Blogs by Anthony Milton
Sun 2:41
Dec 21st, '08
Birdcatcher.
-'The Sky Tied Down'. (PseudoArcana)
2x CDR packaged in 16
page book.
There has been some competition to see
who would get the 1st Birdcatcher release out and PseudoArcana has won
the race!
'The Sky Tied Down' finds the duo of Bill Wood and
Antony Milton settled down for a long session of epic dark and heavy
drone-manship. Utilising heavily processed lapsteel guitars and banjo
Birdcatcher embark on a glacially paced expedition to the slow beating
heart of the dark eyed uber-drone.
The textural complexity of
these drones retain the evidence of their instrumental sources but are
transformed into something that is perhaps closer to dark electronic
ambient music than might be expected from these instruments; the timbre
of the banjo and guitar more reminiscent of doom metal than any sort of
free folk.
Recorded in a single session direct to magnetic
tape the overall sound is grainy, dense and loud. 90 minutes spent in
the company of Birdcatcher is virtually guaranteed to invoke monochrome
visions and weird ecstacies...
Packaged in a 16pg
art-book of images that seek to dispel any anthropomorphic tendency in
ornithology. Birds are by definition inhumane;
alien.
2xCDR packaged in 16pg book.
NZ$20
Visit
pseudoarcana.com for more details.
Tue 8:30
Dec 9th, '08
Hi,
Been a year or so getting this out but here it is!:
..
Antony Milton. -'Summit is Fragile'. Lathe
cut LP.
'In the early Spring of 2007 I managed to
escape the city for a week in Arthurs P in the Southern Alps of the
South Island of New Zealand. I took with me a banjo, an ebow and some
effects pedals, and a loop station pedal and cette walkman with
which to record.
The plains were foggy on the drive
up toward the mountains but it was sunny in the high reaches as we
arrived at the small cabin we had rented. That evening it snowed and we
actually saw very little sun for the rest of our time there. This
didn't stop us exploring mossy valleys or clambering up small mountains
but did make the time spent by the fire in the evenings all the more
appealing.
'Summit is Fragile' is a collection of
tone poems, field recordings, song sketches, ecstatic drone pieces and
gestural constructions stitched together with short banjo ragas
composed over this period. A rendering of the feelings of a place in
time that now seems more an impossible dream than a reality. I consider
it one of my very best works to date.'
This is an ultra
limited edition of 40 copies only that comes packaged in covers screen
printed by Jim Currin.
Lathe cut LP.
NZ$30.
ORDER.
..
Thu 8:58
Nov 20th, '08
Time for another sale. I'm moving shortly and need to reduce my collection some so I've gone through and found all the doubled up albums, the stuff I have never gotten around to listening to, and the ones I reckon I can live without hearing again. I mean I STILL have more records than I can actually listen to, but I need to rationalise this at least a little.
I couldn't be bothered listing all the titles I culled so don't be surprised if you wind up getting a bonus disk or 2 in your parcel... I will try and judge your taste by what you order.
Let me know if you want the list by sending me a message with your email and I will get it off to you.
Wed 6:10
Sep 17th, '08
For those who missed out last time...
GLORY FCKN SUN. -'Vision Scorched'.
Reissue in new packaging!
Formed in 2003 as a conduit for intense ritualistic sonic exploration Glory Fckn Sun is the ecstatic psyche-noise trio of Antony Milton (guitar/electronics), Ben Spiers (guitar/violin/electronic) and improv percussionist Simon O'Rorke (gongs/percussion).
'Vision Scorched' collects together one studio track and two live pieces. These range through long form rumbling distorted deep space explorations (complete with supernova and the odd blackhole), intense yet ethereal harsh noise to close with a droning metaphysical raga-esque paean to the great cosmic inevitable of the collapse of the sun, And of light itself.
Glory Fckn Sun have been described as having a sound that is like a cross between Flies Inside the Sun and Keiji Haino.
The 1st edition of this release sold out in a matter of weeks and gained rave reviews. This 2nd edition is also limited. There are 250 copies.
CD NZ$17.
Visit
www.pseudoarcana.com for more information.
Thu 9:07
Jul 31st, '08
A.M- 'Rag Red Reverie'. (PseudoArcana)
Full on over-the-top psychedelic noise guitar ault from Antony Miltons A.M project. With beats!
Eschewing the last vestiges of embarrment at several years 'lost' to rave culture in the late 90s A.M channels the furious ecstasies of phasing tones and pounding beats through electric guitar lined red hot into an ancient tape recorder to produce a riff driven avant-party album... With its endless driving riffs and noise incursions ascending to ever higher levels of intensity the sudden free falls into sudden deep ambient bliss are like the first glimpses of dawn on a mountain top on acid..
And then the beats kick in again.
A 'wave your arms in the air' boogie noise record? Who would have thought?
CD. NZ$17.
Visit
www.pseudoarcana.com for details.
GLORY FCKN SUN.- 'Spectra'. LP (Tipped Bowler').
Limited to 300 copies this is the follow up to the book/cd on PseudoArcana. Heres what the label says:
"The sky done clouded over after Glory Fckn Sun's debut album, yielding this brooding and corrosive follow-up. The New Zealand sorta-super group of Antony Milton , Ben Spiers, and Simon O'Rorke concoct a slow-burning behemoth of metallic shivers and distortion churn, dark enough to invoke the dread name Haino.
Spectra is an unsettling mind-meld: Spiers desolate soundscapes bleed into Milton's heavy drones, which are complemented perfectly by O'Rorke's restless percussion. Group improvisation is the natural language of these three; even listing their solo and collaborative albums over the past decade would take way more effort than I can muster. Suffice to say this is a stellar and unique record to add to their mive discographies.
In an edition of 300 red 160 gm. vinyl records, housed in silk-screened, heavy-gauge recycled stock jackets".
LP. NZ$25
Visit
www.pseudoarcana.com for details.
Wed 8:51
Jul 23rd, '08
It is terrible to have to do this and it makes me feel sick to the stomach (let alone the head...) but it seems that I must cancel the tour I had planned for Aug-October.
I should tell you though that Uton and Kulkija will still be touring so please support them if you can. I'm certain that your attendence will be well worthwhile!
For me, coming from NZ, the tour was always a risky endeavour financially, but on crunching the figures the other day I worked out exactly how much money I would lose on the trip and made a final decision that I simply can not afford to come.
People have been very helpful and lots of shows had been booked but not enough to get me over the monstrous huge impediment of a mountain range that is the flight costs from New Zealand to Europe. I actually have to forfeit $800 on cancelling my ticket but given the loss I would have made if I came this is actually small amount...
