New Year, New Albums, Frugal Forest..

Happy New Year!!!! So 2015 has dawned and I'm sitting looking at my list of things to do.. it's long but very exciting..

on the drawing board there are not one but TWO albums waiting to be released.. both solo records, recorded in Minneapolis (see pics in my last post).. a short animation film to one of the tracks is also in production.. a new website for yours truly AND a publication of sheet music, to go alongside the albums, for those who read and play the piano.. much of course to do before any of those things reach the general public, so it's head down bum up, focus time for me until i tick a few boxes..

since i last wrote here i went to the world music expo womex in Spain, just to check out what's going on and see lots of really great world music acts. what a week it was, in Santiago de Compostela, with a brief stopover in Madrid on the way home. Here's a pic of a very fun band La Chiva Gantiva..

La Chiva Gantiva

shortly after that, a last minute decision, I flew to Poland to check out the Jazztopad Festival. Amazing weekend of music and films, the highlight seeing Mulatu Astatke perform (the godfather of Ethiopian-Jazz) with his live band.. he's a composer and vibes player who penned the music on director Jim Jarmusch's movie Broken Flowers featuring Bill Murray.. No pics of the music sorry, but walking in Wrocław I saw this amazing street art coming out of the pavement.. 

Street art in Wrocław Poland

and below is a random bit of art from the back of the Southbank Centre in London..

Street art at Southbank Centre London

ok, so i'll be in Australia for a month March/April this year.. to continue work on the Frugal Forest project.. i'm getting ultra excited about immersing myself in this project again and can't wait to see it all come together.. there's such a huge community of people and organisations involved and an absolute pleasure to be working with Bryony Anderson from One Off Makery.

we have a very special fundraising campaign going on at the moment, so please take a moment to have a look, read, be inspired and donate to our wonderful cause.. all donations are tax deductible, so i encourage you to get on board to help us create a most amazing immersive installation yet..

Frugal Forest prototype.. April 2014

so, just a quick one today as I need to get onto some editing of sheet music...
back soon.. :)
ps. i'll leave you with this one quote i saw.. a mosaic plastered to the side of a car at an exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London..

london summer.. new album Rabbitsss: Penguins.. solo recording..

well it's the end of summer here in London and it's been an eventful few months..
firstly, my new record Penguins, by Rabbitsss came out and we've had a great response.. it's an electronic collaboration with NYC artist Jon Cohrs. Great review by PopMatters here.

Hear the podcast on WNYC New Sounds here.. 

And happy to announce the physical CD for Rabbitsss is now for sale on the Sunwrae website.. as usual, Sunwrae's little helper is ready and waiting to send them out in the post!


Apart from the excitement of the Rabbitsss release, I spent 10 days in Minneapolis recording recently.. 2 albums in 10 days.. sheesh! the pressure was on and overall a very productive time.. here are some pics..

Day 1, Record #1: Steinway or the Yamaha? Steinway of course!

piles of sheet music..

Billy the piano tuner.. good ear indeed..

the set up..

view from the desk..

lights, camera, action..

in the hot seat..

Day 3, Record #2.. the first of many upright pianos, capturing different sounds..

Day 4: the Rhodes & the Whirly..

And another Yamaha.. Day 4

Day 6.. spot of listening, with the fab engineer Jared Miller and Freddie..

Day 7.. another piano at Great Scott's...

Dropped in to NYC for 10 days on the way back to London..

view from above.. (not my pic, but it looks good!)

The walk along Williamsburg Bridge..

Tasty graffiti along the Highline, NYC..

The Glory of Central Park..

how could i miss the Statue of Liberty?

Loving the spontaneous knitting on the fence, Williamsburg..

Listen to your Little Voice, East Village..

flying out..

And then it was back to London to continue working on the albums.. mixing, working on the sheet music.. and lots more in store in the coming months..

Finally... want to put the CALL OUT for an ANIMATION ARTIST to work with for a new project.. send an email, tweet, message, anything.. to get in touch!

Thankyoooo!

Rabbitsss: Penguins and lots of exciting stories!!

OKIE DOKIE!
What a year this has been.. once again (dare i say it), it has flown by.. so many exciting things to announce here (including two album releases!!), as it's been a while.. so. working backwards..

It's been a long time coming (8 years or so when we began), so I'm ultra pleased to report that my electronic collaboration with Jon Cohrs from New York is now public!! Under the name 'Rabbitsss', we've just released an album called 'Penguins'.. It's available on iTunes, Amazon, EMusic and Spotify.. Please share a link, befriend and buy if you like it!!!

