Second Square To None

The last of our DEAF recordings sees idiosyncratic hip-hop flavours and masterful turntablism on show from Galway group Vince MackMahon. Plundering a wide-range of source material, twisting them into seemless explorations of sample contortion, Vince MackMahon finished off the gig in style.

Nice dynamic progression in this set. Big washes of synth open it, gradually shifting to thunderous analogue percussion and pulsing blips. PMC work their big analogue gear set-up to deliver the huge warm sounds you've been waiting for.

PushMoveClick are a live analogue modular group. They use three modular synths, MPC's, home-made noises boxes, synths, effects pedals, home-made touchscreen drum machine and sequencers. They start each track fresh with no set structure so anything could happen. At DEAF part of their show was based on creating a piece using random pieces of audio which were submitted to Second Square to None for our Ten Second Rule project. All the audio was processed through the modular synths and various machines. The rest of the show was then improvised with no set rules or boundaries.

This week's live set is from the guy who makes this blog (and most of the fliers and design related to sstn) look like it does, Euphiophone, joined by bassist Melesta in her debut performance. Jumping from melodic and positively cheerful to distorted and dark, a distinctly cinematic feel exists in this set: ch-ch-ch listen now!

Euphiophone & Melesta

For his live performance at DEAF he is in collaboratied with Melissa Conlon (a.k.a. Melesta), a graphic designer based in Dublin.

The second in our Ten Second Rule livesets features Fyodor tearing up the submissions using two custom made 10" vinyl dubplates. Attacking the records with extended turntablist techniques and then processing the sounds through an assortment of effects pedals and loopers, Fyodor created a cacaphonous wall of sound that thrilled the audience with its sheer physical presence.

One of the highlights for me last Sunday was sinking into a Buddha Bag after setting up and listening to Dubreak's take on the Ten Second Rule pieces. Getting the day off to the best start possible it was a big rich warm sound, full of lush synths, enveloping bass and punchy beats.

Dubreak
First influenced by music at an early age. Dubreak and his older bro used to fabricate their own type of home-made radio shows when they were wee nippers, splicing and resampling snippets off LW radio shows and talking over the recordings. He moved on to two junk-shop HI-FI decks when he was 13, in his bedroom with doubles of records and some piss-poor scratching techniques trying his hand at being a 'superstar' DJ. He soon got sick of that, and has been making his own brand of music since. Currently he uses a Moog Voyager, ProTools and a rampant collection of other music stuff. Occasionally he gets to gig at a few festivals around Ireland, and works at a few 'live-sound' venues around Dublin as a 'Live Sound' Engineer. Dubreak will be using Ableton Live's advanced looping to mix and mash the Ten Second Rule into his own style.

We'll have a more extensive post about our own gig shortly - last Sunday in Filmbase was great craic...pictures, video and audio coming soon. For now we just want to mention a couple of gigs happening this weekend that might be of interest to those of you who don't know about them already.

Thursday:

Kaboogie's fortnightly and free night in Thomas House, the K-Club, will feature Scurvy Lass, ForceFed and the first show for a while from Lakker. That's from 8-11.30PM.

After that down the road in the Sycamore Club Alphabet Set will be hosting another quality line-up including Sunken Foal, Sarsparilla, Cignol, Jimmy Penguin and Ventolyn & Becotyde, Love Rhino, Laura Sheeran and Solen. A very reasonable €6 before 12, €8 after.

Alternatively, if you're in the mood for more dancefloor oriented music, Takeover Recordings, Nice & Nasty and Static Recordings will be taking over Pygmalion on South William Street from 6-2.30PM with a big line up of electro and techno acts on the 3 label's rosters. More info can be found here.

Friday:

It's got to be !kaboogie again on Friday with London bass wizard ScanOne in Twisted Pepper, with support from one half of Lakker Eomac and a liveset from 16 Hertz & Johnny Oakley.

Sunday:

A4 Sounds take over the Back Loft gallery for the afternoon with an installation / gig / social experiment involving wind-up sculptures, live audience participation painting and sets from Gland & Conduit, Scurvy Lass, Junior 85 and a rare performance by Boondoggle/Bluebottle Farm and Vanessa Parody. A4 gigs are always memorable (and usually messy), and we're guessing major fun and surreality will be the order of the day Sunday. The perfect way to end the Hallowe'en / DEAF era and await the Christmas marketing fever that will follow...

Second Square to None - Ten Second Rule by SSTN

Here it is, finally... enjoy the 52 Ten Second Rule entries joined together in one audio file on soundcloud!

For those of you who have no idea what a Ten Second Rule is, read on...

Update: To hear how the artists used the material at the DEAF performance, check out the sets by Dubreak, Fyodor, PushMoveClick & VinceMackMahon.

SSTN at DEAF will feature live performances from some of the best Irish electronic music producers/performers. It will include special performances from a number of artists as part of the Ten Second Rule project as well as visuals from Kachanski, Evstyle & Shane McKenna.

The Ten Second Rule project is an experiment in community participation, attention span and digital media recycling. Music makers have been asked to submit 10 second long audio compositions in whatever style they wish. On the microscopic scale these pieces showcase a broad range of individual talents and approaches to the use of such a short duration; on the macroscopic scale they can be seen as elements/ loops/ source material for use in larger compositions and improvisations. In this context a ten second track could become the basis of entire 20-30 minute set. To demonstrate this we've asked 5 artists / groups to re-interpret the submissions in whatever way suits them for our DEAF event: turntables, modular synthesizers, granular synthesis and all types of processes will be used to embellish / mangle / recycle the community's audio.

