"Memories of Albion" by Warren Burt and Chris Mann 1978

A number of friends have remembered this short Super8 film that I made with Chris Mann in 1978, and since Chris's passing in September, have asked if I could make it available.  Here it is - Chris is in full flight - I asked him to scream abuse at the camera for a short period, which he did, beautifully.  I then took the soundtrack and, using one of the first digital rate-changers, stretched the sound out of comprehensibility (and believe me, since this is a family show, you'd want comprehensibility removed) and then made a cut-up of the slow-down.  I did the same with the visuals and then juxatoposed the two.  At the end, there is a brief clip of Chris doing Sufi whirling with a bush slasher, and then playing bush cricket with the slasher for a bat and an onion for the ball.  The onion was hurled from off camera by Eva Karczag.  This is an excerpt from a 1978-1980 film called "If Structure is an Empty Glass."  I really like how the warm, glowing colours of the Super8 film stock are preserved through generations of digitization.

"Crane" by Max Posthoorn, with music by Warren Burt

Max Posthoorn is a one of our wonderful postgraduate students at Box Hill Institute.  Recently, there was a rather horrible industrial accident near our campus - a crane lost its load at a construction site, killing two workers and seriously injuring another.  Max, who is very interested in construction sites, and who lives only a few blocks from the site of the accident, was very affected by this.  He wrote a poem, "Crane," which combines thoughts on the accident with ancient Greek myths of the crane (the bird).  He wanted to read it in Catherine Schieve's "Contemporary Ideas and Practices" seminar, and asked me to play some electronic sounds I was working on to accompany the poem.  The sounds were made with some recent modules Antonio Tuzzi has developed for the VCV-Rack environment.  I made a patch with them that emulated the patch I mostly wrote "Aardvarks IV" with, back in 72-75.  So on October 2, in the tiny seminar room at Box Hill, as part of the class, we performed the poem and music.  The sound recording is by Miriam Forte, another of the postgraduates, the photo is by Catherine Schieve.  Max is reading, I'm playing the computer patch, and Rebecca Hart is being the lighting designer, holding the flashlight in her cellphone to provide Max a reading lamp.

 Click on this sentence to download the sound file of the performance.

Enjoy!

'civilised world' by Berni Janssen, from 'between wind and water' performed by Berni Janssen, Catherine Schieve and Warren Burt

Sunday October 21, 2018, Berni Janssen, Catherine Schieve and I performed Berni's 'civilised world' from her new book 'between wind and water.'  This took place at the country book launch at the Learmonth Art Hall, Learmonth Victoria.  We had previously performed the piece at the Make It Up Club, in Fitzroy and as part of the city launch, at Collected Works Bookshop, in Melbourne, and this was our 3rd time through the work - and the one that got recorded.  Berni on voice, Catherine on harmonium and Warren Burt on live electronics - iPad Pro controlled by Korg Nano-Studio.  Enjoy.

Polyrhythmic Composition - A new piece using VCV Rack

I've been working with VCV Rack, a free open-source cross-platform virtual analog synthesizer for a while now.  This patch is an early result.  We have all these new big computer video monitors in the new Music Building at Box Hill Institute (where I work), and although I could do a screen-grab, I wanted to project my computer monitor through the screen, and captured it with a pretty good video camera.  I'm performing with the buttons at the upper right.  There are 6 presets or scenes, and I can advance through them, and then select which of the three voices are playing in each section. Each section has a different polyrhythm, mostly fairly elaborate ones, like 61:63:64, or 38:61:72, or the more simple 5:7:9, among others. Most of the modules are made by Antonio Tuzzi, who designs under the nom-du-circuitry of NYSTHI.  I hope you enjoy this "puzzle for the ears" as much as I do.  Full-screen probably works best for viewing this. Good speakers, too, of course.

Four new reviews in soundbytesmag.net

Four new reviews in the current issue of soundbytesmag.net.

First, the FREE AudioKit Synth One, for the iOS environment.  A wonderful free synth!

http://soundbytesmag.net/music-for-tablets-audiokit-synth-one/

Then, a review of the great sounding and very versatile Spitfire Solo Strings.

http://soundbytesmag.net/review-spitfire-solo-strings/

And a review of five new modules for the Softube Modular environment:

http://soundbytesmag.net/review-five-new-modules-for-softube-modular/

Finally, a review of the very reasonably priced, and very versatile Tal-Mod virtual analogue synth.

http://soundbytesmag.net/review-tal-mod-from-togu-audio-line/

Enjoy!