Shoeb Ahmad - A Romance In Lower Mathematics

Things To Cut And Paste!

shoebahmad — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:13:49 +0000

So just had a lazy weekend after a hectic few weeks, starting with the first hellosQuare show at Canberra’s Street Theatre and finishing off with a couple of shows supporting the awesome dudes from Icarus. In between all that, I released my new mini-album ‘Blossoms‘ on hellosQuare and Spartak finally released ‘Verona‘ on Low Point, which can be now bought from here. I’ve put two listening links below, one from each record.

– ‘untitled (4)‘ from Blossoms

– ‘Tweezer‘ from Verona

‘Verona’ has received some good reviews so far from the people at ATTN: Magazine, Norman Records, Cyclic Defrost and Vital Weekly amongst others and we have started planning a tour over in Europe for September this year, including shows with our friends Jasper TX and Steinbruchel as well as a 5 day residency at the vintage synth heaven that is WORM in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. There is also talk of maybe doing a few shows with Japanese electronic whiz-kid Aus.

Coming up in the immediate future is a ‘four in four’ tour with Canberra lads Kasha, that will see us playing the following places:

Thursday 22nd April – Wollongong
1/4 Inch, Headlands Hotel, Austinmer

Friday 23rd April -Brisbane
Browning St Studios

Saturday 24th April – Newcastle
Vox Cyclops

Sunday 25th April – Sydney
Bohemian Grove

You can keep tabs on the shows either here or on the old Myspazz.
I also recently did music for a opening launch ‘Aired Values’, the new trans-seasonal collection by local Canberra fashion designer Andie Meredith, which was a blast. You can have a listen to an edit taken from the piece below.

– Music for Andie Meredith (edit)

Records Of Choice

Primal Scream – Xtrmntr
Blur – Music Is My Radar (single)
These New Puritans – Hidden
Massive Attack – Heligoland/100th Window
The xx – xx
Blk Jks – After Robots
Haptic – The Medium
Seefeel – Quique (Redux edition)
My Disco – Young
To Rococo Rot – everything in anticipation of their new album Speculation
Icarus – Sylt
Pantha Du Prince – Black Noise
Kim Salmon & The Surrealists – Grand Unifying Theory

2010

shoebahmad — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:45:48 +0000

A new year and new projects to get going on already. I have started demo-ing new songs for the next Spartak record – this would be the one after ‘Verona‘, which is gonna be released in February on the fantastic English label Low Point. Also, I have been working towards a new solo set. It is all improvisation based like most of my other performances but it’s solely based on electronic tanpura and tabla machines that I bought on my recent trip to Bangladesh plus dictaphone field recordings and bells. All these sounds a made into a live collage with my various pedals. I will be taking this on the road in May with shows in Melbourne, Java, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Perth hopefully. Should make travelling a little bit lighter I think!

I am also working on a loop based installation using my field recordings from Bangladesh that will be on display in late March at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space. We will be running a performance night to coincide with this featuring myself solo and the amazing Snawklor from Melbourne.

hellosQuare is busy already – we will be releasing the special 2CD Australian edition of Mapstation’s new album ‘The Africa Chamber‘. Licensed from ~scape from Berlin, this record is Stefan Schneider at his finest, a wonderful concoction of synthetic textures and spacious Ghanaian percussion. We will also be running a series of four shows across the year at Canberra’s Street Theatre that should be a perfect mix of free-form jazz and electronic sound.

Busy times ahead but hell, I’m excited!

Soul Static Sound

shoebahmad — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:36:55 +0000

I’ve been slowly but surely getting obsessed with this English label from the mid 90′s called Soul Static Sound. I first read about the label in a Tortoise interview with the Wire many years ago, something to do with the label owner D (Darryl Moore) DJing at their Bristol show or something along those lines. BUT then I also read about them in connectionIn any case, I’ve come to the realization that SSS actually is the only genuine link between ‘post-rock’ from the US and ‘indietronica’ from Germany while also allowing UK bands like Fridge and Ganger to explore more experimental sounds away from Output and Domino. I have a small collection of things which I find completely fascinating in the sheer minimalism of the music and the groovy design work by Wright+Wilkinson. Curiously, he began with a whole heap of records from the riot grrl and indie-pop underground such as God Is My Co-Pilot and Dub Narcotic Sound System. Here’s a list of what I have currently:

Tortoise – Why We Fight/Whitewater 7″ (Soul7)
One of the first releases by this now seminal group, the A side shakes with those nice basslines and vibes or marimba chopped up and layered over the loose funk while the flipside is all slo-mo beats and feedback drift while a children’s song stalks along.

Designer – Vandal/Larson 12″ (Soul15)
Two slabs of pulsing grooves from Casey Rice under his really underrated Designer guise. Side A is mixed by Casey and Bundy K. Brown, the other by Shy-Z. It’s almost hip-hop but seriously digital and full of dub bounce and delays.

