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Music, performance and robotics

Sarah Angliss is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, roboticist and sound historian
whose work explores acoustics, cognitive science and English folklore.

Posts tagged "Spacedog"

Arts by the Sea Festival

Arts by the Sea Festival

On 12 October, along with my fellow Spacedogs and Professor Elemental, I’ll be fulfilling a life-long ambition to play electronica on the end of a pier.  We’re joining forces for the brand new Arts by the Sea Festival, Bournemouth.

Book tickets here:  £7 (£6 concs.) or £12 (£10 concs.) for combined ticket with Paper Cinema Odyssey.

As well as performing our own music, we’ll be asking the professor to join us for some rarely-heard acoustic versions of a song or two from his own repertoire – including a number about man owls.

Ray Lee’s marvel, The Ethometric Museum, will also appearing at the festival.

You can hear a taster of our set for free on Saturday 29 September when we’ll be playing at Cafe Flirt, Bournemouth (no booking required). We’ll be there with at 10:30pm with vocals, theremin, percussion and our famous uncanny robots. Do come!

Plenty of Time for Play

Plenty of Time for Play

Thanks to all of you who came to see Spacedog and Project Moonbase at Rocket Lolly this weekend. I had a wonderful time, playing theremin and sharing my archive of peculiar vintage science clips. As you can probably tell, I spend a lot of time in the archives, hunting for treasure. We’d love to take the show to other destinations so do get in touch if you’d like to host a Rocket Lolly evening at your venue or festival.

Those of you who came to the show might be interested to hear this number from the archives again. It’s a wonderfully optimistic song about the future of women’s lives in the age of electricity, recorded in 1935 by the Norwich Corporation Electricity Department. The song features Helen Raymond and the Sydney Baynes Orchestra. It’s available from archive.org under a Creative Commons Licence.

Rocket Lolly in Edinburgh (Sunday 15 April)

Rocket Lolly in Edinburgh (Sunday 15 April)

For one night only, Spacedog are taking over the big, BIG screen at the Ghillie Dhu, Edinburgh, and showing vintage infrasonic terrors, smoking robots, mind control experiments, space age fashions, bizarre time and motion studies and other gems from the archives. A feast of scientific and technological curiosities on film, from 1900 to present day, Rocket Lolly makes its Edinburgh debut on 15 April, bringing the International Science Festival to a close. Many films are accompanied live by Spacedog on vocals, vibes and theremin and the night will include some live performances from our robot pals.

Rocket Lolly
8pm Sunday 15 April
The Ghillie Dhu, 2 Rutland Place, Edinburgh EH1 2AD
90 minute film-show with live music followed by a DJ set
Tickets £10 (£8)
Buy your Rocket Lolly tickets online

On the night, we’re teaming up with Edinburgh’s finest retro-futuristic outfit Project Moonbase who are making a rare visit to planet Earth. They’ll be on hand to answer your queries about the future and to turn the Ghillie Du, Edinburgh, into the finest space age cocktail lounge as DJ Bongoboy takes to the wheels of steel. Hear a preview of Project Moonbase on iTunes.

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Debut album: Juice for the Baby is here!

Debut album: Juice for the Baby is here!

Exciting news:

After many years exclusively playing live, my award winning human, theremin and robot band Spacedog have launched our debut album. It’s called Juice for the Baby and you can listen to the whole album, download it or buy a physical CD here.

Spacedog creates live music for theremin, vocals, saw, percussion and our famous uncanny musical robots. Our work reflects our obsessions with defunct machines, faded variety acts and the darkest English folk tales.

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New album: Juice for the Baby

New album: Juice for the Baby

Exciting news! After several years playing exclusively live, Spacedog are releasing our first album. It’s called Juice for the Baby and it’ll be available as a download and on CD from mid-December 2011.

Do come to our gigs at the Marlborough Theatre, Brighton, on Friday 9 December, and the Horse  Hospital, London, on Wednesday 14 December, and help us celebrate the launch.

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Song for Tommy Cooper @ The Green Man Festival

Song for Tommy Cooper @ The Green Man Festival

Spacedog are packing our bags for the Green Man Festival this weekend (19 – 21 August in the Brecon Beacons). And we’ll be adding a new number to our set: a torch song for flawed genius Tommy Cooper. Here’s a sneak preview of the lyrics before the song has its first public outing on the Solar Stage of Einstein’s Garden, Friday 19 April:

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Laika – some happy endings for the space dog

Laika – some happy endings for the space dog

Just before I released the Spacedog song For Laika on iTunes and Amazon, the writer James Burt showed me this wonderful set of comic strips, depicting alternative, happy endings for the dog. They’ve been drawn by Nick Abadzis, creator of the graphic novel, Laika, which tells the story of the dog and her fate.

