Various
Ground of Being Part Three - by sweep
This is a fairly old piece, hence the reduced recording quality. It's part of a series of pieces inspired and influenced by the theology of Paul Tillich.
Quaternity - by sweep
Another piece from several years ago. My apologies for the tape hiss. I may re-record this sometime. This is constructed using four pianos playing the same part with a time delay.
Bode One - by sweep
This was to be the first of a series of pieces using the last invention of the late synth pioneer Harald Bode. His design for an infinite `barber-pole' type phaser was revived by someone who'd worked with him, and the plan was to build a series of units and market them. At this early stage all I had to work from was Harald Bode's original demo recordings, from which I took the samples that are used in this piece. The project didn't ultimately happen and to the best of my knowledge this piece is all that remains of it apart from one prototype unit somewhere in America.
Crystal Manifestation - by sweep
Crystal Presence, the final track on Tim Blake's Crystal Machine album is based on a repeating pulse. This piece of mine uses a similar idea as an acknowledgement of the influence of Tim's work. I was working with the sounds of EMS synthesizers and Tim's breathtaking EMS work inevitably comes to mind. This was realized using the EMS Rehberg virtual Synthi A and an EMS project I'm working on using the Roland V-Synth with EMS Rehberg samples as waveforms.
Frog Hollow - by sweep
Frog Hollow is performed entirely with a Yamaha DX7 - the much maligned instrument that seemed to go from being the synth everyone wanted to being the cheesy keyboard that no-one wanted. The exception was Brian Eno's DX7, which I believe fetched £2000 when he sold it. By contrast I bought mine for £71 through ebay at about the same time. I haven't heard anything Eno did with the DX7, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out there's some resemblance between his DX work and mine, as using a DX7 with careful use of signal processing seems likely to produce results in similar sonic areas. It'd be interesting to know.
I treated the DX7 through a Lexicon, with additional echo from my Yamaha digital recorder and recorded a single take, keeping the synth in edit mode throughout and making continual adjustments to the sound. Additional copies of the original track were then recorded and treated to a series of reverb processes I've developed to create different kinds of audio space. The final piece is that original single take with added instances of my reverb treatments, multitracked.
What's NEW?
08/14/2009
New menu item added: 'Parody'
07/29/2009
Another added piece: Morgan...
Morgan was written after reading a film-script by Nora Leonard...
07/15/2009
A new track: Zylis...
Features a new design of software synthesizer from Xavier Oudin's new company XILS-lab.
06/11/2009
Dragon Hill and Tristan...
"Dragon Hill" and "Tristan" are the latest additions...
05/26/2009
New piece For Jon Hassell has been added...
04/01/2009
The Sweep Interview
...has been added.
Copyright © 2009 Sweep. All Rights Reserved.
Full Moon Over Glastonbury - by sweep
This was recorded entirely with the excellent but little-known Technics KN750.
Grey Seal - by sweep
For a long time I've wanted to make a kind of music in which the natural sounds of various sea creatures are used not merely as sound effects accompanying the music, but as the actual basis for the musical notes themselves. For this music I've used samples of a grey seal, whales and dolphins as the waveforms from which the synthesiser sounds are created.
This results in sounds the creatures themselves would be incapable of producing, musical tones which are synthesiser sounds having the tonal characteristics of the creatures themselves instead of the conventional analogue or digital oscillators that traditionally form the basis of electronic sounds.
Grey Seal opens with the original sample of the sound of the grey seal in the wild. What then follows is a solo passage in which the tonal qualities of the sample are used to make musical notes, followed by a section in which the sounds of the seal are blended with the sounds of whales and dolphins, modified and turned into synthesiser sounds. The result is basically a concerto, in which the solo seal parts are played against the full orchestra of the other sounds.
The solo seal passage is accompanied by grey seal bass chords. For the first minute and a half the only sounds are those of the grey seal, with some electronic sounds from the filters as the notes are played.
Chords are added using a blend of grey seal and humpback whale. Then the grey seal is frequency shifted to create bell-like tones, which are echoed by a frequency shifted whale.
