Quiet World

Books...

2012-02-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

are like heroin for me.

I have an addiction. I am unable to stop buying books. The bookshelves of my study cannot hold anymore yet I still bought another 5 today. There are books piled on the floor, on each other, on the chairs, on the speaker cabinets, everywhere.

i need to fight this addiction but truthhfully I don't really want to. Just being around books brings me pleasure. Reading them even more so.

i do need to clear some room though. i think eBay might be getting well used over the next few weeks.

Holding your heart in your palm

2012-02-02T23:51:00.000-08:00

After discovering a problem with the run of the new Heart of Palm album 'Psychopomp' and having to scrap them all. The replacements are all made and ready to go.

i really love the noises these guys make.

Happy New Year

2012-01-03T03:48:00.000-08:00

Welcome to 2012.

I hope the year ahead is filled with good times for everyone.

There's a busy year ahead for Quiet World with 3 new releases over the course of the month and two more to follow soon after.

Out today on CDR and download is 'Simple Ghosts and Lazy Old Bones' by myself, Rhodri Thomas & Stephen Jones

<a href="http://ian-quietworld.bandcamp.com/album/simple-ghosts-lazy-old-bones">Simple Ghosts & Lazy Old Bones by Ian Holloway, Rhodri Thomas & Stephen Jones</a>

Next week will be 'Psychopomp' from Cincinnati's finest Heart of Palm and a week or so after that will bring a new album from our good friend Banks Bailey called 'Entrances'.

Sometime in February or early March we will have new albums from Mike Fazio of Orchestramaxfieldparrish and a brand spanking new release from Darren Tate.

Hope you enjoy coming along on the ride we have planned.

Peace
Ian

new music abounds

2011-11-12T02:14:00.001-08:00

it's been a little while since I've had the opportunity to post anything here but I have 5 minutes spare so here goes.

been a turbulent couple of months here. After all the health issues I had last year it was my partners turn this year. It's been a shitty time (for her especially) but she's on the up at the moment.

there's a new issue of Wonderful Wooden Reasons finally gone online. The zine is by far the most time consuming of my hobbies and so it's the one that suffers whenever things go skewiff. I'm going to try and get a few more smaller postings done before the end of the year.

my main mission for this year is to do more with Quiet World. It's off to a good start. three new releases in the last 2 months by myself, Sujo and Susan Matthews. there are loads more lined up but i'm not going to jinx them by mentioning any names until i have the music in my hand.

each release is limited to 50 copies with a signed and numbered QW card. they look real nice and everyone has brought their 'A' game.

Videos

2011-08-09T03:10:00.001-07:00

hi folks

The start of the new academic year is rapidly approaching so I'm starting to slide back into work mode and getting as much of my prep done as i can. Several new classes again this year plus the 2nd year of my course (on top of my actual job and the extra classes I took on last year) means I'm going to be pretty busy for the next 30 odd weeks.

As if this wasn't enough there are some fun things in the pipeline for Quiet World. We have a series of new releases lined up by some old friends of QW and some new.

I was kindly asked this week if I'd contribute a label mix to the Exotic Pylon radio show which of course I'm flattered and honoured to do. I spent the other night trying things out and I'm pretty happy with the final result. The only obvious problem is that finances and my DIY ethic have dictated that QW has always been essentially a bit of a vanity project so the mix has ended up looking a tad egocentric but in that sense it does reflect the label I suppose. I'll pass on more info about this when I know it but i really do recommend hitting the link and having a look around. If nothing else go and score some downloads of their magnificent Weird Tales for Winter series, the one by Advisory Circle and Moon Wiring Club is my absolute favourite. The music by Jon Brooks is just sublime.

Also, as I mentioned on the news page over on www.quietworld.co.uk I've now created a page on the site for all the videos people have made for us over the years. the direct link is here.
Make sure you check out the two Aurarora videos (I'm not posting them here as they are widescreen and blogger cuts the right hand side off). They are 2 thirds of an, as yet, unfinished triptych of videos exploring the ecology (both natural and not) of this area. Hopefully the third will see the light of day sometime but it won't be anytime soon.

should be another new issue of Wonderful Wooden Reasons online this weekend too.

peace
ian

Engaged in the Pursuit of Knowledge

2011-07-30T18:44:00.000-07:00

Words by Bertrand Russell.

no more classes

2011-07-06T15:40:00.000-07:00

for the next two months.

As of today I am officially on holiday until September. That doesn't mean I've no work on - i have plenty - but it does mean I've got time to relax a bit, go for some walks, read some books and write some reviews.

huge apologies to everyone with regard to WWR this last year but this new job brought with it a whole host of responsibilities and headaches and I knew it would screw with parts of my life but it also brought with it extra cash. I'm not money motivated but the last few years have been difficult here so this was a much needed boost. The next year will be just as busy as the last but hopefully having done it for a year I'll be more prepared for it.

I've already sketched out a few reviews and will spend the next week listening and scribbling furiously. Expect a new issue probably on the weekend of the 23rd of this month.

Peace
Ian

A Slow Feather Falls

2011-05-20T07:54:00.000-07:00

Out today - to mellow you all out for the rapture - is the new album from myself and Banks Bailey.

It's available as a download from bandcamp or on CD-R from www.quietworld.co.uk

hope you dig it.

<a href="http://ian-quietworld.bandcamp.com/album/a-slow-feather-falls">A Slow Feather Falls by Ian Holloway</a>

Phantasms II

2011-04-02T11:32:00.000-07:00

Out today is the next in my series of releases inspired by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
As with the first volume, Phantasms II is a series of electronic miniatures designed as incidental music for an imaginary television show.

I hope you dig it.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://ian-quietworld.bandcamp.com/album/phantasms-ii"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Phantasms II by Ian Holloway&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Silent Spring

2011-03-12T12:05:00.000-08:00

After keeping a fairly low profile for most of last year the releases are now coming thick and fast from me.

In addition to the release on Phonospheric that I mentioned earlier I have another out today on Northampton label Dark Meadow Recordings.

It's another slow drone piece but with significantly less isolationist tendencies than the other one.

you can buy a physical copy directly from the label for a teeny £2

or you can click the blue dot underneath the album and download it for free

Quietude #3

2011-03-04T10:52:00.000-08:00

the new Quiet World Radio mixcloud is now up.

Quietude #3 by Quiet World on Mixcloud

Wonderful Wooden Reasons #38

2011-03-04T01:17:00.000-08:00

issue 38 is now online at the usual places...

website

myspace

both of those have the mixcloud attached but it's also below

the new (shorter as it's now fortnightly) issue features reviews of...

Chemins - impasse #1
Glowing Pixie & Ghoul Detail - split
The Infant Cycle - Plays Fender Bass Guitars and Birdcages of Unknown Origin
Kaeba - Ianurek 5.0 X 100
Andrea Marruti & Fausto Balbo - Detrimental Dialogue
Olekranon - {bilal}
The Stinking Badger - Chunx Volume 1 1990-1997

hope you enjoy.

Wonderful Wooden Reasons 38 by Quiet World on Mixcloud

'Passing Through Occasionally'

2011-03-03T16:17:00.000-08:00

I said at the beginning of the year that it was gong to be a busy year for me well I have a new album available via my good friend Adrian Shenton's Phonospheric label.

It's called 'Passing Through Occasionally' and it's a long slow sleepy drone piece.
here's the cover...

and here's an extract...

Ian Holloway - Passing Through Occasionally clip by Phonospheric

Some of you may remember Adrian from his Measuring of Moments cd I put out on Quiet World the other year, Phonospheric is his label.
he's already put out one cd of his own music and as of today he has another available too called Slowtime. Adrian sent me an advance copy the other month and it's really a rather fab set of clean, bright ambient pieces. well worth a listen.

more soon

Wonderful Wooden Reasons #37

2011-02-20T03:35:00.000-08:00

After a 4 month hiatus the new issue of Wonderful Wooden Reasons (#37) is now online.

This'll be the last of these long issues because as of #38 I'm moving to a more me friendly format of smaller issues on a more regular fortnightly schedule.

in the meantime. the new issue is here and (for those of you still using the hellhole that is myspace) here.

if you just want to listen then the mixcloud is below.

this issue features an eclectic mix of drone, noise, free jazz, freak folk, shoegazer and plain old strangeness.

reviews of...

Banks Bailey - Upwelling
Albert Beger Electroacoustic Band - Peacemaker
derschlaeger - Blogs
Giant Bears - Whisper in the Hollows
Daniel Jones – MTT
Ian Middleton - Aural Spaces Versions
Yui Onodera & Celer - Generic City
Orchestramaxfieldparrish - Crossing of Shadows
The Raw Men Empire - Elodie
Colin Andrew Sheffield – Signatures
Matt Shoemaker - Soundtrack for Dislocation
Philip Sulidae - Banish
Tomo - Butterfly Dream and Other Guitar Works
Various - Underwater Noises
Simon Whetham & Paul Khimasia Morgan - The Grey Area

hope you find something worth exploring further.

Wonderful Wooden Reasons 37 by Quiet World on Mixcloud

Quiet World Radio #2: Quietude

2011-02-19T15:25:00.000-08:00

Quiet World Radio #2: Quietude by Quiet World on Mixcloud

Balefire now online

2011-02-19T15:13:00.000-08:00

the track I mentioned in the previous post is now available...

Ian Holloway - Balefire by cumbriaremixed

the full set of remixes are here...

Remixes by cumbriaremixed

Balefire

2011-02-18T06:26:00.000-08:00

Spent a very productive morning making a contribution for Shaun Blezzard's Cumbria Remixed: Lanternhouse project. I'm pretty pleased with the finished result it's nice a mellow with a little bit of an uncomfortable vibe to it. I only sent it off (digitally) to Shaun at lunch time today so I doubt he's got to hear it yet.
Also been working on the second of the Quiet World radio mixes (which will be called Quietude from this point on) - the first is below in case you'd like to hear it. the second will go live on sunday.
The idea of these is to alternate them with the now fortnightly Wonderful Wooden Reasons mixes and zine. It's a chance to put some of the other music i listen to that doesn't necessarily get a chance to be featured in the WWR ones.
hope you dig it.

