Awakenings March 2011 – Reflections.

Well, we got back from burton in one piece after a healthy breakfast at the holiday inn and a low fat muffin at McDees somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
And on reflection, had a really good night.
Jez’s set was a nice mix of melody and dark space with some nice arty visuals which added to the overall effect. Even though I could see what he was doing, I still have no idea how he gets some of those sounds, so nice one.
I really enjoyed Pauls set, layer after layer of great sounds, and some really nifty rhythm stuff. I’ve seen Paul with Headshock and then STDM, but I think this was the best one I’ve seen him do. Must also mention the visuals as well, some of these were really good, especially the road stuff, it was like he was piloting his kit along those roads. I know some people thought it was a bit dancey, but I’m a terrible dancer, so i just nodded my head to the groove.

And then we had a jam – Andy recorded it, so I’ve got a pre-VT-view, it sounded pretty good, especially as it was all off the cuff!

Next time ,Andy fancies doing one with a 303 through a Marshall stack, any takers?

There has been some great comments about our set, so thanks everyone for these, and thanks for coming to see us all. And thanks to Jez and Dave for organising the gig. It’s not easy finding good places to play where the people are cool and help each other out, so we are grateful for being asked (note: that’s my unsubtle hint for being asked back next year). And thanks to phil for the photos and video stuff, top job as ever.

So, see you all next year then! (note: that’s my second unsubtle hint for being asked back next year).

Cheers
OJ

New year – New Sound

On Thursday the 13 January we regrouped to start work on a new piece called Found Drowned for our Awakenings gig in March. Having discussed and worked on some individual elements before hand we decided to just go with it and play. The results came as a shock to the pair of us first time it sounded great, second time it sounded better and thankfully OJ had plugged in his HD recorded so we got a take of it. 15 minuets straight off the cuff a strange floating ambient piece, all our work just slid into place for once!

Room 15

 

We found a space.

 We set up a small studio and recorded some music.

We then had a beer.

And went to bed.

 

We did this for 3 days mid December 2010 while snow and all manner of chaos broke loose outside.  We are now busy working through the recordings for release hopefully for March.

Inn on the Green – Reflections

Just a quick update.

We played the Inn on the Green in Labroke Grove on Saturday 30th October with Ajantamusic.
Our first London gig as Parallel Sun in a pretty good venue that sits under the A40 westway – at points we could feel the Lorries rumble overhead.
I made a few guitar fluffs which I was n’t too pleased with, but on listening back to the whole thing, it was a reasonable perfomance – particularly our new track which we are both really pleased with!

Ajantamusic’s guitarist Rob Simon, put in an impressive performance with some nice ebow/wah guitar – so that was good!
Met an old friend and his good lady as well, so all in all a good even ing.

The next stop is the record the new Parallel Sun album which I’m quite excited about and should finish off the year nicely.

And so, we go on!

OJ

Back to school

Well after a lazy summer break we regrouped at our fav summer drinkery The Five Bells and started to set some new plans into action. New tracks have already been started and will be debuted at the next gig. We will soon start studio sessions recording the album,  but have no fixed date for release as of yet.

NEW LIVE DATE

We have been invited by Ajantamusic to play live with them on Oct 30 at the Inn On The Green, london. W10 5XL  @ 8pm. This is a ticket only event and tickets are available from Eventbrite.com (link). We are both really looking forward to this event and hope to see a good few familiar faces (hint hint!)

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.