orfeo 5 - Lament For The Makers

Lament For The Makers is a three track, 60 minute jazz album available for download featuring reworkings of source material from Cumbria Remixed.

The orfeo 5 line up for this album is the duo of Shaun Blezard (electronics) & Keith Jafrate (Saxophones). All the tracks were improvised and recorded live on 4th April 2011 at Keith's in Todmorden.



It was great to work with the recordings in a jazz setting with Keith and to find new ways to present and remould the sounds of Cumbria - it's always such a pleasure to work with him and again I'm really proud of the recordings. Help DIY music and buy a copy, cheers....

Visit the orfeo 5 bandcamp page for other releases.


Other remixes can be downloaded here - at The Internet Archive

Two new remixes

We have had two more remixes sent in - both very different but equally great.

First up we have Bessie from Sheffield's Adrian Carter with a little funky thing featuring Cathedral Quarry flute and Janice Benson reading her Grandmother's postcards.

Adrian Carter on Soundcloud

The we have The Sound Around Me from Birmingham's Carya Amara featuring the lovely sound of me uming and arring and trying desperately to make some kind of interesting point.

Carya Amara website  

That now takes us to 22 remixes from accross the globe - Want to contribute your own, or even just have a little fun - all the sound recordings from the project are available for free download here



All the remixes can be downloaded here

Deep Clutter remixing Cumbria live at Kendal Brewery Arts Centre

An edit of a performance by Deep Clutter (Steve Lewis - Vocals & Shaun Blezard - Electronics) in The Warehouse at Kendal Brewery Arts Centre on April 23rd 2011 as featured act at Ann Wilson's Open Mic Poetry Night.

The performance was a remix of poems performed during the evening - Steve takes these words and reworks them as a base for an improvisation by the duo. Shaun uses a variety of live processing techniques as well as for this performance field recording made for the Cumbria Remixed project.



  

Other forthcoming things with Cumbria Remixed related sound include Clutter playing at Apartment Music in Florida via a live internet stream on May 28th and a possible digital release by orfeo 5.

Cumbrian sounds sample pack

The second sample pack for all you remixers out there is now available.


If you want to download the wav versions in a zip file they are here - http://www.archive.org/details/CumbriaRemixedSamplePack

Be brilliant to hear what you all can do remix wise with this new pack. As before either use the soundcloud dropbox or email to info@shaunblezard.com - all remixes will be shared using creative commons licence.

Live broadcast of improvised performance

Yesterday as part of the Meet The Artist day at Lanternhouse I did a performance, streamed live on the internet.

I was joined in this by Geoff Benson who at 78 VJed for the very first time and John Hall who did some soundmaking alongside me. Here's the stream, available for the next 7 days.



I will be doing more research and work with streaming technologies I think as it's an exciting developement alongside other newer technologies like phones and tablets for music making. It's been brilliant to be given the space by Lanternhouse to work and try new things out in such an amazing creative and supportive atmosphere, always very much appreciated.

Singing Bowls and Musical Stones

Went on a road trip with Iain McNicol and his singing bowls today and ended up at Cathedral Quarry in Langdale. We went to record the singing bowls but as we walked into the quarry (which is more of a cave) we were greated by someone playing flute.

Here's one of the recordings I made of the duets between Iain and the mysterious flute lady - I hope she drops me an email so I can send her the recordings - wonderful stuff. I also recorded the most amazing song the lady sang with singing bowl, water dripping and a plane going past overhead.

If you love great natural reverbs get yourself along http://www.visitcumbria.com/amb/cathedral-cave.htm and have a play/sing - just beautiful ambience.

We also nipped into the Ruskin museum to record the harmonicon or musical stones that were presented to John Ruskin by the Till Family.

Live internet TV and it's potential

I have just done another test broadcast using http://www.justin.tv/cluttermusic after a morning of research and chatting online about the possibilities of such technology. Being able to do live streaming of gigs and such is a very exciting prospect and something I've been researching during my residency at Lanternhouse.

I have been discussing the possibilities of live collaborations using things like justin.tv and video conferencing software and the main issue is time lagging of signals - I could perform here in the UK, my friend could play along in the US, but if we try and play, interacting together, then it gets a little more difficult.