Quiet World Radio #1 by Quiet World on Mixcloud

A thorn may pick you but a falls tounge even more

2011-02-04T03:14:00.000-08:00

A new download only album for your enjoyment.

peace

new music

2011-01-30T12:40:00.000-08:00

I'm ridiculously busy at the moment. My new job and the course I'm enrolled on are keeping me up to my eyeballs in work.

i have had the gaze of a muse upon me the last few days though and have put the finishing touches to 2 long form drone pieces. I've no idea what I'm going to do with them - they'll probably sit on my hard-drive for the next year or so until i have the time to make them available.

I've also been working on some tunes for the next in the Phantasms series. it's a very different discipline working with such small time frames but it's good fun. their main appeal is that i can work on them for 10 minutes - feel I've done something productive (life wise) and then go back refreshed to doing something productive (work wise).

There will be two releases from me soon. The next month or so will see the release of A Slow Feather Falls on my own Quiet World label. ASFF is a collaboration with one of my regular musical partners field recordist Banks Bailey.

Also in the immediate future is a release on Adrian Shenton's Phonospheric label called 'Passing Through Occasionally'. I'll not be getting any spare copies of this so please check with Adrian if you'd like one.

Wonderful Wooden Reasons is currently backlogged but progressing. I may possibly adopt the blog format for the foreseeable future until my workload decreases.

peace
ian

a traditional xmas list

2010-12-24T12:24:00.000-08:00

my list is now online at the zine and also below.

Top 10 for 2010

hi folks.

Because I'm a traditionalist at heart here's my top ten of 2010.

It's not ranked in any way these are just the ones I remember particularly digging. Obviously there were many more that could be here - everyone who passes through these pages is worth a listen, it's the whole point of the exercise.

My sincere thanks to everyone who has sent something to me. I'm way behind with my listening and it's been a tedious last few months not getting to listen to much music. I'll get a new issue up early in the new year.

Peace

ian

2010

Andrew Chalk - Ghosts of Nakhodka

(Siren 017)

The first ever review written for WWR (or ECReviews as it was called then) was an Andrew Chalk album. He set my benchmark for what constitutes a perfect release and has subsequently exceeded it on numerous occasions. Let's be straight here if you've not listened to me yet about just how good this here fella is and gone out and sourced every one of his available releases then really what's the point in you reading me.

Andrew is at the absolute peak of his game at the moment. everything he lets us hear is another plateau, higher, grander and more panoramic than the previous. Ghosts of Nakhodka is a real showcase piece consisting of one longer piece of sumptuous drone music followed by a cavalcade of shorter instrumental sketches each of which throws out more moments of beauty, clarity and empathy than many musicians manage in a lifetime.

If you're not buying everything he releases then you're not buying anything that matters.

(www.farawaypress.eu)

Chemins - cdr #5

CDR

Apparently this is the last we'll see of Chemins for a little while which is a damn shame. Their five little cdr releases have been one of the absolute highlights of the last year. The good news is thought that they're going away to concentrate on writing a full length album for release next year sometime.

CDR #5 continues where the 4 previous left off with Chemins luxurious soundworld of slow drones and introspective guitar interspersed with flickering electronic and rolling builds all present and accounted for. This time out though the lovely wee fellas have added a host of other interesting twits and textures to the mix. There's a vaguely lounge jazz air to one part and a distinctly middle eastern flavour to another before the whole thing rises for a euphoric conclusion.

It all adds up to yet another really rather wonderful 20 minutes spent in very good company indeed. I cannot wait for the album.

Mendel Kaelen - Remembering What Was Forgotten

Firstly my apologies to Mendel. I've had this fabulous album for a little while now and liked it so much I was carrying it around with me so I could keep playing it. Of course the inevitable happened and it got misplaced. Happily, earlier today it resurfaced so I can both listen to it again and also tell you all just how good it is.

Kaelen operates in the area of psychedelic drone augmented by field recordings which is nothing we haven't seen or heard before but the deeply ingrained sense of effortless beauty that runs through the four constituent compositions is just sublime, even at it's most bombastic - 'Light of Nature' - it is still beautifully poised with a distinct sense of implied melody behind the drawn out tones. I keep getting ridiculously lost in this album, only surfacing when the final chords die away and even then only long enough to press the play button again.

An exquisite album. Hugely and unrepentantly recommended for all lovers of the magic of the drone.

(www.mendelkaelen.com)

Sujo - Dimona

(Inam Records)

CDR

it's always a good thing when new Sujo drops through the letterbox. His heavy as hell grinding take on the post-rock monster is one of the most cathartic musical interludes I get sent here at WWR heights. 'Dimona' is a brutal half an hour of almost Godflesh levels of intense beauty. It's got a looser vibe than the erstwhile industrial - metal superstars but it hits the same level of uncompromising fuzzy and monolithic dystopia.

Undoubtedly this is one for the more 'metal' or 'rock' inclined among you and I pretty much guarantee you'll love it but in all honesty I'll happily recommend it to everyone cause it's ace!

(inamrecs AT yahoo.com)

Dead Shall Not Have Died In Vain / Dysthymia - split 7"

(Diophantine Discs n=23)

Two track, two act single on 7" vinyl (my favourite format) from one of the best labels around is always going to get me to sit up and pay attention. Both artists are new to me so we'll begin in the traditional manner with side A.

Dead Shall Not Have Died In Vain which sounds like one of those Canadian post rock outfits that were in vogue a few years back - Godspeed Thee Silver Pan Am Flames or somesuch - is the nom de guerre of one Marc Benner. Here he layers crashing metal over lush ambient drones. It's just the right mix of noisy and mellow and is way, way, way too short.

Dysthymia is my first exposure to the music of Diophantine label head Kyle Wright. Right from the off this is a very different animal from the one living on the flip side. The music here is a massive crescendo of grinding noise laced through with a looping siren call. It builds and builds before erupting in the inevitable money shot of screeching soaring sound. It's great fun.

To sum up - everything released on Diophantine is worth hearing - Everything!

(discs.diophantine.net)

Viosac - Dawning Luminosity

It'd be true to say I wasn't overly blown away by the previous Viosac albums that had kindly been passed my way. It wasn't that they were bad, they just weren't to my tastes. This time out though Graham Stewart has produced an album that is fully in line with what I love in my drone music.

'Dawning Luminosity' is a three song set of processed Moog drones that hover in the air and morph themselves into increasingly complex Venn diagrams. The music is distinctly electronic but holds a tactile warmth which you can almost feel as it swirls around you. I love this sort of vintage sci-fi soundworld that old tech just oozes so well and couple with some truly delightful and restrained musicianship this album is an absolute dream.

If like me you're a fan of the space drone of people like Tangerine Dream or Cluster then I really do recommend this one to you.

(www.viosac.net)

Hearts of Palm - Earth Headed Heart

(For Noises Sake)

CDR

An always welcome return from Cincinnati based experi-mentalists HOP who are here joined by C. Spencer Yeh (Burning Star Core) on violin. Unlike their previous recordings this is a solid 30 minute block of unadulterated improv. It's noisy, chaotic, anarchic and fun. HoP are very much of the Faustian school of improvising and build their music from hard edged shards of metallic scree. All good improvisation is introspective in that it is reliant on the participants being fully focussed on their part in the whole but HoP's brand doesn't promote introspection on the part of the listener, at least not in this listener. Instead it promotes big cheesy grins as one becomes gloriously ensnared in their multi-layered tangle of textures, instruments and sounds.

(www.myspace.com/fornoisessake)

Marsfield - The Towering Sky

(Faraway Press 16)

This album is like an octopus. It’s a many tentacled beast afloat in the murky depths manipulating it’s appendages in a manner that is not easily understood by onlookers but makes perfect sense to the octopus itself. It’s beautiful to behold, graceful beyond belief and you wish you could do it but you can’t because you‘re not an octopus. And yes I am drunk but that doesn’t stop me from being right.

(www.farawaypress.eu)

Nurse With Wound - Paranoia in Hi-Fi (Earworms 1978-2008)

(United Dirter DPROMCD69)

It's been a while since I invested in a NWW album. She and Me Fall Together was the last one. I didn't think much of it and it catalysed a feeling that I'd been having for a while that the albums were just getting churned out and the quality had taken a nose dive. For a long time NWW had been my bench mark and I still dearly love many (and I do mean many) of the earlier albums but I'd gotten lost in the avalanche of releases and there was no way of carrying on so I didn't. Then the other week I was mooching around a little record store and spotted this little beauty with it's 99p price tag - yes that is right ninety, nine, pence. It had to be worth a shot.

PiHiFi consists of 4 long tracks of edited together highlights from the Nurse back-catalogue by Andrew Liles. Only a real obsessive would be able to spot where all the segments come from and I'm not even going to try but those bits you'll recognise and those bits you won't are married seamlessly with some of the deftest editing I've ever heard. It's an absolute corker of an album and I can't recommend it highly enough, especially at that price.

(?)

Darren Tate - Nature In The City

(Fungal 036)

CDR

The ever wonderful Mr. Tate returns with another scorching set of Cluster style cosmic voyages melding keyboards, guitar and field recordings to create a set that from the moment you hit play heads straight through your third eye and drags your mind behind it on a whistle-stop tour of all the most colourful non-places it can find. I love it when he gets his synths out as I don't think there's anyone who can do the cosmic thing with the ease that Tate obviously can. This is well worth tracking down a copy of.

(www.icrdistribution.com)

suddenly there was music

2010-09-26T02:38:00.000-07:00

was meant to be working yesterday - for the next 2 years that's going to be pretty much a default setting for me - but the new medication that i'm currently taking really knocked the stuffing out of me - fortunately it's very short term so only 9 more days and i'm off it.
I thought i'd relax for half an hour or so and get my equilibrium back by playing with some sounds before getting on with work. 6 hours later i took the headphones off with a new piece of music finished that mixes my synth drones with one of Banks Bailey's beautiful field recordings from the Rincon Mountains in Arizona. I'm waiting to hear his take on it but i'm pretty happy with it. it's pretty gentle stuff which is where my head is at currently. my one real concern with it is the artificial synth noise which i might try and soften into a more organic sound but i'll wait an see what B has to say on it first.

Beautiful sunny day here with my mother and her husband on their way to visit bringing me my old gramophones that they've been storing. I'm going to use them in a class on tuesday and thursday this week as most of my students don't even know about vinyl let alone the old shellac 78's. Bloody philistines.

Phantasms

2010-09-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop has always been a big influence on the music I listen to and the music I make. The wonderful noises they made throughout the 1970s shaped my ears in ways nothing else ever did. Doctor Who alone would have been enough but it is merely the tip of a very large iceberg indeed.

