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I've been asked to create music for 'Galatica', a new application for the iPhone and iPod touch, written by Robin Charlton, an old friend from my days working on the 'Creatures' computer game.
"Galactica is an ever-changing interactive toy that will relax, fascinate and mesmerize. There are no rules, no scores and no time limits; just endless possibilities.
Gently interact with the display to create a unique performance every time.
Features three original music tracks by Bloom co-creator Peter Chilvers. Or listen to your own music on the iPod."
Just so I don't get credit for someone else's work... all the programming was by Robin Charlton, and it's not a generative music title - I was just providing good old fashioned MP3s, like your grandma used to bake.
A steal at 59p / $0.99... go on, give it a try...
Developed by ambient pioneer Brian Eno and musician/software designer Peter Chilvers, Bloom explores uncharted territory in the realm of applications for the iPhone and iPod touch. Part instrument, part composition and part artwork, BloomÕs innovative controls allow anyone to create elaborate patterns and unique melodies by simply tapping the screen. A generative music player takes over when Bloom is left idle, creating an infinite selection of compositions and their accompanying visualisations.
"Bloom is an endless music machine, a music box for the 21st Century. You can play it, and you can watch it play itself." - Brian Eno
This week sees the online release of Everything That Happens Will Happen To Day, the first album from David Byrne and Brian Eno in 27 years. I'm rather chuffed to say that I'm down as 'Digitial Archeologist' in the album credits. As EnoWeb rightly guessed, that's involved trawling computers running old versions of Logic, often with plug-ins that no longer exist, and exporting the audio to a more contemporary version. In some cases, that had to be done in real time, one... track... at... a.... time... It's a great testament to the album that after a day of listening to isolated bass lines, hi-hats playing once every minute and so on, I still found myself playing the rough mixes back for enjoyment.
Call me biased, but I strongly recommend the album: great songs, spirited performances, and a unexpectedly uplifting experience. For me that highlight of the album is a surprising one: the layered harmony vocals. Their voices work incredibly well together. The free download, Strange Overtones is a great example. Ah go on, buy it...
Time at last to name the mystery 'Brian Eno Generative Music' project that I mentioned last year. It is indeed Spore! Adding to my list of unusual titles, I have the credit of 'Generative Music Consultant'. A bit of double whammy that, overnight I went from being a database developer for these fine people to working with Brian Eno on the soundtrack to one of the most fascinating computer games in recent years.
We actually finished working on the soundtrack in May 2007. I developed the 'Shuffler' software Brian mentioned at a talk some time ago, which forms the more ambient and textural parts of Spore's Generative Music soundtrack (EA's Kent Jolly developed the extremely impressive algorithmic side of the music engine.) One of the other interesting challenges is was to take existing pieces and sketches and convert them into generative versions that could play endlessly. Plenty of sample editing!
I haven't actually seen the game in action since last year - it was already pretty amazing - so I'm waiting the final result with the same anticipation as the rest of the gaming community. I'm particulary amazed by the way they're making creatures of arbitrary design walk. We tried tackling that problem back when I worked on Creatures for Cyberlife Technology - incredibly difficult, and we never got anywhere with it! Hat's off to them...
Further projects with Brian Eno are on the boil, including a new generative project, which I'm very excited about. Hopefully I'll be able to announce details about those soon.
We've uploaded some Alias Grace tracks to thesixtyone.com, including a new mix of Kate Bush's "Under The Ivy", and Scattering, a solo track by the lovely Miss O'Neill. Seems like a good opportunity to throw in this quote again:
"Sandra O'Neill's singing on Gillian Welch's "I Dream a Highway" is heart-meltingly beautiful. I think this song deserves a new category - something like 'future country'. More, soon, please!" - Brian Eno
'I Dream A Highway' is actually a track on the A Marble Calm's 'Surfacing'. We've recorded some new tracks in that vein, which we may release under the Alias Grace name instead.
Speaking of A Marble Calm... I'm preparing 'Blue Turns to Grey' for CD release. This will be slightly different to the vinyl version - Theo Travis has added some lovely flute and clarinet to some of the tracks, and I'm remixing them now. More news on that soon.
Finally, apologies to Internet Explorer users - you're reading this against a white background, instead of a transparent background with a pale blue sky. I really should fix that (well actually, Microsoft should!) If you're particularly keen to see how it should look, try loading the page in Firefox or Safari.
19th August, 2008
I've added about thirty minutes of new A Marble Calm material to the downloads section here. Entitled 'Endless', it's a collection of four tracks designed to complement 'Endless Ocean', an open ended underwater exploration game for the Nintendo Wii.
Thanks to everyone who donated for the tracks I uploaded in December!
30th January, 2008
My first update in months... I've a good excuse - I've had to move house three times since April, and spent a month living in a holiday cottage by the sea, after a house purchase fell through. Not ideal being without an internet connection when you run an online business...
Anyway, I have been busy writing instrumentals, and have decided to rip off Radiohead's 'Pay what you like' idea, and have put up a number of tracks that you can download, listen to, and decide what to pay.