In talking to promoters about cancelling it seems that things are very difficult for venues that support this type of music in Europe at the moment. Money is tight for everybody and if anything the immediate future looks even bleaker in some ways. I can only echo the views of one promoter who saw some glimmer of hope in the financial crisis facing the 'money markets'. That is that perhaps such a shakedown will tumble the puppet masters of stupid and pointless consumerism down from their gilded plastic thrones.
Well, at least for a little while...
For myself, in perhaps attempting to insulate myself from disappointment at not being able to do this tour, I have found a renewed interest in celebrating 'the local'. I find myself even more excited about making music that sings of the places and spaces that I know, and that have some weird subjective magic for me, than I have in quite some time. As such I am perhaps choosing to treat this turnaround as a positive thing for my music and my art. I am looking forward to the next few months, even if they won't be spent in Europe.
I would like to thank very much all those who helped me out in trying to get the tour to fly, and apologise to those for whom my cancellation is disappointment. I am sorry that I won't get to meet all of those with whom I had booked a beer or a recording session. Hopefully it won't be too long before I finally make it back to Europe.
Finally(...) If anyone wants to help me recoup the $800 I have forfeited then keep an eye out for the new A.M CD 'Red Rag Reverie' that I have had pressed as a tour release. I just heard today that it is currently enroute from the factory so I expect to have copies of that in a week or 2.
Alright. Thats me. Love to all.
Thu 7:45
Jul 10th, '08
artist: Paper Wings ....
title: Ash Field....
label: PseudoArcana / Black Petal split release ....
format: compact disk with hand-painted covers....
Paper Wings is the electric guitar duo of Australian Anthony Guerra and New
Zealander Antony Milton. Recorded in a small room on a winters day in Sydney in
n 2005, their full-length debut drifts through beautiful bowed drones, tender melodic excursions and harsher sonic adventures. Four pieces that find these two guitarists at the top of their game.
Paper Wings previously appeared on the Last Visible Dog compilation 'Crows of the World (Volume 1)' with the track "Horse Lattitudes'. Reviews said:....
".. The real reason to pick this [compilation] up, though, is to hear Paper Wings' "Horse Lattitudes", an extended twin guitar dirge layered with whispered and wailing vocals. Beginning slowly and chaotically, it unfolds into a colossal mesh of The Velvet Underground at their most primal and Earth at 16rpm. Just when it threatens to peak, the duo fall back into another bout of feedback induced guitar meltdown, wringing every amplified note out of their instruments until the bones of the piece have been picked clean" Edwin Pouncey, The Wire....
"A mastercl in free improv that is even better at ear-splitting volume" Simon Lewis, Terrascope....
About Anthony Guerra:
Anthony Guerra sings and plays electric guitar. He is from Sydney, Australia and currently lives in Tokyo. Anthony has appeared on over 40 records, cds, cdrs and cettes on labels including PseudoArcana, Foxglove/Digitalis, Touch, Last Visible Dog, Impermanent, Absurd, Breakdance the Dawn, Paradisc, CMR, Azul Discografica and others; both solo and in collaboration with musicians including Joel Stern, Antony Milton, Matthew Earle, Michael Rodgers, Matthew Nidek, Mattin, Margarida Garcia and many more. Anthony used to co-run the acclaimed record label TwoThousandAnd (with Michael Rodgers). Anthony currently runs the record label Black Petal. ....
About Antony Milton....
New Zealander Antony Milton has been making records, exhibiting sound installations and performing live under various nom de plumes (A.M., The Nether Dawn, Paintings of Windows, Mrtyu, etc) since the early 1990s. He is also the curator of the PseudoArcana record label. With releases on underground labels such as Jewelled Antler, Last Visible Dog and Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, Milton's work is situated at some weird junction between electroacoustic composition, folk music, and the more psychedelic end of the 'noise' spectrum.. Using predominantly analogue sources (tape loops, field recordings, amplified resonant objects, voice and guitar), Milton's performances have a high degree of intimacy and commonly range from the gestural and nuanced through to the visceral and ecstatic. ....
CD in Japanese art paper sleeve.
NZ$17.
Visit
www.pseudoarcana.com for details.
Sat 9:20
Jun 14th, '08
A shirt has been printed to celebrate the upcoming release of the CD version of the new album 'Ornate Shroud' by Faunnasabbatha.
The sizes are M, XL and 3XL.
The shirts are NZ$25.
Write via mrtyu(at)paradise.net.nz to order a shirt.
Fri 7:53
May 9th, '08
NthNth/SthSth is the duo of myself and Jani Hirvonen (Uton) from Finland.
We had a release out on C-Psi-P a few years back, as 'A.M/Uton' that was titled 'NthNth/SthSth' and have now chosen to use that title as our project name.
This new LP is released by Release the Bats out of Sweden. its a beautiful object- with a front cover by Jani, and the back one by me. It had liner notes by Jon Dale.
Musically it sets forth on a bed of weird psychedelic drone that morphs through entranced chanting to become a black metal rattle and then an explosive psyche out hoedown...
Or something like that...
This is limited to 520 copies of which I have 50.
You can order these from me for NZ$25 via:
www.pseudoarcana.comOr from the label via:
www.releasethebats.com
Tue 6:59
May 6th, '08
Hi,
So I've booked tickets to fly over to Europe.
I will be touring with Uton and Kulkija, starting in Helsinki on August the 18th.
Our itinerary looks something like this.
If anyone can help with shows please let us know, especially if you can help with Torino, Milan, Switzerland and Barcelona?:
August
20 Helsinki
21 Turku
22
23 Tukholma
24 Göteborg
25 Malmö
26 Kööpenhamina
27
28 Hamburg
29 Berlin
30 Bremen
31 Köln
September
1
2 Den Haag
3 Rotterdam
4 Tilburg / Nijmegen
6 Amsterdam
7
8 Antwerpen
9 Bryssel
10 Gent
11 Louvain-la-Neuve
12
13 Lille
14 Paris
15 Rennes
16 Nantes
17 Angers
18
19 Grenoble
20 Lyon
21 Marseille
22
23 Bordeaux
24 Barcelona
25
26 Torino
27 Milan
28
29 Zurich
30 Stuttgart
31 Frankfurt
Looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting those of you I haven't met before!
Mon 7:00
Apr 28th, '08
Hi,
The Stumps and Nether Dawn had a great time in Auckland last weekend so thanks to all who helped and came to those shows. Pretty bloody intense shows I thought. Fun!
To be honest I hadn't been playing much for quite a while previous- what with a month cycling Tasmania etc. Anyway upshot was that I felt the need to have a few days of 'wild psyche guitar' practice over the week before. Basically just dicking around with guitar and loop station.
