Side benefits
One of the great side effects of playing live music is the places that you go to play. One of the finest places we’ve encountered is the Totnes Cinema.
Lovingly regenerating a new picturehouse where an original cinema – the Romany Cinema – once existed and closed in the 1960’s. It since became the Library which departed in 2015 leaving an empty shell awaiting it’s re-birth as a community project.
It is currently still being built and dedicated to showing great films – not currently being projected in original 35mm film. Will and Jane who started this whole project seem to be your well connected film industry types and much of the equipment was filched from Channel 4 Films when they closed something or other! Apparently the super comfy seats on the balcony came from the viewing room and have therefore accommodated the arses of many a film heart-throb. (I’ve definitely sat where Tom Cruise sat because I felt a very weird, scientologically speaking).
It is quite a thrill to be asked to play in the hour prior to the screening of movies and the spot is perfect for our gentle ambience while the audience filter in and gather about getting drinks and fancy cocktails from the huge bar underneath the big screen.
We have added a few movie themes to our repertoire – which seems to fit the occasion well and hopefully we can continue to help enhance the atmosphere of our favourite picture theatre.
Great Ambient Music (two)
Great? Well No, actually!
So why talk about this album then you weirdo? I hear you say.
Well, a video appeared on FaceBook with a guy playing a hammer dulcimer. And very lovely it is too. I find the percussive sound of this instrument very attractive. The first time I heard one was a man busking in Bath and I was enchanted by it. I think the story with this album Ambient 3, was that Brian Eno came across a bloke in the States also busking a dulcimer and was similarly impressed. So much so that he invited him to record some in the studio. His name is Laraaji (from Larry Gordon) and I now wonder if the guy I saw in Bath was the man himself? It was about the right time…
Anyway, what transpired of the recordings turned into the 3rd iteration of Eno’s Ambient album series. It features 5 tracks with the dulcimer mainly treated with reverbs to bliss out the sound. It looks at first glance that this might be a treat of relaxation.
However it is not.
What starts out as beguiling ends up after 45 minutes as plain fucking irritating! The problem is that the percussive sound is actually quite stimulating which gives the music it’s immediacy, however after 20 minutes of the aural treat, it becomes something akin to tinnitus and can drive the milder soul to thoughts of murder. As is the case with this album. As a display of the lovely dulcimer it’s great, but as a work of ambience, it is truly a disaster. Just No, Make It Stop!
There is a bright side…
I’m guessing it was due to working with Brian, that Laraaji ended up working with his brother, Roger Eno, who had teamed up with Kate St John and Bill Nelson to create an ‘Ambient Supergroup’ called Channel Light Vessel. They made only 2 albums together. A shame because there was a lot of potential. I’ll probably revisit this one later…
Great Ambient Music (one)
Some music stays with you forever.
Evening Star is a work of aching beauty at times. Using their own techniques of recording, Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, cooled the tone after ‘No Pussyfooting’ which was an altogether spikier affair. This time they embraced the fullness of ambience and allowed the music to guide itself with cynicism kept at bay enabling pastoral, very English pieces to emerge.
Using Frippertronics, (an early form of looping using a looping length of recording tape on which the sound decayed over repeated playing enabling an ever evolving soundscape) along with Eno’s synthesisers, the backgrounds were created with solos played by eno on ‘Wind on Wind’ and Fripp on ‘Evening Star’ for example.
I recently came across this absolute gem of small group of classical musicians performing the title track using Cellos to replicate the lead parts and although the film is poor quality, the sound is good and it’s just gorgeous – link
What are we up to?
Bev and Me have been toying with these ambient music ideas for several years now. It’s about time we acted upon them. We are both in the band Shadow Factory and enjoy ourselves hugely within the Jazz/Rock framework. But we also want to investigate a more relaxed, chilled style. A playing of music where soundscapes are generated without agenda, other than to just ‘be’.
As a form of explanation,
I have been a follower of ambient music since the 1970’s and fell asleep to Frippertronics, Satie, Tangerine Dream, Bill Nelson and others many many times. The requirement to pay absolute attention is removed and the opportunity to rest or to follow one’s own thoughts take over. The rough live sample tracks currently on our home page are slightly ‘lively’ but we are trying to sell ourselves after all. We sat down and played to a zoom hand recorder and just played a few tracks – so it should give an idea of what we sound like.
Future Music
There will be more to come and three or four properly recorded songs are nearly ready at which point we will make them available to download from this new site.