A website was recently launched by Andrea Streudel and Ali Momeni containing vast amounts of video and audio documentation for the 2009 Spark Festival. I’m going to be spending some time reliving some of my experiences there from last February. This is an incredible archive of materials from the festival. Something from virtually every performance, installation, keynote, and concert is available. To get an idea of the festival and the scope of the documentation I suggest watching the Spark Festival 2009 Overview.
And I would be remiss if I didn’t suggest watching the footage of my group Keston and Westdal with Graham O’Brien at the Bedlam Theater during one of the nightlife events (complete with crazy dancers). More documentation of Keston and Westdal’s performance is available including more video and a complete audio recording of the show.
Visit the site to download footage or audio of practically everything that happened at the festival.
I’ve just rendered my full eighty-six minute Ostraka set from last night’s event at the West Bank Social Center. So, while waiting for the delightful documentation that Andrea Streudel is sure to produce, here’s a short segment of audio from the set.
The projection work of the evening was top notch. An entire wall of the building across from the WBSC was covered with animated silhouettes of attendees on simulated three dimensional “shelves”.
Here’s the excerpt. I’m also including a link to the entire eighty-six minute set that I uploaded to soundcloud.com for all the brave people who’d like to hear the full set.
Earlier this month I shared an excerpt of music from a performance at a recent Minneapolis Art on Wheels exhibition. MAW artist, Andrea Steudel, did some excellent video documentation that highlights the artwork and sound that transpired at the event.
The audio quality is quite good, considering the conditions in the space, and goes a long way to illustrate the ambiance during the night. Please enjoy the video and checkout the original post at http://minneapolisartonwheels.org/content/media-mash-wbsc.
Recently I was invited to perform during a rare indoors Minneapolis Art on Wheels event at the West Bank Social Club, a new media artist space above the Nomad in Minneapolis. The space contained a newer (1970s) Hammond organ, sans tone wheels and drawbars, with an after market analog beat box including buttons for “Rock 1″, “Rock 2″, “Rumba”, and more. The idea was to do a bit of improvising on the organ while various projections went on inside and outside the space.
I brought my laptop with Ableton and started by sampling all the patterns on the analog beat box. I also brought along my iPod Touch running Bebot to make some live loops to go along with the beats. Here’s an excerpt from the set. The only sound sources used were Bebot and and the Hammond analog beat box.
During a recent rehearsal I managed to catch a few seconds of a really nice improvised jam between Nils Westdal on Bass and Graham O’Brien on drums just before we captured a run through of a new piece we were working on. The kick has a nice thump considering that I was only using the mics built into the PCM-D50. I like the way the kick and rim shot pattern counter the bass harmonics. Undoubtedly there’s a loop in there worth experimenting with.
This segment from the piece Ostracon by Keston and Westdal was recorded on June 21, 2009 at the Kitty Cat Klub with Graham O’Brien on drums. This was toward the end of the piece and the laptops weren’t doing anything except providing a click for Graham. All of the obligations to the arrangement had been met, so with a small, but dedicated audience we let ourselves wander into an extended improvisational outro.
This section of Spring in December by Keston and Westdal with Graham O’Brien on drums was recorded at the Kitty Cat Klub on Sunday, June 21, 2009. As an ensemble we have been improvising more and more within the arrangements of our current material. This is a result of our comfort with the material, but also the monotony of playing mostly the same repertoire for over a year. Recently we’ve been making an effort to change this by scheduling rehearsals to refine new material for recording and performances.
Here’s a segment from another jam session using the GMS with Graham O’Brien on drums. This was our second attempt, and performed at a slower tempo than the third piece that I posted excerpts from recently. I’m looking forward to the next session because I’ve done a bit of refining within the GMS code, including some optimization and bug fixing.
I was going to name this project “Particle System” (as in particles of light that drive the GMS), but then I learned that there’s a popular band called “Particle” and decided against it. I’m horrible at naming things, so if any of you ACB readers have any brilliant ideas, let ‘um fly.
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I’ve just rendered my full eighty-six minute 
Recently I was invited to perform during a rare indoors
During a recent rehearsal I managed to catch a few seconds of a really nice improvised jam between Nils Westdal on Bass and Graham O’Brien on drums just before we captured a run through of a new piece we were working on. The kick has a nice thump considering that I was only using the mics built into the PCM-D50. I like the way the kick and rim shot pattern counter the bass harmonics. Undoubtedly there’s a loop in there worth experimenting with.
This segment from the piece Ostracon by Keston and Westdal was recorded on June 21, 2009 at the Kitty Cat Klub with Graham O’Brien on drums. This was toward the end of the piece and the laptops weren’t doing anything except providing a click for Graham. All of the obligations to the arrangement had been met, so with a small, but dedicated audience we let ourselves wander into an extended improvisational outro. 
This section of Spring in December by Keston and Westdal with Graham O’Brien on drums was recorded at the Kitty Cat Klub on Sunday, June 21, 2009. As an ensemble we have been improvising more and more within the arrangements of our current material. This is a result of our comfort with the material, but also the monotony of playing mostly the same repertoire for over a year. Recently we’ve been making an effort to change this by scheduling rehearsals to refine new material for recording and performances.
Here’s a segment from another jam session using the 