Matt Warren - The Small Hours

And then there were three...

2010-07-21T04:49:00.000-07:00

And then there were three
Steam on the lens. Near and dear, good and bad and a colony of bats,
Machines and G.O.D
There is something important to be said.

So it's been a busy couple of months since the last post, hence the delay. Here's a catchup!

Arthur David Warren was born at approximately 12:30am on May 8, 2010. Suffice to say, we are very happy, he is very kind to us newbie parents and seems to be a very happy chap most of the time despite the couple of bouts of ill health. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be a parent, but it's pretty damned good, especially the hidden smile beneath the horizon of a blanket upon his waking. That's a bit of a heart melter. He has slotted into our lives very well, we enjoy his company, he enjoys ours, what more can you say? Cliches like, 'children change your life' are a cliche because they are true. I would think that's fairly obvious. But having said that, (perhaps we are lucky) it doesn't feel like he's disrupted our lives too much. Certainly when not in a gallery or performing we are homebodies for the most part anyway and although as he gets older there will be more socialising to be done (as far as school and so forth), at the moment we are content to all hang out together and get on with stuff, Sally and I take turns with duties, (though I probably owe her quite a few more nappy changes). We are under no illusions that it will be like this forever, but right now it feels very natural. Who da thunk it?

Speaking of socialising, those near and dear to us would have noticed a very minimal amount of images of Arthur online. This is deliberate. As adults we make our own choices to show ourselves on the web, kids can't. This is not really a PC-fearing reaction to online predators or anything like that, though of course like any parent we are concerned about that. And it's not that we aren't proud of our little boy. It is simply a clean slate that allows Arthur anonymity until he's old enough to put himself out there (if he chooses). Who knows what online social networking will be like in 12-14 years?

And with all good intentions comes the possibility of something not going to plan. The planned homebirth was, let's say 90% successful. A relatively short 9 hour labor (easy for me to say) ended up with the final stage (about 45 minutes from arrival) at the Royal Hobart Hospital, where Arthur's arrival was assisted with a ventouse. I still maintain, you go to hospital when you are sick, childbirth is not an illness. The risk to mother and child's health was mounting at that stage and so it became health issue. Again this would've happened in hospital anyway and in fact may have been worse or happened sooner due to the stress of being there. Sound a bit defensive maybe? Possibly. The subject of homebirthing was recently in the media because of Danni Minogue's recent homebirth drama, with a lot of folk (medicos) talking about how it's not a good idea, and speaking as if mothers are just there at home doing it themselves with out experiences midwives supervising. Not surprisingly, TV-medical expert Dr Penny Adams took a typically traditional 'I do not support home-births' stance. But to give her props, she at least pointed out that hospitals and hospital staff should consider the fact that women are not wanting to give birth in hospital and are choosing to have home births, many times because a hospital is not a nurturing, comfortable or friendly place and this should be
looked at. Perhaps there's hope.

May 5: Save 10 Murray Street Presets: 'Please Don't Let Me Be Understood' http://save10murray.wordpress.com/ So being at the time, kind of on stand-by for the impending birth, I did not attend the opening of the this show. By all accounts it was well attended. My work didn't sell, but there is to be a second round of selling so maybe then. The work I created was the 2010 version of Exhalation and I performed this work in my studio (Dead Letter Office) and on the final breath took a photo, with lens steamed up with breath. The physical work I donated to the exhibition is a print (the only one apart from the artist's proof) and a CD of the performance recording (again only one apart from the artist archive copy). The A4 print looks like this:

On Saturday May 29, M.0.1.0 played along with AXXONN, Traitor and my other duo Untermorast for Thrall's 'Antipodean Homecoming' show. Was a cool night, enjoyed both my sets and everyone else's. Mr Hall borrowed my fog machine for his AXXONN set and this was the result!:

AXXONN (image: Matt Warren)

Untermorast (image: Tom Hall)

M.0.1.0 debuted a couple of new songs 'End Credits' and 'Idiom Grim' which will form part of a new EP we are doing pre-production on right now. Word of warning, when using a digital sound recorder to record your loud set, make sure you keep the recording levels relatively low otherwise this will happen: M.0.1.0 - Idiom Grim (live excerpt)

M.0.1.0 (image: Tom Hall)

June 16 - 27: mumble(speak) - the good and bad people and things tour. Supported by Sound Travellers on their last round of funding. When I put this tour together, I knew I was due to be a father. It was important to me to be not away from home too much, so I planned it basically around two weekends. Last year's TRIAD tour, as great fun as it was, sometimes felt like there was a bit too much downtime between gigs (especially with the cancelled show in Sydney). So it was my plan with this one to compact it by flying in, playing a show and flying out the next morning, this would also help with the being at home sooner plan. As it happened, somewhere between the too scenarios would be the best as sometimes this was slightly manic. No complaints though, here's what happened.
Wednesday June 16: Stutter, Melbourne (played with: Heilbron, Hansen, McLean)
Flew into Melbourne on the day of the gig. Is always good to catch up with brother Nick and my old friends Jenny and Ted. Stutter, a weekly experimental music night is held at Horse Bazaar, a fantastic venue and same place TRIAD played at last year. HHM were a trio of two prepared double basses and drums/percussion. They were very cool, angular and spiky with odd moments of calm. My set went off reasonably well, though being the first night there were some audio levels I had to work on in regards to the mix. Small but pretty appreciative crowd.

Heilbron, Hansen, McLean (image: Matt Warren)

mumble(speak) (image: Nick Warren)

Friday June 18: 6a, Hobart (played at Pip Stafford's exhibition opening)
This was the largest audience of the tour, but I must say I cannot really take credit for that. Pip's show was great and I think it was a pretty good combo letting me play at her show. Some of the rough edges (where not required) were ironed out by this show. I looked up a couple of times to see both Josh and Tim seated on the floor taking it all in. Thanks guys, hope it was good for you.

mumble(speak) (image: Sally Rees)

Saturday June 19: Kurongkurl Katitjin Art Gallery , ECU, Perth (played with: Joel Ong and
Candied Limbs [Cat Hope and Lindsay Vickery])

Next morning I flew to Perth, it's a long flight, especially considering there seem to be no direct flights from Hobart. Was met by my lovely friends and hosts Susie and Dale (with their kids Charlotte and Edward) and had a nice lunch at there place. Went to the venue which was a very cool gallery space with a curved roof perfect for the projection. Caught up with Cat who sorted the gig for me and who was to be playing that night as one half of Candied Limbs (with Lindsay Vickery). We had a brief chat about our mutual love of Scott Walker and then I met Joel. He had set up a kind of interactive sound work consisting of drones and other sounds enclosed in a wooden wall, exploring it's acoustic properties, where the audience would take turns listening via stethoscopes. Up next was Candied Limbs and I must say I was completely daunted to play afterwards. At this point feeling like my set was very 'easy listening', I nevertheless performed an okay set and the reasonable sized crowd seemed to like it. Dale and I went to get something to eat afterwards and then went back to his and Susie's place.

Joel Ong (image: Matt Warren)

Candied Limbs (image: Matt Warren)

mumble(speak) (image Dale Lewis)

Sunday June 20: Serial Space, Sydney (played with: P>A)

Next morning I got an early morning flight to Sydney and caught up with my mate and host Deb. When I arrived at her place she was 10 minutes from the end of 'Blue Velvet' she being as am I, a confirmed Lynch fan. She had a guest over watching the film too. He had never seen the film and I was amazed at that, not sure why I thought everyone had seen it.Got cab to the funky little warehouse gallery space, caught up with Pia who booked the show for me who I met years ago in Hobart when she was part of the trio Conductor. Soon after I arrived in came the two guys who make up P.>A (Phil Williams and Andrew Gadow). Lovely fellas. Got to see my dear friend Felix, Cy (another Conductor almuni) and Justin (who I used to be on the Gallery Dunce ARI board with at least 12 years earlier and who I hadn't seen for about that long). P>A played a very cool set of no-input low frequency feedback drones with video projection made up of lo-tech digital visual response to the sound, lots of interference lines and noisy textures. My set, again pretty easy listening in comparison was not bad. A very small crowd, I think due to me being a bit of an unknown as mumble(speak) it being a Sunday night and the fact that Serial Space is unable to do major promo because they have variously had gigs shut down. Still it was a very nice room to play in. Late night pizza and catchup with Felix in Enmore and some needed correspondence via web and som time in my two favourite New Town record shops Egg Records and Repressed the next day, before flying home to the family.

P>A (image: Matt Warren)

mumble(speak) (image: Felix Ratcliff)

mumble(speak) (image: Felix Ratcliff)

Enmore Coffee

Friday June 25: DVVA, Darwin

Uh oh. Not a disaster by any means, but, well this was funny ol' gig. Primarily I wanted to stretch out venue and city-wise with this tour and really wanted to include Darwin. Firstly I had never been there, secondly I suspect my kind of music didn't happen up there much. Flew up via Melbourne (I didn't realise there was a Terminal 4 at Tullamarine) on Thursday afternoon/evening arriving at just on 12:00am Friday morning. The heat was intense, sweating in an air conditioned airport at 1:00am waiting to board the shuttle to the hotel was a test after a long flight. I won't name the hotel, but suffice to say they should update their website to mention that the price per night had gone up $20. Even at the previous price it wasn't worth it, plus being that I arrived at 1:00am I had to pay for two nights...

At least, it turned out, that it was a five minute sweaty stroll from the venue, Darwin Visual Arts

Association, run by Lisa Wolfgramm who was very helpful and understanding after an email to her

had gone missing and she assumed I had cancelled on her. This meant missing out on a promo opportunity,

but Lisa was still happy to have me. Ahh the trials and tribulations of booking tours...The day of the gig,

I was told by a few local that it was unusual hot that day, oh good, I thought, it's not just me. It was sweltering.

It's been a long time since (read never) I've been in Australia in June and wanted to go to the beach. I

wandered around a small section of Darwin, went down to Bicentennial Park and Lameroo Beach (didn't

swim though, got some photos and field recordings). And so the gig on the back verandah of the art centre,

first mumble(speak) show I've performed in shorts, was to the crew of 3, one punter and a colony of bats.

At least there was some good one on one discussion about the state of the arts, experimental music and so on.

Thanks anyway guys, a new experience is worth the undertaking.

Bicentennial Park

Lameroo Beach

Lameroo Beach (with giant ants)

mumble(speak) (image: Lisa Wolfgramm)

June 26: Browning Street Studios, Brisbane (Almost Invisible #4 night 2 with Geese, Restream and Tom Hall)
Due to my 6:00am flight to Brisbane, I needed to be in the hotel foyer to be picked up by the bus at 4:30, so I set my alarm for 4:00. Not that I needed it. Stifling heat, coupled with the delightful sound through the thin walls of my neighbour bringing up something or other for a good 20 minutes, well you get the picture. Flight from Darwin to Brisbane was fine and arrived around 10:00am and was picked up at the airport by the ever lovely Tom Hall, who always knows about good coffee and food (what was the name of that superb coffee place we went to Tom?), so apart from being a great bloke, he's awesome to hang out and eat with! A partial eclipse and a lovely evening. The venue was funky little building that looked to be a converted house that is used for rehearsals, recording exhibitions and live recitals. A nice guy named Cam along with some assistance (I believe) from Ian Rogers (ex-AXXONN, current Ambrose Chapel and fellow JK Broadrick fan) had organised this two night mini-fest and this was night 2. Tiny crowd again, I think most folks who were going to come, came the night before. Geese were a kind of loose, noisy garagey band that had a nice feel. Restream did a kind of chaos dj set that really had its moments, was a bit of an ear opener. Tom did a lovely set with some jittery projection as only he can. My set felt a little rushed as I was aware we had a curfew so some sections were shortened. For some reason, my recorder crapped out just as I started the set, so I have no recording of this set, but Tom got some great images and the small audience, seemed very blissy at the end of it, lying on the floor, Cam was laying under the moon projection.
I hope that was good sign!

Geese (image: Matt Warren)

Restream (image: Matt Warren)

Tom Hall (image: Matt Warren)

mumble(speak) (image: Tom Hall)

mumble(speak) (image: Tom Hall)

Sunday June 27: Feltspace ARI, Adelaide.



First time to Adelaide and I was astonished to discover how cold it was. I realise it's pretty far south,

but, twas chilly, especially after Darwin and Brisbane. Very flat, but very nice place.

My old mate and fellow VOIVOD fan Leo picked me up at the airport and we went back

to his place, a veritable library of old school metal. We listened to a lot of NWOBHM and then

went to the gallery, a fantastic space and met up with board member Logan. He was very helpful

and couldn't do enough for me, even suggesting some vegetarian eating spots nearby after I set up

the PA and did a soundcheck. Alas it was another small turnout...the unknown factor again?

Maybe the cold? Pity, as it was the best set I played on the tour, well balanced and flowed

really well. But the few that turned up were full of praise and such an amount allows for good

intimate discussion. Sold a CD and chatted with one punter about what software I use and so on.

I'd play there or exhibit there again in a flash. Later that night Leo and I listened to more

oldschool metal and watched the World Cup (he's mad into sport), which I actually quite

enjoyed. Next day, tried to go the Samstag Museum only to discover it's closed on Mondays

and Leo showed me around Adelaides glut of good record shops.

mumble(speak) (image: courtesy Feltspace)

mumble(speak) (image: courtesy Feltspace)

One superb falafel later I was on the plane home (via Melbourne). There's nothing like smiles from loved ones after such whirlwind travel. So of course I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed by some of the turnouts, but I wasn't entirely surprised. It isn't always my first choice to go out and see some droney guy with projections of the moon, much less someone from out of town either. Was this a prog rock show? Some Pink Floyd tribute gig? Whose to really know. In the end, regardless of how much promo you do you can't force people to attend. However attractive or unattractive the act is, you cannot second guess the numbers. But I do thank those who did turn up and especially the venues and the folks who hosted me. I enjoyed myself and it has taught me a lot and inspired new sounds and that can only be a good thing. Here's to the next tour.

On Friday July 2: M.0.1.0 had the pleasure of playing a set on a bill opening for legendary experimentalist KK Null. We shared the bill with Oceans (Hob), Spheres (Lton) and Thrall now with the addition of Lee Ritson on Bass. We played a short compact set to keep the night flowing smoothly and it seemed to worked well. We played only one new (non EP) track this time ('End Credits') and as mentioned before it will be on the next recording and we will likely be revealing all new material (with some older ones) next gig, in early September. Again I underestimated the volume of our sound and blew out the levels on my recorder. Will get it right one day. Oceans were (was? - it's one guy) great, a nice lofi set and Spheres filled the room with wonderful washes of sound. Thrall seemed a tad tentative at this gig, but it was the first gig with Lee. Still when it worked, it really had some guts. KK did an incredibly clean, crisp layered soundscape. It sounded like an 1980s computer game with some chaotic virus reeking havoc on it's sound generating components, that's compliment by the way. BTW, M.0.1.0 now have a page on Facebook, come and say hello and 'like' us!

Upcoming:

So the Hobart artist run initiative known as INFLIGHT, a well respected gallery/institution and my employer since January is moving. Our lease of 5 years ran out at the end of June and was suddenly not renewed for reasons not entirely clear to us. We were able to get an extension and fulfil our July show obligation. And as it happens, the August show was to be my Sönaris exhibition. Being that I'm local and the remainder of the program contains artists from interstate, it was easier for me to postpone my show until the new year, so that's what's happening. Our first show in the new space will be in September and the new space is at 100 Goulburn Street on the city edge of West Hobart. Exciting times ahead, we will now have street frontage, a good size but controllable room, no neighbouring sound of grounding marble and of course nearby Pigeonhole Cafe does pretty good coffee.

City of Hobart Art Prize – New Media. I can announce (I think) that I've been chosen as one of the 8 contestants (is that the right word?) to exhibit and compete in the New Media section. Who da thunk it? Certainly not me! While I think that what I do is not bad and is known to move people in a way I find very satisfying, I never thought it was 'competitive' in relation to other respected New Media works. My piece is a digital video and audio work embedded into the top of a black plinth and is called Project Blue Book. The exhibition opens at on Friday July 23 and continues until August 29. Two words: People's Choice (wink)

'Souvenirs /Cite 3' at Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart.

Leigh Hobba has curated me into a group exhibition of people who have spent some time at the

Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris. I'm in great company (including my old buddy Sean Bacon,

Jane Burton, Matt Calvert and more) and I will be presenting a slightly reworked version (no longer

using headphones and some extended light play) of a 2005 installation called

Les anges appellent (convocation). This work was last shown in late 2005 in Medium Rare artspace

in Redfern, NSW as part of Gail Priest's one night event series called 'e)scapes'. Images below (courtesy Gail Priest).

The show opens at 6:00pm Friday July 30 and will run until August 27.

DJ Broken Tiny set.

