Orange Whip - for Ovation Magnum 1 stereo bass + others

New video, old song - 'Orange Whip'

Comments appreciated!

Posted via web from pointmoot's posterous

The Point Moot Experimental One Minute Bass Solos Project.

http://pointmootsolo.bandcamp.com/



Announcing the Point Moot Experimental One Minute Bass Solos Project.

An ever-expanding set of experimental one minute electric bass solos with a heavy emphasis on spur-of-the-moment ideas laid down with little through-thought and a commitment to embrace any errors that occur in the recording process. Improvisation and glitch processing play a part, as well as more conventional musical construct concepts. Each recording should take a maximum of 45 minutes from concept to finished track. When there are 80 or so that I'm happy with I will press up a few discs to sell to anyone interested.

NOTE: The sequencing order will change as new tracks are added into the mix. I may also rejig the entire order as I see fit at any time.

http://pointmootsolo.bandcamp.com/

A sneak peak at the New Point Moot Trio (Duo)

  
Download now or listen on posterous

2009.August.07 NttB-edit.mp3 (4403 KB)

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How to destroy a ten watt bass amp: a practical demonstration

Here's something totally new, and (shock, horror!) electric.

It's a bit epic, so be patient please. I think it's worth it!

The first half of the piece, Bottletop Skedaddle, lasts just under three minutes, is equally inspired by the grooves of Tortoise and Motorhead, uses rapid cross fingering (which I'm still perfecting, hence the timing snafus) and false flypicking (corner of fingernail), and the little amp's natural overdrive (I almost killed it filming this).

The second half of the piece, Sanshin Soliloquy, was written with the Okinawan three string banjolike Sanshin (like a Shamisen, but different) in mind, uses an appropriately "eastern" sounding scale, and complex combinations of hammers, pulls and slides. Then it builds and builds AND BUILDS into white hot noise (including some bad, distorted flamenco runs). I also get a bit too into this and start to shake and twitch toward the end. Yow!

All sustain and overdrive are natural. No effects are used.

It's all open fingered too. No picks here.

The bass is around 30 years old, the strings only slightly less so, the player a bit more



NOTE: Higher resolution available at youtube (link just below the vid on the youtube page)

I think I'll go take some paracetamol now.

Buckley (abridged)

In 1996 I formed a short-lived duo project with vocalist Myra Thurner. We went under the name Thar She Blew!, which I still think is a great name for a music project. Thar She Blew! was mainly an exercise in what I called "collaborative composition by correspondence", meaning we'd both write and record independently, with collaboration in mind, and then work on each other's pieces with little influence from each other. Usually this involved me writing and recording something akin to a standard song format piece, complete with verse and chorus sections etc, and dropping a tape in her letterbox, Myra would then work on her bits, then we'd get together a week or so later to hear the result. And that's exactly how this song came together. We did only one gig, a small art gallery opening for the Nova Fringe Festival, but it was a very worthwhile endeavour regardless of lack of live exposure.

One of the challenges of this project was trying to translate duo singer/songwriter type music for a bass guitar and the piece here was one of my first attempts at chordal style playing in an attempt to get over that hurdle.

This piece, Buckley was written the day of Jeff Buckley's death, May 29 1997. The title was obvious once it was written, however it was not directly conceived as a tribute, hearing only of the news shortly after. The original complete song was longer, repeating the verse and chorus sections to fit the lyrics. Without vocals (or another melody instrument) I prefer it short and sweet to avoid too much repetition. Imagine someone singing over it to get an idea of what Thar She Blew! sounded like.

And I flub a few bits, but who cares.

Hedging Your Bets - an original composition in memory of Michael Hedges

Literary Baton 123

Blogger Nadim recently passed Literary Baton 123 my way. The rules, as they stand, are simple.

1. Find the book closest (as in proximity) to you at the moment.
2. Flip to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Pass the baton to five other bloggers.
   

It's a rather unusual “game” and one I have trouble seeing the point in to be honest. Unless I am reading the rules wrong the end result is simply many blogs posting random sentences, achieving what exactly? However, if a continuous dadaist storyline were to be developed by this method the result would be much more interesting in my opinion.

So, with this in mind, the next three sentences from me would be...

Central Africans drink it in immense quantities: in Unyamwezi the standing bedsteads, covered with bark-slabs, are all made sloping so as to drain off the liquor. A chief lives wholly on beef and Pombe which is thick as gruel below. Hops are unknown: the grain, mostly Holcus, is made to germinate, then pounded, boiled and left to ferment.

As I am at work I have no appropriate book handy. Lots of manuals, and a few magazines, but no books. So I decided to go to the top listed online book in my favourites folder. The complete 1000 Nights and a Night (Vol 1 Burton translation) as found at http://www.wollamshram.ca/1001/index.htm.

Unfortunately, as with most online texts there are no page numbers, so instead I took these sentences from the 123rd footnote! I hope that keeps in spirit with the original game well enough.

Now, somebody needs to track back to find the route of this literary baton prior to it reaching Ingo (who passed it to Nadim) to find the complete storyline, and given the German provenance a good translator is going to need to be found too.

Tracking back a few links and using a dodgy online translation service presents this extended snippet from a most surreal book.

The nordic hair fell in long curls to the rear. And how Chipsey announced, had to show it actually scar, at least a visible hurled, that nearly a few passed to cleanly under the left cheek bone. Although its face was hardened to an indifferent grimace, it seemed to follow attentively to Claires words, pointed there and again itself even an amused twitching around the mouth angle around on.

It would buy yet more of the lovely powder it the sting of St. Clements Dane, take it out of the frame and carry under its overalls home. It would become Mr. Tear Charrington the remainder of this poem out of the memory.

If one closes the stores of its heart, one takes himself only even aware, and then one observes himself endlessly. One pleases or hates himself, but one exposes himself, one fragments its being and becomes more incapably then ever to grasp the connection and in the end the unit of the things. The Eremit never is pulsates alone, for even the air that it breathes, before life, and through it that it receives it, changes it it into even more intensive life, that it exudes again into the universe.

“I wish my father had told me that,” I say.

“And when my child is older,” says Eckhard, happy now in my approval, “I will read him the poems I love. Then he will love them too.”

“Your child will be a boy?”

Central Africans drink it in immense quantities: in Unyamwezi the standing bedsteads, covered with bark-slabs, are all made sloping so as to drain off the liquor. A chief lives wholly on beef and Pombe which is thick as gruel below. Hops are unknown: the grain, mostly Holcus, is made to germinate, then pounded, boiled and left to ferment.

There's an interesting novel in this for sure.

Rather than nominate specific people (though I'll probably poke a few of you directly anyway), I ask if anyone is up to the challenge of continuing this? If so, please respond here as well as posting to your own place. I want to know what the potential next three sentences could be.

Cheers!