Macc Lounge, Archiving

Hanging day at the Macc Art Lounge today, but the job was more of a very much hands-off role of helping with general curating, no actual hanging took place.

In music work, I'm considering filing methods. For the Gunstorm E.P. and The End and The Beginning, I didn't file any recordings, because Tor's vocals were sent to me on a disc, so I had those, and I only retained what I used - but I kept the audio CD he sent me. For more recent song albums, I started to keep everything, all vocals used, but delete unused takes. Now I have vocals, and lots of live music recordings, extended guitar parts for example, of which I only use a part. What do I keep? Is it valuable to keep everything? Is it valuable to keep anything?

The samples I actually use can be saved out from my software, so those can be accessed. In the past I've kept long samples (1:35 or more) because these are split in the software, but even those are identical when I save them out and chain them end to end. My previous albums have all of the vocals and clips saved, but I'm now erring towards deleting them all. These amount to 100-200Mb per album, a large amount, but irrespective of size it also seems inefficient to keep them.

My principle idea is simple: keep any unique recordings, used or unused, which might have a future use or future historical or cultural value (eg. unused alternative takes); delete everything else. Efficiency here can have an impact on future production. If Frank Zappa kept all of his out-takes (he probably did), it would be a vast library, but one so monstrous to manage that it would sap time best used to create, as well as expensive to store.

Musical Scales and the Universe

I had an insight about the connection between scales and the universe. Take a note as a string. An octave up is half the length, and octave lower, double.

A pretty interval, or any integer interval (say one fifth of the length of our original string) will make a harmonious division, but, if this need to move up an octave, double or half that fifth, it will not fit with the other doubling or halving. This is why scales stop working and the equal temperament, which, today, divides the string into 12 equal parts is used, but it is imperfect.

I realised that in the universe and atomic vibrations, only classical, whole intervals can be possible which would limit harmonious vibrations. String theory and its relatives might be about vibrations, but in music, problems and interesting properties only arise in chords, for example, quantity of fifths, rather than individual notes or vibrational patterns.

Secret Electric Cover Art

Long day working on cover art for Secret Electric Sorcery. These days I tend to design an 8-page 12cm sized 'booklet' for CD, even though hardly anyone uses CDs anymore - I still like a physical format, so will remain persistent.

I took some photos a few weeks ago, and wanted an orange/black/white colour sceme, so that was easy. The hard part is making things look a little organic. I've not drawn on these (unlike with Sisyphus) but have designed 8 pages and a front and back, which is good going for one day. Things will tweak and change. Here is the cover so far:

The swirl effect on the cover was generated using Genetica, a great tool which is a bit like a graphical version of my music software. This page looks particularly interesting, somewhat electronic:

One concern is that the work is starting to look similar to past album covers - of course, this will happen anyway, and, of course, nothing will be identical. Enya's albums all look similar, as do Enigma's. I've used orange and white in Music of Poetic Objects, and have used the scribbly face parts in the internal covers of Tree of Keys. For a technological looking cover, the music is perhaps my least electronic, but the inspiration for the cover comes from Bowie's Low, and my music does have a similar feeling to that.

To make things more organic I've added some tree images from Queen's Park. This page is interesting because it has the same look as Greek pottery:

I've also managed to fit all of the song lyrics in the booklet for the first time. Any text is difficult because I must use bitmaps, not PDF files with embedded text, so the resolution and print quality is limited. Looking at Pink Floyd's The Wall artwork today reminded me that their lyrics are also images (though very clean, perhaps they are also splines).

Sunday, DD Drive Woes, Final Track List

Slept badly and woke late, at 10am.

Started formatting the A4 and A5 poems and labels for Nantwich, but only got so far. I realised that four paintings I've just delivered to Macclesfield are set to be included in Nantwich (sigh). At least two need taking back because poems have been written for them, so I can't swap them.

Then I tried, again, to read or write some files to DD discs using the drives I have. I went to see Simon and asked to test the drives on his Windows 7 machine, but alas, this didn't work either. What an amazing collection of music he has, almost every album by every prog band, so it seems to me. He has an incredible knowledge and memory of all of it.

My plan for the drive now is to find an old computer (or someone with one) that might be able to copy over the files. I just need 7 discs worth. I've spent over £100 on the SY-85 project so far.