Lately I've been re-immersing myself in the work of people such as Daphne Oram, Delia Derbyshire and John Baker and got the idea to try and create a set of Radiophonics of my own, Phantasms is the result. It was created between 5th and 14th of September 2010 using a virtual FM7 synth (and a few other little twists and turns). It's as unrepentantly electronic as my music ever has gotten or is ever likely to get. I hope you dig it.

Buy it here or listen to it below.

Ian Holloway - Phantasms by Quiet World on Mixcloud

Teaching again & some new music

2010-09-13T13:54:00.000-07:00

I teach my first class in about 7 years tomorrow. I've been doing more individual student work over the last few years and so have been away from the rigours of front of class teaching. For a long while i didn't miss it but over the last year or two i've got the jitters for it again.

I'm going to be teaching three courses this year which meant my summer went out the window as i was just sat here writing lessons. It was a lot of work and i haven't even got half of it done yet but i'm ahead and off and running as of tomorrow at 9.

last week i got the impulse to make some new tunes. I've been listening to a lot of Radiophonic Workshop stuff of late and had the idea to put together some electronic miniatures - sort of my own Doctor Who soundtrack album. It's all done on a virtual FM7 synth and i've kept it as live as possible. Each track was recorded with the minimal of layering and post-production work. I've avoided the endless tinkering and tweaking that usually happens with one of my compositions and instead i've let the originals stand.

It's unlikely i'll put this out as a cd but i think i'll make it available as a Bandcamp download (and as a mixcloud cloudcast for those of you who dont want to pay).

Here's to only track that's online so far - it's probably the most successfully soundtracky piece of them all.
2 by quietworld

ambient dub anyone?

2010-08-16T02:53:00.000-07:00

over the last few years i've been slowly putting together a collecton of tunes under the tongue in cheek name The Interplanetary Love Orchestra. It's very different from what i generally do, i call it drum 'n' lounge.
this last couple of days I've finished a new tune, this one has more of a dub feel to it though.

here it is - along with the other three tunes if you've not heard them...

Blackberry light by quietworld

the video for that last one is the drive up to the faerm where my mother lives. i'm holding the camera steady - the path is that bumpy.

wonderful wooden reasons #35

2010-08-09T11:05:00.000-07:00

The August issue (#35) is now online complete with attached Soundcloud mix. (which is at the bottom of this post if you just want music without the words)

As usual you can read it at it's own website - here - or at it's myspace page - here.

It's the usual ragtag assortment of drone, ambient, noise, psychedelia and wierdness with even a touch of post-hardcore lunacy this month.

reviews of...

Beequeen - Time Waits For No One
Andrea Borghi - Moltiplicazioni
Chemins - cdr#4
Clutter - Yellow Light Discarded
Rod Cooper - Accepting the Machines
Dead Shall Not Have Died In Vain / Dysthymia - split 7"
Everything But The Gargoyle - Four Flies on Grey Velvet
Hall of Mirrors - Forgotten Realm
Marinos Koutsomichalis - Trevor Jones Studio Sessions vol 1
Goh Lee Kwang - Hands
Dale Lloyd - Akasha_For Record
Mopey Mumble Mouse - I Am Happy Being Nothing
Lasse-Marc Riek - Habitats
Mathieu Ruhlmann - As A Leaf Or A Stone
Hiroki Sasajima - Nille
Seasons (pre-din) - Occasionally I Forget To Breathe
Spoils & Relics / BRB>Voicecoil - Split LP
Syrinx / Playing With Nuns - Split
Nicholas Szczepanik & Juan Jose Calarco - Lack Affix
Various - Dark Meadows Recordings sampler
Viosac - Dawning Luminosity
VipCancro - Tropico

I hope you find something you dig.

Wonderful Wooden Reasons 35 by Quiet World on Mixcloud

2010-08-04T12:08:00.000-07:00

Psychic Space Invasion - This Quiet World by Quiet World on Mixcloud

Faust live and interview

2010-06-28T13:10:00.000-07:00

there's an interview with Faust and live recordings on this player

Phantom Circuit #38 (27th May 2010) by Phantom Circuit on Mixcloud

North Wales Jaunt

2010-06-22T15:51:00.001-07:00

this last week i was bumming around north west Wales.

we stayed here...

This was the view from our room

the pointy mountain nearest the left is Snowdon.

Did a lot of mooching around but best of all we went to Port Meirion

which was where they made...

There are more photos on my flickr page

i have been travelling

2010-06-20T14:41:00.000-07:00

i'm now home and bored.

photos to follow.

Wonderful Wooden Reasons #34

2010-06-08T10:18:00.001-07:00

hi folks
the new issue (#34) of Wonderful Wooden Reasons is now online as is the mixcloud mix.
It can be read either here or here

It's the usual mixed bag of genres. I hope you find something you like.

albums by...

Chemins
DIODAAR
Fukuoka, Garcia, Henritzi, Izarzugaza, Karpenter, Mantizidisor
Grozny Penthouse
Rolf Julius
Marinos Koutsomichalis
Richard Moult
David Newlyn
No Context
N.Strahl.N
Obsil
Quetev Meriri
Seasons (pre-din)
Sujo
Philip Sulidae
Syrinx
Darren Tate
Carlos Villena
David Wells
Simon Whetham

Wonderful Wooden Reasons 34 by Quiet World on Mixcloud

First review of 'The Earth in Play' now online

2010-06-01T02:56:00.000-07:00

big thanks as ever to Frans over at Vital Weekly.

Following his solo 'poppy' sample madness of 'Handle This Wino Like He Was Angel' (see Vital Weekly 721) Ian Holloway returns here to his familiar background that of drone music, along with Darren Tate, who is of course known as the man behind Ora. He plays 'squeeze box', guitar and percussion) here, while Holloway takes responsibility for piano, wooden flute and sea recordings. Its divided in two parts, of which the second is the longer piece. The first is an intro like piece for some flowing synthesizer like sounds, and then it goes into the second piece, the main thing. Its hard to recognize many of the instruments used in this tracks, squeeze box? percussion? A guitar, yes, sea sounds, yes, piano too. Its perhaps too easy to say that this is just a beautiful piece of music, but it is. A great slow flow of sounds, a quiet sea on a calm day type of music. Nothing more, nothing less than just that. Nothing new under the burning drone sun, but in these capable hands a great piece of
music.

.......................

I'm up to my eyeballs in work here at the moment. Between writing the new issue of WWR (online this coming Sunday all being well) and writing the lectures for the (now three) courses that i'll be teaching come September I'm drowning in work. Lecturing wise I'm trying to get as much done now as i can before i start the 2 year course i'm signed up for in august which will be a ridiculous amount of extra work. hopefully the extra cash will make things feel less of a chore cause i'm brutally skint.

anyway, i've been pottering around quietly with some tunes for the Pendulum 2 (not it's finished title) album i've been planning. i'm four tracks into it and it's sounding pretty good so far. this is one of them. the vid was made on my digital camera walking along Pennard cliffs, Mumbles promenade and Llangennith beach. hope you dig it.

Ian Holloway & Darren Tate - The Earth In Play

2010-05-07T05:06:00.000-07:00

the new album will be available from Wednesday 12th May but for those of you who like to try before you buy...

Ian Holloway & Darren Tate - The Earth In Play by Quietworld on Mixcloud

The Earth In Play album art

2010-05-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

i've been a busy chappy today working on the art for the new album. I'd done a version the other week but wasn't really happy with it so today i really went to town on it.
I'm pretty pleased with the finished version. the album will be going to the printers sometime next week so it'll be out in about a fortnight.
peace

Mixing the Quiet World

2010-04-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

It's been a pretty tedious day today. It's been pissing down all day and so I've spent it sat here feeling cooped up and slightly ill. I really wanted to spend the day under a tree with my book and a bottle but the weather put paid to that idea. also was meant to be going to a gig tonight but my lift cancelled at the last moment and i couldn't be bothered to go on my own so, crap day followed by crap evening.
but it did mean i could get on with something I'd planned to do the other day and so i busied myself making a Mixcloud mix of old Quiet World tracks. There's one unreleased track on there (the second) but the rest are all taken from previous QW and ECR releases. hope you enjoy.

Quiet World by Quietworld on Mixcloud

Gambolling dirt

2010-04-25T01:34:00.000-07:00

After about 10 months of promising to do it i've finally finished the new collaboration with Darren Tate. It's a two track album called 'The Earth In Play' and it's a lot mellower and less intense than recent releases. no keyboard drones on this one it's all acoustic. Darren sent me some accordian and strange percussive noises (made on a guitar and a bowl) which i mixed with some field recordings, a great long layered wooden flute drone and some of my rudimentary piano playing. hopefully you'll dig it. i like it and darren's response was pretty enthusiastic. no release date as yet but i'd hazard a guess that it'll be in about a month.

Mixcloud for WWR33

2010-04-22T01:13:00.000-07:00

it took me a while to get this together but here it is.

Wonderful Wooden Reasons 33 by Quietworld on Mixcloud

grave hunting

2010-04-14T15:28:00.000-07:00

Went for a long walk the other day and took some photos. the second one was taken from where i was crashed out in the third one.

An ancient burial site in a place called Tinkinswood.

another ancient burial site. this one was for a greyhound.

taking a well needed break. it was unseasonably warm after such a long cold winter.

tired, so very tired.

2010-04-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

have run myself ragged over the last week and a half but able to go back to work soon for a bit of a rest.

the new issue of the zine is up. no podcast as yet as i've not had time but hopefully soon.

a new review of A Brief Sojourn arrived today from Evening Of Light - my thanks to Oscar.

In terms of quality releases, things have been running smoothly for Welsh drone/ambient label Quiet World. A recent example is A Brief Sojourn, a collaboration between Banks Bailey and Ian Holloway, delivering well over half an hour of finely blended drones and field recordings.

The sound on this album is most comparable to that on Summerland, where both men worked together with Darren Tate. A heavy dose of nature sounds like rain, birds, rustlings, are combined with subtle melodies, drones, and pulses, together forming a varied and atmospheric whole. The drones and weather sounds form an organic backdrop for a broad scala of unique ‘voices’.