Vince Mack Mahon

-are Tweek, Mikey Fingers, Deviant and Jimmy Penguin as well as Sebi C, Muipead, Rocky Meaney and Tony Higgins sometimes.
-perform original music using turntables.
-are the founders of COMMUNITY SKRATCH GAMES.
-are not in any way affiliated with Hulk Hogan, the Iron Sheikh or Bret "The Hitman" Hart.
-live by the beach.
-eat fish, tossed salads and make skratch ballads.
-are better than your favourite DJ.
-will play 2 sets: one using specially-cut vinyl dubplates of the Ten Second Rule tracks and another ambient / noise set prepared for Second Square to None.

http://www.myspace.com/vincemackmahon
http://www.myspace.com/communityskratchgames

Euphiophone + Melesta

Euphiophone is an electronica artist based in Dublin. He played in a couple of bands in his native Monaghan that set the standards for late-nineties-rock-cover-bands-
based-in-Monaghan before becoming a bedroom producer. His music is a dynamic hybrid of styles and sounds, with industrial beats and warm synth melodies combining with processed live guitar and laptop electronics. He has done a select couple of gigs about town, including supporting Black Dog. He is involved with the organization of the Second Square To None group.

For his live performance at DEAF he is in collaborating with Melissa Conlon (a.k.a. Melesta), a graphic designer based in Dublin.
www.euphiophone.com
www.onlyborndesign.com


PushMoveClick

PushMoveClick is live analog modular group. We use 3 analog modular synths, MPC's, home made noises boxes, synths, effects pedals, home-made touchscreen drum machine and sequencers. We start each track fresh with no set structure so anything could happen. This year at DEAF one part of our show will be based on creating a piece using random pieces of audio which were submitted to Second Square to None for their Ten Second Rule project. All the audio will be processed through the modular synths and various machines. The rest of our show will then be total improvisation with no set rules or boundaries. We will also have CCTV cameras on stage directed at various machines, then the video from those will be processed live.

Ev Tiernan is a Dublin artist who specialises in painting and video. She has collaborated many times with musicians and once again is joining PushMoveClick, this time to create an installation in which PushMoveClick will perform live.

http://www.myspace.com/pushmoveclick
http://vimeo.com/1366738

FYED

Formed this year out of the ashes of a group called John Mary Trilogy, FYED are Ed Devane and Fionn Wallace, A.K.A. Fyodor. Normally they make improvised sound / noisescapes using a wide variety of unusual techniques, and for DEAF this year they will be applying these techniques to the Ten Second Rule material. How this will end up sounding really depends on what happens on the day, as no two FYED jams can ever sound the same!
FYED on SoundCloud


Brown Cloud

Brown Cloud are Rory St. John and Conor Hinfey a.k.a. Kachanski. Anybody following techno in Dublin over the last few years will have inevitably come across the work of Rory St John. Through his devastatingly sweaty hardware workouts and monstrously deep releases on Sunil Sharpe's Mantrap imprint Rory has proved himself to be one of the most exciting talents in Dublin's electronic music scene. For this show he will be collaborating with Kachanski. Falling between the cracks in the pavement of electronic music Kachanski's sound jumps all around techno, electro, jungle, dubstep and electronica with heavy dashings of bass oozing out the side of his mash-up sandwich. With his first appearance on vinyl imminent on Mantrap Records "Trapdoor Material Part 2" and returning from his first gig over the pond for Ebola's Wrong Music in Bristol things are shaping up well.

For this event both are stepping outside their typical hardware setups to create an integrated audio/visual/stage lighting control software with which to pull apart the 10 second submissions in real time, generating an audio-visual malaise directly reflecting the source material and processes used.

www.myspace.com/rorystjohn
www.myspace.com/kachanskisounds


Dubreak

First influenced by music at an early age. Dubreak and his older bro used to fabricate their own type of home-made radio shows when they were wee nippers, splicing and resampling snippets off LW radio shows and talking over the recordings. He moved on to two junk-shop HI-FI decks when he was 13, in his bedroom with doubles of records and some piss-poor scratching techniques trying his hand at being a 'superstar' DJ. He soon got sick of that, and has been making his own brand of music since. Currently he uses a Moog Voyager, ProTools and a rampant collection of other music stuff. Occasionally he gets to gig at a few festivals around Ireland, and works at a few 'live-sound' venues around Dublin as a 'Live Sound' Engineer. Dubreak will be using Ableton Live's advanced looping to mix and mash the Ten Second Rule into his own style.

http://www.myspace.com/dubreakdublin

We want a large collection of 10 second long pieces of audio / music made by people based in Ireland. As digital media proliferates, attention spans grow smaller, and as the recession flourishes a lot of creative people now have a lot of free time on their hands! So what better way to pass this time than to make a ridiculously short piece of music...

There are only 3 rules with this: submissions must be

1. exactly 10 seconds long,
2. original (i.e. not somebody else's copyrighted music)
3. be in uncompressed .wav or .aif format.

One per artist please. The music or recording can be in any style, and is not restricted to electronic music. So far we've asked artists who have played at our events previously, and would now like to open the project to anyone who wants to contribute.

The deadline is September 15th.