Traditional mix of vinyl loops from 3 copies of Holst’s Mars from The Planets, 2 by the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra and 1 by Tomita; A loop from Scorpio on Cannonball Adderley presents Soul Zodiac and a little bit of voice from Sydney Omarr’s Scorpio.
3 records on:
Dansette – Hawaii Calls: Waikiki after Dark, Presented by Webley Edwards.
Ultra – Dire Straits – Money for Nothing.
BSR: Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass – Going Places.
I love this track by Bill Frisell. I first heard it in the late nineties on BBC radio three’s Mixing it program. That was a great show.
I have been using AI image generators for a while to create circles made of the 4 elements and this year I gave the AI the mode and element as a guide to create them. They go on to become animated layers within the live streamed visual mixes and are rarely seen in their original state as shown below.
A magic circle made of cardinal fire
A magic circle made of fixed earth
A magic circle made of mutable air
A magic circle made of cardinal water
The fourth circle is upon us.
Circular ramblings.
As I start another circle in 12 parts I want to say again just how grateful I am for the time and contributions of all my guests over the last 2 years. I’ve really enjoyed the opportunities and challenges it’s raised.
Circles, cycles, endings and beginnings.
When I started in 2020 it was with an idea of creating and posting monthly on the the same date each year, that it would become a monthly and annual ritual act. Art, ritual and magic share so much.
Alongside the monthly mix my studio time is now guided by the Sun’s movement through the zodiac signs, images and vinyl selected to compliment and explore the qualities of the sign, its element and planetary ruler.
The third circle brought a number of new ideas to the project and is where the ideas and interactions consolidate as a social ritual.
All live mixes – In January 2022 I bought some VJ software and started to explore using that during the performances instead of editing post. Wherever possible my guests have joined me physically in the studio and both visual and audio mixes have been improvised live with some mixed results! When my guest was remote, I recorded the audio mix with them over the web live, I then took the live audio and the camera recordings along with any video clips we decided on and used them as the material for a live visual mix.
Modular Synths – I started playing with VCV Rack, a virtual eurorack synthesiser back in August 2021 and by the time I started the 3rd circle had invested in some hardware. I added the Make Noise Strega, the 0Coast and 0Control in February 2022 and over the following months started to use them in the mixes if it felt appropriate. The first mix of the third circle for Aries 2022 with Elsa Davies was the first time they were included.
Sometime around the same time I started playing more regularly with 2 of my previous guests, Jay and Keryl Hodges, continuing the process of selecting and playing records according to zodiac sign and using the sign’s element and planetary rulers to influence the visual material.
Perhaps the years and the different approaches can be seen as echoes of the astrological houses or modal qualities –
1 – The principal act – A monthly vinyl mix
2 – Consolidation and continuation – Inviting guests to participate continuing a process and reiterating the method
3 – Extension and inclusion – Extending and experimenting with more processes to introduce more liveness
The Fourth Circle
I see the fourth circle as a return to the cardinal mode, itself suggesting a new initiatory principle that marks a shift towards more tangible and visible circles both at home and beyond.
Astrologically speaking the 4th house represents the home and family life, echoes the zodiac sign of Cancer and cardinal water. The number 4 also suggests solidity, stability and structure, perhaps representing the solid physical world. With these principles in mind the work will extend further into the physical space of the studio and around my home as well as out to wider audiences in the coming year..
The social ritual that has developed over the year of the third circle with Jay and Keryl will also be extended to create a new, larger circle around the home, engaging more people in the physical world by inviting new participants to social ritual performances around the 4 Cardinal points of the zodiac. The first of these was to take place on the spring equinox but unfortunately I was too unwell to do it, I’m still not sure what that means and how it affects the whole…
Real video clips
For anyone who hasn’t seen Capricorn One it’s a great movie and well worth a watch. I found it here
I have quite a few of these six inch orange records. They are vinyl but play at 78rpm and being only 6 inch diameter will not play to the end on turntables with autostop mechanisms. Thankfully the Numark PT01 plays at 78rpm and has an autostop on/off switch.
Revisiting some old tech including the Sony FD Mavica! what a camera!
A popular digital stills camera about 20 years ago, I remember there were 2 available in West Wales School of Art where I was studying at the time, so popular we had to book it at least a week ahead!
One of the first digital cameras to save to removable media, it used a floppy disc and could hold around 10 photos a disc!… amazing! It also boasts the ability to record short low resolution videos and has an A/V out!
Experimenting with the analog output – after not pressing anything for a while the camera went into a lovely demo cycle…
After rearranging the studio, I can now reach the turntables and synths at the same time! This is really quite exciting, these are the second or third time I’ve played the two together seen by Sony A1E and GoPro4 cameras through a Skytronic A/V switcher.
An experiment with live processes
Sometime in the 1980s we got our first family computer, a Commodore 64.
I think at the time it was the market leader in the UK and shipped with the game ‘Purple Turtles’ and possibly another, but the main reason for going with the C64 was the fact that a guy in my Dad’s office had one and we could get copied games from him! It was easy in those days, a simple double tape deck could copy a cassette in real time and would work most of the time, so we quickly had a huge choice of games to play. I guess it was through doing this that I first heard the sound of the data stream on the cassettes. Normally C64 cassettes were loaded using a specific cassette player with an output/input designed for it and the sound was inaudible while it played into the computer. I picked up a Datassette unit in a charity shop a little while ago, I had no memory of what I assume is an earthing cable attached to the plug, interestingly it isn’t pictured or mentioned anywhere in the manual either!
For years we were awed by the impressive graphics in “Way of the Exploding Fist”, would become immersed in the “Zork” series of text only adventure games and frustrated by long loading times and the increasing difficulty in copying games!
By the early 90s we had hundreds of cassettes, many thanks to an Action Replay/Freeze Frame cartridge device that helped copy games. The C64 not only had the now legendary SID chip for generating pioneering computer sound FX and music but had a graphics chip that could produce 16 different colours.
As games design developed with more sophisticated programming we started to see mini games appear during the loading screens, some were even judged better than the game we were waiting to play! I have a memory of a loading screen for the Thalamus Ltd game “Delta” which presented a set of instrument choices allowing us to mix different elements to creat our own loading music mix! Both that and the in-game music (a rework of Koyaanisqatsi by Philip Glass) were by master C64 composer Rob Hubbard.
The cassettes were still found in charity and second hand junk shops here in the UK for many years after the C64 was discontinued and superseded by 16bit systems like the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST and subsequent Sega and Nintendo games consoles.
I sometimes like to use a cassette in my experimental sound works so keep an eye out for them, but they rarely appear.
The found of music 