Tonight I've burned a test version of Secret Electric Sorcery and have listened to it carefully. It seems fine. Have made the final track list and assigned ISRC codes, the start of the long music admin process. The tracks are:

1. Hitler in High Heels
2. Teenage Dreams
3. Eyes of Pity
4. Be My Jesus
5. Passive Aggressive
6. Boring Ceefax Lift Music
7. Confidence in Kindness
8. The Misery's Hard to Take
9. Out of Date
10. Back When It All Began
11. Always in the Morning
12. The Ones We Love

Print Preparation, Music Tweaks, Disc Woes, Cloak of Celeste Start

Oh for a resful day, but, instead I fill my days with work and triumphs. There can be no victory without struggle.

Spent a busy morning compiling small watercolours, ink drawings and smaller works from years past. I cut mounts for these, 10x8in for the large ones and 5x7in for the small (bah! how I hate inches, if I were king of the world I would remind the so-called 'metric martyrs' that martyrs need to die for their cause, and invite them to do so). But photographers are victims to metric standards, even if builders and scientists are now fully metric. A glimpse of the work:

After the mounts, I cut card backs, wrapped everything in cellophane bags, documented the work and designed and printed price labels, which, for me, will hang over the top corner. These will be £20 and £10, ideal gifts, which was my remit.

This took until 12:30. Then, music work. I needed to make small adjustments to the album. I added a new F-major strum to Eyes of Pity - trying and recording about 20 until I got the right speed and loudness; this is always difficult as every chord, stroke and strum can be remarkably different. Then, some new speech for the intro to Always In The Morning, taken from Public Domain film Danger Lights, which had a nice section about the beauty of the night, with a little warning too, rather good actually, even if the sound and speech quality was rather poor. I also added new backing vocals to the Hitler in High Heels chorus, using the slow-down trick that Sparks used on Equator, the same effect that Frank Zappa's son mentioned a few days ago.

Then, my new DD discs arrived. A new and sealed box from 20 years ago. These discs didn't work in either drive. So I've tried two drives and three batches of discs. I'm convinced that the Windows driver won't permit using Double Density discs. My next plan is to locate an old PC.

Five new Burning Circus books arrived from Amazon, one was ruined with sticky tape on the cover, so I wasted time and money returning this.

Then, this evening, I started work on Sky Robes of Celeste for the Tree of Light event and have written a simple tune in C-minor filled with glitter and starlight, reminiscent of my old Starscape tune, which was its root. I've based it on a simple rhythm x-x-x-x-x-x-xxxx. If I had more piano skill I could be more complex with my melodies. Maybe I need to be more bold, but this tune needs to be simple and appealing. It may already be too much to play alongside words.

So, a full day and many tasks are complete. I feel tired and need some time off to generally muse. I still have a lot to do, however. I'm too full of ideas, dreams, ambitions. How curious the artist life is. How short life is generally.

The COP26 conference about climate change ends with a decision to do nothing and our utterly leaderless government have acted according to their principles of laziness and inaction. We have three new worlds; a West of free speech, a totalitarian East of repression, and a poor third which is a mix of mismanagement and a lack of power. The only problem with the climate is human overpopulation. Global warming, ecological damage, carbon dioxide levels, and Covid-19, are symptoms of that.

Sea Green Dream, Macc Lounge Dropoff

Another night of stomach pain - this thing which unites me with Beethoven and Ingmar Bergman. I had many dreams. In one, President Biden was seen eating some medical herbs, sea greens, he called them. They were small plants, like watercress with ivy-shaped leaves in green with violet veins. I tasted them, they were similar to watercress though not as strong, very pleasant. I told him about spirulina and chlorophyll (I couldn't recall the name of chlorella).

In a second dream my parents were about to leave for a holiday. For some reason we lived in a grand Victorian house. My father bought me some sort of gift which involved a ritual of sorts, a special coffee drink, another drink. Things to be done or enjoyed in a sequence. I wanted to avoid this until later, but he insisted I did it all with him. I had the impression that I wouldn't see him again, that their holiday was permanent. A kitten was present. It jumped from the roof of the house to land on the floor outside, as did someone else, perhaps my mother. I took it inside and it sipped some red wine from a glass, lifting it with a paw to drink. This dream perhaps relates to many aspects of the day, Deb's remembrance of her relatives. Viewing old Crewe houses, and symbolism of her poem for the Tree of Light ceremony.