The night after the above show opens, I'll be doing another DJ set for Ben Crothers' Brand New

Second Hand DJ series. This month's theme of 'Drum Machine' will hear me include Godflesh,

Dälek, Kraftwerk and Donna Summer (!) in my set. Around 9:00 pm Saturday July 31,

Front Bar at Brisbane Hotel, Hobart with DJ BTC and Cough Syrup.

Just to end this long post; I have been listening to the following track incessantly.

Lobby Loyde and the Coloured Balls plus guests live at Sunbury 1973 (in the early hours

of the morning) playing a piece called G.O.D. Heard this about 18 years ago, recently

rediscovered it and cannot stop playing it. It has influenced me in so many ways. It's hard to

find just the track alone online so here is an excerpt (the full version is close to 18 mins)

forming the soundtrack to a film about Melbourne Sharpies by Greg McCainsh

of Skyhooks no less! Enjoy and take care of each other!

First of May 2010

2010-05-01T00:11:00.000-07:00

"When I was small and Christmas trees were tall,
We used to love while others used to play.
Don’t ask me why, but time has passed us by,
Some one else moved in from far away.
Now we are tall, and Christmas trees are small,
And you don’t ask the time of day.
But you and i, our love will never die,
But guess we’ll cry come First of May."
There's something important to be said.

There may be those of you who know me and my partner and our current "situation" and thinking, why is he writing a blog and not taking care of other more important things? Yes, Sally and I are at the waiting stage, the 'hoping it will start soon' stage! Both of us can be notoriously control-freakish and therefore, us much as one can be prepared, we have planned and set up for the birth. And so at the moment there are long periods of waiting and thus this little entry. Yes, by the time of my next entry (perhaps by the time you read this) I will be a father. Daunting, exciting, terrifying and inspiring all simultaneously, which is a lot to be experiencing. For the last 9 months it's been in my mind whilst trying to carry on with day-to-day business and life. The last month or so has been particularly scattered psychologically, but ultimately I know it will be good!

And I'm only speaking of me, it's not really my place to speak about Sally here, but I cannot possibly imagine what it must be like to be an expectant mother. So here's my utter respect and admiration! Ultimately any words that I attempt to write about something so profound and yet so simple and everyday (which is why it's profound), can potentially trivialise it, so I'll stop there.

So amongst the thoughts of impending parenthood, some other things have taken place and I'll outline them here;

On March 12, I performed a live soundscape/mix at the opening of Chora Choruses at Kings ARI in Melbourne. I had initially produced a surround soundscape for Fiona Lee's work in the show (with Cath Robinson) and was also asked to perform at the opening, using the same audio sources (10 songs chosen by the Kings board). Seemed to go over okay. Images below; two live performance shots (taken by Fiona Lee)

mumble(speak) performed as opener for the Jandek show at the Philip Smith Centre in Hobart on March 26, 2010. All I can say is, it was an honour to be on the same bill as Jandek, a great band and fantastic folks and my set was well received and proved to be a good warmup for the upcoming tour, see below. Thanks very much to Heathen Skulls for bring Jandek to Australia and to Pip and Andrew for organising the Hobart gig with MONA and allowing me to perform. Cheers also to Lee for the mix and to Jason for lights. Below two images from the mumble(speak) set (images by Sally Rees) and below that some live excerpts from the set.

mumble(speak) - 'Goodend/Godsend' by MattWarren
mumble(speak) - 'storm' by MattWarren
mumble(speak) - 'bad' by MattWarren

Untermorast (my dark/drone/psych duo with Tim Panaretos) played a set for the Edge Radio Benefit 'Weird Heavy' night at the Brisbane Hotel on April 14. We played with Evil Goat, The Wizar'd and Traitor. Cool bill, under-patronised unfortunately. Please keep an eye out for Untermorast releases, possibly as split-cassette and a CD sometime in the future.

Coming up soon:
May 5: Save 10 Murray Street Presets: 'Please Don't Let Me Be Understood' http://save10murray.wordpress.com/ I began the Exhalation performance project in 2008 and I intend on performing it every year for the rest of my life. It is an ongoing work about mortality and as I was invited along with 34 other artists, to contribute to this exhibition, I thought it was an apt work to include. So for this version I performed this work in my studio (Dead Letter Office) and on the final breath took a photo, with lens steamed up with breath. The physical work I am donating to the exhibition is a print (the only one apart from the artist's proof) and a CD of the performance recording (again only one apart from the artist archive copy). Opens: 6pm - Wednesday May 5, 2010 at the Waterside Pavilion, Mawson Place, Hobart.

May 29: The Antipodean Homecoming Show. The first Australian show for THRALL in 3 years will also feature local harcore/grinders Traitor, my mate Tom Hall's awesome AXXONN and my projects Untermorast and first gig since February for MOIO. MOIO by the way are currently working on new material, approx. 5 new songs (we will debut some at this next gig). We will be releasing a new recording sometime in the future and have been invite to contribute a track to Julian Teakle's second edition of 'Community' a compilation of Hobart bands/musicians. The gig is at 9pm, Saturday May 29, 2010 at the Brisbane Hotel, Hobart.

June: mumble(speak) tour
Thanks to Sound Travellers, mumble(speak) will be undertaking an Australian tour called 'The Good and Band People and Things' tour 2010. Almost all dates/venues confirmed;
June 16: Stutter, Melbourne
June 18: 6a, Hobart
June 19: …., Perth
June 20: Serial Space, Sydney
June 25: DVVA, Darwin
June 26: Browning Street Studios, Brisbane
June 27: Feltspace, Adelaide.
Hope to see you at one of these!

August: Sönaris - a video and surround sound installation. A new solo work that will be an ongoing exploratory and hopefully evolving work. An in-progress still is below.

That's it for now, take care of each other, see you at the next stage!

Photo: visit to Hell Toupee/Hell Gallery, Melbourne March 13, 2010 - (photo: Cath Robinson on Fiona Lee's camera)

Aching affection and drones that do more than work. (March 8 2010)

2010-03-08T03:25:00.000-08:00

Aching bones, sweating and breathing hard.
Drones, crackles and all things in between.
And so it comes to pass, end of an era, genuine affection and new opportunities.
There is something important to be said.

Everyday we wake up and as we get older our bones ache, there are more seemingly pointless forms to fill in. We sweat in our clothes and our deep breath quickens. The items on the lists we write never all seem to get ticked off at the end of the day. The eyes grow bleary and we still have more to do. And sometimes what we do are thankless tasks, some just have to be done. Some we've put before ourselves to undertake. We want others to know how hard we work, we complain about how there's not enough hours in the day. And in the final analysis, it's all relative. I get tired, I groan under the weight (wait) and I feel like the tasks are mounting up. But I realised recently, that I would much rather be able to wake up in the morning and have something to do than to not wake up or wake up with no aim in sight. A great guy known as Beta Cloud (aka Carl Pace) who's a cool electronic experimental musician (and fellow expectant father) is in the process of producing a music release with all proceeds to go to cancer treatment/research.

"i'm doing a new release on relaxed machinery, and i'm proud to convey that ALL proceeds will go directly to cancer research/treatment.
the label-
http://relaxedmachinery.com/
the foundation-
http://www.roswellpark.org/
it's in the mastering phase now by mr james plotkin. "

It bought to mind a very good friend who was taken way too soon a couple years ago, who really had only just begun bringing good things into the world. It bought to focus that there is much we can achieve while we are alive. Of course we need to rest and take in the good stuff around us, (working towards putting good things in the world is not always about physical undertakings either), but to complain about what we have to do, what we have before us, seems to me to be somewhat of a crime, when the alternative is to not be alive to have those burdens. When I think about that, the idea of them being burdens, for the most part fade somewhat.

Speaking of a bit of chore(!) at times, MOIO played a support gig to Ghost and The Storm Outside's final show on Wednesday February 3rd. Due to some (still) unexplained technical hitches, it was quite an undertaking of drudgery, but keeping in mind the chance I might contradict my above paragraphs, I will say that with a fair degree of fortitude we pulled through it. In the end it seemed the audience appreciated our set and it's most of yourself who realises the bit's you screwed up the most. We greatly appreciated the audience's patience and the guys in Ghost for allowing us to play.

Just recently finished was the Hobart incarnation of the two person (myself and Ms Rees) exhibition Of Heaven and Earth at 6a, (see previous blog post for more info). We included re-workings of the two pieces that were original shown in Montreal in 2008; 'Snowglobe' (Rees) and 'The Lull' (Warren) as well as works that were begun there, but completed here recently. These were three short sound works I produced called 'Five Roses and an Incorporeal Voice', 'We No Longer Speak' (Rue Bridge) and 'Between Frontenac and Pie-IX (singing man)', Sally's single channel video loop 'Rue St. Pierre' and our collaborative widescreen video projection with stereo soundscape 'The Great Escape/La Evasion Grande'.
Here are some documentation images and an excerpt from the 'The Great Escape'.

'The Lull' by Matt Warren

'Snowglobe' by Sally Rees

'The Great Escape/La Evasion Grande' by Sally Rees and Matt Warren

This Friday (March 12) is the opening of Chora Chorus, a two person exhibition by Cath Robinson and Fiona Lee at King's ARI in Melbourne. I created a remix-surround soundscape for Fiona for her contribution and will also be performing a cross between a DJ set and a electro acoustic performance at the opening on Friday night. On the Saturday will be a artists talk that will include Lee, Robinson, myself and Ms Rees who wrote a wonderful piece of text for the show.

There's another gig at the end of the month that is incredibly exciting for me. I as mumble(speak) was very fortunate to land the opening slot for Texas-based bleak avant- folk (is that a genre?) musician Jandek. Not until 2004 had Jandek appeared live, but had since 1978 released a multitude of eccentric and incredibly personal/unique recording, sometimes 3 albums a year. So although the live appearances of late have increased, it's still quite amazing that he will be on our shores. For someone I only discovered in the past 18 or so months, to not only be able to witness the great man here in Hobart, but to be playing on the same bill, well my head swims. Very thankful. Big cheers to Heathen Skulls for bringing Jandek to Australia and to P and A for having me on the bill along with the great Hobart guitar genius Greg Kingston. This will be a night!
March 26, 2010 at the Philip Smith Centre, 2 Edward Street, Glebe, Hobart.

DJ Broken Tiny will be on the bill, performing a set for DJ BTC's monthly 'Brand New Second Hand' nights. This month's theme is '60's' - expect some garage punk, psychedelia and all things in between.
March 27, 2010 at the Brisbane Hotel, Main Bar, Brisbane Street, Hobart.

Other things coming up…
Gigs for MOIO and Untermorast in May,
mumble(speak) on tour in June
and a solo exhibition called Sonaris in August.
Oh and of course….parenthood in late April!!!!!

I'd like to finish by saying how nice (yes I'd like to rescue that word from the clutches of banality) it was to be at Pip and Andrew's nuptials in Swansea a couple of weekends ago. There was genuine affection in the air, a sense of community and a real sense of hope that is rare in an overly cynical environment. I think a lot of people felt it. It was nice (yes I said it). There are many photos of the happy couple floating around that capture the happy moments better than any of mine. However, here's an image taken the next morning that somehow captures the general sense of goodness that was there. Take care all.

Of Heaven and Earth (exhibition with Sally Rees)

2010-02-08T04:38:00.000-08:00

Of Heaven and Earth
Sally Rees and Matt Warren

Of Heaven and Earth is a collection of works, solo and collaborative, by Hobart artists Sally Rees and Matt Warren, produced or begun whilst on residency in Montreal, Canada in 2008.

Stranded in Montreal for a month after original art-making plans fell through, and feeling like aliens in a strange, but beautiful city in the dead of winter, the pair were inspired to make these works.

The resulting videos, soundworks and installations are both a portrait of the the city and an antidote to the alienation and homesickness sometimes felt whilst there. They portray a desire for an imagined sanctuary, created using the materials available at the time. Comforting snippets of ‘home’ (the Australian night sky, the beloved pet rabbits left behind) conspire with signifiers of ‘the other place’ (captive exotica, endless snow, a foreign electrical hum) to speak of the isolation of the alien and the toll of the willing exchange of comfort for adventure.

The original incarnation of the exhibition featured only two installation works, Rees' Snowglobe and Warren's The Lull and was shown in the tiny artspace in the Auberge Alternative in Old Montreal (an alternative hostel/accommodation where the the pair were given refuge), founded and run by Tasmanian native Angela Reeve, whom the pair gratefully acknowledge.

This extended version of the exhibition features re-worked versions of both Snowglobe and The Lull and also includes a collaborative piece The Great Escape that was begun in Montreal in 2008 and completed in Hobart recently. With these works now being shown in their hometown, the artists consider this exhibition to be the closing of a challenging but pivotal chapter.

Home is where the heart is.

2010-02-01T04:04:00.000-08:00

The time has come, the 1st month over, much done, much still to do. The world is an exquisitely arranged soundscape, it's an exquisite corpse. We have to wait and see or hear the response. We need to be patient. We must be silent to hear it. We need to stare through to see it. And a chapter will close, and maybe I will forgive, but I won't forget. I won't say any more, but, There's something important to be said.

This will be a short blog (readers breath a sigh of relief). Just a brief catchup of the past, first month of 2010.

Throughout January in Kelly's Garden at Salamanca Arts Centre in Hobart I presented the work The Last Beach Movie. I was pretty happy with it. Responses were quite positive. It felt like a rather light-hearted work for me, which isn't bad, but it quite surprised me. Even though your work may come together pretty close to your original vision, you don't always know what the work is until it's there. Despite some issues with folks seemingly wanting to check how secure the toy piano was (often lifted out of the sand exposing the lock) and the 'stool' incident, (it going missing, then being found damaged), the work remained fairly intact. There were even some nice additions in the form of shells and driftwood that punters had made. Thanks for those who came and enjoyed it. Thanks to SAC for hosting it and MONA for including it in the festival. Now if I can get rid of the sand.

Also part of MONA FOMA was a wonderful fellow Mani Neumeier, (of Krautrock legends Guru Guru) whom I had the pleasure of meeting back in 2003 on my research trip to Germany and his partner Etsuko Watanabe, performing percussion and vocals. Mani did a few other side performances as well. It was great to catch up with him again after nearly 7 years and I was happy to have played a small part in getting him to Tasmania to play and he bought his own unique style to proceedings. Glad S got to meet them both!

I started my new position as Gallery Coordinator at Inflight ARI. Bit of a learning curve at the moment, but it will settle in to my brain soon enough. I'm proud to be working for something that over time has become a bit of an institution and I look forward to the years program and the continued challenges.

The psych/black/drone project that was forged in later 2009 with former Soundtracks Will Dissolve member Tim Panaretos called UNTERMORAST now has a web presence. There is a track up now, we are looking at more gigs and recordings in the future.

I presented a sound art/listening work shop up at 6a ARI on Saturday Feb 30. I essentially spoke about listening to the layers of sound that make up the world, how to make your own performed sounds and mixing, manipulating and arranging your own soundscapes. Everytime I do something like that, a lecture or workshop, I learn something as well. Although sparsely attended, it was well received. Thanks 6a.

This Wednesday night; M.O.I.O (my slow noisy sludgey/rock project with Aaron Metcalf) is doing a support gig for The Ghost And The Storm Outside final gig. Will be interesting to be slotted amongst a slew of faster bands. The proverbial dogs balls, in a good way though I think. We are also currently working on a couple of new songs that we are quite excited by. Not quite ready yet, but soon.

I received a couple of copies of the Concrete Lung CD EP. Very happy to have been part of it and Aaron is also happy to have engineered my drum track. I think we did good.

Finally; Ms Rees and I have a two person show at 6a ARI opening on Feb 12. It's an extended incarnation of the Montreal show from 2008 called Of Heaven and Earth. This will close a chapter of our lives that was a bit of a test, but we are really keen to see the works here at home.

"Of Heaven and Earth is a collection of works, solo and collaborative, by Hobart artists Sally Rees and Matt Warren, produced or begun whilst on residency in Montreal, Canada in 2008. Stranded in Montreal for a month after original art-making plans fell through, and feeling like aliens in a strange, but beautiful city in the dead of winter, the pair were inspired to make these works.
The resulting videos, soundworks and installations are both a portrait of the the city and an antidote to the alienation and homesickness sometimes felt whilst there. They portray a desire for an imagined sanctuary, created using the materials available at the time. Comforting snippets of ‘home’(the Australian night sky, the beloved pet rabbits left behind) conspire with signifiers of ‘the other place’ (captive exotica, endless snow, a foreign electrical hum) to speak of the isolation of the alien and the toll of the willing exchange of comfort for adventure.
The original incarnation of the exhibition featured only two installation works, Rees' Snowglobe and Warren's The Lull and was shown in the tiny artspace in the Auberge Alternative in Old Montreal (an alternative hostel/accommodation where the the pair were given refuge), founded and run by Tasmanian native Angela Reeve, whom the pair gratefully acknowledge.
This extended version of the exhibition features re-worked versions of both Snowglobe and The Lull and also includes a collaborative piece The Great Escape that was begun in Montreal in 2008 and completed in Hobart recently. With these works now being shown in their hometown, the artists consider this exhibition to be the closing of a challenging but pivotal chapter."

