If you didn’t know already, New Constant Light single and video
Also two shows this weekend, should you happen to be in or able to be in Sydney/.
Lastly, if you read this far, I will be in Europe/UK from mid-December and would like to hear any and all pertinent recommendations. Thank you.
automating in Melbourne, 14 July @ Cactus Room
automating in Sydney, 15 September @ Town & Country
More to be announced!
The first single of the upcoming Constant Light album has officially dropped. Video and links below!
If that wasn’t enough, some audio/video of the last Automating/Constant Light/Spitfire Parade solo performance:
Wow! It’s been a while. As a bit of a rarity, and because it’s much cheaper to send one expendable person than five, will be doing a medly of old, new, and unperformed Spitties and Constand Light tracks, perhaps with a surprise or two.
Try booking: https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing?eid=1017617&
3 years after the last piece of ‘news’, there is at least this
Oh I also have a twitter now for some ridiculous reason. It’s accessed somewhere here on the right by clicking whatever the colour icon is that represents it.
…and what a difference it makes.
Well better get a year’s subscription’s worth of news in.
Please investigate at your leisure.
Constant Light have finally released our second album. See the video for the first single above, stream/purchase the album below!
New Automating finally dropped, and a couple of nice mentions in The Wire.
Oh dear, after a fantastic string of updates (2 in a week!) last year it looks like there's only been an update biannually. Hopefully you can take some time out to investigate the following:-
A co-release with Iceage Productions (https://iceageproductions.bandcamp.com/album/shadowboxing) featuring Milica Stefanovic. Bass and sampler, all live, no overdubs!
contact via email to book shows
Lightbox Sky is the new release by Automating. Only one copy, gone. Digital available.
Automating show at the Darwin Fringe Festival on 11 July: https://www.facebook.com/events/174855173153210/
The new Automating album is finished, please get in contact if you want to assist in releasing it.
Constant Light start mixing our second album, a scant erm, seven years after the debut. There were also a couple of live shows earlier this year (as seen above). As before, get in contact if you'd interested in assisting the release, or would like to book a show from mid-July
New release, available in archival cassette:
Thanks to Peter ( http://programs.edgeradio.org.au/sonography/2018-01-17 ), Ian ( https://www.pbsfm.org.au/node/72581 ), and Paul ( https://pbsfm.org.au/node/72629 ) for the early love on their respective radio shows!
I was recently a guest on my friend Simon's radio show.
Listen here:
New Automating EP out:
NEW CONSTANT LIGHT SINGLE OUT ON ICEAGE PRODUCTIONS
NEW AUTOMATING LIVE SET
First up, Constant Light have a free download of this
which you may remember from previous instances
and there is a new automating drone release
enjoy!
well received...
AUTOMATING - REPRESSURED (cassette by Patient Sounds)
Work by Australia's Automating has been well received here (see Vital Weekly 930, 862, 843 and 841) and here Sasha Margolis offers a rather short tape of two new pieces of music. Loops seem to be the primary interesting here, still, which sound as rusty as they could be. Or should be rustic? While 'Cloud Burst' is more electronic, 'Third Eye' seems to have more recordings from the farmland, with the sound of water running down pipes and a shifting microphone. Mistakes are left in. Sometimes things swell up to with processed sounds, all dark, all ambient, and what I noted before seems still valid here: Automating owes to the music of The Hafler Trio, but surely has more to say. Again, on 'Third Eye', it slowly develops into a musical song of sorts, with a decaying rhythm and a surprisingly musical ending. 'Cloud Burst' starts out with shorter, Reichean looped sounds, which, as the piece evolves, slow down and space out, before entirely disappearing and just some sounds stick around, humming on end, making vague orchestral gestures. Twenty-some minutes of more great music! Another excellent Automating release. (FdW)
Get it here! (in the states) ... or HERE from Australia <-- There's also a free download on this one
First of all, the official THEME for this years World Cup:
Secondly, the wonder 'Vexed Axis' series of compilations has a new new one out, and both Constant Light and Automating are on it!
Lastly, the Electric Sounds remix of 'Third Eye' from the Repressured cassette is a free download also
Have at it!
New cassette release out on Patient Sounds label from Fort Collins!
“PS057 - Automating - Repressured
Hailing from Australia, Sasha Margolis creates mixed media sound collage and ambient compositions as Automating. On “Repressured” we find Margolis entering a slow motion shambolic ambient haze. Clustered tones, textures and swells, rolling piano lines, ebbing across the brain frequency. These two pieces typify the kind of delicate gusto we find appealing in brain music.
edt 50 / black c22 / b&w jcard & labels”
BUY IT HERE FROM
Some nice words here...
