darallel sur – Post gig analysis

Hello all

As I’ve managed to forget my account details to the modulator forum I thought I’d post up my post gig comments on here for everyone to see..

So, we managed to remember all our gear- synths, leads, guitars, more leads, laptops, controllers and yet more leads – this is major miracle in itself and actually get to Burton

We were very pleased with our set, this being a third at the awakening and definitely our best one in terms of performance – Andy certainly played a blinder and held it all together!

Some very nice comments have been posted up on the forums, all much appreciated – especially as we had put a lot of work into practicing and keeping the flow from one track to the next.

I think this was also helped by our fellow compatriates 4m33s and Airsculpture. John’s (4m33s) set was very striking and delivered what he said he would – very strong sounds. I don’t know what he was doing or how he
got the sounds, which kind of adds to the mystery. Hopefully I’ll get to speak to John in the future and see if he’ll reveal his secrets to me. Also, I should mention the visuals as well, as some of the images were really strong and fitted well with the music giving it some nice colouration.
The opinion is quite split on the Airsculpture set, but I actually think thats a good thing. I know a couple of their tracks (Red machine Symmetry and Saragasso Sea) and was expecting a similar high octane sequencer fest. But this was (I thought) a more chilled out set, and I could have done with one of those deckchairs that a couple of the guys had. So I settled for laying on one of the benches for part of the set, which was bliss (I needed to relax) after all the rehearsals and charging around. Later on in the set there were beats introduced which is always an opinion dividing musical talkpoint especially when introduced into the Berlin school style, but I thought the use of them enchanced the music and I found myself air drumming to those bits. And other mention for the visuals – good stuff!

So all in all good fun and it was good to see some familiar faces,even if I don’t know the names yet!!!

And finally thanks to our Organizers Jez and the crew – a top job as always!

Till next time – keep drinking the golden champion
OJ

The time is near.

Parallel Sun  are just about ready to go and will play live for the first time on July the 10th at the established electronic music night Awakenings at the…..

Paget High School Business & Enterprise College,

Burton Road
…
Branston

Burton on Trent

Staffs

DE14 3DR
http://www.awakenings-em.co.uk/

Come along it will be just like Glastonbury except it’s indoors and you wont have to wee in the bushes!

We will be playing alongside 4m33s and Airsculpture, to say we are looking forward to this is a bit of an understatement. Proceedings will kick off at 6:30 pm to round up about 10:30. I know that is an early start but it is to help out folks who travel a large distance as a lot do and will give those staying over more time in the hotel bar, happy daze!We have been very busy the last few months working on this set of new material and reckon we have just about got it licked. Its is sounding a lot looser than I have sounded live as The Glimmer Room and quite lively too and it’s all a bit on the trippy and psychedelic side. To be honest we started this project with just this gig in mind to try something new, but without the constraints of presenting it as a Glimmer Room gig or Jupiter 8 gig but we have both been so into it all that Parallel Sun will continue to exist after this event. We have been asked to play at a gig later in the year in London but a lot of details need to be confirmed first, hopefully more info and dates will follow in the very near future.

Session nine 04-05-10 20:00-22:45

First I should start by saying, ‘May the fourth be with you’ – sorry, could n”t resist.

Well, the force was with us tonight as we began shaping PSun04. This track begin taking shape down the pub last week while we drank some fine ales (Morland bitter and Snowdrop)
We thought we’d put together a droney track with a lot of sound manipulation and some morse code and speak and spell samples. As it turned out, Andy knocked together a ‘prototype’ of the track which was a bit more melodic (it had chords in it for gods sake) but still had the dark and brooding atmosphere that we were looking for. And then I hit it with some surf guitar, and behold, another Parallel Sun masterpiece – playing back the recordings confirmed this. We appear to be on a roll at the moment, and these ideas seem to be appearing like rabbits out of hats – so I guess the next low point is round the corner

Finally, I want to make an apology to Half Ton Man, a local band who we playing in the pub where we were drinking and formulating our musical ideas. We actually went out for a quiet night and so we were not keen to stay and watch them, and so left them playing to an empty bar. And we know what this feels like as we have spent many a time in the past playing to either somewhere empty or to a few of our mates and WAGs. So sorry guys! (and if the karma is following us, then I suspect that not even two men and a dog are reading this blog)

Till next time
OJ

Session eight 27-04-10 20:00-23:00

The Parallel Sun boys were back on form this week. We recorded two spiffing versions of PSun 03 – a fairly jolly track by our standards based around an Indian scale.
Andy put together some nice DMX drums that skip along and give the whole thing a rather infectious groove!
Can’t wait to play this one life!

OJ

Session seven 22-04-10 20:00-23:00

Funny night could not quite get into it, flu fall out I recon. Working on a new OJ track we got some hip hop DMX drum action going on. Strange every track has taken on a completely different feel.

Parallel Sun Tracks Stolen !!

So folks….

We had a good session last night – a nice restart after our sickness season. We played through tracks PSun 1 and Psun 2 and made some fine recordings (I think).
But I went to listen to it on Friday morning, the files had disappeared from my media player. So I had to listen to heavy metal instead. So I figured that the other bloke from Parallel Sun must of moved instead of the copied the files.
But he has redeemed himself and sent them to me – and fine they are too.
But, we should n’t go too hard on Andy – he’s been sick for two weeks, and still managed to release another brilliant Glimmer Room Album!!!

Oh and I forgot, it was they debut of my new guitar, which did a fine job with no glitches, crackles and hums (not like the old glitch guitar whose days are numbered)
OJ

Session 6 15-04-10 20:00-11:00

Great to get back on it! Oj new guitar sounds great and I didn’t miss the clicks and buzzes one bit. Worked on some stuff from previous sessions and I can’t believe how together they are sounding. I must learn to remember just what key stuff is in because I was the purveyor of some seriously comedy wrong notes, cant work out why because the piece was in f#m my favourite key of all time. OJ of course played a blinder like normal grrr!

Now we are sick

We had to abandon tonights session, due to illness – Andy with some fluey thing and me with some coldy coughy thing – great!
Looks like my new guitar will have to wait till we recover before it gets a true test.
Oh well, such is life, all I’ve got to look forward to now is a sickly cup of lemsip and an early night.
On the plus side though I get to read more about Richard Feynam, he’s one hell of a chap!!
Till next time..
cough, cough, wheeze, ZZZZZzzzzz
OJ

Session five 26-03-10 20:00-23-00

Worked on a great idea from OJ tonight, nice Eno esq drone intro then into a epic swirling trippy improv. You got to give credit to the filter delay effect really made this one a bit special. Still a bit of work to do on the constitute parts but it is going to be great really loud, cant wait. OJ picked up his new guitar last week will be sad to see the old one go but wont miss the crackles and buzzes. R.I.P The glitch guitar.

Session four 18-03-10 20:00-23:00

This will go down in history as the spooky session. Andy put down some lovely piano lines backed up with forwards/backwards delay and then we added some samples from a poem, a bit of ebow guitar and it all sounded very spooky indeed. Looking forward to playing this one live.
OJ