Turned out to be a fantastic few days of 'rocking out'... After the 1st couple of afternoons I finally remembered to buy some tapes to record some of it. The new track on my site 'happy beat boy' is one of these tracks. I've actually got what I reckon would make a killer double album from these sessions (anyone interested?). A lot of them have these loop station beats on them. But hey- I'm sold on them... Takes me back to the late 90s and those nights spent dancing till dawn in Golden Bay and . Haha. (Theres quite a few beats on the new 'pop' album I was playing around with at Xmas as well. knows what I will do with that release. Its good too- but is so different and so much 'straighter' than most of my stuff that I'm embarressed to let anyone hear it...)
Other news- I now have copies of the limited edition Temple Defectors (Skaters offshoot)/ Claypipe 10" lathe. These are NZ$25 each. Its really is a good record that one- almost the perfect lathe in terms of sonics I reckon. (Its murky to start with and will only 'improve' with age).
Its beautifully packaged too, as are all the Humbug releases I've got to say.
This can be ordered via
www.pseudoarcana.com
Tue 8:33
Mar 11th, '08
Released by Students of Decay (you can hear a track at www.studentsofdecay.com). I should have copies by the end of the month (depending on post..)
That said I will be on holiday in Tasmania from March 19-April 12th so they will probably languish in my PO Box until I get home...
SOD-48 The Nether Dawn - "Long Shadow of a Dream" CD (ltd. 500)
The Nether Dawn is arguably the most narcotic, most ethereal of the many guises of the ever-prolific and talented Antony Milton. For the unfamiliar few, Milton runs the sainted Pseudoarcana label out of his native New Zealand and records as Myrtu!, A.M., Paintings of Windows, Clay Man in the Well, Swagger Jack and as a member of Claypipe, With Throats as Fine as Needles, The Stumps, Glory Fckn Sun and more. Running through all of his projects is something of a dreamlike, nostalgic delirium that is concretized and distilled on "Long Shadow of a Dream."
The recordings on "Long Shadow of a Dream" date from 2004-2006. Despite this temporal span they seem like they've emerged organically from the same eternal, humming tapestry of sound. The album's final track is, unquestionably, its apex and it contains what are perhaps the most soul-baring, cathartic moments which Milton has committed to tape. Here, Antony's vision becomes nearly visible in its mammoth totality - howling whisps of feedback, billows of keyboard and loops conjoin with voice and throat in ecstatic communion. The aural landscape of Milton's Nether Dawn will utterly entrance and beguile you and, in the end, it will surely devour you whole.
Thu 7:11
Feb 14th, '08
Soon to be released is a new Nether Dawn CD for Students of Decay called 'Long Shadow of a Dream'.
Release the Bats will be releasing the new LP by my duo with Uton. We have changed the name of this project to NthNth/SthSth.
I will be releasing on PseudoArcana a limited 12" lathe of songs recorded using a banjo and loop station pedal whilst I was at Arthurs P in August 2007. This is limited because I plan to send it out to my favourite labels as a demo LP. (Its way too good to be limited. haha)
Glory Fckn Sun have a forthcoming LP release on the Tipped Bowler label. Red and gold vinyl apparently...
Peasant Magik are planning a 7"/CD/Booklet by my Clay Man in the Well project. This is an album I recorded on the southern tip of the North Island at a place named 'Kupe's Sail' (after a large rock formation that tours over the bay). 2 of the tracks will be on the 7" with the full album on the CD...
Theres an album of new Antony Milton recordings called 'Tapes Punakaiki' due out on Ultra Hard Gel. Appropriately enough these are songs and instrumentals recorded using 2 walkmans when I was on the West Coast of NZ in 2006.
The new Claypipe CD will also be released on UHG.
The older 'Wayside' 3" will be getting a reissue courtesy of Porter Records as part of the Jewelled Antler Library box set.
I am also working on a new Nether Dawn album that I plan to submit to Porter Records as well.
Faunna Sabbatha in France will be releasing a Mrtyu LP entitled 'Ornate Shroud'. This is maybe the most evil violent Mrtyu record yet and I can't wait!
Rhizome label in Australia will be releasing a new Paintings of Windows cd based on recordings from :
a)5 am on the service station forecourt next door to my house.
b)A ride through Adelaide to the airport in 2006.
c)My favourite concrete bunkers on the hill above my house.
Humpty Dumpty Records in Belgium are putting out a split live LP of Peter Wright and myself based on recordings from our tour in late 2006.
Mon 7:06
Jan 28th, '08
At long last!!!
SUNKEN.- 'Eye Electric Organ, Brain Electric Nerve'.
Deep in the swirling depths of the ocean a terrible yet wondrous beast stirs slow but sure amidst great forests of sea algae. Taking on the form of a pair of conjoined drown-ed sailors it sets forth upon the currents determined to loose its apocalyptic vision upon the earth via droning sea shanty and great humming hymn.
Sunken is the duo of sunken sailors Stefan Neville (Pumice) and Antony Milton (Nether Dawn/A.M etc). Using a range of organs, sonar gear, live tapeloops, vocals and an unhealthy amount of submarine reverb they create a glorious droning pop noise. 'Eye Electric Organ, Brain Electric Nerve' follows on from their acclaimed self titled debut (also on PseudoArcana) and various compilation appearances.
You can hear a sample from the album
here.
CD. NZ$20
Visit
www.pseudoarcana.com for details.
Also this gets a reissue:
AGITATED RADIO PILOT/NETHER DAWN (cdr reissue)
After years of preperation the long rumoured split lathe made its its appearence in 2007. Beautiful it was too with individually hand-printed/painted covers by United Fairy Moons Jim Currin. I pressed 2 editions- a total of 130 copies, both of which sold out in days. Anyway, after some pointed reminders I've finally gotten around to re-releasing this on cdr.
Irishman Dave Colohan's Agitated Radio Pilot project brings us a suite of sad sweet beautiful folk drones called 'The Ghost of Medb'. Said ghost shimmers and weeps diamond tears over the course of this side.
On the other side Antony Milton's Nether Dawn presents 'Under Your Night'. This consists of a song that is gradually enveloped in electronically treated noise violin before departing for hummier and droney aires and a live rock out (accompanied by James Kirk) for the final movement.
CDR. NZ$15
Visit
www.pseudoarcana.com for details.
Mon 4:11
Jan 14th, '08
The Stumps - Exigence (Lady Garden (via Sbag Relations)) C60.
So the new Stumps album is out. It has amazing cover artwork by Yunico Uchiyma.This is some of my favourite Stumps stuff yet. Its basically a collection of the best of the stuff that we haven't been able to use on record or CD due to excessive digital distortion or whatever. On cette this just doesn't seem to matter so much.. But yeah- I fully recommend this one- its the perfect blend of our more ambient studio stuff and the pull out the jams rock excess of the live shows...