I'm not planning to give up on CDs yet, though! Tim Bowness and I are at last coming close to completing a follow up to California, Norfolk, and there's a huge backlog of Alias Grace and A Marble Calm tracks in development. I've also been continuing work with Brian Eno - can't say what yet, but all should become clear next year.
10th December, 2007
Two tracks from the second Alias Grace album, Storm Blue Evening are available from we7.com, a new digital distribution site backed by Peter Gabriel. You get the tracks free, but have to listen to a 10 second advert first, in return for which, we get paid. Which is nice. Feel free to leave a review while you're there...
19th July, 2007
The lovely Miss O' Neill, my partner from Alias Grace has launched her own website, so head over to www.sandraoneill.co.uk for news and soundbites from her forthcoming solo album and related projects.
18th July, 2007
I've been hard at work giving Burning Shed a complete overhaul, and as a result now have an improved personal store, where you can find all my albums, downloads and guest appearances. You could even buy some of them!
18th July, 2007
A Marble Calm's reinterpretation of Mississippi, the excellent Blue Nile-esque closing track to Steve Adey's debut album 'All Thing's Real' is now available from the Burning Shed Download Store, along with mixes from Kramer, Sweet Billy Pilgrim, and Black Sheep (exlusive to Burning Shed). This mix also forms part of the Blue Turns to Grey vinyl release on ToneFloat.
The remix EP is also available from iTunes - I think this the first track I've had available through them. I can't work out linking to iTunes, so you'd need to search on 'Mississippi' or 'Steve Adey'. And why not download his album while you're at it...
Lots of other things going on, but due to a house move, not much being finished. More updates soon!
08/06/2007
My experiments on generativemusic.com have born unexpected fruit - I'm now working on a project with Brian Eno. I can't think of a musician who's had more influence on both my own music and that of fellow Burning Shed artists. I'm delighted at the opportunity to focus my energies on Generative Music, something I've long had a passion for, but getting to work with the person coined the term seems like ridiculously good luck. I'm also having a lot of fun and learning a great deal. Hopefully some of this will be available for public consumption at some point soon.
One very nice aside to the above is that I've had some very positive feedback on the first A Marble Calm album, Surfacing:
"Sandra O'Neill's singing on Gillian Welch's "I Dream a Highway" is heart-meltingly beautiful. I think this song deserves a new category - something like 'future country'. More, soon, please!" - Brian Eno
It's not every day you get something like that to add to the press sheet. I'm really pleased to see Sandra get some well deserved recognition. All the more impressive when you realise that her fifteen minute vocal was recorded in a single take.
25/01/2007
The second A Marble Calm album has been released as a limited edition clear vinyl release via the Dutch Tonefloat label. The album features a 22 minute suite, 'Blue Turns to Grey', and also has guest appearances from Alias Grace vocalist Sandra O'Neill and Edinburgh based singer Steve Adey. Available now from Burning Shed
25/01/2007
There's a 'generative' Christmas card over at generativemusic.com. Thank you to everyone who's visited the site this year!
In addition to the generative music player mentioned below, I've now set up generativemusic.com to host more of these compositions.
22/09/2006
There's now a video created by fellow Burning Shedder Pete Morgan for 'Starlift', one of the tracks from 'Surfacing'. You can find it on the video page.
I've also shifted the Marble Calm home page over to this site.
7/8/2006
I've added a generative music player to the site - this is just a little flash web page that will waft out continuously changing music as long as you have the page open...Enjoy!
13/8/2006
There's now a video created by fellow Burning Shedder Pete Morgan for 'Starlift', one of the tracks from 'Surfacing'. You can find it on the video page.
I've also shifted the Marble Calm home page over to this site.
7/8/2006
If you're reading this, then you've probably worked out the first bit. I'm still going to be adding more soundbites and details to the site over the next week, but it's mostly there.
I've just released 'Piano', through Burning Shed. Here's the blurb:
Echoing the powerful and ambitious 1970s solo piano suites by the likes of Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea, Peter Chilvers' 'Piano' represents a return to the influences and improvisations that marked Peter's introduction to music.
The album's highlights include 'Ghost Town Suite', a linked sequence of seven atmospherically downbeat pieces recorded in a single half hour session.
Although the piano is my first instrument, I've actually not used it much on recordings. I thought I'd rectify this and see how I got by without all the effects and treatments I like using on other projects. Well, okay, I used a long delay on one track, but that's all!
There are samples from the album here, and even a strange little video I've made around one of the tracks. As usual, the album is available from Burning Shed.
I released a 'Free' album back in 2002, encouraging people to make as many copies for friends as they could. It multiplied well (around 500+ last I heard), but it's not easy to find someone who can face making another copy, so I've made it available for free download here.
19/7/2006
New tracks from A Marble Calm, Alias Grace and collaborations with Tim Bowness and Paul Goodwin are
now available for purchase from Burning Shed's new MP3 page.