It all began way back in 2006 at The Banff Centre in Canada where I met Jon whilst doing a Winter Music Residency. We continued remotely for a few years following the first few recordings in Banff.. recording other tracks in Melbourne, New York, Berlin, Gotland Sweden and then other bits remotely again.. I worked with Andrew Bencina on a few tracks at Winterhill Music Studios in Melbourne too.. long story short, it's taken a while, but it's finally out for everyone to hear!!

Here's a couple of pics working with Jon in New York, on the rooftop of his old apartment in Brooklyn:

Rabbitsss on the rooftop New York

Rae Howell New York

Recently I had a couple of fabulous months in Australia, March and April: performing, recording, workshopping and general catch-ups with friends, family and many long lost creative types that have crossed my path somewhere along the line.


Some selected members of the Sunwrae Ensemble came together for an exclusive show in Melbourne, premiering a whole new repertoire of my recent music.. (unrecorded as yet, but that's in the plans at some stage). It was great to see so many familiar Sunwrae audience members, who all filed in, filled the hall and even stood up to cheer at the end! What a home-coming!

Anyways, it feels like so long ago now, but one really exciting project I was a part of during March, was with an amazing artist Bryony Anderson and her One Off Makery community. Many moons ago, Bryony asked me to be involved in her project called Frugal Forest. Fast forward a year or so and stage one is complete..

Check out the amazing little short film about it here... http://vimeo.com/93115721


The photo below is the prototype of a life-size, large-scale, long-term installation project, to be launched January 2016. It's made entirely out of waste materials (plastics, metals, paints, material, wax papers, twine etc..). My assignment is creating the soundscape (immersive surround sound) of the rain forest: birds, frogs, rustling animals, trickling water, weather storms, wind through the trees.. recorded solely with waste materials too (balloons, hoses, rubber duckies, PVC piping, polystyrene, glass bottles, jar lids, umbrellas etc)...

Frugal Forest / One Off Makery

It's back to the drawing board for a few months now, but updates will come as time progresses.. Big thumbs up to Bryony Anderson & One Off Makery. I cannot wait for the next round..


First up this year saw another album release.. Heavy Forest Air.
I think I mentioned it on the last update here.. it's a live spontaneous musical collaboration between Eugene Skeef on all things percussive and myself on vibes & marimba. Recorded by Jared Miller in the Rolston Recital Hall at The Banff Centre, Alberta Canada, it was an impulsive venture in this magnificent hall filled with percussion instruments, that began as an experiment following an intensive three month winter music residency (the same residency where I met Jon from Rabbitsss!). I highly recommend it as it's an absolute gem of an album! You can buy it here.. http://www.sunwrae.com or also from iTunes. It has been released in the UK by Kooky..

Well. That's about it for now.. stay tuned for more news over summer..

10 months flown! Guildhall Masters tick! Musical ventures in Palestine and NEW ALBUM (!)..

wowwee.. 10 months have just flown by and i see the calendar will clock over to December next week.. Blimey! i feel i should back track a little considering the time past..

It's been a busy year this one. I finished the masters at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, my final project being a collaboration with tap dancer and choreographer Junior Laniyan. Readers may remember my post from november last year about the london tap jam.. well, Junior and i created a half hour show of live music (performed on piano, harp, bass clarinet and violin) and 5 tap dance extraordinaires! the next plan is to develop it into a full length show..

Musicians I work with were Ausiàs Garrigós Morant on bass clarinet, Katya Herman on harp and Eugene Feygelson on violin.. such fabulously talented people to work and play with.. And the amazing tap dancers were Junior Laniyan, Ryan Campbell-Birch, Thomas Kempf, Eilidh Ross and Avalon Rathgeb. Such a great project to immerse myself in.. cannot wait until the next installment..

here's a pic of me from the technical rehearsal..

and a little montage from rehearsals..

ok, so next story, as part of the masters back in march, my fellow students and i had a venture to Palestine, for a music exchange with Beit Al Musica and the Edward Said Music Conservatorium. this was the second part to our initial collaboration in London in October last year, however this time we visited their homeland and surrounding areas, immersing ourselves in their culture.. what an amazing time we had, meeting and playing with really fantastic musicians, running workshops for conservatoriums there, amongst touring about a little in Bethlehem, Ramallah, the Dead Sea and Jerusalem on the final day..

i swam in the dead sea!

the exchange group...

i was also commissioned in May this year.. a solo piano work, written, recorded and hand-scribed by yours truly.. the perfect job!

On the completion of my masters, I also said goodbye to the collection percussion instruments I've become so close with over the past couple of years..

a sad goodbye to all the percussion instruments..