That's it for now. Take care of each other.

Thanksgiving/no thanksgiving. NYE 2009

2009-12-31T01:43:00.000-08:00

If you will indulge me…there is something important to be said…

This has been an interesting year, better than last year. Ups and downs of course like everyone. A year of healing, lots of music produced, opportunities arose, some undertaken, some missed out on. Oh and the beginning of the parenthood adventure (though we won't actually be parents until April 2010, the news arrived this year!!!). So as a means of re-capping what happened (mainly good, some bad) here's a heartfelt thanks and no thanks;

For all the live music gigs; Thanks to Scot Cotterell and Tom Hall for playing with me as both DÜO and Triad, Aaron Metcalf for playing with me as M.0.1.0, Tim Panaretos for playing with me as Untermorast, Scot C (again), Tim P (again), Leigh Hobba, Lisa Rime, Julian Teakle and especially Damo Suzuki for playing with me as part of the Damo Suzuki Network. Also thanks to Ben Crothers for giving me a DJ set at one of his 'Brand New Second Hand' nights. And to Concrete Lung in London for letting me play on their 'Waste of Flesh' CD. Also thanks to all the great acts we played with at 'Black Sunday' (Evil Goat, Axxonn, Spheres and Cycle).

For the live music venues; Thanks to the following venues and the staff for letting myself and my associated acts perform; 6a-Hobart, The Glitchfest stage-Dover, Inflight-Hobart, The Brisbane Hotel-Hobart, Salamanca Arts Centre-Hobart, Devonport Regional Gallery-Devonport, Make It Up Club-Melbourne, Stutter-Melbourne, Don't Look-Sydney, Club Zho/Tura New Music-Perth, The Step Inn-Brisbane, Tom's House/Sonic Boom-New Farm, Centre For the Arts-Hobart (thanks John V Grad Show) and ONO # 2 at former Fitzgeralds Millinery Dept-Hobart.

For the 2009 Exhibitions; Thanks to the following venues and/or curators for showing my work during the year: Victor Medrano/Inflight and MOP Projects Sydney for including my work Twoot in the 'Limbic' group show, Lucy Bleach and CAST gallery (despite some issues it was an absolute pleasure working with you) for including my work Exhalation 2009 in the 'Lust For Life' group show, Ellie Ray and Devonport Regional Gallery for including me in the 'Tidal' competition with my work Whitepinkblack Noise (Moment), Andrew Harper, Tricky Walsh and the 6a crew for inviting me to install Haunted Micro Voices in Princes Park Battery for the 6a/Amplified 'Sound Art' showcase, Pat Brassington and Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart for housing my PhD submission - Suspension of Disbelief and Pip, Kate and the ONO crew for inviting me to setup my ex-X (Phase 10hz) ritual in that cool old building!

During the year I spent quite a bit of time at the Centre for the Arts on Hunter Street, Hobart both as a student and as a staff member. A sincere thank you to both of my wonderful PhD supervisors Mr Leigh Hobba and Prof. Jonathan Holmes, it was a pleasure. As a teacher; thanks to all my students who strived and had a bit of passion, it's rare and it really made it worthwhile. Sorry I won't be back for a while if ever. And to Bill Hart who gave me many chances to be employed and Neil Haddon who supported me during a tough encounter!.

Some random thanks: Marisa Mastrocola for including me in the credits, it wasn't necessary, but much appreciated. Deborah Pollard for continued support, awesome chats inspirations and somewhere to stay in Sydney. Felix Ratcliff for the ongoing chats in cockney accents and his love for descending arpeggios. Cat Hope for the letter of support and appreciating Scott Walker. Joshua Santospirito for the interest in mumble(speak) and good music chats. Susie, Dale and Charlotte (Edward wasn't born then) for putting me and Scot up and for your continued friendship. Brother Nick and Delta for putting me up in Melbourne and just being nice. My father Graeme and sisters Jayne and Mel and niece Abby for coming down to my graduation, it meant a lot. Thanks to Inflight ARI for taking me on for 2010, I'll do my best. To finish, thanks to Sally for being there and for being her.

Now, some no thanks: Those with a lack of manners, common sense and respect for others. Those who don't reply to messages, emails, letters or have the common decency to be polite. Those who play it safe and don't recognise something unique when it's in front of them. Those who are close-minded 'experts', ("I don't get it, it must be crap" types). Those who wish to censor such as the 'Clean Feed' brigade, those who stifle free thought and expression, those who want to make Mid-wives and homebirth illegal. Pokies in pubs. Those who are ignorant by choice, stupid by design and bigoted by nature (you can break into the cycle). I'm not always above some of these, but I'm trying my best.

A recap of the music of 2009. In 2009 I discovered/rediscovered/purchased some excellent music. Not all of it contemporary, some of it released this year. All of it impacted on me in some way and not that I think I have impeccable taste (as some may think after witnessing this list), but I would happily recommended checking at least some of it out.

Amon Düül 2 - 'Carnival in Babylon' (1972) Kraut-rock classic. Hadn't heard it till recently, not quite as essential as the earlier ones, but pretty good.
Axxonn/Tom Hall/Ambrose Chapel - 'Masters Of The Epic Day' (2009) three-way split of subby, droney electronics by a couple of great guys.
Battle of Mice - 'A Day of Nights' (2006) - incredible so-called 'postrock' supergroup, angst noisy, scary.
Black Sabbath - 'Black Sabbath' (1970), 'Paranoid' (1970), 'Master of Reality' (1971) Fantastic special edition reissues of these essential classics.
CAN - 'Unlimited Edition' (1976). Never heard this mixed bag compilation. It's pretty great though a little bitsy!
Alice Cooper - 'Dada' (1983). Only ever had an incomplete cassette dub of this. Always had a soft spot for this odd little Ezrin produced album, apparently Cooper doesn't remember recording it.
Council Estate Electronics - 'Kitsland' (2009). One of Justin Broadrick's myriad of side projects, droney bleepy atmospheric, but less ambient than Final.
Miles Davis - 'Pangaea' (1974) Live in Japan, free jazz meets funk, incredible grooves, this is a period of Miles I'm still quite new to.
Earth - 'Extra - Capsular Extraction' (1991) early Sub Pop era, drone metal material, some good moments.
EyeHateGod - 'Take As Need For Pain' (1993) US post-rock/doom metal.
Evil Goat - 'Evil Goat' CD-r single (2009) Naughty local lads duo, electronics/guitar doom.
Final - 'Infinite Guitar 3/Guitar & Bass Improvisations 3' (2009) Broadrick's longest operating project, lots to digest here. Has it's moments, drones and ambience.
Final - 'Reading All the Right Signals Wrong' (2009). Close to my favourite Final release, gets the balance between meandering and dynamic shifts right.
Jandek - 'Chair Beside the Window' (1982) - 'Telegraph Melts' (1986) - 'Modern Dances' (1987). A major discovery for me. One of the most unique, enigmatic, haunting, and abstract 'folk' (for want of a better word) performers around. He has a vast catalogue, there's no-one or nothing quite like him. Think Skip Spence's 'Oar' meets Daniel Johnston and you're still not quite there.
Jesu - 'Infinity' (2009). Broadrick's current 'rock' project. A 40 plus minute track, some beautiful textures and guitar lines, improves greatly in the second half.
Jesu - 'Opiate Sun' (2009). Raw, descending arpeggios, melodic slow guitar power pop. Like Husker Du through molasses. My favourite Jesu release thus far.
KISS - 'Sonic Boom' (2009) So shoot me…old habits die hard. Not bad, but certainly not nearly as great as reviewers or KISS themselves would let you believe. Sounds like a fairly convincing pastiche!
Krackhead - 'From Hell' (1997/1999/2009). Previously unreleased album of Broadrick's distorted Drum n Bass project available now as a download. Pretty good, great grooves, noisy!
Love - 'Love' (1966) Nice remastered edition of the late Arthur Lee's band Love debut album, psyche rock/folk/garage. Essential!
Craig McElhinnery - 'You and Me Are Young and Brutal' (2009) - Perth based, very atmospheric soundscapey, but musical. Good stuff.
Meat Loaf - 'Bat Out Of Hell' (1977) Again shoot me, this is something I grew up listening to. I'm too old to worry about if I'm hip or not. First time I've had it on CD, think I prefer my crackly old vinyl. Max Weinberg and Todd Rundgren play like maniacs! Oh yeah that Marvin fellow can sing okay!
Napalm Death - 'Noise For Music's Sake' (2003) Compilation of essential tracks, rarities and B-Sides. Killer live cover of 'Avalanche Master Song' featuring JK Broadrick.
Lee Scratch Perry and the Upsetters - 'Psyche & Trim' (2004) cheap compilation, not as dubby as I'd hoped, some good material though.
Scorn - 'Plan B' (2002). This is one that slipped by the collection. Mick Harris is a master at subby/dubby beats and wobbly bass and drones. Sorry but this was done earlier and way better than any of the contemporary 'dustup' pretenders. They have their place, but this paved the way and he doesn't get the props!
Scorn - 'In The Margins'/'Pin Down' (single 2009) - huge tracks, on par with the material on 'Stealth' (2008).
Solaris BC - 'Submerged Technology' (1996/2009). Another beauty minimal Broadrick project, unreleased until now (as a download). Slightly underwhelming, but has it's moments.
Voivod - 'Infini' (2009). Metal with a slightly quirky experimental edge, for those who don't know. I've been a big fan of these guys since the mid 1980s. The final (?) album based on the late Denis D'Amour (Piggy) demos. It's way better than the last album and has some great moments. Quite raw in places, lacks a bit of the interplay that could really only come from all playing together, which is sadly, impossible. They have recently been touring with Dan Mongrain (Martyr) on guitar and original bassist/founder Jean-Yves 'Blacky' Theriault (an old sparring partner of mine in the now defunct D-Group). They don't appear on this record.
Various Artists - 'Adventures in Dub' (2006). A double CD of dubby reggae. It's a bit hit and miss, bur anything that has King Tubby, Scratch Perry and Prince Jammy has got to be good.

So that's it for now. I realise this may have come over as I'm accepting some award, but being that 2009 was quite a year, I thought this was good way to recap this year's activities. Hope it was a good one for you and that 2010 will be even better. Thanks for reading, see you next year.

Image by Aaron Horsley

Glimmers, security, freedom, breeding and lots of noise; December 9, 2009

2009-12-08T22:31:00.000-08:00

Glimmers of hope and slaps in the face.

Changes as good as holidays.
After I speak will you please reply.
There is something important to be said.

Glimmers of hope and slaps in the face

One of the things I've come to realise, (what, only now?), the life of an artist and musician, the life I lead is one that fills you with a psychological dichotomy. That is to say, there is certain degree of feedom that comes with not having a 'regular' (whatever that means), secure (again whatever that means) job. A job you know will be there for you on a Monday morning, so you can be fed and feed those near and dear to you. The freedom of not being tied to a specific timeline and place, means that one can journey through life and experiment with what you do and when you do it. So no complaints.

The security that comes with a more traditional (again, that's a slippery slope there) existence means that you can relax and not worry about where your next meal might be coming from. The ability to not worry has a wonderful freedom of it's own. Now I should point out here, that not in anyway do I consider that my life style is any more 'alternative' than anyone else. But I've not really ever had a 'real' job. Again no real complaint, ultimately this was my decision, I don't really regret it and I'm reasonably happy to live with it. Very often, one makes one's own opportunities. Again I'm not claiming to be bucking the system, but as I see it, we do live in a fairly conservative country, where the arts are not really considered a valuable contribution to society. Sport is though...I missed a trick by not pursuing my superb hockey skills!

So what's this got to do with anything? Well the nature of what I do often means I'm a dog looking for bones. Every so often an opportunity comes up where one applys and waits by the phone or for an email, or as Pip mentioned, hopefully not on the receiving end of a skinny envelope (a fat one is the one you're after). A few little moments of luck over a period give you a little bolstering of confidence, that is just as often followed by a slap or two in the face. These come very often without explanation (see the next rant) and are a real blow. There are some very illogical decisions made out there in the world and you are sometimes at the receiving end of them. So one has to re-boot one's attitude every so often which is what I'm trying to do. While I don't think you should be in the constant mindset that you are owed something by your very existance, you are the best at what you do and eveyone should realise that, it's also not good to be always down on youself, in constant denial of your abilities and value or always worrying.

Now I realise that people everywhere must experience this sometimes, but from my experience trying to balance these states in an environment where one is sometimes pulled wildly from one extreme to another is very difficult. But I realise as I get older, (oh yes our little Matt is growing up), that I need to be mindful of how I take on criticism as well as praise, failures and successes.

I must realise that not everyone in the world knows or understands or even cares about the value of culture and what it contributes to society, but I also shouldn't shy away from speaking about what I do and can bring and contribute to that culture.

Manners and etiquette

I'd like to talk a little bit about etiquette and I'm not talking about the of 'Laddette to Lady', kind of thing, but something more basic and to do with common sense. I'm the first to admit, I can improve my communication skills, I don't always speak clearly and I ramble a bit sometimes. Often my inherent shyness gets the better of me and I'm silent. But one thing I am very mindful of is respect to others around me. It seems to me that with the advent of speedy, instant, portable communication, we have lost the ability to have basic manners. This may sound like an old man thing to say, but for Christ's sake you don't have to talk that loud on your mobile, or speak on it at all in certain circumstances. There would be a generation of people who would not have experienced a life before mobiles and email, but there was and people got by. Yes we are all busy and things need to be communicated, sometimes right away, maybe excuse yourself and get out of the queue. Also, I don't want to hear about your private life at the top of your voice.

In specific reference to the above subject; There are a lot of elements to our communication that are virtual, there is a lot of traffic moving back and forth online and also still in the world of analogue post. One is not to know if something has reached it's destination or not. One shouldn't assume. So

I don't expect an essay, but it would be nice if there were more of the 'Yes I got it thanks, I'll be in touch soon' messages. Especially via email, it's so quick and easy. Why wouldn't you?

Old man rant # 2 over.

Impending parenthood and the midwife issue

So being that I'm now an aforementioned old man, most of you would know that I'm soon to be a father, which fills me with so many different thoughts and emotions, I don't know where to start. Mostly joy, but a bit of fear thrown in too, but of course I'm not the first to experience that.

Although it was more Sally's call than mine, we were both agreed that a homebirth is what we wanted to do. There are many reasons, but first and formost, the comfort and security of a familiar environment is important to the wellbeing of the person doing the hard work - the mother.

Giving birth in the majority of cases is not a medical condition. When it becomes a medical problem, of course you seek medical assistance. Giving birth at home doesn't cause a medical problem. It may in fact defuse one, being that the mother may well be more relaxed. You wouldn't call eating a medical problem, When you choke, it becomes one. But we don't go to the hospital to eat a meal. Over 60% of births in the Netherlands are homebirths. This seems to me to be a good solution here where there is an overcrowding in hospitals and overstretched staff.

And so this simmering little problem that has arisen over the potential illegalities of midwifery is a touch alarming. Sally has already eloquently laid this out on her blog. I urge you to read it if you care about homebirth or even if you have an interest in civil rights. It can be read here.

Recent activities

Myself and Scot Cotterell performed a DÜO no-input set, (that is to say, no external sound sources were used, mixers and the input of a cassette deck feeding back into themselves) for the Graduate Show at Centre For The Arts in Hobart on November 6. Response was pretty good, although we were essentially background ambience, most were there (quite rightly) to see family and friends artworks and congratulate each other for achieving a degree. It was a lot of fun and we got some interesting sounds out of the gear. Here's some images and to hear some of the results go to:

http://www.virb.com/matt_warren_muzik

Top image courtesy of Matt Warren, bottom image courtesy: Aaron Horsley.

MOIO performed our second live performance at the Fringe Festival's 'Heavy Noisy Things' night. We ended the night, response was great. Even sold a few CDs. Don't have any images or audio from this appearance, but here's the poster for the event.

You may have noticed the name on the bottom of that poster, Untermorast. That was myself and Tim Panaretos' new improv duo, myself on effected voice and Tim on effected electric bazouki. More details as they come to hand, but keep an eye out for a myspace page down the line and hopefully followed by more gigs.

MOIO's third gig was on 26^th of November at ONO # 2 and we were greeted by a very positive response to our set, especially considering we followed the completely maniacal and impressive Lightning Bolt. Cool place to play, (a disused floor of what was once Fitzgeralds in the Hobart CBD), big and boomy room, suited us well. We will now be working on new material for a while before going out to play again, but rest assured we will be back. I can't speak for Aaron, but I'm pretty sure he would agree, I greatly appreciate that MOIO is so appreciated.

