31.12.11 - DAY 365 - Keeping It Free Range

Listen (and/or download for free) now on Bandcamp 

So here we are. The last song of the Song A Day For A Year project. I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who collaborated on the project over 2011 and anyone who came along to the Black Box gig last night. It's been a pretty fucking awesome year to be honest. I can't possibly summarise in words all the amazing creative experiences I've had and how much doing this project has enriched my creative abilities and general sense of wellbeing, but like, yea, ummm... it has! One nice thing is that I can listen to any song of this project and it will immediately transport me back to that day and where I was and what I was doing: Just like a really abstract audio diary. I'd hate to lose my memory and forget what I was doing 15 minutes ago, like Leonard in Memento. That movie was really cool! I've seen it about 20 times. How cool is Guy Pearce? "I guess I'm chasing this guy... No, wait, he's chasing me" Class. Wait, what was I talking about before? (ho ho ho)

Aye, I'm babbling. Anyway. This track basically represents the apprehension I had at doing something DRAMATIC AND EPIC AND OH MY GAWD! THANKS EVERYBODY!! HEY LET'S CELEBRATE MY AWESOMENESSNESSNESS... Because I pretty much did all of that last night at the Black Box gig. .... However, this track does contain a large portion of the jam we had at the gig last night (after midnight) which was recorded by the splendid Michael Sampson. The recording was made at the venue, specifically to be used in today's song, so that everyone at the gig could contribute to the very last song of the project. As far as I'm concerned, this worked out really well. There were 14 people on stage and about 70 people in the audience.

I am weary of listing you all, because I know that I'll end up leaving someone out and I'll never be able to forgive myself, but I'll try via the medium of Adam Mc Causland's rather lovely photo of us all on stage

Stephen Caswell, Michael Sampson, Stevie Mac, Geoff Hatt, Dave Boden, Dominic O'Neill, Chris Allen, Niall Kelly, Tony Furnell, ARGH Sorry, don't know your name, but you're a friend of Dan Leith's, Dan Leith, Ursula Burns, Meeeeeeeeee, Owen Boden, Steve Mc Cann.

Stevie Mac made the simple and clever suggestion that we all picked a note and played it together: That way it wouldn't just end up a cacophonous mess! Towards the end, I encouraged the audience to participate too, so you're all in the recording also!

Right now, I'm sipping a glass of wine, picking at a wholesomely greasy chicken breast and gravy chips.  In about 5 minutes I'm gonna go downstairs and watch a movie with my boyfriend and probably ignore the midnight countdown, because I don't really give a fuck. HA!

However. I wish you all the best in 2012 and once again, a massive thanks to you all for listening, being involved or taking an interest in this project.

Until next time!! :)

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

15.12.11 - DAY 349 - PhorkA2a (ft. 9j3a4k2a)

Listen (and/or buy) now on Bandcamp

A very spontaneous improvised performance for tonight's SADFAY. A collaboration with the ridiculously talented Olan Stephens & Michael Speers who perform as 9j3a4k2a. http://9j3a4k2a.bandcamp.com/

Olan also plays guitar and sings in the frankly, rather lovely EatenByBears, who'll be playing their last gig of 2011 on Saturday 17th December at the Windsor Tennis Club. http://eatenbybears.bandcamp.com/

Making this track was immensely fun. The lack of concern or dialogue about what we should do and how it should play out, was refreshing: The drum kit was miked up by Olan and Michael, Olan and I set up our gear and we went for a take. ... And it was good! Olan: guitar. Michael: drums. Me: piano & Kaoss pad. I hope I get the chance to jam with these guys again soon!

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

28.11.11 - DAY 332 - Slacker

28.11.11 - DAY 332 - Slacker by SADFAY

Bandcamp issues tonight, so tonight's song has been uploaded to Soundcloud.

My everything hurts. Some buzzing and tape delay for ya.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

11.05.11 - DAY 131 - Phuzz City Five

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Kaoss Pad One Take Wonder. OK. Gotta go now. Byeeeeeeeeeee....

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

07.04.11 - DAY 97 - Palms

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Today's been pretty busy and pretty stressful. I haven't had a chance to put a lot of time into SADFAY, so I've gone for another, Kaoss-Pad-One-Take-Wonder! Today's theme: Ain't Money A Bitch? Damn Straight! I iz tired of workin' for nuthin' be-atch!! ... And so forth.

This one is very much like "I can" from the other day. I apologise for the very obvious similarities / lack of new ideas, but you know, the Red Nex / Lou Bega / Eifel65 / 2Unlimited / were allowed...

Anyway, I want a chilled beer and a cigarette right about now.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

16.03.11 - DAY 75 - I Don't Normally Expose Myself To My Parents / Chilli Sprinkles

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Today's masterpiece features members of the QUBe (Queens University Belfast ensemble). The QUBe is a forum for improvisation and experimentation. Or as some of us like to coin it: "We steal good music and make it worse!"