By this time I was in good need of a holiday, so a trip to Portugal was in order..

Porto, Portugal..

And more recently I played with Ruthless Jabiru, the All-Australian Orchestra in London conducted by Kelly Lovelady, performing at Union Chapel in London.. here's a couple of pics from the rehearsals..

OK.. so... finally, I'd like to end with the announcement of a brand new CD, called Heavy Forest Air.. it's a live spontaneous musical collaboration between Eugene Skeef on all things percussive and myself on vibes & marimba. Recorded by Jared Miller in the Rolston Recital Hall at The Banff Centre, Alberta Canada, it was an impulsive venture in this magnificent hall filled with percussion instruments, that began as an experiment following an intensive three month winter music residency. I highly recommend it as it's an absolute gem of an album! buy it here.. http://www.sunwrae.com

thanks and see you all very soon...
Australian audiences stay tuned for a visit in March / April 2014... finally!

ps. poly was put up online this year..
pps. for any vibraphone players out there~ the sheet music of Decipher the Crooked Ways for solo vibes is now available to buy.. please contact us for more details!

Argentina exchange, Canal cruise, gigs and workshops..

mm where do i begin?!
probably Argentina..
In December I was fortunate to spend just over a couple of weeks in La Plata, near Buenos Aires in Argentina. Whilst the contrast in weather from London was awesome and I could have stayed by the pool the whole time, we (myself and a few fellow Masters students from Guildhall) were there to immerse ourselves in music (and a little bit of dancing!).. Candombe, Tango and Argentinian Folklore music were the flavour of our days, from early in the morning, until late evening. Our Argentinian teachers and collaborators were fantastic people, musicians and souls to have around day and night.

First stop was Candombe, a ceremonial gathering of sorts, with music (primarily drumming) and dance. In Argentina today, the rhythms of Candombe stem from traditions in Uraguay. Below are the three base rhythms & variations (and names of the drums), Clave, Chico and Piano, that make up Candombe, which gets incredibly fast and complicated with experience and improvisation...

 

Here's a few pics & videos of our teachers and us absorbed in Candombe..

After learning the ins and outs of Candombe over a number of intense days playing (and taping the blisters from our fingers down!), we embarked on a venture into the public to show of our stuff..

our meeting place where the fire below was..

heating the skins of the drums before playing..

and the walk to prepare...

where are we going?

nearly 2 hours walking, 10 blocks (slowly!), all the while, playing..

amazingly powerful feeling, so loud..

unfortunately i cannot upload a video of this, as there's a limit of 100mg... ouch!! sorry! sounded amazing though...

then came the tango and folklore.. music and dancing! I loved learning the tango music, so particular in articulation.. the influence will certainly come out in my future writings... look out!!!

Keeping the locals on their toes during my tango lesson.. yes, that's me :)

and time out bike riding to the crystal tree (only 2 left in South America!)

oops someone had a puncture..

meantime we're in the background having an afternoon beer..

couldn't resist this one.. he he he!

and i've been involved in some music and theatre workshops, dance improvisation sessions and also been to see lots of shows.. London Jazz Festival: Neil Crowley Trio at The Barbican, some good ol rock n' roll at Macbeth in Hoxton, the Dan Wood Trio playing Thelonious Monk at the Servant Jazz Quarters, Orchestra Elastique at Cafe Oto in Dalston, the fabulous Manu Delago (Bjork's percussionist, on Hang) in 'Living Room' at Rich Mix in Shoreditch.. and the list goes on...

The day of Manu Delago's gig with Living Room, he and Austrian woodwind player Christoph Pepe Auer came to run a session at Guildhall. They're fantastic and well rounded musicians and I highly recommend checking out their projects, all of them (!)..their youtube clips are great too..

Just after new year's I embarked on a canal cruise with some great friends who own a narrow boat and moor it just outside London, to the West in the beautiful countrside. We went along for the ride (almost 9 hours it took), travelling down the canal from Camden, through the locks, eventually stopping in the countryside to breathe in the fresh air. then.. back to london smog on a train :(

Little Venice

 

And of course it snowed for a week or more. my toes have finally thawed out!! It was quite delightful to see the snow.. watch the snowmen being built.. experience a quieter London.. and giggle at people trying to walk on slippery surfaces and fall flat on the ground laughing...

my street..

my morning view on my way out..

 

 

me and my snowman..

me and my instruments..

OK. I think it's over and out from me for now.. next up is a music exchange with the Palestinian musicians we worked with in October... from Beit AlMusica Conservatoire in Shefa’amr and The Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in Ramallah.. but we're visiting them!!! Stay tuned for more in a month or so.. :)