Image at ONO # 2 courtesy Rebecca Fitzgibbon.

Also at ONO # 2 (amongst many other wonders) was a performance/installation ritual piece I conceived and directed (a performed with 9 others) called ex-X (Phase 10hz). It was work about catharsis and each participant contributed wonderfully, thanks all. The whole ritual part was 10 minutes with the 'aftermath' as an installation being ongoing (well until closing time). Here is a condensed video document of the piece.

An extra curricular activity that I did a few months back was contribute some percussion (drums, cymbals, shakers and chime) to a track called 'Waste of Flesh' by London-based industrial metal band Concrete Lung, for an EP, also called 'Waste of Flesh' which is due out on December 12. It was great to be a part of, the wonders of file-transfer across the web! I look forward to hearing the result.

Oh I finally officially graduate on December 15!

Upcoming in 2010:

Jan 8 – 31. I will be presenting a slightly interactive/participatory surround sound and object installation at Kelly's Garden at Salamanca Arts Centre in Hobart as part of their program and the annual MONA FOMA festival. The piece is called 'The Last Beach Movie' and references the popular mythology about Brian Wilson's compositional environment.

Image mockup by Matt Warren

Feb 12 -March 5. 'Of Heaven and Earth' is a two person exhibition of light, sound, collage and video works by Matt Warren and Sally Rees (some solo, some in collaboration) produced mainly whilst on residency in Montreal, Canada in 2008. This will be shown at 6a ARI, in North Hobart.

Image: The Lull by Matt Warren in 'Of Heaven and Earth', Auberge Alternative, Montreal Canada, 2008.

On March 12 I will perform a live soundscape for Fiona Lee's work in the two person show (with Cath Robinson) called Chora Choruses at Kings Gallery in Melbourne. The plan is that I will also be part of the artists floor talk the following day. My soundscape (a pre-recorded surround piece) will also feature in Fiona's installation throughout the remainder of the show's run.

My solo ambient/drone/mood project mumble(speak) is going to be touring in June 2010.Thanks to Sound Travellers, mumble(speak) will present the 'Good and Bad People and Things' show (a narrative) on tour throughout the country. Full confirmation of venues and dates are still to happen, but the planned schedule is:

June 17 - Hobart

June 18 – Brisbane

June 19 – Sydney

June 20 – Melbourne

June 25 – Darwin

June 26 – Perth

June 27 – Adelaide

Late November; a three week performance/installation laboratory at Salamanca Arts Centre, collaborating with Sally Rees and Deborah Pollard for a project with the working title of 'Decay'. More on that later.

Listening: JESU – 'Opiate Sun' e.p (2009), Alice Cooper – 'DADA' (1983)

Watching: 'The Bed Sitting Room' (Directed by Richard Lester from a play by Spike Milligan - 1969). This has recently been released as a budget-price (but not budget quality) DVD...see it now!

Reading: Contracts, proposals and applications and re-reading 'Smile – The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece' by Domenic Priore (2005).

This will likely be the last post for 2009, so whatever you do at this time of year, have a good one, take care of each other and yourself.

The secret ingredient to good beans on toast – smoked paprika!

"A shame-faced open letter" (Oct 13, 2009)

2009-10-12T19:39:00.000-07:00

Eyes and ears are open wide, some things don't go in.
Trying to catch up with sleep. Disappointment at what I see around me.
Grounded, making noise, things coming to an end and a very important beginning about to start.
There is something important to be said.

An open letter to the rest of the world.

Please don't think the actions and attitudes of contestants on "Hey Hey It's Saturday" represent me! The pro of the web is that information can be delivered quickly and effectively, the con is that if that information is an extremely unfortunate example of human ignorance, everyone sees that too.
One would hope that this kind of racist 'entertainment' doesn't represent the attitudes or entertain the majority of the country, but I sometimes wonder. Australia has a bit of a reputation around the world has being racist, for example, just look at how we treat our students from India. When I lived in Canada around 10 years ago, an Asian fellow who worked in the Uni said to me;
"Oh you're from Australia, do you know Pauline Hansen?" "Not personally" I replied. I was extremely embarrassed that her shit travelled so far.

So for those who don't know the story, a 1970s/80s family variety TV show called 'Hey Hey It's Saturday' recently presented two 'reunion' shows. The second one included a kind of 'gong show' talent competition, featuring a re-showing of a skit from about 20 years earlier called 'Jackson Jive' a collection of guys in black face (ala The Black and White Minstrel Show') and frizzy wigs and a leader in Michael Jackson ('Thriller' era) getup, with a pale face. It was a bad idea back in the 80's, it's a bad idea now. American crooner Harry Connick Jr was a judge on the show and he called them out on just how dodgy the whole thing was. Presenter and producer, Daryl Somers, to his credit, apologised to Connick for the offense and gave him the opportunity to say why he was offended, which he eloquently did. However, why the hell was this even aired/allowed on the show? (on the repeat, the skit and it's aftermath were removed).

'It's all a bit of fun, no harm done, no offense intended' some might say. 'It's Political Correctness gone mad'. Screw that, I say. To a degree, what's correct politically is subjective, one's morals and ethics are your own. However, when a majority of society agrees that racism is a 'bad thing' then you should really think about it.

Somehow certain parts of popular culture become acceptable, regardless of the problematic nature of them. Football machismo (excessive alcohol consumption and sexual molestation) although slightly frowned upon is excused because 'these elite athletes need to let off steam. 'Shock jocks' like little ol' Kyle Sandilands or that wally Sam Newman are still on the air because it's just their schtick. It's like the bull runs, just because because something is tradition, doesn't mean it should continue.
I'm opposed to censorship, but when you talk shit, you should expect that someone will call you on it.

Back to 'Hey Hey it's Saturday'. Satire is all well and good, however there were a number of reason's this was a bad idea. Michael Jackson has just died for one. A sense of irony, about a period of TV entertainment, that was naive in it's attitudes would be one thing, a 2009 perspective on an 1970s/80s mindset. However, there was complete lack of irony or wit and it reminded us all that the show had (and seemingly still does - perhaps to be authentic) a general tone of racism and mean-spiritness.

Rant over, but all this shit needs to be wiped out, I'm fed up with it. I'm also not looking at 'blanding' out society with no controversial art or entertainment. This is not conservatism. This is a hope that elements that perpetuate bullshit are shown the door. It's so easy NOT to be ignorant, why is it still happening.

There are good things around though. Me and Aaron as MOIO did our first gig at the mini-fest 'Black Sunday', organised by myself and Scot Cotterell with assistance from Jason James and co-presented by Sound Klub and Salamanca Art Centre.
It was held on Sept 27, a rainy blustery afternoon and we are appreciative of all who braved the weather and came along. A special thanks should go to Spheres who ventured down from Launceston to do the show. It was great to finally see Tom and Ian's act AXXONN as well. TRIAD opened the proceedings, followed by a wonderfully 'vibratory' performance by CYCLE, those naughty EVIL GOAT boys also appeared and impressed! Here are some images of TRIAD and MOIO. There are sounds up on the myspace pages too. Thanks all it was great and hopefully there will be more.

On August 29, I performed a DJ set as DJ Broken Tiny for Ben Crothers monthly themed - evenings called 'Brand New Second Hand'. The theme was 'Europe' and so played a lot of Krautrock and a bit of French and Swiss industrial and a bit of Italian prog. DJ Mamoo (aka Lisa Rime) did a wonderful French pop set as well. Thanks Ben, it was a lot of fun, keep me in mind for the future!

There's a few visual arts/installation things on the horizon coming up, but things still need to be confirmed, will let you know.

What I can say is that myself and Scot Cotterell have been invited to perform at the UTAS Artschool Grad Show. This is on Friday November 6. We are looking at doing a DÜO 'no input' set, mixer and devices feedback noises. Here is Scot's mockup poster.

Also MOIO have been invited to perform in the Hobart Fringe Festival 'Noise/Metal' night at the Brisbane Hotel, on Friday November 20. It is curated/organised by my mate Tim Panaretos (of Soundtracks Will Dissolve) who should put together an interesting lineup. We've also been jamming a little of late, not sure what will come of it, but it's been kinda doomy, creepy and noisy!

And to end and give a sense that I'm still amazed by the majesty of nature;
I saw a shooting star, arching over a very clear night sky, whilst listening to 'Silver' by JESU on Oct 11, 2009 at approx 8:33pm, Cressy Street, New Town, Tasmania.
I'd love to be able to suggest you try it for yourself, but when can you expect to witness that? Keep an eye out, watch the skies!

Take care.

Are you sleeping....brother John?

2009-08-03T01:02:00.000-07:00

Some things are sent to test us, hold your fire.
Integrity is the key, sun comes up, rain falls down.
The sounds I make, people come to hear, eternally grateful.
There is something important to be said.

An open letter.
As an artist and as a human being in general, one of the the things in life I hold dear is integrity. If one makes a artwork, writes something, says something, if you truly believe it, or believe in it, you should be able to stick to your guns. If a commercial concern rears it's head, if a 'dumbing down' to the lowest common denominator is requested, if you project something that you don't believe in, you have lost the integrity of the original intention. It's not always easy and sometimes things are forced out that you feel you are no longer in control of. I think most people can spot bullshit, some choose to ignore it and accept it for what it is. Others are repelled. A minor few don't realise or don't care.

I admire those who withdraw completely from something they feel has been compromised, but I also admire those who try and fight for what they think is right. Like I say it's not always easy. What has all this got to do with anything? It's just something I've been thinking about lately. It's something I've always believed. And every now and then certain occurrences bring it into focus. Say and do what you mean. I, like everyone else have opinions and views and I'll defend them if need be. But if one truly believes in what they do and say, anything I or anyone else says should not make a difference in the long run should it?

It is a delicate balance though. Because one should not just 'hear what you want to hear'. Often opinions that differ from your own, stick in your craw. You can take on board other's opinions, thoughts and suggestions. But in the end, the decision is yours. I have for the past 5 or so years, tried to keep my cynicism at bay. It's a difficult path. It's much easier to have a blanket response to everything, cover up the quirks of existence with a dark cloth of ignorance or impatience. What I attempt (and am not always successful with) is to try look at things on a case by case basis. This can take time and patience and will sometimes mean 'life' passes in front of you. The life that passes though will often be one of 'instant opinions', superficial glances, a Wikipedia world.

I do like the fact that the Internet is fast and we can get information instantly. I like advances in technology and I use it regularly. I like a life of easy access, virtual communication. But it's not the be-all, end-all and it's not that faster = better. I would subscribe in many ways to the opinions of 'The Long Now'.

So to close the rant...I think it's important to look at all sides if you can, take on board things where you can and where you think it's relevant, but ultimately it's up to you.

I was honoured to be part of the 6a/Amplified Sound Art showcase on Friday, July 17 and was in awesome company.
My project mumble(speak) performed along with Soundtracks Will Dissolve, Cycle, Matt Neidra and Scot/Andrew. It was a cool mix of sounds and I was able to also launch the second mumble(speak) studio album "having learnt a few things about people".

Part 2 of the 6a/Amplifed Sound Art showcase was again something I was happy to be asked to be the featured artist. This one-night only event was called 'Haunted Micro Voices' and was located at the abandoned Battery beneath Princes Park in Battery Point. The space, full of it's own mood and connotations was installed with 3 surround sound elements, one of which was recorded site specifically,

some dim lights and fog. The space itself did the work, I just amplified (pun intended) the mood. Not that it was an easy work to create and install, but the challenges were worth it. We had close to 180 people through during the 3 hours it was open, a steady drove of folks, some who came specifically for the work, others curious about the space (you can actually visit the battery if you take a Hobart Ghost Tour) and a combination of the two. I was very happy with the final work and the responses.
Below is a 'walk through' recording of the sounds in the various rooms with some images.

Thanks 6a, Andrew, Amplified and especially to Tricky who re-worked the posters and took some fantastic images.

Upcoming:
On August 29 as DJ Broken Tiny, I will be performing a set at 'Brand New Second Hand', Ben Crothers (aka DJ BTC) monthly DJ nights at The Brisbane Hotel. The theme for the evening is 'Europe' so I will be playing a set containing Krautrock, other Euro-prog and electronics. Should be fun.

I'm currently co-organising a show in late September called 'Black Sunday' presented by Sound Klub, an evening of experi-metal and dark drones. More details as it comes to hand.

And just to end with, Brian Wilson - 'Surf's Up (demo)'.

Take care of each other.

The ground running (June 16, 2009)

2009-06-16T05:06:00.000-07:00

Seeing many places, faces, hearing many voices, noises.
Hitting the ground running and trying to catch up.
Wondering where the politeness, basic respect and common sense has gone.
Trying to be patient with those who are trying and those that try me.
New beginnings, a different outlook and some new letters.
On the look out for those things that touch the innocent side of us that is always there,
but isn't accessed enough.
There is something important to be said...

TRIAD tour
Well that was an experience. Getting to play this kind of experimental, improvised
music throughout the country with two of the nicest and talented blokes around was a pleasure. The first leg in Tasmania was a nice start, the gig and workshop in Devonport (Tom's hometown) went well, the response was positive and the folks at the gallery are great to work with. Thanks Ellie and co.

The show at our co-sponsors Inflight in Hobart was also great, nice to play with
Soundtracks Will Dissolve as well, they were great as per!

Onto the mainland leg. My fear of flying was kept at bay and it all ran fairly
smoothly apart from a couple of hiccups.

First Melbourne show that The Make It Up Club @ Bar Open was fun.
Listening back to the recording there was lots of meandering on our part,
but some nice moments emerged.

On before us was an incredible set of power electronics by Absoluten Calfeutrail followed by a free jazz odyssey by Jeff Henderson, Kris Wanders, Rory Brown, Mike Majkowski, Sean Baxter and Robbie Avenaim. Highlight was the guy in the loud shirt and the frizzy hair doing the 'Warlock' dance during that set. Awesome!
Just minutes away from show time at the wonderful 'Stutter' at Horse Bazaar in Melbourne, the 1st hiccup, we got word that our first show in Sydney had been cancelled, or rather it perhaps had never been booked, still not sure what happened there. Also the second hiccup, my laptop up and died literally moments before we started. So for me it was guitar through analogue effects and a bit of angst for this show, seemed to go over okay.

The cancelled show in Sydney meant that we had a day off to do a bit of a photo session and some field recording/improvised open air performing around Circular Quay and Hyde Park. These may well become something in the future.

Our only performed Sydney show was at the Don't Look Gallery in Dulwich Hill, a great little place run by the ever friendly Greg and we got to play on a bill with Seaworthy who did a great set. Tom opened with a solo spot too. Got to catch up with old mate Felix, ex-Conductor guy Cy and met Jo from Sound Travellers (our main sponsor) which was all very cool.

Next show was in Perth. I was pretty nervous before this one, not sure why. Possibly because it's the first time I'd been to Perth, let alone perform there. Listening back it turned out to be what I think was our best, most consistent performance of the tour. Got to meet the great Cat Hope (sub-dronester!) and her partner and got to hang out with dear old buddies Susie, Dale and their daughter Charlotte.

Final show in Brisbane was a hoot! Being that it was the last the show and Tom's current base we thought we'd try something a little different. Let's just say that some of the metal in our blood made it's way out. Here is a positive and not so positive response.

There are some images, videos and sounds from the tour up on the TRIAD myspace page that will give you are sense of what went on. We would like to thank Sound Travellers and Inflight for your support. All the folks we stayed with and who came to the shows, all the people we played with, (it was great to see/hear such a superb and varied bunch) and especially the great supportive venues and bookers!
Thank you all it was great! There's a few 'possibles' for TRIAD in the future, but it's too soon to say anything yet. Stay tuned.

There is one last live thing to mention and that was a mumble(speak) set at Tom's place for his monthly 'Sonic Boom' night. It was initially due to be a Broken Tiny set, but due to my laptop being unwell, I was basically beat-less and re-worked the set to be mumbly! It was a very short doomy/drone set because it was shut down by the police (though I don't think the mumble set prompted this). Go to the mumble(speak) myspace page to hear the set and read about it.

As it happens Scot and I performed a short DÜO doom set afterwards (at lower volume)...such rebels!!!

So is that kind of racket, befitting of someone with a D and an R before his name should he choose to place it there? Perhaps there should be more PhD folks making doomy noises with guitars! Perhaps I should be worrying less about who should be doing what! Yes the degree is done and I'm through without a hitch or corrections to the paper which was a very pleasant and large surprise. I have a reasonable head on my shoulders, but I would find it very difficult to consider myself an academic. I work very hard at what I do.

