Decaying Seminary

I just got back from a brief trip to Glasgow (hi Lyn!) and whilst there I visited an incredible disused monastery, called St Peter's Seminary, recommended to me by my brother Dan. It is located in a remote forest about an hour from Glasgow, and is really worth the trip if you like a bit of adventure. We had very poor directions, actually just the name of the village it was near (Cardross) so we relied on asking local people if they could point us there. After much driving around and walking through various golf courses and farm buildings, streams and forest paths, we eventually found it. By then it was getting dark, and I highly discourage anyone from visiting this place in the dark! We had to climb in through a hole in the fence and there are many dangers awaiting inside, let alone the prospect of being accosted by drug-crazed hostiles or, worse, ghost-monks. My pics came out a bit grainy due to the low light, but you get the idea. Find out more about this amazing place here, and here is a gallery of original shots from the Glasgow School of Art Archive. Below my pics are some of it back in it's short-lived heyday

Green 2

original pics by RSmith

Motorways and Vacuum Cleaners

John Foxx on BBC 6 Music last week, preserved here for posterity...

Tape Alchemy

I just watched a documentary about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop called Alchemists of Sound which was quite good. It focussed mainly on the early tape era of the workshop, and had quite a few bits of footage I hadn't seen before. Here's one featuring Delia Derbyshire beat matching:

UPDATE: and here is a beautiful pice of electronic music made by John Baker from the early RW period, kind of reminds me of the krell meme music

BYE Programme 5

Here is a cassette tape of music recorded at Meme Tune studio in London during 2012

TRACK CREDITS
This mix was recorded to stereo audio cassette tape before converting to MP3

01] The Maths - Back 2 U (written and recorded by Benge)
02] Striped Light - Foolish (written by Elizabeth Walling and Benge)
03] Natural Habitats feat. Hannah Peel - Falling Fast (reinterpretation of Shoeb Ahmad track, recorded by Stephan Panczak and Benge)
04] Diagrams - Airbag (written by Radiohead, recorded by Sam Genders and Benge)
05] Wrangler feat. Stephen Mallinder - Olympic Them (written and performed by Stephen Mallinder, Phil Winter and Benge)
06] John Foxx and the Maths - Walk (written by John foxx and Benge)
07] Benge - Ento (written and recorded by Benge)

The BYE Radio Show 5 - "Meme Tune Cassette" by Zagoba on Mixcloud

Krell Meme 4

Having listened again to L&B Barron's amazing electronic soundtrack to Forbidden Planet, I decided the Krell meme (label added on the right so you can keep track of them) needed some tape delays. So I dug out the Watkins Copycat and was horrified to find that the tape loop had broken. So I googled a bit to find some instructions and 20 mins later I had some nice new home made loops. The synth patch is pretty similar to last time except I added in the tape delays from the Copycat and also the Space Echo, and the VCS3 was hooked up to provide extra filtering and VC spring reverb

Phenomenological Broadcast

I had one of my tracks broadcast to no one yesterday. It was part of a sound-art project, read about it here. Does a sound exist if no-one is there to hear it?

Exotic Flower