OUT NOW! (15+ years in the making) Two New MEADOW HOUSE Records

New Meadow House records: 'Misadventures on the Scorn Cycle' and 'This should not be happening'

These two new Meadow House LPs are OUT NOW!  Together they form an anthology of very varied 'tapedropping' nuggets... that is, music designed to be left on cassette (or CDR) in random places for people to find.  (See the full explanation here in this older blogpost).

Why not listen whilst reading their backstory which is zested with angst, allegory and cautionary tropes?   Read on below....


Late in April 2012, I was semi-trespassing on someone's property to rummage through a skip in their driveway.  I was in a state of manifest neglect and genuine poverty (and still am now), ravaged by a rabid want of PhD funding and galled by the knowledge of the dross that too often beats me to funding.  [Singer Dannii Minogue and footballer Ryan Giggs both have honorary doctorates, incidentally.]

In happier times...

I looked through the property's window and saw a louche guy in a suit gawping at a massive TV, watching TV's Jason Bradbury enthuse on Channel 5's Gadget Show.  [Hint: most of the pricy gadgets fetishised on that consumer show can be freely found in trade waste bins years later, especially those of charity shops that don't accept "electrical"].  But I digress...  It was a moment of profound discord, because there I stood: stained with bin-juice; cold, hungry and smelly, raking through rat piss trying to find old shit to sell online or to make instruments with, and yet only eight years previously in 2004, the very same Jason Bradbury had emailed me, having heard my Resonance FM show about 'tapedropping'.  Bradbury offered a meet up: he ended a long introductory email with, "I relate to your 8-bit harmonies and human beatbox - I relate to your divergent presentational style and I relate the potential to roll all of them up into a stage show or a TV proposal or... just an interesting chat over a coffee. If you're up for a meet - drop me a mail."  Foolishly in hindsight, I haughtily declined his offer as I was busy at university and had resolved to focus on an academic direction (which propelled me into oblivion, it seems). [There's a moral to this story somewhere].

The music featured on the first of these new Meadow House LPs, 'Misadventures on the Scorn Cycle' (Public House Recordings), originates from around this era - circa 2004 - and is likely some of the very same material that prompted Jason Bradbury's email to me 13 years ago.  On the label's release page, I note a reviewer named "The Don" gave it a dud review, indicative of the sad fact that there are still snobby people resistant to the 'tapedropping' approach who require a supreme sonic kick to their waxed arse, yet dropping such media as cassettes is arguably no longer possible in these post-media days, fuck, alas.  'Misadventures...' is essentially a re-release of a partially-unheard 2003 demo CDR I'd sent to various places that year (including Norman Records, who now release it).  The fact that it took 14 years to get released gives me hope that maybe other offers might boomerang back into play (such as from labels or publishers I'd sent things to previously, or even Jason Bradbury's 2004 offer to discuss ideas for a "stage show or a TV proposal", of which I now have many - of various character - in my dayfantasies, a la De Niro's 'Rupert Pupkin' in the 1982 film The King of Comedy).

The second LP, 'This should not be happening' (Feeding Tube Records) contains later material, from around 2012.  The tone is obviously much more despondent here, following successive buffetings and prolonged marginalisation.  It contains catharsis, cries for help, requests for relief/employment, and much much more...  Truly, this should not be happening.  The LP is almost entirely produced using instruments and materials found in bins.  Resourcefulness is necessary in times of destitution.  The "8-bit harmonies and human beatbox" that Jason Bradbury lauded are smothered to death under a big pillow on this release.  Because of my reluctance to relisten to any of it, the release was curated by the valiant Joey Pizza Slice (aka Son of Salami), clad in his sonic hazmat suit, who is a wonderful musicmaker with great sensitivity.
 
Note: I may have overstated the role of Jason Bradbury in all this.  However, in hindsight, his cameo here gives an excuse to Tweet this blogpost to him to see whether he reads it or feels inclined to promote this stuff like a 21st century techno-savvy Warhol.