The tour ended and I essentially hit the ground running back in Hobart. The very next day I was back teaching at the artschool, (albeit as a fill-in for someone else) and a day after that back to my regular gig in Emedia. An artschool is an interesting and rewarding place to work in many ways. It can be quite moving to see someone's practice evolve and feel that one little suggestion or pointer you gave may have helped in some way. But a question that comes up for me is "Can some things be taught?" "Are there some things that are simply known or felt?" Ticking the 'right' boxes for assessment purposes are a necessary administrative element of being a student at the artschool, but it's not what makes art (good bad or indifferent). I would always consider what I do as facilitating rather than teaching. I've seen a few things, I know a few things, I've made a few things. I can give advice, but I don't think I can teach someone to be creative. I sometimes wonder how people find themselves at an artschool. I found myself there, it wasn't planned from my childhood, but it was meant to be I think. I'll say nothing more other than patience is a virtue, I need to remember that, so do students. Art is not and perhaps should not be easy!

So it seems, Australia is swamped with Swine Flu. I must say I was surprised at the number of cases that seemed to be confirmed. Now of course I suspect that the suggestion of covering your face will not do a whole lot of good in preventing you contracting the illness. However, outside of this or any other flu, what I do find alarming is that apparently people need to be told by the government that they should cover their mouths when coughing or their noses when sneezing! For crying out loud this is not playschool. Surely that's common sense regardless. I'm not a snob who is overtly concerned with good manners, but I don't want someone's snot flying at me anytime.

A couple of blog posts ago I pointed out my aversion to censorship. It is was bought to the surface for a lot of people recently with the Bill Henson affair and also the Internet filtering proposal put forward. I have in the past been fairly vocal about censorship, going back to John Howard's notion that a blanket ban on all 'R' rated movies would have prevented the Port Arthur Massacre. A letter to the paper that was published setting out my point of view may not seem like much of a stand, but perhaps it got people talking. Perhaps something more visible would be a public protest, something that will be happening in Hobart tomorrow afternoon following the ABC (apparently the more progressive TV station) sacking of Amanda Duthie (the Head of Arts, Entertainment and Comedy) supposedly as a result of allowing the sketch by "comedy" troupe 'The Chaser' (yes I deliberately and snottily placed quote marks around the word comedy) that was controversial and caused a bit of a public outcry. I believe The Chaser's show 'The Chaser's War On Everything' has been taken off the air for a couple of weeks too.
This puts me in a bit of a bind I must say. I couldn't care less if we didn't see The Chaser on TV ever again. I personally think they are smarmy little gits, courting controversy for the sake of it (rather than wittily presenting an alternative view) who I basically don't think are funny. However, and its a big however, my own conscience tells me that censoring them via removal is not right, nor is the sacking of someone trying not to stifle someone else's "artistic integrity" (there I am being snotty again) by approving a sketch to air. It's a tough one, because I hate the little brats, but I want them around so others can love them and hate them too.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,"
- Evelyn Beatrice Hall 1906, referencing the beliefs of Voltaire.

More info on the Chaser stuff.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25619891-26103,00.html
http://wotnews.com.au/news/Amanda_Duthie/

I recently exhibited in the group show "Lust For Life" curated by Lucy Bleach at CAST gallery in North Hobart with my work Exhalation 2009

The group show 'Parallel' I've mentioned in previous post continues to tour and is currently at the Gippsland Art Gallery in Sale until July 12.

Upcoming projects: I will be part of this years 'Amplified' festival in conjunction with 6a ARI, presenting a very interesting incarnation of three of my recent sound works. They will be presented in an underground battery in Princes Park, Battery Point on Saturday July 17.

mumble(speak) is also due to perform and launch a new CD the night before.

We have lived in the same house for 8 years, ever since arriving back in Australia after living in Canada from 1999 - 2001. That's a bit of a record for me I think. I moved around a lot when I was a kid and since living in Hobart, residencies didn't last much longer that 2 or 3 years. Due to various circumstances we are moving again and although it's a big process, it will be worth it. It is very much time for a change.

Take care of one and other.

RIP - Hugh Hopper

Listening: Harmonia - "Musik Von Harmonia" (1974), AFX - "Analogue Bubblebath" (1994), Jandek - "Telegraph Melts" (1986), LULL - "Like A Slow River" (2008)
Watching: "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" (Dir: Sydney Pollack 1969)
Reading: Franz Kafka - " The Zürau Aphorisms" (1918/2006)

On the road (April 26, 2009)

2009-04-27T18:20:00.000-07:00

Eyes and ears open. Looking and listening. Deadlines getting closer. No complaints other than wishing for more hours in the day. Re-learning all about collaboration. This is mainly down to listening and then deliberating, this can take a split second or glorious minutes of silence. Then a sound can be made. There is something important to be said.

Still no word on my results for my degree. But I have been told that it can take some time. Will get back to you on that.

So some music project news; mumble(speak) - A new full length studio based album/CD has pretty much been finished. It will likely be called " 2 - having learnt a few things about people". I'm looking at doing some kind of launch/live gig later in the year.

Broken Tiny performed live for the first time since August 2006 at the Glitchfest in Esperence on April 5th.
Although I was on fairly early in the day, the response was quite good. I'm looking at
evolving the sound of this project to be more about power electronics and distortions and less
about beats, but we'll see. At the end of our TRIAD run (see below), I will be performing as
Broken Tiny at Tom Hall's Sonic Boom in New Farm, Queensland on May 10.

The metal/drone thing I do with Scot Cotterell (TRIAD/User/Evil Goat)
called DÜO also performed at Glitchfest. It was great to fill the forest
and the hills with slabs of distorted guitar.

M.0.1.0 (the duo with Aaron Metcalf) have launched our Myspace page
with some tunes and more info of upcoming activities coming soon.
http://www.myspace.com/machinesoio

As I write, the first Australian TRIAD tour has started, with two gigs
having taken place, one at Devonport Regional Gallery (in the North
of the state and including a workshop) and at Hobart's Inflight ARI
(who are also helping with sponsoring the tour). Thanks to all who
have come so far, they've been great. The rest of the tour is as follows:

04/28/2009 07:00 PM - Make it Up Club - Bar Open 317 Brunswick Street,
Fitzroy, Melbourne, VIC
Cost:$10/$5 www.makeitupclub.com.au

04/29/2009 08:30 PM - Stutter - Horse Bazaar 397 Little Lonsdale Street,
Melbourne, VIC
Cost:$7/$5 conc www.myspace.com/stuttermelb

05/01/2009 08:00 PM - Sedition 275 Victoria St, Darlinghurst,
Sydney, NSW

05/02/2009 07:00 PM - Don’t Look Gallery 419 New Canterbury Rd,
Dulwich Hill, Sydney, NSW
Cost:$15/$10 www.myspace.com/dontlookgallery

05/05/2009 08:00 PM - Club Zho, presented by TURA New Music.
The Ellington Jazz Club, 191 Beaufort Street,
Perth, WA. Cost:$15/$10 www.tura.com.au

05/09/2009 08:00 PM - The Step Inn, 186 Brunswick St,
Brisbane, QLD.
www.stepinn.com.au

Whilst I'm away on tour I will be exhibiting a new installed video version
of the (planned) yearly performance called 'Exhalation 2009'. It is part of
a group exhibition called 'Lust For Life' at CAST in North Hobart and
curated by Lucy Bleach. I won't be in Hobart for the opening (which is on
May 1st at 6:00pm) and after a preliminary install, the final setup will be
undertaken by the ever-lovely Ms Rees (who has a new blog dontcha know).
I will be back in time for the artist's talk (24th?) and get to see it installed at that point.
Check it out.

For those interested, I'm using the networking site Twitter for an ongoing
online poetic work. Essentially I aim to present a personal objective every
day in place of the 'Today I feel a little sad' or 'had a great cup of coffee today'
kind of messages. I know some folks find Twitter a little silly and pointless
and of course it can be, I kinda thought this myself. But you are able to make
use of the Internet in ways other than chatting up people, web stalking, posting
images of drunken hi-jinks and so forth. Anyway if you want to check it out it's
called 'Web Objectives' and can be found at :
http://www.twitter.com/Matt_D_Warren

Okay well, that's about it for now, hope to see you on tour somewhere.
Take care of each other.

Fallout - March 15, 2009

2009-03-15T03:39:00.000-07:00

After a long project, the end brings a change in focus. Trying to fill the newly formed space. In the back of my mind I know it's still there, but I won't fall in. This happens to others too and it's happened to me before. It's okay. Empty space should be seen as a positive, not a negative. Listen to silences between Miles' notes, the spaces between Jaki's beats and lack of concreteness of Lynch's narratives. Where there are gaps, there are places to enter.
There is something important to be said.

So the bulk of the 3 year degree is done. I say, the bulk is over, because I haven't got my results as yet and chances are I will have some corrections to do. However until then it's over. I handed in a 21,000 word paper and most importantly got to see my body of work in totality. The nature of my work often mean that a piece is not really complete until it's set up in the exhibition space, let alone a group of time-based media works. Once it was all set up I was able to see it as a pretty solid collection of works. Of course you will always see something that you think could've been improved on, but at some point you have to let it go.
The work was open to the public for 2 and a half days and I must say I was overwhelmed by the positive responses to the show. So much so that banalities such as "Thank you" were all I could muster for the most part. I'm touched that so many people were touched by the work and ultimately this is what I hope my work does. And it seems like it did. I'm very glad.
Here are some images of the installed works.

Top to bottom:
Gallery signage
Stimmung Ton (sound collection listening stations)
Run Out Groove (communique) (text on perspex with soundtrack)
Until We Sleep (sound and video installation)
Portal Lux Aeterna (after Ligeti) (surround sound and video installation)
Whitepinkblack Noise (video and sound installation)
Cantus 35 (surround sound installation - gallery installed version)
In Haunted Attics (surround sound, video and fog installation)

'Limbic' in Sydney's "Mop Project" space has happened, yet to hear of responses, positive or negative, but looks like a nice space and the works looked good in there.

The lovely Sally Rees' "In Stereo (where available)" is also over and was great, I'm very proud. Here's a link to her blog mentioning the show.

Damo Suzuki's Network show happened on February 26. Was enjoyable to play and I hope those who attended enjoyed it as well. As I expected and hoped, it was pretty different to the last Hobart show. A word that keeps coming to mind is 'sinewy'. Thank you very much to my fellow Sound Carriers; Scot Cotterell, Leigh Hobba, Tim Panaretos, Lisa Rime and Julian Teakle. Thanks must also go to Paint Your Golden Face, Brian Ritchie and the Brisbane for hosting the gig. I've yet to master the recording I have, but I've located the following documentation online.

Still images: Simon Stanton

Youtube link 1
Youtube link 2
Youtube link 3

Now the degree is over I plan on producing more music, both live and recordings.
mumble(speak) is still a going concern and am getting closer to completing a new body of songs that will form a new indie CD release.

Over the last year or so only minimal work has taken place within the Broken Tiny project. However I've begun working on it again recently, specifically because the first live performance of BT since August 2006 will be taking place during 'Glitchfest' on the 4th and 5th of April. Not sure what time or day yet, but I'm looking forward to presenting some sub bass, distorted dubby beats and power electronics to an audience.

Also playing at the same festival will be the improvised drone/doom guitar project I have with Scot Cotterell called DÜO. Again I don't know full detail of when, but I'm sure it will be announced via their site.

The duo with Aaron Metcalf known as M.0.1.0 (Machines Of Indeterminate Origin) is getting closer to announcing something...stay tuned.

No change in the TRIAD itinerary at this stage, but confirmations are due very soon.

I am to be part of a group exhibition called 'Lust For Life' at CAST gallery in May. The show is co-ordinated by Lucy Bleach and I will likely to be presenting an installed documentation of a new version of 'Exhalation', the ongoing sound performance work. More details soon.

That's it for now, thanks for checking in and be good to each other.

P.S. My buddy Neil and I (a couple of geeks) tried a test of duration and attempted to watch the 10 "Friday The 13th" films chronologically without falling asleep. We did it for the most part too. Here's time lapse proof with sound culled from an hourly report of onscreen action.

Time-based Poetic Faith

2009-01-31T22:37:00.000-08:00

There seems to be different speeds of time, moving concurrently. Things seem to happen at different periods and yet simultaneously.
Ryk: "Goodness! Is that the time?"
Mike: "Time is an abstract concept, that's a wristwatch"
There is something Important to be said...

So when things are happening to you, for you, by you and with you, that are positive in some way, the speed in which you perceive them to be happening can be quite fast. A blink of an eye. If life has bought with it unfortunate or negative circumstances, 2 months in a funk may feel like 2 years. Yet these coexist in a real duration. We feel them differently. Sometimes the sense of an impending deadline will feel like an increasing portent minute to minute.

I began my current degree in February 2006. Just prior to that I spent a slow sometimes difficult month on a residency. Whilst on that residency I began work on a daily ritual of 'blind drawing' a self portrait. At the end of 2006 I ended up with 365 drawings. Yet when I animated them frame by frame the duration was about 14 seconds. During the past three years many good and bad things have happened, sometimes at the same time. So that in itself confuses your own sense, your own perception of when things have happened, or rather, how long they took to happen.

Through the whole three years I was undertaking research for my degree. Of course it's hard to ascertain when research ends and life begins, it's too intertwined with what I do. But certainly out of the portents of the last month, the main one that's been like an ever brightening beacon has been the conclusion of the PhD. I start setting up the works and hand in the paper on February 10 for about a week and then there is the examination period. Then it's open to the public for 2 and half days.

Suspension of Disbelief – the representation of poetic faith through time-based media
A PhD submission by Matt Warren

"In this idea originated the plan of the 'Lyrical Ballads'; in which it was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Biographia Literaria. Vol 2. Chapter XIV. 1847.

The outcome of this research project is a submission made up of a body of work and supporting exegesis in which I have investigated how one may best represent the concept of “poetic faith” using time-based media. Open to the public from: 5:30pm - Friday Feb 20, 2009 Open - 12:00-5:00pm Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 February, 2009 Plimsoll Gallery, Centre for the Arts. Hunter Street, Hobart. Tasmania.

Works:

'Cantus 35' - surround sound installation (re-interpretation of work from 'Port Arthur Project' 2007)

'In Haunted Attics' - surround and video installation (2007/2008)

'Portal Lux Aeterna (after Ligeti)' - surround and video installation (2007/2008)

'Run Out Groove (communiqué)' - sound and text on perspex (2006) (Images by Colin Langridge)

'Until We Sleep' - video and sound installation (2007/2008)

'Whitepinkblack Noise' - video and surround sound installation (2007/2008)

'Stimmung Ton' - collection of 9 sound works (2006-2008) - listening stations.

Even though this has been my main area of concentration, a couple of other things are due to happen just prior to this:
Limbic (see previous blog) in Sydney opens on February 5th at MOP Projects, Sydney.

In Stereo (where available) a solo exhibition by Sally Rees, opens on February 6 at the Burnie Regional Gallery, Burnie Tasmania. Why am I mentioning it here? Well in case you don't know, I'm lucky enough to be Ms Rees' partner and think y'all should see it.

So it's now official and has been for a while; Damo Suzuki is returning to Tasmania for a show at Hobart's Brisbane Hotel on Thursday February 26, with the kick off around 8:00pm.

His sound carriers will be Scot Cotterell (electronics), Leigh Hobba (sax), Tim Panaretos (bouzouki), Lisa Rime (bass), Julian Teakle (guitar) and myself; Matt Warren (drums).

Special guests will be

Brian Ritchie-Shakuhachi
Paint Your Golden Face.

$15.00.
Come one, come all, should be great evening of instant composition.

The TRIAD tour is coming along. As more spots get confirmed I will post them here or on the myspace space (see links). Thus far we are doing the follow (with some TBCs included):

TRIAD- Australian Tour 2009.
April 23 - Devonport Regional Gallery, Devonport TAS www.devonportgallery.com
April 24 - Inflight ARI, Hobart TAS www.inflightart.com.au
April 28 - Make It Up Club, Bar Open, Fitzroy, Melbourne, VIC www.makeitupclub.com.au
April 29 - Stutter, Horse Bazaar, Melbourne, VIC www.myspace.com/stuttermelb
May 1 - Sedition, Darlinghurst, Sydney, NSW Phone: (02) 93318832 Address: 275 Victoria St, Darlinghurst NSW 2010

May 2 - Don't Look Gallery, Sydney, NSW www.myspace.com/dontlookgallery
May 4 - TURA New Music Festival, Perth, WA - TBC www.tura.com.au
May 7 - Ric's Bar, Brisbane, QLD - TBC www.ricsbar.com.au
May 9 - Overambition #4, Brisbane, QLD - TBC
May 10 - Sonic Boom #3, New Farm, Brisbane, QLD www.tomhall.com.au

This project is supported by Sound Travellers, an initiative from the Australia Council, the Australian Government's arts funding and advisory body.

. Okay that's it for now. Look after each other.

