Andrew Cooke Exhibition + ARC Performance 040513

 

Ceramic artist Andrew Cooke has invited ARC (Allen, Rayson, Cullen) to perform on his musical instruments at his latest exhibition in The Loft Gallery, Portaferry on Saturday 4 May 2013.

Andrew makes instruments from ceramic and found materials: gourds, diddley bows, harp etc. ARC will perform a number of short improvisations

04 May - 26 May: 'Musical Mud' an exhibition by ceramicist Andrew Cooke. ‘Since mankind discovered the metamorphosis of soft clay into a hard ceramic material, we have been making instruments from clay. I would love to be able to play music; I have tried but failed. I thus make ceramic instruments; it is my response to the frustrated musician inside Andrew Cooke.’ Call out to all musicians - this Exhibition will encourage interaction between the maker of objects and the maker of music. If you are a musician feel free to come and jam on the instruments! If you are willing then make a video of yourself and send it through to Andrew Cooke to be made into a video collage of musical mayhem by local film maker Rik Peel.

Andrew Cooke is on Facebook.

BUILD/CODE/IMPROVISE/PERFORM

 

A series of free hands-on workshops as part of UNDERCONSTRUCTION,

a collaborative exhibition taking place at Catalyst Arts throughout April.

Learn to build and bend circuits, make an instrument from

your laptop and take part in a public performance at QUB's

Sonorities Festival.

BUILD

Saturday 6th April 10am – 5pm, Free

Develop your own playable musical device with circuit bender

and instrument builder Barry Cullen.

CODE

Sunday 14th April 10am – 5pm, Free

Explore programming as musical performance using networked

laptops with Graham Booth. Mac laptop required.

IMPROVISE

Wednesday 17th April 6pm – 9pm, Free

Monday 22nd April 6pm – 10pm, Free

Develop a live performance with Kevin McCullagh & Tullis Rennie

using the instruments from BUILD and CODE.

PERFORM

Thursday 25th April 9.30pm – 12.30am, Free

The performance will be presented at the EARS showcase night 

as part of the Sonorities festival.

To reserve a place, please contact catalystarts@gmail.com with

your name and details of the workshop(s) you would like to attend.

Venue: Catalyst Arts, 5 College Court, BT1 6BS

(+44) 028 90 313 303

catalystarts.org.uk  /   facebook.com/qub.ears   

twitter.com/qubears   /   sonorities.org.uk

Bew - Demolition Mix

Here is one of the mixes I put together to be played on set of a film about demolishing a house along with live oscillators through a dirty portable soundsystem.

I made noise.
Crew shot film.
The building was demolished.

Nothing sounds quite like a bath being thrown through a door.

Bew - demolition mix by Bew on Mixcloud

Tracklist

eden Final
Track 3 dufond
Track 1 Aln Vs Cln
Track 2 Aln Vs Cln
Track 3 Aln Vs Cln
Fashion 500 Brainiac
For My Beloved Brainiac
Ilaf Tsmu Poo
Track 13 dufond
Kyoro Xinli Supreme
Jabpunplusone Sagan
Mandolin Work (edit) Leafcutter John
The Disappearing Act Gerritt & John Weisse
Densités Alma Fury
Plus De Lumieres Alma Fury
Live at Emoson (Bourges) 23.oct.99
Alma Fury, Otomo Yoshihide, Otani Yasuhiro
X for O No.1 Xavier Charles
X for O No.2 Xavier Charles
X.O.O.X Xavier Charles & Otomo Yoshihide
Radio Brabant No.7 Xavier Charles
Radio Brabant No.8 Xavier Charles
Track 1-6 The Lost Cocks
Track 7-9 Nuclear Night
a1 animals with wheels bew remix
a2 animals with wheels bew remix

+ Various sound effects records

The Wheels of Chance - Soundtrack Recipe

Ingredients:
Bass guitar (5-string)
Electric guitar (x2 = AXE ATTACK)
Korg X5
MicroKorg
Novation Bass Station
Pioneer DJM800
Synare (DIY kit + DIY trigger)
Tenor Saxophone
Clarinet
Trombone
Pocket Trumpet
Laptop (x2 = sound effect centre)
Cymbal
Chimes
Cowbell
Whistle
Boite d'Oiseaux
Effects units
Contact Microphone (DIY)
Slinky



Recipe:
Place all the above in a pressure filled environment along with three keen folk for approx. three weeks: Steam, broil, smoke, grill and beat until bubbling with energy and serve on a bed of enthusiasm in front of a live studio audience.

