Tuesday 11 July 2017

Seven at 77 - the Leaf Library release day


the Leaf Library have a single out later this year, and a new LP in 2018, but in the mean time here's their 77 minute opus - the CDs have sold out, but you can still get it on:

poster (with download code)
download

Monday 10 July 2017

Seven at 77 - Joel Mellin release day


Be Here With Me by Joel Mellin is out today... it's available on:

CD, in die cut sleeve
poster, with download code
download

Sunday 9 July 2017

Seven at 77 - the Great Electric release day


totay's 77 minutes come from The Great Electric... it's available on:

CD, in die cut sleeve (not many left!)
poster, with download code
download

Saturday 8 July 2017

Seven at 77 - Jack Hayter release day


Jack's monumental tune is out TODAY... it's available on:

CD, in die cut sleeve (not many left!)
poster, with download code
download

Friday 7 July 2017

seven at 77 - it starts here with Papernut Cambridge



yep - first up is Papernut Cambridge - the CDs have sold out, but you can still get it on:

poster (with download code)
download

Thursday 15 June 2017

Seven at 77 - preorder the Hardy Tree

 
Seven at 77 was an excuse to play around and try some new things out. An exercise in not being too precious, to drop the concepts and just experiment.  ‘Sketches in D minor’s’  follows one chord progression taking its starting point as a sequenced moog, it speeds up and slows down, it grows and changes, string machines, mellotron sounds, vibes and glockenspiel’s all play their part.


Friday 9 June 2017

seven at 77 - preorder World Of Fox


Fox & Fowles (Simon Fox: guitar, voice / Sara Fowles: viola) recorded 'Forward', an album of songs due for release in 2017. They are stripped back, reflecting only what they can create live - one acoustic guitar, one viola, one voice, one loop pedal.

As a companion piece, Simon has taken the original files from these recordings, tweaking and bending them to create 'Further', a looping, immersive journey through a rich pastoral ambient landscape.


For several years, live World of Fox has been solo deal, with just me, an acoustic guitar and a loop pedal for good measure. More recently, I've been playing gigs with violist Sara Fowles, which has added an extra dimension to the music and a bit more of a convivial atmosphere to the usual grumpy stage presence. (Quite rightly, she doesn't put up with any of my shit...)

However, I've been acutely aware that anyone buying my records at gigs won't be getting a reproduction of what they've just witnessed. (I can't help myself when recording, and usually end up with all sorts of extra instrumentation and effects). I don't know about you, but as a punter, I've found that a little frustrating when I've bought records at gigs. Add the fact that I've been moving further and further away from solo acoustic in my newer recordings, I decided we should record a stripped-down record that actually sounded like the live set!




So, as a way of drawing a line under the whole acoustic thing, we made a start on recording an album of one-take, no overdubs versions of the songs. This Fox & Fowles album is going to be called 'Forward' (the city of Birmingham's motto) and will be released in Summer 2017. One voice, one guitar, one viola, plus some live-generated loops. Exactly what you'd hear at a gig.

As an extra 'statement', I had the idea of producing a companion album, taking just the files recorded for 'Forward' and seeing how far I could bend, twist and generally fuck around with them to create entirely new ambient pieces. This was my way of bringing the two aspects of my music together and I thought it would make a rather pleasing concept.

All these ideas were bubbling up and coalescing when I got a shout from Jerv. He told me about the 77-minute idea and asked if I wanted to contribute. This couldn't have been better! Instead of a companion album, 'Further' is effectively one track that does the same job.

My last release on WIAWYA, with Amelia Fletcher, was one of the most 'pop' things Sara and I had done, so it was nice to go completely the other way with this one.

I took the original files from the first 'Forward' sessions, looped and overlaid them and threw whatever reverbs, delays, amps and filters I had at my disposal to create the new piece. In keeping with the original concept, nothing new was recorded for 'Further'.

It became clear early on that the viola should be the main driver of the pieces, so it features heavily, often multi-tracked to create a 'one-woman chamber orchestra' (Sara reckons she should get a t-shirt with this on...). Guitars or banjos occasionally make an appearance, often stretched filtered and generally messed about with, creating ambience rather than melody. Very occasionally, a voice may surface, but most of the time you won't recognise it as such. Which is fine by me.

As with previous ambient pieces or remixes, I've found that minor phrases in the originals have room to breathe and may become the dominant melody. If you know the songs, you may recognise the odd tune here and there, but out of context they take on a quite different mood.

Improvisation during collating and mixing meant that the process took me in unexpected directions and the overall piece, while loyal to the initial concept, didn't make itself known until the very end of the process. I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with it! I also like that if I did it again, from the same raw materials, the outcome would be - to quote one of my musical heroes, Robert Wyatt - different every time.

Friday 2 June 2017

Seven at 77 - preorder the Leaf Library


On An Ocean of Greatness

Music was made in the darkness of our own homes during the winter months, the number seven was discussed a lot (music in the key of G, the seventh note, seven-ish players), and an imaginary mythology (as well as a pretend mix tape) was born. The real details of how this piece of music came about are a bit dull, so we’d like to leave you with 77 lines (each seven syllables long, ordered randomly) as an accompaniment. It’s certainly not an explanation though, so careful how you use it. The ocean is you, and all the beautiful things you make.



On an ocean of greatness
Keep your mistakes to yourself
Sometimes we’re happy, sometimes
Repeating and repeating
Little fractures here and there
Seven colours on repeat
In doors and out through windows
Paper boats on black ink lake
Every new moon matters now
Waking up is hard to do
Diving in the deep blue sea
Whatever we are, I say
A beautiful idea
Some music made by talking
Lines from the lonely city
The sea is bright blue today
There are no shadows at night
The weather behind your eyes
Becoming and not become
Towns and structure and darkness
If it’s breaking please wake up
Tilting towards the daylight
Reflect twice as windows pass
So long, see you tomorrow
Arranged for less than seven
At the foot of the mountain
Night draws in from left to right
A system of seven notes
On the mountains of the moon
An inverse number of words
Up to the line and back down
Away from all that is good
Plotting the arc of your words
Remembering where we’ve been
Falling towards the major
Same again, same again, same
Drinking in the deep green sea
Shadows will shadow themselves
This shape remembers nothing
Combining all the weathers
Gathering all that we have
Words about inverse numbers
The moment is the message
The first station of many
It is happening again
Great, greater, gather and grain
Rain falls against my window
Above your failing body
Seven lines landing at night
There is nothing you can do
A construction in pencil
Constellations rise and fall
Every seventh number gone
When is this going to be
The sketchbooks of architects
Whatever I say it is
Twice everyday returning
One hundred and seventeen
Black ink floods the pale blue sky
The black place and the white place
Heavy clouds over the south
My dreams are not dreamt at night
In a familiar way
An endless looping cycle
The corners turn and curl out
There is never not something
Whatever I say, we are
A seventh white moon appears
All things this way forever
The world is under water
I am more than half asleep
Two worlds meet as the sun dies
Ebbing away from the door
The heptagon comes alive
On the golden moth outside
No one notices this now
We’re an ocean of greatness


Music produced by The Leaf Library

Matt Ashton – guitar, bass, screen synths
Daniel Fordham – electronics
Kate Gibson – vocals
Gareth Jones – Thunderbird and Grabber bass guitars
Simon Nelson – secret guitar, Space Echo
Lewis Young – OP1, Brute, other synths, guitar, computer
Additional loops, samples, synth, vocals, tapes and breadmaker by Chimney (Mark Cremins and Yutaka Hoshino)


All music by The Leaf Library
Recorded and mixed by Lewis Young at The Drone Lodge, Walthamstow
Additional recording by Matt Ashton at Tape That, Walthamstow, Dan in Wales, and Mark and Yutaka in Amsterdam
Field recordings by Matthew Bowron, Matt Ashton and Ben Tandy

Illustration by Matt Ashton, shiny rave poster by Lewis Young

Thanks to: Mark, Yutaka, Matthew, Ben, John, Kat, Alice, Laura, Kelly, Mik, and you, especially.

Friday 26 May 2017

seven at 77 - preorder Joel Mellin


As much as the phrase can be co-opted for indie pop music, Where it's At has been 'thinking global and acting local' for 21 years now.  I got involved in the early stages of WIAIWYA with my Miss Mary project when John approached the label I ran with my brother Jeff, 'Stereorrific Recordings' about a split release.  We'd then often split releases, Jerv in the UK, Stereorrific in the US. We've been through years together, with trans-atlantic pop releases and trans-atlantic rock and roll shows and most important - a host of friends.  I'm not sure either of us can retire on the proceeds from any of it, and WIAIWYA has outlasted Sterorrific/Waxfruit for sure, but it was never about that - it was about making music together, and in that way, we've always been there, you know, 'Where It's At' with Jerv.  Congrats on 21 years, John.  You're Where It's At and that's where we are.

Artist: Joel Mellin
Track: Be Here With Me
Album: Sevens Ceremony (Seven at 77)

"It's more painting than music."  


You're head is at the center of a sphere - at least seven feet in any direction. One voice appears, then others over time.  Sporadic at first, moving in disparate arcs around you, and yet, all together in one space.

There was a piece by Yoko that I read a few years that talked about pushing an elephant and changing our heads instead of changing the world. 'That we can do' she wrote. 

Compositionally, Be Here with Me melds contemporary notions of aleatoric and stochastic music with traditional, harmonic progressions studied for hundreds of years.Realized in a three dimensional ambisonic paradigm, a space is created for listening and reflection.

Written entirely in Java, the piece was designed for a custom 3D Ambisonics decoder and encoder  - placing the listener's head at the center of a listening sphere.  This piece could be decoded in a multi-speaker environment of 4, 8, or 16 speakers in various positions around the listener, but is decoded to stereo for this recording.  A melodic voice moves at a constant velocity around the listening sphere and harmonic voices move in slowly accelerating circles above and below the listener in various directions and and trajectories. 

The melodies are chosen at the start of each 7.7 minute section based on a pseudo-random function that considers musical key and the chord progression of each section.  The chord progression is chosen using an aleatoric process commonly referred to as a 'markov chain' - in which the probability of the next chord is determined by weighted percentages of possible 'next' chords of the current state.  In this respect, it has no memory.  These percentages were programmed using simple assumptions and understandings of common practice progressions dating back to the 16th century.  These chords are never voiced directly, though, as a mathematical distribution functions controls the timing and number of single voice events that occur for each of the 3 harmonizing voices.  The seemingly random voicing is each event itself choosing how to harmonize the melody in real-time. 

There's an additional nod to my interests in Asian music and cultures with the addition of an underlying drone and clearing bell.  The gong, as is common in Balinese music, signals both the end and the beginning of sections. . 

In a sense, it's music reflecting back on itself after years of 'progress'.

Friday 19 May 2017

seven at 77 - preorder The Great Electric

Inspired by a creepy internet legend (see below), the band's usual approach - tracks are sculpted, overdubbed and from collective improvisation - was abandoned.


The members retreated inward, working solo, on instruments unfamiliar to them, using outdated analogue technology. Assembled by the band's 'editor' Pete, the anonymous tracks were placed randomly together, chance creating a hazy, shifting collage that can turns on a dime (much like the legend that inspired it).


RIYL Faust Tapes, side 1 of "Millions Now Living Will Never Die", Sentridoh, Soul Junk, etc.



Friday 12 May 2017

seven at 77 - preorder Jack Hayter




Flashes And Occultations

Jerv wanted a 77 minute pedal steel improvisation, but I wanted to create a transient sound sculpture from the identification patterns of distant lighthouses, buoys and light vessels; to convert their flashes and occultations into small voltages using telescopes, light sensitive resistors and photodiodes, then to use those derived signals to trigger samples and control analogue synths.

I was overambitious and my experiments were largely a technical failure. I also got cold and muddy while recording foghorns. Worse still, those supposedly unique and exciting light patterns often turned out to be "one flash every 20 seconds" or "red occulting thrice every minute on a Tuesday."

Then I ran out of time.

So I improvised Iazily around some field recordings instead, playing along on a pedal steel using a Sharpie instead of a steel bar. At the same time Pete Bentley kindly gave me a thirty two year old Kawai 8bit digital synth...so horrible and yet so right...the only keyboard I used.



Many thanks to Oliver Cherer and Riz Maslen for adding oscillator, harmonium and vocals. Oliver and Jeane recorded some bedtime lighthouse talk. I cheekily emailed the brilliant Aoife Mannix, who I once met during my short career as a bad poet, asking if she had a lighthouse related poem. She promptly sent me ten great ones and I used most of the one called "Quiz."
What you hear is a plan B. It's second best; a cowardly collage evoking lighthouses, but not a brave sonic transcription of their actual output. One day I will get round to re-attempting  that original plan ...or perhaps you can? It's good idea...but wear thermals and waders.

Jack Hayter:Everything apart from:
Riz Maslen: Vocalisation
Oliver Cherer: Harmonium, AF valve oscilllator
Jeane Lancaster: Bedtime ghost stories.
Poetry: "Quiz" Aoife Mannix
Artwork: Andy Dean

Friday 5 May 2017

seven at 77 - preorder Papernut Cambridge




It really is all numbers, when you think about it. Minutes, seconds, bits, bytes, equipment settings, poster dimensions, dpi…. a couple of hundred days thinking about it since Jerv asked if we could do it…a few dozen band emails….however many seconds to midnight we are now on the Doomsday Clock…...

So what have we done, and what is it called?
Well we thought we might call it just Hello, but in fact it’s properly called Everything You Say Is Lyrics, Anything You Touch Is Art.

It’s a celebration of all things WIAIWYA, the number 7, and the actual process of making the track. We’ve also bestowed a kind of art-message on it  - the concept that the observer is part of the art. if there is a 'fourth wall' analogy for music, we’ve clubbed together to have it knocked through.




We thought about famous long songs - how Sister Ray gets to be not quite so groovy after the first few minutes, but the Live 1969 version of What Goes On could literally go on all day; how you wish the solo on Marquee Moon would go on for another half hour at least; how the best Yes or Genesis patchwork epics fly by in what seems like an instant; how a repeating chord sequence can be dull or brilliant, even for a few seconds; how they managed to get Todd Rundgren’s The Ikon (30mins+) on a side of vinyl etc.
We saw this in The Guardian, we also thought about Thom Yorke’s Subterranea (432 hrs long) and John Cage's ORGAN2/ASLSP (639 yrs).We knew ours had to fit in somewhere amongst or against all these, and we also decided there had to be a 77-second version too, for radio.

I wish I could say we’d written an actual 77 minute epic, with reams of lyrics, like a book of The Aeneid. Sorry, we didn’t. This was an exercise in taking one riff and expanding it, then singing something over it occasionally to explain! You can tell we've heard of Alvin Lucier’s I Am Sitting In A Room, but we have the mentality of The Troggs.

People might not listen to all 77 mins (or seconds for that matter) at once - you could dip in at any point. It’s inspired by functional/background music for people that aren’t necessarily sitting down listening to it intently. We’re not talking so much about ambient music, Eno, passive listening - it’s more inspired by what the Fire Engines said about their Lubricate Your Living Room record when it came out. It’s music for doing something else to. In fact you needn’t necessarily even be in the room. You could even put it on and go out.

So then there’s the idea that if you are doing something else while this music is on, you’re kind of creating something, interacting, and becoming part of the art form.

And then there’s Allan Kaprow, the inventor of “the happening” - where you adapt, hijack or simply observe things that are already happening, and they become an art event, because you call it one. We’re not sticking to his rules because we’re using ‘traditional’ music and we’re not manufacturing any events, but his ideas about blurring actual life and art are a big inspiration.
What we’re saying is if you are listening to the track, or even not listening to it, you’re actually part of the art because we’ve said so. Whatever you’re doing you’re part of our event. Everything you say is lyrics. Everything you touch is art.

One of the early poster ideas was a homage to this record Allan Kaprow made in 1966:

Wednesday 26 April 2017

Papernut Cambridge at Greenwich ILM


the Papernut Cambridge poster (with download) will be available a little early for anyone coming along to next week's Independent Label Market in Greenwich (London) - £7:77 for an exclusive 77 minute long song and a double sided A3 poster

see you there

Thursday 6 April 2017

seven at 77 available to pre order

OK - so you already know seven amazing bands are releasing seven 77 minute long songs this summer


Papernut Cambridge
Jack Hayter 
The Great Electric
Joel Mellin 
The Leaf Library
World of Fox 
The Hardy Tree

now is your opportunity to order a complete set of the seven tracks on any of these formats:

CDs - a set of seven CDs, one for each 77 minute song, in beautiful handmade die-cut sleeves
Posters - a set of seven posters, one for each 77 minute song, designed by the likes of Pete Fowler, Frances Castle and Matt Ashton - more on those in the weeks to come
Downloads - all seven tracks - just under nine hours of amazing music

each of these come with immediate downloads of 77 second radio edits



in a month's time the individual tracks will be made available (for anyone who simply wants one or two of the tracks by their favourite acts) - there's a chance that the physical versions will have sold out by then (as part of the sets that are available today)

so if you absolutely must have the CDs or posters i'd recommend ordering the sets

and once again, the proceeds from seven at 77 go to Médecins Sans Frontières