Today I did a test performance on justin.tv where using chat I could interact verbally with the 'audience' and what they typed - if you play the streamyou will hear me responding to their messages. It was exciting to do this with Phill in Ulverston, Mr Duke in Wales and Hal in Florida.

So as a pure tool for performing to new audiences this stuff really works, especially with them being able to type messages to you in real time. I will be working with the likes of Phill and Hal and doing somemore experiments with the technology and how we can use it as an artistic tool.

I will be trying to do another little performance over the weekend, this time from my garden if the weather holds, to try out a wifi dongle and to see if that works well enough to do live streaming 'off grid' for future performances.

My first official live performance will be on Wednesday 30th March from Lanternhouse in Ulverston 2pm - 3pm GMT streamed live from http://www.justin.tv/cluttermusic - If you prefer the old fashioned way and live locally why not drop in for a brew and be part of the studio audience.


Watch live video from cluttermusic on Justin.tv

Mica Burn - a remix by Dead Kousin

Another fantastic remix this time from London's Dead Kousin. He said of the remix:

'here is my attempt at 'remixing' Cumbria. I don't have any real connection with the county (except having worked there on occasion and passed through numerous times!) but thought your project sounded really interesting. I used exclusively sounds from your sample pack, so it's all your own material - I hope you like the result!'

Dead Kousin on Soundcloud 

This is our 20th remix submitted from around the globe. Go to the Sample Packs page to download the sounds and contribute your own remix. There is also VJ packs if you would like to do something filmic for the project.




All the remixes can be downloaded here

More fun at Meet The Artist

I had fun working in the kitchen at Lanternhouse for another Meet The Artist day today.

I've been wondering about the amount of effects/processing I use on field recordings and after working with Steve & Mary the other day and not using much in the way of effects I thought I'd revisit the loops I've been working with on the project and try and do a 'dry' improvisation, so you hear the actual sounds more. Here's a little workout from the stuff I recorded whilst jamming about which for the sake of it having a name I've called Drystone Welding.



Iain McNicol popped in today and we have arranged to go and record his singing bowls around the county on Monday, he knows some really interesting places so expect some brilliant results :-) We may even try and do a live broadcast somewhere along the way.......Talking of which I will be performing a live internet TV broadcast from Lanternhouse at the last Meet The Artist day - I will post more details soon.....

Barrovian poet Ann Wilson came along in the afternoon with her loop station pedal and we had a bit of a jam - we had a play with a couple of poems and then a general inprovisation. It was good fun and interesting to see how we could work together. 

BBC 21CC/West Lakes Academy workshop

Had fun making a collection of tracks with pupils and staff from West Lakes Academy in Egremont during a workshop I ran for BBC 21CC at Lanternhouse. All the tracks were created with sounds collected and made in the lanternhouse building - field recordings, instruments played and voices used.

21CC is the BBC's 21st Century Classroom. They run fun, interactive digital media workshops for schools and community groups that offer young people the opportunity to develop creative production skills in animation, film, radio, art and design and music.

BBC 21CC
West Lakes Academy 

My Love Is But A Lassie Yet (Deconstructed)

I had the great pleasure of being invited to Lancaster yesterday to work with improvising vocalists Steve Lewis and Mary Oliver for an afternoon of experimenting, play and discussion about the nature of improvising.

It was great fun to work with such amazing vocal improvisers, myself adding a layer of live processing and looping, only working with voice. There was a real purity to what we did which led me to using a lot less obvious processing that I would normally use, to let the quality of the voices really come through.

As part of the day I asked them if we could play around with an old Cumberland Ballad My Love Is But A Lassie Yet which we improvised a deconstructed version of. The original text is available on Google books here.



It really was an exciting day and we are hoping to play some gigs together in the near future as a trio. Keep a look out for us, I think it is going to be something very special.

Websites:
Mary Oliver
Deep Cabaret (Steve Lewis)
Deep Clutter (Steve Lewis & Shaun Blezard)

Still Standing, Still Useful

I have just uploaded a brand new track Still Standing, Still Useful which I have donated to Belgium net label Kopp for a new compilation they are releasing in the near future.

