some Berlin thoughts
May 19, 2012
Still recovering from the great time I had in Berlin end of last week and beginning of this. Picture above kindly taken by David Armes from Sowieso gig with Klaus Janek and Anat Cohavi.
When I was there I did a whole bunch of solo recording (as well as duos) with Richard Scott in his studio some of which I’m really pleased with. You can hear one of the solos here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1266194/birchall%20guitar%20solos3.flac.mp3
Playing a lot of solo guitar (as in really trying to improvise not just practicing and tinkering as usual!) set me off thinking about these great notes Dom Lash wrote up on Derek Bailey’s extensive and unpublished archive of guitar notes. Some interesting reading, its the second one down.
Live Drawing @ Blankspace
September 21, 2011
Great documentation of performance of Naomi Kendrick drawing improvised sounds by myself and Dan Bridgwood-Hill at the opening of her show @ Blankspace in Manchester in July. Filmed by Insa Langhorst, just spotted a brilliant short she made of the LBO in Wigan which somehow works as a snatch of oldtime silent comedy!
Birchall/Cheetham Duo
August 25, 2011
Been doing some excellent regular playing with Andrew recently, forgot there was some stuff hearable online already. More recordings and gigs to come in near future!
Visibility
July 23, 2011
Video turned up of my reading of Italo Calvino’s ‘Visibilty’, part of a project instigated by Danielle Ledda at University of Cagliari in Sardinia on Calvino’s ’6 memos for the next millenium’. Playing from other manc improvisers here.
Blank Media Performance
July 13, 2011
Couple of shots from the excellent Blank Media opening last week, DBH and I improvising for Naomi Kendrick to draw to.
See a different set here taken by Andrew Brooks.
Naomi has some interesting reflections on this kind of thing here on her blog.
Gigs in July
July 1, 2011
MATHILDE is a Leeds based collective with experience both nationally and internationally. All are passionate about introducing improvisation to a wider audience and are engaged in various other collectives and organisations.
Seth Bennett (UK) Double bass and trombone
Marie Andersen (Denmark), Dance and aerial theatre
…
Oliver Dover (UK) Saxophone, bass clarinet, trumpophone
Rachel Dean (UK) Dance artist and singer
Daliah Toure (Austria/Guinea) Dance and visual artist
http://mathildedance.blogspot.com/
PADDY STEER
This what BBC introducing have to say about Paddy…
“Ever wondered what the workings of a magical musical mind actually sound like in the raw, undisturbed by the mundanity of conventional song structure and want of chart positions?
If you have, then Paddy Steer is the man for you. He’s made a career out of living in the leftfield of music, offering up his considerable talents on everything from jazz drumming to Hawaiian guitar to the likes of Homelife and Toolshed, and happily bringing a smile to the faces of anyone who came across his work.”
http://www.myspace.com/paddysteer
doors 8pm £5 waged/£4 unwaged
Open Eye Quartet 20th May
May 25, 2011
Some great video above from Open Eye gig opening for John Butcher & Okkyung Lee last Friday. Thanks to Dave J. for that.
Also a nice little write up from Daniel Ladd @ citylifer. You can read the whole thing here.
The pictures below are thanks to some fine camera work by Peter Fey.
Having seen PWHMOBS a few times previously, I had some expectations of what the OEQ might be like tonight. Nichols uses (a small set of) drums and effects on his voice as percussion and Jones plays flute, gong and effects. These are all in evidence, along with Birchall contorting over his guitar, scraping, sliding, tapping and drawing some very unusual sounds from the strings. The bass meanders beneath all this, being the most recognisable element of the set up, in that the sounds it made were conventionally that of a bass guitar, but not in the sense that it provided any standard rhythmic underpinning.
The music builds and fades throughout the course of one continuous thirty minute piece. At moments the sounds are genuinely uncomfortable and overwhelming, but the time spent on these elements is well judged, lasting only long enough to create the required tension which is immediately followed by the sounds dissolving and providing the release which became all the more memorable and enjoyable.
The sounds could be cacophonous enough to catch your breath but the quartet never seemed like they were out of control. At other times a particularly sweet sounding element is drawn from one of the instruments and, in this context, stands out as particularly lovely (this could just be Birchall hitting a certain notes on his guitar, or Jones running with a short flowing piece on the flute followed by swinging a small set of chimes around her head.
26th March 2011
February 24, 2011
Tubers Music Presents:
Aural Detritus
(Brighton/Bristol)
Simon Whetham: Laptop & Field Recordings
Daniel Jones: Turntable & Contact Mics
Paul Khimasia Morgan: Objects & Abrasion
Grew Quartet
(Lancaster/Manchester/Sheffield)
Stephen Grew: Piano
Mick Beck: Saxophone
Phil Marks: Percussion
David Birchall: Guitar
@ St. Margarets Church, Rufford Road/Whalley Road, Whalley Range, Manchester, M16
8pm £5 waged/£4 unwaged
Quadelectronic 31
December 29, 2010
Couple of videos from Quadelectronic 31 which took place in Leicester just before christmas.
See more here.