We should have copies soon but otherwise you can get it from
Sbag TapesAnd while your at it become a
STUMPS myspace friend.
Mon 9:33
Aug 6th, '07
Heres the blurb:
•Glory Fckn Sun. -'Vision Scorched'.
Formed in 2003 as a conduit for intense ritualistic sonic exploration Glory Fckn Sun is the ecstatic psyche-noise trio of Antony Milton (guitar/electronics), Ben Spiers (guitar/violin/electronic) and improv percussionist Simon O'Rorke (gongs/percussion).
'Vision Scorched' collects together one studio track and two live pieces. These range through long form rumbling distorted deep space explorations (complete with supernova and the odd blackhole), intense yet ethereal harsh noise to close with a droning metaphysical raga-esque paean to the great cosmic inevitable of the collapse of the sun; of light itself.
Glory Fckn Sun have been described as having a sound that is like a cross between Flies Inside the Sun and Keiji Haino.
Nearly 2 years in the making and continuing in the PseudoArcana tradition of fantastical over-the-top packaging (...) 'Vision Scorched' is presented in a professionally bound 72 page picture book of sun related imagery with hand printed covers.This is a limited numbered edition CD of 200 copies.
CD/Book. NZ$22
Visit
www.pseudoarcana.com for details.
Thu 3:54
Feb 1st, '07
·A.M- 'Orla' (Ikuisuus, 2006)
'A.M' is Antony Milton.
"One day in early 2004 I arrived home to find the biggest parcel I had ever received sitting on my doorstep, it was crudely wrapped and covered in stamps. I was amazed that anyone would POST something like this through the regular mail system. I brought it inside and cut away the packaging. To my astonishment I found that it contained a large old 'Orla' chord organ and a letter from Marcel Bear (Empirical) saying that he had noted my recent enthusiasm for organ tones (see also With Throats As Fine As Needles and Sunken...).
He had found this one at a garage sale and thought that I might like it. My interest in organs had been at least in part inspired by my reading about Charlemagne Palestine and his concept of the "Golden Music". His idea of a stream of sound that may facilitate an ecstatic bliss of religious intensity has been hugely influential to me (in much the same way as Haino's 'sound of the universe'...).
I decided pretty much straight away that I would record an album using this organ as the predominant sound source (the only other sound sources are the field recordings of rain on the 1st track and scaffolding pipes on the 2nd).
As the recordings progressed from the straight ahead drone of the 1st track I stripped away more and more unnecessary components of the machine until on the last track I was bowing and plucking the spring pegs of the keys. One of my favourite sounds was that of the fan motor itself."
CD in gold gatefold. NZ$20.
Visit
www.pseudoarcana.comfor ordering details.
Fri 3:13
Jan 5th, '07
Wed Nov 22.
Hi,
So here I am in San Francisco, a city that seems surprisingly homely so far (not too dissimilar from Wellington in some ways...). Had my 1st show in Sacramento last night. It went ok although I felt I was wrestling a little with my new guitar- just getting used to playing it I guess. The support acts (Art Lessing & the Flower Vato, Living Breathing Music) were truely great and I had a ball. Also appreciated were the boutique beers supplied by Brian Faulkner. So big thaniks to everyone up there, and also to Derek Godat for undertaking the epic drive out there and back. (We got back into town around 2.30am and Derek had to drive from there home for 1.5 hrs before going to work this morning so it really was an effort over and above the call of duty (or whatever...).
One of the strangest things about being here has been hanging out with the Grey Daturas folk- funny to see people you know in a strange town. They came along to watch Flying Canyon on Monday night (Glenn Donaldson and friends folk rock doom band). Tonight I am playing with them (and I think Mammatus!!!!) over in Oakland, a town renowned apparently for machinegun warfare between gangs. Could be interesting.
Has been great hanging out with Glenn and exploring Golden Gate park etc. Also got to meet Andee Connors from Aquarius Records which was great.
Ok, more soon.
Thur Nov 23
Saw great sets from Grey Daturas and Mammatus last night. Mammtus were one of the funniest bands I think I've ever seen, they were wearing kaftans and had various pseudo-mystical props that were employed alongside screen projections of cheeseburgers in the mountains and a smoke machine. There music is incredibly tight and heavy, with the cheese factor (pyschedelic prog metal...) cranked to 11. They are all in there early 20s.I played a duo with Aaron Coyes on extreme noise guitar and myself mainly doing chants and singing (the guitar was so loud I couldn't even cut through with my feedback tray...) We were called the Funkingdoms. Ha! Was quite a blast.Playing at Rob Regers tonight, a thanksgiving party cross gig/jam, and off to Boston 1st thing in the morning.
Tues 28 Nov: .
Another quickie here... No email cafe's in the US for some reason. Weird.
Drinking licource flavoured vodka (far too much as it turned out...) at Jeffery from Secret Eyes place, Fursaxa practicing in the next room. Pretty great. Just met Chris Moon for the 1st time. Our US patron...
Last night was something of a career highlight, playing a show at the Yod Shop playing to an audience of my musical heroes,.. through Thurston M's amps. Was good too. Just as well!
Played in Portland Maine Saturday night and Boston Sunday. Great shows all from Attar Cups, Skeletons Out.
East Coast US is kind of spooky with deciduous trees all bare and eerie as you drive through n the US night. Lakes and owls looming.
Great beer continues to flow. It seems everyone here is a brewing connoseur. Best beer I've had anywhere. Peter Wrights show have been sublime.
Rushing again on internet here. Love to all.
_A
Wed 29- Sun Dec 3rd.
Everything going great, here in Washington DC this morning after a great show last night, one of the best of the tour.Friday night was Philidelphia, looked like a great city but not much of a chance to have a look around. Scott frm Archive Recs recorded the show which was unfortunately not the greatest of the tour (miniscule PA that rattled disturbingly with any b signal). Was a fun time though with another killer set from Peter. Nice folk to hang out with. We stayed the night at Tony and Nadine, incredible hosts, although it was somewhat disturbing to suddenly discover that it was 3.30 am when I'd thought it was only 1 or something. Got to drink some top knotch bourbon which was a palate opener after abandoning Jim Beam etc back when I was 19 or something.
The night before this was by far the strangest of the whole trip. We played at Wesleyan University in Middletown. Unfortunately due to difficulty in confirming the actual venue for the gig no promotion was done and we had a very small audience. For us this was a small concern as it was just like stepping into a US College movie, we got to sleep in and hangout in a genuine grotty student apartment on campus, eat fake cheese chilli in a student dining hall (I kept expecting some teen to wander in with an ault rifle...), and watch old horror films.Our time in Providence was great. There were over 100 people at that show (largely because we were playing with Avey Tare and Kria Brekkan (Animal Collective/Mum)). Fun playing to a big crowd (even with the hangovers...). Thanks again to Jeffrey and Chris for accomodation whilst we were there and the fun times.
