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..

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..