radio cegeste / lee noyes 'to orient themselves with coastlines' released on idealstate recordings

with the prospect of the Radio Cegeste / Lee Noyes live collaboration coming to an end for the foreseeable future upon Lee's relocation from Dunedin, NZ to Gothenburg, Sweden in the final days of 2011, his decision to release two site-specific recordings we had done in the previous months as a four-track album on his own idealstate label resulted in to orient themselves with coastlines (ISR2-12), in an edition of 100 copies. With the official release date as the 7th january 2012, these are at the time of writing available at the idealstate site, and via French distributor Metamkine.

...performing with Lee Noyes at Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 28/1

"Lee Noyes and Sally Ann McIntyre performed first. Sally had amassed a curious collection of items to toy with – and in a speculative facebook post early that day she mused over the outcomes of a meeting between “ a mini-FM transmitter, a bakelite valve radio, a homemade kitset theremin, six identical pocket size transistors, a 78rpm record from the 1940s featuring "master radio canaries" (a gift from John Demetrick), field recordings made in the grounds of seacliff lunatic asylum, and a small music box that plays edith piaf's l'accordeoniste...” . Noyes utilized his famous mini-sized kit, this time stripped back to absolute bare boner. What occurred was simply gorgeous – the FM and valve radios effervesced and tittered, radio emits a sound so archetypal to those of us with a penchant for information and paranoia, grey sound – empty fuzz such a narcotic delight in my childhood... Noyes mirrored the chatter and crunch of radio by stretching drum-skins, scraping and sucking, blowing and shuttling, his kit transforms into an ululating backdrop for McIntyres radio-orchestration. Melody enters as McIntyre spins the haunting 78 and manipulates music box, the evocative multi-verse of source materials create a new world. There is a delerium to this performance. The birdsong and field-recordings created a sense of the baroque and the oriental, like a scene from an islamic garden of delights... birds and warm sweet breezes, beneath which rivers flow. And so I attended my first improvised performance of radio and drum. And I don't think any one else would have had the imagination and responsive sensitivity to make it work. Bravo Lee and Sally."

- Matt Middleton, writing in his blog La Decennie Brut

radio cegeste at records records, dunedin

The bugler sent a call of high romance— “Lights out! Lights out!” to the deserted square. On the thin brazen notes he threw a prayer

- Robert Graves, 'The Last Post'

Records Records is an iconic second hand record store in Dunedin, New Zealand. An institution in the city, it was started in the 1970s by Roi Colbert, in a little space located in Stuart St, just off the central Octagon, where in the crucial decades of the 80s and 90s it filtered the ebbs and flows of the financial realities vs. the listening and collecting habits of various illustrious locals, while acting as an information and networking hub for Dunedin's sound culture. Recently, Roi sold up and the shop shifted to new premises over on Princes Street. Current owner Pat Faigan has continued the legacy and hosted many live gigs in the store, but, in an era when running independent record stores is a difficult proposition at best, Pat will be retiring from the record selling business at the end of October.

apart from a long history buying records from the shop, I spent a lot of time in the neighbourhood last summer, working right next to the current RR store at second hand bookstore Raven Books.

so, on Friday 22nd October, radio cegeste opportunistically crashed the end of someone else's gig upon finding out it was the 2nd to last one the store would host, and with half a day's notice, transmitted a site-specific soundscape at 8:30pm as a performative radio programme for RR, using the things I had at hand - namely, mini FM transmitter, 13 small radios, some of my 'bowed airwaves' violin tracks and field recordings transmitted via the above, alongside manipulation of room-sensitive radiophonic noise interference.

I also used a portable battery powered record player with material sourced from the shop that very afternoon (incl. an incredible spoken word 1-off private pressing of a british family recording an audio christmas greeting 'letter' to Grandma - the latter presumably located in NZ, which Pat sold me for a dollar), and some 78s found by a friend at the Dunedin dump (incl. a broken, skipping, cracked HMV 78rpm recording of the band of H.M. Coldstream Guards' rendition of ceremonial military standards Evening Hymn and The Last Post).

There were also some musical birdsong cards from the Otago Museum i'd bought that day, coupled with Radio NZ birdsong recordings on 45rpm which i'd picked up from the Blue Oyster Gallery after their inclusion in the Media Povera show. The lack of working overhead lights in the shop added to the huddled and intimate nature of the resulting peripheral, floor-based, no-mains-power performance for receivers and transmitter alike.

my post-Melbourne nomadisms have included, as is usual at some point in such Dunedin interludes, a temporary docking-point at None studios, and renewed engagement with the deep-listening silences and ghost-terrain of Dunedin has been balanced with a grateful nod toward the ongoing industrious activities and artistic vitality of the city's ever-shifting living communities.

Tonight's gig saw long term None residents Motoko (violin, voice) and Justin (percussion, voice) playing together as a duo they call The Surgical Department for this Records Records (second to) last post, as well. Also on the bill were local groups Communist Rainbow Relationship and QTPI.

as if this wasn't enough I cancelled my plan to see Robert Scott play at Chicks Hotel in favour of continuing the evening's energetic bust of engagement in event-based audio exploration by going back to None immediately after the gig to record a duo set with percussionist Lee Noyes.

This was more minimal, based on radiophonic feedback, and involved manipulating 'radios talking to each other' in theremin-like accompaniment to Lee's spacious and subtle acoustic manipulations of a drum, a wire, and various strings. Lee has since tidied this up and is treating it as a potential release, pending acceptance.

RIP, Records Records. thanks to Arron Clark who shot and edited the following video montage of the RR in-store proceedings...

Kikkawa/McIntyre/Noyes

the fertile creative laboratories of Dunedin's NONE community continue to provide ample avenues for collaboration, and opportunities to test out the creative instrumental potential of transmission art as one blip on the experimental music spectrum. An improvisatory exercise with violinist Motoko Kikkawa and percussionist Lee Noyes on June 6 lasted for over two hours.

This was the first time i'd used the kitset Theremin as part of the radio cegeste setup.

with many thanks to Lee for the photos.

MacKinnon/McIntyre/Noyes

a collaborative improvisation session on the afternoon of May 30th at NONE with Lee Noyes and Alex MacKinnon produced a 55min recording, an excerpt of which Lee considered strong enough to post to his blog on NetNewMusic, calling it 'Art, I see you Lately in your Energy', here

he had this to say about it:

-----

A new track:

10:22.402min excerpt from 55min improvisation recorded 30 May 2009.

AlexanderMacKinnon: Guitar/FX/TapeSampling/Electronics (Centre-Right Channel)
SallyAnnMcIntyre: Violin/ContactMics/BroadcastRadio&Recievers (Right Channel)
LeeNoyes: Percussion (Left Channel) & Processing/FeedbackElectronics (Centre-Left Channel)

First meeting by this group of NoneGallery, Dunedin-based artists. Further work, both as an ensemble and with Recordings should yield a release sometime 2009.

"Parsing through ether"