The Imagined Village EP that includes my latest remix is now available to buy online at womadshop.com and you can listen to my remix after the jump.
This EP brings you a preview track from the forthcoming full length album (due for release on September 10) and three exclusive mixes only available on this special edition.
If you think you know about English folk music, think again. The Imagined Village project, the brainchild of producer and musician Simon Emmerson, has recast age-old traditions in the shape of the twenty-first century. A daring mix of ancient and modern, The Imagined Village fuses fiddles and squeezebox with dub beats and sitars. To do so it has gathered an extraordinary array of talent, including - on this exclusive EP - Martin Carthy, Eliza Carthy, Sheila Chandra, Billy Bragg, Chris Wood and Simon Emmerson.
EP Track Listing:
1. ‘England Half English Meets John Barleycorn’ was recorded and mixed by producer Simon Emmerson with Billy Bragg featuring Martin Carthy and Eliza Carthy. The spirit of the track, with its meeting of two songs, seemed in perfect keeping with the overall sentiment of The Imagined Village project
2. ‘Acres of Ground (Beats Mix)’ is an original song by Eliza Carthy, based around old traditional counting songs. Created through collaboration between Simon Emmerson and mix engineer Mass in their London Studio and Ben Ivitsky and Eliza in their Scottish studio. Another version of this song which will appear on the final album in a very different guise.
3. ‘Welcome Sailor’, a beautiful atmospheric collaboration between Sheila Chandra and Chris Wood, is a recording based on Lal Waterson’s traditional interpretation of the original folk tune. This track will appear on the forthcoming Imagined Village album.
4. ‘Cold, Hailey, Rainy Night - It’s Turned Out Nice Mix by Stabilizer’ grew out of a challenge set by The Imagined Village project on the Real World Remix website . The idea was to take this track - Transglobal Underground’s interpretation of Martin Carthy’s original track - and re-mix it. This song has been passed down from generation to generation through the oral tradition of folk music. It has now been re-invented in a radical fashion by the mysterious, uniquely- talented Stabilizer!
Tracks 1, 2 and 4 appear exclusively on this EP
It was a fun and unique project to get my teeth into and a new direction in my sound so you could see my remix as a preview to where my music is heading in general.
Just as a heads up you can hear my upcoming single, and it’s associated remix by Myagi on my virb profile
Not sure when it’ll be out. I’ll let you know on here when I found out but it’ll be released on Stellar Music and promoed through White Noise.
After months of faffing I’ve finally got round to prepping, testing and uploading my first efx pack. 8 .bgrp files for Plogue Bidule users everywhere check out.
[sg_efx] Buffer Scratch
An LFO based audio buffer effect. Audio goes in, weird scratchy and odd sounds come out. The LFO speed is tempo locked with presets for a few different tempo divisions. Needs to be synced for it to work.
[sg_efx] BuffScatter
As above but weirder and less controllable. Needs to be synced for it to work.
[sg_efx] Stereo Triple LFO Buffer
An extension of Buffer Scratch. This time three non synced LFOs get busy with your buffer. Needs to be synced for it to work.
[sg_efx] S&H Filter+Comb
2 tempo locked sample and hold LFOs mess with a low pass filter and a delay unit to create filtered comb filter type effects. Needs to be synced for it to work.
[sg_efx] Stereo 6-12db Filter
Boring and bog standard, but pretty handy none the less.
[sg_mod] Log Slider
This isn’t an effect just a handy group. The slider value displayed is converted into a Log shape curve on output. Handy for filters and the like.
[sg_mod] Sync LFO
Another module, this time the Synced LFO used in the effects above. Needs to be synced for it to work.
[sg_mod] Sync S&H
A synced Sample and Hold LFO, as used in the S&H Filter+Comb group and handy to have stand alone. Needs to be synced for it to work.
How To Install
[sg_efx] Pack One
Download the .zip file linked above and expand. Drag the ‘[sg_bidule] Pack One’ folder to the Bidule groups folder. Start Bidule and with any luck it will tell you that there are 8 new groups.
There will be a new folder in your palette at the bottom called [sg]. All the new groups are in there.
Feel free to open them up and improve / hack them as they are the result of late night noodling rather than concerted clean coding so they may be a bit unpredictable, but I like that when it comes to music.
If you use them in a track please let me know.. I’d love to hear what you’ve done.
Obviously these are provided as is, no warranty etc. If you break something, lose work, blow your speakers, whatever it really isn’t my problem OK?
I’ve probably been on there for ages but no-one told me as usual. I’m been on other download stores before of course but iTunes is the daddy after all.
Of course there’s no distinction between me and the US based Stabilizer who released an album in 2005, the same as Last.fm, but hey.. I’m there! I just hope they aren’t getting any of my sales cash!
Stabilizer on iTunes