Performance Anxiety

The back room has been taken over by synthesizers and today I began my mission to really get to grips with my toys and work out some sort of set for the gig in April.  It mostly went well.  there was a period right in the middle of the afternoon where it all came together really nicely into a big looping post-industrial jam and i got completely lost in it.  One of the main problems I'm facing is I'm too uptight about the gadgetry.  I'm so used to working incredibly slowly and self editing and correcting that when I take myself out of that mode I'm too conscious of the 'mistakes' or rather I should probably call them the unexpected little outbursts.  Still, there's a month to go and I'll have plenty of opportunities between now and then to find my path.

Spent this evening typing up the reviews for the next issue of WWR which, all being well, will be online tomorrow (Sunday) or Monday.  I was hoping to have some of the new features in place this issue but the inspection that I talked about in the last post got in the way of me chasing that and so neither of them have happened yet.

peace
Ian

Wonderful Wooden Reasons #49

The brand new issue of  Wonderful Wooden Reasons is now online featuring reviews of...

Rodolphe Alexis – Sempervirent

Glenn Bach – Radia
Albert Beger & Gerry Hemingway – There’s Nothing Better to Do
Joda Clement – The Narrows
Dog Hallucination – Bob Hallucination
Fasenuova – Ella Esta Llena de Garcia
Flu(o) – Encore Remuants
Miguel A. Garcia – Red River / Rio Tinto
Peter James – There is Only Now
James McDougall & Hiroki Sasajima – Injya
Mites - Something to Ponder upon for a Restless Soul like You
Adrian Shenton & Banks Bailey – Wrapped in Clover
Various – The Machine Started to Flow into a Vein (volume 3)

as usual there's an accompanying mix.

hope you enjoy
peace
ian 

Repairs and renovations

Been pottering all evening with the Wonderful Wooden Reasons website and we know have an alphabetised Movie Review section.

Both that and the Books have been updated with new reviews.  These rarely get included in the main WWR updates as they generally aren't contemporary so don't really fit.  I've been so busy over the last two years that most of the books I read are graphic novels I grab from my local library that I can dip in and out of easily whilst working. A lot of these are both a few years old and not necessarily very good so I tend to leave them off the listings.

The movie reviews are often just pithy little comments to sum up in as brief a way possible what I thought of what I just watched.

I'm planning more additions to the zine over the next little while.  Not sure what form these are going to take as yet - still plotting - but they are coming.

Peace
Ian

wonderful wooden reasons #35

The August issue (#35) is now online complete with attached Soundcloud mix. (which is at the bottom of this post if you just want music without the words)

As usual you can read it at it's own website - here - or at it's myspace page - here.

It's the usual ragtag assortment of drone, ambient, noise, psychedelia and wierdness with even a touch of post-hardcore lunacy this month.

reviews of...

Beequeen - Time Waits For No One
Andrea Borghi - Moltiplicazioni
Chemins - cdr#4
Clutter - Yellow Light Discarded
Rod Cooper - Accepting the Machines
Dead Shall Not Have Died In Vain / Dysthymia - split 7"
Everything But The Gargoyle - Four Flies on Grey Velvet
Hall of Mirrors - Forgotten Realm
Marinos Koutsomichalis - Trevor Jones Studio Sessions vol 1
Goh Lee Kwang - Hands
Dale Lloyd - Akasha_For Record
Mopey Mumble Mouse - I Am Happy Being Nothing
Lasse-Marc Riek - Habitats
Mathieu Ruhlmann - As A Leaf Or A Stone
Hiroki Sasajima - Nille
Seasons (pre-din) - Occasionally I Forget To Breathe
Spoils & Relics / BRB>Voicecoil - Split LP
Syrinx / Playing With Nuns - Split
Nicholas Szczepanik & Juan Jose Calarco - Lack Affix
Various - Dark Meadows Recordings sampler
Viosac - Dawning Luminosity
VipCancro - Tropico

I hope you find something you dig.