Wed Dec 6th.
In New York now and I fly out for London and the European league in a few hours. Spent the rest of Sunday the 3rd exploring Washington DC with our extraordinarily hospitable host Noel Ivey. Nice to have some time to wander about. We had a truely incredible Ethiopian meal for lunch, then a brief (but much needed) nap before driving over to Baltimore.
The 'Floristree space where we played that night is a great venue, a huge warehouse space with big stage and a monster PA (it was definitely the loudest gig so far), but being a Sunday night the turnout was relatively small. Baltimore itself is an interesting city, even more a town of contrasts than Washington. The city centre is all upmarket stores and clic European looking cobbled streets with vast grand monuments and cathedrals but 65% of the population is African American and there was more evident poverty and homelessness there than anywhere else I have been to yet.After the show that night we went out to a great bar with Jason and the others from Floristree. It was a fantastic dive with biker bartenders, a clic rock packed jukebox, canned beer and cheap shots of bad bourbon. True underbelly America. Cool!After pancakes and coffee at Floristree we caught the Chinatown bus for the 3.5 hours up to NY. It really was quite a buzz lumbering into 'the capital of the world', spotting the Statue of Liberty amongst the chimney stacks from a distace and the tall buildings disappearing into the cloud. Getting off the bus, failing to find a single working payphone and then navigating the subway to the best of our ignorant ability was something of a time consuming mission but we eventually found our venue for the night over in Brooklyn for the final show of the US league. The venue is called Issue Project Room and is a fantastic space that has been set up specifically to hold soundart events. The building is a squat round tower on the edge of a canal. The performance area upstairs has a ceiling strung with 16 octagonal speaker boxes which one plays through. The sound through these was truely incredible, lush and rich. It was a priviledge to play there.
A NZ performance artist named D.M Wilding put us up at her place for the last 2 nights. We had a great time out drinking at a groovy little East Side bar with her and friends on Monday night after the show. Inevitably this turned into yet another late one...
Tuesday was spent wandering around NY trying to get some sort of handle on the city. We walked out over Chinatown on the Brooklyn (?) Bridge, visited Ground Zero (I couldn't get the images from 9/11 out of my head...), had bagels and pizza and climbed the Empire State Building. I had been skeptical about going up (it is expensive and a real crowded tourist trap) but it was well worth it for the views over the city. A dark blood red full moon came up while we were there. Then we wnadered through the bright lights of the city and ate burritos and drank Bloody Maria's (made with tequila instead of vodka) before crashing out before 1am for the 1st time in 2 weeks.
Sat 9th Dec:
In Helsinki, Finland now and heading down shortly for tonights show. Apprently we are playing in an old cinema. No shows since the last post but lots of travel and misadventures. My flights from New York to London were mively delayed so that I missed my rendevous with Peter in London. This was also complicated by the UK immigration services seeming reluctance to admit me to the country at all... It was only when I arrived at their desk that I realised I didn,t have Peters address, phone number, nor a copy of my outward ticket. Oops! Needless to say the lack of these basic pieces of information were to prove problematic when I arrived at Leicester Square Station 2 and 1/2 hours later than my expected time to find no Peter awaiting me to guide me to his house. I wound up leaving the station and stumbling out into the most chaotic street scenes I think I have experienced since I was in India.
I eventually found an internet cafe and sent an email through to Peter explaining that I didn,t have his number. For the next 3 hours I stood on street corners and walked around the block causing a disturbance with all my baggage checking email for replies. I had a dodgy meal of burger and chips in a small pub to fill in time. It was starting to get late and I had been up for over 30 hours and so I resolved to find a backpackers, somewhat concerned that i wasn,t even sure what time I was meant to be at the airport to Finland the next day. Whilst checking the net for hostels I checked my email one last time and was hugely relieved to find an email from Andrea ,Peters wife. Turns out his flight had been even more delayed than mine and despite having a departure time hours before mine he had only just arrived in the country.
So everything worked out ok and I got my 24 hours in the UK. My 1st visit. Overall my main impression was of how crowded it seemed. Had a pub lunch and then headed out to Stanford to fly here.
We got in around 1.30 am and were picked up and driven to the promoter for our shows (Tanali´s) place. Unfortunately he is out of the country for the duration of our stay (he and most of the European folk I know are at the ATP fest in the UK...), but he had left us his keys and the use of his flat which is amazingly generous of him. Oneof the 1st things I did upon arrival was try to burn the place down by attempting to boil water in the jug on his stove. Unfortunately said jug was plastic and not designed to be heated on an element...! Bugger! Stank the place out and probably poisoned both Peter and myself with the fumes.
Will spend today shopping for a new jug...
Tues 12th Dec.
Staying at Per Gisle Galaaen's place in Oslo. Norway has a very different feel than did Finland. In a strange way it was like one could sense the proximity of Russia in Finland, the towns and cities have an almost Soviet feel to them, something to do with the architecture which seemed to favour quite austere apartmaent blocks circa 1950. Oslo feels older but at the same time is more glitzy with brightly lit shops etc. The train ride in from the airport was very 'black metal; however with grim black forests and desolate expanses of fields in 3pm twilight.
Our Finnish shows went pretty well. On the Saturday night we played in an old cinema/theatre that has been converted into a performance space. Great sound there and a good turnout. Grey park opened for us which was a treat for me as I'm a big fan of theirs. Electronic synth doom at its best- very Grey Park...
The next day we drove through to Tampere for a show playing with Montage and Government Alpha from Japan. Despite the complete ineptitude of the sound guy this was perhaps my favourite show of the tour so far, certainly the most intense. Something to do with it being opened with blasts of Japanoise I guess. Wound up doing a really bizzare ed up version of 'Ain't got the in Wisdom' as a result of some crazy delay the sound guy put on my vocals- they were only coming through a good 2 secs or more after I'd sung them and the guitar was almost completely subsumed within totally earsplittingly loud hissy field recording. Actually can't wait to hear the recording of this. I started into the next song but the delay was totally wrong for this and I couldn't get the sound guy to turn it off (language??) and so got sorta ed off and abandoned song for an extreme noise piece with vocal chord shredding voice (will I ever sing again). Ultimately that worked really well- another lesson in the joys of working against adversity.
We finished up doing a group collaboration with the Japanese guys, Peter and myself. More full on noise. No wonder I can't hear properly since...
Wed 20 Dec.