The music is edited from improvisations I recorded during a Meet The Artist day at Lanternhouse on 16th March, then edited down into a usable form - it is 3 sections overlapped to create the whole.

The voices are Eunice, talking about the scruffy houses she remembers as a child in Kendal and Arthur, talking about houses in Ulverston and the poverty people lived under then. Both sets of houses were built by local industry wool and snuff magnates in Kendal and the Mills in Ulverston.



I have contributed to Kopp before, donating an exclusive track The Moon Of Pity to the compilation Basic Imprint in 2010. They release some brilliant dark ambient and experimental music under Creative Commons licence, go check them out.

Elaine talks about Barrow

Had a great chat at the last Meet The Artist day at Lanternhouse with a Barrovian lady called Elaine. She talked about growing up in Barrow and how hard it could be at times being a women in a 'beer and skittles' town, why she left and then why she returned after traveling the world.

Elaine also recited a poem she wrote in Scotland about people hating others for where they come from and who they are.

I have had some amazing chats with Cumbrian people and would still love to talk to more of you. Listen to what others have told me to get an idea of the sort of thing I'm collecting, we can just meet up and have a chat that I record to edit out little parts of conversation to add to the project.

3 new remixes submitted

We have had 3 new remixes sent to us for the project.

A 3rd remix from Bubble in Canada - this one is called Cone I  - John of Bubble said...it includes two tracks from the Cumbria sounds, a field recording of rain from the Cumbria field recordings, a guitar track, a violin, tibetan singing bowl and one from my friend the opera singer...
Bubble on the internet.

Bubble on Soundcloud
Bubble website

CumbriaNACHTmix is by Nachtsmeer from Manchester who has recorded for Skam records and played All Tomorrow's Parties and Future Sonic.

Nachtsmeer website
Nachtsmeer on Facebook

Jaaccckkkk & Iiiaan a remix of the recordings by Jack & Ian from Flookburgh by Nottingham's Guy Birkin, Guy said of his work: 'I thought you might like to hear what I did with some of your Cumbrian oral history recordings. I love Jack and Ian's vocabulary, their phrasing, timing and tone, so I thought I'd do this simple experiment of layering the tracks. Great project you've got here. Regards, Guy'

Guy Birkin has a blog Aesthetic Complexity 

All tracks and samples used by Cumbria Remixed are not licenced by Cumbria Remixed as stated below but by the individual artists. Each artist has licenced their material under a Creative Commons licence and Cumbria Remixed thanks each and everyone of them for letting us share their work on these pages. Please contact each artist for individual licencing information.




All the remixes can be downloaded here

A Happy Life and Socialist Sunday Schools

A 1 minute track sent to Hal McGee for his International Email Audio Art Project. This features a recording of Mr Pritchard singing an old piorotte song he remembers from his youth.

It is quite a strange task to write a 1 minute track, especially as an ambient based writer, where long form is the standard, some of my tracks being over 20 minutes long. You really have to think hard about what is included and what is not needed...It was an interesting process - hope you like the results....

http://www.halmcgee.com/IEAAP.html for more information about the Internatioanl Email Art Project



Have been having a little Facebook correspondance with Mark Harris, an amazing musician from Birmingham since I posted These Things Shall Be, he sent me a link to another version of the hymn/poem and brought my attention to the concept of Socialist Sunday Schools and wondered whether Arthur learned it at one of these? Certainly would be aound the right age....I hope to catch up with Arthur for a brew and another chat to ask him. He said he learnt it via the Co-op education system so...

There is a copy of the John Ireland version of These Things Shall Be on his 70th Birthday concert CD recorded at the Albert Hall available from Amazon recorded in 1949.

These Things Shall Be

A new film to go with new music. The music is the first track I've produced using the recorded interviews I am making for the project. This one features Arthur from Ulverston, Lanternhouse's 92 year old neighbour who I had the pleasure of meeting one of the times he popped into the building for a brew. The poem is an old school hymn that was popular when he was a child. Look at the words here.

The music features processed field recordings from around Cumbria, including rain on my attic window, Whitehaven harbour and wind on Bardsea beach with harp made using Thumb Jam on my iPhone.

