Tau Aleph Sanpi

Download Pivot Point mp3 HERE.

One of the projects I am currently involved in, the ‘Civil Servants‘ , has recently had a track appear on an English Arts Council funded compilation (double) CD:  Artists’ Uses of the Term ‘Revolution’,  compiled by Alan Dunn. It was was given away free of charge as part of the exhibition ‘Recent Appointments’ at Leeds Met Gallery.

The unifying concept of the compilation is artists’ takes on ‘Revolution’, and there are many over the 2 CDs — there is a mix of music, speeches, samples, and various kinds of experimentalism.

There is a really nice web-presentation for the compilation here: http://www.alandunn67.co.uk/revhuxley.html

..and you can see some more of the other audio projects on Alan Dunn’s site too.

Some highlights of the compilation (at least for me) are the Aldous Huxley and Marcel Duchamp speeches, and the early tracks of rousing revolutionary music (La Marseillaise, 1912, on disc 2(. The Chumbawamba track, Liberation (disc 1, track 14), is also a good ride — if all you have heard of theirs is Tubthumping, listen to this. Overall, there is a nice mix of hip-hop, jangly guitar poetry (not really my thing, but part of the revolutionary audio tradition..), sound samples, British, American, Mexican, Kurdish, European and other nationalities takes on Revolution, so it really is a varied and interesting collection to listen to. Some parts are artsy, others historical or documentary, and some are humourous (It’s Revolution - ‘The Bathrooms are Coming!’  ?)

It’s a really nicely presented limited run CD (hand numbered edition of 1000), and I am definitely pleased to be involved, for the copy I was given for taking part, the collection of tracks also on there, and with the way our track turned out!

You can listen the track Pivot Point from our page here: http://www.musicbycommittee.com/ , and a selection of other tracks from the compilation that are online here: http://www.alandunn67.co.uk/revolutionmp3.html

The various samples on Pivot Point were recorded by me on my Edirol R09H in Sydney (Rainbow Lorikeets screeching), Marrakech (Jema El Fna sounds), and the Foundry, London for ‘crowd sounds’, assorted vocal snatches (alcohol fueled re-imaginings of Revolution 9), and piano. I’m sure many revolutions were plotted while imbibing in similar drinking establishments — and that maybe not all of those have taken place….   I used a custom filter I wrote in the Nyquist scripting language (running in Audacity as an effect) to perform a ‘rotating’ effect on some of the samples, it involves panning and frequency blocking to emulate the effects of a ‘revolving’ (around the listener) sound source at various speeds. A literal and mundane interpretation of ‘revolution’ there ….   The effect could be more elaborate, but hopefully it is more effective than simple panning.

Tags: Audio, Civil Servants, Edirol, music

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 07:18 and is filed under Audio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.