Filip's Blog

Last breaths of a piano at Watford General Hospital

2009-05-25T11:46:00.007+01:00

In early September last year I went to Watford General Hospital to interview Medical Director Graham Ramsay about hospital bugs and a new unit that was being built. While waiting for Mr Ramsay I sat in a room where a piano was being taken apart with a combination of electric gadgets and brute force.

I asked the man taking it apart why he was doing this to what appeared to be a perfectly playable musical instrument. There was nowhere to put it allegedly and it was taking up too much room where it was. I half considered attempting to rescue it but found there was sadly no room in our place for the doomed instrument either.

As the man carried off another plank from the piano on a trolley I grabbed my sound recorder, ran up to the keys and bashed out around seven notes, not really in any order or melody. Before I could play anything melodic the door creaked open and the man came in to take apart the rest of the instrument. It would probably never play or be played again aside from a final distorted crash when it was destroyed.

The recording

About nine months later I decided to do something with the recording. I looped it through delays, a compressor and a graphic equaliser to create the following.

The Last Breaths of a Piano at Watford General Hospital

As a final statement for an instrument that I am sure had an interesting and productive life it is not much but I hope it is better than nothing and will allow the instrument to live on in some way. If anyone wishes to take the raw recording and remix it in another way I would very much appreciate it.

2009-04-01T22:43:00.002+01:00

Testing testing...

2009-03-18T18:09:00.002Z

Eight tracks

2009-02-25T19:42:00.010Z

Here are some new tracks. Some unfinished, some awaiting vocals from others, all here for you to listen to. Please comment on what you do or do not like if you have the time.

Straight Edge TV (contains a sample from the Richard and Judy straight edge special)
Onehundredandonepointfive
Twitter 2 (for Fiona Shipwright) (contains samples of The Giant Claw)
Rough Draft Bandage
Digger
Ghostdance
Synth vs Guitar
Twitter 1 (for Duncan Geere) (contains samples from Night of the Lepus and How to Cook Rabbit)

------------------

Bonus electrodoodle: Catleg

Because I haven't written one for a while

2009-02-21T23:40:00.006Z

Calling up the cue card as soon as you're in town

You're letting nobody else down except yourself when you don't try.

Two steps through the church
The first pillar that you see
That isn't where you ought to be
That isn't where you want to be

As they pass the blame you lap it up
They hope you'll never have enough of that.

Gluey mess with hands both tucked away
White flags eat up half your day

I hope you'll some day have enough of that.

Fuge Spider 25 - Spotify Playlist

2009-01-18T10:59:00.005Z

My first proper Spotify playlist for you to enjoy. http://tinyurl.com/8xt5ge
Comment for Spotify invite if you need it.

Filip's 2008 in music

2008-12-31T13:36:00.004Z

A quick run through my favourite musical parts of 2008 complete with listen for free downloads.

Four Favourite Albums

1) The Airing of Grievances by Titus Andronicus

Spotify link: spotify:album:72ELcjUGa9v82EEP2jZLsv

2) Feed the Animals by Girl Talk

Free or otherwise download at www.illegalart.net

3) Third by Portishead

Spotify link: spotify:album:18JyZd2XLdT2rmekw6EwoS

4) Dig That Tressure by Cryptacize

http://www.last.fm/music/Cryptacize/Dig+That+Treasure

Three Favourite Concerts

1) Eamon Hamilton (Brakes frontman) at Truck Festival, Steventon
2) Saul Williams at All Tomorrow's Parties (Minehead) curated by Explosions in the Sky
3) My Bloody Valentine at the Roundhouse in London 23rd of June
4) Cryptacize at the Luminaire London July 11

Favourite Song

Heaven is Human by Cryptacize

Listen: http://www.last.fm/music/Cryptacize/Dig+That+Treasure/Heaven+Is+Human

-----------------

Have a happy new year.

Five short stories

2008-12-10T22:24:00.003Z

They were listening to Italian disco. Ghostly vocals, dreadful production. He kept staring at her knees. She kept staring at her knees. They were both staring at her knees. Caught between the music and the awkwardness she didn't realise. They were good knees. He knew.

Stepping out of the car, James glanced up at a neighbour's window. The curtains twitched in reverse as Laura staggered from view behind the reflection of her sofa. James walked towards his front door. Laura got up to walk back towards the window. She didn't recognise the car.

The pond was filled with life, a mirror image of the garden. A dead hedgehog was splayed out on top of an abandoned ants' nest. A foot lay by the patio boundary.

