HELLO, NEWLY DOWNSIZED STUDIO, SPACE ECHO, FELINES, MUSIC UPDATE.
May 11, 2020 § Leave a comment
I have been absent from this space for a long time, and just wanted to send you a tiny hello – after 8 weeks in confinement, including 7 weeks of hardcore confinement (not allowed to go out for exercise or a walk, just for shopping for necessities), it feels good to be back in touch.
The most observant among you will immediately see that this is not the home studio space I had introduced you to last year, and indeed, I swapped places with the other bedroom in the flat not so long after that post: long story short, the lack of light and view really made me feel down and too cut off from the world in that other room at the back of the flat, and the light and patio view in this much brighter room have solved the problem. It is however *really* tiny (around 7 square metres – 75 square feet), but it’s funny how once you’ve downsized once (from 40 sq m to 14 sq m), downsizing the second time feels almost natural. This ultracompact space actually works just fine for the type of music I’m working on right now, and the workflow really couldn’t be smoother: I just swivel my chair and there you go, from recording to listening and mixing in a second!
The other thing you may have noticed is the presence of a glorious Roland Space Echo RE-201, supplied to me by the great people at Soundgas (who also supplied the Elka Drummer One just below it), and on top of those two pieces of gear now sleeps one of two new additions to the house, a red and cream giant named Sol. You could almost say he is part of the setup now as he does love that one spot very much. I initially tried to prevent him from climbing all over my gear, and I was definitely not amused when he climbed on top of the Space Echo for the first time (and freaked out when I switched it on and he heard the tape running), but if I leave the studio open – and really, I did not adopt two cats to close my door on them – then there is just no way to actually prevent him, so instead, I’m developing strategies to encourage the path of least destruction: in this case I’m trying to teach him to jump to the one small spot to the right of the MIDIMuRF where there is no gear, and to jump from there to the Space Echo – it’s actually worked a couple of times, so hopefully this will become an ingrained habit at some point!
I will hopefully be back in the coming months to give you updates on how work on the new album is coming – it’s slowly but surely getting there, and I’m hoping to have it out next year. Given the current circumstances, I’ll be grateful just for that in the first place – to actually have it released somehow into the wider world.
As always thank you for reading and listening, and it goes without saying but I will say it: I hope all those of you reading these lines and your loved ones are doing ok.
A FLAME VARIATIONS (LIVE IN THE MOOG SOUNDLAB) AVAILABLE ON BANDCAMP AS A FREE/PAY-AS-YOU-WISH DOWNLOAD!
October 24, 2019 § Leave a comment
On 20th October 2017 Thrill Jockey Records released my sixth album A flame my love, a frequency, and I’m so happy to let you know that to celebrate this second anniversary, the session I recorded at the Moog Soundlab in Asheville, North Carolina, in fall 2017, is now available in lossless quality as a free/pay-as-you-wish download on my Bandcamp! I had a blast playing in the Moog Soundlab and visiting the Moog Music Inc factory, and while I’m one for keeping my discography pretty compact, I do feel this is a very good document of how being on the road can lead you deeper into the world of sound via the discovery of new instruments – in this case right in the place where the instruments are made!
Moog originally put the recordings on their Soundcloud and website in August 2018 to mark the end of the production of the Moogerfooger line of products, but you can now head over here to listen and download the EP, which comes with accompanying pdf, photos from the session and my visit, and hi-res artwork by the always great Iker Spozio.
A sincere and deep thank you to everyone at Moog Music Inc and the Moog Soundlab for their time, generosity, the impeccable quality of the products they make, and their support for my music!
FONDAZIONE PRADA MILAN SHOW 27TH SEPTEMBER!
September 23, 2019 § Leave a comment
I have voluntarily restricted the number of shows I do, so my show in Milan at Fondazione Prada this week September 27th as part of Craig Richard’s “I want to like you but I find it difficult” series is a rare occasion to catch me live this year, and possibly the next couple of years.
I also wanted to share with you the following picture, showing Iker Spozio’s original painting that served as the basis for his design for my last album A flame my love, a frequency, at home with the 3 colored vinyl that have so far been produced: clear, white and blue (the last two being still available). It’s hard to believe the album will be 2 years old next month!
As always thanks for your support :-)
REFLECTIONS ON THE SPACE NEEDED BY MAKERS, PART V: INTRODUCING MY HOME STUDIO IN BARCELONA AND THE GEAR FOR THE NEXT ALBUM!
May 13, 2019 § 1 Comment
So here goes, a short video (apologies for the definitely non-professional quality!) showing you where I’ve been making music for the past few weeks, and the instruments I’ll be using for my seventh album! I will let the video do the talking (by the way, the studio is at the back of the FLAT where I live – I don’t know why I totally ate up that word!!! 😉), and if you are wondering why I’m back in a home studio setup then I invite you to read the 4 previous posts I wrote in this series! Thank you to Moog Music for the stellar instruments and to Soundgas for their help with the Elka Drummer One! I will go quiet again for some time as obviously I now need and want to make progress on the album, which I’m hoping to get ready for release in 2020. As always thanks so much for reading and listening!
