 04 huge gap and such is life in the bunker. Introduced a new section to cover work in progress and in particular lossless downloads for the fat-bandwidth-enabled viewers. Edited: Received too many emails from folks unable to understand what shn files were and how to play them that I've decided to discontinue this feature for the time being. Sept 04 31 Dec 03 I've been laying down some acoustic guitar tracks to work with recordings made while hiking during the last few months. It's also my plan to spend a few days completing tracks during the first few days of the new year. I'm on a roll now so it makes sense to 'strike while the iron is hot' (never used that expression before). Anyway, outside of my own musical endeavors this has been a wonderful year for listening to new music, catching live bands and music related travel. Personal live musical highlights of the year would include: Rolling Stones at MSG - NYC, USA in Jan. 18 Nov 03 An initial recording is in the bag. I'm not sure how much of what has been laid down so far will make it to the next album but even if it achieves nothing more than a jumping off point then I'll be happy. The track has a working title of "You Know You Like It" and is purely electronic. update - 31/03/04 - I've removed the download of this track because, well, it was 'up there' long enough. 09 Oct 03 I've started to examine some new software tools with a view to begin assembling some sounds towards the end of the month. Looks like I'm getting itchy :-) If anyone has any suggestions for software prog's that have worked for them then I'd be interested in hearing from you. What I'm specifically interested in are Windows based prog's that either carry out a specific audio task or amazing all-round software synths and Cool Edit alternatives. Direction wise, I'm still figuring on moving a little less structured than the last album. I have some extended natural sound recordings that I may disassemble and generate some random beats for. There's a bit of a struggle going on regarding the use of acoustic guitar in the music. I bought a new guitar in London, England recently that I'm in love with and am considering recording some tracks with it. There again, I had planed on the next project being purely electronic in nature. Ah, decisions, decisions. 30 Sep 03 Months later and I've finally gotten round to organising the online payment thing for the album. For the moment I'm working with Paypal so can dispatch orders pretty quickly. Work is slow on the new project. To a large degree I've been taking it easy and spending loads of time going to gigs and listening to new music. The summers' in Ireland are short enough so I figured on getting out and using the time to plan and learn before getting down to the grim task of recording again. This year's excellent gigs so far have been brought to
me by Radiohead, Rolling Stones, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters,
Queens Of The Stone Age, Free Association ..... and hardly any of this
(with the exception of Radiohead) will filter directly down into the music
I create, that's the beauty of it all. 26 May 03 Initial pre-recording work has begun on the next project. Nothing has been laid down and at this point all I have are some mental outlines. It's early days yet but I'm leaning towards including more guitar and less obvious beats on the next album. I've been blessed with the use of some cool mobile recording equipment (thanks John) that will allow me to make more use of 'found' sounds' while out and about. I happened to be at the 1st warm-up gig of the 2003 world tour by Radiohead last week. Wow, the new music is so vital. I suppose this had some influence on my decision to re-enter the frey so soon. Copies of the White Horse album have been making their way around the world and I'm very happy with the feedback. 28 Mar 03 A major site redesign to mirror the album colours. 19 Mar 03 Fin. Done and dusted. In the bag. I have the cases back from the printers and am so happy with the results! What's left to do? get them in the post. 05 Feb 03 I'm still working on the art stuff for the liner. Most of the sleeve notes have been completed. I'm mulling over whether to put these up live prior to sending them to the printer. At this point I'm figuring on releasing the thing as a limited edition of around 50 copies to be distributed to selected folks around the world. If anyone has other thoughts on the thing please let me know. I can't see a commercial way forward but maybe it's worth setting a minimal price to cover postage to various places. None of this has been thought through in any detail yet. BTW, NYC was great and The Stones rocked for sure. 01 Jan 03 At long last, the album is finished! I'm now working on the sleeve notes and getting ready to press. At the end of the day I thinned the thing down to 16 tracks with a total running time of 61 mins. I'd left the guitar overlays till last and these opened a whole barrel of creative worms in that once I started recording guitar then I inevitably started to introduce additional tracks. A point had to come when I said ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! Anyway, to the folks waiting for a copy, it will be on the way within the next few weeks probably after I get back from the USA.
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The
recent concerts went very well and both were well attended. Many thanks
to all the folks who helped out along the way and who offered encouragement
and support and bought CDs. When time allows I'll pop some photographs
up into the gallery. Recordings were made of both concerts so I'll be
working these into something along the way.
Later
this month (October) and early November I will be performing two major
new live works as part of the '
January
2006
November
26 was the occasion of the first live performance in 15 years by miXile!
The event took place in St. Fin Barres cathedral, Cork, Ireland as part
of the 'Sonic Vigil' electronic music/sound art event.
Thanks
to the generosity of 
27
August 04