Nube on YouTube

School of Sound

Earlier this summer I attended the excellent and very well organised School of Sound, a four day conference at the South Bank Centre in London. It's aimed at anyone interested in the use of sound in film - whether music or recorded sound.
Many of the speakers were at the top of their profession, and ranged from practitioners like Jim Webb, who developed the multi-track system that made many of Robert Altman's films so distinctive, and Nathan Larson, who wrote the music for Boys Don't Cry - to academics and writers like Maria Warner and Michel Chion. To cap it all, on the last day Ken Loach turned up.
One of the speakers I particularly liked, because she was so unaffected and down to earth (and fun), was Ann Kroeber. She and her husband Alan Splet pioneered the technique of unusual close micing of ambient sounds (mostly machines) that were then used to create the eerie sound tracks of many of David Lynch's films, from Erazerhead to Blue Velvet.
She has brought out some of the recordings on a set of CD's called Sounds of a Different Realm, and I have used some of them in How Soon (you can also play it in the mp3 player above)
It all reinforced my sense that people working at the very top of whatever they are doing are often very devoted, but making things up as they go along, prepared to try anything to get the effect they want, not following the norm or bothering too much about how things are 'supposed' to be done.

tangos

I have a bit of a thing about tangos: I struggled for some time trying to pick up the basics of the dance, and I've always loved the music, having been turned on to it via the wonderful Astor Piazzolla.

I wrote Tango X for the London-based quintet Tango Volcano. As well as several live performances, they recorded it for their great debut CD "Catching Fire".

Last month the excellent contemporary ensemble Chroma gave a stunning performance of Tango X in a concert focusing on Piazzolla's work.

I'll post Tango X and other tangos if I can sort out the permissions!
Meanwhile, here is a tango of mine using sampler instruments:

terminar el amor

newly published

Stainer & Bell have just brought out two books of easy to moderate trumpet pieces with piano, called The Light Touch. Each contains a piece by me (that is, as Ross Lorraine)

You can read about the books and go to PDF files of the pieces here.

Deborah Calland is the excellent trumpet player who put the books together.

calendargirl

calendargirl writes a song each month for others to remix. Her site is here, and is a great example of what can be achieved with Creative Commons licensing.

She recently performed some of her mixes live (including my mix of March) in a really enjoyable informal gig at Juno's in London, as part of a monthly cc Salon.

film

Here's a lovely short film by Turkish film-maker Gokhan Okur, using multiple open source images of the Eiffel Tower. It is licensed under the Creative Commons (BY, S-A, NC).

He has used music from my mix of the song Nube, which was an editorial pick over at ccMixter.