Second Square To None


Strings 6: Enda Bates/Fairlights

Friday, May 28, 2010 • , , • 0 comments



This week we have Enda Bates, a composer/guitarist/producer who releases solo material as Fairlights & is an active composer of contemporary music, as well as being involved with the Spatial Music Collective and the group Spook of the Thirteenth Lock.

Tell us a little about your musical background ie influences, formative experiences, bands you play/played in

I was introduced to noisy guitar bands like My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth and the Jesus & Mary Chain by my older brothers when I was very young, before I even started playing guitar. This kind of noisy, experimental but melodic music has been a big influence on everything I’ve done since. I played in a couple of bad, grunge cover bands in school and this was definitely a formative experience, those gigs were terrifying but absolutely addictive. I didn’t really start writing music until later. I got a loan of a little cassette 4-track recorder around 2000 and it was quite a revelatory experience to be able to actually write and record my own music. Once again I was hooked and I haven’t really stopped writing and recording since then.

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Monday 32: thatboytim

Friday, May 28, 2010 • , , , • 0 comments


Alright so it isn't Monday but this mix will slip nicely into a weekend warm-up playlist! Takeover Records boss thatboytim presents us with a mix of bass sounds to remember that sunny weather we had with. Tracklist below:

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Munitions Family gig this Saturday in Space 54

Thursday, May 27, 2010 • • 0 comments


Munitions Family are putting on a night of inner space in the Space 54 venue / artist run space in Smithfield, Dublin 1 this Saturday 29th May. Expect deeply whacked out synth improvisations, lo-fi pops and mesmerizing 12-string-a-bling. The line up is as follows:

Stellar Om Source (NL)
Cian Nugent
Boys of Summer
School Tour
Scented Candle

plus Skinny Wolves and Munitions Family DJ's.


More info here.

SSTN Noise # 13: Amanda Feery

Wednesday, May 26, 2010 • , , • 0 comments


Amanda Feery - The Shipwreck by SSTN Noise


Our featured artist this week is Amanda Feery , a composer rising fast in new music circles. She was recently chosen for a residency at the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival from an international cast of young composers, and among other things was previously a member of Attention Bebe.

What are your reasons / motives for making music, and how you arrived at this
style?

AF: This piece was written for a play called 'The Insanity of Mary Girard', by Lanie Robertson. Mary Girard is condemned to a lunatic asylum by her husband without proper pyschiatric evaluation, which hubbies could do lawfully in 18th century America. The director wanted to explore the theme of water and it's tension between containment and compulsion to overflow, which ties in nicely with being trapped in a madhouse and wanting to escape..

I read an interesting line in the script which got me working. Mary compares the entrapment in the tranquilizing chair to being "drowned without being dead". I wanted to try create the sound of being submerged deep underwater, falling through the wreckage of a ship.

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Strings 5: Colin Boylan

Friday, May 21, 2010 • , , • 0 comments


Colin Boylan - Just Another Sunbeam by SSTN Strings

This week we have Monaghan guitar-player/song-writer/noisemaker, Colin Boylan.

Tell us a little about your musical background ie influences, formative experiences, bands you play/played in.

I (used to) play in a band called Green Lights. Pretty sure it's all finished now though. People are moving around a lot and it's hard to do anything since I don't really live in Dublin right now. I also played in a lo-fi pop/noise(?) band in Tokyo when I live there last year called Walkie Talkie in the Cornfield. It was loads of fun. My main influences would be Pavement, Low, Liars and the Mars Volta but it changes a lot. I love Pavements catchy and incredibly simple ramshackled melodies that just get stuck in my head, the layered noise that Alan Sparhawk (Low) makes, the droney sounds from Liars and the guitar isanity and ridiculous time signitures from the Mars Volta. I also like a lot of Irish bands like the Cast of Cheers, Adebisi Shank, Jogging, Enemies, BATS, Patrick Kelleher, Redneck Manifesto.... Pretty much anything off the Richter Collective record label. Really exciting stuff happening in Dublin nowadays I think especially on that RC label.
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SSTN Noise Series # 12: Gland & Conduit

Wednesday, May 19, 2010 • , , • 0 comments


Gland&Conduit - Anal Duct Nodding by SSTN Noise


Gland & Conduit are a duo made up of 2 producers: Herv and Meljoann, who normally make ravey breakcore and R & B respectively when not working on this project. The two have also recently worked together on a much different album project which can be found here on The Centrifuge website. The track included in this weeks Noise Series is taken from their forthcoming album on SSTN (about which more information will be jettisoned soon).



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FES is 10 Compilation

Monday, May 17, 2010 • , • 0 comments

For some reason I have only now got around to listening to the Front End Synthetics compilation that they released in conjunction with their ten year birthday bash, mentioned here previously.
Absolutely amazing stuff, lots of experienced producers making properly refined tunes that defy easy categorisation. Features Spectac, Sunken Foal, Ambulance, The Last Sound, Deasy, Rod, Podgeo, Dave Nuremberg, Zvuku, Educution and Platinum Ray.