SubVersion presents: Greg Haines & Alexander Thomas - Friday 28th May 2010

[Statto]

have you asked the performers if they have any suggestions about where (or to whom) it might be worth promoting? or asked the venue?

have you asked the performers if they have any suggestions about where (or to whom) it might be worth promoting? or asked the venue?

The Holywell pointed me to Tickets Oxford originally, and they can display posters in their limited visage. Not specifically Alexander and Greg, but what is done: I've trawled Greg's - and a major influence - Arvo Pärt's friends lists for UK inhabitants, sending over 350 tailored mails on the first, with 423 pages to search through on the second; I'm a tenth of the way there. 17 Oxford universities are in the loop. Greg's Head Of Music in Reading, as written is after 35 tickets.

Anywhere else in Oxfordshire I can think to promote: Music Stand (who will sell tickets for free), Waterstones bookshop in Witney, a select few pub noticeboards, classical music venues, Witney's cello shop, museums, boards for posters, Bridewell Gardens (see the mix series for dedications), Holywell flyering outside, Nightshift and Oxfordshire Music Scene magazines which I have written for previously, The Oxford Times weekly events section, and multiple MySpace friends lists outstanding are all under consideration.

Suggestions for further promotion are relished.

[Statto]

seems like you've got it all in hand

St. Andrews bookshop in Witney have put a poster in their window
Left them flyers too.

Not to forget, Rapture (one lonely independent music shop) will display posters. I'll be on that by Wednesday afternoon.

Your email to me re: college radio stations sparked thoughts on whether SC Affiliated shows would be willing to broadcast any details on the event. To answer college radio ideas, I think that would be cool, but I'm slightly baffled how I could integrate them informally.

Perhaps I'll mail letters to the applicable secretaries.

St. Andrews bookshop in Witney have put a poster in their window
Left them flyers too.

Not to forget, Rapture (one lonely independent music shop) will display posters. I'll be on that by Wednesday afternoon.

Your email to me re: college radio stations sparked thoughts on whether SC Affiliated shows would be willing to broadcast any details on the event. To answer college radio ideas, I think that would be cool, but I'm slightly baffled how I could integrate them informally.

Perhaps I'll mail letters to the applicable secretaries.

Hmmm do you already have in mind which shows? like you know certain ones with a particular dj that play stuff you would assimilate with the concert?
Like here, i would know what day and what time a show was and the whoever was doing the show, they usually always say call up and give number for whatever reason. I would call up personally.
There would be it least a 5 min interval through out a show to discuss upcoming events.

[Statto]

ticket arrived this morning

seems like you've got it all in hand

Thanks. A quarter way through Arvo Part's friends list as of today (108 pages, 405 emails). Nine A4 posters and 45 flyers sent off to universities. Bridewell has 2 posters and 25 flyers. My local PC, Oxfam, Music Stand and applicable pub have 3 posters and 25 flyers between them. Next jobs are to provide Music Stand with tickets, finish off the stated friends list, take a day or two to go around Oxford for aforementioned interest sites, and expand promotion to forums of recognisable relevance.

Currently greater than a 1/3 through Arvo Part's contacts pages. 150 down, 273 to go.

But for now: :bed:

Half way there, and another ticket sold.

ticket arrived this morning

picking mine up from venue

10 flyers and 1 A3 poster distributed to Blackwells Music, Oxford library has 4 flyers and an A3 poster. Town Hall has 9 flyers, HMV 15. Waterstones in Witney 5, Corn Exchange 5, Music Stand 10 tickets handed over. Rapture 10 flyers and an A3 poster. Received great feedback from HMV's classical section till worker, who said "Greg Haines? Fantastic!" so knows his work and can recommend the concert to shoppers, with a ticket sold there in high proabability. Rapture's staff expressed an interest in artists such as Olafur Arnalds and Johann Johansson, so this'll be right up their street.

No radical travel operations needed, as this Friday is the start of a Bank Holiday.

Another ticket cashed

Two milestones reached: 75 % of Arvo's net buddies contacted, and over 1100 personalised emails finished.

In motion with the Sonic Pieces supporters, 1/9 complete, a lot quicker than the last.

[Statto]

soldier

soldier

Sonic Pieces' area 50% navigated. Considering the amount of tickets I require to break even, I'm trying to ensure and telling myself I've done my best in future retrospection. Hoping the turnout will do the artists justice.