Ignoring the radio, tools and task, Paul looked blankly at the void. He was a confused cosmonaut drifting from his common sense and space wasn't as dark as he'd hoped it would be.

Was it hungry or just curious? Discarded pieces of tissue paper formed recognisable shapes in front of the cage. Within formed unrecognisable shapes. Was it hungry or just curious?

Two more

2008-12-08T22:37:00.005Z

Two more tracks. I have decided to do some tape work again so these may be the last smooth sounding pieces for a while. I think I need some noise to get me out of where I am.

catbass
kittenpulse

Bonus track: bulb24

Hello bandwagon

2008-12-08T18:48:00.002Z

I have a twitter account and have, after a request from Duncan, fed this blog into it. I'm under filiphnizdo originally enough.

Track dump times twenty four

2008-12-07T23:26:00.007Z

As most of my creativity gets sucked into an attempt to write proper songs the rest becomes a lot of silly doodles on a keyboard. As posting them up here stops me from deleting them all I am doing so. I hope you take some enjoyment in some of them.

Chamberrock was created with the help of Duncan Geere who did the original level of drum and bass backing, the structure and inspired the rest.

chamberrock.mp3

The two "handsfree" tracks are made using a webcam to midi converter. As they involve me programming some synths, and then waving my hands about frantically, handsfree is probably not the best word but there was no touching of keys or buttons between record and stop.

handsfree1.mp3
kkpok or handsfree2.mp3

The two following ringtones are ringtones that I have created. I am planning to do hundreds more so if anyone would like one please email me or comment me or tell me or anything and tell me what you want and I'll do it.

Debut
Lemonade (Lindsay's ringtone)

And here are the rest in no particular order:

festivepeak
feet
centralpark
curd3
brums
plumcore
sleepyloop
barp
pyramidscheme
trains birds wind and headache
imnotsurewhattodowiththis
screwup
organise2
Tom Jones is a synthesiser
notwoolworths
DATH
busstop
Fender

Unused songs

2008-12-03T22:27:00.004Z

Once I find the time I will put all the tracks that haven't featured on any of the records/collections here. Currently it's blank.

Free recordings by Filip Hnízdo

2008-12-03T22:07:00.009Z

Here you will find links to most of my recordings. All of them will cost you nothing, aside from internet fees and time, to download.

First Recordings - September 2005 to May 2007

Playstreet (collected recordings 2007 - 2008)

Three Imaginary Girls

Joanna Coote EP

Remix in the Bathroom

Unused Songs - Stray Tracks, Odds and Sods, Demonstrations

Remastered already?

2008-11-13T18:27:00.004Z

Probably my favourite album this year is already being re-released and "remastered" early next year. A good thing for the band (as they're destined to be huge) but nonetheless quite annoying.

This seems to be an increasingly common story and although in some cases a band genuinely screws up the recording of their own record the first time round in many cases the unremastered (what a word) version sounds more truthful to what the songs seem to be about.

I get why XL or the band have gone back to the tapes of the Airing of Grievances by Titus Andronicus as there's a ridiculous amount of feedback, fuzz and incomprehensible clipping on the original record but that noise is what made me love the album so much in the first place.

There are these two brilliantly placed spoken word speeches on the record that are all the better for being almost nonsensical through the bad quality recording. Somehow it makes you concentrate more on how the words are said than what they mean and that goes for a lot of the songs themselves as well.

I know there are some brilliant (if as pretentious as the song titles and band name) lyrics on show, but the way they are performed is the best part. As an annoying number of reviewers etc have said (slightly less annoyingly because they're 90% right), singer Patrick Stickles sounds almost exactly like Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst but the production somehow pushes it all in a different direction (alongside how loud everything is). I just hope the new master won't strip down the sound too much and take that away.

The only bit of the new take I've heard is a video posted on Pitchfork TV today and it adds a really strange and pointless reverse tape noise in the middle. Doesn't bode too well perhaps.
At least people will get to hear the songs so I'll quit my whining. It's honestly a wonderful record, especially when all heard together. You should buy it. No matter what form it comes in.

http://www.myspace.com/titusandronicus (for songs/samples etc)

Seven track

2008-10-17T20:26:00.013+01:00

Here's most of my week's studio produce. Nothing brilliant or even album or EPable but I hope some of it's entertaining. In the collection you will find probably good with vocals but abandoned beaty fuzz, drums and phasing, dreadful but fun easy listening electro lounge reggae horridness, a Suicide rip off riff without a Suicide song to back it up, an early Christmas tune in denial and my first proper attempts at using samples of real drum hits (cut up, rubbished and mixed up) courtesy of Meg White, Buddy Rich, Joe Morrello, Benny Greb, Thomas Lang and Akira Jimbo (mostly taken from YouTube after searching "drum solo", aside from Meg whose parts come from Little Room and Jimmy the Explorer). Animal almost made it but was too fast to cut up.