The release isn’t very extreme at either end of the intensity spectrum; it maintains a stable level of layeredness and volume, without any strong eruptions of noise or silence. A perfect companion piece for a journey, a meditation or relaxation session, and the like. It’s a tad dark and ominous at times, so A Brief Sojourn will primarily be of interest to lovers of more obscure drone and ambient, but that goes for most of the Quiet World titles thus far. Compared to what went before, in any case, this one is certainly no disappointment.

chilling with tea and a book

2010-04-06T04:28:00.000-07:00

on holiday for two weeks. can't afford to go anywhere exotic so staying put and disappearing off on jaunts. today though is all about watching old episodes of doctor who, reading a victorian era who-dunnit, walking into mumbles for a mooch around and then getting a late breakfast in my favourite greasy-spoon cafe before heading home to repeat the first two.

got a new review yesterday for A Brief Sojourn and very nice it is too. thanks michael.

On A Brief Sojourn, Quiet World head Ian Holloway (formerly Psychic Space Invasion) constructs wonderfully solemn ambient gloriousness out of synthesizers and Banks Bailey's crisp, bucolic field recordings. It's a stellar match – this isn't the first time the two have collaborated – as Holloway's gloriously low-key drones coalesce perfectly with the incidental recordings: a trickling creek, wind in the thickets, insect symphonies... All together, the disc has that uncanny ability to take you to (your own mental rendition of) the sound sources themselves, though imbued with an inner tranquility that meshes perfectly with the pastoral nature of the audio. Through the album's lone, substantial composition, several stretches of mood are encountered, including periods of uplifting lightness, vague menace, and dreary longingness. Certainly, one of Holloway's core talents is his ability to conjure up these feelings with such minimal sonic output – it's all about sound placement and the choice of tones. Design aside, however, what results from all this is a thirty-six minute passage of sound that is at once marvellously listenable, exquisite to rest to, and more than a little reminiscent of ambient work by Biosphere – especially with regards to the field recordings, which remind one of a less polar formulation of Geir Jenssen's atmospheric designs. A subtle treat. - Michael Tau,

New items in the Quiet World Shop

2010-03-25T07:09:00.001-07:00

I'm having a clearout and as i have a lot of stuff knocking around the house this may take a while.
Most of it will go on ebay (user id elviscoffee) but a lot of it will be added to the shop on the QW site.

I only started doing this earlier today and as I'm otherwise occupied over the coming weekend it's unlikely to be added to in the next few days but over time there'll be a large amount of cds and books appearing on there.

Contact me if you're interested in anything.

Celtic Mystic?

2010-03-19T01:59:00.000-07:00

another review of the new album, this time from The Sound Projector. I'm a pretty new convert to the zine. i've known about it for a while but it kept slipping off my radar. he updates weekly with about 5 new reviews and i think it's well worth ckecking out.

Celtic mystic Ian Holloway was last heard from us when he was musing about the fragility of dragonfly wings at the end of last year. On Handle this wino like he was an angel: Baubles & Gewgaws 2002-2008 (QUIET WORLD 13), he delves into a secret folder on his home PC, contents of said folder of a nature and value known only to himself. Said contents built up over time when he was producing numerous albums and tracks as Psychic Space Invasion between 2002 and 2008. On that basis, one might be forgiven for thinking this is just a collection of anonymous computer music, but this little Chinese puzzle is a far more interesting listen than the banal filtered samples and boring processed loops that most creators manage to summon up from their Samsungs. I rather feel Holloway has somehow left a collection of his own mental imprints in the very circuits of his PC, and he needed only activate a few keystrokes to let these strange ideas and impressions come tumbling out.

I'm so glad Wino is getting nice reviews. I really didn't know what to expect as it's so different from anything else i've done in recent years. it's a good feeling when you get positive feedback on something.

have a great weekend.

The reviews are coming thick and fast at the moment

2010-03-13T01:51:00.000-08:00

this is from Indieville and is written by fella called Michael Tau who i did that little interview with last month. He says very nice things about my music and I thank him for it.

Nothing delights me more than a forty minute ambient epic, and Holloway delivers in spades. Treading the same water as Biosphere's Substrata album, She Loves to See the Sky moseys gradually through a metamorphosing passage of sound, toying with various background textures, field recordings, and synthesizer drones along the way. It's a relaxing but substantive trip, imbued with a naturalistic quality that is evoked by way of faraway birds chirping, wind rustling, and general outdoorsy audio. Seldom does this disc force its way into the sonic foreground, so to speak, although some indefinable metallic clatter is heard on occasion – seldom to grating effect, but more so to add variety to an otherwise subtle release. She Loves to See the Sky is, ultimately, a fundamentally restful album, and it's perfectly suited to accompanying the listener to bed. With lights out and a comfortable nook ready, this is nothing short of a marvellous treat.

A Brief Sojourn reviewed in Rumbles

2010-03-11T08:27:00.000-08:00

Banks is most definitely not from South Wales - Arizona actually - but another nice review.

Ian Holloway & Banks Bailey are a couple of sonic explorers from South Wales, here presenting their album "A Brief Sojourn," which is a single thirty-six minute track taking electronics and natural sounds as a basis for work. The synthesizers drone and sway in stereo, while other sounds lurk deep in the mix. The natural sounds are subtle and don't take over; a deep and melancholy mood covers the piece. Very good indeed, and ideal for that 'last CD of the evening' moment.

there's still copies of the album available should anyone want one.

.....................................................................

Winter finally seems to be over and it's been a beautiful spring day here. It's still pretty cold but the sun is shining the birds are singing and the park is full of muticoloured wild flowers. Had a good walk through Clyne and fed the ducks which was something i hadn't done for a long long time.

I have some field recordings here that i'm going to upload to here some point soon so you may want to keep an eye out for them. for now though it's time for some tea.

first review of the new album

2010-03-09T12:53:00.000-08:00

Always super quick off the mark, the ever lovely Frans over at Vital Weekly has posted up the first review of the new(ish) album.

He's wrong about it being my first album of shorter tracks, there've been 6 others, but on the whole I think it's a pretty fair assessment.

IAN HOLLOWAY - HANDLE THIS WINO LIKE HE WAS AN ANGEL: BAUBLES & GEWGAWS 2002-2008 (CDR by Quiet World)
As far as I can remember, I think that all of the releases by Ian Holloway had just one track. Usually a drone based piece of around forty minutes. That's about the extend of his work, with minor differences here and there. Then this new release comes a major surprise. Apparently Holloway sometimes creates weird, little pieces on his computer, which he calls 'little diversions, games, distractions and brainstorms' which never fitted on any 'real' release. All of these little pieces were kept over a period of eight years and are now collected here. This is by far not the Holloway we know, no long form drones here, hardly any organ like sound, but something which is probably best defined as plunderphonics. Lifting his sounds from various types of media (CDs, TV, internet: who knows) he cuts and pastes them together in a highly vibrant manner. The CD opens with 'Why M', which seems to be more a click 'n cut piece, but quite soon after orchestral music comes in. Looped, transposed, shifted in true plunderphonic fashion. As said sometimes things are more abstract, in a clicks 'n cut manner, but these tracks are all pretty short. Its a pretty interesting release, but perhaps a bit long for the limited amount of ideas that these pieces have. I think Holloway could have been a bit more selective with these pieces, throw out those with the weakest ideas and over the top effects, like 'Monday's Time', and have with ten or so (instead of fifteen now) a much stronger album. Now its all a bit too sketch like and a bit crowded. I am pretty sure his dedicated fans will be shocked by this release, but I thought it was pretty good as well as funny. (FdW)

interestingly Darren Tate said something similar about it needing pruning but the whole point of releasing ths album was that it was a folder full of tracks that i'd grown to be inordinately fond of and so to leave any out would have felt odd.

It's always nice to get the first review back i'm not overly concerned with them but it is a good feeling when someone says something nice about your tunes.

.....................................

have spent most of today discussing the impact of punk music on subsequent genres with a bunch of music technology students. there are definitely worse ways to spend a day.

some photos from Oxford

2010-03-08T12:41:00.000-08:00

I got to be disgustingly old back in January (40 if you must know) and so sue decided to indulge my passion for all things brass and victorian and took me on a jaunt to Oxford to the Science museum and the Steampunk exhibition they were running. We also got to check out the new look Ashmolean - notable only for the slice that the staircase took out of my finger - and the beautiful Pitt-Rivers Anthropology museum and the Natural History museum which had the best roof i've ever seen.

anyway, here's some photos - i hope you dig them.

* The photos in landscape are getting clipped by blogger so click them to see the full version.

this is the Pitt-Rivers. check out that amazing totem pole. You could lose weeks (and children) in this place. It's jammed with stuff.

T-Rex at the Natural History Museum

Just the most amazing roof. i could have stared at this for days.

The Science Museum goes pseudo science.
This is a real exhibit (not part of the Steampunk stuff) and my favourite thing there. it's for measuring skulls. Isn't it wonderful.

An 'Eye-Pod'
I want one of these suits.peace
ian

ps - it's my brother's birthday today. Happy birthday Stuart here's to many, many more.

New album out now

2010-02-23T14:36:00.000-08:00

Between 2002 and 2008 I recorded and released 7 albums, 2 EP's and various compilation tracks under the alias of Psychic Space Invasion. They were, I'm happy to say, a stylistically varied bunch that ranged from the sinister (This Quiet World) to the cosmic (Pendulum) with excursions into minimalism (All God's Children Got Space), noise (Lullaby For Rhodri) and musique concrete (In the Mean Time) with a few other detours along the way. It was undoubtedly the most creatively rewarding period of my life to that point.

All the time I was making this music there was, hidden on my PC a separate and very oddly named folder into which I fed all the interesting little diversions, games, distractions and brainstorms that simply didn't fit on whichever album I was working on at the time.

The title, 'Handle this wino like he was an angel', was robbed wholesale and wholeheartedly from the novel 'Trout Fishing In America' by beat author Richard Brautigan which I was reading at the time. Only ever meant to be an interim title for the folder it became, over time, increasingly apt as I grew ever more enamoured of it's contents and these previously discarded compositions took on a new life.

These 15 tracks represent a period in my life of constant exploration, of trying to find a route through music that was interesting and satisfying. These little stabs of sound are the much loved bastard offspring of that search.

The album is available from the Quiet World website here or alternatively you can listen to it by clicking the play button on the mixcloud player below.

I hope you dig it.