Ivory Tower Misdoings, or "Something for Nothing"

The current acoustics-themed Leonardo Music Journal (#22) features my paper 'Miraculous Agitations: On the Uses of Chaotic, Non-Linear and Emergent Behaviour in Acoustic Vibrating Physical Systems'.  It gives an overview of the philosophy of miraculous agitations (or thaumatacoustics: acoustics compounded with the prefix 'thaumata', meaning 'wonder') and methods of electromagnetically resonating object-assemblies.  In the LMJ paper, I avoided describing how poverty shaped the philosophies behind miraculous agitation apparatuses.  I'll descant upon this aspect here.

An older composer - either misunderstanding my words or trying to 'get a rise' from me - once described the miraculous agitation technique as the "musical equivalent of benefit fraud"(!).   He believed that it was sheer laziness to sit and make arbitrary mechanical adjustments to piles of vibrating junk in the hope that a composition would compose itself.  I suppose he thought it was something like getting a "finished composition" for free.  Whilst his unusual angle was very thought-provoking, I'd have to summon to memory a quote that would be appreciated by someone of his generation: "I think you're entering the realms of fantasy here, Jones."

Music is traditionally composed - or 'worked out' - in 'horizontal' time (as most music sequencers scroll).  Thaumatacoustic apparatuses on the other hand are scrounged together, assembled and 'worked out' beforehand in an instance removed from time.  So the 'work' goes into the arrangement of global conditions outside time.  The composing here is principally a process of searching for objects, assembling objects and arranging an initial state in 'vertical' time, before the electromagnetic agitators are even switched on.  It's more about 'compositing' than 'composing'.  The actual tonestuff emerges over time, almost of its own accord, from largely unforeseen interactions within the assembly.
 
For an apparatus to be capable of producing sonically useful 'wonders', patience and perseverance is essential.  It is true that the apparatus is built from stuff pulled out dustbins - this is perhaps the part that the aforementioned critic took issue with.  This seems a contentious area (and it really shouldn't be).  To this day, passive-aggressive people still crow "should you be doing that?" and "go away" whilst I'm searching for acoustic parts in bins.

I'd be a great sound designer, researcher or archivist at the British Library's sound archive (for example), but frustratingly, employment has not been forthcoming.  I've ranted about this elsewhere...  Jobseeker's Allowance was cut off.  Poverty compelled me to rummage through bins, for food, entertainment, tools and raw materials for quasi-saleable crafted miscellany (including miraculous agitation assemblies).  It's scandalous to behold how much usefulness gets discarded.  The thaumatacoustic philosophy is ensconced in these experiences.

In the light of this seemingly beggarly state, it was invigorating to find on March 2nd that five messages had reached me through diverse channels.  The messages were all from one researcher for RDF Television / Zodiak Media, apparently involved in making a TV documentary for Channel 4:

Hi there,
I was wondering if you might be able to help me. I work for a TV production company called RDF Television and we are currently working on a new show for Channel 4 – which looks into all the weird and wonderful things you can get for free.

I have come across a sound artist called Dan Wilson who creates musical instruments out of unwanted goods and electrical parts he finds in skips and I read that he sometimes performs with Oscillatorial Binnage.

I would really like to have a chat with Dan but can’t find any contact details for him any where. I was wondering if you could let me know if there is any way of getting in touch with him or perhaps you could forward this email on to him so he can get in touch with me? Just want to have a chat with Dan about what he does.

You can contact me here or my email address is ----  or my direct number is -----.

Hope to hear from you,
---

These TV researchers often cast their net widely, and I did suspect that they might find me too weird a fish for their fishtank.  I described my practices and provided links to various examples, but also lamented that I couldn't produce more expository audio examples due to lack of equipment (more high quality microphones would be a Godsend).

The correspondent elaborated on their remit:

I’m not sure how much I explained about the show.  We’re making a consumer programme for channel 4, that looks into all the things you can get for free – weird and wonderful things that you might not think of.

I really liked the idea that you make instruments from electrical  items you find in skips and that is what I was interested in talking to you about. We’re looking for people who are experts in their field who would like to talk on camera about their experiences – for example the pitfalls of skip diving / the best places to go for the best finds – so we’re looking for a spokesperson who can tell us about the ‘art’ of skip diving. It’s not so much about the music itself, I’m afraid.

