I'm an award-winning composer, engineer and historian of technology. I present talks, make radio shows and perform live with Spacedog - my band of humans, theremins and uncanny robots.
Over the last few months, I’ve been collaborating with Punchdrunk, the marvellous encounter theatre company, to make a very unusual multimodal effect – one that mixes emerging ideas in perception with a one-on-one theatrical encounter.
I’ll be revealing more about the nature of this effect in a few months, when some formal studies are complete. However, I can reveal we’ve piloted the effect – and have had some encouraging feedback – and have already used it (tentatively) in the recent Punchdrunk show: It Felt Like a Kiss. This documentary, the form of a promenade piece, was devised by Punchdrunk in collaboration with documentary maker Adam Curtis (featuring music from Damon Albarn). It Felt Like A Kiss was created in summer 2009 for the Manchester International Festival.
Contortionist Delia DuSol will be bending her body into some extraordinary poses and squeezing herself into a tiny perspex box at Richard Wiseman‘s first night of Inexplicable Acts, Thursday 12 Feb. This season of shows at the Wellcome Trust will explore the psychology and physiology of circus performers’ bodies, including the sword swallower, the juggler and the exceptionally flexible Delia.
Music
The new piece
On request from Richard, I’ve created some music for Delia’s act. It’s a 7 minute piece, weaving fragments of a conversation with Delia, along with handbells, theremin and other noises. I find Delia’s act simultaneously beautiful and unsettling – and I’ve tried to create a simple, cabaret-style dance piece that reflected those feelings. It’s very tense watching Delia in some of her poses – like a gymnast on the beam, she seems to be concentrating hard, making continual, minuscule adjustments to her body as she maintains some terrifying balances. I hope the slight detuning of the bells and the natural (ahem) wobbles on the theremin give the piece a sense of these continual adjustments – a detail that adds a charming, human quality to her act.
For those of you who don’t know Richard’s work already, he’s an experimental psychologist and author with a great eye for scientific experiments that are likely to capture the public imagination. Here, he talks about the history of contortion and explores what was discovered when Delia’s contorting body was examined in an MRI scanner. His blog is always a good read as he updates it every day or so with conundrums and scientific oddities, gleaned from just about everywhere.
Before and after
Actually, this isn’t the first time I’ve written music for Delia. Around five years ago, I made a first attempt, using a voice recording that Richard had made very hastily in a rehearsal space (where the acoustics weren’t great). I didn’t get a chance to see her act before I wrote this early version – and that’s probably why the later piece seems a better match. This earlier piece was used at various events, including Wiseman and Singh’s Theatre of Science (where I made an appearance on theremin and saw). Here it is anyway, for the sake of comparison.
The theremin AV controller enables me to scrub audio and video samples live, using the pitch and volume aerials of the theremin. I created this simple but highly unusual controller using Max/MSP + Jitter.
I perform with vocalist Jenny Angliss (and sometimes with guitarists Mike Blow and Ben Kypreos too), under the band name Spacedog. If you’ve been to a recent Spacedog gig, you’ve probably seen the theremin controller in action. Here’s a video of me using the device in a rehearsal. As you can see, I’m controlling the speed of audio and video clips with the pitch antenna. I can also control volume of the samples using the volume antenna.
The music in the video is Willow’s Song (Paul Giovanni), as featured in the British classic horror film The Wicker Man (1973). Here, it’s being mixed with a sample from Hammer classic The Devil Rides Out (1968), plus a 1950s parakeet training record. I’m controlling the hypnotic voice of actor Charles Gray. Jenny is on vocals and Ben on guitar. Mike, in the green teeshirt, is cueing up the various samples I’ve prepared, as the song progresses.
Apologies for the lame sound of the ‘straight’ theremin this video -- you’re hearing the sound through the desk. We were monitoring live and the gallery was so reverberant, we had to ditch every hint of vibrato to avoid complete chaos.
using the theremin AV scrubber
This version of the Willow’s Song was first performed at Atters’ Other World, the Brighton Festival Fringe, June 2008, then our sell-out show at the Sanctuary. Here, you’re watching an excerpt from a live playthough of our set in the Blank Gallery, Brighton. Lighting conditions in the gallery prevented us from filming the projected video live, so keen-eyed observers might notice that we’ve added that after filming.
