improv house film
Great film by Paddy Baxter of a gig in September 2013 featuring Phillip Marks, Hannah Marshall, Kelly Jones, Sam Andreae and myself.
Brain Drain
Massive Monochord zine and Cdr
Copies are still available of the zine and Cdr documenting the work me and Sam Andreae did at our Penthouse Residency in September – November of this year.
There’s photos of the work in progress, an essay, bibliography and over an hour of sound sketches and experiments as well as a composition that was played in the final performance through our beer can speakers and home made amplifier system.
Reproduction of one of the 180 paintings Mio Ebisu did in response to work our is on the cover.
£5 plus pp email to davidmbirchallatgmaildotcom
Work in Progress at Penthouse
Penthouse Reading Group this Saturday
If you are free this Saturday afternoon 2pm-5pm come along to the reading group session for mine and Sam Andreae’s Penthouse Residency http://noiseabovenoise.tumblr.com/readinggroup
ABC Basel
The Basel gig from last week with Andrew Cheetham and Sam Andreae
Gigs in Basel and Zurich
Excited to be playing two gigs in Switzerland next week along with Sam Andreae and Andrew Cheetham.
We should also have a new tape out soon on Tombed Visions http://tombedvisionsrecords.bandcamp.com/
Tuesday 30th September
ABC Trio + Dialectica @ Unternehmen mitte, Safe, Gerbergasse 30, Basel
Friday 3rd October
ABC Trio @ WIM, Magnussstrasse 5, Zurich
Penthouse Residency
I started work on an artists residency at the Penthouse in Manchester last week with my colleague Sam Andreae. We’ve been having an interesting time so far learning how to make the circuits for battery powered amps, step up output transformers to drive contact mics and experimenting with various materials as speakers and very long strings. All this will come together for installations, performances, workshops and a reading group. More information on those soon.
DB RS
A potent review of the duo tape I did with Rogier Smal earlier in the year from Mr Joe Murray. Still some copies of this one available.
“An eye-watering tape cover, all pink vibrations and Mexican skulls houses this crispy duck.
Warble-guitar rubberises snazzy drums all over side one with the clitter-clatter meshing like oilbeads. Dave’s dextrous volume pedal work gives the six string a human voice…an open-mouthed gasp that speaks in a dialect from the lost land of Atlantis. When the silvery bubbles of air float up they get well and truly popped by Rogier’s mini-trident as floppy skins (drum kit) pound like a war cry. Up Helly-Ah!
Texture is explored for sure but it’s got a furry quality, like mould-ridden cheese, that makes me salivate grey goo down my shirt front.
I saw these two live recently and was blown away by their Crimsons. Diggerty velocity and ultra-hard riffin’ that stopped on a dime leading to Pinteresque silence and uncomfortable stares. And it’s good to hear those dip-outs, troughs and fallows on this pinky tape. Too many beards just jam it without no contrasts…saps. The chaps got chops!
Side two starts off all mellow and that with a ribbed ripple, a cluster of notes that dart and dive around Smal’s dropped grenades. But these explosions become milestones, stately markers on a voyage over rough terrain before they gradually morph into the start of the Pink Panther show (circa 1979).
About halfway though coffin-opening squeaks and moans start coming from somewhere as Private Jazz gets the brushes out ‘schhhh, schhhh, schhhh’…a minute later we’re in Company Week territory with heavy improv chokes and giggles from drum and guitar. This jollies me up and I’m sad, genuinely sad, dear reader when the extended grimble solo ends this tape.”










