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.
Improvised audio visual stream with guests for a belated equinox improvisation on the midpoint of Samhain. Thank you all for contributing!
Along with the astrological staples there were vinyl records selected by our Scorpio guest including Yellow Submarine and Orpheus in the Underworld
Drawings by Jo Shapland http://www.mantroi.com/
Photo by Jay Hodges
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.
A circle in 12 parts has from its beginning included a number of vinyl records as a constant resource. The records of Holst’s planet suite is the most obvious one and I have a number of different versions of it, mostly orchestral but with a couple of electronic variations. When it comes to certain zodiac signs the planet suite doesnt figure as there are no compositions dedicated to the Sun and Moon, or Luminaries as they are known in astrology. I posted a bit here about the records I came to use for these https://thefoundofmusic.co.uk/2022/07/25/music-of-the-spheres/
Along with a regular set of vinyl representing the planetary or luminary rulers of the signs there are also astrological spoken word records from Melvin J Gunton, Sydney Omarr, Patric Walker, Maurice Woodruff, Madame Francesca and Anne Petrie. Most of the astrology spoken word records have been recorded to yoube and are embedded in posts on the different Zodiac signs. I’ve a couple of spoken word records that cover the whole Zodiac, Astrology for Young Lovers narrated by Casey Casem, Roger Christian’s Discover yourself through Astrology and Your stars for 1968 by Cosmos.
There are some musical interpretations of the Zodiac with TheZodiac Suite from Norrie Paramour strings and orchestra, Russell Grants Zodiac Jukebox, Johnny Dankworth’s Zodiac Variations Cannonball Adderly’s Soul Zodiac, Roberta Kelly’s Zodiac Lady.
Since starting the project in 2020 I have managed to get the entire series of ‘Astromusical House of…’ records with a booklet of interpretation notes by Carroll Righter. I love this set of muzak covers of popular hiots of the day (1969) themed to tie in with characteristics of each sign (these are all recorded playing straight and on youtube)
So far all the vinyl mentioned here has obvious astrological connections but theres a few others that have become staples of the improvisations. These are chosen to refer more to the magical ritual aspect of the project. A Kind of Magic by Queen (almost always in the mix in some way), The Magic Key by Charles M Simmons has some great moments and Percy Thrower’s guide to good gardening record is fantastic to place us at a particular time of the year. I’m sure there are others Ive forgotten…
There are images of all the records mentioned somewhere in the posts on here and many videos of them too. Images of these and more of my vinyl collection are also posted on my Flickr feed
A great day in Aberystwyth Arts centre for the Aberetwm celebrations. Some lovely conversations with new and old friends. Thanks to everyone who came along and joined in and thanks to Marc and Becca for having us there!
I started off the sounds of the day with recordings made on Aberystwyth beach, the waves led us up onto the prom where voices and gulls joined in with some short loops of cello, bass and viol from the lovely Sianed Jones who’s loopstation I inherited full of memories.
From there we heard the call of Penglais woods where the rich and lively birdsong merged with voices and music from the Arts Centre. The voice of Peter Stevenson and music from Ailsa Mair Hughes, recorded during the Flora exhibition in 2017, evokes and describes the geographic and botanical world of Penglais hill as experienced by John Salter in the 19th Century before being submerged in the drones and loops from vinyl records connected to Aberystwyth.
The Vinyl Mycelium connections resonate, ogham trees adding new layers of connection reaching out to both past and future. Traditional instrumental sounds from Deuair bring us back to the present and merge with loops of the past – a stream begins to flow.
Above is a horoscope chartwheel for the day in Aberystwyth – this recurs in the live visual mix, rotating and merging with another more artistic impression of the chart drawn up for my collaboration with Jay and Keryl Hodges and the third circle.
The space was also inhabited by the mysterious figure of the mushroom man tending his pods and silently connecting us to a world beyond.
4 photos above by Keryl Hodges https://www.instagram.com/littleappleseed/
4 photos below by Sean Vicary https://www.seanvicary.com
4 photos below by Jo Shapland https://www.instagram.com/joshapland
Improvised audio visuals with J&K Hodges on #turntables #pedals #MakeNoise #blackandgold #Strega #0Coast #0Ctrl #live #vj #analog #circles #circuitbent #tree #mayday #ritual #cragenbeca
The fourth circle at Beltane with friends Ceri, Elsa and Kathryn.
I previously wrote about my plans for the fourth circle here.
Visual earth symbols for this session are almost exclusively derived from video clips of the trees of the Ogham Tree alphabet which I have been collecting as part of a new work for ‘Aberetwm’ at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on May 8th.
The birthcharts in the video are mine and Jay and Keryl’s. There’s also one drawn up from the date, time and place of our first play together on Youtube on March 22nd last year.
We were also celebrating the anniversary of the wonderful Cragen Beca parade in Carmarthen on Mayday 2022. An amazing project with public art parade event by Kathryn Campbell Dodd that we were all involved with in some way! Cragen Beca was a conch shell blown by the leader of the ‘Rebecca ‘Merched Beca’ protestors in the 19th century (without them you’d probably be paying tolls on all the roads!). For Kathryn’s project and for this fourth circle celebration of it’s anniversary event artist Ceri Owen Jones sounded a conch, each in a very different way. (Read more about Cragen Beca)
This year the sounds went into some Make Noise modules and bounced around to become some of what you hear in this.
My guest for Pisces this year was unwell unfortunately and rather than put pressure on them to participate, or try and find another with little time for preparation, I decided to take another break from working with guests and use the time once again to revisit work created in the first circle.
This is a live remix of the 2020 Pisces mix. Played on a laptop it goes through a HDMI – AV converter and on into circuit-bent analog video processors and into an analog capture device in Resolume Avenue.
Towards the end of the original recording I started using morphagene to take samples and mix them in. I let the video loop to explore this for a while.
A combined live audio visual improvisation with contributions and vinyl selection from this years guest Capricorn, Peter Stevenson. https://www.peterstevensonarts.co.uk/
The found of music 