Refresh

2009-01-01T19:41:00.000-08:00

Here's hoping this new year is an improvement over the last.
As good as some parts were, other parts were supremely bad, not just for me, but for some near and dear and some folks I don't even know.
Unfortunate things, some things a crying shame. However, this a new time.
Miring in what has gone brings no joy or relief. Nor does these greeting card-like sentiments.
Getting on with it and trying to make things that are good, that is what keeps one going.
There is something important to be said.

My new years resolutions are my own, you don't need to hear them. And besides I seemingly make and break them daily! The list would be too long.
Upcoming this year;

Jan 9 - Feb 1
Not my work, but my mate and musical collaborator Scot Cotterell is creating an installation piece called 'The Fall' at Kelly's Garden at Salamanca Arts Centre for the MONA FOMA festival. I mention this because the video component is a live performance, shot for the work of my duo (with fellow former Bodies Drawn Backwards guitarist Aaron Metcalf) called M.O.I.O performing a song called 'The Hunt'. This will mark the public debut of this project that has been bubbling along behind closed doors for about a year now. Live debuts planned for later in the year. Should be an interesting work!

February 5-22
I'm in a group exhibition called "Limbic" (artists responses to the painting 'The Origin of the World' by Gustave Courbet -1866) at MOP Projects in Sydney. The show is curated by Victor Medrano and is part of an exchange program by Inflight ARI.

February 6.
My other half has a solo show at Burnie Regional Gallery in the state's North West that opens on February 6. The show is called "In Stereo"

Feb 20 - 22.
I'm soon to wrap up (if I can stop procrastinating with blogging) my PhD degree project titled:
Suspension of Disbelief – the representation of poetic faith through time-based media.
I'm currently in the process of rewriting the accompanying paper into the second draft, then the third etc. The artworks (5 installation works and an audio collection listening station) I plan to show will be open to the public from the evening (not sure of time yet) on Friday February 20 until 5:00pm Sunday 22nd of February. Yep just 3 days to show 3 years work and research...
Opening night I hope to show a collection of support works as well, which is to include the participatory performance/ritual work "Ritual 5: Watch The Skies". Stay tuned for more details.

Late February;
I'm working on a live gig, but nothing is set in stone yet so I won't say anything other than it's potentially the return of a performer who quite a few folks enjoyed in February 2008. Again stay tuned.

April 23 - May 10:
My electronic/improvisational trio TRIAD will be touring throughout the country.

Full itinerary posted soon.

More soon. That's it for now, may this new year be a good one for you and me.

Listening: JESU 'Heartache' EP (2004)
Watching: 'Lord of the Flies' Directed by Peter Brook (1963)
Reading: 'Tearing Down the Wall of Sound - The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector' by Mick Brown (2007)

Life's what happens...

2008-12-06T18:27:00.000-08:00

...when you're busy making other plans.
Faces and places from another time.
I am not pretending to be someone else, I am a different person.
But every so often I see a faint thread from where I came.
I am not afraid, but I seem to view it from a distance
and the voices cluster and reverberate
like they are spoken in a large room.
There is something important to be said.

Tidal '08 opened on Friday night (Dec 5) at Devonport Regional Gallery. I am one of 21 finalists in this art prize competition. I am in pretty good company (which includes the ever-lovely Ms Rees) and is a nice collection of works. Strangely there are 3 video works in the show and had I been aware that video was allowed I may well have contributed a video work, being that its what I do. Still, this gave me the opportunity to produce something that is a little unusual for me. So despite my initial surprise at seeing video works, I'm pretty happy that I was afforded the opportunity to go 2D. As it happens I contributed a digital print on canvas, based on video stills, a kind of 'capturing a point in time' piece called "Whitepinkblack Noise (moment)". Oh by the way for those curious, the work relates to the theme of tides, by the fact that my imagery includes that of the moon...okay K.H?

Photo by Sally Rees

It was an interesting opening as I chatted to a number of people from my past, being that I was back up in that general neck of the woods. One does tend to change over time, but you don't always realise it because you live and breath in your own mind and body. Seeing folks and talking to them, allows you to see faint threads of your past, somehow feeling connected to a previous time and place and yet viewing it from a distance like an onlooker. People change for the good, bad and indifferent, I'm not sure where I sit with those three options. As I've been dealing with conclusions of late (finishing the first draft of a thesis outlining three years of research) I have been thinking of personal change and evolution. There is a realisation that people I once knew and were close to, I no longer know, or perhaps never really knew. It's a little sad I suppose, but not entirely unexpected when one is objective about it.

2008 has been an odd kind of year, full of highs and lows and now it's coming to a close I'm trying to draw conclusions and some of them just won't come. "Life's what happens when you're busy making other plans" is a quote from John Lennon, (but embarrassingly I first heard it via Gene Simmons!) and it rings true when compressing three years of life (research and everyday life are not often mutually exclusive) into a paper. This is not an end, it's a moment, so it's difficult to conclude, especially considering that I hope that everything I do, someone will draw there own meaning from. It's not up to me, I put a little piece out there. There is something important to be said, but I'm not going to say it.

Witnessing the local Mike Parr performance/exhibition "The Tilted Stage", reinforced my already held opinion, that we should sometimes look at things that are difficult and sometimes things of great beauty can be seen or profound thoughts or ideas can be felt. I was profoundly moved by seeing Parr's live performance and very glad I did. But I'm fully aware that his work is not for everyone, but I have always been an advocate of free speech. "I may not like or agree with what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it". (Not John Lennon or Gene Simmons!)

The reason I bring this up is because of this ongoing 'clean feed' idea that the Australian Federal Government via Stephen Conroy keeps pushing. I have been an anti-censorship advocate for a long time. And without being preachy have tried to do my own small part in fighting it, going back to getting hold of PMRC literature back in the late 1980s to keep track of what that nasty Tipper Gore was up to in the US or getting an anonymous argumentative phonecall from someone after I wrote an anti-film censorship letter that was published in the local paper prompted by John Howard deciding he wanted to put a blanket ban on ALL 'R' rated films following the Port Arthur Massacre. Admittedly, there are things shown or spoken in the arts, in film, music and the media in general that are difficult to defend, however hiding heads in the sand eliminates informed debate. So let's hope Mr Rudd doesn't follow in Howard's footsteps and like a good little dictator, ignores public condemnation of a deeply flawed plan (don't mention the war[s]!) There are two bodies looking at fighting this by online petitions and other information is available. If you disagree with a mandatory clean feed for the net into Australia, let the Government know by signing up and/or attending a protest.

My experimental, improvised electronic trio TRIAD have just received some funding from Sound Travellers

TRIAD Tour announcement! (Nov 28, 2008) We are now able to happily announce that TRIAD will be undertaking a short tour in April/May 2009, thanks to the support of SOUND TRAVELLERS. The plan thus far is to play in Devonport, Launceston, Hobart, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Perth and Brisbane. When dates and venues are firmly set, we will post all details.
TRIAD
Sound Travellers

In closing; people are saying we are currently in troubled times. That may well be the case. It would be difficult to point to a time and place when we weren't in troubled times. So what I'm suggesting now is not just escapism, but may be a form of divinity! I'm sure he wasn't the first to suggest it, but Brian Wilson said that when you are laughing all your guards are dropped and at that moment you may have a chance to be closer to God. Well he was going through a rough time, a period of oddness shall we say, but it sounds kinda sane to me. There are not many periods of time in my life when the lord of sublime silliness Kenny Everett is not in my consciousness and in moments of great stress or despair, the messiah brings relief. There are free downloadable podcasts of his ridiculous radio space drama Captain Kremmen available

Go have a chuckle at something and feel better.
Take care of each other.

Pay attention

2008-11-01T17:03:00.000-07:00

Through the Portal - October 17, 2008

2008-10-16T23:00:00.000-07:00

Retracing my steps of the last few years,
Hearing voices scattered amongst the coloured noise,
Green is particularly potent,
So is the sound of the rivulet.
Time to make decisions, time for full stops and to tell my truth.
There is something important to be said...

The group exhibition "Parallel" mentioned a little while back is touring until mid 2010, which is great. Unless I travelled with it and installed it each time, resizing the video etc, the installation I created Portal Lux Aeterna (after Ligeti) was nigh on impossible to tour, which is not great. I couldn't think of a way to instruct gallery attendants to install the work, so had to re-think the work. Portal Lux Aeterna (after Ligeti) v.2 is a miniaturised version, more literally a 'portal' to look into a box that houses the light and sound.

Looking into the hole in the box (designed and built by myself and Ms Rees) and putting on the headphones, one will see and hear this (and more).

I'm glad I was able to come up with a solution and very grateful to Sally for her tremendous help in realizing this solution. I hope the 'piggy box' survives the journey. The final showing in the tour which is likely to be in Victoria, I will hopefully install v.1, but in the meantime, this is a nice variation.

I performed the final Ritual 5 : Watch the Skies 'ritual' on 08/08/08 and have since completed a single channel version of the work. Since the closure of my original website, I won't be posting the full videos of the other participants online due to protection of privacy and ownership issues. It will however form part of my support work for my degree. Thanks to all who contributed. See above a still of the configuration. Below is an excerpt from the 'Last Time' ritual.

I've mainly been beavering away with my degree, trying to complete works that are in various states of being and writing things, so other than the touring show there are no major shows coming up as I've tried to not over commit myself. Music has been produced here are there though:

As for mumble(speak), there are a few in-progress excerpts up at:
http://www.myspace.com/mumblespeak

Also my sometimes active beat/bass driven project Broken Tiny has a couple of noisy things up at:
http://www.myspace.com/brokentiny

They've been up for a while, but there's some excerpts from live recordings and some video of the last two TRIAD shows in August. We are likely to be playing at the Tom Hall show opening at Inflight ARI in November. Hopefully more shows elsewhere in the near future.

That's it for now, be good to one and other.
Peace.

Listening: Lull & BetaCloud - " Circadian Rhythm Disturbance " 3 " CD (2008),
King Tubby's meets "Scientist at Dub Station" (1996)
Watching: "Lynch (one)" documentary directed by blackAndwhite (2007)
Reading: "White Noise" catalogue essays by Ernest Edmonds, Patricia Railing, Cindy Keefer, Lev Manovich and Mike Stubbs. (2005)

Voices From...Sept 11, 2008

2008-09-10T20:03:00.000-07:00

A vow of silence, I will not speak of it. I wrote a bunch of other stuff, but threw it away as it sounded like a bunch of bad teenage angst poetry. I've been there before, troubled, who need to hear it? If some angst falls in the woods...etc. I sometimes think my greatest contribution to the world would be silence as there's already too much noise. I'd like to repeat the mantra into oblivion, but I've forgotten the words. Oh wait...
There's something important to be said
(there, that's better)

Speaking of noise, I recently completed a sound project called Voices From. Here's an excerpt with images of the recording process - field recordings of pre-recorded content, in the Queen's Domain, Hobart. Images by Sally Rees.

Take care of one and other.

Listening: "Logghi Barogghi" - Scorn (1996)
Watching: "Not Quite Hollywood" Directed by Mark Hartley (2008)
Reading: "Profondo Argento" - Alan Jones (2005) and "Manfesto of Surrealism" - Andre Breton (1924)

2008-08-07T20:18:00.000-07:00

Scelsi's signature.

Today (in the Southern Hemisphere) 08/08/08 marks the 20th anniversay of the death of Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi. I'm reasonably new to his work, but upon hearing it and learning about him, I was instantly attracted to his sound world, his process and his approach to life.
I dedicate tonight's "Last Time" performance of 'Ritual 5: Watch the Skies' to him.
Scelsi Foundation Site.

BTW: The 'Parallel' exhibition is now open to the public with an official opening on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 at 6:00pm. It's a great show that I'm very proud to be in.
So too is 'iPaws', in great company and in a cool spot at Lucky's Comics in Vancouver, Canada. Only wish I could get over and see it.
Note: The second TRIAD gig due on Aug 23 at The Alley Cat Bar is cancelled due to issues beyond our control. We are looking at moving to another venue, but nothing confirmable yet.

Suspension of Disbelief

2008-07-27T03:56:00.000-07:00

Actions of the present make it difficult to remember the past fondly and vice versa.
All actions have a consequence. But I hope it's going well for you.
Steam is rising from my mouth when I wake up in the morning. There's some snow on the mountain in more ways than one.
Would like to show an absent friend all the things he would like and what he was waiting for.
Existing in a place between faith and rationality, reveling in the unknowable,
wondering if the pilgrims found what they came to find. Suspecting more can be found by standing in a field and screaming at the sky.
There is something important to be said.

An eventful month coming up;
"iPAWS" (International Psychic Amateurs Work Study)
a group exhibition curated by Jo Cook
At Lucky's Comics, Vancouver, Canada, Aug 3-30, 2008.
I'm showing a couple of prints based on video stills. See Link.

"Parallel" - a group exhibition curated by Brigita Ozolins
At the Long Gallery, Salamanca Art Centre, Hobart, Australia.
Open to the public from Tuesday, August 5 - 31, 2008.
Official opening - 6:00pm Tuesday; August 12, 2008.
I'm showing a video and sound installation called "Portal Lux Aeterna"

Also during the run of "Parallel" I will performing the final of "Ritual 5 : Watch the Skies" at Salamanca Place gardens at 8:00pm August 8, 2008 (08/08/08).I will later complete and present a video work based on the submissions of this international 'ritual' performance.
For those on Facebook you can go to the group at:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19555680292
For those on Virb you can go to the group at:
http://www.virb.com/groups/61484995

Incidently this final ritual date coincides with the 20th anniversary of the death of composer Giacinto Scelsi, someone whose music and biography means a lot to me. I dedicate this final ritual to him. More info.

The experimental, electronic improv trio I am part of with Scot Cotterell and Tom Hall will be doing two shows; the first one loud, the second one quiet.

TRIAD @ Myspace

Hope to see you at one or more of these events.
Be good to each other.
MW

Listening: Manic Street Preachers - "Everything Must Go" (1996), Bloodrock - "Bloodrock 2" (1971), Hawkwind - "PXR5" (1979), Captain Beefheart - "The Spotlight Kid" (1972).
Reading: The Surrealist Manifestos - André Breton
Watching: "Evilenko" (Directed by David Grieco 2004), "Dr Mabuse the Gambler" (Fritz Lang 1922)

Exploitative headline

2008-07-17T00:35:00.000-07:00

"Nude girl magazine gets M classification"

That's some class right there...
I guess we should be pleased that this issue of Art Monthly Australia will be available rather than restricted. But I do find it rather interesting that it has an M rating and I quote the article;
"The M rating means the magazine is not recommended for readers under 15 years of age."
That's all well and good...wasn't it dirty old men getting hold of this stuff that was the problem?

Link to online article

Archive of videos (documentation, excerpts and promo)

2008-07-02T21:26:00.000-07:00

The Angels are Coming (2004/2005)
Video and sound installation as it appeared at Burnie Regional Gallery, Burnie Tasmania.
Dec 2007 - Jan 2008

Apparently Nothing (part 2) (2006)
Performance installation collaboration with Deborah Pollard
as it appeared at Inflight A.R.I, Hobart, Tasmania. Nov 2006

Cantus 35 (2007) excerpts
A surround-sound, public artwork as it appeared in
'The Port Arthur Project' for 10 Days on the Island festival.
Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasmania. March/April 2007

Channel (2006/2007) excerpt
A single channel video and sound work.

Countdown (2004/2005) excerpt
Video and sound for single or triple channel projection.

Nocturnal (2005) documentation
Outdoor sound and video installation by ReesVellaWarren. Kelly's Garden, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart, Tasmania. 2005

Provocation (Federation Square video version) 2006/2007 condensed.
Text work as seen on video screen, Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia.
August 2007

Whitepinkblack Noise 2007/2008 promo video

Whitepinkblack Noise 2007/2008 documentation
Video and surround sound installation (in progress) as seen
at Entrepot Lounge Gallery, Centre for the Arts, Hobart, Tasmania
February 2008

All roads now lead here...

2008-07-02T04:43:00.000-07:00

This is my new site for updates/info on my art projects and blogs. I'll continue to have info on my music projects over at Matt Warren Muzik and the specific project spaces.

mumble(speak)
TRIAD (stay tuned for gigs in Hobart, late August)
Broken Tiny
TIMEOFFICE (archive only)

I'm pretty much in degree-mode at the moment, but I do have a few things coming up. Click on the images to see them larger.

I'm contributing a couple of images to "iPAWS (International Psychic Amateurs Work/Study Group) in Vancouver in August, curated by the ever wonder Jo Cook. Here is a preview of one of the images.

Searching For Voices (Still)

In August I'm in the group exhibition "Parallel" at Hobart's Long Gallery curated by Brigita Ozolins. I was originally going to exhibit the work In Haunted Attics. I'm now contributing the video and surround-sound installation Portal Lux Aeterna. Still below.

