Moths and Mathematics - Dance piece by Tess de Quincey and Peter Fraser - Music by Warren Burt

In November, I had the great good fortune to travel up to Sydney and work with Tess de Quincey, Peter Fraser, Boris Morris Boris Baggatini, Martin Fox, Sian James-Holland and the other wonderful members of the production Moths and Mathematics.  This is a dance - music - computer graphics - lighting piece that deals with the intersections of science and movement. This week was a creative development week, and at the end of it, a 23 minute performance was given to a select audience.  An in-progress video was made, and you can see a provisional edit of the video HERE. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope that work will continue on with the piece, so that we can bring you the full length production (ca. 40 minutes) sometime in early 2014.

 Peter Fraser and Tess de Quincey in Moths and Mathematics, November 2012

Nightshade Etudes now completed. Download Books 3 & 4 here.

In November, I finally finished Nightshade Etudes, 24 pieces, in 4 Books, which use DNA protein patterns from members of the Solanum family (tomato, potato, capsicum (bell pepper), tobacco, eggplant and belladonna (deadly nightshade)) as musical information.  Earlier in 2012, I posted Book 1 and Book 2 on this website (see below).  Now I've finally finished Books 3 and 4 and you can download them to complete your collection.  As well, I've also included the liner notes to the CD which features all of the Etudes in full fidelity, without any compression.  Of course, for those of you who would like to have a signed collectors edition of the CD, just send me an email through the Contact Me page at the top right of the right links column, and we can work out how much postage will be on top of the $23 Aus for the CD.

Click HERE to download Book 3 (mp3 files - 31mb).

Click HERE to download Book 4 (mp3 files - 24mb).

Click HERE to download the CD liner notes.

Six Preludes and Six Postludes to a Meeting with the Giant Murray Cod - a new album - available NOW!

Just released on the VicMod label, my digital-download-only album "Six Preludes and Six Postludes to a Meeting with the Giant Murray Cod."  It's an exploration of resources available in Martin Fay's venerable softsynth Vaz Modular, as well as exploring some more microtonal scales, and is, hopefully, just plain fun listening.  There are plentiful program notes (of course) and the whole thing is available on the VicMod website at http://www.vicmod.net/index.html.

 Listen for free, or download the whole album for $3 (that's three bucks) or more if you wish.  This is an interesting new model for me - free streaming, and pay-if-you-wish for the whole thing.  They also feature downloading in a whole bunch of formats, so audiophiles among you are bound to find a format that will please your discerning taste.  So if you want to make me rich, a million of you should pay to download the album!

And copious thanks, of course, to Ross Healy of VicMod for asking me to do this, and for his support during the long process of composition and production.  While you're at the VicMod site, check out the other great albums they have there, including music by Richard Lainhart, Todd Barton, and Ross himself - recording under the moniker of Cray.

Radio Music - August-October

In August and September I was invited on to two local community radio stations to perform music and talk.  First, in August, was a program on 3MBS-FM, where John McCaughey, Robin Fox, Eugene Ughetti and myself discussed the late Music Department of La Trobe University (1975-1999).  As part of that, Robin and I played pieces of ours, and John presented a tape of the Astra Choir.  Then in early October, I was invited by Michael Smith to play and talk on his radio show on 3CR.

 

On the 3MBS show, I played 2 new pieces, "Flaming Yellow Shirts with Red Polka Dots is the new Black - Melbourne Fashion Police Take Note!" which used the Jasuto softsynth on my Android Tablet feeding into my netbook running AudioMulch and GRM Tools software.  "Hand Held Hong Kong Hero" which used the LAS9 sample player on my Android Tablet going thorugh other GRM Tools plugins was the other piece. This used vastly stretched samples of Hong Kong pop singers along with stretching and transposing of their spectra.  On 3CR, I played these 2 again, as well as a new piece "Music for an Imgainary Dance" which used AudioMulch to filter noise and make microtonal chords as well as mixing in various experiments I'd done with sampling clicks to make very active musical textures.  

Here they are:

Flaming Yellow Shirts with Red Polka Dots was recorded by Terry McDermott and produced by Penny Manwaring at 3MBS on 13 August 2012.

Music for an Imaginary Dance was recorded and produced by Michael Smith at 3CR on 3 October 2012.

Hand Held Hong Kong Hero was recorded at home by me on 6 October 2012 (it took a while to get all the kinks out of that one).

Many thanks to Penny Manwaring, Eugene Ughetti, Terry McDermott, and Michael Smith for their help and support in the making / asking for / recording of these pieces!

Enjoy.

Upcoming broadcast - interview with WB on 3CR

Aplogies for the short notice for this - on Saturday afternoon, Oct 6, from 5:30 - 7:00 pm, on Melbourne Community Radio Station 3CR, Michael Smith will present an extended interview with me, along with 3 new pieces, which he recorded at 3CR studios last Wednesday night.  The show is called "Let Your Freak Flag Fly," (which has been going for the better part of a decade), and features experimental, noise, new, improvised, indie and other hard to find musics.  3CR, a venerable part of Melbourne's cultural landscape can be heard on the AM band at 855, or on digital radio 3CR, or worldwide, on the web at www.3CR.org.au.  Michael did a wonderful job recording the pieces, and the interview with him was a delight.  Many thanks to him and 3CR.  I'm looking forward to listening to the result, and so, I hope, will you.