The piece then moves into a deeper ocean section, with whale and dolphin sounds blended with pure synthesiser tones, before the grey seal returns to play a closing solo passage.
All the sounds were sampled and processed using a Roland V-Synth XT, and played from a Moog controller keyboard with pitchbend and modulation controls.
Hayley Dreams of Japanese Gardens - by sweep
This came out of a conversation with Steven Abbott, who manages New Zealand singer Hayley Westenra. He happened to mention that she was about to tour Japan. I've never met Hayley, though I've known people she's sung with and I have a lot of goodwill towards her for various reasons. Not being very familiar with the details of Hayley's career I somehow thought this was her first visit to Japan. I later found out she's been there several times before. In this piece I was thinking of the images of Japan one might have when anticipating a first visit. But maybe one has similar images in anticipation of a return?
Intervening Shoreline - by sweep
Intervening Shoreline was recorded entirely with the Arturia 2600V software synth. It's part of an album-length piece called Seahenge, based on the emergence of two Bronze Age wooden structures that had become buried on the coast of Norfolk, England. The two structures are more accurately titled Holme I and Holme II, as neither is a henge. The entire album is a meditation on the gradual re-emergence of these structures and the processes of decay that followed. Intervening Shoreline refers to the area of shoreline between the two structures, but the focus is on the thoughts and perceptions of someone present there as much as on the landscape itself.
Morning Mist in Sebatu - by sweep
Images of Bali....
Rainfall in Kyoto - by sweep
Another Japanese piece. This was recorded entirely with the Arturia Moog Modular V software, with a little extra reverb and echo.
Spacedog - by sweep
This is a reflection on unexpected immortality. One of the first samples recorded for the Fairlight CMI was simply titled `dog.' Being me, I wanted to know more about the dog in question, and Peter Vogel of the original Fairlight company kindly filled in some details. She was an Austrailian Kelpie called Candy who belonged to one of the company employees. It's nice to put a face to her, and it's strange to think of her living on in the various recordings she's been on over the years. I imagined her as Ovid imagined the late Emperor at the end of his Metamorphoses, as having ascended and become a star - in the region of Sirius the Dog Star, naturally. Tori Amos also referred to `Spacedog' in connection with Sirius (I think in connection with the Dogon people of Africa who seem to have an uncanny understanding of the binary star system of Sirius).
For Jon Hassell - by sweep
Dragon Hill - by sweep
For Dragon Hill I've used a Yamaha electone organ that I bought off the Internet for £20, through some signal processing, along with three tracks of ebow guitar.
Tristan - by sweep
Tristan is based on the romance of Tristan and Isolde. It's mostly Moog Voyager - all the melodic lines are Voyager, as are the modulated parts such as the echoed downward doppler effects.
There's also a bit of Arturia Modular V in the middle section (echoed bass parts) and MiniMoog V was used for the sequence at the end.
I've also used a vocoder, plucked psaltery and electric guitar.
As well as my voice, I'm very pleased to have been able to use vocal samples provided by one of my favourite singers, an old friend of mine, Lauren Edman (Sleepthief project, Delta-S etc).
Zylis - by sweep
Zylis features a new design of software synthesizer from Xavier Oudin's new company XILS-lab. The XILS 3 is based on the design of the EMS VCS 3, but with some very interesting new features and innovations.
As well as the XILS 3 itself, I've used XILS 3 samples played from a Roland V-Synth and from the Direct Wave software sampler. A Lexicon signal processor was also used.
The lead line starting at 48 seconds was played on the Arturia MiniMoog V.
For more information on XILS-lab visit http://www.xils-lab.com/
Morgan - by sweep
Morgan was written after reading a film-script by Nora Leonard based on the Arthurian legends in which the character of Morgan features prominently. The music depicts the character, but also tries to reflect the mood of the film as a whole. I'd been writing patches for the Roland D-50 emulation card from the Roland V-Synth just after reading the script, and the music developed out of that. Consequently all the music was performed with the V-Synth in D-50 mode.