For best results, consume whilst hot and fresh from the pressure cooker.

Making a soundtrack is a lot of work. Composing melodies that work with the movement on screen, keeping the mood correct by selecting appropriate instrumental voices, ensuring that the tempo is right, ensuring that the transitions between scenes flow...

Imagine trying to do this with a tight deadline, and adding the challenge of making the resulting composition ready for live performance.

After just under three weeks of work it's ready.

Thanks to BFF / QFT / BFI / WB

Bew - soundtrack for Jeff Keens Gazwrx (60 min edit) Enhanced

Bew - soundtrack for Jeff Keens Gazwrx (60 min edit) Enhanced by Bew on Mixcloud

Another blast from the past:

sound collage / dj mix for
GAZWRX: THE FILMS OF JEFF KEEN
Tuesday 31 March 2009
Menagerie bar, Belfast

dj trio (Christian Marclay and friends) - paris
capitol k - heat
gongs vs bew - peace
rothko - untitled
fats waller - fractitious fingering
rahasaan roland kirk - ain't no sun
nobukazu takemura - side b no 2
stanley lieber - afterklarung
moondog - viking of
pascals - talking dog fields
moogey men cometh - appologies mr rossini
harry partsch - untitled
john cage - prepared piano 3
bbc sounds - hover craft
fridge - comets
nurse with wound - cruisin for a bruisin
yo yo ma + bobby mc ferrin - air
voices - story time
cage and sun ra - conversation (from UBU.com)
doves - where we're calling from (hebden bridge mix)

OPEN EARS - Innovative Technology Enhanced Performance

OPEN EARS - Innovative Technology Enhanced Performance

Date: Saturday 21st May, Sonic Lab, SARC, 8PM
Free admission!


Artists:
Niamh de Barra
www.niamhdebarramusic.com

Barry Cullen
dodgystereo.blogspot.com

Michael Andrews and Ricky Graham
https://www.facebook.com/michaelandrews1981
http://rickygraham.com/


Directions:
Sonic Arts Research Centre
Cloreen Park BT9 5
Belfast
http://goo.gl/a1jaf

The above post was cut n' paste from Qubears blog.

Happiness / Le Bonheur - Culture Night Belfast 2010

I've been working hard creating a soundtrack for Medvedkin's 'Happiness (Le Bonheur)'

Here's the info they put online:

OR SIT DOWN…
Rest weary travellers and wind down your frenetic and full evening with a live film soundtrack at St Georges Church, High Street from 8.30pm.

Culture Night and Belfast Film Festival team up to present a live soundtrack to a classic film by Belfast’s own experimental/ electronic producer Barry Cullen.

The film in question is Medvedkin’s silent classic, Happiness,a surprisingly irreverent comedy about early life in the Soviet Union.

Some photos from Culture Night 2009

The film:

SARC / Acroplane Movement 4#

The performance at SARC was a success. Sounds moved around the room.


Next up Acroplane Movement 4#

Date:
05.06.09
Venue:
The Menagerie, Belfast.
Admission:
£7
Doors:
9pm
Line-up:
Mad EP (Acroplane, Ad Noiseam)
Mothboy (Acroplane, Ad Noiseam)
Nez (Acroplane, Grub)
DJ Acroplane Recordings

SARC

I've been invited to play one of my pieces at SARC his week by Martin Byrne (Dr Lilt). This is quite a big deal for me as it's probably the best soundsystems on the island (if not the best definately one of the top five?), in a centre for academic excellence (I don't fit?) but also a place where many sucessful contemporaries have performed(most recently heard Paulene Oliveros perform Droniphonia there).

It's an afternoon event, free to the public.

If you want to come hear our music moving around the rooms' 40 (approx?) speakers. Join us, and say hello.

