Diolch i pawb am dod allan ar nos Iau diweddaf a thrwy’r arddangosfa.
Thank you to everyone for coming out last Thursday night and through the exhibition!
A few images and clips from the installation as it continued to change over 3 days in Oriel Saith (Thanks to Elsa and Sam V for the photos from Thursday, I managed to completely forget to press record on anything!)
Cylch Arall continues an experiment in combining traditional music and contemporary instruments with live video processing to explore themes of time and place.
Opening on Thursday with a performance with my good friends Ceri and Elsa. We will be playing a few traditional Welsh folk tunes and hearing how they work with a mix of modular synthesisers and traditional harp and fiddle!
Last year Elsa and I played the tune Aberteifi to accompany local storyteller Jessie Wild and we recorded a version for the Cylch Aberteifi video show as part of the Festival of Lights, well several versions, these two got posted.
Ive been invited to play some sounds on Wednesday evening for the Walden Arts folk here in Aberteifi.
So with the sun in Taurus, I will be playing modular synths with a set of Taurean and Venusian flavour tunes and cosmic samples to ramble through.
This was new work made for the festival of light in Aberteifi back in December 24. It’s a combination of footage from several years working with moving images of the river Teifi and its tributaries.
Since 2020 I have been working with different astrological symbols and themes, changing in relation to the sun as it moves through each sign during the yearly cycle. The circle emerges as a symbol of interconnection and unity, leading to live performance and creativity as an expression of the moment in time and space.
One of several iterations, the video is created through a live mixing process where video clips can be looped and layered in different configurations. Over time the layers repeat while the interactions between the images shift and change.
The astrological chart describes a moment in time and place and in these videos describes the moment of creation of the improvised soundtrack with musician Elsa Davies. Based on a tune called Aberteifi and arranged by Elsa Davies it was created live on November 19th here in Aberteifi with violin and modular synth.
The river Mwldan is a tributary to the Teifi in the town of Aberteifi / Cardigan in west Wales. Starting in the north it runs the length of the town on the western side before joining the Teifi a little way downstream from the old bridge.
Historically the Mwldan was an important part of the industry of the town powering mills along it’s journey before reaching town and being put to use by a variety of industries and traders over the years. These days it is largely overlooked and unseen but it continues to provide a slender and valuable channel of natural habitat for all kinds of wildlife.
I recorded with a hydrophone on all of the crossing points of the Mwldan, edited and layered in the soundtrack of the video above to include the machine noise and mechanics of handling and movement, blending the natural and man made sounds to reflect the natural and unnatural course of the river.
I was recently watching a pair of swans on the Teifi. They swam into the culvert entrance on the Teifi and went under the car park to emerge onto the Mwldan a couple of minutes later. A strange moment walking across the car park knowing there were swans swimming underneath!
Walking upstream the next crossing is the footbridge at Lower Mwldan which used to be a drawbridge. ‘The Old Sail Loft’ buildings have been used for various things over the years, storage for a long time and a Ceredigion Council run training centre for a while before its recent change to arts space and print studios.
After the footbridge the river Mwldan disappears from sight as it runs behind what was once a timber yard and then storage for Furney’s Amusements. For quite a while the open sided sheds could be seen through the gates, full of old fruit machines, pool tables and the like. When the yard changed hands some years ago they sold off all that, I regret not buying the boxes of old jukebox records still marked up with the pubs they had been in.
As we move further upstream the terrace continues to obscure the river before the culvert begins at the back of the old amusement arcade and the river opens up again just before Bath House Rd Bridge.
Moving further upstream the river has 2 more bridges in quick succession for yet another car park and access to Mwldan buildings.
From there the Mwldan meanders through a low lying area with no public access before the final bridge in town on Gwbert rd.
This year’s circle in 12 parts features guest artists chosen by zodiac sign, my guest for Aquarius is Maria Hayes.
Double Aquarius 14:02:22
We are birthday twins so we created this piece on our birthdays.
Working with Jake is always exciting and invigorating. Our creative conversations happen through initial talking, but mostly through the doing. We each work in our own ways but there is a connection, synchronicity and overlap in how we do what we do.
In making choices for this performance from Jake’s significant record collection and my overloaded image library I decided to be spontaneous. I listened to internal prompts and allowed those to guide me. On reflection I notice that many of the choices are things that have significance in how I have been formed, informed, shaped and made at different stages of my life. There are also sounds and images of my current obsessions. In addition there is the purr of my younger cat. All are soul connections.
This month we both lost our friend and collaborator Sianed Jones. Sianed features in my choices too. How could she not? She appears as butterfly. Psyche – soul – transformation. A butterfly can have the gentlest and most transient of presences yet affect complex systems in dramatic ways. And this can be true of us all.
And birds. Being an air sign birds are of significance to us both. I have worked for many years with the tension between freedom and security. Between trying to establish roots while desiring to fly. Between being of the earth and being other. Perhaps it’s something of the condition of being an artist and freelance working. Never quite belonging, but observing. Taking flight with our imaginations then nest building for the next project. It is so wonderful to find another member of your tribe, or flock, to fly with. Thank you Jake.
Lovely to be invited back to show some vinyl records in Bara Menyn. Revisiting the dance theme post dance camp.
This was last years celebration of dance themed records https://thefoundofmusic.wordpress.com/2018/08/20/non-stop-dancing/
A new selection for the season installed in Bara Menyn this morning.
Probably my favourite record shop bag is this one from the long gone ‘Centre of Music’ in Cardigan. The shop was first located in the centre of town I believe, on the site of what is now The Original Factory Shop, before moving to Pendre and finally closing in the early 1980s.
I met Mani’s Son Gethin back in 2010 when I was exhibiting some work in the Guildhall Gallery in the town centre. The exhibition was part of a project about local chapels and their history and we chatted about his father who I had heard used to record various local chapel’s Cymanfa Ganu events (Choir festivals) direct to disc before the advent of tape recorders. He told me about how they had built the first radio in their village and how they placed the earpiece (no speakers in those days) in a large ceramic bowl and gathered around to listen, and how his mother was deeply suspicious of who and where the voices they heard were.
He returned later in the week bringing me a CD of recordings his father had made in local chapels, a vintage bag from the shop and a blank unused record (which has lived on my kitchen wall since).
Another local music shop no longer trading is Swales in Haverfordwest. Trading into the 90s I remember it was one of the best record shops in the area as well as selling instruments and sheet music too. Visit http://www.britishrecordshoparchive.org/swales.html for a great selection of photos from there. The founder and namesake Robert Joffre Swales, known as “Joffre”, was awarded an MBE in 1975 for his services to music in the town for over 50 years. As well as playing in a number of bands and teaching music he set up an instrument rental scheme at Swales, allowing those less well off members of the community the opportunity to enjoy learning and playing an instrument.
These last ones I know very little or nothing about, the Dales bag came (with a record in) from a charity shop in Fishguard I think, the others were gifts from my good friend Flo Fflach.
Valentines day is upon us and a shifting selection of romantic records has been in Bara Menyn Bakehouse for the last week or so…
The found of music 