Conor Barry, Dave Stockard, Andy Harrison, Caroline Pugh, Paul Stapleton and myself all contributed to this piece, along with the general background noise ambience of the Parlour Bar, Elmwood Avenue, where the majority of this was recorded. Additional sounds, percussion and effects recorded at Studio23, Dunmurry.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

15.03.11 - DAY 74 - HHHHWWWhoopah!

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Niall Kelly is nuts. Martin Byrne is very sick, indeed. This is a two layer live performance. It incorporates V-Drums, vocals and lots of processing via Kaoss Pad and VST plugins. Very marginal post-editing (fades and levels). This is truly the deep sub conscious outpourings of our Cyborg-selves.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

12.03.11 - DAY 71 - Cascades

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Another spin on those "Spinning Plates" - the Ableton Live set up of loopers and effects I've created. I spent a bit of time this evening experimenting with ways to automate the recording of my voice so that I could create a "cascading" effect with the loopers, i.e. timing the record state to kick in on each looper, one after another. And I mean "experimenting" in the traditional, scientific sense (at least G.C.S.E. level of science anyway), where I documented my aims, my experiments, problems, solutions and so on. Finally discovered there was a way to achieve what I wanted and I played with that approach to the set up, then allowed myself to improvise over around it with my controller (the Korg Nano Kontrol is such a great wee piece of kit). Feel this set up is at a point where I could easily turn up at a gig and create a decent range of improvised vocal music for the length of a performance. ... Which is nice...

Also, as schmaltzy as this will read, I want to dedicate this song to the friends that are there for me and who nurture and encourage me in both my creative ideas and in who I am. I just feel there is a time to stop and recognise how fortunate I am to have some really fucking brilliant friends who make me feel valued and who I hope are aware of how much I truly value them too.

Right. Enough of that sort of thing. I'm getting all emotional here...

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

10.03.11 - DAY 69 - Spinning Plates Part 4

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Another live vocal performance thang today. I cheated a little and prepared some of my vocal loops before I hit record, so perhaps one could argue that it's not 100% live. Though the final thing you're hearing was all performed and recorded in one take.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

09.03.11 - DAY 68 - Spinning Plates Part 3

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Another live vocal piece using my "Spinning Plates" approach to looping in Ableton. Recorded at the studio tonight, I've updated the set up to include the Kaoss Pad and I'm now controlling all the midi parameters in Ableton with my Korg Nano Kontrol. These two new ingredients give more options for layering and makes things a hell-of-a-lot easier to perform with. Synching the Kaoss Pad with Ableton was tricky though, as my laptop refuses to communicate with it via USB (crappy Windows drivers strike again!) But I always like a bit of the "punk" ethic of having to wing it.

More sketchpad doodles + Pixlr colouring with the difference tonight being that the image was photographed and transferred to the computer (my scanner is at home).

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

08.03.11 - DAY 67 - Spinning Plates Part 2

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Carrying on from yesterday's track, I decided to make another live vocal piece that is based on my set up in Ableton, that I'm now going to call "Spinning Plates" (not a reference to Radiohead).

Still toying with the idea of dedicating this week to vocal / a capella pieces.

My set up in Ableton is quite fun! It is made up of multiple "Looper" plugins, with a midi controller assigned to certain parameters so that I can switch between each looper track and re-record into them as I perform live. I call it "Spinning Plates" because of the way I switch between the different looper tracks: Re-recording into them is like making them spin again. My motivation to keep the whole performance interesting was to keep updating the looper tracks, so that nothing stayed the same for too long (and became boring). I guess I'm always trying to find the balance between repetition and change when I'm doing these kind of live performances.

As for today's image: It's more sketch book doodling and Pixlr colouring.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

05.03.11 - Did You Get My Note... Fuck Head?!

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Today's track is a live improvisation performance from the members of The Hypraxis Index, who are entities from the Holographic 2-Dimensional In Between.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

06.01.11 - gOOSE jOY gEMIMA fLAKES

Listen now on Bandcamp (stream)

So today's offering is the first SADFAY collaboration! Today I've teamed up with the wonderfully patient and willing purveyors of experimentalism and madness, Hexxed, who kindly let me conduct them through a 3-part-semi-structured composition with guitar, bass, electronic drums and Kaoss Pad up here in my studio.

The guys had themselves a good chinwag about future Hexxed plans afterwards, while I did some tweaking, mixing and fiddling with the final takes we recorded. (I also covertly recorded the guys waffling away and inserted a bit of this into the track too.)

Once again, this was a slightly rushed affair, where I am just uploading the .wav to Bandcamp and the .mp3 to Sendspace at 23:12. Nail biting stuff.

Hope y'all like it anywho!

Cheers ^_^