Very happy to present the new album from A Shadow. Following on from the Ebb and Flow EP released earlier this year, A Shadow's debut album 'When all is said and done, what is left to say and do' delivers hauntingly serene sonic landscapes that envelop and transport. The electronically processed textures of guitars and other chamber instruments combine with glacial melodies to create a sense both of human pathos and machine-crafted elegance.
A Shadow:
From an early age Keith experimented with recording,using cheap tape recorders to capture songs and instrumental music with his acoustic guitar. Keith progressed to incorporate all manner of stringed and percussion instruments coupled with any guitar pedals or sound processing gear he could manage to get his hands on. After studying composition for a number of years he began combining this broader instrumental palette with more advanced recording and sound manipulation techniques and more developed and unique compositional voice. The sound world he creates is founded on the combination of minimal instrumental material and dense processed textural layers in slow moving progressions. The influence of the music of artists such as Fennesz, Colleen, Fabio Orsi and Tim Hecker can be felt in A Shadow’s music.
Beautiful mix from A Shadow, weaving together influences that span drone, contemporary classical and electronica. All have a shared interest in texture and feature a carefully considered development of sparse and delicate musical material.
A Shadow's debut album 'When All Is Said And Done Whats Left To Say And Do' is out tomorrow (Fri 11 Nov) on Second Square To None.
Interesting new paper by Shane McKenna talking about graphic notation as a teaching method. Anyone who has taken part in his compelling performances in the Bernard Shaw or previous SSTN events, where he encourages group participation in extemporaneous music creation, will have an idea of what he is talking about here. He facilitates these group performances with inventive graphic video cues, giving structure to the piece yet encouraging individual interpretation and experimentation.
Will definately be doing my best to make it to this. Heavy, dark music approached from the different perspectives of dirgey hardcore, abrasive electronics and menacing hiphop, all in one night, deadly.
Interesting program for the next Free State concert by the Crash Ensemble that includes SSTN-friend Amanda Feery with a great piece for bass clarinet called 'Rattle'. You can hear this piece below performed by Paul Roe.
Crash Ensemble continues its commitment to showcasing the work of Ireland’s brightest composers in Free State VI, paying homage to new talent in this annual concert.
For one night only, the Irish Museum of Modern Art will play host to a full spectrum of Irish contemporary talent, ranging from Judith Ring’s ‘Up to My F-holes’ for solo cello and tape to Andrew Hamilton’s ‘Music for People Who Like Art’ for full ensemble and soprano. This concert will also feature the world premiere of a new piece by Dan Trueman, specially commissioned for Free State VI by Crash Ensemble.
It's on Friday 1 April, 2011 at IMMA with tickets €20/15. IMMA works really well as a venue for Crash stuff, Rothko Chapel sounded great out there.
We featured Zvuku awhile back in our Strings Series and he now has a new EP out on Heat Death Records. Full of beautiful post-minimalist drones and ambient textures, this collection is well worth checking out. It is released on 15 March and you can pre-order now on bandcamp.
Thanks to all who came down to the launch gig last night.
Consisting of two familiar faces on the Irish music scene, Herv and Meljoann, the Gland & Conduit project is an experiment in free form sound design, electroacoustic composition and brain-cleansing noise. Standing in stark contrast to their respective solo output (melodic breakcore blasts / squishy R'n'B flavoured electronica), yet retaining a distinct impression of these two musical voices working in harmony, "Ore" is a half hour journey through fragmented, distorted sonic environments.
Second Square to None are proud to present the new project from Herv and Meljoann: Gland & Conduit's debut album, "Ore". To celebrate its release we are hosting a launch gig in The Joinery, Stoneybatter, Dublin 7 on Thursday 24 February. Support will come from Brian Conniffe and Suzanne Walsh, with SSTN resident Fyodor warming things up. Admission is €6. The gig starts at 8pm, make sure to get down early for maximum sonic delight.
Withering Zithering is a recording / improvising project based around the music of home-made zither instruments played with a variety of extended techniques.
Meditative, somber music, made for late night listening, staring out the window and general elsewhereness.
