‘Woah! I am sit­ting here back in work this morning, sifting through the con­t­ents of my head, try­ing to work out which bits re­ally hap­pened, and which bits I just dre­amt…’   [fe­line 1 ]

This was the first in the White La­bel Mu­sic se­ries of So­nic Wee­kend ex­pe­ri­ments. 17 in­ter­na­tio­nal ar­tists from di­verse mu­si­cal back­grounds spent a wee­kend in a large house in Swa­nage, Eng­land ac­com­pa­nied by their in­stru­ments and se­veral bar­rels of beer. The ar­tists were re­crui­ted via the Re­cord La­bel web­site, it was first come first ser­ved, so there was re­ally no cri­te­ria or selec­tion pro­cess, just pure luck.

As many of the mu­si­ci­ans had ne­ver met be­fore, we nee­ded a star­ting point be­fore we be­gan re­cor­ding, so the sci-fi clas­sic ‘Dark Star’ was used as re­fe­rence. En­gi­nee­red & pro­du­ced by Pierre Du­plan and di­rec­ted by Ann Shen­ton (Add N to X/Large Num­ber) the DVD and Do­cu­men­tary will be scree­ned in the au­tumn of 2007.

Ar­tists in­vol­ved: Garry Hen­sey, Sean Hur­ley (Sun­set People), Ri­chard Brad­ley, Oli­ver Hall, Danny Keir (The Pony Har­vest), Leigh Mo­ney, Grant Gor­don (Staff), Jon Greig (Beat Bi­got), Jash, Kai­ton Slus­her, Will Plow­man, Jer­ermi Du­rand, Eti­enne, Mark Lo­wery, Matt Long­hurst (Wire Mo­ther), Gor­don Charl­ton (Beat Fre­quency), Da­vid Da­vis (Fe­line 1).

There were 17 tracks com­ple­ted in all; ran­ging from am­bi­ent field re­cor­dings to punk vo­cals & ex­plo­sive lun­acy rub­bed shoul­ders with ra­tio­nal ma­the­ma­ti­cal re­a­so­n­ing. There was so much di­ver­sity as there were so many di­verse cha­rac­ters in­vol­ved. We had cho­sen the film Dark Star as a re­fe­rence point so the ent­ire pro­ject was go­ing to have a sci-fi space ele­ment to it. This was not a pro­blem as most of the mu­si­ci­ans were from an ex­plo­ratory, elec­tro­nic back­ground, all fa­mi­liar with the work of the Ra­dio­pho­nic Work­shop, Mu­si­que Con­cret and ex­pe­ri­men­tal composers.

The Bella Vista ho­li­day home see­med an un­li­kely set­ting for this pro­ject, but once the din­ning room had been strip­ped down and trans­for­med into a tem­porary stu­dio, it be­gan to morph into a sound lab. Ha­ving hur­ried away the hou­se­kee­per, we took pos­ses­sion of the keys of the Bella Vista, from this point on known as the ‘Good Ship Dark Star.’

 The kit­chen was to re­main the hub of the house and as soon as the squabb­ling over the best rooms was over, ever­yone con­gre­ga­ted there. Marc Hun­ter [di­rec­tor of White La­bel Mu­sic] gave an in­tro­duc­tory speech ‘let the battle com­mence!’ and all the in­stru­ments were plug­ged in and as­sem­bled. The power surge must have kno­cked out the iron lungs in the ad­ja­cent old peo­p­les home mo­men­ta­rily as over 50 ana­lo­gue syn­the­sisers flas­hed and blin­ked awake.

Pierre Du­plan [pro­du­cer] took his po­si­tion at the so­nic bridge and over the next few days we learnt to ignore the film crew po­king ca­me­ras into our faces and watching our every move. The air was thick with elec­tri­city and the hum of amps. The bar­rels of ale were cra­cked open and the seven­teen strong gang star­ted to gra­vi­tate into sub groups. As well as the mu­si­ci­ans, there were Mark Oul­sen Jenkins from RTR Pro­duc­tions [who cut his teeth ma­king do­cu­men­ta­ries du­ring the war in Af­gha­nis­tan and rea­lity TV shows], Jo­seph the sound­man and Jus­tine on ca­mera 2.

Also pre­sent were Ma­rese [pho­to­gra­pher], Bill [chauf­fer], Jo [Garry’s girl­fri­end], plus mys­elf: Ann and also Marc from W.L.M.

The pro­ject was an ex­pe­ri­ment; we had no idea if the end re­sult would be good enough to re­lease or whe­ther the group would be able to work with each other. Were there go­ing to be ar­gu­ments and a col­li­sion of ideas, drun­ken punch-ups and bi­cke­ring? We did not know.

We did howe­ver know that it was im­port­ant to exe­cute so­me­thing like this to chal­lenge stan­dard re­cor­ding prac­tice. Pur­pose built stu­dios can be a stif­ling and pre­dic­ta­ble en­viron­ment, usually lo­ca­ted in un­in­spi­ring pla­ces, but here we were in an en­viron­ment new to all of us. We were hell bent on at­tempt­ing a new re­cor­ding me­thod and to ins­ti­gate cross-pollination bet­ween the musicians.

‘None of the ar­tists in­vol­ved had tried anything like this be­fore and as far as I am aware, no other re­cord la­bel had at­temp­ted it eit­her’ ex­plai­ned Marc Hun­ter of White La­bel Mu­sic. ‘We wan­ted to see if it was pos­si­ble to put all these mu­si­ci­ans to­ge­ther and come up with a co­he­sive recording.’

