Cyclic Defrostissue10 [01.2005] Page1
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CYCLIC DEFROST ISSUE 10 [01.2005] PAGE 1 ISSUE 10 CONTENTS CDITORIAL 4 COVER DESIGNER: RICHARD BYERS/SUPERLIGHT Summer brings BBQs, cricket on the telly, and if you live in one of the major capital by Sebastian Chan cites, endless festivals. In Sydney we’re rather unlucky because all the festivals seem to run up against the end of each other meaning a lot of pain on your wallet. Every year 7 PONYLOAF a new festival pops up to enter the fray, this year there are two already – the Ken West- We welcome your contributions and contact: by Angela Stengel funded part of What Is Music called Onathon, and the Cockatoo Island Festival that PO Box a2073 8 INCH-TIME takes over an enormous old industrial site in the middle of Sydney Harbour for the first Sydney South by Peter Hollo time. If you are in Sydney, come visit the Cyclic Defrost/Frigid stage at the Cockatoo NSW 1235 Australia 9 CHASM festival. If you haven’t spent up on festival tickets, your wallets are no doubt just [email protected] by Dale Harrison recovering from the vast number of musical releases that emerged late last year, and www.cyclicdefrost.com 11 INGA LILJESTROM by late February the indies will all be pushing out their first big records of 2005. by Christine Piper This issue of Cyclic is our tenth and it calls for a bit of a celebration.We’ve decided to ISSUE 11 deadline: 12/03/2005 do another wrap around cover and generally have a bit of redesign and expand the 13 WINTERVILLE amount of text in this issue. There’s also a few articles that were missing from the last Publisher & Editor-in-Chief by Dan Rule Sebastian Chan issue that have surfaced for this one – so it’s a bumper read.Video artist and designer Art Director & Co-Editor 15 SPECIAL: FIELD RECORDINGS Superlight has provided the cover design, and we have long interviews with dj/Rupture, Dale Harrison ALAN LAMB, FRANCISCO LOPEZ Smayze, plus Bob Baker Fish explores the techniques of some field recording specialists. & LAWRENCE ENGLISH Sub Editor There are shorter interviews with Melbourne’s Winterville, Sydney’s Inge Lillejstrom, by Bob Baker Fish Aparna Khopkar Bec Paton and Chasm,Adelaide’s Inch-time, and Brisbane’s Ponyloaf.And Carmel Toh Reviews Editor 19 AMON TOBIN revisits some of the best moments of our dearly departed Degrassi. Dale Harrison by Peter Hollo For our next ten issues we’re exploring some new initiatives and Cyclic Defrost is look- Advertising 20 SMAZE ing at expanding into some new areas. If you’d like to join our list of contributors then get Sebastian Chan by Dan Collins in touch with us; likewise we are looking out for someone to re-imagine our website. And, if you are looking for some new music, then consider our Cyclic Music Club. It Advertising Rates 23 DJ /RUPTURE is a three monthly subscription service that gets you either three or six full-length CDs download at www.cyclicdefrost.com by Sebastian Chan chosen by us for your musical enjoyment. More info on our website. 27 MUSIC REVIEWS Sebastian Chan & Dale Harrison, Editors Distribution 36 DVD REVIEWS Inertia Distribution (www.inertia-music.com) 37 SLEEVE REVIEWS STOCKISTS Printing NSW: Victory Music, Bloody Fist, Plum Music, Market ACT: Impact, Landspeed Torch Publishing by Alex Crowfoot Music, Troy Horse Rock Shop, Hi Fidelity Lounge, QUEENSLAND: Skinny's, Rockinghorse ,Butter Beats, Web Programming 39 SELECTS: BEC PATON Salamander Sound, Spot Music, Redback, Spank, Music Sunflower, Toombul Music,Alleyway, Cosmic Music, Giv Parvaneh, Qbique (www.qbique.com) by Matt Levinson @ Byron, Hum on King, Hum on Miller, Hum on Oxford, Leading Edge, Music Scene Web Design Leading Edge Warriewood, 360 Sound, Leading Edge 41 DEAR DEGRASSI WESTERN AUSTRALIA: Dada's, Mills, Central Station Luke Elwin, Qbique (www.qbique.com) Penrith, Mall Music, Electric Monkeys, Fish – Newtown, Perth, Planet Video, Chinatown Records Web Hosting Fish – Glebe Music, Bizarre, Euphoria, Freestyle, MCA, Blueskyhost (www.blueskyhost.com) Plus online at Metropolis, Recycled, Explore Music, Disc, Reefer, SOUTH AUSTRALIA: Muses, Big Star, B Sharp, www.cyclicdefrost.com Chatterbox, Uni Records Guest Cover Design Record Store NSW,So Music, Red Eye Richard Byers MORE MUSIC REVIEWS VICTORIA: Licorice Pie, Slap, Readings Carlton, TASMANIA: CD Centre, Ruffcutt,Wills Music,Aroma Issue 10 Contributors Including: Lena Michaela, Melián Northside, Kent St, CC Geelong, Recycled, Missing NT: Casuarina Alex Crowfoot, Bob Baker Fish, Lawrence English, Tonetraeger, Sylvie Marks & HAL9000, Link, JF Porters, Boston Sound,Voyager Port If your store doesn't carry Cyclic Defrost then get Matt Levinson, Peter Hollo, Ron Schepper, Alex ollo, Henrik N. Björkk, Stafrann Hakon, Stephan Melbourne, Record Collectors Corner, Second Spin them to order it from Inertia Distribution Lars