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Parallel Anthology, Whitechapel Late show Live Recordings.

Hello,

I’ve been busy working on several live projects recently and thought I’d take a moment to tell you about one of them. Along with Patten and Karen Gwyer I was asked to devise and perform interpretations of two folk songs originally recorded back in the 50’s and now out of copyright. It’s part of a project inspired by musicologist, record collector, and artist Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. Eileen Simpson and  Ben White who organised the show have collected parallel public domain versions of the anthology recordings not closed down by copyright – from non-attributed folk versions, to commercial recordings whose proprietary interests have expired.

For the first tune I stuck a contact mic onto a hi-hat and played it with my hands, a bow, and a vibrating Cappuccino foamer. The sound of the contact mic is fed to max where it goes through a plug-in i’ve been working on which can make chordal clouds of sound.

Our Goodman – Leafcutter John, live at Whitechapel Gallery.

Our Goodman – Originally recording – Thomas Moran, 1954, Ireland

For the second song I used a wooden box with a contact-mic inside it. The outside of the box has lots of sound making things attached to it. For the show I attached a very brilliant music box which is programmable using punched cards. I transcribed the melody of the original song, punched it out and again fed all the sound to my max patches which were used here to re-arrange the original melody.

No Sir (Oh no John!) – Leafcutter John, live at Whitechapel Gallery.

No Sir (Oh no John!) – Originally recording – Emily Bishop 1952, England.

It was a fun show, thanks Eileen and Ben!

For more information about the Parallel Anthology project look here.

J x.

Tags: bowed cymbal, Karen Gwyer, leafcutter john, music box, Parallel Anthology, patten, Whitechapel Gallery, Whitechapel Late show

Blast from the past, Download 13 of my unreleased songs from 1998….

Back in the mists of time before I had released any records, and before I had even decided that I would like to make music for a living. I used to write a huge amount of songs, record them on a shitty 4 track tape recorder, collect enough to fill a C60 tape and give them to my friends. Maybe I thought I might get signed or something, but I don’t remember ever trying to get them to a label. Honestly I think I did it for the love of making, collecting and organizing the songs, doing the artwork and handing them out. This is one of my last compilation tapes, I made it when I first moved to London in 1998/9 though some of the songs date back to 1995.

This compilation used to be available on my old website but was lost somehow. I was just reminded about the existence of these tunes so I thought I’d have a little scout around and google found them! A few years back the good folk at www.ordinarybicycle.com offered to host the download – which I had totally forgotten about. So thanks to them you can have a listen if the fancy takes you.

The songs are mainly voice and guitar, If you enjoy dark wobbly-voiced down-tempo existential crisis you might enjoy “the sky is darker than the road”

DONWLOAD AWAY!

Best,

Leafcutter John x.

Tags: "the sky is darker than the road", free album, leafcutter john, songs