http://homesludge.tumblr.com/

Now available from the Hifi Allergy site:
http://hifiallergy.wordpress.com/

Also playing with me as part of Roadside Picnic were trumpet player Percy Pursglove, Laurence Hunt on bass drum, wind machine, cymbals, bowls and marbles and Nicholas Bullen on cracked electronics, sine wave generator and harmonium. I was playing upright bass (a rarity at the moment!) with some of my effects pedals. Justin unfortunately had to withdraw at the last minute, and as it was his project and he had prepared the material for us to play we decided to go in a different direction and play free.

I’m used to playing free and playing with Percy (like in Beef Adder) but this was slightly different. I’m not sure any of us quite knew what sounds each other was going to be making before we got up on stage and did it. Unfortunately there wasn’t a chance for us to soundcheck together, I’d only met Nicholas for the first time that night and I hadn’t played with Laurence before. Usually this isn’t a problem when you’re playing free with more conventional instrumentalists as you have a reasonable idea which parts of the sonic spectrum their (and your) instrument are going to inhabit. However, this was a bit different as we’d never even heard the sounds each other were going to be making before! Here’s a recording I made of the gig:

Nicholas Bullen/Percy Pursglove/Chris Mapp/Laurence Hunt by Chris Mapp

I really enjoyed the experience of playing with these guys and I think it definitely started to settle into something really nice towards the end of the set. I’m looking forward to playing more with them (and hopefully Justin) in the future, as well as returning to Soundkitchen; something I recommend you all do.

For our first gig at the Harmonic Programme launch in March, we drafted MIke Hurley in on drums to give us another weapon in our sonic arsenal. We’ve since played an extended set at Flatpack Festival too. The name of the band, Elda, comes from the Swedish word which means to electrify or to set alight. Hopefully it’s appropriate to our attitude and the music, and reflects our interest in the great music and musicians coming out of Scandinavia which we’ve been checking out. Video of our first gig is below, as well as a recording of our second gig at Flatpack. Enjoy.

Elda at the Harmonic programme launch party:

Elda at Flatpack festival:
Elda live at Flatpack 2011 by Chris Mapp

15th March - Sand Bar, Manchester More info
18th March - Symphony Hall Foyer, Birmingham, 5.30pm - 7pm, Free entry More info
22nd March - The Vortex, London, 8.30pm, £8 More info

The band features myself on bass, Sam Wooster on trumpet, Lluis Mather on sax and flute, Dan Nicholls on keys and Jim Bashford on drums. I’ll be uploading some audio from the gigs as well as hopefully some video too. If you’re nearby on any of those dates it would be great to see you so come on down.

First thing to tell you about is Harmonic, a fantastic festival that ran in March this year which I had a hand in organising. Full details of the festival can be found on the Harmonic website as well as recordings of some of the bands and some great photos courtesy of Kate Beatty. We had some fantastic bands playing including a very special commission involving New York based Claudia Quintet with local musicians Percy Pursglove and Steve Tromans. We’ll definitely be running Harmonic again in the future so stay tuned for news.

I started a new project for Harmonic called Gambol. The band is me on bass, Sam Wooster on trumpet, Lluis Mather on sax, Dan Nicholls on keys and Jim Bashford on drums with music written by me. The music is based on my experiences of living in Birmingham for the last ten years. It’s been really nice to explore new material with a new group of musicians and I’m really looking forward to doing more gigs with the band (we had our third gig last night which was fantastic). To give you an idea of the music, head over to the Harmonic website and check out the Media page for a recording of our set there with Rob Norman on keys. There’s also great recordings of some of the other bands who played there too.

Finally, a couple of gigs coming up to mention. I’m playing with the great Paul Dunmall, Paul Hession and Mike Hurley at The Yardbird on the 23rd September and I’m really looking forward to it. Also, Steve Tromans has written some new music for a project called Musickosmos which will be premiered at Rush Hour Blues in Symphony Hall on 8th October at 5.30pm so come along. Especially as it’s free entry!

Extensions is a collection of reinterpretations of some of 4hero’s tunes by a whole host of groups and ensembles. We were privileged to be asked to take part in this project, and your can find our take on Humans on the album alongside artists like the Robert Mitchell 3io, Sonar Kollektiv Orchester, Ayanna Witter-Johnson and many more. All in all, well worth seeking out.

It’s out on CD and at iTunes and, even better, on vinyl. Links below:

CD/Vinyl: http://bit.ly/2aiBGZ
iTunes: http://bit.ly/48b60y

Some nice things people have said about it:

“Likewise, ‘Humans’, which is the standout track here, is totally transformed from its origins as a slight piece of Moog-infused bloopy electronica. Instead, Sub Ensemble turn it into a slow-build sax number that sounds like it’s being performed in a smoke-filled backroom populated by a host of redoubtable scar-faced characters.”

http://drownedinsound.com/

“Full marks go to Humans, morphed by The Sub Ensemble from the full-on electronic original to a breezy nocturnal fusion, with a slightly noisier build-up at the end.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/

Support the music!

Special thanks to Aaron Diaz who stepped in last minute and did a marvelous job on trumpet. I love having two trumpets, particularly when the players are as good and as different as Aaron and Adders. Pure Mariachi style! Also, a special mention to Alan Gardiner (known to us only as Begs!) who’s moving to Brighton to pursue a new career. Good luck matey, it’s been a pleasure. Hopefully Begs will be back to play with us asap.

Chris

Outside (looks pretty similar):

Inside (disguised dodgy soldering!):

Secondly, we’ve recently been working on a version of the 4Hero tune ‘Humans’ from their seminal album Two Pages. We’re very pleased to announce that this will be available on the album ‘4Hero presents Extensions’ from the end of October. Even better than that, you can head over to this website: http://4hero.bandcamp.com/ and check out samples of all the tunes from the album. Woo hoo!

Chris

I got back to Birmingham just in time to catch Bobby Previte and Benton C Bainbridge’s Dialed In at Supersonic (great festival - check it out). I loved Bobby’s use of sound and the way he was manipulating it. I’ve been recently writing music for a project which will be using sampled sounds which I’ve been turning into keyboard instruments using Logic’s EXS24 sampler. The Dialed In set made me want to include some of my sampled sounds in the drum patterns of the music I’ve been writing.

With that in mind, I went looking for a solution to my problem. The obvious thing seemed to be to use drum pads to trigger some of the sounds, but I really didn’t want to buy a whole electric drum kit. I stumbled across this article describing a way to build your own drum pads. Being the practical (and skint) sort of guy I am, I thought I’d give it a crack - more on this in future posts.

I also need a “brain” to turn the messages from the pads into MIDI so that the sampler will understand it. I thought about buying a drum machine (like the Alesis DM4) to do this for me, but again, I love a challenge and money is tight! I started looking around for a way to build myself something to do the job and stumbled across the Arduino which is an open source electronics project. I ordered one straight away as well as this kit to convert the signals from the pads for me.

Obviously I needed something to house it all in and began prowling round the house looking for a suitable box to use. I couldn’t find anything that belonged to me and I didn’t need anymore so I decided to pop to the shop and buy a tupperware box. Sadly, when I tried to put the holes in disaster struck! Not to be put off, I had another look round the house and found the box my Mighty Mouse came in. It’s the perfect size, although I’m not sure Apple designed it with my needs in mind, and it turns out that it’s fairly resilient to having holes cut in it.

I’ll be writing more about this project as it develops and the successes and failures that come with it. For now here’s some pics of the first stage of the Mighty Mouse Drum Box!

So far so good…

Oops!

The Box:

Holds up ok this time

End of part one, just the soldering to do!