Handle This Wino Like He Was An Angel: 2002-2008 by Quietworld on Mixcloud

new old music on it's way

2010-02-21T02:21:00.000-08:00

over the last couple of weeks I've been toying with the idea of releasing a new album. It's a collection of outtakes dating from 2002 to 2008, the time when I was making music under the psychic space invasion guise. it's 15 tracks of music that never fitted onto one of the albums or was made purely for the joy of making an odd noise.
I'm fairly brutal with my music and if i don't like something it usually gets deleted but all of these tracks must have caught my ears in some way as instead they were archived in a folder named after a line in a Richard Brautigan book i was reading at the time. over time i found that the tunes in this folder were something that i played increasingly often when nothing else was doing it for me and so became increasingly fond of the little blighters.
So, cutting to the now and I've decided to put it out and let others have a listen. Designing the sleeve took forever but I'm pretty pleased with the one i finally settled on.

I guarantee it's like nothing you've ever heard from me before. It's playful, it's obtuse, it's angular and it's fun.
it'll be available from the 28th of February.

i did an interview

2010-02-12T12:21:00.000-08:00

it's here.

i'm also working on new tunes for the first time in 14 months.
it's a good feeling.

new zine now online

2010-02-09T11:18:00.000-08:00

i've uploaded the new issue of Wonderful Wooden Reasons complete with the mixcloud podcast for most of the featured artists as one long mix.
i've opened it with a tune of my own for no other reason than i wanted to be on there.
hope you enjoy.

Wonderful Wooden Reasons 32 by Quietworld on Mixcloud

was bored and a little drunk so i did this

2010-02-01T17:03:00.000-08:00

Drunken Monday by Quietworld on Mixcloud

you tubing

2010-01-22T11:43:00.000-08:00

been having a day of busy idleness today watching BSG and making vids for youtube.
they're all just single image things except Music Box which is a short video of the track that leads from the gate to the doors of my mothers farm. i'm holding the camera still it's the car that's rolling around. that damn track has already cost us an exhaust and i thought it was getting another at xmas.

i'd like to be warm now please baby jesus.

2010-01-09T13:34:00.000-08:00

i am indoors with the radiators on and i'm wearing gloves and a hat. It is soooooo cold here the house's heating system can't handle it.

as it was fine today we did manage to get out and have a walk along the seafront and take a couple of photos.

reading

2010-01-06T14:26:00.000-08:00

i'm knee deep in books at the moment - i usually am but at the moment it's particularly deep as Borders had their closing down sale in the run up to xmas and so i have a lot of stuff to read.

so far i've read Death of Grass by John Christopher (he also wrote The Tripods) which is one i'd been fancying for a while. It was ok, a less cosy Wyndham-esque apocalypse but without Wyndham's charm.
i'm almost through Dan Abnett's Titanicus which is typical Abnett. not his best but eminently readable.
i'm unsure as to what to read next - probably going to be either Neil Stephenson's The Diamond Age, John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things or Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods.
I also have a load of unread graphic novels that i'll pepper these with including Grandville by Brian Talbot which looks pretty fine.

The latest issue of WWR went online just before new year and included a huge list of other people's choices for the year. It was a great response from those people i asked. some couldn't do it and some wouldn't for whatever reason, the only thing I'm concerned about was no response from Banks, if you're reading this fella get in touch - hope everything's ok. the variety of stuff people picked was really varied, Jean-Herve Peron's list was pretty funny and consisted of 10 albums he'd like to record himself.

xmas was the usual turmoil but was fun to see the family up at the farm.

hope y'all had a good time and have a great 2010.

Britain in the snow....

2010-01-06T14:21:00.000-08:00

is the most pathetic thing you'll ever see.

swansea has had about 2 inches of snow last night and as a result all the schools and colleges are shut. i'm not complaining about an impromptu day off but it's pretty feeble.

the rest of the country has had a little more than us but not enough to justify changing the television schedules to accomodate a show entirely about the last few days snowfall. Airports are shut, motorways are shut, britain is shut.

then you look at countries that actually have snow to a depth worth talking about and see that they continue functioning as normal. there seem to be lessons worth learning in there somewhere.

i just robbed this picture off Warren Ellis' website because it's fab.

today is..

2009-12-05T14:33:00.000-08:00

wet,
warmer,
Saturday,
almost over,
hectic,
uncomfortable,
busy,
noisy,
tidier,
late to start,
pixelated,
chauffeured,
reviewed,
recycled,
browsed,
drank,
boiled,
candlelit,
surfed,
darned,
drunk,
shopped,
hoovered
and
not necessarily in the right order

Quieter World

2009-11-05T01:44:00.000-08:00

I have an idea for a spin off from Quiet World. For lack of a better name i'm currently referring to it as Quieter World.

The bare bones of the idea is to invite people to make a recording of their immediate surroundings wherever they happen to be at a certain time for, say, five minutes. These would then be archived via the QW site as free downloads.

a new time is then set for another week, month, whenever. kinda like a global audio snapshot.

it might be fun?

if you're interested get in touch.

beer is good...

2009-11-05T01:36:00.000-08:00

mornings, less so.

downloading the Quiet World

2009-11-04T08:13:00.000-08:00

Just a quick message to let y'all know that the download page at www.quietworld.co.uk has been significantly updated to be both easier to use and also to include many of the more recently sold out titles.

It's cold here but there is beer in my near future, bean stew in my nearer future and fireworks tomorrow - yay for fireworks.

an arrival

2009-10-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

The new album is finally out. the (rather large) box of discs arrived on friday and I spent the weekend bagging up the first batch to be sent out. After visiting the post office earlier today i now know one thing for sure, that this label business is pretty expensive. Fun though.

The weather has finally turned here and Autumn is upon us with a vengeance. Went for a walk through the woods yesterday. The trees are shedding and the ground is thick with needles and leaves in various different shades of red. From the feel of the weather i don't think autumn is going to hang around too long though. winter is fast approaching and will be a long one. I'd noticed over the last couple of years that we are fast moving towards a state where we only really have two seasons per year - summer & winter. Spring and Autumn seem to be getting shorter with each passing year. it's a real shame, for many reasons but mostly, because they're my favourites.

i have a week off work so have gotten started with the next issue of WWR as the releases are still pretty well piled up after the summer's travails. Two new Andrew Chalk LPs turned up today though and that's always something to get excited about. They're as beautifully packaged as ever and i'm sick with envy (in a good way) at just how good he is at this music making (and sleeve making) lark.
My main ambition for this week though is to clear some shelf space so i'm going to be indulging in plenty of reading and also trying to get some books up on ebay to clear a bit of room here (and reimburse myself for the cost of making the new album).

peace to you all
ian

A short temporary visit

2009-10-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

Sitting next to my right elbow as I type this is the sample copy of my new album, 'A Brief Sojourn', which arrived from the printers today. It's pretty nice.
unlike recent Quiet World releases this one won't be wrapped in a little poly sleeve but is housed in a half size dvd case. Not one of those slimline ones but one that is half as tall. They look very nice. I'd had a few sent to me via Wonderful Wooden Reasons over the last year so when Darren Tate mentioned that his printers had them in and he was using them for his new album I jumped at the chance to get some for this one.
All being well I should have the rest of them by friday (monday at the latest).

also, the latest issue of the zine is now online at www.wonderfulwoodenreasons.co.uk and at www.myspace.com/wonderfulwoodenreasons
there's over 20 albums featured and some of them are real gems.

btw - i have a facebook account if anyone'd like to add me and say hello.

peace
ian

starting to come out of hibernation

2009-09-23T08:31:00.000-07:00

Hello my friends

after a suitably slow summer of avoidance of anything that felt even remotely like work i'm starting to get back in the swing and doing things again.
i've spent most of the last 3 months with my head buried in a succession of books and it's been a lot of fun. i'll put some vague write-ups about some of them below.

WWR is in limbo until i can get a new seedee player as mine decided to die on me the other week. it's the fourth player i've trashed in the last 3 years which probably speak volumes about how much i use them.

in the next month or so there should be a couple of new albums from me. the long awaited collaboration with Banks Bailey is imminent - i just need to make some tweaks to the sleeve design - and very soon will see the split cassette on Agharta with Andreas Brandal. I've only heard snatches of his music through his myspace so it'll be interesting to catch some more.

peace
ian

these aren't really reviews so much as things i put on the board at Whitechapel. so if they seem oddly worded that's why...

I've just, as in 5 minutes ago, finished 'The Warlord of the Air' by Michael Moorcock. It was fantastic. It's been a while since i enjoyed anything quite so much. Barstable (the protagonist) is a slightly dim man with a moral compass that points straight ahead. Moorcock takes him on a journey to the heart of his misconceptions regarding the steam-driven 'utopia' he has found himself in in a way that is realistic, believable and wonderously fantastical. I have the other two waiting to be read but i'm going to eke them out over what remains of my holiday.

Michael Moorcock's The Land Leviathan. the second in his oswald bastable steampunk series was, whilst not being the airship and anarchist laden romp of the first (The Warlord of the Air), still a fine way to spend the day. This one spent more time on world building than on plot development which made for a nice gear change but i'm hoping the third will be a combination of the two.

Richard Brautigan - The Hawkline Monster. I love Brautigan. I read his In Watermelon Sugar way back in my stoned youth and loved the unrepentant hippie utopianism of it. Trout Fishing in America (probably his most famous) came next and was also wonderful but in a more poetical Beat manner. The Hawkline Monster is on the surface a more straightforward novel where two killers are hired by Miss Hawkline to kill the monster that lives in the caves under the house. Such a mudane plot was never going to satisfy Brautigan though and things soon take a side-step. For me though it's the gracefulness and the dance of his prose that is the real joy.

have finally finished Lud-In-The-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. It turned out to be a proper windbag of a novel. Endlessly impressed by it's own intelligence without ever really putting that intelligence to work in a meaningful way. By the halfway point i found myself referring to it as Lud-In-The-Mud as a result of the effort involved in wading through the sticky morass of the authors prose. I think there was a pretty nifty little tale in there somewhere but her writing style was distinctly lacking in any sort of wit or melody and as such it never ceased being an effort to keep my attention on the page.

have just finished The Osiris Ritual by George Mann, the second of his Newbury & Hobbes Steampunk mysteries. I thought the first (The Affinity Bridge) was a fun, if a little flawed, romp through a fog-ridden london that mixed zombies, robots and airships into an entertaining neo-victorian thriller. It's recommended for those looking for a more than satisfyingly pulp steampunk fix.
this second one wasn't as good as it's predecessor. The plot was a little rushed and lacked grandeur and scope but mostly i think he sacrificed too much of the world-building that was so well done in the first. I heartily approved of how naturalistic he allows the newly emerging technology to feel but half the joy (for me at least) of this sort of genre fiction lies in how the author interweaves technology and the subsequent cultural and societal changes into the narrative. i felt like i didn't learn anything new about the universe he's created and without that it may as well have been set (to an extent) in our own victorian era.
That said though, Mann has an engaging style and the book was a fun, fast-paced read with a third volume still to come.

taking time for

2009-08-13T11:48:00.000-07:00

reading.
walking.
thinking.
listening.
looking.
resting.

being, not doing.

new music on the horizon

2009-07-26T08:33:00.000-07:00

just to fill you all in on some new music heading your way soon from me.

i wasn't going to release anything until the end of the summer but i was asked for some music for a split cassette release by Arma from AghartA in Lithuania. I don't really know when it's coming out but it'll be fairly soon. It'll be a limited edition of 50 cassettes and I'm only getting a couple of copies so really if you want one then you'll need to contact arma direct by visiting the website.