I’m not sure if this is something you would be interested in at all?

Yes - it sounded worthwhile and useful exposure.  But then came the bitter irony.  Any payment?  "There is no payment, I’m afraid, as we don’t have the budget."   So, a programme about the "weird and wonderful things you can get for free" is trying to source the raw materials for free!

This reminded me of a certain King's Cross publisher who, some years ago, sought to find homeless 'renegade gardeners' to write for them about their personal experiences of homeless gardening.  There was no payment for this work, yet the book would retail for +£15 per copy.

I gently berated the RDF correspondent: "Not wishing to sound exhortational - it seems a bit skew-whiff to make a programme about bin-diving - a last resort for the poorest and most vulnerable in society - and not pay the interviewees!"

The reply was defensive and ambiguous: "It is a factual documentary to show the general public that there are benefits to be had in this time of financial crisis. And in no way will we be showing ways in which to take from people who really need it."  ('Benefits to be had in this time of financial crisis'?!?)  One media behemoth I once dealt with some years ago had its minions bandying about the term "loser generated content" with some enthusiasm, and I've been wary of these sapping dilettantes ever since.

Nevertheless, I agreed to provide some insight for this programme, but suddenly the doors had closed tightly:  the reply read "I’m afraid the format of the show has slightly changed in the past couple of weeks. When I last spoke to you we were still in the early research stages and seeing what stories were out there, but now we have fully cast all our contributors and experts."

Disappointments far outnumber wonders when searching for miraculous agitations.  I sighed, and an apparatus set on a cardboard box sympathetically buzzed in an interesting manner.

Bookophone Outing

I comprise one quarter of the improv quartet Oscillatorial Binnage.  Last Thursday we played a short set at the AMM book launch.  Due to an alleged paucity of electricity sockets at the venue, it seemed an appropriate occasion to test drive an acoustic oddity I devised which I call a bookophone.

A bookophone consists of a paperback book and a rod/pipe 'activator bow' of some description.  The rod can be metal, plastic or lacquered wood, and it is drawn perpendicularly across the book's textblock in a bowing action.  It produces acoustic pseudo-shepard tones and, with some practice, a variety of barks and yelps can be produced.

Bookophone technique: A metal 'activator bow' is rubbed across the book

The AMM event was one of the more off-the-wall performances of recent memory.  The two new books being discussed that night were Ben Watson's Blake in Cambridge, and 1839: The Chartist Insurrection by David Black and Chris Ford, both books published by Unkant.   (Tangentially, whilst setting up the space, Ben Watson found convenience in my bookophone's 'activator bow' in liberating from the ceiling the Union Jack bunting left over from a Queen's Jubilee celebration some days earlier).

Interestingly, Watson chose to launch his own book by giving a platform to its critics who proceeded to denounce various aspects of its content, creating much debate (which also encompassed ventings on AMM's anti-academic stance).   Watson - an expert in language-defying tone poetry and mega-freeform vocalistics - then encouraged Oscillatorial Binnage to acoustically ornament/mimic the ensuing debate, which was already agitated by Watson's occasional divergences into his hyperconfusing wordjazz.  Electronics, crackleboxes, bean slicer, clarinet, squeaky toilet paper holder combo, harmonica and bookophone (among other things - mostly stuff found in bins) culminated in a noisome uproar.  Regretfully, some of the younger people present did not at all enjoy the ultra-high pitched amplified blasts.  (All recordings can be heard here).

To change the subject slightly.... My shoes are always broken.  Earlier that rainy, rainy day, I had been in the second-hand book basement of a King's Cross bookshop, trying to identify a louder £1 book for bookophone implementation (without actually compromising the shop's stock by bowing the book edges).  Owing to a hole in my shoe, rainwater had made ingress to my sock, making an unpleasantly wet foot; an irritating feeling which distracted me and so impaired bookophonic sonic book judgement.  Abandoning the search, inspiration made me hop to the British Library where strong plastic bags can be obtained - most convenient!   There, I made myself a plastic sock to place inside my shoe thereby offering protection against the rainwater.  This provided comfort, not just for the rest of the day, but for the next week too.