Withering Zithering began experimenting with extended techniques as a teenager, which eventually led to creating custom stringed instruments to suit his needs. A debut release is planned for release later in 2011, until then a selection of improvisations, miniatures and sketches can be heard on www.soundcloud.com/withering-zithering.
LAUNCH PARTY // FRIDAY 18th, Murray's Basement, O'Connell St.
The excellent Ghetto Quietly imprint returns with another gig that makes this article writer want to shake off that winter hibernation shroud and makes some dance excuses.
The line up is completed by the following acts, who promise to bring fun to the dance, grime to match the venue's grim and bouncing crunch mash to mix your metaphors with. Go to this if you want to have a good time.
10-11pm BLUEFOOD - liveset of violent couch music.
11-12am DJ ANTHROPE - reddie will be mixing up loads of new kudurobass and soca rhythym
12-2am PRINCE KONG (liveset) and LADYGREW (live show) HEADLINE!
2-3am SIXFOOT APPRENTICE ( live ) kaboogies frontman wellies out party bass and mash up.
Bottles of Buckfast available // pitchers of beer // big smoking section outside. A measly €5 before 10
Artist: Seefeel
From: England and Japan
Track: Dead Guitars
Album: Seefeel
Label: Warp
From: Sheffield
Year: 2011
Notes: formed in the early 90s and stopped the project in 1997, reforming in 2008 with Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock being joined by Shigeru Ishihara (Dj Scotch Egg) and former Boredoms drummer Iida Kazuhisa (E-Da) on bass and drums respectively.
Second Square to None are proud to present Gland & Conduit's debut album, "Ore". To celebrate its release we are hosting a launch gig in The Joinery, Stoneybatter, Dublin 7 on Thursday 24 February. Support will come from Brian Conniffe and Suzanne Walsh, with SSTN resident FYODOR warming things up. Admission is €6. The gig starts at 8pm, make sure to get down early for maximum sonic delight. Bring your own body odour!
Consisting of two familiar faces on the Irish music scene, Herv and Meljoann, the Gland & Conduit project is an experiment in free form sound design, electroacoustic composition and brain-cleansing noise. Standing in stark contrast to their respective solo output (melodic breakcore blasts / squishy R'n'B flavoured electronica), yet retaining a distinct impression of these two musical voices working in harmony, "Ore" is a half hour journey through fragmented, distorted sonic environments.
Traces of circuit bent toys mingle with glitching synth drones and a spidery rhythm track on opener "Anal Duct Nodding", while "Pulling" sounds like R2-D2 might after having been dropped in a bath of sulfuric acid. Amid the noise lurks fragments of melody and rhythms you could almost tap your foot to. "Tanning" is a prime example of this, with splattered Amen breaks making a brief appearance among sampled pots and pans and collective-unconscious synchronising high frequency synths. This is sharp edged music, no doubt, and the wasabi palette cleanser analogy holds true: Gland & Conduit will grab your attention, scrub out the bad influences of overheard radio music and leave you feeling fresh and alert.
"Ore" will be available through the Gland & Conduit subsite for free or pay-what-you-can download on 24 February.
Conjuring sonic waves from a calmer part of the ocean, Brian Conniffe and Suzanne Walsh will entrance the listener with evocative musical shadowplay.
Brian Conniffe is a cross-genre, experimental musician who has worked with a long list of collaborators including Nurse With Wound and Martin A. Egan, his work directly stating inspiration from such non-musical sources as hypnosis, linguistics and ritual magick, making for a style which fuses the darkest psychedelia with disquieting ambience.
Suzanne Walsh is a multi-disciplinary artist, musician and writer, who both writes, sings and collaborates with different artists including E+S=B, Gavin Prior and Aine O'Dwyer amongst others, as well as studying fine art in the National College of Art and Design. She is interested conceptually in playing with both how music is written and performed as a vocalist, and exploring the boundaries between styles, while puzzling over how exactly one might mend the Cartesian Split.
FYODOR
Square Waves Radio host and turntablist FYODOR, a.k.a. Fionn Wallace, and the "FY" in noise duo FYED will be warming The Joinery's main room with a DJ set. Check out his weekly show on UCD radio for a fascinating mix of local and exotic musics ranging from freak folk to Gamelan.
