We found a level somewhere between The Vessels and Battles as the delay pedals were put to full use! There were definitely a few “moments” when things fell into place and we didn’t sound half bad. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of me, so you’ll just have to imagine some heavy bass being shredded! For those of you who like to know about such things (or if you work for one of the following companies and would like to send us some free stuff!), here is a list of the kit we used.

Jon — 67 Thinline Telecaster, Line6 Pod, Line6 DL4 Delay Pedal, Wah, Marshall Guv’nor, Marshall Vibratrem, Beatmaker (via iPhone), Triangle.

Noel — Burns Marquee, Line6 DL4 Delay, Digitech RP55 Guitar Processor, Garage Band and a M Audio trigger keyboard, iPhone with Bebot, Interfax Harmonic Perculator.

Mark — 1 x dangerous regulation studio kit (high tom/floor tom/kick drum/snare), Zildjian 14″ Avedis New beat Hats, Zildjian 20″ Avedis Rock Ride, Sabian 18″ HHX X-plosion Crash, Sabian 18″ B8Pro Medium Crash (with split for shimmer), Vik Firth Dave Weckl signature sticks (wood tip), Promark Hot rods, Chalklin felt mallets.

Ady — Epiphone Thunderbird, BOSS ODB-3 Bass OverDrive, Lomography fisheye 2 camera with ring flash.

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Jon says:
Considering we hadn’t played together before, the ‘music’ didn’t sound too bad. Have a listen if you dare.

Although the exhibition space was a little small and some of the exhibits were not working there were some really exciting pieces on display. The standout installations for me were the Jason Bruges Studio Mirror Mirror, Audience by Random International and Chris O’Shea and Weave Mirror by Daniel Rozin which took me back to the endless trips we did to the Science Museum’s Welcome Wing whilst at University.

Mirror Mirror is one of the most beautiful and exciting things I have seen for a long time, and I would have loved to taken a few home with me.

Granted it was a Friday night and there was a good atmosphere in the place, with people talking and interacting with the other visitors, but was there really any need for one lady to start howling like a constipated wolf at one of the sound reactive pieces? Most people were pretty freaked out by this, Tom on the other hand decided that the most appropriate way to deal with it was to follow suit. I backed away…

We need more exhibitions of this kind to encourage and support new work. It was quite a mixed collection of new pieces and older works that I had seen before at other events and museums but it is definitely a must see show. I am going to go back with a proper camera asap.

Credits (In descending order)
Mirror Mirror – Jason Bruges Studio
Audience – Random International and Chris O’Shea
Weave Mirror – Daniel Rozin
Body Paint – Mehmet Akten
Dune – Daan Roosegaarde

www.vam.ac.uk/microsites/decode/exhibition

The exhibition is in collaboration with onedotzero:
www.onedotzero.com

We had 3 logos chosen:
- Get London reading more
- London Innovation more
- Compass Search more

Thanks Index.

Bebot

This is an awesome theremin / Chaos pad type instrument. Drag your fingers over the screen to create lovely synth sounds – each finger produces a different note, so you can create chords with four fingers, and then slide them around. And the robot on the screen pulls funny faces like he’s making the noise from his mouth. It also has a range of synth sounds, scales, effects and options to make this a genuine, viable instrument, and not just a studio-annoying irritant.

Canabalt

Ever wanted to run across the roofs of skyscrapers, jumping from building to building before they collapse beneath you? Of course you have. And now you can do so on the train, in glorious 8-bit style graphics, courtesy of Canabalt. What does the name mean? No idea. Just keep running.

Beat Maker

I once saw a documentary on Bjork – she was walking across an Icelandic beach, wearing headphones attached to some handheld device, composing some kind of music. It looked awesome, and I was jealous – I wanted whatever it was she had. These days, I just fire up Beat Maker. It’s truly jaw-dropping. Sample the sound of the world around you. Edit the sample. Loop it. Sample something else. Loop that too. Add some hand claps. Whistle into the mic of your iPhone. Add some effects. Play some other samples in reverse. Wave goodbye to the rest of the day… Well worth the hefty £12 price tag, given that is has almost all the functionality you’d need from a sequencer / sampler / music making software.

Max Injury

Pointless and violent and addictive. Throw a crash test dummy down an increasingly unlikely set of painful obstacles, and score points for the resulting injuries. Head and spinal injuries score very highly. And you can put your own face on the dummy if you have very low self esteem.

Image from Technovelgy.com

Ocarina

Another musical app, but this is probably the nicest. It turns your iPhone into an actual ocarina – you blow into the mic, and the resulting wind noise is converted into amplitude. You then use your fingers to cover the holes, just like a real ocarina.

We’re also all agog about the augmented reailty apps that are springing up – see here – but they’ll have to wait until we get a new iPhone.

A strong display of hand-crafted work from a designer brought up in the pre-computer age.

The series of black and white paintings from the early 90’s that are revisited in colour over ten years later really stood out for me. Blue Collar Trade School from 1992 becomes The Old Trade School Building in 2005. A gloomy comment on the mundanity of industrialisation becomes a full-colour display of the unfortunate side of progress in the modern world.

Standard Station (as used in the promotional campaign) is well worth seeing in the flesh.

The best Ed Ruscha quote in the exhibition has to be in reference to the painting Los Angeles County Museum on Fire:
“I always knew I was going to assault that building”.

Visit the Southbank Centre’s website for more details.

I always knew Magritte for his ‘This is not a pipe’ and the bowler hat, apple face man but I’ve not really been a huge fan of his art until I perused the room showing his period of work 1951—1967. It’s incredible! Really interesting and refined surrealism.

Obviously photography was forbidden, and the posters didn’t really do the work justice… so I bought some postcards and scanned them in and found some pieces online:

- The Domain of Arnheim
- The Glass Key
- Empire of Light

FYI/
Magritte didn’t name any of his pieces himself, he got other people to do it – which explains why many of them seem very removed from the art itself.

The mug comes from the folks over at Designers Anonymous. Tea & Biscuit anyone?

Blanket with sleeves = Slanket. From the colder member of our team.

What The Frak? T-shirt: Battlestar Galactica is starting to do the rounds at the KL studio.

2010 Diary from Typotheque type foundry. Really lovely book with geometric patterned sketchbook pages and lovely type, of course.

A ‘Spork‘ by Swedish designer Joachim Nordwall. Comes in many colours – great for the civilised camper.

Lomography Ring Flash: The most amazing flash ever! See it in action here.

‘Moon’ on DVD: Enthrallingly atmospheric film from the spawn of Bowie – has a nice short film as an extra too.

Thanks for the visit though. Do tell all your friends.