Souns 'Drop Cities'

Souns live performance recording from ‘Drop Cities’ (Feb 19, 2023), a special 2 day festival put together with great care by Hotham Sound, released on bandcamp, and youtube.

live video projections by C130, live camera footage mixed and treated by SPINY JIM and live broadcasted on RedGate TV.

audio materials used: mackie line mixer (using in house reverb) standard microphone mod’d rigsmith dub siren mod’d monotron delay cell phone playing prepared mix of nature sounds (randomly sampled) pioneer rx2, live looping and manipulating tracks:

  • Parisa DUB (ambient)
  • Discovery DUB (raw loop)
  • Discovery DUB
  • Playing with Roses (unreleased)

energy & thoughts present:

  • recently learning about and connecting with sacred datura flower
  • no direct physical practice or plans made for the performance. instead focusing on feeling grounded and present and clear, and responding to the natural energy of the space, time, audience and self
  • deeply reconnecting with an old friend, rmm, at the event and the 3rd act of the night, alexi baris, directly influenced the set (added elements of noise and dramatic gestures)
  • engaging with the idea that ones inner world is a direct reflection of ones outer world, and engaging the space and audience in that way (both a two way interaction and reflection, and also an intentional one way signal path of inner calm & even to the external world)
  • the summed energy from the earlier day and night before (the city, quiet morning coffee, impacted by ’maamawi’ performance & surrounding energy the night before)

Discovery Dub

spontaneous upload for bandcamp friday. directly support here: michaelred.bandcamp.com/album/discovery-dub

this was created as a studio exercise while re-building my analog set up in my studio for dubwise ('rhythym and sound' related) productions, in the fall of 2020. i made a series of recordings of very improvised / guided / instinctual recordings, while calibrating this set-up (to be ready to create in that way, right away, if the inspiration or a project landed). the bass is played live on a real 'kee bass' unit (that happened to be in the trash at the studio when i first moved in. ..talk about divine). this track has very little edits and is true to form of how the mixer and fx and set-up was played, how instinct was followed, and how guidance interacted.

very little post-treatment was done to the recording off the board too (also, talk about how & why analog is better in many ways and captures certain things). so this track is technically un-mastered. i just couldn't touch it. it didn't want to be touched. ..maybe i'll get around to seeing about a pro touching it at some point.

'discovery dub (raw loop)' was created in ableton, then looped and fed into the analog set-up - resulting in the full featured "version".

best and brightest to you. shine a light. reveal the shadows. love over everything.

Mount Dilaudid DUBS

subtractions and abstractions from
'Mount Dilaudid' by Mahmood Schricker and Michael Red

directly support here: michaelred.bandcamp.com/album/mount-dilaudid-dubs

four versions, created with knowing nods to tradition
- kept raw & immediate, with little pre-emptive thought, and no backwards movements or second-guessing. reacting on instinct and first inspirations. "live" or the spirit of "live".
- no new sounds. only source sounds from the original tracks
- maintaining the original structure of each track in most cases. and when not the case - breaking that structure boldly, but locking to the first new structure mapped out.
- heavy on the hypnotics, delays and reverbs
- heavy-handed on the subtraction. many principle elements of the original work were fully removed immediately, to force a deeper exploration and revealing of what's underneath and beside.
- making sure to actually experiment and come with new ideas and methods. and when using established methods and sounds, doing so respectfully and knowingly.

deepest respect the original dub innovators, and to all who push the sound. thank you to Mahmood, and acknowledgement to the music and players which inspired him. these dubs would not exist with out the originals they abstract from.

mixed, produced and (roughly) mastered by Michael Red
photo by Rojin Surreah

chambers 'satellites' on beacon sound

full length cassette of edited live recordings from two intimate performances in vancouver in 2015. one at the emerald and one at the rio theatre (hence the track titles). very pleased to making the link with beacon sound on this - it's an incredible label that hosts a lot of great music. grab the digital/physical at bandcamp or the label website direct.

this is the second official release for chambers, with a third release soon hot on it's heels later this month on debacle.