[Such a feet/feat of necessity is perhaps worthy of Vladimir Arkhipov's attention: specifically his Home Made series of books cataloging folk artefacts borne of such necessity].

However, by the time the AMM book launch began, the plastic sock had started to smell really bad.  There's an esoteric quirk of hygiene that sees unventilated feet turn odorous.  Yet by the unpremeditated combining of the bookophone sounds with the 'British Library bag-sock' footsmell generator, I had fused both scent and sound into a new emission-sensation.  However, the other members of Oscillatorial Binnage were undecided and mildly dismissive of it.  I did wonder what the academics and anti-academics would make of this multi-faceted concept-fusion of bookophonics, British Library bag-socks, bad odour twinned with questionable bookwhine sonics...  It is probably too irrelevant or 'lumpenproletarianesque' to even contemplate.

EEEbyGUM, Bin Diving, Poverty, Penury, Tapedropping, Regrets and Stolen Glimpses of The Gadget Show through a Businessman's Window

My last posting had an ulterior motive: I had half-hoped that Noel Edmonds (or, more likely, one of his retinue) might happen upon it and consider bestowing PhD funding to me (for Edmonds' alleged offer of 'troll research').

I don't think I'll ever find a job or get PhD funding (which would allow for GROUNDBREAKING RESEARCH).  The unfortunate passage of time has led to this opinion (hopefully incorrect, please?). This lack of social mobility has been going on for far too long.  I thought it couldn't get any worse in 2006, but now, in 2012, it has!  And then even worse!!  AND WORSE!!!  Colin Wilson may be correct in his opinion that scuppered energies lead to criminality.  I'm now constantly looking in bins for food, entertainment or any sustenance.  The Job Centre building radiates torment.  It's getting intolerable.  Is anyone reading this?  Attempts are made to attain custodianship of something, but the field of choice narrows and narrows until only mud remains.  It's when even the mud becomes out-of-reach that some fracture of language occurs.  Laws become wilfully unrecognised.  Trespassing on allotments, we start to resonate our own defecations with salvaged amplifier systems and car batteries.  The EEEbyGUM concept is getting more and more pertinent: Ear Enlightenment Everywhere but yet General Unresponsiveness Manifest.  It refers to the despairing situation of Sonic Art graduates.  I believe to have discovered new techniques which are essential to humanity, but nobastard cares.

Today, whilst on my daily bin-diving expedition (which desperation necessitates), I caught a glimpse of Channel 5's The Gadget Show through someone's window.  A man in a suit, with unbuttoned shirt, was sat in front of his plasma widescreen in louche mode after a hard day in the office, no doubt.  I didn't want to stare for too long, so after a few minutes, when the ad break came on, I crept away with my bag of "soiled knick-knacks" (as a local anti-bin-diving correspondent to the local newspaper once referred to the spoils of scrounge).

The Gadget Show was originally concerned with the latest gadgets.  In principle, it should've always catered for the gadgetty anchorites who confine themselves to their bedrooms or garages to reach the nirvana which lies beyond the GUI.  Instead, the prime-time show is now inexplicably aimed at a new breed of Nietzschean Übermensch: sporty bankers with infinite money and predilections for gadgeteering whilst scuba-diving or suchlike.  Racing cars and unnecessary 'babes'.  It's aggressively outdoorsy and treads muddy footprints on the anchorite's face.

TV's Jason Bradbury

When I looked into the man's window - the reason I knew immediately he was watching Channel 5's The Gadget Show is because of its presenter, Jason Bradbury, and his face, which plays host to ever-stupefying glasses of the uniquest futurology.  He never used to wear glasses - methinks they're fake.

