Chris Carter & Dirty Electronic

Last night I went to see Chris Carter and the Dirty Electronic Ensemble at Phoenix Square in Leicester.
It's hard to describe what I heard. There were no sing-a-long choruses or catchy riffs to bounce along to. No, this was sound in a very raw form. It was more free-form expression using an instrument no larger than a postcard, you can see one above. Each soundscape was different, if I remember correctly there were four in all. The sounds expressed included clicks, sine waves, distorted oscillated beats, drones and noise, plenty of noise.
It was amazing to think that the source for all this sound came from a small circuit board that is played using just fingers, which were often licked to get a better contact with the instrument, and by tilting the device.

There were a few effects scattered around the stage, guitar pedals, kaos pads and things made with springs and metal and speaker cones. It was sculpture but it was helping to shape the sound in some way.
The final soundscape had all 25 of the Dirty Electronic Ensemble and Chris Carter on stage and down the sides of the auditorium each holding their Experimental Sound Generating Instrument and playing with no effects or amplification, just the small speakers that are on the ESGI's. This was probably my favourite part. I tracked the same sound across the room as pure chance had that sound on two ESGI's. New sounds came and went, some never to be repeated, perhaps ever. One by one the red lights disappeared until there were none and it was over.
It's was a fantastic experience and I'm glad to have made the effort. Members of the Dirty Electronic Ensemble were happy to show me their ESGI and I even had a go, not as easy as it looks but immense fun, wet fingers and all.

Chris Carter hung around afterwards too and kindly let me get the photo's above of his setup. I also caught up with him and John Richards in the bar afterwards and asked them about the ESGI.
Chris Carter's is the first voice you hear:

Reasons

This is the reason I have made my micro office.
As you can see it's too easy to prop my PSP streaming live TV on top of my PC monitor.
As I write this I'm watching some cop show. It's a repeat, one I've already seen but I'm still typing with one eye on my impromptu TV. That can't happen in the micro office.
And that's a good thing.

The Complete Package

The fancy leather envelope I ordered for my netbook arrived today.
I have a problem with new tech. Its lack of protection. But with so many options out there it's down to personal choice. I choose leather, high tech rubber compound or neoprene.
Leather is my first choice because of my days on motorbikes. It's a second skin. Flexible, rugged and breathable. If I can trust my own skin to leather then its perfect for expensive new technology.
The envelope case I chose is made by 'Ultimate Addons'. Despite being advertised for the Acer D250 it's made for the model with the smaller battery pack than mine. Having said that, my netbook does fit but it's a squeeze. I don't mind though. One of the best properties of leather is its ability to mould over time. I'm sure after a few months of bouncing around in my shoulder bag it'll be perfect.
I'll return to this in a while. In the meantime I'm still very happy with my purchase. It's well made and although we're not talking calf skin the leather is flaw free and of good quality.
I'm happy with that.

Organised Mind

I feel much more relaxed when things are organised.
I've just created a micro office in the studio. A proper place to write. The spot where I wanted to write.
This makes me happy and I already feel more productive.
Just wanted to share that information.

Work In Progress

So what does a novel in progress look like?

Not very exciting I'm afraid. Above you can see my home PC and my new netbook running the New Novelist software. It's what I wanted the netbook for. I'm on a roll with the book but was getting frustrated that I could only write at home and I have plenty of hours away from home when I could really be doing something more productive. Like writing.

It has to be said that the novel has up until now been on the back-burner for much too long. With the netbook and my PC it'll be finished sooner than I thought, or at least the first draft will be.

At this point I'd like to say a big thanks to Google for allowing the ability to upload any file to Google Docs. It has already made life easier for storing my novel files and moving them between home and mobile is a piece of cake.

Here's to the first draft and it's speedy completion.