Wonderful Wooden Reasons 35 by Quiet World on Mixcloud

tired, so very tired.

have run myself ragged over the last week and a half but able to go back to work soon for a bit of a rest.

the new issue of the zine is up. no podcast as yet as i've not had time but hopefully soon.

a new review of A Brief Sojourn arrived today from Evening Of Light - my thanks to Oscar.

In terms of quality releases, things have been running smoothly for Welsh drone/ambient label Quiet World. A recent example is A Brief Sojourn, a collaboration between Banks Bailey and Ian Holloway, delivering well over half an hour of finely blended drones and field recordings.

The sound on this album is most comparable to that on Summerland, where both men worked together with Darren Tate. A heavy dose of nature sounds like rain, birds, rustlings, are combined with subtle melodies, drones, and pulses, together forming a varied and atmospheric whole. The drones and weather sounds form an organic backdrop for a broad scala of unique ‘voices’.

The release isn’t very extreme at either end of the intensity spectrum; it maintains a stable level of layeredness and volume, without any strong eruptions of noise or silence. A perfect companion piece for a journey, a meditation or relaxation session, and the like. It’s a tad dark and ominous at times, so A Brief Sojourn will primarily be of interest to lovers of more obscure drone and ambient, but that goes for most of the Quiet World titles thus far. Compared to what went before, in any case, this one is certainly no disappointment.

chilling with tea and a book

on holiday for two weeks. can't afford to go anywhere exotic so staying put and disappearing off on jaunts. today though is all about watching old episodes of doctor who, reading a victorian era who-dunnit, walking into mumbles for a mooch around and then getting a late breakfast in my favourite greasy-spoon cafe before heading home to repeat the first two.

got a new review yesterday for A Brief Sojourn and very nice it is too. thanks michael.

On A Brief Sojourn, Quiet World head Ian Holloway (formerly Psychic Space Invasion) constructs wonderfully solemn ambient gloriousness out of synthesizers and Banks Bailey's crisp, bucolic field recordings. It's a stellar match – this isn't the first time the two have collaborated – as Holloway's gloriously low-key drones coalesce perfectly with the incidental recordings: a trickling creek, wind in the thickets, insect symphonies... All together, the disc has that uncanny ability to take you to (your own mental rendition of) the sound sources themselves, though imbued with an inner tranquility that meshes perfectly with the pastoral nature of the audio. Through the album's lone, substantial composition, several stretches of mood are encountered, including periods of uplifting lightness, vague menace, and dreary longingness. Certainly, one of Holloway's core talents is his ability to conjure up these feelings with such minimal sonic output – it's all about sound placement and the choice of tones. Design aside, however, what results from all this is a thirty-six minute passage of sound that is at once marvellously listenable, exquisite to rest to, and more than a little reminiscent of ambient work by Biosphere – especially with regards to the field recordings, which remind one of a less polar formulation of Geir Jenssen's atmospheric designs. A subtle treat. - Michael Tau,

Celtic Mystic?

another review of the new album, this time from The Sound Projector. I'm a pretty new convert to the zine. i've known about it for a while but it kept slipping off my radar. he updates weekly with about 5 new reviews and i think it's well worth ckecking out.

Celtic mystic Ian Holloway was last heard from us when he was musing about the fragility of dragonfly wings at the end of last year. On Handle this wino like he was an angel: Baubles & Gewgaws 2002-2008 (QUIET WORLD 13), he delves into a secret folder on his home PC, contents of said folder of a nature and value known only to himself. Said contents built up over time when he was producing numerous albums and tracks as Psychic Space Invasion between 2002 and 2008. On that basis, one might be forgiven for thinking this is just a collection of anonymous computer music, but this little Chinese puzzle is a far more interesting listen than the banal filtered samples and boring processed loops that most creators manage to summon up from their Samsungs. I rather feel Holloway has somehow left a collection of his own mental imprints in the very circuits of his PC, and he needed only activate a few keystrokes to let these strange ideas and impressions come tumbling out.

I'm so glad Wino is getting nice reviews. I really didn't know what to expect as it's so different from anything else i've done in recent years. it's a good feeling when you get positive feedback on something.

have a great weekend.