Phantom Circuit had already sent me the first strip, where you see Laika eject from Sputnik II and parachute into the hands of her trainer. Other endings involving alien intelligences and canine superpowers. The happy endings were sponsored by Big Planet Comics in Washington DC who are celebrating their 25th birthday – you can also see them all on the Bleeding Cool website.

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Spacedog at BAFTA

Spacedog at BAFTA

Three photos of Spacedog’s afternoon at BAFTA, where my performance on theremin was enhanced by a gorgeous psychedelic lightshow, created by artist Julian Hand. The lighting effects were all created live, in 1960s fashion, using physical odds and ends. The speckles you can see in this black-and-white photo were created by passing light through a colander. Out of shot is Stephen on bells and Jenny and Hugo the robotic vent doll on vocals.

Our performance was for the London Short Film Festival, curated by Rushes and Soho Shorts. We were there to accompany a session by Arthertz and Ridley Scott Associates, who  were showing their new short film, Sonus.

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Spacedog to perform at Wired: The Future of Music

Spacedog to perform at Wired: The Future of Music

WIRED: The Future of Music is an evening of music, sonic inventions and talks, exploring where the music industry may be heading. Following my feature in this month’s Wired magazine, Spacedog will be playing a short set at this event at the Hospital Club, London, 20 July. I’ll report back with news of other performers on the bill – it sounds like an interesting night!

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Saw face, not theremin face – I’m in Wired UK (August 2011)

Saw face, not theremin face – I’m in Wired UK (August 2011)

Thanks so much to everyone at Wired UK for putting me in this month’s magazine. The article was penned by the marvellous Leila Johnston (aka Final Bullet),  author, blogger, comedy writer, editor of Hackers! newspaper.

The accompanying photo, which has a lovely whiff of the music hall, is by Leon Csernohlavek. It shows Spacedog robots Hugo, Edgar Allan (crow) and Clara 2.0, along with the Ealing Feeder (my robotic carillon) and yours truly, trying to look haughty while playing the saw – never easy. It’s a miracle of digital manipulation. I don’t usually look this posh, nor does my 1950s frock which I ripped while loading my theremin into a cab the night before the shoot.

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An homage to the incandescent light

An homage to the incandescent light
Sonus

Sonus (still from video shoot)

Spacedog are thrilled to be participating in Sonus, an homage to the analogue age and incandescent light for the Rushes Soho Shorts Festival. Filmed in a secret location in Chelsea, this short film was devised by Arthertz and filmed by Ridley Scott Associates. It explores many of our shared obsessions with early analogue technology.

Here is a preliminary still from the film shoot, showing Spacedog vocalist Jenny Angliss as the medium, channelling ‘the other side’ through radio static, aided by her incandescent light. I’ll be providing some incidental music, composed of theremin, radio static and bells (bells performed by percussionist Stephen Hiscock).

As I explained in my recent salon talk Ghost Radio, gramophones and radios are transmitters of disembodied voices – a feat that seemed so remarkable in the early 20th century, it lead many people to think these new machines could explain telepathy and ghosts.

Film geeks please note:  Sonus was recorded on RED cameras, fresh from the latest Alien shoot. It’s going to look gorgeous! You’ll be able to see it for yourself at the Rushes Soho Short Film Makers’ Market, BAFTA, London on Sunday 24 July.

Televisor awarded Best Music Event of Brighton Festival and Fringe 2011

Televisor awarded Best Music Event of Brighton Festival and Fringe 2011
Spacedog with their award for Best Music Event, Brighton Festival and Fringe 2011

Spacedog with their award for Best Music Event, Brighton Festival and Fringe 2011

We’re over the moon! Televisor – our new Spacedog show – featuring humans, theremin, robots, Baird televisor and an unplugged guest appearance from Professor Elemental – has been awarded Best Music Event of the Brighton Festival and Fringe 2011. Thanks to everyone who put in a good word for us and to the Latest 7 Awards committee for embracing our oddity and backing our act.

We now plan to take Televisor to more venues, festivals and cities. If you’d like to see and hear Spacedog at your event, drop us a line!

Line-up in the photograph (left to right): Jenny Angliss, Colin Uttley, Sarah Angliss, Stephen Hiscock. Thanks to Peter Crisp for the photo.

Thanks to The Brunswick and Bom-Banes for being such generous hosts during the Fringe and to the Marlborough for supporting us in previous years.
Also on the shortlist was this Balkan Brass Battle which sounds tip top.

From Televisor: