Master of none

I wanted to let people know about some gigs which are making me happy; one that I have played recently and two which are coming up…

ORE at Cafe OTO

On the 1st of February we played our first gig as ORE at Cafe OTO. This was the usual doomy, droney affair but with an extended line-up and sound, courtesy of Michelle Hickman on tenor horn, Olly Coates on cello and Will Cooper on great highland bagpipes.

This was our second outing with this line-up, which we really enjoy and is our second time of playing for the wonderful Full Of Noises crew. Very happy making indeed.
 
ORE
 

MrUnderwood and Kit Downes

On the 28th of February I am playing an improvised gig, as part of the London Contemporary Orchestra Soloists series, with Kit Downes on keyboard. The aim is for me to channel and process Kit’s playing, the sounds of some MortonUnderwood instruments and live environmental sounds. Our aim is to create a deep listening experience for those present.

This will be my first time playing for LCO and at Limewharf in London. Further details here. It is also a great pleasure to be playing with Kit for the first time.

LCO
 

Glatze is back!

Lastly, I’d like to highlight a gig I am doing partly for old times’ sake. On May the 27th I will support Melt Banana, for Capsule, at the Rainbow Warehouse in Birmingham. Further details here

This will be the usual bonkers live electronics from Glatze, and brings me particular joy as this was the first slot I ever did for Capsule, in 2009. Plus I am very much looking forward to dancing my tits off to Melt Banana; who are cracking live!

Glatze
 

Master of none

If you are wondering what the title of this blog is about, it refers to the broad variety of output this represents and that frankly it does make me a bit of a jack of all trades, and master of none. BUT I have come to understand that this is what makes me tick creatively. I admire virtuosity greatly but personally speaking I find keeping my output diverse and stimulating suits my personality and way of working better. Sometimes this makes me ponder whether greatness will ever be achieved but then I consider how fulfilled I am by such work and how pleased I am with the experiences I create for my audiences and all is well.

As ever, I reserve the right to change my mind on this…

Hope to see you out and about at one of these gigs!

Why am I so happy?

Happy Sam

Things have been going rather well of late. OK, I haven’t reached Nirvana yet but things have been building nicely from the time my sabbatical ended. It’s this sense of progress and momentum that is at the heart of making me happy. A wise man once said that it’s not where you are at but the way things are heading that matters, or something like that. In those terms things are going rather well. It’s fair to say that almost everything I am involved in at present is pushing at the edge of my comfort zone but I consider this very positive indeed.

Here are a few examples of how things have progressed of late…in no particular order:

THSH Artist-in-residence

In April 2013, I was appointed Artist-in-Residence at Town Hall Symphony Hall Birmingham; a great honour. One or two things have been a bit slow to get off the ground as I am their first appointment to this kind of post, but things are really picking up momentum now.

It’s proving nicer than I had envisaged to be part of a wider team and the title itself has helped me to forge some new links. Pretty soon there will be some exciting tangible outcomes, including plans for a large-scale sound art piece and the MortonUnderwood Augmented Big Band. Keep your eyes and ears open for these.

I really believe this will be a fruitful relationship for both parties. It is pushing us both outside of our comfort zone but in ways that can only be good. For example, tomorrow I play at the At Your Own Risk event in the Town Hall Birmingham. I find this rather scary but also very exciting!

I keep regular monthly blog posts of my progress on the THSH website. Here is the latest if you are interested: thsh.co.uk/news/blogs/sam-underwood-october-2013

If Wet

After a couple of years of moaning about the music scene in my locality, which consists largely of blues/rock covers bands, I decided the only decent thing to do was to STFU or DIY. The catalyst for me was when I experienced the Wire Salon, as a panel member in early 2013. Until then I knew I wanted to do something but I wasn’t sure what. Suddenly the idea of a grand show and tell and discussion forum event popped into my head. I discussed this with my colleague David and we decided to at least try it out.

So, since April, on the last Sunday of the month we have met in Callow End village hall to hear a range of sound artists, musicians and musical instrument builders discuss their work and approach; all accompanied by home-made soup, local ale and WI cake.

Callow End Village Hall

Thus far it has been really great on many levels – not least providing us with insights and demonstrations in areas we are not experts in ourselves. Plus we have witnessed a multitude of rare and bizarre objects, instruments and performances.

We have one event left to complete our first season; an extended fundraiser on the last SATURDAY of November – to give people chance to celebrate with us – or just donate to help keep us going. If we fail to raise enough money through this and other means I am afraid If Wet might not make Season #2. We have received huge support from artists (all friends and associates), audience and volunteers thus far but we need to make this a more viable option financially next year. We couldn’t be happier with the event and the support received so far, so let’s hope we can keep it going…

More on If Wet here: ifwet.org.uk

Capsule / Library of Birmingham

As many of you will know I have a long-term relationship with the wonderful Birmingham-based promoters, Capsule. This has been central to my development as an artist and I am delighted to report that this is very much on-going. As MortonUnderwood we recently completed one of the residencies in the Library of Birmingham, curated by Capsule.

Sound Trolley

It was a rather manic time but we were left with a very positive feeling about the state of things in Birmingham and more widely. The library struck us as a really vibrant place and people responded really well to our work. Children of all ages had fun making bonkers noises before heading off to explore the wider wonders of the new library. Oh, and as ever Capsule helpers were a delight to work with.

Next up for me and Capsule is likely to be Supersonic 2014.

One Water

I write part of this on my way back from Sweden where I have been for the last week rehearsing and performing with the One Water instrument we built as a special commission for composer Jonas Asplund last year.