The film was started in a Meet The Artist session and is a collaboration with Geoff Benson from Kendal who came to check out digital film making after liking my work at the film night and chatting about new, cheap digital cameras. All the footage I used in the film are from Geoff's first go at using a digital film camera. More of his work will be in the next VJ pack that will be getting uploaded soon.

Cumbrian People

I have edited and uploaded the first round of interviews with Cumbrian people for the website. They are all available for download so you can add them to the remix packs we have already put out. The first Cumbrian sample pack will be available very soon also.

There is a great selection of people's memories starting to take shape. Thanks to Arthur, Eric, Eunice, Janice and Betty for talking to me and to Jack & Ian for donating some recordings.

Cumbrian People by cumbriaremixed

If you would like to be interviewed or know someone that might be interested please contact me at info@shaunblezard.com or phone 07743822114.

You can also pop into one of our Meet The Artist days at Lanternhouse. They run from 11am - 3pm on Wednesdays 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th March. Please come and have a little chat or why not try your hand at remixing the sights and sounds of Cumbria?


Sample Pack can be downloaded here - available for free download at The Internet Archive

Cumbria Remixed in London and Barcelona

I have just returned from a short trip taking Cumbria Remixed to London as part of the Black/Light Festival.



A short edit from the Kalendar and Clutter live A/V collaboration for inCounter at The Bussey Building, Peckham in London on 4th March 2011.

I was invited to work with Kalendar as part of inCounter in March 2011, part of Black/Light festival curated by Robots>>>>. The show also formed part of Cumbria Remixed, my artist residency at Lanternhouse, Ulverston.

Kalendar is a duo, Paul Ibram and Stephen Shiell, working between electro-acoustic and analogue improvisation using guitar and moog to create continuous landscapes of noise impressions, working backwards and forwards over time, effecting chronological dislocations in the receivers’ imaginations.

I added live processing of Kalendar, iPhone and samples from Cumbria to the live soundscapes. I also created projections for the performance that were a combination of Cumbria, filmed from the train on the way to London, and the Robots>>>> exhibition at The Bussey Building.

inCounter
Robots>>>>
Kalendar on Soundcloud

Midnight In The House Of Lanterns is a track I produced for inclusion in Kim Cascone's 'Dark Atmospheres' diffusion mix for Storung Festival coming up in Barcelona.

Kim Cascone (USA) became internationally famous in the 80's working as a musical editor assistant in David Lynch's series Twin Peaks and Wild Heart. Nevertheless, his background in music is wider than that. He started his studies in electronic music in the 70's and founded in 1986 one of the pioneer labels of electronic music in the States, Silent Records. Since mid 90's his work is centered in audio design and has worked for Headspace and Staccato Systems where he got specialized in sound algorithmic synthesis for video games.



Storung Festival
Kim Cascone

Radio Cumbria interview and new film

I am being interviewed on Radio Cumbria tomorrow morning - it's going out live at 11:30am - http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/cumbria/hi/ to listen live on or you can listen again - not sure if this works outside the UK? Will try and get a copy of the interview for the blog if it doesn't.

I have just completed a filmed entitled Lanternhouse I using images I filmed of Lanternhouse on a flip camera on the start of my residency. It is strongly influenced by such surrealist artist/film makers of the 1920's as Fernand Léger and Man Ray.





Lanternhouse I will be shown as part of The Films We Like - a night of emerging film makers being shown at Lanternhouse tomorrow - 2nd March (7:30pm - 9:30pm)


The Studio at Lanternhouse will be transformed into a cinema for one night only! The films have been hand-picked and cover a diverse range of styles from experimental video, animation, and documentary. They’re occasionally weird, always wonderful and united by the fact that we like them and we think you’ll like them too.

Entry £3 on the door!

For more info contact tom@lanternhouse.org

Lanternhouse remixes update and VJ loop pack

I have uploaded all the VJ loops I made for the first Meet The Artist day. They are available from The Internet Archive under creative commons licence for you to download and play with. They are all films I recorded on a flip camera around and about the Lanternhouse building.

If you do something with them please email a link to info@shaunblezard.com and I will feature it on the blog.

