another radar station of delightful things
or wrong in one eye

redvirginsoil

I work as a sound and visual artist, improvising performer, composer, photographer and designer. Indeterminism, openness and the collaborative experience are consistent themes within my working methodology. As a studio composer and performing musician I primarily employ acoustic/electric guitars, bass guitar and 'no-input' mixer.

...in proposing the panoramic, there is always detail in the terrain. The music resembles a topographic vista that is long and wide, although this should not infer stasis. On a macro level there is the sonic as landscape, containing intricacy and particularity, proposing an aura of curiosity, delight, fascination and even antipathy and shock. There is a desire for conflict, friction and incongruity in music; broken detail, fractured sound, noise, silence, ugliness, flexibility and constraint, violence and beauty. Sometimes as a device to reveal or mask and at other moments to highlight subtleties that might otherwise go unobserved. It is the stuff that disrupts, interferes or disturbs on which the gaze is fixed. Equally it is the influence of gaps, spaces and silences between the details that can often generate the most fascinating results. By layering seemingly incongruous material one can alter the way it is formed, creating interesting gestural quirks and intriguing inconsistency. Seemingly incongruent noises are 'collided' as if in a car crash, creating new shapes, crumpled and disfigured, that emerge from the once rigid surface of the vehicle’s steel body.

July 2013, performed at the inaugural Sound Events concert
December 2013 performed at Re.Sound 04 - where he premiered Crush, for electric guitar and electronics

Regular performances with the Edges Ensemble most recently at HCMF 2014

In 2013 awarded the J. Wood and Sons award for acoustic composer whilst an undergraduate at the University of Huddersfield studying with Bryn Harrison.

Completed undergraduate studies in 2013 with a first class degree and gained a Masters degree with merit in 2014, supervised by Aaron Cassidy.

Currently Pierre Alexandre Tremblay and Aaron Cassidy supervise my current PhD research which is entitled:


Aurality and the modern urban landscape:
An exploration of the city as a prime motivator for intermedia analysis

Research notes can be viewed here

Composition

Commission for Jean-François Laportean infinity of bliss in a moment of time

Performances.
Phipps Hall, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield UK. (World Premier) May 2014
Conservatorio Statale di Musica “Giuseppe Verdi” Torino, Italy. May 2014
Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, Quebec, Canada. June 2014

 

Distractfold Ensemble - Incessantly, with minor diversions (Cello, Drums & Clarinet) 2013

Arrangement also performed at Soni[K]ab #2 by Christine Avis (Cello), Asher Leverton (Drums) & Eleanor Cully (Flute) December 2014

Kate Ledger - Untitled, (Prepared Piano solo) 2012

 

Tout Croche

I am also an active member of the post-genre noise duo, Tout Croche with Dominic Thibault.
Tout Croche are both a recording and performing unit. They have recorded and self released their first
full length album, 'Super Silent', on 180gsm vinyl and an EP, Zero dBFS on limited edition cassette. They released the
second full length, The Whole Shebang, alaso available to stream/purchase at the Silent Howl.


Dominic and I also run the The Silent Howl imprint

Recent solo material, entitled CollidedVoices, is also available on The Silent Howl label.

 

baconjam collective

Co-founder, with Eleanor Cully, of the baconjam collective (baconjam facebook) organizing a number of events and concerts including: Musical Chairs, Soni[K]ab and most recently the inaugural sonicure concert.

baconjam web site here

 

Photography, Design and Collaboration

Design for CD releases on Ryoko Akama's Melange Editions record label

Photography and design for Monty Adkins' album Residual Forms on Cronica Electronica. Cronica Website

In 2014, collaborated with Monty Adkins (sound) Deborah Templeton (text) Jason Payne (video) in the production of the Rift Patterns album, producing the photography and designing/artworking the iBook. The album was released on the audiobulb label.

Rift Patterns can be approached from a variety of angles, existing as it does in the form of an iBook, 
which incorporates extensive text (by writer Deborah Templeton), images (by all-round creative Stephen Harvey) & video (by artist Jason Payne). The iBook—available only with the lossless 16- & 24-bit editions direct from the label—is an undeniable thing of beauty, Templeton’s narrative encompassing both tension & quietude, reinforced by Harvey’s images reflecting both the pastoral & the industrial.

5:4 review in full here

Design of representative logo for Electric Spring @ HCMF

Another collaboration with Monty followed in 2015. A set of limited edition archival photographic prints accompanied the album Unfurling Streams. Although the box set edition is now sold out the album is still available from the Croniça web site