brokenspheres

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New Broken Spheres Performance from.. - Petrichor - Can You Smell The Rain? The second artist/band I have been lucky enough to be working with on this explorative journey into immersive audio is Petrichor. A word that was not in my vocab until now; according to good old Wikipedia it is constructed from the Greek word 'Petra' meaning "the earthly scent that is produced from the ground once the rain has fallen". This could not have been a more befitting word of focus as on the day we turned up to Westraven Community garden to film we were met with the obstacle of crossing a mini-lake of rain water that had settled the night before. It had actually flooded the greenhouses on-site and caused a fair amount of havoc for the staff and volunteers at the community garden. But the floods were not going to stop us! A song had to be sung, a film had to be made and a day of fun had to be had! I actually had the pleasure of recording with a previous incarnation of Petrichor many moons ago. In fact they were one of the first bands that I ever recorded back around 2007 when I was trying to make sense of the world and what it is I was supposed to be doing with my life. I was overjoyed when they signed up for Broken Spheres. Westraven Community Garden is such a luscious space, the band chose the venue because of their historical connection with the place and the people involved in setting up the unique urban garden. This just made everything more special for me as a recordist and someone deeply interested in spatial sound0capture, field recording and the concept of 'endangered sounds'. Well enough said I think, please head over to the Tube that is YOU to check out the interview and immersive 360 performance of the song 'Blue Screen'. IMPORTANT STUFF TO MENTION: The performance can be watched on any computer or device. If watching on a computer or laptop you can literally click on the video and move the camera around. If watching on ipad, tablet or smartphone you can move the device around and it will move the camera - magic! However, the best way to watch the Broken Spheres performances is with a VR-type headset; that way you are WITH the band and will hopefully be completely immersed in a world of sound and joy. ALSO: the best way to watch the 360 performace on YouTube is in 1440sHD (that's pretty crucial). Enjoy. Go watch the interview and 360 performance here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysOaw3GX6BI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWdSa6bxVxk

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Live Inspiriting Immersive Performances: Late into the darkest quarter of last year I was elated and somewhat bemused to have received a grant from the Arts Council UK to aide me in ‘developing my own creative practice’ further.  For some unknown reason my instincts grabbed me by the cranium and tossed me into a world of 360 immersive video and ambisonic audio.   After a good chunk of research (i.e scroll-skim-scroll-skim), deliberation and a few mishaps along the way, I finally found some kind of formulae and method to working in this way and began to feel like I was getting some creativity back into my life! A brilliant producer once reminded me that you cannot be a good recording engineer/producer/mixer without a great singer or performer to do the business.  You also cannot rely on the microphones or preamps to get you through, yes they sound amazing but it is the artist performing in a space that they feel inspired in that is the key to capturing a great performance, both sonically and acoustically.  In this case, however, the equipment has been crucial for me to be able to capture each of these - in my opinion - goose- pimply performances.  I really want the listener/viewer to be able to put aside any notion that there is anything else there in the space with the performer, it’s just you and them, them and you! I want YOU to be able to pop and peer into someone else creative bubble and at the same time - with hop - you will inflate in and float off somewhere in your own. The prevailing winds have been blowing words like ‘isolation’ into our consciousness at this timeframe, and now the debris and dust seems to be settling (for better or worse, who can tell). I believe that there is true power in words. This particular word, ‘isolation’ and those associated with it and relevant to recent ongoing events are, I believe impacting on our behaviour both mentally and physically. To quote a personal influence of mine, Hazrat Inayat Khan, ’Those who understand from a psychological point of view the value of autosuggestion and the value of repetition, and how this works upon their body and their mind, are beginning to understand aspect of it’.   Here he is discussing the power of the ’Sacred Word’, he goes on to say, ‘But before them is a large world of sound and mystery which is still closed, because they do not know that by repeating one word or one thing this may bring about a particular result - it may bring about harm…” Broken Spheres is a collection of stirring and inspiriting musical moments, translated for us into one-time-only live performances, recorded and rendered during this most challenging and extremely significant time for humanity. I really hope you all enjoy the 1st inspiring performance by rising star, Chloe Lorentzen.  We recorded this with the permission of a very kind and giving family who allowed us to invade their house for a day and make use of their amazing Steinway baby grand piano. Once a great Dictator wished to tame some fleas by trapping them in a jar, the fleas tried to jump out of the jar of course, so the man put a lid on the jar, thus the fleas learned in time that if they tried to jump out of the jar they would not be able to escape, so they stopped jumping.  We will continue to jump out of the jar and be the free creative souls that we are. Watch the Interview here - https://youtu.be/m1KkFKjpte8 Watch the 360 performance here - https://youtu.be/m1KkFKjpte8 Broken Spheres will be an ongoing thing, p six you or anyone you know would like to take part please get in touch! - www.drip-dry.co.uk/broken-spheres. You can either watch on your desktop/laptop and use your mouse  to navigate around the sphere, or you can watch in VR (if you have some goggles) on your phone. You can also watch it without VR goggles or cardboard with a phone or large oblong-like device and move the device around in your hands. I also recommend watching the 360 performance in at least 1444HD or above for a more realistic experience.   Oh and wear headphones if you can! Thanks for watching. #brokenspheres #artscounciluk #peterborough #360 #immersive #ambisonic #dripdryproductions See and hear more of Chloe: Social Media Website Youtube

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Some shots from todays Broken Spheres immersive recording session with @chloelorentzen

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