Juice for the Baby, Spacedog's debut album, is here! I'm ducking out of the Kinetica Art Faire this year but am huddled indoors, writing, sleuthing (investigating a recording in the archives) and devising a new biologically-inspired musical instrument - all will be revealed soon.
News: December 2011
Juice for the Baby, Spacedog's debut album, launches in mid-December. Join us for the launch gigs at the Marlborough, Brighton, on 9 December and the Horse Hospital, London, on 14 December.
News: November 2011
A busy month writing and editing the forthcoming Spacedog album - stay tuned for news.
News: October 2011
I'm focusing on my writing this month (so am quite the hermit) but I'm squeezing in the occasional live performance here and there.
I'm looking forward to working with Helen Keen in her Spacetacular on 20th. I'm writing a code-based work for the new label Chordpunch and some owlish music for that fine wordsmith Professor Elemental.
Spacedog are booked into the studio at the end of the month to complete work on our album.
News: September 2011
A busy month writing, preparing a get-together of maker musicians for the Brighton Maker Faire After-show party. I've also been electrifying a teapot for the Chi-Tek - an exhibition by MzTek of female tech artists at the V&A. And with my fellow Spacedog Stephen Hisock, I made an appearance on the 10th Anniversary edition of BBC Click.
News: August 2011
The Spacedog song For Laika is now available on iTunes (and the album is on its way). Meanwhile, we've been busy preparing our set for Green Man, including the first outing of our torch song for Tommy Cooper.
I'm procrastinating over a teapot which I'm going to electrify for a MzTek event at the Victoria and Albert Museum in September.
I took a short trip to a very rainy Edinburgh Fringe where I played at an event for Edinburgh Skeptics in the Royal Observatory and made some plans for a Spacedog show next summer.
Apart from that, I've been busy writing. More news on that shortly, I hope...
News: July 2011
I'm interviewed by Leila Johnston in this month's Wired UK magazine and will be appearing with my fellow Spacedogs at a Wired: The Future of Music on 20 July.
I've rounded up a bumper crop of links and soundclips for my BBC Radio 4 doc The Bird Fancyer's Delight, which is broadcast on 5 and 9 July and is also available on Listen Again. Thanks for all your cheery emails about the doc, to ProjectMoonbase for mentioning it in their podcast PMB038 and for the many national papers who gave the documentary such lovely reviews - I'm glad people enjoyed it! On Sunday 10 July, the doc was featured on Graham Seed's Pick of the Week (Radio 4). A good week!
My latest collaboration with Richard Wiseman is a free and fun magic trick for your iPhone. It's called Paranormality and it's been put together for the launch of his book by the same name in the US. Thanks to Phillis on Derrren Brown's blog for giving the app a mention - thousands of people have now downloaded it and are busy bamboozling their friends.
News: June 2011
Playing theremin for Louise Colborne's homage to Loie Fuller (pioneering cybernetic dancer c1900) and composing sounds for Sonus, an homage to the analogue age with Spacedog, ArtHertz, Rushes Soho Shorts Festival and Ridley Scott Associates. Discovering how easy (or difficult) it is to publicise events in 2011 without Twitter - will report back!
Getting ready for BEAM - a brand new festival of electronics and music at Brunel University (24-26 June). I'll be speaking, running a workshop on optical flow and performing live with my fellow Spacedogs. I'll also be playing a short theremin set at the Speaky Spokey, a new arts salon in Brighton (Wed 22 June).
Putting the finishing touches to a sonic-themed BBC Radio 4 documentary, with producer Neil McCarthy, due for transmission on 5 July 2011.
Presenting a workshop for Hack Circus at Interesting, in the Conway Hall, London, 18 June, and performing theremin at a family day at the Science Museum, 19 June.