We have also had a further 4 remixes in, this time from Carlos Lemosh (US), Closed Eyes Are Dancing (UK) and All N4Tural (Germany). Check the Remixes page for more details.



All the remixes can be downloaded here


Lastly Clutter has an exclusive track on the current Classwar Karaoke compilation called Lanternhouse II which is available for free download here. It is one of his remixes of the Lanternhouse building.

House Of Bowls, Singing

A film collage of footage shot during the first Cumbria Remixed Meet The Artist day with resident artist Shaun Blezard at Lanternhouse on 25th February 2011.

For more details of further meet the artist days visit lanternhouse.org

Meet the artist and more

I had a fantastic day at Lanternhouse on Friday for my first Meet The Artist day. We had a steady stream of people coming to play and try their hand at remixing Lanternhouse with some stunning results.

Among my personal highlights were a mellow collaborative, improvised session with Ian McNichol's singing bowls and recordings of the building where a little ensemble created a beautiful audio visual treat for passers by.

There was also some great new VJ loops and sound recordings made and it was great to see people trying things out for the first time and really engaging with the technology. It was good to get to talk to people about the project and to make some plans to do some visiting and recording with people, also always great to get feedback and ideas for the project. Some really fun ideas coming to try out in the next few weeks.

Here's a collage of some of the music created during the day:



I'm starting to get a feel for what is achieveable and I'm excited about getting an interactive, improvised installation together by the end of the project. We got some amazing results from the test material of Lanternhouse and I will now start adding more sounds and film to the mix.

The next Meet The Artist day is on 9th March at Lanternhouse - visit http://www.lanternhouse.org/ for more details.

Remixing Lanternhouse - more remixes and other news

Another remix of Lanternhouse from the United States, this time from the talented Clint Newton aka Beed and Fascia who have sent the track Goodbye Faerie, Goodbye.

Clint said: 'Although I did do some processing and repurposing, it's more of a straightforward composition with some of the fragments. I kind of like the way it turned out... hope you do too! Thanks for the opportunity and thanks for listening!'

Beed and Fascia on Bandcamp
Beed and Fascia on Soundcloud

The wonderfully talented Phil Powell has sent us this beautiful track, Pause For Allan.

Phil says: 'This is a very melancholy mix. My uncle recently left this mortal coil far too quickly, after being diagnosed with leukaemia. His passing was so sudden, it took us all by surprise, and nobody really had a chance to say goodbye to him. I have known him all my life, and now he is gone. So this track is inspired by the moments I've been taking these past few days to pause, reflect, and to think about the many loving friends and family who are grieving at his passing.'

Phil is a resident in Ulverston and runs the amazing company We Make Media, who designed the Lanternhouse website.

Phil Powell on Soundcloud

We Make Media

All the remixes can be downloaded here

Also just a quick reminder I'll be in the foyer of Lanternhouse from 11am - 3pm tomorrow (25th February) if you want to drop by and find out more about the project or have a go at remixing Lanternhouse yourself. You can try your hand at soundscapes or VJing, or come and let me record your memories of Cumbria to add to the sound bank.

Test live visual broadcast on Justin.tv

This was a little test live visual broadcast I did on Justin.tv to try out the idea of live streaming a gig in the future - It is a live VJ set I performed along to audio recordings of me jamming - all using recordings of Lanternhouse. I just filmed the laptop screen, so all a bit lo-fi but keep a look out for more live streaming - Once I've sorted out the tech I'll let you all know when I do a live set - need to get the stuff working and find an interesting venue or two.


Watch live video from cluttermusic on Justin.tv

This will be around for a week or so then disappear, bit like iPlayer :-)

Many thanks to Steve Wade from Folly for telling me about justin, gonna have some fun with it I think.

I have also been working with Neil Wade on some Wii remote fun, still in developement but we're hoping to have a wii quartet happening in the near future.

Even more remixes of Lanternhouse

'I couldn't help but try to get something done for this the second I heard about it--the concept of the project is gorgeous' message from Tim of WaterGunWaterGunSkyAttack - Dallas, Texas

The remixing of the Lanternhouse building has really been catching the imagination of sound artists the world over in the first week. We have received 3 more submissions giving us a total now of 10. Just amazing to get such a response from everyone.

