-- Lumen --

All the guys at The Motorcycle Showroom put so much work in to making the space unique and it looked amazing! Was great to be involved in this.

Photos by Ollie Davies

This is a condensed version of my live set, using Ableton Live and Modul8.

Both Music and Video are sampled and re-edited from a wide range of sources, aiming to match them in atmosphere and mood to create a cinematic and emotive performance.

Clips are triggered live in Ableton using a Novation Launchpad, effects are added with an M-Audio X-session and MIDI data is sent to Modul8 to control & manipulate the video playback.

I’ve manipulated & re-edited the videos to suit, below are links to the originals, please check out the artists. All sampled with love, respect and admiration.

Track – Artist. Video

Prayer – Burial. vimeo.com/16967871
Japanese Electronics (Instra;Mental Remix) – Commix. Koyaanisqatsi / Lost in Translation
Drum n Voice - Benny Greb. vimeo.com/9164713
Eyesdown – Bonobo. vimeo.com/5469963
Schoolin – Everything Everything. vimeo.com/14773535 / vimeo.com/8149690
Elizabeth – Alphabets Heaven. vimeo.com/22298984 / vimeo.com/8837024
Circling – Four Tet. Blue Planet / Planet Earth
Elden St – Martyn. vimeo.com/5292785 / vimeo.com/5524305 / vimeo.com/29960640
Love Cry (Joy Orbison Remix) – Four Tet. Ghost in the Shell 2, Koyaanisqatsi, A Prophet.
Rut – Joe. Animatrix, Aliens, Ghost in the Shell,
Glow – Mothboy. vimeo.com/8508477 / Semiconductor, Inaudible cities.
Line - Sbtrkt 'More Hang' Mix - Portico Quartet. Powaqqatsi / Koyaanisqatsi
Frozen Wheel – Eleven Tigers. Persepolis
Arigami Style – King Cannibal. vimeo.com/14291066 / vimeo.com/25186640 / vimeo.com/6735848

Not sure why it’s taken me so long to put something up about this. Freerotation was from the 22^nd-24th of July at Baskerville Hall set against the beautiful hills of Hay-on-Wye . Yep… that of Sherlock Holmes Fame. And was pretty incredible!

I’d seen a little flyer for it in Bristol 3 years ago and wanted to go each year since, as it’s billed as an Electronic Audio/Visual Festival. It’s essentially a music geeks’ house party, but in a mansion. Rumour has it that the Thomas Baskerville built it for his wife in 1839 as a party house and it’s continued that way through the centuries. So you could be in one of the 3 indoor rooms, dancing underneath genuine golden chandeliers and gigantic mirrors. Most definitely unique.

Resident adviser wrote this, and it’s much better than anything I’d attempt:

‘Freerotation's main draw is its music—a connoisseur blend of deep house, techno and dubstep—but its cultural makeup is what makes it unique. Due to a members-and-invites-only ticket system, the crowd are mostly devout regulars. All of the staff, from the dreadlocked organizers to the kids selling vegan curry, seem to truly enjoy themselves—even the security and the clean-up crews had a bit of a laugh. Most of the artists hang around all weekend, doing the same things as everyone else: waiting at the bar, bobbing their heads on the dance floor—some even sleep on the campsite. Hunger for profit is replaced by a hippie set of values: people are generous, food and beer are cheap and a general feeling of goodwill prevails.’

To give a glimpse of the lineup: Cosmin TRG, Surgeon, Shackleton, Peverelist, Pearson Sound, Ben UFO, Pangaea, Sven Weisemann, Mono-poly, Move D, Soulphiction and Leif all played and mingled. The music ran from 2pm -7am each day and there were 15 VJ’s who were handpicked and programmed like the DJ’s. As much effort goes in to the visual setup as the music one, so it felt great to be part of it. On the opening night, I teamed up with Fata Morgana and Mashie to make a projection mapped installation in the main room.

On the Saturday I got to VJ for Shackletons’ set, which I think is one of the best sets I’ve done, though, might just be because I was so entranced by the music, it could have just been a blue square on screen from what I can remember. Incredible music!

It’s 1000 capacity which keeps in friendly and family like, on a beautiful site with showers and actual toilets, great music and a strong emphasis on the visuals. It doesn’t get much better than that, so I’m really glad to have been asked back next year!

To top all that (and what has spurred me to post this up 5 months later). DJ Magazine just published an Article entitled ‘Visions of the future’, about ‘Dance music’s current AV revolution’. They covered 2 festivals; Freerotation and Bloc due to their attitude towards visuals. So myself Fata Morgana & Mashie got a little mention alongside the likes of DJ Cheeba, Amon Tobin and Richie Hawtin, so needless to say, pretty chuffed with that one.

Absolutely stoked beyond belief to be playing Videocrash in London. The Audio / Visual offshoot from the legendary SoundCrash. Who are behind behind Soundwave festival and too many other amazing events to name here.. just check out the website.
http://www.soundcrashmusic.com/

The night is to launch DJ Cheeba's (Ninjatune / Soldsteel) new show and he'll be playing 2 AV sets with some other amazing acts.

I can't wait for this. Tickets are cheap, and available here:

http://www.soundcrashmusic.com/videocrash-dj-cheeba/

Between the 15^th & 20^th of August, something massive went down in Bristol town. Taking place on Nelson Street, a grimey, dull stain in the centre of the city that most people would avoid setting foot on. However for this week, local graffiti don Inkie, promoter kings Team love & Bristol City Council got together to invite 20 of the worlds’ best street artists to do something about it.

The walls of the street and surrounding stairwells were sprayed with giant murals, some 20 stories high. The painting went on from Monday to Saturday and to celebrate it’s completion, Team Love took over the ground floor of an abandoned office block and hosted 3 clubnights to celebrate.

Not being all up on my graffiti history, I was lucky to get a little insight by an over-the-moon Inkie as to how special it was for the Bristol painters to have the likes of Tats Cru, El Mac, Aryz, Shoe and a load of others from France, Holland, Spain and Brazil join them in the city to paint. All of whom are crucial to changing the perception of graffiti as art.

On Saturday daytime the whole of the street was closed off, allowing the Team Love guys to push the boat out even more, placing a massive stage in the middle to host Greg Wilson and DJ Milo to name a few. The street was covered in grass, trees covered in knitting and thousands of smiling people blown away by the temporary surroundings.

There were other stages and I found myself at one tucked away on a rooftop overlooking NCP carpark where I caught the alfresco DJs and Eats Everything. This little video is a good walkthrough from up there, but also catches me and a mate mikey with some pretty embarrassing bass face action.

Needless to say couldn’t really miss out on getting involved. Myself and OCD Aka Ollie Davies put in a proposal to mr team love Dave Harvey & got stuck in with mapping 3 of the huge windows of the office block from the inside. Using the classic white bedsheets meant that it was viewable from the outside too. With a big mapped stage setup by Lumacoustics, a gigantic mirror ball and glowing cube seats it was all a bit of a spectacle which hopefully emphasized the uniqueness of the venue and the event.

The amount of videos & photos appearing online coupled with the fact that the street is still busy everyday, just shows how inspirational this weekend was. Not just the amazing Graff / Street-art, but the fact that something like this can happen here, created by people getting together and making it work, with the full support of the council. There’s a lot of love in Bristol right now!

Here’s a couple of videos giving an insight in to the event (and catching a tiny glimpse of our visual input).

This one in particular by Raspberry & Jam, I like a lot.

The good photos above are by Chris Cooper AKA http://www.shotaway.com/

 Here’s a video I’ve been working on for Bristol label Soul Motive, their previous releases include UK bass & future music heavyweights Hyetal, Joker, Foresaken, Julio Bashmore & Eleven Tigers. So needless to say a big opportunity..

 The idea behind it being that their future releases will no doubt end up on youtube somehow, so why not be the ones to upload it and hopefully drive people to the official source where the music can be bought. A wise move I think.

 So they wanted something happening visually while the track plays. Soul Motive have a very clear visual style associated with the label, largely driven by their photographer Shifteye, the guise of all round leg-end Zac Satoiti.  I was given his back catalog of photos for the label to work with, I chucked in a few of my more atmospheric clips and came up with this.

This one is set to Around by Julio Bashmore - Released 21 September 2010.
It will feature on all upcoming releases on the labels' youtube page. Check out their site for all future releases, big things to come!

www.soulmotive.co.uk

So, Glastonbury hazely fades in to a joyful memory for another year and it’s sadly not back until 2013.

Despite the mud. Despite not seeing any bands or acts on any other stage. Despite it being 200 times more difficult to meet up with people than you imagine. I still had an amazing time. (I need to find words other than amazing) but Glastonbury is like being on another planet & I wish I could visit it for longer.

Witnessing the madness of what goes on behind the scenes was an eye-opener and although hard work and challenging at some points, I enjoyed every second.

For example, one certain tour manager who shall remain nameless unexpectedly insisting 'My band are on in 10 minutes, I have their logo, I can only email it to you and I want it on the screen by the time they're on' was a test.

‘OK.. uhmm..’
N8 > GPS > Gmail > Download > Bluetooth > Photoshop > Modul8 > Congratulatory Beer! Done.

I got to be stage-side and visualize some acts I reeeeally like, like Mount Kimbie, Bonobo, Claude VonStroke, Subb-ann and the Futureboogie crew. Though maybe not as much of a fan, I had a lot fun visualizing the sets of Azari & III, Katy B, Mistajam and Labrinth. Peering out to 6-8000 people in the tent at points was a bit mad too.

Spent the rest of the time walking to the little bars n clubs for some disco dancing. So apart from the above, my highlights were The Beat Hotel, NYC Downlow, Arcadia, Thali Café Curry, The Drum Machine, Posh Loos backstage and getting to flash my pass about to gain little shortcuts about the place.

It was hard to take pictures at decent angles but there are some above. Some © Tom Horton © Sim Higginson

I’m enjoying finding terrible quality Youtube videos filmed by people in the crowd from various sets. I’ve put them in a youtube playlist and you can view them here, should you so wish:

It’s here! You can watch the entire 111 performance online, right now:

‘A result of a crowdfunded and collaborative action that revolved around eleventigers.net/111. Recorded live March 11.’

I’m really pleased with how the visuals look on the video. See these previous posts, if you’re not sure what i'm on about:

111- The Start

111 - Afterwards

11 Tigers new album is out now, there are apparently a few limited edition USB albums left, available for just £15 here - BUY

- You get the audio in multiple formats, a full HD video, a personalized postcard, access to a members only area with extra tracks and a making of documentary.

I’m lucky enough to have one and it’s a beautiful little package containing a really nice HTML 5 interface with all the stories, pictures and submissions from the project.

Immensely proud to be part of this, hopefully there’ll be more collaboration between the two of us in the future.

Massively excited to say, I’ve been booked to VJ in the Dance Village at Glasto this year!!

I had a little taster last year, doing a set with The Being Human Collective on the Greenpeace Dome, but this year I’ll be doing all 3 nights in the rave paradise alongside other visualists AV3 and Vivid. The lineup is mental!

I’ve wanted to get to the stage where all my content is my own, (something I should have done about 2 years ago) but have taken this booking as a deadline to get that completed.

I’ve also moved over to Modul8 which is already proving to be  a massively powerful choice. I’ve been creating the content using mixture of stop animation and HD video with my Canon 550 and simple 3D animations.

I’m keen to keep a lo-fi hand made organic look. Below is a little demo vid I’ve put together to a Four Tet tune above are a couple of my favourite stills.

If you’re heading to Worthy farm, come say hello.

Here's a little video from the Simple Things festival.  Music by Benjamin One.

Simple Things Festival - May 1st 2011 - Bristol from Lumen on Vimeo.

And some cool pics by ace photographer Jonathon Taphouse. Check his pictures from the Stokes Croft riots.