BRADBURY's Page

At 12:16am on April 29th, 2008, Cindy said…: Hi G, I'd like to see what comes of these sounds. Do you have any recordings of them? I'm wildly curious.

At 11:38pm on April 24th, 2008, sarah said…: (hi bradbury... here is you blog entry!)...

I have been saying to my friends, that, since I finished my last CD for Dual Plover, I can't, in all honesty, see myself sitting down in front of a computer putting together yet another fucking CD because if I'd wanted to spend my life sitting in front of a computer I would have got a job in an office. I didn't. I signed up to be a musician, back in year dot, in order to avoid having a "job". "Jobs" are what people pay you to do because nobody wants to do them. Now, having "work" is something altogether different. Having a life is something different yet again.
I went down to the property to visit Sarah and Dave. I knew some malarkey was going on there and I knew that Alan was involved. I never
(well maybe I don't pay attention) suspected the scope and joy of what lay in wait for me. Fuck me if that wasn't one off the absolute best, most stimulating times of my hitherto puny life.
I've dreaded attempting this blog. Maybe I'll add to it later because I can't really yet figure out what it was we did and what happened. We worked, some more than others, and we TALKED. Man did we fuckin talk.That device/instrument/structure just drew so much opinion and conjecture from us, after sunset, as dinner was being prepared (thanks Sarah), that my head is still reeling.
AND YET.....
(several hours later)
a technical aside;
During my stay, I came up with a germ of an idea that has worked out quite well and is yet to be fully explored.
I noticed that, as Dave and Alan were recording the wires via pickups, a lot of other sounds, very complex and layered sounds, were being emitted by the supporting posts. A different combination of tones/ timbres could be heard from just about every fissure or crack in the posts. Some sang like hell, others throbbed disceetly (most notably at sunset (apparently this can be explained by sudden shifts in air temperature causing the wires to contract)). I originally thought of some elaborate tube like bracket within which to mount a mic in order to capture these voices. Sara and Robin Fox suggested I use a protective gas mask which could easily be found on the farm. I mounted a small stereo condenser mic inside a mask and began using it (via dat) to record the poles. I looked like some loon walking around with an oversized stethescope listening to pieces of wood and yet the results were..... fucking insane.
Great source materials for composition and just resplendant in themselves. Such immense variety.
This entire set up is like an endless font of unpredictable sound stimulous that you can plug into at will.
A gift from out of the ground, the sky and the air and the birdies up there who sing along with it.

gb