I got the Rhodes stage 88 and the Wurly EP200 from Matt Snowball backline hire, whose service I can highly recommend. Totally helpful and reliable, and the high quality vintage kit seems to be lovingly maintained. Needless to say, I now need a Wurly in my life; if only to soothe myself to sleep each night with some gentle buttery chords.

A few days prior to these sessions, I was at Kool World studios in Luton with George Hinchcliffe (of 'Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain' fame), recording material for his new album (which I am producing). He brought along what I can only describe as an abundance of ukuleles:

This little one, in particular, summons up strange maternal instincts within me when I hold it...

00:00 | DIGIGARDEN (with Panais Bouki) – Chronos 01 | 2008
03:12 | PABX (with Estevan Sinkovitz) – Chuva [remix] | 2009
06:25 | CUBO – K7 Demagnetizer: It’s A Fine Day In The Hidden Place [mashup] | 2011
09:30 | NEUTRA (with Fernando de França) – Under Empty Places | 1998
13:15 | THE LAPTOP BOYS (with Panais Bouki) – “Wonder”, to Claudia Wonder [demo] | 2006
14:18 | CUBO – Cry feat. Dot Allison [remix] | 2008
17:40 | CUBO – Copal: Sétimo Sonho (with Astrid Hage and Gabriel Levy) [demo] | 2009
19:35 | CUBO – K7 Demagnetizer: Intro + Rolling In The Time [mashup] | 2011
23:06 | VISAVIS (with Panais Bouki) – Despedida | 2004
25:37 | PABX (with Estevan Sinkovitz) – Rádio [remix] | 2010
29:05 | VISAVIS (with Panais Bouki) – Degradê | 2005
32:11 | CUBO – Copal: Dia (with Leah Kardos and Ana Eliza Colomar) [demo] | 2009

And while you're listening to the mix, you really should feast your eyes on this wonderful art book that accompanies the project:

... and an extra proud moment to see myself featured inside!

Huge congrats to Pam, it's a fascinating and timely book - I am extremely honoured to have been involved. If you're interested, you can purchase a copy from Amazon, or directly from Oxford University Press.

Here's the lovely lady herself, talking about her research (she even talks a little bit about me at around 3 mins in. Also, notice the soundtrack used is "Core" from Feather Hammer thrown in for good measure! So chuffed!)

"...Feather Hammer is an album that I wish I made. And that’s pretty much the highest praise I can give to any album. Period."

Video + Editing + French accent: Thomas Deneuville
Opening animation: Daniel Thompson at DTWebart (http://www.dtwebart.com)
© 2012 I Care if You Listen

And here's a video (a bootleg! I've always wanted to say that!) shot by Charlotte Noon, in which I try and manage/remember all the bits flying around in Repeater, and occasionally stand about looking confused.

"If I had to pick only one word to describe this self-released debut album, it would have to be ‘captivating’. When I signed up for reviewing it, I was warned it’s going to be ‘a bit weird and tricky’. It turned out to be my own musical Rescue Remedy... "

"And yet for all its post processing and carefully crafted grooves and textures there emerges this amazingly heavy lightness to the whole recording. The craft and the ideas in this music run deep without overwhelming the sound. It's a startling quality and it's one that invites multiple listening to an expression that explores new directions in studio composition."

"It's obvious that the piano is the center instrument on this album, but it's the use of recording techniques and special recording effects that really make the difference."... "If it sounds fragile or unstable, that only underlines the solid quality of these compositions. I guess that's what makes this album such a pleasant surprise to listen to."

"Engagingly listenable and attention-worthy, the cuts also work as ambient sound that tickle the brain when you don't even know the sound is there. Hardly invisible, each track is intricate and dynamic, reminiscent of David Bowie's "Low" album."

"The album is very much like a classical suite (sometimes sounding as if it could have been collaboratively recorded by Massive Attack and Arvo Part) on her first love, the piano, and its mini-movements read like pages of a diary that go from a good day filled with visions of hope to days less inspired and more stressful as a student" ... "the varied sounds of the piano (straight piano vs. the flatter prepared-piano) give sort of an artistic timeline between a classical and an experimental sensibility, as if to say that the constructed has now been deconstructed."

"Feather Hammer is a quality release by Kardos, exploring a wide range of emotions through her instrument of choice, and complementing it very well with the addition of acoustics, percussion and sampling. But most of all, Kardos makes a wonderful job of bringing displaced thoughts back to life through her music - whether delicate or challenging, she does not shy away, but confronts, thus ensuring her music communicates with the listener on an emotive level. 81%"

"A new album of gorgeous manipulated piano tracks – by turns minimalist, ambient and crunchy"

"This is ambient coming at it not from the dub and dance sources of The Orb but the more austere, aescetic end of classical chinstrokers John Cage and John Tavener. There’s also something about the scale of this music. Like some of Tavener’s Orthodox chant pieces and especially The Protecting Veil they either need to be heard very small and personal or at an enormous and public scale like the Albert Hall. But there’s less the sense of being small in the face of a Deity, rather small in a pained and personal suffering way."

"This blissful yet daunting at times piece of art will take you on a journey"

"Feather Hammer is truly DIY at its finest - full of warm tones and beautiful piano. It's one of those EPs that makes you want to put your headphones on and stand in the middle of a four way intersection at 3 am, watching the brief solitude of a once busy street, observing the traffic lights change for nobody but you."

"Classical music is so much more than dead white composers. Leah Kardos is living proof of what it not only can be, it moves toward what it may be in the years ahead... The music is a mixture of styles and influences from Debussy to Tavener, Shostakovich to Bryars with pop elements from Bowie, Brian Eno and The Flaming Lips. From this rich tapestry we are given a sonic-scape that transports us into a distant world of colors, shapes and sounds like nothing I've heard before. At times the music is opaque and difficult to see clearly all that's happening, while at other times there is a clear lyric glide to the musical lines that float over the listener with utter beauty."

Big thanks to PianoforteMaestro for letting me use it.

The next piece uses/recycles parts of the Feather Hammer sessions, working with infinite loops and sampling/retriggering. The warped piano sound is a beatmapped filter effect I just discovered by accident, which made the whole thing sound about 80% more evil than I originally intended! The strange video just adds to the "eraserhead" vibe.

This video is a demo for a live audio visual project I have developed with Matthew Greasley - something about creating experimental textures and surreal imagery that we can manipulate and improvise through live performance. At the moment we're collecting a new live set - the stuff is mostly being drawn from the Feather Hammer project, but a few older pieces might also get a look-in (like the ill-fated Black Mouth of August project, for example).

This piece, Core, is an unusual one for me as it started life as a poem. I'm a terrible poet so there's no chance of me posting the thing here, I only mention it because it's a strange way for me to work - from words; taking a picture in my mind and abstracting it with imagery and language, then further abstracting it into music and sound. The best bit is passing the music over to Matt Greasley to see what he sees in it. The final beautiful abstraction that gives the whole thing a new context.

I am loving the imagery Matt is coming up with - the perfect soft/heavy subject matter to match the style of the music.