REFLECTIONS ON THE SPACE NEEDED BY MAKERS, PART IV: THE CONS OF AN OUTSIDE STUDIO SPACE, AND HOW HEALTH PROBLEMS CAN SHIFT YOUR PERSPECTIVE.
April 22, 2019 § Leave a comment
In the last post I was telling you about all the positive aspects of having my own music space in San Sebastián, and yet my relationship with that space was always a love-hate, rollercoaster one. For every advantage it had I could think of a disadvantage, and some of these proved to be really problematic in the long run. The dampness problem, which I already mentioned, had multiple origins and therefore could not be solved (especially not by me as a mere tenant). The last thing you want when you have precious instruments and gear is for them to go mouldy, and I ended up having to store my cherished violas da gamba at home. I tried to monitor the state of my other instruments and gear as best as I could, but got really worried again last year as I started to own quite a few high-quality electronic analogue instruments, including a very valuable vintage piece. As I packed for the move to Barcelona in January and was faced with mould-covered item upon mould-covered item, I realized it was indeed high time I faced the reality of the situation: a damp studio is *not* a viable long-term solution for storing your instruments, nor is it ideal for a human being to work in such conditions.
There can also be serious safety issues in the old spaces that we makers often end up working in, in this current context of real estate madness. It would take too long to tell the whole story here, but in the winter of early 2017, as I had two electrical heaters on, an electrical fire started in one of the studio walls: I was thankfully downstairs at that moment, so was able to see the flames and act right away, with the fire being put out swiftly and no damage being done to the studio apart from the trace of flames on the wall. It scared the hell out of me though, and even though the firemen who came and inspected the place told me the electrical installation was correct, I never felt completely safe afterwards (why hadn’t the fuses blown?), and I still shudder to think of what could have happened if I had been upstairs in the mezzanine space at the time the fire started.
Another issue that never went away was the noise one: ultimately, a non-professionally soundproofed ground floor space giving onto a street will always have noise issues. At the time of The weighing of the heart, so much outside noise filtered through the old doors that, after fruitless attempts at recording late at night, I ended up having to record – also late at night – in our flat. I did manage to record the vocals in bits and bobs at the studio in a small corner which I tried to isolate as best as I could (I felt too shy to record vocals at home as it was my first time singing!). In late 2013 my landlord agreed to replace the doors and windows with triple glazing, which improved the problem but did not solve it (street noise still filtered through the area of the metal blind, and noise also came from the building’s elevator). As I moved to more and more electronically-enhanced close-miked instruments (Captain of none) and then to fully electronic (A flame my love, a frequency), I was thankfully less dependent on having a completely silent environment, but the problem remained acute for vocals (out of desperation, I recorded the vocals for A flame at home, on a couple of miraculously quiet days).
Finally, there is the maintenance aspect: even if you’re not a cleanliness freak, you do have to take care of your space, and when it opens onto a street, that also means having to clean dog poo, dog and/or human pee right in front of your door or *on* your door, cigarette butts and all sorts of rubbish, as well as the grime from car exhausts … Now you might think I’m exaggerating a little bit with this one, but this actually takes me to my final point.
Last year I found out that my severe exhaustion – which I initially thought was due to overworking – was due to an autoimmune chronic health problem – thankfully not a life-or-death problem, but one that can seriously alter your quality of life, and in my case left me unable to work for months on end. In the first half of 2018 I went to the studio only very occasionally in order to rehearse for the shows I had planned back then. After this, as my energy levels plummeted even further, I went there even less. I not only felt really down about not being able to do my work, I also stressed out at the thought of all the gear collecting mould in the dark unopened studio, not to mention the financial waste of paying rent on a space you’re not actively using. But whenever I tried to go, the 5 minutes it took me to walk there, pulling up the heavy metal blind, and possibly cleaning whatever mess there was to clean in front of my door – all this was already a huge drain on my energy, and at best I sometimes sang a little, read an instructions manual, connected a few instruments and vaguely went about trying to make music, and gave up in less than an hour, overwhelmed by the need to lie down and rest. For the first time in years, I started to think that if I had a music space at home, perhaps I would be able to “catch” more easily the moments when I did feel OK, and this was when the idea of moving back to a home studio situation became not only acceptable but even *attractive* to me again.
My health issue is now more or less under control thanks to the help of medication, but even though I am now feeling ok, I do not take good health and normal energy levels for granted anymore, and feel confident that right now, having direct access to my workspace from within my home is the ideal solution.
I thank you for reading me this far, I hope that this series somehow may have been illuminating if you too are facing the dilemma of where to pursue your creative practice!
colleen 