My contribution is a 29 minute drone piece called 'The Prescient Machine' and is the first part of a series of releases i've been putting together this year based entirely around acoustic sounds. There'll be at least another two in the series (the next album with Darren Tate and an album to be released next year). Before either of those see the light of day though I'll be issuing the collaboration between myself and Banks Bailey, called 'A Brief Sojourn', sometime in September.

peace
ian

something to watch

2009-07-15T01:27:00.000-07:00

charlie brooker is a newspaper columnist and tv presenter here in the uk.
he writes two weekly columns for the best of the daily newspapers - The Guardian. his monday column is a hysterical rant about whatever crosses his mind whilst his weekend one is a review (or assault on) that weeks TV called Screen Burn.

This second column morphed into a tv show (Screenwipe) a few years back of which they've done 5 series (all are available on youtube and are well worth a watch even if you live outside the UK)

For the most recent series however things took a slight twist as they renamed the show and dedicated the series entirely to looking at how the news is presented. it's brilliant stuff. interesting, thought provoking and very, very funny.

American readers may like to check out the episode dealing with the US way of presenting the news.

webcomics

2009-07-09T03:03:00.000-07:00

hello
a flying visit to point your eye bones in the direction of some groovy things to read.

this one is Warren Ellis' Freak Angels. it's an ongoing weekly serial that's kind of a follow on re-imagining of John Wndham's Midwich Cuckoos. It's not the best thing he's ever done but it's very readable and completely free. it's an ongoing tale which has been running for a little while but the link will take you to the first episode.

these others are all autobiographical / confessional type strips. this first one led me to the other which then led to the third.

'ellerbisms' is probably my favourite of the three. It does have a slight tendency towards an almost mawkish sentimentality (but i am a cold hearted individual so take that opinion with as big a pinch of salt as you'd like) but he's unafraid of tackling downs as well as ups and it's regularly funny with a clean cartoony art style that perfectly suits his tales. you'll have to go back a couple of strips to see why he's got a swollen mouth.

The Everyday I discovered through the authors regular appearences in the Ellerbisms strip. his strips are less substantial but have a nicely self-deprecating feel going on. he's just starting a series on his visit to Glastonbury festival. The first episode is a little bit of a whinge about the hassle of getting there which left me thinking that anyone willing to shell out that much money to attend that cattle-farm (literally) of substandard corporate endorsed, major-label, 'sham-indie' twaddle kinda deserves to be treated shoddily. Bruce fucking springsteen!!!!! I mean, come on?

Sorry Comics is an interesting jaunt through the authors experiences. His art really reminds me of something but I can't quite nail it. I've only read a few of these but they're well observed and very nicely executed with a more leisurely (although still short) pace than the other two strips. there are also lots of links down the side of the page to other webcomics that might be worth checking out.

peace
ian

restless mondays

2009-07-06T14:22:00.000-07:00

the holidays have finally started. for the students at least. me, i was in work today. it's a very different place when the students aren't there. it's almost creepily quiet but it does give one lots of opportunity to play with all the toys that i don't usually get access to.

today's toy was the upright piano. my piano playing skills are non-existant but i flatter myself that i can, when sat there, produce a nicely minimal construction. as a result I have two 'traditionally' played pieces and two plucked pieces all of which i'm pretty chuffed with. no download of these I'm afraid as they're going into the pot for the as yet untitled new album I'm making with Darren Tate and also for a new solo project I've been working on.

tomorrow's toy is the grand piano in the college theatre.

...............................................................

After work finished i headed to clyne park which is just across the road from my house. It used to be the grounds of the big old manor house (it's called Clyne Castle but it's just a big house) where the folks who pretty much owned Swansea lived. The house is now a halls of residence for the university (rich kids only need apply) and is very nice. As an undergraduate I once helped out at the annual convention of the Association of Social Anthropologists which was held there.
They've recently built some (very expensive) flats behind the castle that whilst being kind of groovy looking and sci-fi are also staggeringly out of character with the suroundings.

here's the castle...

and here're the flats...

(doesn't the big pillar look like a tower of toilet rolls)

like i said, I like them both but not necessarily next door to each other.

But it's the gardens that i really like. Lot's of meandering pathwys through the trees and some real nice views over the bay.

It takes about an hour to walk there, around and back which suits me down to the ground as I'm timing my walks by my copies of the BBC Sherlock Holmes radio series each episode of which is 55 minutes long (and fabulous).

I'm listening to very little music at the moment (although I really should be) as I'm feeling quite 'wordy'. Been reading a lot but what has been occupying a huge amount of my time is my new found fondness for audio books. i've been a fan of radio plays for a while now mostly from listening to the new Sapphire and Steel plays and the adaptation of Brian Talbot's The Adventures of Luther Arkwright starring a pre-Dr Who David Tennant.
They can take a bit of getting used to as they do have a tendency to sound fairly quaint and if you're a sound junky like me it's easy to get lost in the mechanics of the incidental soundworld. But the actors are generally pretty good, as are the production values and so is the writing although as today's listen was the Holmes classic A Study In Scarlet (just a fantastic title) the quality of the writing is pretty much a given. With lines like 'He was beating a cadaver with a cudgel.' how could you resist.

(btw, Lee - if your reading this I need to borrow your bluetooth thingy as that line's going to be my new ringtone)

Audio books are a different prospect. This is simply someone reading you a story. I first tried them as a substitute for music on a long drive last year. I'd spotted the Harry Pottor books as read by Stephen Fry on a download site and got them more out of curiosity about having Stephen Fry (who I'm a massive fan of) read me a story than as to what he was reading. Needless to say they were fantastic. He reads them perfectly and they are a thoroughly enjoyable romp. I have loads of the things now. Neil Gaiman reading The Graveyard Book was OK but he is a little adenoidal and also sounds as though he shares the same voice as Douglas Adams, although it's probably his full time now as Adams is dead. On the subject of Adams it was cool to hear him read through the first Hitchhikers but i got bored halfway through Restaurant. I gave The Stand by Stephen King a go but a combination of the readers horrid whiney accent and the turgid, emotionless, meandering, cliched tat of the text conspired to make it a loooooong and boring experience which, for some unfathomable reasons I insisted on listening to all the way through.

It's going to take me a little while to work though all the Sherlock Holmes but waithing in the wings are recordings of Stephen Fry reading Chekov's short stories, an early radio play of Night of the Living Dead, The Road by Cormac McCarthy and lot's of Kurt Vonnegut.

peace
ian

sunshine, students, videos and a little bit of nostalgia

2009-06-24T15:52:00.000-07:00

it's a warm sultry evening here in Swansea. It feels like there's a storm brewing which would be a welcome relief. i'm not built for the sun or the heat - i have too much surface area - and i'm much happier in spring or autumn - or even winter - than the height of summer.

i've just sent a very enjoyable evening watching the 2nd year performing arts students doing their version of Equus. damn fine it was too. we've been cursed over the last couple of years in the college with performing arts courses full of absolute wankers but this group (and most of the current first years) have been an absolute joy to be around. They were excellent tonight. it's strange when students you like leave (and there're lots of likeable students leaving this week). you want them to have the best of times and go on and live their dreams but at the the same time it's a shame that you'll often never ever see them again. facebook and myspace have changed that somewhat but still.

whilst i'm on the subject of likeable students (although don't tell him i said so), one of our media students, David Strutt, recently made this video for my track 'Tiny Creatures' from the 'Where have we been in the world today?' album. it's only an early edit at the moment as he needs to shoot some more footage but it's a cool start.

one day though someones going to make me a video that doesn't involve static shots of buildings. i suppose it's the curse of writing slow music.

he also did this earlier in the year as a video piece incorporated into a show by the above mentioned Performing Arts students that was toured around the local schools. the music is '50 Pence for Buddha' from my 'Book of Dreams' album.

if you double click either of these vids it'll take you to youtube and i recommend you try out some of his other vids. personally i particularly like his 'ot at the gallery' animation.

new issue of Wonderful Wooden Reasons will be going online in a day or so.
been so busy lately that something had to suffer and it was the zine. once term finishes in a weeks time i'll be able to dedicate some time to diminishing the stack of unplayed submissions.

the one thing i have been listening to a hell of a lot this week is the Dinosaur Jr album, Farm. It's a real return to form an absolute blinder of an album. if you were a fan back in the day then you really should give it a go.

melting in the heat

2009-05-31T04:18:00.000-07:00

Hello from an unseasonably hot and sunny swansea.

It's been a few weeks since i last wrote anything here so as I'm avoiding the heat i thought i would.

'She Loves to See The Sky' is out and available from a variety of outlets - Quiet World, Aquarius Records, Art Into Life - and seems to be being quite well received which is always appreciated. Thanks to everyone who has picked up a copy. There are two new cds in the pipeline. Sometime soon will be the album i made using some of Banks Bailey's beautiful Arizona field recordings alongside some I made under the pier here in Swansea mixed with layers of keyboard and processed drones. It's an album i'm ridiculously proud of.
Next week will see me start work on the new album with Darren Tate. It's always a joy to collaborate with DT as our working methods are so compatable - he likes making wacky sounds and i like playing around with and editing wacky sounds. I've got him to agree to a 'no electrically generated sounds' rule for this album so I've no idea what to expect from him but i have a battery of bells, whistles, flutes, melody horns, kazoos, harmonicas and ukuleles waiting to be added to the mix. It should be a laugh.
This is the 4th album I've made with DT - The Moon As A Hole, Summerland (also with Banks) & Wet Rat Year are the others - and they've all been quite different from each other and from the music each of us normally make. It's great fun to do and luckily they've all been well received.