Electronic Improvisation Night

Live Electronic Improvisation with

Aln vs Cln
www.myspace.com/barryselectricworkshop
www.myspace.com/chrismallen

RL/VL
www.myspace.com/rl247

Doctor Lilt
www.myspace.com/drlilt
www.doctorlilt.com

Doors 7pm
£3

The forth and final show as part of the "4 FLAVOURS OF DOCTOR LILT" showcase is nearly upon us and it promises to be a cracker!

This show will feature live sets from some of Belfast's top electronic musicians, performing free improvisation with various sound sources and electronics. Everything from processed extended vocal techniques, to screeches and bursts of unrelenting noise, to massive ambient soundscapes. Your ears won't know how to thank you!

NB - EARLY SHOW

For Anna

Lunchtime Recitals | 27 Mar 09 | 1.10pm | Ulster Hall | Free


Barry Cullen - PC, guitar and electronics
Gráinne Maher - Voice
Ciarán Maher - Mac and piano

"For Anna"

http://www.myspace.com/barryselectricworkshop

http://www.transbelfast.com/trans08/gigs.php?i=156

November do far...

I've been busy making.
A small smoker building to slowly cook meat and fish.

Audio recording using some old equipment I hadn't taken out of storage for quite a long time.


Video edits of clips I hadn't previously had the time to view properly.

Live performances of my new material using my laptop recordings plus some of my old noisey hardware.

Watching and listening to other pieces of fierce music.




Hanging out with charming people.

Goodtimes.

BEW and Friends

So I finished working and I had a chance to play a little concert with some of my friends as a sort of goodbye Brno gesture. It was a pleasant lofi affair in the open air with deck chairs, good beer, and a laid back atmosphere.

Gerald Taylor (Canada) played fretless bass guitar and flute.


Mark Knight (USA) played trombone.


Anne Sophie Cocault (France) sang words (she's in the projection in the photo).

Barry Cullen ((me)) (Northern Ireland) played clarinet, melodica, PC and effects.

Adam Wielopolski (England) tried to play videos, but was thwarted by technology.


Sophie sang over a tune with no percussion. It was written for my sister's daughter. A kind of electronic lullaby. Here's a dodgy video:


On a totally unrelated note, I really enjoyed this page I stumbled across. Thanks to the Chrondritic.

Heavy Mental 7# - 'Slovak Attack'

Straight out of work and up to Fleda for another installment of Heavy Mental. I am very happy to have found out that the event was happening at all as it was only the evening before that I first saw the advertisement.

The flip side of the flyer made for very interesting reading (not just because I have to struggle reading Czech). As is quite popular on many flyers these days the names of the bands are listed and below each is a link to their myspace account and also a few words to describe their sound.

Pjoni (electronica/breakcore/lofi)



Voice Over Noise (live electronic impro sound)



Jack Jack (no-input mixing board sound)



Batcha De Mental (electro/dubstep/offstep)



In particular I liked 'offstep', which I had never heard of before. I could google this to see if it's a commonly used name for a genre or if Batcha invented it himself, but I prefer not to know and simply enjoy wondering about it.

Sadly you can't see with great detail from my video clips, but the team of VJs (VJS GND, LIU, P.O.P.CORP. a PITCH.THE.GLITCH) did a pretty amazing job of streaming constantly evolving moving images to accompany the sounds; no repeating loops like I do instead, they had their live feed or loop constantly twitching and glitching with what looked like the equivilent of visual granular synthesis (it's probably time for me to become more familiar with Max/MSP + Jitter).

The evening was full of loud and incredibly challenging and diverse sound. I guess that many people would contest that it was music. I found it really exciting and felt that theoretically, anything was possible afterwards.

I posted my remix of Jamie Lidell's 'Feel Good' (BEW remix) on myspace yesterday before going to work. After the Heavy Mental event i feel it's a bit tame. Go have a listen for yourself and judge.

Note to self: must figure out how to stop spam-bots in the comments section.

EXPOZICE NOVÉ HUDBY 2008

I recieved an e-mail from Ales telling me about a festival of new music. I lost the message, but remembered to google for more info which led me to the site. I decided to go and listen for myself. I met Ales and Lucie when I got there.