Back in 2004, when he was searching for some new 'thing', he sent me a kind email after hearing my tapedropping emissions on Resonance FM.  Bradbury asked to meet up and "discuss ideas".  Foolishly, I preferred to concentrate on my university work which was consuming a lot of time.  He sent another email:

"Thanks for returning my mail.  My interest in your show is quite simple really - I think you're hilarious.  I'm always looking for tangental ideas and performers but I'm not some old BBC git looking to sign up talent and throw away the key. While I flirt with the mainstream as a producer/director - I'm fronting a crazy science show of my own for Discovery Kids out next month and I've just got a role presenting a new technology and gadget show on Ch5 in May 04.  I'm also an experienced comedian with years of stand-up experience and most recently a 5 star show I did at the Edinburgh Festival called 'Breakdance Therapy' (a biographical piece about growing up in the 80's).

So you see - I relate to your 8-bit harmonies and human beatbox - I relate to your divergent presentational style and I relate the potential to roll all of them up into a stage show or a TV proposal or... just an interesting chat over a coffee.

I've you're up for a meet - drop me a mail. I'm around week after next.

Keep up the good work. All the best,
Jason Bradbury"

'Fan mail' was virtually non-existent, so this was nice.  It was a complimentary, encouraging email and he dispensed his mobile number, although I replied that I really must continue my university work.  Responding negatively to Bradbury is one of my biggest regrets, because I was UTTERLY WRONG in thinking concentration on university work would reap pleasanter rewards.  University has led me to the gutter - LITERALLY.  Since graduating from the Master's degree in 2007, I have continued 'studying' just interiorly in my mind: working on imaginary assignments for imaginary deadlines.  Why won't anywhere employ me or give my proposals the time of day?  Why won't they offer PhD funding to me?  I'm already half-way there with my imaginatively-propelled research under chimerical auspices!  So, now I rummage through trade waste bins in the twilight.  I never thought things could get worse, but there is always a new level of misery waiting below.  My studies have resulted in a debt probably never to be paid off.  I grow resentful of society, and The Gadget Show represents all that is abhorrent with unloosed consumerism and conservative young working professionals with their disregard for the obsolete, aversion to make-do-and-mend mentalities, etc.  Yet paradoxically, regrets of not accepting Bradbury's offer of a meeting lead to cripping ganglions of bitter gall...  (However, in all likelihood, he would've thought me "not the full shilling" and dismissed me, as in all interviews I've been to).

Aye, maybe Bradbury never did quite fully understand the nature of my tapedropping emissions - the ultimate objectives of tapedropping being to irk deserving recipients.  (Don't know what the "human beatbox" was all about).  Ironically, all tapedropping recipients were ostensibly the sort of people who currently watch The Gadget Show - the tapedroppings aimed to sonically aggrieve them to the same extent their toxic smugness offended the delicate ear.  Tapes of unbroadcastable grot to evaporate all cliquey trendsetting...

Still, I telephoned Jason Bradbury years later (in 2007) in a spasm of PURE DESPERATION(!!!!!!) in the hope he might employ me for my sound work or something.  He was my last hope of getting on an even keel - maybe I could wrangle some internship leading to steady work?  Maybe I could eventually afford those nice but expensive Marks & Spencer pasta bakes which I circumspectly pilfer occasionally?  Bradbury telephonically calmed me that 2004 was a "long time ago", although it seemed like only yesterday to me, and still does.  He told me to "never give up" and to "keep going".  His career had gone from strength to strength, and he'd had some children who were now toddlers, etc.  His advice, whilst being superficially helpful and sensible, has driven me far beyond unemployability into sheer asphyxiated impoverished hell.  THERE HAS GOT TO BE SOMETHING OUT THERE FOR ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  IF NOT ON THIS PLANET, THEN SOMEWHERE IN ALL KNOWN SPACE, AT LEAST???!!!!?!?!!!  This is what I wanted to howl, but decorum and telephone-manner intervened.

Now, today, I stand looking into someone else's living room - it looks warm - at this profoundly resonant and antagonising televisual face of Bradbury, whilst holding a carrier bag full of stuff pulled out from bins.  Maybe I'm eligible for some sort of disability benefit?  Everything seems 'out of phase'.  One consoling thought is that new levels of desperation are inevitably coming, but not at this absolute moment in time.

Looking in bins - displaying the crib sheet of 'dream objects' for the creation of sonic miracles and vibrational research