Brushing off the cobwebs with a couple of Ithaca Trio concerts in March:
Category: Ithaca Trio
Music for Piano & Patience
As many of you know, the inimitable Home Normal have released a little album of mine from the early Ithaca Trio vaults. Recorded in early 2009, this is radically different from last year’s New Music from the Delta Quadrant on Hibernate.
Solo piano and tape loops, this is some real lo-fi, dreamy-ass, floaty-ass shit. Oh, and it looks amazing. Damn right, you’ll love it:
You can listen here:
I’ve got a few copies going, £8 + p&p. Email me if you’d like a copy and we’ll work it out over paypal. ollie [dot] thurley [at] googlemail [dot] com or buy via my discogs profile.
[VIDEO] from Hibernate’s “Winter’s Gift”, live at Cafe Oto
Happy Holidays! Gianmarco Del Re has made a rather wonderful video of Hibernate’s christmas bash we played at on Dec 15th, 2012. It’s got some really nice shots of the gear we used that night and James and I trying to keep it under control.
Hibernate A Winter’s Gift from Gianmarco Del Re on Vimeo.
The sound seems only to be from our intro though so doesn’t totally capture the sound of the set, but a very good watch.
Shortly after this set I was also very kindly asked to come on Rich Hughes’ Cambridge radio show ‘The Visitor‘ for a chat and a bit of a live set. Unfortunately my gear crashed in the first take so had to try and pull it back with some chatter and spectralist improv. Now, you too can listen to me die of embarrassment on-air and talk about Aaliyah!
First test of the Hailstone Piano
I’m currently working on a composition which uses the Collatz Conjecture (or Hailstone Numbers) as source data in a piece for solo Disklavier Piano. Below is a screenshot from a (currently too messy to post) Processing script I wrote to get a better idea of the behavior of these numbers.
The first run is essentially just about getting the Javascript to calculate the numbers, and Max/MSP to spit them out to the Piano. Still looking for an effective way to map the numbers into notes, but for now just getting all the tech to play nice and a feel for the instrument’s behaviour.
Collatz Piano (test#1) from Ithaca Trio on Vimeo.
The main inspiration behind the piece is György Ligeti’s Piano Etude no.1: Disordre. I love the frenetic pace, and the algorithmically derived recursion of the piece, but with the Collatz project I’m toying with the concept of softening the aggressive/human element of that speed (the Disklavier can play very fast with a ‘softer’ touch/velocity), in a falling ‘hailstone’ pattern.
New Music from the Delta Quadrant – OUT NOW
Very happy to announce that my new album, ‘New Music from the Delta Quadrant’, is out now!
Originally released back in 2010 New Music was a series of unheard, unreleased or otherwise unknown compositions by the mighty Leeds based trio. It was also released in a severely limited quantity of just ten hand-made editions. New Music From The Delta Quadrant sees the album re-released as a larger edition with the tracks having all been reworked by the Ithaca Trio and remastered by Lawrence English.
Buy it from our Bandcamp and enjoy a bonus live-recording made back in 2010 around the time of some of the original sessions!