Visit the contribute or remixes pages to find out how you can get involved in Cumbria Remixed.

So on to the new remixes.....

The first new track is by WaterGunWaterGunSkyAttack and is called Urban Wren. Tim of the band said 'I couldn't help but try to get something done for this the second I heard about it--the concept of the project is gorgeous, and I've recently found that I love working with field recordings. Most of the samples in this track are heavily edited, resampled, and modulated; It's also not exactly as much of a soundscape as the seven tracks currently on your site, but I hope it doesn't stick out too much. I'm a resident of Dallas, Texas, without much of a musical CV to speak of. I probably haven't been doing this as long as the other people who've submitted remixes have, but hopefully you get some interest out of it.'

WaterGunWaterGunSkyAttack on Soundcloud



All the remixes can be downloaded here
Electricplum is Ulverston's very own Kirsten Taylor, known to many for her amazing singing voice, but showing she is also a very talented sound artist with the track Overworked Door Shot To Pieces By Frog.

Another remix from Bubble in Canada - this one is called Briad - John of Bubble said...along with the cumbria samples, there are sounds of crickets from india (lived outside bangalore for 5 years) , a tibetan singing bowl, my friend - an opera singer - singing into a piano resonating the strings (her idea!  :)) and a sine wave tone...

Bubble on Soundcloud

Remixing Lanternhouse - Meet The Artist Shaun Blezard

Friday 25th February - 11am - 3pm (Free Drop In Session)

Lanternhouse

The Ellers,

Ulverston,

Cumbria,

LA12 0AA

Drop into Lanternhouse to find out about Cumbria Remixed and meet sound artist Shaun Blezard. Record your memories and thoughts on Cumbria and help remix Lanternhouse itself!! No need to book, just drop in to see and hear what Cumbria Remixed is all about.

Cumbria Remixed is an exciting new digital sound project using digital technologies to investigate and remix the soundscape of Cumbria. It will create a lively dialogue between old and new, young and old through field recordings of Cumbrian environments, and local people’s tales, tunes, stories and songs. It will use digital technology to remix and remould our environment and our stories to create new soundscapes and songs.

Cumbria Remixed is a project by sound artist Shaun Blezard for Lanternhouse.

Shaun will be creating a series of works throughout the project both on-line, at Lanternhouse and around Cumbria. He would love to hear from you and work with your recordings of the county.

Other Meet The Artist days @ Lanternhouse with Shaun Blezard
Wednesdays 9th, 16th, 23rd & 30th March 2011 - 11am - 3pm (Free Drop in Events)

Resident sound artist Shaun Blezard will be running open house days to talk to the local community about his work and the Cumbria Remixed project. If you are interested in the project and want to try creating soundscapes, field recording, VJing or just want Shaun to record your memories and thoughts about Cumbria why not come along and join in. No experience necessary.

www.lanternhouse.org for more details on this project and others

More remixes of Lanternhouse

We have been sent another four remixes of the Lanternhouse buiding, making a total of seven in the five days since the Lanternhouse sample pack has been available for download.


The new remixes come from Canada, Swansea, Warrington and the first Cumbrian remix from Ambleside.

Bubble is John Sobocan from Toronto, Canada who has sent us Cumbria Shake Mix.

Bubble on Soundcloud :: Bubble biography

InternalExternal is Ambleside resident David Brown. Our very first Cumbrian based remix has sent us Cloudy Raintime, a very Cumbrian title.

InternalExternal on Soundcloud

Swansea sound artist Ian Holloway sent us the track Balefire. As well as being a great artist Ian also runs the experimental label Quiet World and the long running review fanzine Wonderful Wooden Reasons.

Quiet World :: Wonderful Wooden Reasons

Noise Research is Warrington based musician Ian Simpson, who has sent us The Lanternhouse Remix. Ian is a brilliant electro-acoustic improviser and can be seen in many incarnations around the North of England. He also finds time to run the amazing net label Electronic Musik and the Electronic Organica experimental music nights in Manchester.Electronic Musik



All the remixes can be downloaded here

Remixes from Italy & Yorkshire

We have received two more remixes of Lanternhouse, this time from Italy & Yorkshire, UK.