Went out for a drink on thursday with my friends Rod and Steve. For those who don't know, these two are responsible for the two videos that you can see on my myspace and at Rod's website. Over a couple of pints or really nice ale at the Joiners Arms in Bishopston (their Three Cliffs ale is stunning) we discussed how we were going to finish the Aurarua audio / video collaboration we've been working on for the last couple of years. An early (and very short) edit was entered in a couple of gallery shows in Swansea last summer and seemed to be quite well received.

My part is a set of three long and dark drones that i recorded about three years ago to which Rod and Steve have been adding images captured around the locale. I think it's stunning and when it's finally finished it can only be more so. Hopefully it'll be done by the end of the summer but I think i said that last year (and the year before).

We're not short of countryside around here but yesterday we found a bit we'd not visited before, the grounds of an old estate in Neath called Gnoll Country Park. Walking around the woods was a very nice way of spending a hot summers day and i managed to make a couple of recordings once we'd got away from the more populated areas. My favourite is a recording I made near the derelict Ice House. You can find it in the rar file below along with another recording made a couple of weeks ago at a place called Craig Y Dinas. I hope you are enjoying these field recordings, they're fun to make as it means i get to mooch out into the wilds and sit under a tree reading a book while my recorder does all the work.

Field recordings

Finally, as I've been asked about it and i mentioned it in an earlier posting. Here's the story of being up a mountain in a cloud.
I've told you before about my partners FairieTrails project where she traces the locations of old welsh fairie tales and then visits the sites. These sites seem to be almost invariably at the tops of mountains or as far off the beaten tracks as it's possible to get in South Wales. Well May Day this year saw us slowly trudging to the top of Pen Y Fan mountain in the Brecon Beacons looking for a lake called Llyn Cwm Llwch. It was nice but slightly windy day when we set off and several minor heartattacks later we reached the top and photographed this view...

it's quite something isn't it.

As you've probably gathered the lake we were looking for is the one in the photo (yes it is as small as it looks) and typically it was down the other side. Not really being that interested in the lake i decided to find a sheltered nook about halfway down and settled down to read while Sioux went exploring. As i got my book out i felt the first drops of rain. Light showers had been forecast so i put my book away did my little jacket up and watched the view and Sioux clambering down the path to the lake.
Some 20 minutes later with the rain still fairly light i glanced back over my shoulder to the summit where we were going to have to head in order to get back to the car. It was gone. In the time i'd been sitting the clouds had snuck up on us from behind the ridge and the entire top of the mountain and our route down was enveloped in thick, cold and very wet clouds.
The walk back to the car gave me a new definition of the phrase 'This sucks!'. The path we were walking was 2 foot away from the edge of the cliffs and the visibility was so bad we couldn't see the edge. All the way down the mountain, without any shelter whatsoever walking into freezing driving rain. Drenched to the skin.
Finally got back to the car about an hour later, shucked off the outer layers and did a 45 minute drive home in a car with no heating (it died the week before), shivering and turning slowly blue.

Anyway, that's probably the longest blog i'll ever write. Hope it wasn't too boring.
peace
ian

What a long day it's been

2009-05-06T17:09:00.000-07:00

it's 1:10 am on thursday 7th may and I'm sat at my pc in the exact same spot i've been sat in since 3:30 yesterday afternoon. My arse cheeks are numb and my back and shoulders are killing me. The reason why i've not moved from this spot all day is that i've been assembling the new album and I finished about 10 minutes ago.

i make all the QW releases by hand, except those that I do with Darren Tate, as it is significantly cheaper that way. I print the sleeves in work or my friend Steve prints them in his work - whichever is the most practical at the time - and then i print the discs using my epson r220 cd printer, cut and fold the sleeves and then put the lot in their shiny little poly wallets. It's monumentally tedious work. I could, obviously, get them made for me but money being what it is at the moment that just doesn't seem to be a realistic option.

The discs arrived today, a replacement box as the last lot i ordered went astray - currently they are, according to the tracking website, in Budapest having visited two German cities on the way. Anyway, the new box turned up at 3:30 and so I thought I'd at least get a few printed and assembled before i broke off for the evening, I just never got around to the breaking off for the evening part. Once i started I just wanted them done so I kept going.

I don't want to sound like I'm complaining too much though as i had plenty of tunes to keep me company. I kept it fairly up-tempo and motivational so the Dresden Dolls' 'Yes Virginia' got an airing (I love that album) as did the 'Into The Wild' soundtrack by Eddie Vedder (don't snigger it's really good) but my current fave listen is 'Only Just Beginning' by Jason Webley. It's a rousingly good time set of tunes that sound like Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen partying at a circus. I heard him first on a youtube clip singing his song 'Icarus' in the street with a heavily medicated Amanda Palmer (she'd just left hospital having broken her leg by being run over that afternoon). I was intrigued enough to give the album a try and it's proper good.

Anyway, I hear my bed calling. If I can face the pc tomorrow i'll post some more field recordings I made recently and also tell you the story of how i spent last friday up a mountain in a cloud.

peace
ian

Unreleased music

2009-04-18T16:12:00.000-07:00

I've just uploaded 4 previously unheard tracks to the player at my myspace music page - here - one (Magnetic West) is a new dark ambient track that I made last night whilst i was uploading the two field recordings in the last blog post.

The others are from an album I made that I never got around to releasing called 'Handle This Wino Like He Was An Angel'. It had originally started out it's life as a folder on my PC where i stuck tracks I liked but which didn't fit anywhere else. I got to really like that folder though and so it became an album in it's own right. The title is deliberately obtuse because the music is deliberately obtuse. It's a line from the Richard Brautigan novel 'Trout Fishing In America'.

If you're not already familiar with his work I really do recommend him to you. There's a really nice site about him here and another here.

Lately i've been tempted to release the album but have kept putting it off. As ever I'm interested in your thoughts.

peace

currently distracted by...

2009-04-17T15:55:00.000-07:00

field recordings.

I should be writing reviews for the new issue of WWR which will be finally online this weekend but I'm kinda running out of words so today I've been having a break and playing around with some field recordings i made the other day.

The first is a recording of the stream and the woods near my home. The stream runs in a little valley from the moors at the top of the town down to the sea at the bottom. It runs right behind my house but recording there is problematic due to car noise but a little further along it moves a little way from the road and i was lucky enough to get 15 minutes with minimal cars. I think I probably put the mic too close to the water but the birds were in fine voice and singing the day away.

Washinghouse Brook

this is the view from where i was recording...

This second one is a bit of fun. The next town over has a very small pier and on that very small pier is a very small amusements arcade. It's full of slot machines and grabber machines and one lone pinball machine which changes to suit whichever blockbuster movie was being hyped about 6 months previously - currently it's Dark Knight. I've never been any good at the things but I rested the recorder on the glass and stuck a quid in. This is the recording - i kinda like it.

Batman Pinball

Vibrations from The Wire

2009-04-17T07:09:00.000-07:00

Issue 303 of The Wire features, in it's Outer Limits section a nice little write up of the Banks Bailey album 'Vibrations From The Holocene' by Jim Haynes. This is the first time any Quiet World release has made it into the magazine which is easily the most popular of odd music magazines and as such is probably innundated with music each week so, thanks Jim.

I've been a subscriber for 10 years since #173 - I thought any magazine willing to put Lydia Lunch on the cover deserved my support - but I must admit over the last year or so my support has been waning, to the point that i very nearly didn't re-subscribe this year and only did so cause i had some cash in my paypal account. Will I re-subscribe next year? probably not. I don't really know why (or when) I started to fall out of love with the mag but I noticed I was reading less and less of each issue around the middle of last year. I'm not going to make any claims that it's gone 'mainstream' or 'commercial' as that's almost certainly not the case but I think the genres it covers have definitely moved into areas I have little or no interest in. Each month there's another article for yet another branch of techno that I find indistinguishable from the others - this month features a 6 page Primer on music made using the Roland TB-303 for christ sake - while other intersting genres are to a great extent ignored - field recordings, drone, noise, industrial, free improv, psychedelia, post rock, even some good old fashioned jazz.

I get sent hordes of records each month from all over the world yet most of these are ignored by the one magazine that can really make a difference and help these artists get a few sales or some new contacts. I know they are a business and need to 'shift units' but I bought the magazine because there was always at least one article that was an essential read. It's been months now since I've done more than skim through an issue. I now open it at the middle for the reviews and read from there. It's a shame but my subscription has still got just under a year to run (i think). Hopefully things will have changed by then and i'll be back to eagerly anticipating each new issue.

On a different topic I've bought a frankly absurb amount of new music this week and all of it has been by Faust. It's an addiction I know but as addictions go it's a good one and fairly harmless. This last week I've picked up the new album 'C'est...com...com...complique' which is corking, the double live album from schiphorst 2008 that also features NWW, a limited rehearsals cd, the 'Disconnected' special edition, Faust Wakes Nosferatu CD version, the two live albums on Table of Elements from a few years back (live in Berlin & London) and also the Space Explosion album that Zappi and Peron did about 10 years ago with Moebius from Cluster, Neumeier from Guru Guru, Karrer from Amon Duul and Engler from Die Krupps. An expensive week but sonically wonderful.

The other gem I've discovered this week is an album by 'The Beat of the Earth' which you can check out here. It's a two track 60's freak rock extravaganza, quite german in places - that has been hogging my stereo for the last couple of days.

bank holiday reviewing

2009-04-13T04:37:00.000-07:00

Just back from a weekend away in Cheltenham which is Sue's hometown. It was a bit of a flying visit. say hello to the family and have a mooch around the town sort of deal. Didn't really have the time to do much but did manage to spend far too much money on books that i probably won't have time to read until the summer. My best purchase by far is a couple of volumes of the American Splendor anthologies. If you've never read them (or even seen the film) then i heartily recommend you do so. more info here.

Drove home through the Forest of Dean on Sunday afternoon stopping to visit a Faerie site that Sue wanted to find. A well called 'Virtuous Well'. It turned out to be one of those strange sites that have been adopted by both the god and the crystal bothering brigades equally. It's an old stone well built over a meeting of 4 springs. The trees around it are festooned with ribbons and assorted bits of tat that have been tied on as, i suppose, offerings of some sort. Looked kinda cool whatever the reason.

I was going to make some recordings but three other groups of people turned up whilst we were there and also a tractor was ploughing the next field over. The microphone can be quite imposing and i had no wish to spoil other peoples visit (and the tractor made a horrid noise) so i didn't bother.