AUTOMATING - BEREITSCHAFTSPOTENTIAL (3"CDR by Ice Age Productions)
Sasha Margolis hails from Melbourne, Australia and offers here a highly limited 3"CDR (edition of 25 copies) of 'studio created binaural soundscapes and archaic tape based drones. Field recordings, found sound, tape manipulation, noise and effects units', which perhaps sums it all up, already. We reviewed some previous works (Vital Weekly 841, 843 and 862) and I still have not much more information than just this, so let's go straight the music, which lasts exactly twenty-one minutes, and goes from noise 'n rhythm to drone to medium sized noise walls. And one point the sound goes down a bit, and overall this quite a diverse piece of music, moving in a dynamic way from medium low to a harsh ending. It has perhaps something that one could identify as 'retro sounding': the (perhaps) low resolution samples of the casio SK-5 maybe, topped with some fine sound effects and somewhere in the end stages of the piece a meandering desolated melody. This piece is made with some great care and consideration. Someone who knows what works and what not. I wouldn't have minded some more music by Automating, whose previous releases already gave me much pleasure. (FdW)
New release, out on Iceage Productions
A rather excellent part of the recent CTM Festival in Berlin was the Walk That Sound installation by Lukatoyboy which I was fortunate enough to be a part of. You can hear a special radio edit at 23.05 GMT 13/02/2014 (00.05 CET 14/02/2014) here on Deutschlandradiokultur.
More information: http://www.deutschlandradiokultur.de/walk-that-sound.1022.de.html?dram:article_id=267004
Last Christmas I found myself wandering through one of Berlin’s many Christmas markets on a Wednesday evening. The market was practically empty and I was in a sombre mood. I had some money in my pocket and wanted to buy some gifts for the people I loved, but I was feeling uninspired by what I saw. ‘There is a lot of lovely stuff here’ I thought, ‘but it’s the same junk as every year’. I strolled through the whole market and purchased nothing but a simple ceramic bowl that caught my eye.
After strolling some more, I found myself standing in front of the market’s Christmas tree. The ‘tree’ was constructed of lots of metal pipes from which were strung various pieces of junk. Old tires, smashed up radios, ancient computers and broken bikes. It was strung with a nice strand of lights, only half of which were illuminated. In front of the tree was a big sign reminding us of how much waste we humans have produced and how we really should think carefully about what we purchase before doing so especially considering we are in the middle of a recession. ‘Well’ I thought, ‘Here we are being told NOT to buy things in the middle of a market in the middle of the Christmas season which is the most important time of year for retail business to make its biggest profits and turnover’. I heeded the sign and didn’t buy another thing at that market. I did end up buying small gifts for my family and friends last year, but I spent most of my money on good food instead.
A couple weeks later, I met an interesting young man from Melbourne, Australia named Sasha Margolis. Sasha, whose artist’s name is ‘Automating’ creates the most interesting sounds that really make me think deeply about our material world. While listening, I read his biography of his craft and it says: ‘Sifting through the sonic waste and discarded technology left by the roadside of a world speeding too fast into the future. Field recordings, found sound, tape manipulation, noise and effects units. Currently pursuing live and studio created binaural soundscapes and archaic tape based drones.’ When I read this I immediately thought of the Christmas tree again and all the junk that has been left by the roadside that people had nicely reused to decorate a tree and make a point at the same time. Sasha, as far as I can see, is reusing sonic waste and turning it into something useful: deeply inspiring sounds. As I mature, I start to really see the value of contemporary art forms, something I simply did not understand or see any worth in when I was younger. This past summer when I was at Documenta Contemporary Art show, I found myself standing in front of a big pile of scrap metal and junk that was one of the exhibits. One then asks: ‘Is this art?’ and ‘What is the value of this?’ The value of this of course, is to make us think about how much we waste and ponder more creative and artistic ways in which we can reuse, reduce and recycle and make our planet a more sustainable place for future generations.
I was recently killing time flipping through a high end women’s fashion magazine in a doctor’s waiting room. The magazine was full of advertisements for very expensive make-up, jewellry and clothing. The article that caught my eye however, was one that claimed that you do not have to be ashamed to say you are broke and unemployed in the middle of a recession. It showed you how you can creatively mix and match the clothes you already own without wasting money you don’t have on more junk you don’t need. This article impressed me as quite ironic sandwiched in between advertisements for expensive luxury products, just as the scrap and junk Christmas tree was placed in the middle of a market which is there for one reason: to make a profit.
Some mornings when I am getting dressed for work, I realise I am all nicely dressed up to greet a new client and then I swing around, look in the mirror and spot a lovely hole in my black tights. I don’t let it bother me though. I go to work anyway, and at least several better dressed people will point it out to me during the day, and I just blithely say ‘Oh really, I didn’t see that, never mind!’ If there is one thing a girl could go bankrupt on, it is constantly wasting money on new tights every time the tiniest hole appears in them. I do, of course, eventually splurge on more tights and throw the old ones to the junk heap, but not before I get the chance to wear the ones with lots of holes in them, two pairs at a time, under jeans, where no one knows the holes are there apart from me, in the depths of Berlin winter. This is just one way that I try and reuse and reduce waste. The other morning, Sasha sent me a link to his latest album and again it immediately made me think of waste reduction methods. Sasha’s sounds keep me thinking for hours about art, renewal, waste, death and the cycle of life. He samples so many different sounds from engines to sheep, to fireworks and birds. Sounds from from rural areas and from cityscapes. His sounds send me into a dream world and a trance and inspire me to write about all kinds of topics, which is interesting because his latest album ‘Somnambulist’ released under the label Wood & Wire deals partially with sleep states. Well done, Sasha!
Sasha’s music is available for purchase on Bandcamp.
By Rhea H. Boyden