Keith Jafrate is a poet and saxophone player who also makes amazing sound art based in Todmorden in Yorkshire, UK. He is the driving force of jazz/electronics outfit orfeo 5. He has contributed the track Many Hearts.

orfeo 5 Website

orfeo 5 Myspace

Guido Lusetti aka Loalue comes from Italy and has given us Loalue - Lanternhouse (all the Cumbria lakes' remix)

Guido Lusetti on Soundcloud

Loalue on Myspace
Monbijoux on Soundcloud



All the remixes can be downloaded here

First Remix in from New England

Our first remix from the Lanternhouse Sample Pack has arrived - from New England in the United States.

Derek Piotr is a sound composer, currently writing an opera and constantly consumed by numerous other aural projects. He also interns for Meredith Monk & is the U.S. office of Antye Greie, but when he has free time he likes to write.

Derek Piotr on the internet:
Soundcloud
Wordpress



All the remixes can be downloaded here

Want to remix a building??

I have uploaded a sample pack of sounds recorded at Lanternhouse in Cumbria ready for download at:

Soundcloud & The Internet Archive
Please use the samples, have fun do a remix and please let us know if you do a remix as we would love to feature it on the blog and we are thinking of releasing a best of compilation as a net release.
If you do a remix please send us a copy - either to our soundcloud drop box or send to info@shaunblezard.com.

We will be featuring them on the blog and are hoping to do a net release with them in the future so get in touch. All will be under Creative Commons licence. Please include artist name, track title and website details so we can add you to this page.

Eunice and Eric Talk Chips

A recording of Eunice and Eric, who had a business in Barrow for many years then moved to Grasmere and had a very successful business there too. They are aged 92 and 93. Here they talk about when Eric's mam and dad had a fish and chip range fitted in their front room in 1925 when Eric was 8.

Many thanks to Christine for recording it and sending it in. Christine runs a great blog about the Lake District - check out http://englishlakes.wordpress.com/ for some amazing images and thoughts about the area.


If you have a story to tell, maybe a song or a piece of Music about Cumbria. Maybe you have a recording of the area: bird song, the sea, you doing the ironing - we are on the look out for sounds to add to the Cumbria Remixed sound bank.

You can send a sound either through our soundcloud drop box or email to info@shaunblezard.com

Stairwell Phase Composition II

Another test installation for the stairwell at Lanternhouse.

This one is a La Monte Young style drone work, again using 4 soundboxes.

For this piece I looped a small sample of an harmonium drone and created a bigger loop with a 1 tone change in it. I then created another 3 loops of different keys and length to create a drone composition that evolves over time.

The audience member can then change the mix by moving around the installation creating new tones depending on where they are standing.

Stairwell Phase Composition

I have been working in Lanternhouse today on a new test piece to improve my understanding of the relationship between the environment in which you place a sound installation and the way the audience perceives the work.

I created 4 loops of rhythms made from binaural recordings of the handrails on the stairwell, making them different lengths and tempos to construct a simple phase composition.

Having loops of different lengths and tempo means that they shift out of phase with each other creating an organically changing shifting pattern which evolves over time.

I installed them in 4 Lanternhouse sound boxes and put them at different points along the stairwell.

The listener can reposition themselves on different steps to change the sound mix they hear to create their own mix of the music. Setting a composition made from sounds of that particular environment also means the audience can interact with the installation by playing along with the composition through playing the handrails.

I'm really looking forward to developing this idea further next week. Here's a short recording with a fixed position recorder to give a flavour of what I got from today.




Lanternhouse Soundboxes

As a point of interest if anyone was wanting to know what makes up a soundbox here's a photo. They are a small black box with a cheap mp3 player and 2 self powered speakers inside.

I developed them for Lanternhouse with Fern Oxley with help from Bob at Lanternhouse for a youth sound art project we ran in summer of 2010 called Sonic Landscapes - we wanted to make a cheap 8 channel diffusion system that could be used in a park without a power supply and this is what we came up with. Each box cost about £30 and are usable outside, for indoor work 1 speaker was more than enough to fill a decent sized room.