Thermoderm – Thermoderm 12″ (Soul20)
Four friends from Glasgow (including members of Ganger and El Hombre Trajeado) find themselves with studio time from a sound tech course for the unemployed. So what better thing to do then make a four track EP of skewed dub vibes and tweaker’s rock, right?

Fridge + D – Indesguise 7″(Soul22)
A limited edition one sided 7″ that sees the now supergroup of Kieran Hebden (Four Tet), Adem Ilhan (Adem) and Sam Jeffers tussle with label owner D with awkward tape splices and mangled grooves. Like a fucked up dub-plate but in a good way.

To Rococo Rot + D – TRRD CD and LP (Soul23)
This time we see the Brothers Lippok and Stefan Schneider go head to head with D to conjure up short miniatures full of that kraut-rock groove that TRR love but in a darker world as inhabited by D’s samples and sounds.

Tarwater Featuring Tikiman – Like A Miracle CD (Soul24)
Awesome four track EP that features two songs and then two ‘versions’ including one that I think uses music from both the original songs. The title track is a beautiful indie/dub/reggae thing that I don’t think anyone would expect!

Mapstation – Mapstation CD (Soul25)
First solo release for Mr Schneider, going out on his own with his always melodic yet groovy basslines and blippy synths to create cute little pieces with energy to spare but tones to sleep as well.

To Rococo Rot + D – Smaller Listening/Numbers In Love 7″ (Soul26)
Dirty electronic minimalism in the true sense, full of dirt and grime. It’s at odds with TRR’s beautiful digital grooves but I like the compositions and the deep pulses that sound like motors of some nature.

D – Untitles CD (Soul27)
first and only solo release by Darryl Moore I believe and it’s full of nice abstract electronics pieces, not sure if he’s using samples or turntables or whatever but it’s definitely cool stuff regards of the sound sources.

I’ve just purchased the following:
HiM – Changes/The Focus 12″ (Soul19)
Ganger – Trilogy 12″s feat. D, Two Lone Swordsmen & The Underdog (Soul21.1/Soul21.2/Soul21.3)

so I’m looking forward to hearing those. I just wonder why the label stopped I guess. Darryl Moore was right on the pulse of exciting music when each of the records was released so it’s a shame he’s still not putting out records, either on SSS or of his own but I’d be keen to find out if he’s still around doing things or not.

pollen trio – recording session

shoebahmad — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:14:34 +0000

Been a little quiet since busting out the most recent hellosQuare releases and putting on Abstraktions last week but last Saturday, I spent most of the day recording Pollen Trio doing a whole series of improvisations for a collaborative release with the awesome 12k artist Seaworthy and for a new record on hellosQuare sometime after July this year. It’s not the next album but more a collection of super loose explorations with a rough as guts vibe.

I’ve spent most of this week mixing and mastering it and I can say the boys had some great ideas going to put together a nice and very individual collection of pieces. They did a long spacious piece that features Cameron Webb’s field recordings while I did some minor electronic interventions on a couple of the other pieces including one where as I’ve been saying, it sounds like the music is taken over by some sort of audio virus before a climax and punchy cut. I was inspired by Grizzly Bear’s beautiful production on Yellow House as well as some choice dub productions and the Laughing Clowns’ earliest tracks.

I took some photos on my kinda grainy camera, which you can see via Flickr on the left but I also took a short (and yes, grainy) video during recording which you can see below!

Records Of Choice

Been listening to a lot of things from the past but it’s been great to hear some seriously good new stuff because I don’t have a radio anymore where I can listen to new releases and sometimes I feel like I might be missing out…maybe?

Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
The Phantom Band – Checkmate Savage
Mogwai – Government Commissions
The Velvet Underground – White Light/White Heat
The Balky Mule – The Length Of The Rail
Swervedriver – Juggernaut Rules ’89-’98
Rip Rig & Panic – God/I Am Cold
New Age Steppers – New Age Steppers
Maximum Joy – Station M.X.J.Y.
Weekend – La Varieté
Soul Jazz Records – Singles 2008-2009 (3CD compilation)

from Low Point:
Gareth Hardwick – Aversions
Chris Herbert – Diluted
Stuckometer – Beta Carotene
Freiband & Machinefabriek – Oahu

from Room40:
For Barry Ray – New Days
Ueno – Sui-Gin
Robbie Avenaim – Rhythmic Movement Disorder
Tomasz Bednarczyk – Painting Sky Together
Janek Schaefer – In The Last Hour
Tenniscoats – Temporacha
Lawrence English & John Chantler – Live At Smallfish

So much stuff heard but none missed on my ears eh!

first writings – a update

shoebahmad — Fri, 15 May 2009 12:13:55 +0000

So I’m starting this new blog that also works as a website I guess…let’s catch up on what’s been happening and what’s about to happen then!

1) New releases.

