BURNING LODGE

As well as the live lodge collaborations at Bermondsey with Bros. T&B, the summer holiday has given me a few opportunities to record some solo stuff. I used a stripped down studio featuring the acoustic guitar, joemeek MQ3 and AKG to record vocal and guitar and cubase (inc VST instruments).

A message from the wreckage: Here I used the ‘ipod shuffle’ method - whereby  I   accept the next song the ipod picks as inspiration for my track. In this case it was ‘Girl singing from the wreckage’ by Black Box Recorder. I found this approach brought new ideas for arrangements as much as anything. On this track I like the guitar and organ interplay.

Stinkin feet song: Well, you’ll never guess - I found a website of American broadcast sermons. When I heard this one I just had to sample it. My refrain goes ‘keep your stinkin’ faith out of my drinkin’ water’. I like the organ but the guitar needed a good tune up!

Don’t call me Jolyon: Features a sample Emily & I found while googling our names - “Can you remember as well that when I’m in character or in front of the band, do not call me Jolyon!” I then applied a succession of different treatments across the track as it progresses. Ring mod, filters, phasing, a range of resonances and feedback. Take care it gets loud!

Black Hole Sun: an Ipod shuffle method - this time it picked ‘I am the black gold of the sun’ by Minnie Ripperton. As you all know Minnie and I share a similar vocal range so it was easy enough. On this I like the electric piano bit and the choppy phased guitar.

A cold wind blows across the cotton field - Ipod shuffle picked a Jonny Cash song (I can’t remember which) from his ‘american recordings’ albums. The synth pushes this ong into my electrofolk ‘Atar.e.m.’ genre. The lyrics continue my theme of ‘lover lost at sea’ folk songs.

Derbyshire children’s hospital - this is an extended and improved version which will appear in one of Steve’s X-box games. I’ve added a (vst-)moog line and a heartbeat sample. There’s also a track of heavy VST-copicat echo running quietly in the background.

Light and glare - An outing for the VST moog. Apart from a bit of slide guitar and my vox this is all moog.

Money to burn - I pod shuffle chose ‘Jupiter and teardrop’ by Grant Lee Buffalo.

Not much of a man - I pod shuffle gave me ‘Trams in Amsterdam’ by the great Ian McNabb. I sampled the lovely cyclical arpeggio, added my own bit of guitar and vocals and some moog-drums. You’d be better advised to just go and listen to the original. If you did dip into a bit of the ‘Gentleman adventurer’ you’d hear a lot of BSM influences. http://www.ianmcnabb.com/

Sense - I took BB’s song of a similar name and moog’d it up a bit.

Brother sewing machine

Wrote a couple of songs with Sister Biccies last week - not really ICS style, but thought I’d stick them up on the songs page anyway. Gear: Guitar, Voice Recorder, Tracktion (with brief scratching of head at Logic)

Brother Oak

Managed to produce a mini-session this weekend (about 4 hours - 5 tracks) and will upload it shortly - just as soon as I’ve decided how to tag them. Is it a late BL-34 session or an early BL-35?  It is still May so perhaps I can squeeze it into BL-34, although technically it was produced after the 3rd Saturday of May so maybe that makes it BL-35.

All of which might seem rather pedantic and anal - except to point out that if this session is not counted as BL-34 then that will mean for the first time since the conception of the Burning Lodge, that a whole month has passed and not one of us was able to produce any music - which would be a terrible shame.

So anyway, any thoughts on the matter greatly appreciated.

As far as the session itself is concerned, I will let the music speak for itself. I’m enjoying playing the new Fender Strat a great deal, so that features a lot, as does Absynth 4.

Enjoy,

Brother Buffalo

Hi folks,

Did a session yesterday. The concept this month was that I wanted to get back to those classic 70s vinyl records where you had one long track on each side - a bit like Tangerine Dream’s “Richochet” or Fripp and Eno’s “No Pussyfooting”. So, therefore, rather than trying to do 20 songs, all efforts were directed towards making 2 tracks, each of which would be about the length of a side of vinyl - say 18 minutes or so.

I also, for the most part, used instrumentation similar to that which would have been available in the vinyl era (or recreations thereof). I was originally going to use backing tapes of processed environmental recordings, but a visit to Mersea Island on the Essex coast yielded half an hour of the sound of a microphone being buffeted by wind - and nothing more - so I was forced to use environmental recordings I’d downloaded from the internet instead.

70s vinyl records were often quite meticulous about listing what equipment had been used on what track, so for the record, here it is:

Side 1 (in order of appearance):

Native Instruments ‘Deep Transformations’ (as processor); GMedia MTron Pro; Native Instruments B4; slide guitar through Native Instruments Guitar Rig; Dave Smith Evolver; Korg MS10; Yamaha AN1X; Gibson Les Paul; Elettronix delay looper.

Side 2:

Dave Smith Evolver: SEQ303 MIDI sequencer program; Elettronic delay looper.

I was going to process the stereo masters through the lo-fi “vinyl crackle” setting on the Zoom 1201 effects processor for added authenticity but then thought, “nah, that’s just sad.”

Thanks also to Xtranormal for robot voices.

Love ya,

Bro Typewriter x

This month it’s an all-instrumental new-acquisition-focused session from me.  6 keyboard tracks, produced using the newly installed Absynth 4 software that I won in Brother Typewriter’s Christmas raffle and 1 guitar-based track, in which I make use of the Fender Stratocaster I recently purchased.

Total time spent on this session - about 2 and a half hours.

I’m really liking the sounds I got out of Absynth - some good atmospheric soundtrack-type stuff in my opinion - hope you all enjoy. And really liking the feel of the new Strat too - just jammed out about 8 minutes of solo and have edited it down to a less tediously long piece.

Looking forward to hearing some stuff from anyone else who’s managed a session this month. Listening session at mine tomorrow night, although I think it’s going to be just myself and the Typewriter with a physical presence.

Brother Buffalo

…3 to be exact. Took about 90 minutes.

Equipment used: Guitar, Danelectro Chorus Pedal, Dave Smith Evolver.

Tracks 2 and 3 are in fact just the Evolver - plus some “previous”.

It’s not that good, to be honest. But amusing.

Enjoy

The Typewriter

x

Hi all

After a major effort, here are the remaining tracks from the live lodge… another 32, to make 52 in all. At least, once they’ve uploaded to the site.

Some amazing stuff here, mixed with some of the most disconcerting material I’ve heard in a while (”This Mental”, anyone?)

Note the tribute to Stanley Clarke in one track. I’m reliably informed he played bass.

love

B Typewriter x

Have just uploaded the few tracks I captured on the Olympus handheld dictaphone for BL31 - looking forward to hearing the rest soon!

Was emailed SS’s tracks on Friday, so they would have made it to the listening session if I hadn’t scheduled two days of lying in bed with tummy bug

Looking forward to downloading everyone’s tunes.

Brother Oak

Hello all you cats out there,

I had good fun doing the session this month. Decided to do it on the actual day of the listening meet at Brother Buffalo’s - I had about 7 hours and managed to produce 9 tracks.

In the wake of the BBC4 Arena documentary on Brian Eno which aired on Friday, two of the songs are directly inspired by him. “Through Hollow LANs” is a play on one of his old song titles, and “The Sin Plant” is inspired by a plant-like VST instrument called Synplant which Eno was enthusing about in the documentary - link here. It’s a pretty weird synth to be sure.

One of the other tracks is inspired by an annoying interruption to the session, whilst another still is a fellow lodge member tribute. Other than that it’s pretty much your standard Typewriter experimentation (if that’s not an oxymoron)

I can’t remember what equipment I used but I’m sure the next door neighbour can… always turn it up while recording, kids!

Really enjoyed last night’s listening session - well done all.

BT x