Livelooping 2007
After a hiatus of years, I took up guitar livelooping again in 2007. Or rather, before that, I had done lots of guitar looping which was not live, and I had done some solo looping live using a radio, and I had done lots of looping live with others in bands - I rarely had done the solo guitar looping thing live. So this was the time, cold November 2007, and it materialized as two gigs in England, with the additional benefit of a little vacation.
(Plus, being in London gave me the opportunity to meet and spend a wonderful day with Georgina Brett, a looping singer and gifted composer whose music I had discovered on her website - listen to "Etusta" for an example of her magical solo voice loops - and/or listen to my "Six Days" soundscape at the bottom of this page here.)
1. Solo set at Norwich Live Looping Festival, Nov 17, 2007 (festival website)
Here are some photos
and even a lo-fi video
of the very enjoyable event
that was organized by Andy Butler,
and featured liveloopers Stephen Scott, Matt Stevens, myself, Darkroom + Andrew Booker, and Andy Butler himself.
The loops that I played during my 38 minute gig were based on three drum tracks that I had created in my home studio using the random functions of GrooveAgent. Everything else was played and looped live, and there were no compositions - except for the drums, everything was improvised.
Matt Stevens's festival blog relates that I "used a screwdriver to play the guitar and came across as a one man King Crimson". Well, I wouldn't go as far as that ... but listen for yourself. The screwdriver was used at the beginning of track 3.
stream all tracks
Norwich Part 1 - Dark and Industrial. I actually didn't feel this bad
Norwich Part 2 - A more ambient rhythm with a 'fourth world' feel
Norwich Part 3 - Drums/bass/guitar groove sandwiched between sound experiments
Andrew Booker, Improvizone drummer:
"It was a pleasure to get to listen to Michael Peters without having to concentrate on playing at the same time. His pieces built unhurriedly as he exploited the whole range of his gear and tools. And I got to see what that little multicouloured battery-powered fan was for (see picture). Normally in Improvizone gigs we establish a key to start playing in. Michael didn't appear to. The tension and confusion in his initial angular bass lines gave way to complete cohesion and harmonic sense as he added MIDI synth layers and textures (that's a drummer saying it didn't sound atonal). Excellent."
- during the Norwich Livelooping Festival (photo by Os)
- my oldfashioned not-yet-computerized 2007 looping setup
2. Live session with Improvizone, London, Nov 14, 2007 (Improvizone blog page for this gig)
The first warm-up gig (3 days before the Norwich Festival) and fire test of my somewhat oldfashioned non-computerized 'large' livelooping setup was a live session
with Improvizone, an open improvisation group around electric drummer Andrew Booker that plays live in London on a
regular basis. This time, the group consisted of Andrew plus
Darkroom
(duo of guitarist Mike Bearpark
and keyboard/computer wizard Os). The gig took place at Improvizone's new venue,
Ember, on November 14.
mp3 downloads (links to Improvizone site)
1. Unsteady bass stamping on a musical box 7:32
2. Rough soundscapes and crunchy broken funk 4:55
3. Uptempo ambient funk 9:21
4. Swirling uptempo build-up 7:21
5. Relaxed ambient chillout goes for a walk 7:20
6. Slow stabs, crackles, musical box and crunch guitars 6:19
- Improvizone November 2007: Os, Mike Bearpark, Andrew Booker, me (photo by Melissa)
3. Field recordings soundscape from the week in the UK
I recorded various sounds, music, and voices during the little UK tour.
This is a 10 minute soundscape mixed from these recordings.
Among other stuff, you can hear
Georgina Brett
singing, and talking about the story behind her magical piece 'Etusta'
Six Days in England - a soundscape
4. Quiet Guitar Loop
Recorded during a gig with The Absurd
in Cologne, November 9, 2007 (video: Marcus Jovy)