Jonas - composer

This is the second time I have worked with this group to deliver a concert, and more are planned in 2014. It’s always a delight working with people who excel at what they do and it’s a bonus if they are very kind and pleasant to be around too. Also, Sweden strikes me as a delightful place to work as a musician/artist; you seem valued!

One Water - trio

I look forward to further performances of One Water next year, planned for Sweden, Finland and England. Plus I aim to tie this in with my Guest Composer work at EMS, which is likely to involve a field recording tour with my colleague David Morton.

Oh and despite visiting the venue before as part of my time on the PRSF New Music Incubator I had somehow missed the existence of a huge and extensively specified pipe organ there. 9000 pipes and this from the Fanclub of the Studio Acusticum Organ project on Facebook:

The Acusticum organ, quite apart from the microtonal stop slider positioning available for almost every stop, also has a number of “Sperrventile” which can be used to limit the air supply to the various divisions of the organ. There are separate valves for the bass and treble of each division; furthermore, the Sperrventile can be set to any position from “fully open” to “completely shut” and every shade in-between.

WOW!

Southbank Centre

Speaking of organs, our latest commission as MortonUnderwood is our highest profile to date and involves the newly refurbished pipe organ in the Royal Festival Hall in London. We were recently selected by the Southbank Centre to deliver a version of our Huge Feedback Organ as part of Pull Out All The Stops.

We are one of four instrument designers that will complete an instrument each to perform alongside the organ in a concert next year, with music composed by members of Bellowhead. We are creating a Huge Feedback Organ, building on our previous testing – shown below.

Huge Feedback Organ

In our latest development the pipes and speakers are bigger and so too has the sub-bass; very happy-making indeed.

ORE

Things are going great where ORE is concerned too. We have a 7″ with our friend KK NULL coming out on Endtyme very soon

KK NULL & ORE

AND we have some great gigs coming up. Including:

// OM & ORE – delighted to be playing with OM again, after a previous support slot last year
// Intersect – taking place across Servant Jazz Quarters, The Vortex, Cafe OTO and The OTO Project Space
// Early next year Full of Noises Festival are planning to put us on at Cafe OTO. Joy.

Details of forthcoming performances, here: oretubadoom.com/performances

Workshops

Lastly, I have run a few instrument building workshops recently. These come and go but I always enjoy giving something back by passing on some skills. Hopefully people leave these workshops with a new found willingness to build stuff and even if they don’t they’ll have a nice finished instrument they built.

 

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I have only included the most recent / current things in this summary because this is what’s making me happy right now, but exciting stuff has been happening for a while now. I hate starting such lists as I always forget something but this includes: playing at Full of Noises in Barrow, Hacking the Saconi Quartet at Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol, Playing tuba as part of Together We Breathe for the opening of the new Library of Birmingham, and playing tuba in a gimp mask for the Companis Rude Food Fiesta!

So the things I am getting to do and the people I am doing it with are making me extremely happy at present. To top this all off the generosity of everyone towards me and my harebrained ideas over the last years has been astounding, and very heart-warming. I won’t start a list for this or I will get in trouble…but THANKS EVERYONE!

*SMILES*

Personal reflections on Wire Salon

I was recently asked to appear on the Wire Salon panel at Café OTO, entitled The Ways of the Hacker. A real honour. The other panellists were Tom Bugs, Leafcutter John and late addition Kirsten Reynolds

I got down there and set stuff up. As usual, the fact that I tend to spend less and less time in front of a computer stumped me a little in getting up and running but I still managed to do so in a timely fashion. Frances (Morgan – who led the discussion), Tom and John popped for some food whilst Kirsten and I popped to get some cheap water from the shop. With hindsight, maybe some food BEFORE the Westmalle Tripel might’ve been a good idea but at least it got me in a chatty mood.

Despite the liquid relaxant, when I saw how many people had come I was rather nervous. I had been forewarned by Richard Whitelaw of Sound and Music when I met him earlier in the day that it can get packed but I was used to such events attracting less punters than panel members. My pre-conceptions couldn’t have been more wrong; twas RAMMED.

The discussion started with each of us having an opportunity to introduce ourselves and then later our projects. I had prepared a few slides to show people and covered my Sonic Graffiti project when prompted by Frances. I wasn’t sure whether I’d get the opportunity to outline other aspects of my work but I hoped I might later on…

As it turned out the discussion was free-flowing and even reasonably intense at times. Some themes which I consider to be reoccurring in my field came up, including: how technology for the sake of it is no answer, how performance is key in live electronic music (and how our approaches aim to address this), how we earn a crust doing this stuff etc. It was a good debate with some interesting questions afterwards. The audience seemed pretty into it and hopefully it will be put up here in due course too: http://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/in-conversation/ (a source of much inspiration)

Afterwards, I hung out with Kirsten some more, Jo from Badtiming and my dad; who had come up from Cornwall for a couple of days in London with me. A few people came up to discuss stuff but they seemed more wowed by Tom and John’s lovely boxes. Understandable, they are lovely!

A great event I thought. The only change I would make is to have a better overview of how things might run and how much time will be given to different bits. I guess that’s hard to predict, however Frances did mention that due to some stuff not being fully covered she is considering holding a Round Two of this discussion to tease out a few more thoughts. There was plenty more scope, so that would be fantastic!

Lastly, apart from the boost I got from being asked to participate in this, (Leafcutter) John took time to say some very nice stuff about my work after the event. He identified a purity of approach in my practice. This is something I consider really central to what I do, so it was great to have someone like John spot this. In general, given how new I am to doing this stuff full time, it was very heartening to start to feel I was amongst peers at such an event, especially given that Tom Bugs was a notable influence in me starting out with instrument building!

Lastly, lastly, I’d like to thank Frances and Tony of the Wire magazine for inviting me.