New Website

rigsbysmith.com

..so i guess i'll be using the new site to post my news etc on from now on. This blog will act as an archive for everything i've previously written - and there's a lot of it here.

So head over to the new site and check out the music, film, art etc that i'll be posting over the next few days.

I can still be contacted via myspace of course.

Enjoy!

Rigs.

New Creot Radio Show!

It's that time again, lots of great new music on volume 62 of the fantastic Creot Radio show, presented this week by yours truly.

Featuring such awesome artists as The Screaming Cherry Blossoms, Roh Delikat, The Naciente Quartet, Shirley Rolls and many more.

Check it out at http://www.creotradio.net

Sea Shapes - 6 day download

This is the last track from a four track EP i've been working on. The EP as a whole is kind of organic meets electronic, and this is the most organic thing on there.

http://download.yousendit.com/BBE0513B21F30902

It's yousendit, so the link is only good for a week.

Enjoy!

New Creot Radio Show

Now up at

http://seasonthree.creotradio.net/

..or just download from here..



Loads of great music as ever, this week hosted by yours truly.

Creot Radio - All the fun your mother didn't want you to have.

Score To a Photo 2

This was a contest organised by Concord Designs and All Media Studios in June 2006. Entrants were given three photos to inspire a piece, the three pictures should create a story for each composer which is reflected in their piece. The track i came up with was entitled 'The Accordianist's Tale', this is currently still available as a download courtesy of Concord Designs..

Listen

PHOTO ONE: 00.00 - 02.08



... The accordianist plays for money in the streets (represented musically by chords and melody on electric fan organ). His thoughts drift between his music and the sounds around him (the present) to thoughts of the past. His hands are shakey and the old accordian doesn't respond in his hands as it used to. Sounds of the streets (recorded to Minidisc in Amsterdam, April 2005) come and go as his thoughts of the past gradually take presidence.

PHOTO TWO: 02.08 - 02.28



... The accordianist recalls his wife's death and funeral, he can hear his accordian reflected in the church organ as it doubles his melody, he can hear the minister at the service (recorded to MD at the Old Church in Amsterdam, April 2005). He has accepted her death, but is still brings him great sadness.

PHOTO THREE: 02.28 - END



(Enter acoustic bass guitar, cymbal, tom and acoustic guitar)
... The accordianist recalls the last time he was alone and happy. He is alone again now, but can't imagine feeling that exhalted joy and freedom again as he did that day on the shore. It brings him sadness, but emotions are like a dull sensation to him now at this age, few great highs, few great lows. His thoughts gradually return to the street, to his old fingers, to the way things are now.

Mixing kills me..

..when it's my own stuff i'm mixing at least. I'd been too close to these tunes til very recently to be able to sit back and really hear what should be going on. Still, at least there are three of the eight mixed now, so we're getting there.

There's a Bjork quote that's stayed in my head about leaving something left to do for the mixing stages, so it breaths new life into the tune. That's been in my mind a fair bit lately. Going over these tunes with slightly fresher ears has made me take stock a little more of what's going on in this stuff and make some changes. I think i've probably removed more than i've added actually, which i see as a good thing, the tunes are stronger for it and it's good to have a bit of space in music.

I never thought it would take so long to make a record. Previously i've been speedy to bust out some music, it's been a fairly quick process, but this has just gone and on and on. I think the record would be just as suitably titled 'Writer's Block' or 'Option Fatigue' as 'Free Will' or anything else.

I guess i'd been pretty eager to try something different instrumentally, i'd backed right off from the guitar, and wanted a broader pallet. I also wanted to get more involved in 'reprocessing' material, and sculpting with sounds rather than actually writing as such, but i didn't want to do it in a 'noise record' or 'ambient' kind of way (though there is some of that). I wanted it to have motifs and structure and musicality, but a lot of the sounds to have come from naive playing, found sounds etc etc; i guess i wanted music out of noise.

Reprocessing is the creation of one piece of music from another. Sometimes this means a new piece that bears no resemblence to the original, sometimes it sounds like an alternative version or remix. Reprocessing differs from remixing as there are no new parts added, everything is made up of the tracks of the original, for instance 'Acht' on the 'EPs and Others' CD is entirely made up of the guitar/bass/violin/drums/piano/moog/guiro tracks from 'Funf' on the same disc. The twinkling pattern in the end section, for example, is made up of a heavily edited and effected section of Funf's bassline; the violin was duplicated and similarly edited and effected to create the string section etc etc.

I wanted to use reprocessing on this record, but to take it a step further and not have an original piece to work from, rather a series of recorded improvisations, sometimes performed over a theme, sometimes without; which i could sculpt into music. So we'd start with a bunch of improvising on maybe cellos to start, record an hour or so of improvising, then edit that to something i liked and improvise over the top, then edit again ..and repeat ..so you're gradually building a structure, building a tune. One of the things i liked about working in this way is that music begins to develop in front of you and you're more able to remain as a listener because you don't actually know exactly what's going on,it's a joy to be ignorant of that sometimes.

I remember the first time i bought a Spiderman comic, the first thing i did after reading it twice was to go home and draw my own, because i wanted to read another. I think that's indicative of how i am, first and foremost it seems to me, i'm a reader and a listener. I create music because it's something i want to hear, this method of working fits in with that, i can be a listener but also alter the things that i'd want to if i were listening to a record by someone else.

Working as a listener can take a little more time it seems to me. It can take several listens of something before it all clicks in and makes sense. I think this is why lately i've been creating space in these recordings, because i've come to hear them better as music, come to hear more exactly how these pieces sound. With all of the edited improvisations sitting on the tracks, i'd taken the best bits of the improvs, but not necessarily the best bits for the tune as a whole, so removing parts and reducing the tracks to essential parts has been a worthwhile exercise.

I guess mixing doesn't kill me, it just takes a while with this music to get a handle on what needs to be there. When you have a broad pallet of almost literally any sound, it's a tricky business deciding what part of everything you want to use, mixing this record has also become a thinning-down exercise. There were parts that were essential for getting other tracks down that no longer need to be part of the finished tune, and like i say, the music is stronger for it.