Just a short update on a couple of shows that I’m working on right now.
Firstly, is BlazeBlue OneLine which is a show that I designed the sound system for and also helped oversee the final stages of the sound design. The brain-child of Anthony Hamilton, this show mixes steet art and modern dance. I know that makes it sound a little like a community theatre outreach program, but this show is the furthest thing from it. Dancing with Anthony is Luke Smiles - these two guys are among the finest contemporary dancers in Australia right now - and this show is so packed full of unexpected moments and general awesomeness that you really have to see it to believe it. Now much time left however as this show is on tonight and tomorrow night at the ArtsHouse Meat Market in North Melbourne. Details here.
Secondly, I’m in the process of doing music and sound design for another ArtsHouse show called Get A Grip. This is a show that has been devised by the Trace Elements crew who are a diverse bunch guys that do “Parkour, Stunts, Performance, Athletics & Art”. This show mostly centers over Pakour and a huge scaffold set has been built inside the North Melbourne Town Hall for the show. Its shaping up to be quite a show and these guys can really move. The show also has a couple of films as part of it that are looking great. I’m working with old buds Nat Cursio (direction) and Jenny Hector. Find details on the show here - starts this coming Tuesday. This video below is from the development that trace elements did last year for ArtsHouse.
This Wednesday (13/2) I’ll be doing a talk at the Beats N Bleeps night at Glitch Bar & Cinema in North Fitzroy. I’ll demonstrating techniques and tools for Ableton Live that are useful for creating sounds in a generative & novel way. I’ll be chatting around 9pm. I believe that entry is FREE !
Before my appearance at Beats N Bleeps, I’ll be on the radio in my regular capacity as Apple commentator on RRR FM’sByte Into It. This week I’ll be talking about my clean Leopard install and all the apps that I’ve re-loaded without thinking twice - call it my must have’s for your machine. The show starts at 7pm (AEDT) on 102.7 FM in Melbourne, via live stream and also via podcast.
PRETTY BOY CROSSOVER launch their new album
‘A Different Handwriting’ (Sensory Projects/Inertia)
with their first gig in Melbourne in over 2 years!!
on SUNDAY 15 JULY
at Loop Bar.
‘A Different Handwriting’ is the sixth album by Pretty Boy Crossover and their second release for Sensory Projects (Hood, International Karate, Pivot, MONO, Shearwater, Eluvium). For the uninitiated, Pretty Boy Crossover are: Jason Sweeney and Cailan Burns, two music obsessives who met in Adelaide in 1998, now based back in Melbourne. Since they began recording music as Pretty Boy Crossover, the duo have seldom remained stagnant even when they found themselves thousands of miles from one another, most recently when Burns lived in Japan and Sweeney was busy working around the world. Along with their releases on Sensory Projects, Pretty Boy Crossover have also worked with a number of other labels including Surgery, Clan Analogue, and Cocosolidciti (Canada/UK). For the latter they collaborated on a CD/DVD project with New York based visual artist Julio Soto. That release, ‘We Are All Drifting’ was released in 2006 to international acclaim, winning a New Media art prize in Spain.
Pretty Boy Crossover
Sunday 15 July
@ Loop Bar
23 Meyers Place, Melbourne
7pm till late. Entry by gold coin donation.
With special appearances by:
QUA || AI YAMAMOTO || DJ TOUPEE
Just put some photos that I took during Fox and Pateras’ rehearsal and show last night up here. Both shows went really well and Anthony got a really great reception for his piece. When you look back at how much effort and organization it took to perform a ten minute work, it can generate a lot of mixed feelings. From my end of things it was at least a week or more of work to pull it all together, and tons time more for Anthony to write the work, copy the parts, etc, etc.
The show was also recorded and broadcast on ABC FM. I’ll be keen to have a listen back to it later and see how the reinforcement came across in the recording with the acoustic sound of the ensemble. I hope some of you were able to make it down, it was a great night and there should be more of it in Melbourne.
Just a quick note to let you all know that I’ll be mixing Anthony Pateras’ new work QQ with the Melbourne Symphony this weekend coming. (Both links have details on the concert). The work is for 4 quartets (wind, strings, brass and percussion) with electronics (a MAX/MSP patch by Rob Fox to be precise). I’m sure this is going to be a great concert and it’s always cool to go and hear & see a symphony up close, as you can when the MSO play at the Malthouse. They like to pull out all the crazy instruments for the new music gigs as well….
Also Rob and Anthony will be playing their duo set on the same night in a separate little gig before the big show later. If you pay up for the big deal, you get the side order of art music free!
Some interesting stuff popped up on thisboingboing post covering the 2007 Coachella festival. Björk is out and about playing material off her new LP Volta, and as usual, she right up to date on what the cool kids are into, and a lot of it is about multi-touch interfaces. Some of her band playing with the sexy and expensive Lemur (maybe to control Ableton Live?). And to top it off they’re using the totally sweet reactable as part of the show (the reactable is visible on the LH side). Our local pal Ross Bencina had a part in the reactable’s development, so I guess Ross can now slip Björk into the CV there someplace. Also, the low slung drum setup got my eye as well. I sure hope we get to see this show up here at the top of the world sometime soon. I guess the tour blog will have to do until then!
This Wednesday (13/2) I’ll be doing a talk at the 