The main room of Fleda was prepared like a bizarre cinema or lecture hall. The seating was tiered with a mix of flip-down seats and sofas. Very inviting and comfortable. There was no stage, the performance area being the floor with a large white projection surface as a back drop.



The first to take to the stage were Mateřídouška. A strange duo. A man in a mask sat at a table with laptop and some other hardware that included some wood and metal percussion akin to a finger piano (Kenyan Kalimba). A woman in an asian styled dress joined him. She was singing and occassionally played what I think was a shamisen.


(The video is very dark: but at least you can hear things.)

The music was a mix of field recordings treated with DSP and etehereal tones which occassionally resembled more conventional synths. Crackles, bleeps, tweets and sighs, were the backdrop to a wide range of vocalisations.



Also sharing the stage was a large wheel, on the side of which was painted a kind of mini-mural. It was balancing on an axle around which it turned very slowly. A video camera was aimed at it and a portion of the picture was projected over the performers.



Near the end of the performance the music shifted into a kind of contemporary pop music with run of the mill riffs and a kind of trip-hop beat. This was actually something that didn't help the performance feel like a consistant whole, as it felt like a detour from the surreal opera vibe it had originally set up. Still an enchanting and different type of music to that I've experienced in my time in Brno.

They performed a very short encore, around two and a half minutes or quasi-pop. There was then a short break before the next performance.

The next performance was by Operabil Memotopia. The performance area was more stark than before. A small desk with a seat, laptop, and MIDI controller on one side and two seats and two lecturns on the other side.



A man sat at the table. Two women sat at the lecturns. The lights went down and a slide show began.



One of the two women was using her voice to make notes, long and short, often repeating the same sound.



The man would say a sentence or two in English after which the other woman (not singing) would say the same in Czech. I am not sure exactly what the story was about, but it semed to be about a charachter called 'Mousey'. And it suggested that we are all conected to a hook in the centre of the planet.



Strange and otherworldly stuff. (The video is very dark: but at least you can hear things.)

Back in Belfast....

Back in Northern Ireland a week and all is well. The family are healthy and I'm not too busy to be vexed, and busy enough not to be bored either.My niece and I enjoying some pallet drumming...

The gallery opening performance with Nicky Keogh at the Gloden Thread Gallery was quite a success, albeit with some technical difficulties. We were set-up and ready to play for the opening at six o' clock and there were plenty of people in attendence. We played several short improvisations at low volume throughout the evening and "Knocked it up a notch" at the end (around eight o' clock).Some of the audio toys used and abused for the improvisation in the Golden Thread...

Unfortunately the Calor Gas Soundsystem's amp over heated and the last part was cut short. The minidisc recorder we used to record the performances also refused to update it's TOC and so most of the audio documentation was lost. Thankfully I had a spare cassette recorder and I captured a little of the noise from the end of the evening.

I finally attended Bop Yestrum and saw Indian Jewelery at the Pavilion Bar on Saturday night. This was an excellent way to prepare for the show there on Sunday.

The Show with Birds of Delay and Toymonger was a mixed bag. The attendence was low but the sounds were solid (thick, brutal, sharp, fuzz-filled, painful to listen to, occasionaly amusing, sometimes boring ((yes, I know it's supposed to challenge me to indulge in deep listening)). The soundcheck was short thanks to an unexpected private function for a bunch of golfers, but enough to test if equipment was working.

Barry (bew), Peter, and Chris...

As planned there were three parts to the 45 minute show. I started with an electro-acoustic improvisation using stylophone, cymbals, bells, microphone, loop cassette, feedback, and effects.

Chris Allen on bass.

Next I was joined by my colleague from S'Gottabomb, Chris Allen, who played bass and my younger brother, Peter, who played saxophone whilst I played clarinet to realise "Horn Joy", a tune from my unpublished "Harsh Missed EP".Peter Cullen on saxophone.

To finish I played/mangled a selection of my most recent tunes/remixes produced in Brno. Tracklist:
bew - musicbox bug 2 - a demo tune
bew - Crane Crash H&W 2 - a special edit made especially for this gig.
bew - Kookie Loop Dirt Step
Sunosis - Leap (bew remix)
bew - Adam Pharoh
+ lots of my samples.