Friday 24 August 2012

The HS TPS Report 3


Hello and welcome to the Hatcham Social weekly TPS Report



Weekly. Cool shit. From us. To you. Argue, agree, hate, love, share, block, destroy, follow.



Here is a remix we did of the song South Pacific by the band Is Tropical. You can download it. We used a bunch of Commadore 64 samples and some tape delays, it was fun.


On/Off Music

Have been thinking about how working on computers making music effects the outcomes, how it creates space in a different way from Tape or other more limited/enclosed recording mediums. Here are some thoughts:  

Computers work upon a binary system of 0’s and 1’s, on and off commands. Written into complex languages that enable multiples upon multiples of commands to build large levels and seemingly linear spaces. Although with the complexities and possibilities within modern computers, a fact that they seem as part of every process as a hand or a knife, the basis of using computers does seem to fall back into On or Off.

Let me explain what I mean and how it seems, to me, to effect the process and product of music. To start with think about when we listen to Brigette Fontaine ‘Coma a la Radio’. When we listen to a piece like this we know it was recorded onto a tape, tape uses a linear process of recording information and works pretty much by holding memory shapes in rust of voltages representing sounds, these are continuous and limited in the tape length. It is always recording something, or at least always has something on it, the tape exists whether you record or not, so you can be sitting with record on and then bring in your sounds and the sound of you not playing was also being recorded. It appears that with computer recording, although in essence this is possible (to work with computer DAWs -Digital Audio Workstations- as if ‘to tape’) it lends itself to work in a different manner - after all there is no track limit or start or end of the ‘tape’. So unless you strictly emulate the approach of tape based recording you end up recording (or editing) in and out of points of tracks. This is all fairly obvious to you I expect - yes its a computer, yes they are not linear in a ‘real’ sense.

It creates a music of On and Off points. Listen to Nicki Minaj for a perfect example of how this can be felt very audibly. It leads us to make music where things start and stop in very definite ways, where we know EXACTLY when something is starting and when the space it inhabits ‘disappears’ from the whole world of the song/track/whatever.

Obviously there are elements of the visual reliance that is very heavy, now that we can zoom in on any wave-form or bar-count and cut/edit/syncronise to our hearts content but I don’t want to go into that.

Little bubbles of non-existent realities emerge, composed out of numbers, into thin air and then, pop, pop, they are gone and the space never existed. 

I am not interested in whether this is better or worse, only that I find it worthy to think about when creating music, the way that the process can dictate so much and also how regimented you can become (which may be perfect for you) by sticking to a computer recording process. It is a very much On and Off soundscape.

Toby

Friday 17 August 2012

The HS TPS Report 2


Hello and welcome to the Hatcham Social weekly TPS Report


Weekly. Cool shit. From us. To you. Argue, agree, hate, love, share, block, destroy, follow.



Init.

Friday 10 August 2012



The HS TPS Report


Hello and welcome to the Hatcham Social weekly TPS Report 

Weekly. Cool shit. From us. To you. Argue, agree, hate, love, share, block, destroy, follow.

Have been reading a little of Verlaine and wanted to share one with you, you may not know this:

The Innocents ‘Paul Verlaine’

(FĂȘtes Galants: Les IngĂ©nus)

High heels fought with their long dresses,
So that, a question of slopes and breezes,
Ankles sometimes glimmered to please us,
Ah, intercepted! – Dear foolishnesses!

Sometimes a jealous insect’s sting
Troubled necks of beauties under the branches,
White napes revealed in sudden flashes
A feast for our young eyes’ wild gazing.

Evening fell, ambiguous autumn evening:
The beauties, dreamers who leaned on our arms,
Whispered soft words, so deceptive, such charms,
That our souls were left quivering and singing.

You love him too, right?

Look Sessions

A few months back we went to SXSW festival in Austin Texas (yes it was amazing in the Motel and the Frat Parties), while we were there we played an acoustic session for an Look Sessions (looksessions.com), here is us playing an acoustic version of Like An Animal for them:




For those of you who entered our competition for tickets for our autumn tour, playing with Tim Burgess, you will have received notification today if you won. Congratulations! Going to be fucking great  tour.

HS