Seas
Fuffle
Blue
Not Christmas
Supermarket Tentacle Mayhem
Organise

Bonus song to counter the electrocentric others: Vandals and car thieves

Lyrics

It was a dark swivel chair
Fixed with grey cushions
An unknown stain
And a rip to the top right side
(It had nothing, nothing to do with you)

Carpet mixed with clumps of hair and I've found
The keys to your car hit the pedal to the ground
And I only drive three miles before I was missin' you
Vandals and car thieves by day
A star struck wreck in the afternoon
I'm comin' soon and you'd better be breathin'.

Complete?

2008-10-11T23:20:00.002+01:00

I feel as though I have spent half of today changing settings and switching cables and dials. Aside from hooking up my speakers so I don't have to put everything so close to my worried ears I think things are pretty much as complete in Studio Josephine as they can be. I've said this before I know but I think it's there now, midified and ready.

Here's what I did between 22.00 and 23.15 this evening once I came home to it working:

Midi rest

"Lyrics"

I wanted to write some lyrics
But I've nothing left to write
It's late and dark and I'm alone
Within this house tonight.

I guess I'll have to improvise
I know it's just a test
To see what I can do in the future
Slow it down and have a rest now.

Piano loops

2008-10-10T22:39:00.007+01:00

Please take this group of loops and give it a song if you have the ability. I made it today and do not know what to do with it. For some reason (probably the fact that it's the same notes just repeated) it ties in pretty nicely with the start of Hullo.

helpIamaloopedpianodemo.mp3

Hullo instrumental draft

2008-10-02T08:20:00.004+01:00

Another day, another bash at the keyboard, another half finished, probably never to be finished track.
I recorded vocals but they didn't stick. It's sort of a sequel to Margaret's Dead

Hullo (demo)

Here are the attempted lyrics in case you want to attempt to sing them. Feel free to add bass or other instruments in your head or otherwise.

Most of all I've been open to your feelings
I know there is a darkness that you've not yet come across
And when the doorbell rings I know my time has come at last
The angels sing my name aloud and they go

Honoured to be somewhere new
I'm away from you
Honoured to be somewhere new
I'm away from you
Honoured to be somewhere new
I'm away from you
Honoured to be somewhere new
I'm away from you

After the funeral
The tributes melt into a boring pot
And I'm happy with all the friends I know I haven't got.

Scripted lifted out of where I once thought I would find my peace
Now I'm safe just knowing that your time away will never cease.

-------------

Postscript: I set up a Facebook Page with some of my songs, pictures and other information on it.

Quick murder song demo

2008-09-28T13:41:00.004+01:00

Studio Josephine is just about set up although I still have a few problems with midi and understanding. Every new song is a new experiment in figuring out just how everything works. Here is a demo take of a song about murder written and recorded this morning.

Dead Margaret (demo)

Lyrics

The kitchen roll is soaked with blood
The mints on the table filled with stories
Body parts lying everywhere
Shift them now or your glory's almost gone

Margaret was a haunted mess
When that knife went through her wedding dress
Tie her up as your life's at stake
Drive the bag to the back of the lake

Your confidence drove you off the rails
Jump in the car as the siren wails
Wrong way down the motorway
No points for style on your getaway

D and DDD (two new songs)

2008-09-21T17:29:00.007+01:00

Acoustic Guitars (Transmissions for Duncan II) (for Duncan Geere)

The next in the series that started with Not Enough Instruments (Transmissions for Duncan I), this song was originally a synth + drum beat + more synth track that was pretty much finished by the time I listened back to it, got bored, picked up an acoustic guitar and started singing and strumming along as a joke. The chords and vocals stuck so I reworked the song and kept them in. The fact that the synth line is made up of my acoustic guitar mapped onto my midi keyboard makes it all a bit ironic.

Lyrics:

An acoustic guitar has nothing going in a place like this
An acoustic guitar has nothing going in a place like this
I try to dream while the synths go round
While my chords melt away and my strumming's drowned
An acoustic guitar has nothing going in a place like this.