Portal Lux Aeterna (still)

I've just completed a couple of new works, no specific plans on how or where to show them, but here are a couple of images to preview them.

S.O.S (Speed Of Sound) - a sound work, thin curtain rail 'swished' through the air 9 times and slowed down 3 octaves. The above image is from the 'video clip' documenting the recording.

Exhalation - a performance by Matt Warren at 36 Years. This is a still from the documentation. Exhaling breath for as long as possible 36 times. An ongoing performance, that increases in duration each year.

The following images are the most recent works I've shown.
The first body of images are from Apparently Nothing, the collaboration with Deborah Pollard.
This was presented at "Dream House" group show curated by Mary Pridmore at Plimsoll Gallery in Hobart.

The following images are from The Lull, a sound and light installation in the two person (with Sally Rees) short exhibition at Auberge Alternative in Montreal, Canada. April 2008.

The Lull (detail)

The Lull (with the artist)

All The Lull images by Sally Rees.

An archive of blogs: June 6, 2007 - June 17, 2008

2008-07-02T01:02:00.000-07:00

Please excuse the grammar, these are song lyrics

Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Written about 10 years ago, but they seem currently apt...

CORONER'S REPORT
Are you forced to follow rules?
Do you wish I'd understand?
Human condition of fools.
You want your say, go ahead I can't hear nothing.

Now it's come to the end.
And the wisdom dies.
We no longer pretend
And the mourners cry.

I can't and won't read your mind.
Say what you want and you need.
Communicate your desire.
You want your say, go ahead I wont say nothing.

I don't hate you, you don't need to.
And at this point, it don't matter.
Will you listen from a distance?
All I wanted was the best for
You and me and all the power,
All the wisdom, all the voices.
Wasted moments last forever.
Won't forget you, don't forget me.

© Matt Warren/Time Office 1998/2002

The Right Place (May 21, 2008)

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

We are all 0s and 1s around here, but...
There is something important to be said...

I often wonder if the web and blogs in particular are the right place to vent or speak 'your' truth. It is a world of potential illuminations and potential illusions. You can present yourself however you see fit, how you want the world to see you...the virtual world anyway. Who you are, what you do and even what you look like can be and often is very different to actuality. I'm probably misleading you right now. I say probably, because my suspicion is that we present ourself, we censor ourself, we mold our public image unknowingly, at least to a degree. Perhaps you are being honest, it is simply how you see yourself, not necessarily how you are. As I write this, I am aware that I'm trying to choose my words carefully, not only to make myself understood, but to put across a certain degree of intelligence or insight (ahhh, you saw right through that huh?).

As it happens, I don't want to use the web to expose myself as I value my privacy too much. However I don't want to create an illusionary version of myself either because I value honesty. So why am I here anyway. Well, as we all know, the world is more communicable than ever and friends and acquaintances are dotted around the globe. I'm interested in what they're doing and I hope they might feel the same about me. The wonderful thing about the web is we can keep track of friend's and acquaintance's progress or regress through life very easily...perhaps a blessing and a curse simultaneously.

So this a round about way of letting real friends and acquaintances in the virtual world what I've been up to of late and specifically the Montreal trip. I've been overwhelmed by how we were welcomed back home by those near and dear and for that I'm eternally grateful. One of the first things asked, quite naturally, is; "How was the trip?" I have to answer by saying that at least 50 percent of the time there was tense, sad and disappointing. Some falling out, confusion and wasted time/opportunities occurred. And it was a long and expensive journey to discover those things.
I won't go into details about specific situations or personal details because it's actually irrelevant to anyone else but those involved. And to be honest, still kind of painful to talk about. I don't want to come across as some kind of 'victim' here either, because perhaps the situation could've been averted had I had more insight. But it wasn't to be and it ended rather badly for something I thought could've been really good. I'm trying to move on from it, but as it was a sad, difficult time it's been rather hard to let some things go. But I'm trying (some might say in more ways than one!)

Some of the work/research I went to Canada for did happen or is still in progress and I'm very thankful to those who assisted in or facilitated that, you know who you are. It was really great and you still have my utmost respect. Some of this has been shown already ("Of Heaven and Earth"), but I will soon post some more examples of stuff as it's completed and/or documented.

Headlong back into it upon landing back in Australia as Deborah Pollard and I re-staged our performance/installation "Apparently Nothing" in the group exhibition 'Dream Home' curated by Mary Pridmore at the Plimsoll Gallery in Hobart.
It opened on Friday May 2nd and included our 'meal' performance (ably assisted by Sally Rees). We had an unexpected 'guest' for dinner (sat down in the absentee's chair, ate bread and spoke to us), a known dickhead in the small Hobart art circle, who believes himself to be a radical rebel by doing what he does, but is just a knob. Hope he had a good time. Anyway it went pretty well, reactions have been quite positive. Look for images and/or video elsewhere around here.

I'm heading towards the tail end of my degree so I have a full plate and much to think about and do. As a consequence I'm trying to cut back on extra-curricular activites, but old habits die hard. There will likely be TRIAD show(s) in late August. I will also be exhibiting that month in "Parallel" at the Long Gallery, also 'Watch the Skies' will be ending then as well, so those who want to contribute, you still have time, but it's running out, I'd love to get some more stuff!
I have a couple of music projects on the go at the moment and will probably be exhibiting in October locally. Will give details closer to the dates.
That's it for now, be good to each other.

Of heaven and earth... (April 14, 2008)

Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The sound of hums and sight of rising snow. Headaches and heartaches...
There is something important to be said.

Sally Rees and myself have produced a new work each whilst residing here at the Auberge Alternative in Old Montreal. We are exhibiting the works in the Auberge's new little space "Squeezbox". The show: 'Of heaven and earth...' has a short run of April 14 - 20 open daily from 12:00pm - 4:00pm. There will be a closing event announced soon, likely with pics of the works.

Listening: Discharge - "Decontrol - the singles" (comp 2006), Hawkwind - "Warrior of the Edge of Time" (1975), Arvo Pärt - "Music for Unaccompanied Choir" (2006)
Watching: "Heima - Sigur Ros" (documentary 2007). Dr Katz (season 1)
Reading: "Flying Saucers" - C.G Jung (collected/translated 1978)

Quick

Thursday, April 3, 2008
Just a quick one...Some new works on the way and some updates...

The Sculpture Trail that included my soundwalk piece "Follow Me" is over. There is now the 'webedit' 2:45 version of the soundpiece up at the site. CLOSED

There has been an update to the project: "Ritual 5: Watch the Skies"
Come join the group over here
And the main page with videos is here

Sad news for Krautrock fans; Klaus Dinger, the pulse behind NEU! and La Düsseldorf amongst other projects (he was also once the drummer in an early version of Kraftwerk) has died at age 61. RIP

Be good to one and other

Thaw...March 19, 2008

Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Drip...drip...drip...crackle....crackle....There is something important to be said.

So it's been a couple weeks in Montreal at JYT & LMS house.
Snow fall here has been pretty extensive and for us Tasmanians it's quite the novelty, but for locals, understandably, it's a bit of a pain. As I write, snow has stopped falling and the ice has thawed somewhat.

Today we saw and collection of exhibitions at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal including a large Geoffery Farmer show and having a Boltanski work from their collection permanently installed is always a good thing in my books. The place was crawling with a large group of nasty private school teenagers. As we were leaving one gallery attendant came up to us and apologised for their behaviour (apparently there was some carpet torn up!) and fast tracked the return of our coats from the cloakroom. Nice fella. I'd like to see these exhibitions again.

I've produced a few dribs and drabs of work, mainly sound, that I've called "Montreal Basement" and "Snowfall". What has inspired these works, I could not say! The titles give nothing away. Excerpts can be heard on the front page here.

I've done a bit of video editing of still images that are intended to accompany some sound works. These are based on amplified silence from field recordings of an old Burnie house and a derelict shack in Turner's Beach, on the North West Coast of Tasmania that I recorded in December last year. Kind of demo versions of some of the work I intend to work on over here, but will likely be works on their own.

Speaking of over here; the work (mainly the recording of silence in disused factories and research into ambience) that I plan to do with JY is still in the planning stages, but there is time yet.

I'd also like to try my performance/ritual work called "Exhalation" over here. It is a work about mortality and it features the extended, slow exhalation of breath the amount of times as one's years. So an ongoing work, more breaths each year, possibly shorter durations, depending on ones health. Especially outdoors on one of the colder days (it's actually warmed up a bit), the breathy steam could be a good visual.

Back home; I hear it's incredibly hot for this time of year and there are bush fires. I hope all is well. The Mountain Festival's Sculpture Trail, I believe, is going well. Haven't really heard much, but I think in the end the mp3 player/headphone sets for my work "Follow Me" are not at a specific place for pickup/dropoff, rather you ask a trail attendant. The mp3 file (for those with their own players) and instructions are available for download here CLOSED

That's it for now. Be good to one another.

Two months in...(Feb 23, 2008)

Saturday, February 23, 2008
Pressure and relief, sleep often elusive. Body is exhausted but mind won't switch off. Ants in the kitchen, enormous drops of rain, public appearances, private doubts.
Visitors from afar, lost luggage. Open eyes, ears and hopefully mind. Won't switch off. Lapse in health regime. Can't hear for the rain, a wonderful sound that drowns out the collaborative sound in the gallery and drowns the ants on the street. Switch off for now.
There is something important to be said.

Much has already happened this year and as I'm not a consistent blogger, often it's a case of catch up. Would I fill the web with my ramblings more if I did it more often or in bursts like this. If there's nobody out there reading this did it actually happen...if a tree falls in the woods....

As I write this I am sitting at Inflight gallery, invigilating for the final day of D Group's "Hiatus" exhibition. The flow of visitors to the gallery seems to have been about average for shows here, but responses have been pretty positive when I've sat, though folks don't tend to say a whole lot, especially if you're one of the artists. The comment book has a single entry from someone called Lucas that says "fucking cool", so I guess that's good. Commenting on one's own exhibition is a risky ego trip I suppose, but since I was not responsible for the images, I can say I love the photographs produced by Lena and Sally and feel honoured to be in a show with them. So too, I'm proud to have produced sound work in collaboration with Jean-Yves. All you guys rule. Thanks. D Group lives! More to come!!!

Last night and this morning I de-mounted my work-in-progress installation "Whitepinkblack Noise". It's often quite a sad day when a show comes down as a lot of work goes into it and a tremendous amount of energy to set it up (not least of all from Sally, the queen of curtain construction and moral support). In the end I'm not sure how many people came through, it was a short run and (my fault) under advertised, but it was pretty much an experiment to see how the work comes together outside of concept and inside a gallery. Flawed to be sure, but the beauty of doing the show was to see what needs to be improved and I think I know. Thanks to those who contributed their voices to the work and those who came. The show will return sometime in the future. In the meantime there is a page over at my site dedicated to the project and I'm aiming to have some documentation up soon as well as an extended artist statement/essay eventually.

Music:
A little while back, myself and Scot Cotterell (1/3 of TRIAD and all round good egg) decided to form some kind of guitar-based duo. There were initial stylistic plans and name ideas. But it seems likely it will remain a kind of "what will we play this time" kind of deal and we will operate under our own names (what a novel idea) rather than a high concept character.
Our first live performance was anonymously accompanying Andrew Harper's performance "Acrid" at 6a on January 25 where we played a grinding, sludgy, feedback soundscape. I enjoyed it immensely and and would do it again at the drop of a hat, thanks for asking Andrew.
Our second appearance was a kind of open backyard party at 'The Lawns' in Mount Stuart for James (on Sunday Feb 10). More ebbs and flows in that one. Hopefully more to come.

The Friday before (Friday Feb 8) I was invited (after a bit of self promotion...ha!) to perform a live soundscape as my droney/ambient project mumble(speak) by Mish Meijers and Tricky Walsh for the opening of their wonderfully creepy installation "The Collector 3 - Secretions" up at 6a. It was only my second mumble(speak) live performance, but it seemed to go over well and fit with the atmosphere of the work.
Thanks Mish and Tricky, it was a pleasure. BTW keep an eye out for a CD or two from mumble(speak) - a recording of the live soundscape at 6a and possibly a CD single. These might be ready in time for the upcoming Art Fete at 6a.

On Saturday, Feb 16, I had the pleasure and honour to play drums as part of Damo Suzuki's Network at the Brisbane Hotel along the other 'sound carriers' Mathew Anderson (bass), Scot Cotterell (electronics), Leigh Hobba (sax, clarinet and bass clarinet) and Reggie Norris (guitar). Damo himself performed great, especially considering he hadn't really slept for 72 hours and somehow the airline had lost his luggage from London to Melbourne leg. It was an exhausting but thoroughly enjoyable gig that I won't forget. Hope you all liked it. I'd love to see any photos, please feel free to post them.

TRIAD (the improvised electronic trio of Scot Cotterell, Tom Hall and myself I mentioned earlier) will be performing at 6a's Art Fete on March 2nd, 2008. It's been a while since we last played, but should be fun. We are opening for Drunk Elk and The Vivids who are launching their CD.

So next on the cards is my and Sally's upcoming trip to Montreal where we will reconvene as D Group to generate thoughts, ideas and sketch out new stuff. I am also going to do a writing and research stint with the wonderul Jean-Yves and produce new sound and visual works as part of my current research degree.

Whilst we are away, Sally and I will both be exhibiting work for Hobart's Mountain Festival in their "Sculpture Trail" public art exhibition. I'm creating a soundwalk (for mp3 and headphones) called "Follow Me" inspired by the work of Christina Kubisch, Danny McCarthy and Janet Cardiff. More info soon.

Despite the frantic nature of the last couple of months, life's been pretty good. And I don't for one minute forget that I'm pretty lucky. Of course there is a lot of crap in the world and I guess one just has to recognise it and don't let it infiltrate your life too much. You get little glimmers of hope and glimmers of light along the way. For example; when the new Prime Minister says something that our nasty previous one could never say (believing it to be a sign of weakness?), that is, saying sorry to the stolen generation, well that gives a you a sense of hope. Listen to some good music, watch a good film, read a good book and realise there's some good folks out there doing good things, not just superficial bollocks and fear mongering 'leaders'.

That's it for my long ramble for now except to say, be good to each other.

A busy new year so far (Feb 3, 2008)

Sunday, February 3, 2008
Happy New year.
It's already very busy so far...but that's a good thing.
D Group (Rees, Stuart, Thériault and Warren) has opened our show at Inflight called "Hiatus" (see in 'Events') for more info) and I'm about to have "Whitepinkblack Noise" open, my in-progress installation at Entrepot Lounge Gallery (also see 'Events').

A couple of live music things coming up too:

mumble(speak) will be performing a live soundscape for the opening of "The Collector 3 - Secretions" at 6a (see 'Events')

I will be a drumming 'sound carrier' at the Damo Suzuki Network show at the Brisbane Hotel, Hobart on Saturday February 16, 2008. (see 'Events')

More stuff coming up...
Take care
MW

"The Dust Blows Forward" NYE 2007

Monday, December 31, 2007
"The dust blows forward and the dust blows back"
- Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart)

It might be a cliché to say there has been many bad things and many good things that have happened this year. But it's a cliché because it's true and happens to everyone. I am no exception, some luck and some loss.

The losses were particularly hard. Wherever Stuart is now, it is such a shame he is not here. Not only do we miss him, but there are so many things that have come up since he went away that I would have loved to have shown him, played for him, gone with him to see and discuss.

But I take the good with the bad. One thing I got to show him before he passed away was a preliminary version of 'Cantus 35', the sound work I did for "The Port Arthur Project" for this years '10 Days on the Island'. I received many positive responses to this work, particularly from those who lost someone in the massacre in 1996, I am still overwhelmed and humbled. I thank you.

My mumble(speak)music project and my collaboration with Scot and Tom as part of TRIAD received a great response also. I'm glad I've made something alone and with others that is enjoyable for me to create and experiment with and enjoyable for others to experience.

I am looking forward to laying this year to rest, good and bad it's been tiring. The new year will bring lots of things. These are mentioned below if you care to take a look.

Myself and Scot Cotterell will be accompanying Andrew Harper on his performance at 6A Gallery/Studios in North Hobart on January 25 2008. More news as it comes to hand, but suffice to say Scot and I will be playing some black, sludgy, down-tuned guitar and thuds whilst Andrew does his black, sludgy thing.

I would again like to thank everyone who contributed their time to my "3 Projects" interviews. The first of these works will be "Whitepinkblack Noise" and will be shown in February 5, 2008 at Entrepot Student Gallery at the Centre of the Arts in Hobart. Please note there is still an open call for people to participate in "Ritual 5:Watch the Skies"

D GROUP will also be exhibiting in the new year. "Hiatus" a long distance/file sharing collaboration exhibition of sound and images will be shown at Inflight ARI in Hobart from February 1 2008. I was fortunate to receive some funding to travel to Montréal to work with Jean-Yves as part of my research as well as part of D Group for future projects. I'm really looking forward to this. This will be happening in March/April (at this stage).

