New Music Incubator 2011-2012

I just received an email confirming that I have been selected as one of the 10 UK participants on the PRSF New Music Incubator programme for 2011-2012. It doesn’t get much better than that. For someone at this stage of dedicating himself to his music there couldn’t be anything more fitting.

What an amazing opportunity! I am really chuffed and can’t wait to get stuck in. Stuff like this will add yet more drive to my work over the period of my sabbatical.

Thank you to Capsule for putting me forward for this. It’s a nomination only programme, so without them I am nobody.

News like this makes all the hard work feel doubly worth it!

Update: UK artists have been announced.

Amy Cunningham
Bob Levene
Claire M Singer
Edmund Finnis
Lina Lapelyte
Lucy Railton
Luke Styles
Mark Fell
Ruaidhri Mannion
Sam Underwood (That’s me!)

I can’t help myself but feel a little scared looking at that list. One thing is for sure, it’s going to be amazing!

A good start in life

Ever since performing at the Supersonic Kid’s Gig and working with the children at Allens Croft Primary School last year, I have been intrigued by the idea of getting kids interested in cool stuff from an early age.

On Saturday, I was lucky enough to represent Supersonic at the open day event held at St Thomas Children’s Centre. I introduced the kids to circuit-bending and sampling/looping. It was pretty manic trying to keep order on my own but there were some really rewarding moments. I just hope that it sticks and that when the kids that said “I am going to go home and do that to my toys” get home they are allowed to do just that.

This is an area of my practice that I would like to expand on. If only one person decides it’s cooler to make synths and experimental music than it is to try to and win X-Factor I will be happy. Knackering as it is I hope to get involved in much more of this stuff!

Many thanks to Capsule and Brightspace for providing me with this opportunity.

Working with Arno…

I was alerted to the great work of Arno Fabre some months ago. Due to the standard of his work and the obvious parallels with mine, I decided to get in touch with Arno to let him know how much I like his work.

His response was very kind and he offered to meet with me when I was over on holiday near Bordeaux. Unfortunately, this meeting didn’t happen. I called off our first planned meeting due to some bad news from the UK and he called off the second due to being busy preparing for two exhibitions of “Les Souliers”, see below.

Despite this initial glitch our collaboration will go ahead. We have agreed we will work on something “mechanical and musical”. For now you’ll have to imagine what this might be as we’ll need a face-to-face meeting to discuss the details but I am chuffed at the prospect!