Today I had my blood pressure check, my first visit to the doctor in over 10 years. It was 127/76, heart rate 62.

Before today's Macc trip, I was keen to fix the ending of The Ones We Love. The chords at the end were a little too long, but, alas, I have lost the DX preset, which, it seems, was made on the day by modifying another. The music for this track was played once in one take in the fading sunlight. The DX is a fantastic instrument but massively let down by poor preset management and the lack of a custom editing app. This is really bad, unusually so, by Yamaha. I spend a while trying to match the instrument and in the end, created a new chord, so this song in now 10 seconds shorter but better.

Then the trip to Macclesfield for delivery to the new Macc Art Lounge display. I helped with sanding and painting the walls, ready for the installation.

I have a lot of retrieved artwork here now, waiting to unpack, inspect, wrap, and pack for storage, then preparing labels and other material. Lots to do. I will cut new mounts for some of my ink drawings as low priced, unframed gifts to browse, this will take a couple of days, so no time for music or other things. I must also find time to compose and practice the Tree of Light music.

The official opening is Saturday 13th November at 1pm. I heard that the Macc Lounge is now also open on Wednesdays now, as well as Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Treacle Market Sundays. I'll attend as many days as I can, but am still hesitant about using public transport.

Triumph Dreams, Macc Lounge Preparation

I have two dreams. First, a boxing match between a huge muscular man and a small dwarf woman, staged for some sort of strange entertainment. I, who was largely playing the part of the man, was worried about the mismatch, and for the sake of sport I let the dwarf woman punch my knees, unsure if I should actually fight properly. In the end, I thought that I should simply fight, and gave one powerful upper-cut to her face, sending her flying backwards into the air and out of the ring with ease.

In a second dream I was a knight in silvery armour. A Japanese knight, also in silver, challenged me to fight, and he had an array of weapons. Again I thought I could easily beat him, yet avoided this, parrying his bladed blows with patience. At some point I got annoyed with this persistent attacker, so I hit him on the top of his head, plunging him into the ground up to his waist, then hit him again to totally bury him. I covered him up with soil, then poured water on to drown him.

Today has bene a frenzy of work preparing the art for a new display Macc Lounge. I can't go in next week, so have to do this today for delivery tomorrow, having only heard of this opportunity last evening. I'm going to include some paintings that I've never showed before, Fat Ugly Tree Forever Coughing In A Radioactive Wasteland, and have framed up The Lens Of Reminiscence, the original pencil drawing I drew for The Myth of Sisyphus.

Busyness and Mastering

After a few weeks of focus on this music, the art world seems to be opening up with greater rapidity each day. I must write the piano music for the Crewe Tree of Light commission, only 3 weeks to go, then prepare for the possible Congleton performance; this is 40 minutes, so a lot of work may be needed, and this too is but 3 weeks away. I have had an enquiry about a possible, monumental scale public art commission too, which is interesting but I'm unsure of the details or what I can do, or how, yet.

Plans for Neorenaissance are also marching on. The Castle Park exhibition opens on Friday, and it looks like I'll part of the Macc Art Lounge exhibition this December too, which I always love being part of. It was amazing that one of the other Balmain artists said that he organises one exhibition every two years due to the work involved, and I seem to take part in two every month - or that is how it seems. Unfortunately a lot of my books are with Galleria Balmain, so I've ordered more stock. I'm also awaiting the results from The Royal Cambrian Academy of Art, and will be entering the Grosvenor Competition in January. In 2022, I will start some sort of ArtSwarm or other performance event too, but that can wait for a while.

Meanwhile, I'm working on the new music, which is now complete. Today, 'mastering' which is a bit of a meaningless term in the digital age, but for me involves the overall structural planning of an album; segueing one track into another (this album will, unusually for me, not do this) and balancing the general volume levels. I dislike the concept, and even more the result, of applying compression (or EQ) to a song, or applying any effect at all to a whole track unless its for specific artistic reasons. Crunshing music until it sounds like a noise is a crime - but a common offence these days.

In this case, the mastering was some of my easiest. All of the tracks seem to sound fine, but I'll need to pause for a few days/weeks and relisten.

I need to work on the cover art, and then Spotify Canvases, and format the labels for Nantwich, write and practice the piano piece and prepare the art for Macc. I think that this must be done tomorrow. I want longer days, 44 hours each would be preferable.