So a whole bunch has happened with almost constant travel since the last update and no time for updating... Will do my best to catch up now. I'm in Tokyo now, writing on a free internet computer on the 4th floor of the Apple Store in Ginza.
Played a nice little quiet show in Oslo, the anthithesis of the previous noise blast in Tampere. Not a huge turnout but as the audience was largely composed of the members of DEL (who stayed with me in NZ a year or so ago) it was nice to catch up with friends. We flew down to Brussels the next morning, highlight of which was the for once incredible airline food put on by the Belgian airline. Included good chocolate and the 1st of what was to become an ocean of Belgian beers...
Caught the train into town to meet up with Christophe, the organiser/promoter for our gig. We had a while to wait and during this I went for a walk around part of the old town. This was pretty great for me as it was my 1st expereince of 'olde Europe', obviously this expeience was complicated by the fact that said olde Europe is also Europes major tourist attraction, but hey- it was cool to walk on cobbled streets amongst old buildings.
Christophe picked us up and drove us over to the venue to drop off our gear. This looked very unpromising at 1st, a seriously dark and dusty basement in an old building in what seemed the middle of nowhere. It was truely amazing how he managed to transform the place whilst Peter and I were off visiting the Lebenhour shop (amazing record store!), oggling the chocolate shops and their outrageous (and expensive!) displays, and eatting dinner (and drinking beer...).
The show itself was one of the quietest of the tour in terms of turnout (5 people..!), something of a disappointment there, but this made it intimate and it was a good performance from both of us I think. After the show we went out for Belgian 'French Fries' and more beer. We tried the 'Kriek' beer. This is made with cherries in the mix. It sounded like it would be bloody awful (cough syrup?) but was actually really subtle and delicious to the extent that we sort it out for the rest of our (short) time in Belgium. Our accomodation that night was with Christophe at his Mums place. At first this felt a little awkward and both Peter and I felt a little guilty when we found out because we'd been kind of insistent on staying out ordering more beers until the small hours. Christophe only broke this news to us when we got to the apartment building (I think he was perhaps embarressed) and she had been waiting up for us. Oops! It was actually really great staying there however as it gave us a glimpse of 'normal' everyday life in Belgium. This included an authentic Belgian breakfast the next morning of a range of breads, cheeses, cold meats and white chocolate spread.
We caught the train up to Antwerp the next morning. We found the Freaksendfuture shop and luckily for us Carlos arrived only 5 minutes after us. After a quick breakfast beer we left our gear there and went for a walk to look at castles and other Euro relics (I was getting a little jaded with historical edifaces already...). The show there was pretty great, much more 'punkrock' than the previous night and a full house/store. Pretty much everyone there was stoned (including the guy who delivered a pizza 1/2 way through one of the sets and couldn't believ his luck) which added to the haphazard chaos of the evening overall. Also playing were Arttu (from the Finnish band Avarus) and Leslie Keffer who did a great noise set.
We had to get up bright and early the next morning to catch a train back to Brussels and another from there to Paris. This was the start of the sleep deprived section of the tour... We caught the metro out to Robbespierre and the Instants Chiveres venue. It took us a bit of trawling up and down the road to finally find the place (during which the 2nd of the wheels on my tour case split...) but eventually we found the doorbell and were there. We were welcomed in and shown to our rooms.
We headed then into the city to be tourists and visit the Louvre (outside of it anyway...) and Notre Dam etc. I was really genuinely surprised by the scale of the buildings never having been to Paris before. I sometimes thing the very best form of tourism would be time travel. I would love to see these places as they were back in the day...
Really I can't be enthusiastic enough about Instants Chiveres and the folks running it. There is a set of apatments upstairs form their offices specifically for the artists playing there. Peter and I had our own rooms! A cook was employed to make us an amazing meal, we had one of the best sound guys on the desk that I've ever had and the person minding our merchandise table that night did such a greeat job that I practically sold out of CDs! The show itself was well attended and though I was a little disappointed with my own performance that night (my vocals were kinda ...) I think it went well overall. Peter and I did a collaboration as well. It was good to get the chance to do this. After the show several hours were spent around the bar chatting and we were introduced to the French penchant for analysis. It was cool to meet people who are prepared to engage with performances on this kind of level, you know that people have been listening when they are prepared to sit down with you and talk through the individual components of your show. Overall a successful night with new friends made.
Despite getting to bed in the wee hours we were up and again off to the train station first thing in the morning. Off to Grenoble this time. Managed to snooze a little on the train, or at least pretend to... France was turning out to be pretty great, the scenery on the trip was really amazing, beautiful coutryside with cool old farmhouses and small forests with the Alps getting ever closer. Grenoble itself is nestled in a y-shaped network of valleys between 3 mountains that shoot up like sheers stone blocks 1000s of meters over the city. Very dramatic. We were met at the station by Thierry Monnier (Sunstabbed/Metamkine) who took us to 'le 102'. This is a large squat that has been operating as a venue and gallery for decades, a great old building with winding precarious stairways.
French culture really is centred around the kitchen and we spent much of our time there sitting in this big old farmhouse style kitchen before the show chatting while people prepared food for the evening.
There was a really great sound-installation in a (freezin cold) upstairs room/gallery there that we checked out. One of the most successful installations I think I've seen. It involved light sensors, old stereo componentry and flash bulbs that were all wired together in such a way that ones movement through the room changed lighting patterns that in turn caused interference patterns in the radio static from a tower of radios that provided the audio component.
The show was really great. I had a few technical problems with an amp that kept interjecting with squeals of uncalled for feedback but it was one of those instances when the glitches actually add to the overall performance. I swear that I saw Peters best ever show that night as well, his last for the tour. He was truely on fire, stalking about the stage with his guitar like a wolf in a cage. Amazing! Sunstabbed did the support for us and this was another treat for me, great subtle and evocative guitar noise improv.
Sold out of CDs entirely after the show- what a great feeling! Then it was back to the kitchen for a dinner around the huge wooden table with a group of about 20. I was getting mildly stressed when dinner wasn't served until 2am (we had to get up at 7am to catch the train...) but it was a very nice and brilliantly French way to finish the evening.
Somewhat to my surprise we did manage to make the train, largely thanks to Thierry who despite having even less sleep than us managed to make it back down to drive us to the station in his car. Tried to sleep on the train again.
Said farewell to Peter in Paris. Was sad that the joint league of our tour was over, he was a great person to share all these shows and journeys with. (Thanks mate!)