The reviews are coming thick and fast at the moment

this is from Indieville and is written by fella called Michael Tau who i did that little interview with last month. He says very nice things about my music and I thank him for it.

Nothing delights me more than a forty minute ambient epic, and Holloway delivers in spades. Treading the same water as Biosphere's Substrata album, She Loves to See the Sky moseys gradually through a metamorphosing passage of sound, toying with various background textures, field recordings, and synthesizer drones along the way. It's a relaxing but substantive trip, imbued with a naturalistic quality that is evoked by way of faraway birds chirping, wind rustling, and general outdoorsy audio. Seldom does this disc force its way into the sonic foreground, so to speak, although some indefinable metallic clatter is heard on occasion – seldom to grating effect, but more so to add variety to an otherwise subtle release. She Loves to See the Sky is, ultimately, a fundamentally restful album, and it's perfectly suited to accompanying the listener to bed. With lights out and a comfortable nook ready, this is nothing short of a marvellous treat.

A Brief Sojourn reviewed in Rumbles

Banks is most definitely not from South Wales - Arizona actually - but another nice review.

Ian Holloway & Banks Bailey are a couple of sonic explorers from South Wales, here presenting their album "A Brief Sojourn," which is a single thirty-six minute track taking electronics and natural sounds as a basis for work. The synthesizers drone and sway in stereo, while other sounds lurk deep in the mix. The natural sounds are subtle and don't take over; a deep and melancholy mood covers the piece. Very good indeed, and ideal for that 'last CD of the evening' moment.

there's still copies of the album available should anyone want one.

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Winter finally seems to be over and it's been a beautiful spring day here. It's still pretty cold but the sun is shining the birds are singing and the park is full of muticoloured wild flowers. Had a good walk through Clyne and fed the ducks which was something i hadn't done for a long long time.

I have some field recordings here that i'm going to upload to here some point soon so you may want to keep an eye out for them. for now though it's time for some tea.

first review of the new album

Always super quick off the mark, the ever lovely Frans over at Vital Weekly has posted up the first review of the new(ish) album.

He's wrong about it being my first album of shorter tracks, there've been 6 others, but on the whole I think it's a pretty fair assessment.

IAN HOLLOWAY - HANDLE THIS WINO LIKE HE WAS AN ANGEL: BAUBLES & GEWGAWS 2002-2008 (CDR by Quiet World)
As far as I can remember, I think that all of the releases by Ian Holloway had just one track. Usually a drone based piece of around forty minutes. That's about the extend of his work, with minor differences here and there. Then this new release comes a major surprise. Apparently Holloway sometimes creates weird, little pieces on his computer, which he calls 'little diversions, games, distractions and brainstorms' which never fitted on any 'real' release. All of these little pieces were kept over a period of eight years and are now collected here. This is by far not the Holloway we know, no long form drones here, hardly any organ like sound, but something which is probably best defined as plunderphonics. Lifting his sounds from various types of media (CDs, TV, internet: who knows) he cuts and pastes them together in a highly vibrant manner. The CD opens with 'Why M', which seems to be more a click 'n cut piece, but quite soon after orchestral music comes in. Looped, transposed, shifted in true plunderphonic fashion. As said sometimes things are more abstract, in a clicks 'n cut manner, but these tracks are all pretty short. Its a pretty interesting release, but perhaps a bit long for the limited amount of ideas that these pieces have. I think Holloway could have been a bit more selective with these pieces, throw out those with the weakest ideas and over the top effects, like 'Monday's Time', and have with ten or so (instead of fifteen now) a much stronger album. Now its all a bit too sketch like and a bit crowded. I am pretty sure his dedicated fans will be shocked by this release, but I thought it was pretty good as well as funny. (FdW)

interestingly Darren Tate said something similar about it needing pruning but the whole point of releasing ths album was that it was a folder full of tracks that i'd grown to be inordinately fond of and so to leave any out would have felt odd.

It's always nice to get the first review back i'm not overly concerned with them but it is a good feeling when someone says something nice about your tunes.

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have spent most of today discussing the impact of punk music on subsequent genres with a bunch of music technology students. there are definitely worse ways to spend a day.