Janice reads Bessie's Postcards

Janice Benson talks about postcards that belonged to her grandparents that she played with as a small girl.

She then reads some postcards from her Great Grandmother Bessie that Bessie sent to her family.

They are around 1904-1910 or so and Bessie was in service in one of the big houses on Abbey Road in Barrow-in-Furness.

The thing that really stood out to us looking through the postcards is the way postcards were like the text messaging of their day.

Simple unadorned messages from one person to another to get a small piece of information over leaving bigger stuff to letters/email. There's nothing earth shattering in any of the postcards just simple family communication, very similar to texts my family send to each other - 'you fancy pizza tonight', 'leaving now, back at five' type things.

Lanternhouse I

My first track made using found sounds recorded around Lanternhouse in Ulverston, imaginatively called Lanternhouse I.

The way I have been working for this track and for a number of years now is to start with field recordings. At Lanternhouse I recorded a host of sounds from kettles boiling, the lift going up and down, banging on handrails, playing the instruments in the music room, anything that catches my ear really. This was done with binaural and contact mics. I then use an audio editing programme to find small interseting parts of my field recordings to chop into loops - it may be that the rhythm is interesting, there's a kind of melody, or is just plain weird. I then have a bank of loops that I can then improvise with.

Lanternhouse I features piano, hamonium, traffic noise, fridge, fire extinguisher and hand rails.



I will be releasing the Lanternhouse field recordings as a remix pack so everyone can have a play with the sounds, I will feature some of the best on the blog - let me know if you're interested at info@shaunblezard.com

Pierrot Songs

Donated today by Gary Bridgens of The Pierotters, 3 short recordings of a gentleman from Barrow called Mr Pritchard singing snatches of pierrot songs he heard in his youth on Walney.

First day at Lanternhouse

Spent my first day at Lanternhouse yesterday making sound recordings and filming around the building.

I wanted to start getting to know the building better so went for an exploration with binaural mic and a flip camera collecting material for a piece about Lanternhouse.


This was a great way to start looking at the building with fresh eyes and ears. I've had some sort of relationship with Lanternhouse since it opened so it was refreshing to get to know some bits I'd never been to before like the tower and to stop and really take in small parts of the building.


One of my favourite parts of the sound of the building is the amazing sound of the metal handrails that run up and down the stairwells - really fantastic resonance when hit.


Got some really great binaural recordings along with testing out one of Lanternhouse's Flip cameras, which I used to film some nice looking abstract footage looking at close ups and geometric patterns around the building. My initial thought for a piece was people's relationship with the building and how the building sits within the community of Ulverston but after reviewing my collection of sound and film I was drawn more to just the building itself. To the bits most people don't see, to the bits we walk past and not notice. With this in mind I retraced my steps and recorded a series of contact mic recordings of the building paying attention to things like the noise of the computer server and the rumbling of the lift.


Looking forward to getting back there next week to get some more recordings, especially with contact micand starting to pull my first work of the residency together.

Furness Abbey Binaural Edit

A trip to Furness Abbey to do some field recording using binaural mics.

This is a quick edit of some of the interesting parts of the trip.

Such a lot of sounds of journeys in a space I went to thinking of it a quiet place. There's planes, trains, automobiles plus walking and jogging.....

I also did some recordings of Barrow town centre and had a play with a contact mic in the car whilst driving, will see if anything good comes out of that. At the moment I'm really just playing around with recording methods and thinking of ways to use field recordings in my work. Really happy with the Abbey recordings on the whole, need to get used to the stillness needed to make good field recordings again, I do seem to have a habit of walking about too much.....

A Return Journey Of Sorts

A track from my first field recording session round Ulverston and bus journey from Ulverston to Dalton. Nothing really interesting in the full recordings so I chopped them up into small sections and put them into Ableton Live and had a play to see if anything came from that. This is from my first session so thought it should be documented as a starting point of my residency at Lanternhouse.

The title is about the bus journey but also a reference to a home coming of sorts, growing up in Ulverston and how doing this project got me thinking about places of my youth that I'd like to revisit and record and add to the project.