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CAMP.Radio | episode 035 | field notes | 17.05.2023

I have been spending more time in the garden. I like it out there. I don't listen to music while I'm gardening. The quiet is pleasing. Highly recommended.

01. Credit in the Straight World (1980)
I really like the intro section to this song by Young Marble Giants. I looped a couple of fragments, making both sequential and random cuts of the first 20 seconds.

02. field recording 4 May (2023)
Shoveling loam while making mental notes in preparation for my conversation with Peter Liversidge.

03. Peter Liversidge conversation (2023)
He went to school to study film-making, but Peter Liversidge is best known for his multimedia installations and conceptual proposal pieces. He has also designed album art for some very cool bands. For years he has incorporated music (live or recorded) into his pieces- and I was curious to learn more about that evolution and process. Peter has an extensive CV and if you would like to learn more about this highly creative person- google it.

We chatted for a while about Peter's current exhibit, Physical Jukebox at Lancaster Arts. Two walls covered in a grid of CDs. Each CD contains one song. The CD is labled by hand. You take a CD off the wall and put it into a player. Discover and discard. This is a visually and musically interesting installation.

During our conversation- music by artists that Peter has collaborated with plays in the background. These include:

a. A collective consisting of Heather Roche, Dominic Lash, and John Cooper (who are affiliated in various ways with the bands Apartment House and Modern Nature). The sound of this trio is minimal, thoughful, and textural. This group has performed improvisonational works at two recent exhibits of Peter's work at East Quay, Watchet in Somerset and Kate MacGarry in London.

Peter described their sound as a form of chamber music- but much slower. I would like to think of it as environmental or ambient- because these improvosations only happened one time, for a specific purpose, in a specific place. I really dig the vibe.

b. Peter mentioned that he is designing album art for the Swedish band Tape. Their music blends sounds from a wide range of sources. Some of it sounds like field recordings, some acoustic, some high-lo-fi. This piece, Parade is a brilliant example of simplicity done correctly. For dramatic effect in the conversation - I did insert the somewhat blasting intro to White Horses by Low- into the mix.

c. Secret music project under the title Throat & Chest. Peter makes field recordings and Benny Hem Hem mixes/edits, and sometimes smashes the sounds. The resulting package is very much a piece of art. The bandcamp page for Throat and Chest is updated with a new recording nearly every week. The sounds of the pieces are engaging, as are the track titles and cover art. This is a real thing- and people interested in creative applications of field recording should consider listening.

In order, the Throat & Chest playing in the background during this section of the conversation are: I'm not thinking of a title for that because it's shit, No one gives a fuck about your new shoes Pt. 4, and You broke your CV.

d. Towards the end of our conversation, the music of Roche, Lash, and Cooper is reprised. The source audio are loops from the two videos above recorded in Somerset and London.

04. Breaker (2007)
Following our conversation, I asked Peter to send me a list of his five favorite Low songs. His reply consisted of two lists of five songs and said that the lists would be different if I asked him next week. Breaker was at the top of the first list.

05. 042923 (2023)
A couple of weeks prior, @plunkett came by and stayed a few days. Most of this song is just a pretty basic noise jam. I also just left him alone in the studio to improvise. Then I edited some of those parts into this piece. A song in desperate need of lyrics.

06. 051723 (2023)
This is a new #WIP that was written and recorded while I was making the final edits to this episode. A simple guitar line, two bass notes, two muted piano chords, tapping on the arm of a wooden chair. Late and simple. 01 AM shit. Which it was.

I will see you in the garden.







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