Author: richard

Weathersongs Project now Online

Richard’s latest project, Weathersongs, is now up and running.

Weathersongs is a project to compose music from the ever-changing patterns of the weather. The project has a number of elements ranging from a real-time installation through to musical interpretations of data and collected over days or even months.

The first phase of the Weathersongs Project is an installation which uses an electronic weather station to compose continually evolving music in response to surrounding weather conditions. The first version of this installation has already been built and is located at Richard’s home in North Wales.

The second phase edits the real-time output of the installation to form shorter, more structured pieces, that reflect the weather at particular place and time. In time, Sunday Dance plans to release collections of pieces, each collection from a specific location, as audio CDs.

Extracts of music produced by these first two phases can be heard at the weathersongs website.

The next stage will utilise a data logger to record changes in the weather over set time periods (say, single days); sonify the information; and play back the resulting music over a shorter time (probably one day = six minutes). Collections of these "Days In the Life" will also be made into CDs. The software for this element is currently under development.

The Weathersongs Music Project has its own dedicated website at weathersongs.org

NOTE: weathersongs.org is no longer running. Details of the project can be found here.

Robot Sculpture in Novosibirsk

Richard’s album Robot Sculpture was recently played by Radio Penguin in Novosibirsk, Siberia. Serge Tikhanoff of Radio Penguin writes:

"Thank You so much for perfectly brilliant Robot Sculpture!!! We were glad and proud discover Your splendid, incredibly interesting work, for us and for our audience, touch highest culture and mastery."

Thank you Serge for your kind words.

Richard’s Music at Ars Electronica 2003

Richard Garrett has been asked to contribute a number of generative music pieces to this year’s Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria. This festival of art, technology and society, entitled CODE – the Language of Our Time, will run from 6th to 11th September. During this time, Richard’s music will feature as part of a ninety-six hour outdoor exhibit entitled Dark Symphony, to be broadcast across a 160,000 Watt PA system in Linz’s Klangpark on the banks of the Danube.

The full list of contributors to Dark Symphony is as follows:

Brian Eno (UK), Paul Cohen (AUSTRALIA), Tim Cole (UK), Tim Didymus (UK), Andrew Garton (AUSTRALIA), Richard Garrett (UK), Michael Hagleitner (AUSTRIA), Mark Harrop (UK), Al Jolley (UK), Yoshio Machida (JAPAN), Kelvin L. Smith (UK), Emilia Telese (ITALY), Mashashi Genzan Yano (JAPAN) and Steve Grainger (UK).

If things go to plan, Richard will be there to check it out himself!

There are movies of Dark Symphony in 5.1 surround on Vimeo here.

Further acclaim for Robot Sculpture in 2003

Since the New Year, Robot Sculpture has received the following endorsements:

• Inclusion in Star’s End significant albums list for 2002 (Pennsylvania USA)
• An enthusiastic review in Margen magazine issue 25 (Spain)
• Top 20 listing for May (#10) and February/ March (#19) on Mystic Music radio show (California USA)

Robot Sculpture is available for purchase online from this site.

Robot Sculpture: J.F. Derry, John McLaughlin Archives

It is a surprise to learn that the beautifully haunting soundscapes conjured by electronica maestro Richard Garrett on his latest recording venture Robot Sculpture started life as algorithms and constraints in an audio package. The post-production and overdubbing required to then translate these pieces into the aesthetic artforms that they are now must have been an enormous undertaking.

…In parts the album is not dislike Clint Mansell’s soundtrack work for films such as Pi and Requiem for a Dream. Guitar tones vary from metal… to the delicate acoustic. A short surreal Zappa-esque baroque whimsey is sharply followed by unearthly minimalist piece like John McLaughlin’s intro to Aura. These experiments are extended for some time before returning with an Irish jig (Welsh surely?) and another track with elegantly phrased chorus-FX guitar.

…overall, this album is a great achievement as a solo project, displaying some excellent playing and superb programming and mixing. In a musical world dominated by overproduction and electronic prostitution, here we find a wonderful sensitivity for what is enough, what is suitable and what is right.

J.F. Derry, John McLaughlin Archives, UK

Solstice Greetings from Sunday Dance Music

Christmas is now drawing near at hand
(trad. arr. Richard Garrett 2002)

An instrumental version of a moralising carol popular among travelling people in the West Midlands of England about a century ago. The tune dates from before the sixteenth century but this version is inspired by the singing of Elaine Waterson on the album Frost and Fire (Topic Records 1965).

Richard recorded this track in December 2002 as a greeting to friends and relations around the world and as a thank you to all the people who have been kind enough to buy, broadcast and review his music in the past year. Happy Solstice!

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Robot Sculpture: Aural Innovations 19

This is a very interesting electronic music release by UK artist Richard Garrett. All the tracks except for 2 start by using SSEYO Koan Pro generative music software. The software generates random midi events within a few preset rules such as pitch and duration. This output is fed into the JV-1080 synthesizer and mixed. IF acceptable, the rest is used for making compositions, which include many different instruments from horns to guitars to flutes to tabla drums. Only some of the tracks are ambient space atmospheres. Track 3 is like piano jazz. “Highland Roads” (Track 6) contains some nice guitar playing you might describe as a bit Pinhas or Fripp inspired. “That Was No Yellow Ferrari” is bit like something Zappa might have composed. Interesting. You can really hear the Indian influence on some songs, from the keys in which the songs are played or the tabla drums. This is quite an interesting mixture of material and contains some nice guitar work. This approach really works well for Richard. I really loved the last track, “The Breath Of The Grey King”. It made me feel like I was sitting out in the middle of nowhere in Wales in ancient times and looking up at the sky as a meteor storm blazes across the sky and I look up in amazement, not having any idea what is happening but enjoying the beauty of the moment. A very nice release.

Scott Heller

Aural Innovations, USA

Richard guests on Dark Time

In February 2002, Richard did some guitar playing on a new track by Yorkshire based Uncertain Music Corps. The track started off as a piece of Koan Music which Mark Harrop provided as a guide track. To this, Richard added a number of guitar parts which Mark then arranged to taste. You can hear it on the UMCorps’ MP3.com page (link now expired).