I've been back in the studio recently recording with Alias Grace, A Marble Calm, Henry Fool and the Tim Bowness band. More news
soon!
8/8/2005
The debut album from 'A Marble Calm' is now available for preorder from Burning Shed. There's a new website and soundbites at www.burningshed.com/marblecalm/.I've also added a 'listening' section to my site listing most of my (stupidly large) CD collection. Does anyone really need that many Bjork CDs?
19/5/2004
A new project is nearing completion! I've formed a new band under the name A
Marble Calm, which is a loose collective centred around a nucleus of myself and Marimba / Vibraphone player Jon Hart. I'm at the
final mixing stage of our first album Surfacing, which is currently weighing in at 74 minutes. Musically, it's a mix of
textural instrumentals and long drifting songs. To my ears, the main influences are Robert Fripp's soundscapes, Brian Eno's ambient
albums, Arvo Part, Herbie Hancock and Bass Communion, along with the ambient song elements of No-Man's Together We're Stranger and
David Sylvian's albums.
The album will feature some cameos from other Burning Shed artists. Two of the tracks were written
and produced with Tim Bowness, and are a further extension of the more abstract elements of our last two albums together. The two
songs are around ten minutes each, and I think represent some of our best work together. Theo Travis has performed some beautiful
flute loops on three instrumentals, which are in a similar territory to his work with Cipher. Alias Grace singer Sandra O'Neill
provides vocal textures on one of the tracks with Theo, and also sang on a cover of Gillian Welch's 'I dream a Highway', one of my
favourite songs of recent years. The track also features another Alias Grace collaborator, Rob Jackson, whose overlaid pedal steel
guitar loops lend the track a rather unique feel I can only describe as 'ambient country'. I'm hoping the album will be released in
the next month or two as a full jewel case CD on Burning Shed.
And speaking of Alias Grace...I've just spent the last week
recording with the lovely Miss O'Neill in a studio overlooking the Norfolk coast. Our next album is planned as a retrospective
double CD - the first CD will be the strongest tracks from our first two albums, almost all of which we've re-recorded or will remix,
along with four or five new songs. The second CD will consist of some of the many cover versions we've performed live over the eight
years or so. I don't have a release date yet, but I reckon we're a couple of months from completion.
Finally, a bit of a
plug for a new EP by Paul Goodwin. I mixed the three tracks (including Edinburgh, one of my favourite of his tracks), and also
provided the...ahem...'Mighty Lord Chilvers Remix'. More details on Paul's
website.
Some random things that have recently brought me joy:
20/2/2004
Oh dear, it's been over a year since I updated this. I've not had as much time as I'd
like to actually record music this year, something I hope to fix shortly, but I am working as a mixer on a few projects. I've just
been given the masters of my favourite track 'Edinburgh' by Burning Shed artist Paul Goodwin, which I'll try to make sound decent.
I've also been asked to act as 'Artistic Producer' for a solo project by Italian musician Stefano Panunzi, who also plays with
Fjieri. It's quite different to anything else I've worked on - sylistically it's maybe closer to Porupine Tree or JBK. I had a
pleasant surprise when I received the first track for mixing though - the guest bassist was Mick Karn, who I've been a very big fan
for years! Other guests include Porcupine Tree's Gavin Harrison and Sandra O'Neill (Alias Grace), plus possibly Tim Bowness on one
track. It should be an interesting album, I think.
Aside from that, I'm hoping to get down to some recordings with Tim and
also Alias Grace at some point in the very near future. I've been working on some more solo material which may one day see the light
of day.
Finally, I've decided to stop referring to myself in third person in the news section!
11/9/2003
Peter has released a 'free cd' into the wild, to be copied and distributed by anyone it meets! More information here.
17/9/2002
Paul Goodwin's excellent Burning Shed Session has just been released. The album was recorded in just one day, with Peter engineering and volunteering occasional accompaniment. Alias Grace's Sandra O'Neill also provides backing vocals on 'Closure'.
2/9/2002
Tim Bowness and Peter Chilvers have released their album California, Norfolk as the first CD release on their Burning Shed label. Further details are available at www.burningshed.com/bownesschilvers/
22/4/2002
Peter will be performing with both Tim Bowness and Alias Grace at a forthcoming
Kate Bush tribute event. The details are as follows:
The Assembly House
Theatre Street Norwich
April 26th
Doors
Open 7.30 pm
Tickets £7.50 from Norwich Arts Centre
(50p booking fee) Tel 01603 660352
also from Venue 01603 632468
enquiries Tel 01603 452850
21/4/2002
Peter has recently been producing ambient vibraphone / marimba player Jon Hart, creating an album that combines influences from Gary Burton, Steve Reich, Laraaji and Brian Eno.
18/11/2001
Peter has recently completed a "soundtrack to a non-existing film". "The Stormwatcher" was inspired by the Graham Joyce novel of the same name, and is an atmospheric blend of orchestral and electronic textures evoking the air of melancholy and tension that pervades the book.
14/11/2001
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