Monday and Tuesday of last week was spent in the college studio with a couple of friends. It's been a long time since i strapped on my bass guitar (about 5 years) and i must say i've not missed it. We completed two tracks of krautrocky post-rock. think ganger, tortoise or appliance and you're along the right lines. it's all still in desperate need of mixing which we'll be doing sometime this week i think.

In the meantime I'm trying to get as many reviews written and rewritten as i can before i put the new issue of Wonderful Wooden Reasons online. As i type I'm listening to an excellent album by a Spanish musician called Pilar Baizan who records as Baseline (the albums called 'Estado Liquido'). It's so nice to be reviewing something made by a woman. I don't believe gender (or race for that matter) has any bearing on the music a person makes other than those imposed at a societal level (whether consciously or not) but the music I get sent is pretty much entirely 'man' made so it is good to know there's someone out there working in a non testosterone fuelled way.

peace,
ian

currently distracted by...

2009-03-31T15:08:00.000-07:00

books
Jar of fools by jason lutes. Story about a conjuror on the verge of a breakdown, his senile mentor, estranged girlfriend and the homeless father and daughter con artists they befriend. It's a brave attempt at a Harry Crews style cavalcade of freaks story that almost succeeds. It's let down only by the slightly contrived and rushed feel to the ending. the art is clan, clear and concise. Not my preferred style (i like a more scratchy look to my art (Eddie Campbell is the man as far as I'm concerned)) but it flows nicely and suits the tale very much. A good read and one that I think warrants a re-read but probably not for a while.

The Difference Engine - William Gibson and Bruce Sterling - Gosh! So very good. Never read any Sterling before but I'm a long time fan of Gibson. This, their collaborative steampunk novel (probably more correctly described as inter-connected novellas) was an absolute corker from start to almost finish. The picture they paint of a London (indeed a world) changed before it's time by the genius of Charles Babbage is simply awe-inspiring. You can taste the smog and feel the starched collars.
At it's heart there is a relatively straight forward spy vs revolutionary storyline but orbiting this is a bewildering array of subplots and narratives that occasionally impact upon the main in ways that are not always immediately apparent.

audio caving

2009-03-31T13:53:00.000-07:00

the weather has been kind to us here in swansea so we spent this past weekend behaving like tourists. Took the opportunity to jump in my increasingly poorly sounding car and hit some spots that we hadn't been to in a while or hadn't been to at all.

Saturday was spent roaming small seaside towns doing some shopping and i finally managed to get myself a new black shirt. I'm fairly colourful normally but there's nothing quite like walking out on a beautiful spring morning dressed head to toe in black.

Sunday I got dragged on one of Sue's (Sue is my partner) excursions into the myths and legends of this soggy little country we call home. She's currently researching and visiting the faerie-lore attached to the South Wales area (www.faerietrails.co.uk) which seems to mean me dragging my fat lazy ass up and down a variety of mountains. Today though found us in a cave in the brecon beacons called - Porth Yr Ogof (the Gate Cave) - where I managed to set up the microphone and do some recording.

I was happy to let the machine run for the first 5 minutes but my inner fidget got the better of me and i started playing around with the stones and puddles around me. It's not the best thing I've ever done and unfortunately the batteries cut out so it all ends rather abruptly but it was fun to do so i thought i'd stick it up here in case anyone fancies a listen.

download here

Hopefully the rescued portion of the new WWR will be online this weekend. I lost most of the issue when my 'puter died and all I have left are the reviews i'd handwritten into a notebook. I'll revisit all the other albums along with some new stuff for the next issue but this next one will still feature around 10 new (and corking) albums for your delectation.

peace
ian

(crack of) dawn of the dead

2009-03-21T13:09:00.000-07:00

I am by nature (not choice) an early-ish riser but this morning i crowbarred myself out of bed at 6:30 to get rid of some accumulated crap at the local car boot sale. i have a collector mentallity (i'm not proud of it) and so can easily fill a room (or several) with stuff within a week or two. My saving grace though is that when i decide to offload then i can do so without a backward glance. i think i like the purge almost as much as the binge.

So, 7 o clock on an unseasonly bright, sunny and warm saturday morning we found ourselves pulling into a car park already full to bursting with cars. If you've never had the dubious pleasure of one of these events then let me set the scene. picture a car park...fill it with cars...all with their boots open. you with me so far? good. now, behind every car put a table...cover the table with detritus of your choice but make sure it's mostly utter trash...now, add hordes and hordes and HORDES of blank faced and bleary-eyed zombies shuffling endlessly up and down each aisle monotonously repeating the phrase "I'll give you a quid for it."

If you can get your head around the strangeness they can be a pretty fascinating experience. a good boot sale is full of the interesting and the unusual (both the people and the stuff) whilst also brimming with the ridiculous and the bizarre (both the people and the stuff). I banned myself from looking around this time - i was there to sell - but in the past i've found some real wonders. The one that particularly sticks in my mind is the prim late middle-aged lady standing by her table full of crocheted and knitted baby clothes and extreme nun-sploitation videos - needless to say i bought them (the videos that is not the knitted clothes) and they were good - Behind Convent Walls is the one title I can remember.

Anyway, the LPs proved to be the most popular thing we took and I made about £65 quid on them which was half our overall take. Not bad for a mornings work and the best bit is we've cleared out a serious amount of the crap from our cupboards. There'll be a load of stuff going up on ebay over the next couple of months. Books at first but i'll be adding cd's and ephemera later. keep an eye on http://shop.ebay.co.uk/merchant/elviscoffee for some bargains.

peace
ian

back on line and way behind

2009-03-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

After a month of being, to all intents and purposes, computer less I am finally back online in the, relative, comfort of my cosy little studio. I'd managed to infect my machine with the recycler virus whilst trying to access some free 70's tv which has meant reformatting my hard-drive. As such I have nothing left on my pc. all the reviews i'd written for the next issue of WWR are gone as are all the programs I use for my music and the label. It's going to take me a while to get everything back up and running so please bare (sp?) with me while i do so.

The QW shop is open as usual and will be expanding once I get things back on track. I'm hoping to start offering select choices from the zine. I simply cannot afford to offer everything that's featured but i'll aim to get some copies in of my absolute favourites each month.

in the meantime, have a watch of this...

peace
ian

Traveller returned

2009-03-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

I've just got back from a weekend spent with friends in Glastonbury. That's Glastonbury the town as opposed to Glastonbury the festival.

For those who've never experienced Glastonbury (the town) then let me set the scene. One street (hill actually) that bends at a right angle at the bottom (like a capital L) featuring about 20 shops selling all manner of New Age paraphenalia, a couple of book shops and some good vegetarian cafes. The whole place is themed around some spurious notion that it's the mythical Isle of Avalon (I think 'mythical' is the key word there) and as such has built it's entire identity around New Age tourism.

I have a strange - or maybe that should read strained - relationship with the place. It's just too fucking nice! The people are nice, the shops are nice, the buildings are nice, the litter is nice - aaaaargh! Within half an hour of arriving I'm looking to buy the foulest pornography available - 'anal puppy sluts' or somesuch - so i can sit and read it in the town square just to sully the place a little - does this make me a bad person? - I think not.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not a complete curmudgeon (just mostly) - I like the fact that it's got a free and easy vibe to the place. It's all just lacking that edge that I need to keep me interested (or even conscious). Sue, my partner, on the other hand loves it there as she can let her inner hippy run riot and so i get dragged from crystal shop to crystal shop looking at shiny rocks and assorted tat.

It was good to meet up with some old friends again though and I had plenty of time to write some more reviews (the new orchestramaxfieldparish album is a corker) and also managed to do some reading - Concrete vol.2, (which was good fun although the russian agents in the everest story were a little cheesy), John Wagner's History of Vilence which was way better than the film, The Push Man by Yoshihiro Tatsumi which was an interesting change from the usual manga dreck and i managed to finish reading The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes an interesting, but flawed, stab of alternative victoriana - not quite steampunk but with the addition of, i suppose, magic (it's never really clear) that leads for some quirky and unexpected twists and turns.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig.

peace
ian

views over the horizon

2009-03-12T04:07:00.000-07:00

there're a couple of projects simmering here so i thought i'd give a heads up as to what's on it's way.

April will see my new solo album called 'She Loves To See The Sky'. It's a longform drone piece that i made at the same time as the Mote ep. it's more intense and minimal than that ep but features much of the same gear.

June or July will bring a new collaboration between myself and Banks Bailey called 'Sojourn'. at the end of '08 I was working on a new piece which just wouldn't sit right. I was on the verge of binning it when i realised that i had some unused recordings sent by Banks for the Holocene project. I gave them a try and they sat perfectly in the mix and really lifted the piece.

A long time coming but nearing completion is the DVD project 'Aurarora' that i've been working on with two friends, Rhod Thomas and Steve Jones. it's been a long project for the guys - i did my part over a year and a half ago - but it's mostly complete. Rhod has previously put images to two of my tracks. he's got a good eye for ambient imagery and Aurarora is looking very nice so far. below should be one of the older videos.

also before the end of the year there should be another album with Darren Tate. we've not got past the discussion stage at the moment but what has been finalised is that we will be working to a 'no electrically generated sounds' rule. This is something i've wanted to do for a while so i'm quite looking forward to it.

i'll probably add to the release list over the year but this is all that's finalised so far.

peace
ian

Hello

2009-03-11T16:40:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first posting of the new blog for all things relating to us here at Quiet World and Wonderful Wooden Reasons.

I hope to update this thing regularly as it's a lot easier to do than it is to update the website, especially at the moment as i've successfully managed to wreck my computer by accidentally installing quite a catastrophic virus whilst in the search for free TV. Karma's a bitch but you've gotta laugh I suppose. Until I can get it fixed I'm reduced to quick surfs on other people's machines.

I'm spending much of my newly acquired free time writing the new issue of WWR. I've got about 7 reviews written in the last 3 days of some terrific music that has come my way via labels like Digitalis and Dreamsheep. I'll get the new issue online as soon as i'm able.

The latest release on Quiet World - Wet Rat Year by myself and Darren Tate is selling fast. Initial feedback has been good which is pleasing. Not everyone has liked it - Frans at Vital wasn't too keen - but we always knew that this one would polarise opinion as it's very different from anything either of us have done before. Personally I think it's cracking but i'm as biased as it gets. If you'd like to hear a track from it then please head over to www.myspace.com/psychicspaceinvasion and play the track called '5'.

Peace
ian