Sonic Pieces emails signed, sealed and delivered to a total of 74 contacts.

My review of Greg's project, from SubVersion.

Greg Haines - Until The Point Of Hushed Support (Sonic Pieces 006)



Screening isn't merely for reassurance: it tells us, directly or indirectly, rightly or wrongly, if more needs to be done. Artists sketch under a pantheon of their worst critic - usually themselves, where ascendant components admire reflection. With lazy tacking banished in the interim, a masterpiece can take a day, week, month - in control of Greg Haines and his miniature orchestra (Nils Frahm, the female singer from "Slumber Tides", et al) "Until The Point Of Hushed Support" took three years. And it's not hard from listening to see why. Feedback loops guarantee chances for engrossing, exploratory sprawl, where philosophising about culture's whys and wherefors indebts us with an antidote to fear. Recorded mainly in Grunewald Church in Berlin, Haines hasn't rehashed the classical flooring where narrow vision ensues decay. Rather, on these four pieces, he's reinventing self-praxis in his most accomplished statement as a composer, and furthermore as an interpreter.

Immediately the track names tell a story. "Industry Vs. Inferiority", perhaps, nodding to detested inhospitality. Pursuing the future can be like racing to catch light at the end of a tunnel, and on this quiet work for piano, faint traces of Goldmund's locative, sibilant frequencies paint a bittersweet scene. Solo pianism can translate as secular in its stronghold of riches - granted, soundtracks support it, but the style wholly resists commercial viability. Partially this occures through its audiences' lower generational imparting of experiences, anecdotes and taste - being toasted by a gap in the market. But nonetheless, labels (and moreover businesses) demand stretching to cross-pollinate, with those carrying the torch, Sonic Pieces among them, providing an outsider's ticket to protocol, as well as an abode for the adventurous. And that's a very brave thing to be doing.

As you listen, there is a slowly unfolding sense of weightlessness; skirting the censors with detached allure, almost as if time is frozen, waiting to be melted down. Essentially, it's precursory calm to rainclouds of beauty falling and frighteningly affecting the aural terrain. "Marc's Descent" rallies a manifesto of high-pitched, shiver-inducing violins, bobbing and weaving through scales in a kind of slow motion blues. Long, sustained rumbles interconnect with interweaving, winded melody lines. Juddering percussive drones and church organ are thickly dense, like double decker buses ploughing snowy roads. You're able to recognise a distinction in range from "Slumber Tides", as if determination enraptures Haines' muse to bear his soul deeper than ever.

Crippled momentum finding tangents can be observed as an underlying theme of Haines' works, from his more digestible collaborations with Wouter Van Veldhoven, to his Miasmah debut. But none have seen him so agonisingly powerful as on the last two compositions of "Until The Point Of Hushed Support". Interplay defining a stuttered pulse is a joy to behold, and when the strings finally break into the forefront, you can feel the energy peak. The melodies on "In The Event Of A Sudden Loss" are stuffed with minute pleasures, begging for renewal, and receiving it with silence and subsidence. Slowly unfolding atmospheres partner electronic warbles, until glockenspiel entrails a rising appearance of string quintet, dissimilar to Max Richter's "Blue Notebooks" highpoints. Negotiating tentative steps with mournful string accompaniment, the notations repeat, flutter into darkened air pockets, conflating to a seemingly higher cause.

It's on "Until The Point Of Least Resistance", where a dying radio whispers against choral tones that we enounter harmonic climax, yet five minutes pass and it feels like an age. This is an uncanny truce of Haines that places him arbitrary from failed revolution - an ability to scuplt literally timeless sound-spheres that take in arresting chaos and filter it through shutters; those as awe-inspiring standing vertical as they are lying horizontal. Gripping would be the adjective of choice for this phenomenal conclusion, to a breathtaking album that's massively recommended.

Purchase: CD

Preview: "Marc's Descent"

Miasmah fans 10% alerted.

2/3 scanned.

That sector done and dusted. Signed up to talkclassical.com to promote the concert also.

Rounding off the 100 remaining pages of Arvo's list today, and distributing 45 flyers after leaving Thee Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra gig at The Regal, Oxford, who are heavily influenced by classical sensibilities, with the remainder dropped off to two venues in the city.

I average 35 album listens a month, swapping folders on my Mp3 player to accomodate new arrivals. "Until The Point Of Hushed Support" is one long-player I haven't removed from my portable device since I heard it, and I don't think I will be changing that reality any time soon.