Dormant - Clutter live at Lanternhouse

Clutter live at Open Circuit - Lanternhouse, Ulverston, Cumbria on March 17th 2012.

Film is a slowed down version of Lanternhouse I by Shaun Blezard.

All sounds used are recordings of Lanternhouse and form part of an improvised set.

Original material made during my artist residency at Lanternhouse in 2011 - cumbriaremixed.blogspot.co.uk

The end of an era.......

Thanks to all the staff at Lanternhouse over the years who have made me welcome, it's been a long strange trip as they say, with many highs and lows. I've sometimes loved the place, sometimes hated the place but will definitely miss the place.

'Everything will pass, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain.' Mikhail Bakunin

You can also just listen/download the audio from Bandcamp

Remixes on The Internet Archive

I have just ported the remixes from Cumbria Remix to The Internet Archive as the Soundcloud page is now been down scaled to a normal account.

Many thanks to all the people work did work for the project - it really was a lovely project to put together.



It's very sad news that Lanternhouse is closing at the end of March - it was an amazing building to work in and the staff were simply the best to work with, making me feel really welcome while I was working there.

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