ollo, Guido Farnell, Dan Collins, HC11, Dan Rule, Mathieu, O.Lamm, Christian Marclay, Justin Tech,Voyager Ivanhoe, Greville, Sister Ray, Polyester, Christine Piper, Carmel Toh. Bennett & Toshiya Tsunoda, The Delgados, Synaesthesia, Central Station Melbourne, Substrata, New Buffalo, Pita, Hunt & Barnum, Sinbiotik, Thank You Gaslight, Raouls, Kriskay Oz Fritz, Hardman, Mustfuzz,Augustus Nick, Ash, Justin, Ruby, Chloe @ Inertia, Natalie & Noel @ Pablo, Fat Jon the Ample Soul Physician, Torch Publishing, Giv @ Qbique, Chris Bell at Blueskyhost, Secret Masters and more. and all our advertisers. A New Audiences project, assisted by the Australia Council, The views contained herein are not necessarily the views of MORE DVD REVIEWS the Federal Government's art funding and advisory body, the publisher nor the staff of Cylic Defrost. Copyright remains EXTENDED ARTICLES through its Audience and Market Development Division. with the authors and/or Cyclic Defrost. MP3 DOWNLOADS CYCLIC DEFROST ISSUE 10 [01.2005] PAGE 3 FEATURES / LOCAL Cover Designer: Superlight Interview with Richard Byers by Sebastian Chan SUPERLIGHT MY FIRE this issue’s cover comes from richard byers, a sydney-based designer and vj. during the day he works as a concept stylist, where he ‘sketches and produces 3d computer models’ of various consumer and medical products. if you’ve used an eftpos terminal at a shopping centre then maybe you’ve held one of his designs in your hands. I first met Byers when he and his partner, perfect for letting my mind wander. Camela and 2002, I was involved with the Video Combustion Camela Cheng, were sitting in the corner of the I moved up from Canberra after finishing event run by [Sydney-based] Justin Maynard Dendy cinema in Sydney furiously consuming degrees in product design at university.We didn’t and Cindi Drennan from Tesseract. I was new to cake and drawing sketches in their little know many people but one Sydney friend video art and the basis of the event was around notepads. This was at Frigid back in 1997. Since suggested going to Frigid.We went along mostly collaboration with other video artists, musicians then, Byers has become a fixture at all special for the films back then, as films had been a big and dancers, which was very stimulating. This events put on by Frigid, doing live video mixes part of uni life for me.As a member of the uni year I was a part of a video forum at under his pseudonym Superlight. Unlike a lot of film club I saw four or more a week – current Electrofringe festival with three other artists other VJs in Australia, Byers is much less releases and old classics. Back then Frigid played from Melbourne, USA and Norway.We each had interested in technology, and more concerned an old film and followed that with DJs playing a different approach to how we performed, with traditional aesthetics, narratives and form. while another film played with the sound muted. ranging from highly prepared video clips to real- ‘Sketching was a great part of my early Frigid Some nights they fed the movie dialogue time improvised video art. I sit about mid-way days; I filled up quite a few sketchbooks with all through the DJ mixer allowing them control of along that spectrum. I prepare short video kinds of strange drawings.Abstract blobs and the film’s audio as well, which was, at the time, samples, which then play in an improvised man- characters and animals were the most a fascinating manipulation of media to me.’ ner. This allows me to have both the responsive prominent,’he says.‘I found the space at Dendy Byers’ introduction to video came through aspect from improvisation combined with (Martin Place) and the Frigid environment uni.‘During uni I had a good friend, Derek, who design/cinematic driven elements that come ran a local community video editing and from preparing beforehand.’ production facility, and it was there that I got my Superlight currently uses two laptops and a first intro to video editing. It wasn’t until years vision mixer, but unlike a lot of his colleagues the later that I got a video camera myself and the software he runs on each laptop is very simple. technology became affordable enough that ‘The current software I use is Japanese and very I began experimenting with video and then basic in principle.You assign video files to keys video performance.At first it was all trial and on the keyboard, and you press a key and that error, I wasn’t sure what I was doing as I didn’t video clip plays. I can hold multiple keys and have any type of training with video software. multiple video clips play layered on top of each I knew I was trying to combine different skills – other, blending together to create a new motion photography, illustration, video, animation – composition, and if I don’t actively play clips the into something new, something different from composition remains the same.