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Mark Harris contacted me earlier this year with regards to featuring OSNIR amongst his Bad Music Seminars . I’ve just happened upon this video which he has kindly uploaded to YouTube of one of the original cast records playing. 

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Graham Dunning tweeted this photograph recently, and has since informed me that a recording he has made using his copy of the resin disc from the OSNIR project will appear on a mixcloud stream, part of a series by Kelvin Lords which will also be posted here.

Graham has been a great inspiration to me over the past few months, especially whilst following the blog of his recent ‘Rhythm & Drone” residency at Lime Wharf / Machines Room. The residency catalogued there is an expansion on a project which I think was my first sight of his work and something that forced me to dig a little deeper - entitled “Mechanical Techno”. I think that it was largely the Heath-Robinson appearance of records stacked atop one another, with piezos, retort stands and a overall visual language that encourages some sort of deconstruction or undoing whist listening that really caught my attention. That said, the listening also yields incredibly satisfying satisfying results that express an irreverent humour and sideways delivery of cut-up and collaged music.  I can only urge you to do as I did and take a read-through his residency notes and a good rummage through his site for images and videos of his work and it’s progress. Cheers Graham! More soon.

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Response to the 'Only Surface Noise is Real' project entitled 'The relevant factors for noise emission are the texture of the surface, the texture pattern and the degree of porosity of the surface structure' Produced by my dear friend Murray Royston Ward (Failed NASA Experiment, Tepeu y Q'uq'umatz, The Lows and The Highs etc).

Murray has been a friend and collaborator for a few years now. He used to reside in Cardiff, putting on gigs along with a couple of others as ‘The Rusty Trombone of God’ - I think this is how we first met, when he asked a trio I used to play in to perform at one of these events.

Another of his creative outlets, aside from his own performances and recordings was running the now defunct label ‘The Lows & The Highs’ with a steady flow of interesting CDR, Tape and download projects by a broad selection of international improvisors alongside a few brit oddballs (yours truly included). 

Murray was one of the people with whom I shared the basic ideas and principals for this project early-on, months before it’s fruition and the first performance. We would often share new work and ideas over a cuppa at a local coffee shop and plan art and events using each other as sounding boards. Since his leaving Cardiff to set up with his wonderful wife Holly in Nottingham I no longer have this local sounding board and his presence as one of the ‘doers’ in the Cardiff music scene is greatly missed.

That said, Cardiff’s loss is Nottingham’s gain and eventually mine too as he invited me to perform at his ‘Rainforest iv’ event alongside himself, Kelly Jayne Jones & Benjamin Hallatt and more recently has joined forces wth Rammell Club and helped to organise events such as the noise/experimental all-dayer ‘Cables’ - held in Nottingham’s Primary Studios. 

Cheers Murray!

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Something from Jacob Whittaker. This was not submitted to the page, but stumbled upon whilst checking out his video archive on Youtube.

Jacob is a sound, installation and video artist based in Cardigan, West Wales.

I first met Jacob having seen a collection of his work online after a conversation with a mutual friend, and from there, following his projects via video updates and clips of experiments with ancient and often broken or hacked turntables. As such, he is an obvious choice for somebody who might enjoy pottering and responding to my vinyl bootlegs that don’t quite work.

I recently stayed at Jacob’s house whilst setting-up a solo exhibition in Cardigan, West Wales. A place full of surprise, beauty and character that brings to mind the 90′s TV series Northern Exposure. It’s the sort of place which, although relaxed in pace - anything can and will happen and as such it’s not such a surprise when it does!

Before meeting Jacob I had often wondered at his constant youtube and real-world updates and how his output and experimentation remained so fluid. During my brief stay I got to see exactly how Jacob’s practice permeates his life to a point that the two blend seamlessly. I recall being left alone whilst he popped to the local shop, in a large sitting room filled with records, players, video equipment and a collection of what looked like a short history of consumer electronics. Directly in front of me was a coffee table featuring piles of flexi-discs and postcard records, including one in particular which sticks in my mind. It was a set of instructions for a sewing machine (As i recal), secured to it’s own cardboard gramophone which plays as the operator rotates the flexi disc with their finger via a small-offset hole near it’s centre. This, to me instantly became a sort of shorthand for Jacob’s work - the fold-out needle and ‘tone arm’ and the physical act of playing the record instantly reminded me of Jacob’s Youtube videos of tied tone-arm experiments and his hands-on and heath-robinson approach to manipulating machinery. The most obvious connection between his practice and the object on the coffee table was that they were curios, instantly understandable by their familiarity and charming in their execution.