It’s been a little quiet of late as I’ve been concentrating on hellosQuare and the label’s releases but one of those releases was the album ‘In Bed We Trust’ by Klumpes Ahmad (with the pianist Adrian Klumpes), back in February this year. We did a tour together in the same month with our friends the Austin Benjamin Trio and it was a good trip for us. The album is on hellosQuare and distributed in Australia on Fuse, so you can pop into yr local record store and ordered it in if they aint gots it. Or you can head over to the hellosQuare website and pick it up online

There is also a nice limited edition CDR on the awesome Sound&Fury called ‘Sea Songs, Dead Ends And Sleeping Pills’ and it features a collection of songs, solo and in collaboration with people like Machinefabriek, Plinth, M.Rosner, Felicity Mangan (Function) and William Ryan Fritch (Sole & The Skyrider Band). You can pick that up from their website, which is linked beside this blog or pick it up from me via the Myspace.

2) Spartak – new releases + tour.

On the 31/1 and 1/2 this year, Evan and I travelled down to his parent’s coast home in Verona (in Australia, that is!) with a car full of our instruments and computers, a stack of microphones, a couple of mixing boards and a hard disk recorder and came up with a stack of new improvised pieces and a few shorter interludes too. We recorded the whole session mixed live and once we came back to Canberra, I sat down and edited down a few things while also doing a little post-production.

We’ve got two releases that have come out from these sessions. The album, to be released sometime in 2010, is titled ‘Verona’ and features eight pieces, two of which feature vocal contributions by Joseph McKee from the band Snowman and Lucrecia Perez, whose solo music was featured on ’4 Women No Cry Vol.3′ that Monika Enterprise released last year. The pieces are completely live and only edited down in length while the vocals recorded by Joe and Lucrecia at their homes in London and Barcelona and added in the mix later.

The other release is ‘No Signal’ and is coming out this July! This mini-album features five works that have been reworked quite a bit back at hellosQuare Place and sees us explore new reaches of sound and minimalism. There’s also a piece reworked from a live recording from Singapore and the centrepiece is a beautiful 12 minute drift that features fuzz tones, drum fire and a fucked up flute solo too. It’s coming out on hellosQuare as a CDR and we’ll also be doing a tour that takes in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur beginning July 1st. The dates are below:

July 1st – The Empress Hotel, Melbourne
w/ Chris Abrahams & Candlesnuffer Duo

July 18th – TBA, Singapore
w/ Aya Sekine, Tim O’Dwyer & Darren Moore + Sonicbrat

July 19th – TBA, Kuala Lumpur (presented by Papakerma)

July 21st - Spectrum Project Space, Perth (presented by Meupe)

July 23rd – The Old Bar, Melbourne (presented by Sabbatical)
w/ Candlesnuffer vs Shoeb Ahmad + Adam Simmons & Evan Dorrian

While we’ll be on tour, I’ll also be doing collab improv sets in Melbourne. Apart from the aformentioned duo above, the other two dates are below:

June 30th – Bar Open, Melbourne (Make It Up Club)
w/ mystery guest!

July 22nd – Horse Bazaar, Melbourne (Stutter)
trio w/ Leith Thomas (True Radical Miracle) & Joe Talia (Wirewalker, Francis Plagne)

It’s gonna be a super month and we’re also lining up shows in Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane for around or after then as well!

3) For the future.

I’ve been working on a solo album since July last year and it’s gone veeeeery very slowly but it’s come together really well so far and hopefully I’ll be done all the tracking fairly soon. It’s all songs I’ve written over the last three years, mainly on guitars though there’s a healthy dose of piano and keyboard instruments too. There is going to be contributions from Evan Dorrian on percussion, Adrian Klumpes on piano, Peter Hollo on cello and maybe piano, Lucrecia Perez on backing vocals, harmonies and vocal loops, Lawrence English with his awesome field recordings as well as my lovely wife Kate on percussion and backing vocals amongst others. You can download two rough mixes below:

Coronation
featuring Lucrecia Perez – backing vocals and vocal loops and Lawrence English – field recording (Brisbane)

This Is How You Fall Apart
featuring Adrian Klumpes – ghost piano, Evan Dorrian – free cymbals and Felicity Mangan – field recording (Kyoto) and processed sound

Records Of Choice (a regular update on my music nerd activities)

Cannibal Ox -The Cold Vein
Red Red Meat – Bunny Gets Paid (reissue)
Massive Attack – Danny The Dog (soundtrack)/No Protection
Pavement – Crooked Rain Crooked Rain (reissue)
Fridge – Early Output 1996-1998
Harmonic 313 – When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence
The Meupe label back catalogue
Ris Paul Ric – Purple Blaze
Underground Lovers – Mallboy (soundtrack)
Devastations – Coal
Twisted Nerve – Everything You Wanted To Know About Twisted Nerve But Were Afraid To Ask (compilation)
Port-Royal – Afraid To Dance