?Redo from start

Unwashed territories

2011-07-17T18:45:00.000+09:00

Block 45 is blogged aboutin Unwashed territories, the blog for the label of the same name.

This is the album artwork for part 1 of the compilation album.

Not that its a big secret or anything, he correctly says that Block 45 will be releasing a full length album on metal postcard soon. Right now I'm in the mixing stage... which is taking ages.

Right where you are sitting now

2011-07-17T18:37:00.000+09:00

Block 45 is mentioned in Right where you are sitting now an online magazine featuring new and weird stuff.

From their about page:
Right Where You Are Sitting Now is an online magazine that explores the weirder side of the world we live in. From fringe musicians to cults, from alternative thinkers to Magick…basically if it’s coming from a fresh, funny or different perspective, we are interested in it!

Interesting site, well worthwhile checking out.

Unwashed territories compilation

2011-07-17T18:20:00.000+09:00

Block 45 is featured on Dandelion Radio's five year anniversary compilation!

Andy Morrison, one of the DJs at Dandelion suggested that I submit "Wires", one of the recent tracks I gave him for one of his radio sessions.

The whole compilation is released on Unwashed Territories, a label another one of the Dandelion DJs (Mark) set up. And its all downloadable for free until the end of July. Go get it here!

?Redo from start

2011-07-16T00:01:00.000+09:00

Hey ho,

First post by redo from start. more to come.

Eyeseesound

2010-10-09T08:38:00.000+09:00

Block 45 was featured on EyeSeeSound, an independent music site aimed at discovering new music.

These guys contacted me completely out of the blue and said they would like to include me on their site....briliant!

They have a section in their site called HeadsUp, which promotes new bands using their music clips. Block 45 appears on Vol. 008 of the series, ch. ch... check it out!

The other bands that were featured on this episode were Found and Pagan Wanderer Lu . I particularly liked Found, but both are rather cool and worth checking out.

Dandelion radio session

2010-08-19T23:15:00.000+09:00

Block 45 was featured on Dandelion Radio as session guests in July again... how excitement!

Andrew Morrison is the DJ that played my stuff. Very good guy.

The tracks that were played were

Wires
The perfect holiday
Cabin fever

These are collected and are available for download, if it so suits your taste.

These have a bit of a melancholy feel to them, not because I was feeling melancholy, fyi. Good if you want to get all depressed and mopey.

Ok not that mopey.

Black Box podcast

2010-05-08T10:13:00.000+09:00

Block 45 is featured again on the podcast for dirtyradio.org for March 2010. Yeah I know that's a while ago but I have been lazy... duh.

You can listen to this here.

These guys (or maybe one guy) originally contacted me on soundcloud. I feel soundcloud is dominated by dance music freaks judging from what I have heard so far. Since Block 45 isn't exactly dance, most people just ignore me there (sad face), but Black Box was kind enough to listen. The track that is on the podcast is "Mouth of mischief".

Pictures of the lucent world

2010-05-06T23:46:00.000+09:00

While we are talking videos I will talk about the other video I have on this page "pictures of the lucent world". This was a video that Charlotte Jaus made on a visit to Tokyo. We met and we put together something very quickly. Probably the whole thing didn't take more than a couple of weeks, working part time.

Charlotte made a kind a mash up of Tokyo night scenes. My favorite is at 1:21 when all the neon signs fly together. She managed to time it with the music so it's music video like.

Personally I think the video is great but the music doesn't hit the mark. Something a little more less driving would have added a bit of depth I think. But there was a time limit and I have the benefit of hindsight now.

The concept was to show the impersonal nature of living in a big city such as Tokyo. In the chorus there is a line

"free as a bird I fly through these spreadsheets ...

On one hand this line can be taken as representing the pressures of modern day living and our dependency on computers to do anything.

It could also be taken as an embrace of the virtual world as a legitamate way of life. I only learned recently of the artform of "geddan", a dance imitating a buggy cartridge game.

The original:

The most interesting part of this is that it is a dance that can on be performed on video, never in real life. Now that's definitely embracing the virtual world wholeheartedly.

At first this idea sounds like defeating the purpose of dance since each frame doesn't even move. But this has a perfect analogy with dance music where each beat is sequenced together. Same idea really.

Mouth of mischief video

2010-05-02T22:32:00.000+09:00

Previously I made a video with Japanese video artist Hikaru Kakita. Typically I was very vague about the whole affair: let's make a video. Yay!

After settling on the song "mouth of mischief" we got our creative hats on and tried to think sideways.

And out of the box. And in the box. Which reminds me of this great video I saw the other day about thinking in relation to boxes. It captures the ego of university academics particularly well.

outside the box from joseph Pelling on Vimeo.