...Bernard Clarke meets Ed Devane and talks about Stop/Run - Ed's project of home-made instruments, commissioned composers, and the startling results at the Severed Head Gallery in Dublin.
Other podcasts and show archives at http://www.rte.ie/lyricfm/nova. You can also stream Ed's interview here if the above html5 player does not work in your browser.
Mentioned previously, the Miserithan EP by Rory St John is now available to purchase from Bandcamp. Tight, kinetically propulsive grooves that will appeal to techno purists and casual listeners of the genre alike.
Artist: Sebastien Roux
From: Paris, France
Track: The Harp and Contrabass Song
Album: Songs
Label: 12k
From: Brooklyn New York
Year: 2006
Notes: Roux works at the research and coordination institute for acoustic music in Paris, creating customized tools for composers using Max/MSP, he composes music for radio and film and also regularly collaborates with Greg Davis and others. His most recent releases are collaborations with Sogar and Vincent Epplay. A track from the latter I will play later in the show.
Swarm Intelligence productions keep going from strength-to-strength. Check out this recent set on Mantis Radio for quality twitchy broken beat and jagged industrial flavours, tasty stuff.
Evan (The Confused Eclectic) runs a great show on Space Invader Radio called Eclectism that I recommend ye all check out. The selections are definitely appropriate to the name with music from such diverse acts as Scuba, Ben Frost, The Bug and Godspeed You Black Emperor featuring in his latest show. He also includes a tasty selection of homegrown music, such as (ulterior motive alert) in his most recent show when he gave new SSTN release A Shadow a spin.
Another great mix, collecting stuff that I loved in 2010 and some I missed. Lots of shuffling two-step and bass-orientated electronica. Also, if you have an account, favourite the mix on Mixcloud to help send Eomac to Bloc.
Beautiful ambient electronics from Linda Buckley out on Irish contemporary classical label Ergodos. Luscious textures of processed sound languidly unfold into delicate forms of light and shade. Available on bandcamp for a mere €3.
Artist: United Bible Studies
From: Ireland
Track: The Lowlands of Holland
Album: The Jonah
Label: Camera Obscura
From: Austrailia
Year: 2009
Notes: : constantly changing collective of Irish musicians mainly based in Dubin, the usual players are Aine O'Dwyer, David Colohan, Gavin Prior, Ivan Pawle (2), James Rider, Michael Tanner, Richard Moult and are involved in loads of other groups such as Agitated radio Pilot, Plinth, Toymonger, Boys of Summer. Visit Bandcamp to download the excellent The Kitchen Session ep.
Second Square to None is proud to announce the release of A Shadow ‘Ebb and Flow’
It features three tracks of high-quality ambient post-rock/electronica that bring to mind acts such as Fennesz, Stars of the Lid, Colleen & Tim Hecker.
‘A Shadow’ is Dublin-based musician Keith Murphy. From an early age Keith experimented with recording, using cheap tape recorders to capture songs and instrumental music with his acoustic guitar.
Keith progressed to incorporate all manner of stringed and percussion instruments coupled with any guitar pedals or sound processing gear he could manage to get his hands on. After studying composition for a number of years he began combining this broader instrumental palette with more advanced recording and sound manipulation techniques and a more developed and unique compositional voice.
The sound world he creates is founded on the combination of minimal instrumental material and dense processed textural layers in slow moving progressions. The influence of artists such as Fennesz, Colleen, Fabio Orsi and Tim Hecker can be felt in A Shadow’s music.
Keith also performs with the Dublin based band ‘The Eclectic’ who have released two EPs and are currently working on their debut album.
Hot off the press, some very very bleak dark ambient from Conchúir O' Drona, a.k.a. From The Bogs of Aughiska, and one half of relative spectrum-opposite duo Drugzilla.
Taking inspiration from his west-Clare surroundings, with a pinch of mythology and bucketloads of Grim, this debut emits a heavy, cold fog of doom.
