Feedbacking pedal chain

I had been interested in feedback loops for a while and decided to record some experiments.

Using a guitar pedal chain routed back to itself via a mixer I was able to obtain surprisingly versatile results by tweaking settings, changing the placing of pedals in the chain or by varying the level of aux send from the mixer (the amount of feedback)

These sessions were edited and mixed (no treatment other than some fades and panning) to produce a 25-minute piece. Dim the lights and Enjoy!

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Bavarian Concert Zither

I picked up this lovely Bavarian Concert Zither on ebay for about £40.

This is the instrument used on the soundtrack for the movie “The Third Man”. It features 5 fretted strings and 27 open strings which are usually tuned in a cycle of fifths. I used my own unison tuning.

One thing that is really interesting about these instruments is that almost every country and culture has some kind of version of the zither, and it’s basically an ancestor of the guitar.

Combined with a fairly crude homemade contact microphone and my standard effect chain (2 DL4’s, Boss PS-2, Blues Driver, Verbzilla, Alesis portable mixer) I was using this setup for the first Unknown Devices sessions with David Toop. The case acts as a resonant chamber/amplifier and picks up lots of great creaks and friction.

I later edited together this quite dark loop-based composition..

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ghOst produced a couple of 6-minute tracks for Otaku magazine’s ‘Kaidan’ issue. These are entitled ‘jitenshi-kaze’ (bicycle/wind) and ‘amatsu-kaidan’ (celestial ghost).

Otaku magazine is really beautifully presented and researched, and follows a different theme for each issue, in this case ‘kaidan’, japanese traditional ghost stories. Otaku manages a great balance between genre history, artist contributions and manga comic book content (not to mention the awesome cover cd). I recommend getting hold of a copy quick!

Listen to ghOst here

ghOst

ghOst is a vehicle for experimental electronic music in the ambient/drone/noise/subsonic field. Influenced by themes of the celestial and ethereal, other-worldly soundscapes are explored within a narrative framework.

The dvd was produced for use as a projection backdrop at ghOst laptop sets I was doing at The Pool Bar and for a slot at Immersion experimental electronica festival at The Flea Pit.

Most of the video was shot on a 2mp camera phone (at 320×240) and edited in Premiere. The footage is closeups of various random tv programmes with scanlines and interference forming part of the final image.

Listen to ghOst here

Here are a series of still images from the dvd.