Randomly on my husband Adam's Birthday 5 month's ago, I decided to record myself doing some improvisational experiments with our littleBits Korg Synth. I was inspired by Pete Shelley - Sky Yen. I recently converted my YouTube recordings to wav format using this website app: conversion.com so I can share them on Bandcamp and elsewhere eventually but I would like to release them first exclusively on Electronic Cottage for feedback among peers. Here are the links to the YouTube videos on my channel. One was originally recorded live on Facebook and the other live on Instagram. I have been experimenting and learning a lot about how to use social media to ones benefit and make new like minded friends. 9/28/18 - Improvisational piece for littleBits Korg Synth 1 by AimsterSkitz0rz:
9/28/18 - Improvisational piece for l littleBits Korg Synth 2 by AimsterSkitz0rz:
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Apartment Music 33 was an especially enriching afternoon. This installment brought us performances and viewing of some of the film work by Leslie Singer of Girls On Fire.
In addition to all of the great performances, we did not leave empty-handed. Here is my rundown of all the Audio/Visual Art & Literature obtained, modeled and displayed by my adorkable husband and Tomokie's Cup bandmate. 1. Total Trash #6 "True Tales from the Cat Club" Part Two: This is a really awesomely drawn and written reflection on Jen Sandwich's childhood memories and adventures/misadventures with her friends from that time. Reading this brought back some rare fun memories from my school days as well. 2. WATERDIGGER - Welcome to Seminole Heights: Released in a Digipak 2008 on Bleak & Black Records with 11 Songs Featuring Danny McGuire 3. MARI LWYD PWNCO: A beautiful piece of Artwork by Penny Grune-Fae. Pretty sure she made this for Adam and I because we expressed how much we love this Welsh tradition as much as she does. Sidenote: I am part Welsh. 4. Extra copies of the Electronic Cottage Compilation - Thanks, Hal! 5. Two Polaroids & Two found art pieces from Leslie Singer. Eerie and silly at once, just like Girls On Fire should be! 6. Audio Folk Art Dictaphone Assemblage - Home for the Hellidays: An interesting collection of sounds from Hal McGee. Featuring Lumen K and Stanley. I enjoyed listening to this in the car I also like the picture collages included. 7. Wild & Firey pen on college ruled paper art by Joe Billingsley. Excellent Asemic artwork! 8. HELL GARBAGE on Microcassette: Gotta love the bunny slipper art! One day we'll be able to hear it XD 9. Bonk Magazine #2 - The Shit Issue 1: The cover describes why 2018 was a shitty year for humanity. This is a particularly humorous issue since it has everything from poetry, pictures of fabric samples (which reminds me of something from my fashion school days), collages, survival tips, short stories, and art prints. This zine looks like it would be fun to contribute to. LARGEST SHOW YET 1. BONGUS - (Orlando) - Featuring: Thomas Milovac & Syoma Klochko The recording failed on my device so I sadly wasn’t able to capture it. (I know the whole show was recorded by multiple devices so I am sure someone has a video) I really enjoyed the amazing sounds coming from Thomas as he switched between a bass and a cello. There were some enjoyable percussive elements. Syoma went between the piano and drums nearly seamlessly during their set. 2. Penny Grune-Fae (St Petersburg) Penny’s purposely minimal setup was complimented by some dinosaur decor. She played a series of short soundscape songs in her set. The first part of the set was very dreamy and magical with sounds of echoing chimes. The middle of the set reminded me of the ambient work of Eno. After that one of the last tracks sounded like spooky heavy befitting a horror movie soundtrack. The range was wondrous. 3. Formaldehydra (Lakeland) Dylan Houser gave us a delightfully loud wall of crunchy sound with a specific tempo during his set. Didn’t get a good look at the tools used to construct the piece but I did see knobs. 4. Tomokie's Cup (Jax) Not going to review myself but I do thank Penny and Dylan for accompanying us. We sported Honeytone amps perched on our shirt collars. I played a Nebulaphone created by Lucy Bonk while Adam played a Stylophone Gen-X1. Penny played the Moog Theremini and Dylan played the Bass Ukulele. 5. Fiver's Stereo (Jax) The first portion of Jay Peele's set involved a slide used on an electric guitar, which made for some eerie sounds. Then that was combined with some squeaky noises from the Moog Synthesizer. Near the end, there were sounds emitted that went from boiling tea kettle squeal to full on B-movie theremin-like melody over what sounded like ghostly singing. 6. Vallam (Tampa) The set started out with a blistering distorted sound with lots of great percussive elements. Then it morphed into a wall of sound with a slowing tempo until the end. I thoroughly enjoyed it. 7. Venus Envy (Panama City) The night ended on a high note with essentially Plutonian Burrito (Scott Bazar and Charles Pagano) with Milovac on Electric Bass Guitar. I heard lots of changing styles from Free Jazz to Funk in that set. It looked like it must have been as fun to perform as it was to watch it. I cannot wait to see more. :D
This collage inspired by Apartment Music 30 was made using MSPaint. The background is a photo I took of an actual swamp in Gainesville that weekend.
