loops to ponder changes to

Looking back at this year, I’m fondly remembering August, and a good friend’s exhibition and fundraiser, Blood Products. That exhibition asked for some trans art to be sold to raise money – and I’d been wanting to put some ideas out as cds for while. I’d been exploring looping music for about a year by that point, normally focusing on workshops or backing music for other people, like I did for RicNic’s Storytents, or for Surreal Solihull.

And then, I was feeling things about transition – the different changes we go through, and what we need to help ourselves make them. How we might respond, or how sometimes we sit with a feeling – letting it cycle round repeating and repeating, arguing with itself until we feel we can make the change or accept what we can’t make. How the patterns of feeling, fantasy or denial start in one place and end in something disturbingly and surprisingly different – or unnervingly similar. I wanted simple music, over a long time.

Each track is a loop pedal improvisation with a different instrument. One started with me recording murky accordion noise to improvise over, one with some canned trumpet to introduce mid-way through – while my melodica track was improvised very simply on a friday evening. All of these were recorded completely live – it was really fun to plan and explore these different ways of making something so similar in idea but so different in result.

The artwork for the cds is also unique to each cd – made with Ruby Lewis (of Bostin Arts, Spectra) at a mono printing workshop I helped at once – so this determined how many cds I burnt. (At time of writing I think there are 11 out of 18 left!)

If you’re interested in supporting the fundraiser by buying a CD, get in touch – as the exhibition has ended but I’d love these cds to find homes. Or if you just want to listen and let me know what you think, I can send some files over to you 🙂