jezebelportfolio-blog

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ID Pic

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0-2.25-excerpts from my aurum ep

2.25-2.55-an experiment using the esx24 sampler in Logic pro using field recordings.

2.55-340-collaborative piece.

3.40-4.10-unfinished song ‘bjalla’ I wanted to make a dance song with bells, inspired by ‘psyche rock’ by Pierre Henry.

4.10-5.00-excerpt from unfinished experimental track, using opposing sonic textures.

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Artist statement

I have always been around music, my parents where in experimental bands while I was growing up and I got fed strange music like The Residents, music from Warp records and Bjork. I am a self confessed music geek,  I must of seen hundreds of bands, I used to DJ in Liverpool every week, in between and after bands, and so was always on the hunt for new interesting music to play.

I have had no real music tuition, i'm self taught on saxophone from playing in a punk band, and a comedy tv theme covers band, a basic self taught drummer, and i'm teaching myself keys and I think anyone can be a vocalist if they have the confidence,  I'm interested in developing vocals as an instrument like Tanya Taqak, Meredith Monk and Diamanda Galas.

I want to understand more of music theory as I feel to be able to subvert ideas properly you need to know the idea in the first place, I feel i've hit a brick wall with my music at the moment and I need to know more about basic music theory to progress. I have been trying really hard over the last few years to learn logic pro and to compose some pieces of music.

I feel like theres something inside me I need to express, to purge it, but I don't have the skill level to satisfy this feeling at the moment, its something I want to dedicate a lot of time to and this course looks like it fill a lot of gaps in my knowledge and spur on my progress. The kind of music or art I like is something that provokes a reaction or emotional response in the audience, whether that be anger, sadness, disgust or joy...if something is in the middle of the road or you have no response to it then I don't see the point. I think music is the most effective medium for engaging and provoking feelings and urges and is the closest thing to real life magic that there is.

I've lived in Brighton before for a year,  and lived in a house with some students from the Digital Music and Sound Art course I remember them coming home with circuit-bent Furbies and other excellent oddities, and I remember them thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Up until the last couple of years I haven't t really had the confidence in myself to make my own music and have been playing in other people projects with varying amounts of input. The fog has now cleared and really want to learn skills in composition and technology to be able to progress artistically, and especially develop my skills as a live artist, using sound installations and making music videos. I am interested in trying to progress to a career in music production or sound design for films and art but this isn't the be all end all,  I have never been interested in having lots of money or a career I'd much rather be satisfied in my own creative endeavours.

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Microcosm of the Heart - An overview of the album 'Vespertine' by Bjork.

Bjorks music career is remarkable, she has made a significant contribution to contemporary music with her idiosyncratic approach to composition, recording, live performances, and groundbreaking multi-media projects. Her career began with an early classical music training, her rise as a child star, and later emergence as a major player during the revolutionary ferment of the punk era in the Icelandic underground scene. Bjorks extraordinary voice began to reach a wider audience through collaborations with the raucous, experimental noise outfit 'kukl' and New Wave, provocateurs, 'The Sugarcubes', she then went on to develop her current, highly acclaimed solo career.

Bjork's unique background and talents are perhaps most succinctly demonstrated in her fourth solo album 'Vespertine'. This album marks a midway point in her career, where she changed direction from the pop orientated, explosively expressive 'maximalistic' vocal style, pulsating, brash synth lines and big beats of 'Homogenic' and 'Post', to a much more intimate sound that was composed on a laptop and designed to suit the format of downloaded music.

The attention to detail in the compositions was minute, and featured lots of string instruments and a choir as a contrast to the intricate digitally programmed micro-beats and samples. The sonic textures have a more crisp, refined feeling than previous albums, evoking frost and ice. A dazzling tapestry of shimmering, delicate textures, punctuated by the cutting precision of Zeena Parkin's Harp melodies and the rousing warmth of the Inuit choir.

The working title for album was 'Domestica' as Bjork wanted to make record based on ''everyday moods and everyday noises translated into rhythm and beats'' (Pytilk, 2003) and evoke the feeling of home as a safe untouchable paradise. She set out to create the same mood as when you 'have the patience to sit down and read a book ' (Bjork, miniscule 2007) and how it feels to listen to music through headphones, as the sounds are 'quiet, indoors and wrapped up boxes.'(miniscule). She began recording everyday noises from around her house using ordinary objects as a 'non instrument-instrument' (miniscule) and scoured sound libraries for any sound that was 'tiny' and then asked experimental electronic band 'Matmos' on board to expand on her work. Matmos specialise in using unconventional methods of recording and manipulating sound. Contact mic-ing a shaver to record a head being shaved. Using the sound of ice cracking to make rhythms and flowers opening to use as 'micro-beats'. The aim was to create a 'microcosmos of 30 or 40 beats'.(Bjork, miniscule). Bjork's approach seems obsessively detailed and detached, yet as the album evolved, the highly charged sensuality of her lyrics and vocalisations transform the compositions into an extraordinary exploration of love and sensuality. The effect is one of intense magnification, zooming into the parts of sound that are not usually heard, the parts of soul that are too fragile to share. The delicate sounds creating an extraordinary, glacial mesh that frame Bjork's incredibly moving vocals. The intimacy and viscerality of the vocals feel just as intense as the challenging, confrontational style of KUKL, in the sense that and she manages to make the expression of openness and vulnerability as potent as punk.

References-

'Miniscule' documentary about vespertine, 2007

Bjork:wow and flutter by Mark Pytilk, 2003

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performance of my first ep ‘aurum’.  

https://aurum13.bandcamp.com/releases

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work in progress test footage , music video for ‘notnow’

This will be part of a bigger live piece, where our dancer will be conducting the music using pre determined movements and shapes.

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some photos from performances with The Mekano Set, where I am playing sax, vocals, keys and bass.