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  A Shadow - A Postcard From A Rained Out Wedding by sstn-strings

New series here on SSTN, Strings, where we talk to different artists who use stringed instruments about their approaches to using their instruments as tools for sound generation and composition. It is intended to provide a broad overview of different methodologies; covering areas such as different playing styles, extended techniques and effects processing. Each week we will feature an exclusive piece of music and an interview. First up is Dublin artist, A Shadow.

Tell us a little about your musical background.

I started to learn guitar as a teenager when I was big into guitar bands around at that time like The Bluetones and Blur, but particularly Radiohead. I was always interested in listening to different music and by the time I got an 8 track I was recording songs and instrumentals based mostly around the guitar usually in odd tunings I’d pick up from learning Nick Drake or Kelly Joe Phelps songs incorporating whatever other instruments I could get my hands on.



I was in college in Maynooth and took electro-acoustic composition and this is when I started learning a bit about using computers properly to make music. I figured things out in a slightly haphazard experimental way. I would just record something, like a small melody, and try whatever software was on the college computers to mess around with it and see what I could do to make it interesting. I would then layer and jigsaw together things until it felt like it sounded right. At the same time I joined a band with a few mates that would eventually be called The Eclectic. So I was making kind of freeform experimental music and figuring out the whole computer thing while working with the band on more structured songs.

The music with the band began to get a bit more experimental and incorporates a lot more electronic elements now, although still mostly as songs. The experimental stuff calmed down a little and became a bit more structured and I guess basically that’s what I’m doing now with A Shadow.

Describe your process of music-making/composition.

I don’t really have a set pattern of how I make music. It can go from any start point really. I guess getting started is the hard bit, once you have something solid to bounce ideas off things can start to flow. Sometimes ill just get a small melodic idea and work out from there. I might mess around on an instrument for a while and if something starts to sound good ill record it and use that as a start point. Other times ill get a kind of texture from messing with effects or on the computer and build over that. Or I might start by messing around with looping things on the computer or with my Kaoss pad to get something out of that. I have a little portable recorder I try to carry around and sometimes ill record something on that and ill work from those ambient sounds. I also have a habit of coming up with a title for tracks before I even start the music. I just write things down. I used to think I was writing lyrics for songs but a lot of the time it’s just single lines so I might take one of those lines as a start point. There can also be a bit of overlap between songs and instrumentals until I finish something, I am never quite sure what a piece of music should be until I think it’s finished.

Usually once a track is started I spend a while adding more and more elements, playing around with different instruments and processed textures until the track is a bit overloaded. Then I start to pare things back and work out a structure that seems to work. It’s a pretty slow process and I like to step away from tracks and come back to them over a period of time.

What sort of equipment you use do you use to make your sounds?

I mostly work from a laptop now. So I record with that and use it for sequencing. I have a bunch of guitars and a pile of guitar pedals with general guitar paraphernalia like an e-bow; I also use a Kaoss pad and a portable recorder. Over the years I have also collected a bunch of different acoustic instruments, mostly wind and pitched percussion instruments so I can play them at least half-arsed and get some sounds out of them. This includes a harmonium, glockenspiel, melodic, kalimba, chimes, tube bells, bells and a kaen. I also have an air band radio that is pretty good for getting noise out of. And then I have a few kids’ toys and things like that, nothing circuit bent but sometimes I use them through effects or as effects.

Info on upcoming gigs, web address, releases.

Im finishing my first album as A Shadow to be called ‘When All Is Said and Done, What Is Left To Say And Do’ and that should be ready by the end of the summer. No proper plan for releasing it yet, might end up doing the same thing as I did with my EP and just release it with a limited number of handmade cases, although I would prefer to get it out on a label this time around.

With The Eclectic there should hopefully be an album on that front by the end of the year, although we are pretty slow at getting it done.

No gigs lined up at the minute. I don’t really have a plan of how I would play the new tracks live yet. I like to keep it as a live performance playing instruments live and looping as much as possible but maybe I need to work it out a little better and change it around. Hopefully I will get back gigging soon.

The only web presence for A Shadow is on myspace:
www.myspace.com/ashadowmusic

The Eclectic are all over it like a rash, but our website or myspace is enough I think:
www.theeclecticsound.com
www.myspace.com/theeclecticsound