Rod Cooper's instruments

I'd forgotten how cool Rod's instruments sound. Saw him perform in Wagga a couple of times and have been meaning to hear his work on the Rogue soundtrack.

Rare Speak and Spell back cover

This Texas Instruments Speak & Spell possesses a rare component, one which anyone who has ever looked at secondhand Speak & Spell units would appreciate. This Speak & Spell unit has an intact battery cover.

The device works but soon I hope to make it work in way not intended by Texas Instruments by creating some new connections.
 

Covered

These images were taken at The CAD Factory's night of short performances at Wagga Wagga Art Gallery last weekend for the Uncovered exhibition. I've begun editing my video footage and am thoroughly enjoying revisiting the event.

Psst

Have you seen my SHOCKING guest blog post at The Walk to Work?

Love your pitch

Fisher Price clock

Recently I treated myself to a Barcus-Berry piezo microphone and tried it out on this Fisher Price clock I've been meaning to record for a while. Listening back to it now I can hear there's too much compression, just listen to way the sound is slapped down after each tick.

Great digging

Secondhand Sureshots from Sanchir Enkhbayar on Vimeo.

Don't Look Bach

Here's my track for the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud this week.The instructions were:

Disquiet Junto Project 0036: Still Life

The painter Clyfford Still (1904-1980) was one of the great practitioners of abstract expressionism. The Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, Colorado, not only houses a wealth of his works, it also has on display artifacts from Still's daily life and practice, such as his smock, his old paint cans — and his record collection. These records, displayed behind glass, include pieces by Wagner, Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach, among others, and they're accompanied by a small note: "Clyfford Still was passionate about music, particularly classical music. Shown here are several samples from his record collection." In this week's project we're going to take that word "sample" literally.

There's an interesting question inherent here about matters of aesthetic influence: how it is that the man who painted such massive and graphically evocative works was, in fact, listening to music far more figurative than the art he himself produced? The goal of this week's Disquiet Junto project is to take a shared sample of the sort of music that Still loved — a 78rpm recording of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, II. Andante — and turn it into something that might be deserving of the term "abstract expressionism."

So, the instructions for this week are as follows:

Step 1. Please select part of this MP3 of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, II. Andante:

http://goo.gl/XqBvb

Step 2. Then transform that sample, through any methods you desire, into something that you feel meets the definition of "abstract expressionism" provided by the Clyfford Still Museum: "marked by abstract forms, expressive brushwork, and monumental scale."

You cannot add any sounds to the sample, but you can manipulate the sample in any way you see fit.

Deadline: Monday, September 10, at 11:59pm wherever you are.

Length: Your finished work should be between 2 and 10 minutes in length.

Information: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto.