New digital release on Glasgows Scatter Archive label

Sam Andreae: alto saxophone +DIY electronics
David Birchall: electric guitar
Toshimaru Nakamura: no-input mixing board
Otto Willberg: double bass

cover artwork by Mio Ebisu

Made at Cafe Oto, London and Small Seeds, Huddersfield in a concert organised by AME during the quartets 2019 UK tour.

Here we are post Ethiopian food at Habesha before the Manchester gig. L-R Shakeeb Abu Hamdan, David Birchall, Otto Willberg, Sam Weaver, Sam Andreae & Toshimaru Nakamura.

Really pleased to say this new album of vocal improvisations is out! It was recorded as part of my research into performing recordings in marginal, inbetween areas around Manchester over the past two years. Big thanks goes to everyone who came on singing walks with me inside the long dank tunnel under the M60 motorway which you can see in the picture. Click here to see a full gallery of images I’ve taken documenting the area round Junction 7 and the some action shots from performances. This is the same tunnel I worked in when I made Murky Sovereignty with Otto Willberg for Taku Roku last year. You can consider the two pieces close relations I guess. The release itself is available as a download, CD and a one off photobook and CD. All purchaseable via the bandcamp link below.

Super proud this album we recorded Spring 2020 is now available as CD via Lisbon’s Creative Sources label or via all the musicians on the record in the UK

David Birchall: electric guitar
Adam Fairhall: accordion
Michael Perrett: bass clarinet
Yoni Silver: bass clarinet
Otto Willberg: double bass

https://www.creativesourcesrec.com/catalog/catalog_706.html

https://davidbirchall.bandcamp.com/album/aggregate-glows-in-the-cold

New tape out with Sam Andreae (London) and Yan Jun (Bejing) on Wigan’s Steep Gloss label. Improvisation recorded in real time in November 2020.

“Plugged into our impossible online room, triangulated between Beijing, London & Manchester via autonomous noise unit, we clicked here and there to tune into each other and quickly imagined an ecstatic Morbid Angel covers band, riding waves of device distortion and 5000 miles of time delay. I was on an aural noise high for hours after the session just like that first time seeing LOUD bands in the Princess Charlotte in Leicester as a kid, inaudible, cloth eared to the teachers at school the next day. A private underwater sound joy.”

Had a great walk and exploration in the Prestwich/Whitefield area 3 miles north of Manchester city centre for the latest episode of Walking & Talking with sound artist Lee Patterson last week. We talk about insects, bird calls, badgers, ways into listening and sound and the enclosures act amongst other things! Lee made some unique hyrdophone recordings to test a new set he had built which end the show in parallel with Lee’s commentary on whats happening in the recordings. Its a really engaging listening exactly what I hoped the shows might be like when I first started them!

Walking & Talking

I’m super pleased to say that I’ve been awarded an Arts Council England grant to help support the Wanderlust project; developing 6 episodes of my podcast Walking and Talking which go out on Camp Radio the radio/podcast platform for Camp.

The beautiful poster for the project has been created by painter Mio Ebisu. You can see the two original works she made for the project at the bottom of the post. As part of the project I’ve had been really lucky to have some bespoke production training with Becca Gaskell which has really helped the process of putting the episodes together.

You can hear the first episode this Thursday 27th May at 11am CET with my guest for the month Richard Harrison.

Richard is probably the only person I know who has both toured with Nico (of Velvet Underground fame) and played Derek Bailey’s Company Week. He’s been active in bands since the late 70s starting out with The Mud Hutters a post punk group which featured his cousin Mark and rehearsed on the family farm, which is not far from where we are today walking today. He went on to play with an amazing array of bands including Manchester new wave group Dislocation Dance, NYCs’ God is my Co-Pilot, The Honkies alongside Caroline Kraabel, Kathy Hulme, Andy Diagram and John Edwards, in Graham Massey’s Toolshed and Paddy Steer’s Homelife project. He also toured all over the world with his duo Spaceheads with trumpeter Andy Diagram. Alongside the band projects Richard has been active as an improviser in Manchester & London and has an ongoing project making field recordings of wire fence harmonics generated winds on his brother in laws farm in Scotland.