After outwitting each other with our amazing creative ideas we ended up on settling with a concept based on one if the nonsensical lines in the song.

"myyyyy mooooouth iiiiis growing hairs"

This line came out of a dream I once had. It was quite an odd dream. It's one of these dreams that you wake up neither particularly scared or shocked - just a feeling of being perplexed by what should bring such a dream on.

Very fortunately after settling on this idea Hikaru found a second hand store with a huge bag of doll parts. Definitely we needed to incorporate that. I also had a wig that I was given at fuji rock festival. This did not make the final cut. Sad face.

So Hikaru got my head and tried to fix it with sticky tape. In some kind of amazing showcase of heroic masculinity I was able quite easily move my head completely out of place. I thought Hikaru would be angered by this but he was not phased at all. Instead he decided that I should try to keep my head as still as I possibly can. The reason for these deep vein thrombosis inducing requests were that Hikaru wanted to cut parts of my face up and stich them back together. Yeow. But I was also neither angered nor swayed by these requests. I guess we were equals in the sense that neither of us managed to affect each other in any way.

After swallowing many dolls heads and pretend vomiting them, it was all over. 3 months later Hikaru called and said the video was ready. We went to yakinku and fried some meat to celebrate.

The result looks quite nice visually. That's good because videos are supposed to do that. For fun, we submitted it to some video competition in New York. Naturally it won all the awards etc etc.

Futoecolo

2010-04-19T23:52:00.000+09:00

There is a cool bar in Jimbocho in Tokyo. Its called "Sharekoube", which means skull in Japanese.

Its a cozy place with old books, old lampshades, and old patrons with an average age over 50.

To tell you how cool it is, they have haiku competitions every month, and there is a reading to see who wrote the best haiku.

Veeeeery occasionally, there is a semi-young person that strays into the bar. I met Murai-san, who owns a local web design company in the vicinity. He set up a eco-awareness website called Futoecolo.

The idea is to not take the whole eco-wave sweeping the world too seriously. Just do what you can without stressing out too much. Chill out, man.

We wanted to make a jingle for futoecolo. So we drank a few beers and this is what we came up with.

It has everything. Jungle noises, tribal drumming, helicopters, a large groaning monster. Not quite the eco-friendly vibe we were thinking of. But it gets the job done. Kind of.

Dandelion radio session

2010-02-25T20:24:00.000+09:00

Back in July 2009 Block 45 was featured on Dandelion radio, a web radio based primarily in the UK.

Dandelion radio, as they say is a radio station in the style of John Peel, a DJ for the BBC. I didn't know this guy, but apparently he was a bit of a legend:

"John Peel was one of Brtain's most loved broadcasters.

With a whiplash wit, a dry delivery and a total adoration and love of music in all its forms, Peel was a true one-off.

There was more to John Peel than spinning discs, curating the famous Peel Sessions and supporting bands with names like You've Got Foetus On Your Breath and Napalm Death."

I met Andy Morrison on myspace a while ago, and he has been playing some of the songs that you see on the player. For the session back in July, I gave him:

Baboons and armadillos
Gang of four
Anak

Block 45 will be doing another session with him this year, if I can get enough time to record stuff.

Featured on dirtyRadio.org

2010-02-22T22:42:00.000+09:00

We are featured on dirtyRadio.org, a web radio for electronic music.

I didn't know of this particular site but we connected by the fabulous soundcloud. The interesting thing about soundcloud is that people seem to actually listen to each others tracks, unlike myspace where its a "place for self-promotion".

I didn't recognize the above image at first, but its the Block 45 logo mashed together with Circuit's logo. Ah.... it makes some much more sense now.

All this was possible by the fantastic work Mr. InTheBlackBox.

There really are great people out there, genuinely searching and listening for new music. Check out dirtyRadio.org and
InTheBlackBox. They are very professional sites, unlike this hodge podge affair.

Takashi Kajihara photography exhibition opening

2010-02-21T20:46:00.000+09:00

Takashi Kajihara has a nice exhibition on at the moment at Nene cafe in Yokohama. At the opening party last saturday (20 Feb 2010) Block 45 had a chilled out DJ set after african drumming group Bonjah. Takashi had many of his photos around the place.

This is the flyer for the event. I particularly like unlikely man-woman minding the cow.

Well done to all that contributed to the organization.

Block 45 and Yonjugobangai

2010-02-16T01:47:00.000+09:00

Yonjugobangai is where it all started back in 2003. This will be a loose diary of events leading up to things now, and also random thoughts. Good night for now.