I jumped on the metro (sleep walked is perhaps a better description...) and headed out to Brian Baxters place. Brian is a US film-maker based in Paris who kindly offered me a place to stay in Paris for my last night in the country. I had intended to catch up on some sleep but inevitably enough we just wound up talking all afternoon. Then we headed down to a big gig that was happening that night. Any other time I would probably have made my excuses and just hit the sack but as Jeffery and Miriam (from Black Forest Black Sea (who we stayed with in Providence) and Fursaxa were playing it seemed too good a show to miss. I also really liked the idea of catching up with them and closing the circle of the tour somewhat. Also playing were Phil Minton, members of Jackie O Motherer and The Magic Markers. This was my first time seeing the Markers and they really blew me away. I guess I was in the mood for some Dead C/Grey Daturas style rocking out. Great stuff but inevitably enough another very late night. Had the obligatory kebab on the way back to Brians place (this had become the tour norm- kebabs at 2am...), slept for 3 hours before the alarm went at 5am and I trundled off down the road to the metro to catch the train out to the airport and my flight to Japan...
Thurs 28 Dec.
So here I am, back in New Zealand, the vapour trail of the tour dissolving like smoke as I catch up on sleep at my parents beach house at Mangawhai Heads. Very strange to be suddenly in summer here after a month of winter.
So I had a great time in Tokyo - as expected. The show at Loopline was a great one to finish with, I had a ball and we got a really great turnout. I wonder though if the audience was a little surprised by the sudden change in the evenings tone that was hearlded by my performance. Everyone else had been so refined and subtle where as I've found my performances shifting away from the sound art sphere more towards a kind of ecstatic punk rock over the course of the tour. And I've insisted on doing songs as well...
It was great to see mhfs (Mark Sadgrove) do his thing in Tokyo. His performance was sublime, starting out with abstract electronics and shifting into a beautiful drone with whispered vocals at the end. Mitsuhiro Yoshimura and Takefumi Naoshimaat played an extraordinarily nuanced and subtle duo using playoff between barely distinguishable headphone feedback and chord organ. Analogic are a duo who make formal electronic noise music using the interference patterns between video and audio signals. They were all really great. Then I cam on with my songs and vocal/drone/noise spasms... We all went out for dinner and beer together and then we raced to catch the last train.
Anthony Guerra and I managed to get some recording done whilst I was staying with Aiko and him. This neccesitated the renting of a recording studio (anyone who has experienced both the scale and thinness of walls of Tokyo apartments will understand). We have an as yet unnamed duo that have at least 3 finished albums already (the debut cd will be out on Digitalis in 2007) and it was great to get some more recordings done. The cool thing about the studios in Japan is that they provide all the gear and so you have an option of what kind of amp you want to play through etc etc. We had to hide our beer in the corner and drink out of site of the video camera though...
The rest of my time in Tokyo was spent exploring the city, trying to not get too distracted by the fashion for ultra mini mini skirts, getting lost in the food sections of department stores, and doing some (expensive...) xmas shopping. The food displays are truely amazing, everything is packaged and presented like fine art in a gallery. I had no idea what most of the stuff was, a lot of it looked more like plastic than food, but it was truely amazing to explore.
My flight home was as dull and fraught with bad food at unusual hours as any other long haul flight. It was great to come out into the arrivals hall and meet up with Sara though. For the next few days I will be sleeping and trying to psyche myself up to go back to work...
Its been a great trip and I can't thank enough all those people who have helped out with shows and accomodation!!!!!!!!
Fri 6:07
Oct 27th, '06
Hi,
Have just released a couple of new things on PseudoArcana. First up is a 3" doenting With Throats As Fine As Needles in a live collaboration with Hong Kong duo New Fairfield Parks and Recreation at the White Noise store in Hong Kong. This is a long slow sifting drone trk made up of voice, organs, keyboards and guitars. It is limited to 80 copies (of which I have only 40) and is packaged in golden Chinese New Years celebration envelopes... NZ$10. Order via www.pseudoarcana.com .
The other new release is a disk of new A.M material recorded over the last couple of months in preperation for the upcoming tour. I've released it as an essentially 'tour only' release, but hey- I have a few copies lying about spare if anyone wants one... There are 2 pyche-droney compositions (one of them is the 'amstroke3dashfiftyfour' trk on my profile) and then a kick out the jams rocker to close out the album.NZ$15. Order via www.pseudoarcana.com .
Fri 7:34
Sep 29th, '06
Hi,
There are a whole bunch of new releases coming up soon...
A.M. 'Orla' should be out before the end of the year on the Finnish Ikuisuus label ( http://www.ikuisuus.net/ ) This is a collection of huge ecstatic droning organ pieces recorded using the Orla reed organ that Marcel Bear posted me back in 2004. (The biggest parcel I ever received by post...)
The Stumps (www.myspace.com/stumpsthe) have an LP called "Split Fleet Dodge" imminant. This will be the debut vinyl release for Stephen Clovers (seht...) Palindrone label. I will have copies available at www.pseudoarcana.com .
A new Sunken album (my duo with Stefan Neville (pumice)) is to be released very soon by Soft Abuse in the US.
Claypipe have a bunch of things coming up. First up is a split CD with The Blithe Sons and Finlands Pekko Kapi. This will be released by the Music Fellowship label in the US. The split is entitled 'Amazed Map'.
Following shortly after this will be a full length Claypipe cd titled "For the Creek Kaituna/Owhiro". This will be released by US label Ultra Hard Gel (who also have plans to reissue the earlier Claypipe material (the Jewelled Antler 3" and PseudoArcana lathe) as a cd sometime in 2007).
In fact Ultra Hard Gel seem to have become one of my primary sponsors! I have very nearly finished a new Antony Milton cd for early 2007 release. This album is based on recordings I made in Punakaiki on the South Islands West Coast in May 2005. Its a mixture of songs and instrumentals recorded on the beach and in the bush etc using 2 recording walkmans for overdubbing. So hissy yes- but I feel that I managed to capture the spirit of the place on these recs.
Next up on the same label will be a double CD of Nether Dawn recordings.
Also very nearly complete is a new Nether Dawn CD for Students of Decay, and the Agitated Radio Pilot/Nether Dawn lathecut LP on PseudoArcana should be done soon. This is kind of pathetic but its delay is simply down to my forgetting to ring Peter King and get the ball rolling. If only he used email the luddite!!
Sunken (my duo with Stefan Neville (pumice)) has a CD imminant on Soft Abuse (USA). This follows on from the self titled release on PseudoArcana and features a similar mix of organ drones, rickety tape loop constructions, mellow harsh noise(...), guitar sobbing and vocals. A pretty special album in other words!
A live Sunken recording will also appear on an upcoming Last Visible Dog compilation. Also on this compilation (the 1st in a new series planned by the label) will be a live recording that I did with Anthony Guerra in Sydney last year. This was one of those really surprising and special gigs- I was feeling really burnt out and over-tired (and virtually psychotic actually...) after a few nights of gigging and no sleep, I hadn't wanted to play at all and it all seemed really ed up even as we started but I think it wound up being one of the best shows I've ever been part of... It was very intense!