I noticed that some of the folks here on Electronic Cottage are visual artists as well. I also noticed some of the art was a means of diagraming a plan for performance sets or companion art to go with the audio. I see so much inspiring stuff here. Being a creative individual drawing, collaging, painting and photography have been outlets for my self-expression as well. I have a few Musicians / Visual Artists that have inspired me over the years and what they do. In no particular order. I invite you to check them out and be inspired as well. I also encourage you to share with us what Art inspires your Music/Noise. Kim Gordon - bass, vocals, guitar for Sonic Youth. Her series of watercolor “noise paintings” depicting her blurred vision of the audience from the stage and depicting the names of experimental and noise groups are very interesting to me. She also works with such mediums as stenciling & sculpting as well. Exene Cervenka - known as the singer of the punk rock band X. Her Visual Art mediums include Journals and mixed media collages. Joni Mitchell - Singer & Songwriter and painter. I love her portraits, abstracts, and paintings where she writes on it and it looks like a Collage. Here is a list of Art books by Musicians Adam & I have in our collection: Rat Catching, Oak Mot, Round My House, Concrete Inspection by Crispin Hellion Glover The Primal Screamer - Nick Blinko of Rudimentary Peni America the Beautiful - Exene Cervenka Finally here are some more of my own works of Visual Art. I look forward to seeing and hearing more of your Art.
I am originally from Orange County, California. A place that is more recently known for such music as Pop Punk, Ska, and Hip Hop. For as long as I can remember I have always loved listening to and making Music or Noise in general. Through my parents, I was exposed to Jazz, Blues, Motown R&B, Gospel, various forms of Pop-rock from the 60's and 70's, Showtunes, Bluegrass, and Classical. Through my own explorations, I got into Free Jazz, Punk, Hardcore, Metal, Industrial, Post Punk, No-Wave, Electronic, Goth, Krautrock, Prog-Rock, Avant-Garde, Experimental and other music from various cultures. I discovered at a young age that like my mother I possessed the ability to sing on key and the ability to find the harmony to any tune. I was lucky that the various Elementary schools in California I attended had a great Art & Music programs. We learned about all the master Artists. I participated in many plays by Singing & Acting. I was known as the loudest Alto in my high school's competing Choir called the Choral Quintessence. My music teacher inspired us to dig deep into musical history from different cultures and eras. As far as instruments were concerned I used to have one of those Casio keyboards available in the 1990's. I figured out pretty young that I could figure out how to play a song by ear. I never learned to read music or had any formal piano lessons. I originally wanted to play drums but was talked out of it and I took Guitar lesson's while in High school. Figured out I could tune it by ear. Later I was a lead singer in a few unknown and short-lived Punk bands. Fast Forward to 2017 the year of major life changes. I met Adam Naworal who I impressed with my knowledge and interest in much of the same music genres. We developed a friendship which quickly changed to something more. He made me aware that some of what I listened to fell into different categories I didn't know existed. I was also not aware that there was an Improvisation or Noise Scene here in Florida that he was long involved with. I had known there was a lot of improvisation in Free Jazz, I just never realized people still got together with traditional and unusual instruments and improvised. So while I am an "n00b" to this particular scene I am not new to expressing myself musically. After Adam and I collected a few instruments together. We were invited to Join an Improvisational gathering at a museum. I was nervously playing a Melodica but by all accounts I was intuitive, it seemed like I knew just what to do. Unbeknownst to me at one point some of the other musicians paused a bit to find a complement to what I was playing. I learned that it is best to listen to what others are doing and not overpower when part of an Improvisational Group. Next, we were invited to play at the Space Gallery and we started by joining the Orchestra Improvisation experimental jam at the beginning and branched off into smaller groups. I had fun playing my Diddley Bow while Adam played the Microbrute. We were joined by Aaron Abrams, Dan Kozak, and Reine Louise Hogue. Most recently Adam and I (aka Tomokie's Cup) had our debut at Apartment Music 29. I played a Korg littleBits Synth Kit and Stylophone Gen X-1 while Adam played the Electric Phin. That was truly fun and I can't wait to have more opportunities to improvise. |
Aimee Grace NaworalArtist, musician, improviser, wife, catmom, writer, foodie, nature-lover. Archives
February 2019
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