2008 in review

with the end of 2008 looming i thought i would post my thoughts on the year.

2008 saw a year of new creative directions for me. I spent a lot of time recording new pieces that will hopefully be released in 2009. the recordings feature greg taw and adam trainer on a variety of different instruments. Both Greg and Adams influence has been huge on me, they have made me turn my attention away from DSP for a while to focus on acoustic sounds. I feel as if I have come full circle, back to where it all started - guitar!

the best live show i did all year was at the bakery on Oct 29. Greg and I played a set that was from a performance perspective perfect - it felt like it went for 5 minutes but in reality it was 45 mins - transcendence...those sorts of performances dont happen often - lets hope that 2009 brings more moments like this.

the best live gigs i saw were : Oren Ambarchi, Lawrence English and Pivot. I saw lots of young musicians from Perth doing a lot of interesting new music. Cameron Rothenbury and Craig Mchillney are the stand outs for me.

the best releases of the year - Koen Holtkamp - Field Rituals, Alexander Wendt - Unreleased Music for Visualisers, Jasper Leyland - Carbon Series Vol 5, Lawrence English - kiri no oto, Oren Ambarchi - Destinationless Desire.

discoveries of the year - the music of Morton Feldman, painting, and mountain biking. returning to surfing after 10 years was also a major revelation.


so to 2009 :

Budhism, Lumenode, new records, positive government action on climate change and poverty guitars and more time outdoors.

hope you all have a safe and healthy 2009.

clouds

I took this photo the other day at sunset from my backyard using the camera on my phone. i like the grainy texture. it was nice to be at home and to see the day turn to night.

touch the earth lightly

i built a compost heap in our backyard from some old pallets and wooden stakes. its inspired by Nina Tolstrup and my grandads organic ethos. hope to get some good mulch out of it for our garden and whilst at the same time doing our bit to stop green waste going to landfill.

Fields

tonight i was driving to the city through the fields. i realised that spring is coming... the smell, the colours waking us up from the winter. i hope the spring can unleash a burst of creativity energy and clarity of thought.

greg taw and i start work on our new record/s this weekend. will post some photos of the rcording process over the next few weeks.

today I downloaded a copy of koen holtkamps new record, field rituals. koen runs apestaartje and is half of mountains. field rituals is his first solo record. i was listening to it whilst driving in the fields, easily the best record i have heard in a long time. please check it out.

Spartak Support

next wednesday, 24 september 2008, i will be playing at hyde park hotel supporting canberra band spartak. also on the bill is ghost of 29 megacycles.

spartak have a new record out - tales from the colony room. its out on hellosquare recordings and has been getting a fair bit of airplay on perths rtrfm.

greg taw will be joining me again for this show and i will return the favour by playing guitar/percussion during the ghosts set.

studio mama

earlier this year dwell magazine featured nina tolstrup's design firm studio mama. her designs have been inspiring, especially her re-purposing of old pallets into chairs and lamps. you can download the simple instructions are make these objects yourself.

since reading the dwell article, i have been inspired by Ninas approach to design. hopefully some this is showing up in my new works. i like the openness and homespum feel, its far removed from the mass produced designs that we are constantly bombarded with.

see

www.studiomama.com

tom hall support

this thursday night at the hyde park hotel greg taw and i are playing a set in support of brisbane artist tom hall. the ghost of 29 megacycles are also on the bill, I might end up adding some guitar and laptop layers to their set.

details of toms works are here :

http://www.tomhall.com.au

our set will be more guitar based this time round. we are planning a some recording time in the next few weeks. it will be good to document our evolving collaboration. more on this soon

weekend happenings

thanks to the guys from the ghost of 29 megacycles for the fun show we had on saturday afternoon. our 4 hour drone piece went well... it was good to play in a full band again. hope to join them again sometime soon.

i spent most of sunday working on some new canvases. will post some photos once the works are done.

Saturday August 23 - the Bakery

over the past month i have been playing live shows with greg taw, the mastermind of the perth band the ghost of 29 megacycles. greg has asked me to join the band for a special 4 hour long drone piece to be performed this saturday.

the performance is at the bakery - james st northbridge. its starts at 4.30pm and finishes up at 8.30. after that there is a screening of a film by tujiko noriko. she will then play a live set later in the evening after a performance by the seven scenes quintet.

all the details are at http://www.pablodali.net/tujikonoriko.pdf

i am playing guitar, glockenspiel and laptop. my plan is to use a max/msp patch to create some nice long looped delays. will be quite a marathon set...

inspiration

here is a list of things that are inspiring me at the moment

1. pivot live - saw them last saturday night, it was the best live show i have seen in while
2. 12K live in melbourne - seaworthy, solo andata and taylor deupree, its a great disc
3. the ocean - it feels like an old friend or a well worn pair of jeans
4. orange, carrot and ginger juice

monome

i started using max/msp earlier this year, i wanted to build a customised environment for live performance and composition. after a while i realised that i needed a controller that could be fully customised.

i discovered monome - http://monome.org i was drawn to not only the functional aspects - eg easy interaction with msp/max, endless programming possibilities etc... but the physical design and the sustainable nature of the monome business model.

so i ordered a 128 and waited 5 months in the manufacturing queue. monome only produce small scale production runs.

it arrive in late june, and is now the centre piece of audio activities.

many thanks to Kelli and Brian for producing such a well resolved design. you can tell that they have put there heart and soul into the product, the packaging and the ethos behind it all.

Welcome to the M.Rosner Blog

I finally started a blog.... its taken me a long while

The idea behind this space is to document my sound art, design work and philosophies on life.

the pablodali website will still be maintained regularly as usual and this space will become more for random thoughts and less concrete ideas than the webpage.