The sea swel­led be­ne­ath us and the rain bel­ted against the win­dows, squally show­ers and sea mist made the place seem cut off from the rest of the world. Time meant not­hing to them. They worked con­stantly re­gard­less of it. When the battle weary re­ti­red to their beds, a fresh group of So­nic Wee­ken­ders would en­ter the stu­dio for their re­cor­ding ses­sion. All the while Pierre sat at his re­cor­ding sta­tion, being kept alive with of­fe­rings brought to him in a con­stant stream, bana­nas, wine, nuts and to­bacco. Like pil­grims lay­ing vo­ti­ves at the feet of a holy man.

Leigh would work in iso­la­tion in her quar­ters, emer­ging every few hours with her prose. Gor­don had set up camp in the far cor­ner of the stu­dio with his the­re­min and collec­tion of ef­fects pe­dals, while Jash, John, Kai­ton and Will had crea­ted a sub-studio in ano­ther room. The lads from the band The Pony Har­vest [Oli­ver, Danny & Ri­chard] worked to­ge­ther, ad­opting Jer­ermi as a tem­porary fourth mem­ber of the gang. On ar­ri­val, Ri­chard had emer­ged from the cram­ped car loo­king like an em­bryo­nic Jar­vis Cocker.

 Matt was sorting out his beer supplies and NASA sam­ples. Garry con­su­med twenty cans of Guin­ness be­fore play­ing a sin­gle note, Da­vid cran­ked up his huge mo­du­lar synth. Bass play­ers Olly and Will were at their sta­ti­ons and Ri­chard powered up the Om­ni­chord, home made ma­chi­nes and found ob­jects were at the re­ady. Eti­enne pa­ra­ded about in his black lea­ther Le­der­ho­sen ea­ger to start as Jo held court around the kit­chen ta­ble. While Mark went off to in­ter­view the lo­cals about their mu­si­cal tas­tes, Sean pre­pa­red for field re­cor­dings with mi­cro­phone po­si­tio­ned in top po­cket, chom­ping on a large ci­gar held bet­wi­xed sover­eign clad fin­gers. Winds­wept Ma­rese ap­peared af­ter a photo-shoot on the be­ach, and the film crew re­fu­el­led with pints of iced ci­der. Jash had rai­ded the rooms for pos­si­ble per­cus­sion in­stru­ments and John had re­cor­ded a spatula/kitchen uten­sil rhythm. Ca­b­les, wires, bat­te­ries and plec­trums lit­te­red the 1970’S car­pet. Outs­ide amidst the fog, smo­kers con­gre­ga­ted, backs to the wind, sus­sing each other out.

By night­fall the buil­ding had been to­tally trans­for­med, any trace of the last fa­mily that had stayed there had eva­po­ra­ted. This buil­ding was of­fi­ci­ally ours for the next few days. That first night was like a house party with a mis­sion. When the last stragg­lers fi­nally went to sleep, the un­lu­cky few wi­t­hout beds made nests in the hall­way, un­der the stairs and on the stu­dio floor.

There were no a Di­vas among them. There were howe­ver some bril­li­ant minds and in­tui­tive people. These people were un­afraid of failure and un­em­bar­ras­sed about sharing so­me­what ec­cen­tric ideas. This is ex­actly what I had ho­ped for, they didn’t need the gui­dance and di­rec­tion I was pre­pa­red to dish out to them. There were a few quips and sar­cas­tic re­marks, the oc­ca­sio­nal glare, but all in all they were a jo­vial bunch, re­ady to experiment.

By morning the So­nic Wee­ken­ders were sett­led in, brewing up strong cof­fee and wol­fing back bre­ak­fast. It didn’t feel like morning though as we had crea­ted our own time zone, ever­yone ap­peared jet­lag­ged. Some went to the town for more supplies, while others swap­ped ideas and bor­ro­wed gear or went down to the sea to blow away the cob­webs. We shif­ted ta­bles and fur­ni­ture to make room for even more in­stru­ments. The kit­chen was bust­ling and full of steam, a strange soup was being in­ven­ted. Lap­tops were cli­cking away, chat­ter and mu­sic per­mea­ted every cor­ri­dor. It was like a so­nic psych­ia­tric unit.

I was al­ways pre-empting some kind of di­sas­ter, re­ady for the main power supply to over­load and trip or maybe the main com­pu­ter would crash and we would loose vi­tal data, but that didn’t happen.

The most eye– opening thing was to be able to ob­serve their wri­t­ing pro­cess. Ever­yone ap­proa­ched the pro­ject dif­fer­ently. Some pre­pa­red in iso­la­tion while others leapt feet first into the stu­dio in an ex­plo­sive wall of sound, be­cause of this di­ver­sity the end re­sult was un­ex­pec­ted and bril­li­antly uni­que. Ta­king these mu­si­ci­ans out of their com­fort zo­nes was a great way for them to dis­co­ver al­ter­na­tive working methods.

‘It is just as im­port­ant that we must di­ver­sify as a re­cord la­bel in the same way mu­si­ci­ans are con­stantly ex­plo­ring dif­fe­rent sound tech­ni­ques and ex­pe­ri­men­ting. We want to chal­lenge what has be­come a le­thar­gic and stale in­dus­try. We [W.L.M.] have pro­ved that this ex­pe­ri­ment was fi­nan­ci­ally via­ble, and most im­port­antly the mu­si­ci­ans’ can walk away with a collec­tively ow­ned piece of work, a great album.’

At the end of the wee­kend, the crew fil­med Marc lea­ving the house and shou­ted ‘Was it a success?’

‘Well only one wine glass bro­ken and no fag burns on the carpet.’

The ‘So­nic Wee­kend’ al­bums can be down­loa­ded from itunes.

If you are in­te­res­ted in ta­king part in a up­co­m­ing So­nic Wee­kend please use this con­tact form:

 

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