My goodness. There’s alot coming up over the next two months. One biggie in about a fortnight is HOBART + MUSIC = YEAH! A festivus of wonders… I just made up that byline… maybe it’ll be picked up next year. I’m playing with the splederous tiger choir who i’ve played with twicebefore and there are a stack of other great bands playing. Also it’s cold and there are devils. what more could you want?
I’m also working on a new VJ set for a live audio visual project for james annesley in his solo electronic guise. I’m incorporating live video feeds into this set which is something new for me. Dr Who style video feedback FTW! I’m going to trial some of the new material still in it’s learning-to-walk phase this sunday at the workers club. We’ll see how it goes…
but wait there’s more. I’m playing a show in Sydney September 18th which is way exciting as i’m yet to have carved up that particular town with my plastic axe of doom. I’ll put a proper post up about that show soon. There’s still more because there’ll probably be a radelaide show shortly after that. Ampersand there’s even more because after that i’ll be at this years This is Not Art speaking as part of panel on alternative controllers in electronic music… spoiler alert: ergonomics, stage presence and the buttler did it. My new album is still free BTW.
My new album “With the Moon alongside Racing Us Home” launched today. It’s available as a free download and also as CD in lovingly handmade cardboard sleeves made just for you. I wrote and recorded the album throughout 2009 in my bedroom studio dubbed The Pentagon, It has reoccuring themes of robots, dragons, anarchism and the night sky and a little three note refrain scattered throughout.
big things happening in zeal land. my new album is hitting the net july 4th! that’s only five more sleeps. the juicy details are as follows: it has eleven tracks, many of them mention robots, several mention dragons and the stars. the whole thing has a hearty serve of anti-authoritarianism. it’s a bit electronic, a bit folky, a bit poppy, a bit ukulele. i was listening to a lot of anticon when i wrote it so it’s got some wordiness in there too. it’s going to be a free download or you can buy the amazing handmade package you see above (and below). it’s all very exciting.
and if that wasn’t enough i’m puting togethert a new zeal website. if you see zealousy.com in your address bar you’re already looking at my shiny new site. there might some broken links in the archives as i shuffle things around but i’m on it. promise. and i have a show coming up too… i leave you in suspense for now. back to web making.
i’ve upped some video from last weeks birmingham gig. i think this might be an internet debut for this track and one of the first examples of axis out in the wild! much more coming up soon.
I’ve been getting asked for this keypad to midi patch a lot recently so I thought I’d upload it. You can get it here. You’ll also need the free max/msp runtime from cycling74.com. If you’re on windows you’ll need loopbe too.
and remember – Zeal’s live Melbourne debut this Friday!
I’ve had a few questions and comments regarding playing chords with axis. Here’s how to do it in ableton:
This’ll only work in ableton but there might be ways to do this using comprable vst plugins etc.
The new Zeal set is coming together and the first of many Melbourne gigs is lined up for April. Oh yeah, and did i mention I have a new album ready for release? next few posts should be bigguns…
zeal has been appearing in interesting corners of the blogosphere in the last couple of days. there’s an interview at fiese falle about process and gear. they’re the sort of things that interest me in interviews so maybe you’ll be into it.
also, there’s a write up about my guitar hero to midi app AXIS on one of my fav blogs – hack a day.
the post has drawn out some entertaining flames like: “Get a haircut and a real job. Also, learn to play the real guitar. It’s a lot more fun, I promise.”
upon reading that i got a hair cut and a real job and learned to play the “real” guitar. it’s not as fun.
speaking of fun – fun new things to buy appearing soon and even fun new ways to buy said fun new things. but for now…
so it took almost exactly a year to write and record and now my next album “with the moon alongside racing us home” is mixed! complete! done! finito! pung! bahoogled! i made a lot of those words up, feel free to use them (CC non-profit, attribution, share-alike).
now all this mixing’s done i’m focusing on my live show and getting axis out into the world. i’m also enjoying playing with max for live as an audio visual environment. getting sensors to the party is the next step i think… like some sort of reactive audio-visual “thingy”.
artwork for the album has to be done too… might start on that now.
Zeal is 25 year-old Melbournite, Robert Jarvis. He makes indietronica in his bedroom studio and animated music videos about cats in space on his bedroom floor.
Elsewhere...