This as yet un-named duo also has a full CD coming out next year on Digitalis.
A Clay Man in the Well album called 'Kupe's Sail' is also complete and ready to roll. I am so pleased with this one that I have sent it off to some 'flash' labels in the hope of getting it released on a label with fantastic and prestigious distribution (...), but if it doesn't get picked up by these I will release it myself on PseudoArcana. This one was recorded over 2 days whilst on holiday in a house beneath Kupes Sail (a huge windswept rock on the Sth Coast of the North Island).
More Clay Man in the Well will appear shortly on Black Petal ( http://www.blackpetal.com ) . The trks in question were recorded in Leighton Craigs 'Kindling Studios' (his garage...) in August 2006. This will be a split disk with 2 trks from Leighton completing the album.
Whilst in Brisbane Leighton and I also went on a field trip to a nearby National Park. Being a NZer I was a little apprehensive about snakes as we tramped though waist high scrub and gr. Leighton reured me by telling me that all snakes would be hibernating at this time of year. Needless to say after several hours of such trampling we came across a huge carpet snake in the middle of the track on the way back to the car...
http://pseudoarcana.sphosting.com/nosnakes.gif
The trip yielded some great music however and it is planned that this will be released as one of a double 3" set on Kindling. (The other 3" was recorded on a similar trip in 2005).
I'm also working on new Mrtyu material and theres perhaps an albums worth of A.M material sitting here on my hard-drive...
A mail collaboration with Joe Tunis is also perhaps complete.
(Theres other stuff too but I'm sick of writing now!)
Fri 9:08
Aug 18th, '06
New Antony Milton cd on Deserted Village.
Hi,
There is a new CD of mine out on Irelands Deserted Village label.
I have copies available for NZ$20.
Antony Milton- 'The End of This Short Road'.
'The End of This Short Road' has been floating around in my box of tapes for
nearly 6 years now and is a real favourite of mine. This probably sounds a
bit wanky as its one of my own albums..! I recorded it on a 4 trk I borrowed off a friend shortly after returning to NZ in 2000. This was a few months before I started the PseudoArcana label, and given that my initial idea for PseudoArcana was for it to focus on harsher and more abstract musics the simple melodic folky songiness of 'Short Road' resulted in it sitting on the shelf for much longer than it perhaps should have.
The stuff I record under my own name is different (for me...) than that
which I record under umed names. It is far more intimate and for want of a better word 'honest'. Where as with A.M I'm wearing dark gles, and with Swagger Jack I'm wearing rose-coloured gles and a fake beard, as Antony Milton I'm not wearing gles at all...
There was a great poet who said of his work that all he had ever done was
write the same poem again and again, trying to get it right. I've sometimes
felt that I only have the one song inside me, and I've approached that song
from a hundred radically different angles and have ultimately become
convinced that this song can never in fact be realised in any definitive
way. But that one song is still there inside me and there are places on
'Short Road' where I think I come as close to realising that song as
anywhere.
'Day of the World'.
The 'straightest' song on the album, something of a hymn to death. I was 29
and just home from India and so it was written at a time when I was perhaps
overly conscious of all sorts of western cultural contradictions, most
especially those surrounding mortality. Through the writing of this song I
was attempting to inhabit the position of one who can accept death as a
natural and positive part of life. (A position I've never quite managed to
secure...)
'The End of This Short Road'
Its 'that song' again. A spontaneous improvised accompaniment to a
spontaneous ecstatic poem that I'd written a month or so earlier on my knees in a patch of gravel at Mangawhai Heads in Northland (NZ). Its about one of those most simple of mundane beautiful sun-in-the-eyes lonely times that one sometimes stumbles into when out on a walk, and has perhaps more tapehiss than any other track I've ever done..! (Come on, you KNOW there are voices in the hiss!)
'Hops'
A hoedown for violin and guitar.
'In Amongst the Ferns'
A small rattley pop-song. For one reason or another I don't smoke pot anymore. When I recorded this I was still an enthusiastic 'grow it
yourselfer'... Enough said!
'The Armchair (sprung)'
My girlfriends sister gave us an old computer when we came back to NZ and Idiscovered that it had some very basic recording software on it. This was my very first ever computer piece and used an old squeaky armchair as the soundsource.
'Dreams the Ridge'
This is one in what is something of an ongoing series of soundtracks for an
imaginary Western set in Central Otago. There's a huge blue sky, tussock,
and maybe a NZ falcon hunting down some prey.
'Fine Stems -& Drips Like Tears'
An escapee from the sessions for the 'Guitar Has Strings' album of guitar
explorations (released by Black Petal). It had more of a dreamy melodic feel than the rest of that album and so wound up being mastered onto this album instead. If 'Dreams the Ridge' was a racing falcons rush then 'Fine Stems'is a quiet time at dusk beside an icy reed lined stream.
'Distilled'
With this track I specifically set out to distil the core elements of 'that'
song in a formal way whilst still keeping its heart alive . In this version
its a sad 'pop song' stripped to the bare essentials.
'Skylight. Rusted. 7pm.'
A drone track for e-minor and bowed e string. I was recording in a big tin
shed (see below...), the sun had left the skylight dark and I was virtually
rigid with cold. Sometimes that semi-hypothermic state can be a form of
bliss.
'Track for the Larkings'
In a similar vein to 'Distilled' I was trying with this track to be as spare
yet evocative as I could be. Composed for a friends wedding (but ultimatelydiscarded by composer for want of cheerfulness- ha!).
'Could Be Killers Talk'
Many of the tracks on 'Short Road' were recorded in the upper story of a
large tin shed in Wellington that some friends and I were renting as a
studio off a car-grooming business downstairs. Our landlords were also
fairly well-known members of a local 'crime-family'. Shortly after this
recording was made the building was raided by the police searching for
evidence following the murder of a local drug dealer whom they had been
tipped off had been killed on the premises!
It had been obvious for a couple of weeks that something had happened dueto the arguments and general hubbub emanating from downstairs. One
particularly loud and quite audible debate was in progress whilst I was
recording this track (in fact it was largely to escape or at least subvert
this noise that I WAS recording...). I leant my electric guitar up against a
piece of steel framing and recorded this argument through the guitar and the
resulting reverby drone became the basis for this track.
'...(chairs)'
A not-so-hidden-track for the end of the disk. This was actually recorded 2 or 3 years later than the rest and is a short song recorded in my backyard
on a starry night bemoaning the daily grind of the academic life.
Antony Milton, 2006
Visit
www.pseudoarcana.comfor ordering details.