Take a listen to the standout track ""The Great Sea Stack at the Cliffs of Moher" on his Facebook page.
We have been eagerly anticipating a monster set of mutant electronics from Sunken Foal for awhile and this release absolutely delivers. Sinewy synths and gnarled beats combine with glassy tones, twisted samples and acid squelches to form a captivating mix of floor-movers and lyrical electro-acoustic passages.
Galway-based Alkalinear Recordings, run by Jimmy Penguin and Ventolyn and Becotyde offer a day's worth of free music, ranging from turntable-formed hip hop to richly textured IDM...check it!
This Strings Series installment comes from Belfast/London duo Partial Gathering who here combine classical instrumentation with digital processing to create a timbrally rich piece full of ominous intent.
Tell us a little about your musical background ie influences, formative experiences, bands you play/played in
In my teens, I was completely taken with rock music by Fugazi, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Led Zeppelin and electronica artists like Aphex Twin; I became fixated with the equal weight of melodies and feedback. When I began my BMus I was introduced to the world of contemporary classical and electroacoustic music and quickly married the noise, dissonance and consonance of the two fields in my mind. I had been an orchestral violinist and following my graduation from a BMus at Queen’s University in Belfast I began playing electric violin for a prog-folk rock outfit, Catoan. I went on to start an interdisciplinary arts project with fellow Catoan-ites called The Summer Experiment which ran for two years in Belfast before moving to London to start my Masters in Compostion at the Royal College of Music. I’ve been gradually forging a blend of improvisation, rock noise, lush harmony and colourful timbre which Partial Gathering has been a major outlet for. Meeting Coco had a huge impact on my musical thinking; such a phenomenal cellist with a strong background in avant-garde and baroque music. In so many respects the opportunity to be part of a creative partnership with this dynamic has become one of my most formative experiences as a composer and performer to date.
Ed Devane is will be appearing on Nova (9-10pm, Lyric FM) this Sunday, talking with Bernard Clarke about the recent Stop/Run show. For my money one of the best shows on radio, Nova consistently features a diverse range of fascinating music that traverses all manner of genres, blurring distinctions between contemporary 'classical' music and other experimental modes of expression, while also keeping a keen eye on the contemporary music scene in Ireland.
On this week's Nova an amazing dip into the world of the Toy Piano-hear Margaret Leng Tan in Cage, Griswold, Twining and Crumb. Music too from Terry Riley, Roxanne Turcotte, Erik Satie; and finally a chat with Ed Devane about his recent curatorial and custom-instrument building role in the Stop Run exhibition before Christmas.
The mighty !Kaboogie point the way again with another quality sampler from the best of Irish electronic production. In typically inimitable !Kaboogie fashion there is a great mixture of experimental dancefloor bass styles on offer here. Currently listening and everyone here has surpassed themselves with this one: get it now for free.
Abrasive textures, thundering beats, eerily dissonant melodies, arrangements full of unexpected dynamic shifts; all combined with contrary genius*. Yes, Ed has some new tunes out on Takeover Records that really deserve to be played as loud as possible. Features vocals by Scurvy Lass (Niamh de Barra) also.
Bit last minute with this, but if you're about town tonight this should be good. Features a really great visual music piece by Jane Cassidy amongst other things.
We were very privileged to put out Niamh de Barra's debut EP, Cusp, in 2010. A couple of very nice people saw fit to mention it in end of the year round-ups and we are much obliged to them for the support:
You can still get Cusp as a pay-what-you-want download (including for €0.00, we won't hold it against ya) on Bandcamp. We're looking forward to more great music from Niamh this year.
Both Eomac and A-Force (!Kaboogie) have been interviewed by bassmusicblog.com about their views on the local scene in Ireland. It's a testament to the vibrancy of music here that they have plenty of quality stuff to big up. Also, thanks to Eomac for giving us a mention!
Check out the mix that Eomac did for them (above) also.
As a special New Years present Cignol has a new EP out on Alphabet Set for free download.
5 tracks of expertly crafted cinematic electronica with a slighly sinister edge from cignol, PLUS 3 top notch remixes from, volitune, eutechnic and vertical 67.