Whilst writing this it has occurred to me that Jacob has probably catalogued this object on his youtube channel, if I can find it - I’ll stick it here so you can see what I mean for yourself - it’s also worth spending some time going through his archive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA3F2gvp5wI

The most recent piece of Jacob’s work I have seen is one of his and Kathryn Campbell Dodd’s collaborative installations, as part of their ongoing project ‘Absent But Not Forgotten’. This was included at BIT Studios’ Bring Your Own Beamer night at The Abacus.

Thanks Jake!

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A recording from the second live outing for the Only Surface Noise is Real Discs, at an event hosted by Rammell Club and Reactor Halls entitled 'Cables' which took place at Primary Studios, Nottingham a couple of weekends ago: Only Surface Noise is Real (II) by Ian Watson

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The second instalment in this series comes from Knife in the Toaster head honcho Gabriel Piller. I met Gabriel some years ago and have since kept up pretty regular discussions regarding interesting use of formats, as well as sharing our outputs via global mail services and Dropbox.

An early recording that Gabe sent me was of a 'record' he had made from glue, by coating an existing record and then peeling off and playing the resulting glue-disc. I guess this was always in the back of my mind whilst making OSNIR (along with plenty of other discussions about lathes and CDR records i've had along the way). I also received a disc of his refrigerator recordings at some point, these two examples of methodology show that his interests don't simply lie in 'noise' but in process and the sounds that surround us in daily life.

A product of this interest in the manufacturing of 'noise music' is the book released on Knife In The Toaster in 2010/2011, “Stop if you notice that you are learning. Try again.“ This is an account of methodologies from a selection of Belgian noise and improv artists also shows the geographical span of his interests and influences. This was also something that has helped my own practices, especially whilst starting in the improv/noise 3-piece Team Sports.

Gabe has also done me the kindness of releasing some of my own audio experiments on his label under the 2 x C90 tape set 'Twin Goat Songs' and continues to share exciting output from across the globe, via his home in St John's, Newfoundland.

Thanks Gabe!

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The first offering in this series of creative responses comes from Dsic AKA Bristol-based LF Records CEO Greg Godwin.

Greg and I have shared work over the past 7 years-or-so. Our first collaborative effort being a project of intensely dark and weirdly meandering recordings taken initially from no-input sources and further processed. This was released as a twin CDR set 'Phantom Dsic' & 'Phantom Scum' on LF & Phantomhead Recordings.

This was a point that I realised how much better at writing copy for releases he is than I - By way of an example, here's his prose for the aforementioned release:

"Western thunder blast! This is a very special wintertime mail collaboration between Cardiff’s Ian Watson (Sound of Aircraft Attacking Britain) and Bristol based dsic. Watson provided oddball mixer feedback outings and the results were churned/regurgitated back in Bristol nether-regions. The resulting dirge was split into two short sessions, the first easy/sleazy, the second as eyeball surgery. Phantom Dsic strays into some killer feedbacker territories and skuzz computing/electronics. The Phantom Scum cdr treads heavy water with cyclonic blasts of noise mayhem. Blackened vibes of doom ambient and digital gash bang heads in the best possible way. This should thoroughly dispel the vibes of West Country/Welsh mellow good-times.

Disc one comes in black as ash card-packaging with weirdo digital-realist gloss art. Disc two in an obsidian-mirror clamshell, just like John Dee intended. Limited to 50 copies."

Greg also introduced be to the fantastic Bang the Bore Website/forum/community/label and Artist resource - well worth a look if you dont know it already!

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ONLY SURFACE NOISE IS REAL (Prototyping for performance) by Ian Watson

These recordings were made at The Stute in Cardiff, in the days prior to installing the work at On Record. The work here is played via turntable to a vibration speaker and 14" cymbal and recorded via contact mic to HD.

The system was doubled and further elaborated upon for the live performance. In which I relayed the contact mic'd sound from each of the 2 cymbals to local monitor speakers.

The speakers were balanced to match the acoustic, room sound of the cymbals and vibers adding drones to the percussive sound being produced by the pitted resin records.

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Video prototyping the performance in VHS and Lo-Fi Data Moshing techniques. Assembled from stills and video taken at On Record.

Audio recording made whilst testing the possible performance set-ups at The Stute which served as Cardiff Contemporary's festival hub.

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This blog will host the responses to a series of resin records made for the installation and performance 'Only Surface Noise is Real' as part of 'On Record' at Cardiff Contemporary 2014. The series of 15 records were distributed to artists whose work, conversations and encouragement have in some ways helped inform the project and the system it is played upon. 

There is no deadline for these responses to be made and no stipulation about what form it should take. From conversations so far I expect to receive audio tracks, print and an intriguing object from a couple of participants. 

A post at my main site outlines my initial project and includes some thoughts and documentary evidence of the installation and exhibition aspects. I also habitually uploaded photographs and video including sound examples to my instagram account whilst creating the performance set-up, feel free to track those down if they sound intriguing at all. 

Thanks for visiting and thanks in advance to those who have agreed to take part!

Ian