Damo Suzuki will be making his second visit, but first show here in Hobart on February 16 at The Brisbane Hotel. I hope you all come along, his shows are fantastic and he is a true legend. I am so happy we were able to organise it this time. Subject to final confirmation the band playing with him as part of the Damo Suzuki Network is as follows: Mat Anderson (Bass), Scot Cotterell (Synth/Laptop), Leigh Hobba (Sax/Clarinet), Reggie Norris (Guitar) and myself (Drums)

There is also the possibility of a Triad gig in Hobart in late February.

"Apparently Nothing" the collaboration with Deborah Pollard is to be part of a group exhibition at Entrepot Gallery in May. More news as it comes to hand.

"Parallel" a group exhibition at Salamanca Arts Centre's Long Gallery will be happening throughout August 2008. This show will likely include the second "3 Projects" project called "In Haunted Attics"

There's also a couple of music and exhibition things that I cannot speak about yet, but suffice to say, along with my on-going degree (into my final year), I will be (gladly) busy in 2008.

I hope 2008, finds you all well, busy, happy and healthy.
Best
M.W

Excited about 2008 or Hawkwind???

Ashes, news and so on (Nov 15, 2007)

Thursday, November 15, 2007
There's been two too many funerals this year. 70 years difference between those that passed away. Neither one is easy. I'm staying here, but my thoughts go out.
There is something important to be said.

As a reminder of the upcoming Australian Federal election (like you Aussies need reminding) I thought I'd present my version of a "protest" song. Not presenting any sides, (I know where I sit), but hopefully the tone of the song will put across how I feel. Since I cant post songs directly on this page, I've put it up elsewhere. My myspace TIMEOFFICE page was stolen from me, but I've managed to get it back and I put it up there, even though it's not really a TIMEOFFICE piece. Please find at the bottom of this not, I've posted the full lyrics to our national anthem, (some are a bit scary and I see why we are not taught them all in school)

Also there is a new Broken Tiny experiment over here.

All these online music files and more are over on my Virb page nicer format, less ads.

Stuff coming up...
Dec 14: Group exhibition- "Room" at Burnie Regional Gallery, Burnie, Tasmania
February 1: D GROUP exhibition - "Hiatus" at Inflight Art, Hobart, Tasmania
February 9: Solo installation - "Whitepinkblack Noise" at Entrepot Lounge Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania

Unconfirmed:
March/April: D Group and personal research in Montreal, Canada
May: Group exhibition to include the Warren/Pollard work "Apparently Nothing" at Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania.
August: A confirmed group exhibition called "Parallel", but what work I'll be contributing is still on the cards.

Be good to one another:
Listening: This Mortal Coil-"Blood", Giacinto Scelsi-"Natura Renovatur"
Reading: Colin Wilson-"Mysteries"
Watching: "Control" (Anton Corbijn)

ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR (full lyrics)
Australians all let us rejoice,
For we are young and free;
We've golden soil and wealth for toil,
Our home is girt by sea;
Our land abounds in Nature's gifts
Of beauty rich and rare;
In history's page, let every stage
Advance Australia fair!
In joyful strains then let us sing,
"Advance Australia fair!"

When gallant Cook from Albion sail'd,
To trace wide oceans o'er,
True British courage bore him on,
Till he landed on our shore.
Then here he raised Old England's flag,
The standard of the brave;
With all her faults we love her still,
Brittannia rules the wave!
In joyful strains then let us sing
"Advance Australia fair!"

Beneath our radiant southern Cross,
We'll toil with hearts and hands;
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands;
For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share;
With courage let us all combine
To advance Australia fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing
"Advance Australia fair!"

While other nations of the globe
Behold us from afar,
We'll rise to high renown and shine
Like our glorious southern star;
From England, Scotia, Erin's Isle,
Who come our lot to share,
Let all combine with heart and hand
To advance Australia fair!
In joyful strains then let us sing
"Advance Australia fair!"

Shou'd foreign foe e'er sight our coast,
Or dare a foot to land,
We'll rouse to arms like sires of yore
To guard our native strand;
Brittannia then shall surely know,
Beyond wide ocean's roll,
Her sons in fair Australia's land
Still keep a British soul.
In joyful strains the let us sing
"Advance Australia fair!"

The Long Now (Oct 9 2007)

Tuesday, October 9, 2007
The air is filling up, with sounds, with gas, with nothingness.
Soon we won't be able to breathe. They have given permission for
disaster, they have passed the point. They have to go. No more.
It's now. They don't listen, they don't care, they don't have clue.
How hard is it it to move away, to emigrate?
Is it cowardly to make a break?
There is something important to be said.

Yes the Pulp Mill is a goer! Our 'leader' has bent over for money now, not anything we can look forward to. I've been thinking a lot lately about what the Long Now Foundation say. Our sense of time is all screwed up. Here and Now means this room and this 5 minutes, rather than the next 100 years or even 20 years. Now I don't want progress to stop, I use technology everyday, the web being an obvious example. There is a virus of superficiality sweeping across every aspect of our lives. A glance does not mean a deep understanding and yet it seems that's enough for some.
Maybe we can soon make a change in the Federal Government.
Okay down off the soapbox!

I'm in the process of working on 3 projects; "In Haunted Attics", "Until We Sleep" and "Whitepinkblack Noise", all sound and/or video installations. The first project will likely be shown in Hobart in August, the last one will be shown in February 2008 at Entrepot Lounge Gallery. There will be more details soon, but I'm doing a recruitment drive for interviewees that you will see elsewhere.

Also there has been an update on an ongoing project called "Ritual 5:Watch the Skies", but I'm hoping for more participants. If you think you would like to get involved, please do.

There is a new mumble(speak) track online called "Ether"

Upcoming;
December-"Room" group show tours to Burnie Regional Gallery, Tasmania
February- "Hiatus" an exhibition by D Group at Inflight Art, Hobart, Tasmania
February- "Whitepinkblack Noise" solo installation at Entrepot Lounge Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania
May- "Apparently Nothing" by Pollard/Warren possible included in a group exhibition at Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania.
August- "Parallel group show at Long Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania, (possible tour later)

Thats it for now. Be good.

Listening: "Ohm-Early Gurus of Electronic Music" (comp 2006),
"King Tubby meets The Aggrovators at Dub Station" (1975/2007)
Watching: "30 Century Man-Scott Walker" directed by Stephen Kijak (2006)
Reading: "Rat Salad: Black Sabbath, The Classic Years 1969-1975" by Paul Wilkinson (2006)

and again

Monday, September 17, 2007
Just a brief addition to the last note. There are some more images here up now. Not particularly inspired I must admit, but hopefully they may give a small sense of what it's like in Tábor, Czech Republic. This was the first time I was there in 2003, a difficult language to grasp and we were stopped at the border at Cheb, on a train for a passport check. Czech Republic was yet to join the EU (it did the following year) so a special Visa was required prior to leaving Australia. You don't need that now.
Also if you go here you can see some Euro video, a travelogue in 4 parts. I hope it's not like some boring slideshow, that only I think is interesting! Take care all.

Nostalgia

Friday, September 14, 2007
In 2003, I was fortunate enough to travel to Germany to research German Expressionist cinema and Krautrock, two influential passions. The result was a still in-progress documentary on Krautrock called
"Stoic Rhythms" and some insight. It struck me recently that I covered a lot of ground in the two months I was in Europe (my first European trip). I travelled, mainly by train, in England, Germany and Czech Republic and outside my research I saw some interesting sites and I thought I'd share some of them with you.
So have a look here for images that I'll add to. I'll also put some video up over here.

Thanks for your attention, enjoy!

Mick and stuff

Monday, September 10, 2007
Not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I've been making an audio documentary (perhaps first in a series) on UK electronic musician/composer Mick Harris. He has been a big influence on me and I think also on a lot of others in the electronic music area. In September 2006 I was fortunate enough to interview him in Birmingham on the tail end of our European trip. This was prompted by my ongoing interest in his work (going back to early Napalm Death) and my research and the interview form the basis of the documentary. A little while back I posted part 1 (early years) and I've just recently posted part 2 (covering his Scorn, Lull and Quoit projects) with a part 3 still to come. Hope you enjoy it.
Go to: Mick Harris - In the Deep End

It struck me last night about the myriad of things I've got to do in the next year, no complaints, I like to keep busy doing what I do, but it's kinda snuck up on me.

December 2007:
A group exhibition called "Room" that was at CAST gallery earlier this year is on tour and is opening at Burnie Regional Gallery in December. Looks like it has some interest from mainland galleries in the new year too. It includes my work: "The Angels are Coming"

February 2008:
An exhibition by D Group (which includes the equally influential to me; Jean-Yves Theriault, Sally Rees and Lena Stuart ) at Inflight Gallery in Hobart. The show is called "Hiatus"
I will also have an installation at Entrepot Lounge Gallery at the Centre for the Arts, Hobart called "Whitepinkblack Noise"

May 2008: Possible inclusion in a group exhibition at Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart.

August 2008: Group exhibition called "Parallel" at the Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart. Possible tour for that too.

And here I was trying to cut back...

Dust

Wednesday, September 5, 2007
When doubting my own abilities, I sometimes (perhaps self-indulgently) try and change tact (read-procrastinate) and try and clear out older things that have metaphorically collected dust. In doing this I found a few old CDs of older music projects I have been involved with. Listening to them, I thought "hey these aren't bad" and thought maybe folks might want to hear them.

My first major band where I was drummer/lead vocalist, (just like Phil Collins...no that's a joke...come back) and main songwriter was Bodies Drawn Backwards (1993-98). I was very sad when we split up, even though I was not a happy camper a lot of the time. I've put up a couple of songs from the unreleased album we spent two and a half months recording at Red Planet Studio in Hobart. I haven't really played music like that since.

In 1998, Arts writer, curator and occasional filmmaker Ted Colless and I wrote an article for Broadsheet, "Op Music" about the soundtracks for European horror and exploitation films. With this in mind we decided to try a contemporary version of it. With Ted's sample ideas and my old 1970s synth and an analogue four track recorder we made 4 pieces under the name Project Airsheet. I'm not sure if anyone heard this stuff, but now there's a couple of songs up in all their hissy glory.

In 2003 whilst in Tabor, Czech Republic doing a collaborative project, I began making music with my laptop that would become the DnB-inspired project zeropointzero. It only ended up being a one-off recording project, when I realised that I really didn't know what I was doing in this genre, but I kinda like it now. There's 2 pieces up.

So dusting the archives has made me kinda wistful. This along with seeing an old image of mine posted by Sean Kelly of Dianna Graf in an old installation has made me realise we all have good things in our past.

The music can be heard at: Matt Warren Muzik
Cheers all.

Switch on and simplify (Aug 22 07)

Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Stripping back, simple lines, minimal, cleaning up.
A basic life. There is something important to be said.

I am genuinely feeling older today, have been for a while actually. That is not some "woe is me" statement, nor am I looking for sympathy. There seems to be a distinct lack of drive or passion in people younger than myself. I'm generalising of course and that's what we old folk do. That's what's making me feel old..."I don't understand the youth of today". I don't want to be that guy! There must be some arsekickers out there, not just kids going through the motions, concerned with the inane and superficial. Switch on!
You see, there I go again.

"It's the children who are wrong" - Principal Skinner

It's ironic and yet apt that I write the following here on a blog on the good ol' information superhighway (see how old I am). I find it baffling how computer savvy and yet naive some people are. Our government (Australian) is looking at spending a large chunk of money to wipe out internet smut. As it happens the internet is the perfect place for smut, it's anonymous, that's the point. This is not reality, this is a filtered version of real life, yet it can come back and bite you. Just keep in mind, what ever you put out here can be used by other people and possibly not as you intended it. What ever information you get from someone, may not be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth your honour. Except what you're reading here!

Don't let a conservative government take into their hands, YOUR responsibility. I understand there are dangerous people out there, I understand that people may be hurt and people need to be protected. I understand that. All I'm saying is we are already living in an overly litigious society, where we don't look where we're going, we are not responsible for our actions and we don't think before we dive into the rocky shallow waters. It's much easier to leave it to a faceless entity to make our decisions. Okay rant over.

TRIAD, the newly formed electronic music trio of Cotterell, Hall and Warren played a couple of shows recently and we want to do more. Thanks to those who came along. Tom has put up some images of both gigs and an mp3 of a bit of the second one:
http://www.tomhall.com.au/blog
There's a new TRIAD - http://www.myspace.com/triadaustralia

Have finally seen Lynch's "Inland Empire". Anyone who knows me, knows I am one of his biggest fans and could drone on for hours about him and his work. My good friend Neil got me this movie on DVD for my birthday. Safe to say it's probably his most abstract work since "Eraserhead", possibly more so, because it has a facade of normalcy that "Eraserhead" doesn't. On first viewing there were a few things that bugged me a bit. It did seem overly abstract, in some ways irritatingly so. On reflection though, there are images that simply will not leave my head. It certainly prompts a re-watching and that's what Lynch does best. A flawed masterpiece.

Did you

Thursday, July 26, 2007
Did you ever have one of those days where you want to strip everything back to a minimum? Yeah I'm having one of those

Mist

Monday, July 23, 2007
Mist and steam. Core temperature dropping. Time to breath. Float.
Sitting still. Wish the inertia was not so strong.
There is something important to be said.

I've recently returned from a few days of sound design production in Sydney with Deborah Pollard for her performance work "Blueprint". This work is inspired by the loss of her parent's home during the Canberra bushfires in 2003. I feel quite honoured to have been asked to contribute to such a personal work. I've worked with Deborah a few times before and consistently find working with her very inspiring and I'm really looking forward to how this piece turns out. It was nice catching up with my old sparring partner Felix too. We went to check out the Anslem Kiefer show at Art Gallery of NSW, well worth seeing.

Sally's father gave us a bit of a scare recently with him undergoing some pretty serious and unexpected surgery in Melbourne. Thankfully, everything seems like it's going as well as hoped. She flew out this morning for a couple of days to support her folks.

Saw Alice Cooper in Launceston on Saturday night. Just great! What an ol' trooper.
Sublime moment the following morning: driving down into Launceston through thick fog with Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain" playing.

Reading: "Stone Age Soundtracks" - Paul Devereux (2001) and
"The Air is On Fire" - David Lynch exhibition catalogue (2007)
Watching: "Paths of Glory" - Directed by Stanley Kubrick (1957)
Listening: "zAndEr" - Scorn (1996)

Upcoming gig for mumble(speak):
The Loft, Hobart. Saturday August 18 2007
w/ U_ER and Tom Hall.

It feels time...

Thursday, June 28, 2007
Not sure what to say, but for some reason it feels time to write something. Perhaps silence is golden.

The gig went well

Sunday, June 10, 2007
The gig on Friday night went pretty well. It was the live debut of my new ambient/drone/mood project mumble(speak) which opened the night. Lots of deep rumblings, voices and drones. Seemed to go over okay, though I've got some new ideas for next time. Next up was Scot as U_ER, manipulating an old mixing desk feeding back on itself and the occasional punctation from a beatbox. Crazy and cool. We dubbed his sound "Squelch-core" and he seemed pretty happy with that. Tom's set was a beautiful re-presentation of the field recordings of a bridge in Brisbane, creating a dense and evocative soundscape. We then all got up and jammed. It could have been one of those slightly self-indulgent one-upmanship kind of things, but having all seen those things before we tried to avoid that. After a slightly uncertain start it gelled really well and the textures, throbs and drones we created worked pretty well together. Seems to me the key is listening rather than playing. I go back to the best elements of "Krautrock" where it's often better to play the minimum one can get away with. And as Tom said (paraphrase) you can often have too much, but it's very difficult to have too little. Hopefully I'll be able to post some sounds on my virb.com page and more images soon. Thanks Tom for the images elsewhere on this site.

Postering Etiquette (June 6 2007)

Wednesday, June 6, 2007
A recurring thing is starting to piss me off. Everyone can do what they want right? Of course, but we do share the world. When bill postering on a public place to advertise for a gig or an event it continues to amaze me how many people don't have any 'postering etiquette'. That is to say they put posters up over other ones advertising events that haven't yet happened. Look at the dates people!!! Don't worry SYRUP...I won't mention names.
You know maybe this is the way it's always been and I'm too polite, but it angers me, surely we are all advertising elements of culture that brighten up this grey little world, why don't we allow everything to be seen.
If you've read this far, you may be thinking, "boo hoo...such a big problem" And true in the scheme of things it's a piddly little issue and we all have bigger problems. But I do try and look at things as part of a a bigger picture and I think this is a symptom of the "me as centre of the universe" mentality that is increasing all the time and I don't think it should be that way. Play nice children.

Coming soon!

2008-06-30T23:54:00.000-07:00

All pages will soon lead here for info on my projects and blogs.