Getting kicked for requesting folk in a club
I'm tired of disco, I'm tired of dub
An acoustic guitar has nothing going in a place like this.

And out of the corner of my eye
I see another harmless guy looking bored
At the lack of C Major chord
We know acoustic guitars have nothing going in a place like this

Acoustic guitars have something going in a place like this
Acoustic guitars have something going in a place like this
Acoustic guitars have something going in a place like this
Acoustic guitars have something going in a place like this

Shyness (for the Double Dot Dash collective)

I went to a brilliant gig last night, organised once again by the (brilliant) Double Dot Dash group of musicians and people. This afternoon I was messing about on my sampler and found quite a nice analogue synth setting that I warped beyond recognition by stabbing at a keyboard. I then added a beat, and some samples from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.

Playstreet (collected recordings 2007 - 2008)

2008-09-07T10:19:00.009+01:00

Dream Loop
Happy Birthday Daniel
Hiding
My Favourite Nathan
Supermarket Tentacle Beating Song
Jazz Party Landing
For Josephine (and Will)
I'm Sorry Kathan
Meeting Steve (for Stephen Allum)
Happy Birthday Jenni
Sailors (for Martin Robinson and Jennifer Kendall)
testtracktesttracktesttracktesttrack
Unfinished Martin
Tin Can
Spiral

All songs recorded in Studio Josephine between Autumn 2007 and Autumn 2008 after the Three Imaginary Girls EP.

Filip used: Himself, a Casio Px-120 Digital Piano, an MV-8800 Production Studio, Cool Edit Pro 2.0, Adobe Audition 3.0, an Admira Almira full size classical guitar, a PV6 Peavey mixer (farewell Behringer) , a Tascam Porta 02 mkII four track recorder, an SE Electronics Se2200 A condenser microphone, Massive and B4II by Native Instruments, a Romaneto trumpet, a Hohner harmonica, a portable tape recorder I cannot find the name of and lots of cables.

This collection of recordings is dedicated to Maplin Electronics.

testtracktesttracktesttracktesttrack contains samples of excited A Level students in St Clement Danes School in 2007.

Although these recordings are not really intended for mass public consumption, being odds and sods and personal bits, I do hope you get some enjoyment out of them. Now Studio Josephine is properly set up I hope to record a lot more in the next few months. I am also very interested in doing more remixes. If anyone has anything they'd like me to sample or mix around, please let me know or send it to me.

I knew Steve Reich is a genius but...

2008-05-30T20:17:00.009+01:00

I had no idea he had thought of something as cool as this.

For some reason or other I've been doing a bit of reading/book purchasing on experimental music of the 1950s-1980s.

After seeing Steve Reich perform Music for 18 Musicians at the Barbican Centre and picking up the absolutely essential Phases box set I was hooked on his music for quite some time. This quietened down, however, until today when I discovered his 1968 composition Pendulum Music. As stated on Wikipedia:

Pendulum Music (For Microphones, Amplifiers Speakers and Performers) is the name of a work by Steve Reich, involving suspended microphones and speakers, creating phasing feedback tones. The piece was composed in August 1968 and revised in May 1973.

Reich came up with the concept while working at the University of Colorado. He was swinging a microphone in the style of the cowboy's lasso, and noting the produced feedback, he composed for an "orchestra" of microphones.

Three or more microphones are suspended above the speakers by means of a cable and stand. The microphones are pulled back, switched on, and released over the speaker, and gravity causes them to swing back and forth like pendulums. As the microphone nears the speaker, a feedback tone is created. The music created is then the result of the process of the swinging microphones.

The concept sounds brilliant, but what's even better is that it sounds (and looks) brilliant being performed as well.

Two YouTube videos

Steve Reich, talking about the piece to Perfect Sound Forever in April 2000:

I was spending the summer in New Mexico, living and working out there in '68. I went up to Boulder to collaborate with a friend of mine, William Wylie, who's a painter. We were trying to put together a 'happening' with sculpture, black light. While we were working on that, Bruce Nauman, who was a student of Wylie, stopped by. The three of us were in this room and I had one of these Wollensack tape recorders- they're these funky 1950's models with a cheap electric microphone. It was an old machine by then. I had holding the microphone, which was plugged into the back of the machine so it could record. The speaker was turned up. Being out West, I let it swing back and forth like a lasso. As it passed by the speaker of the machine, it went 'whoop!' and then it went away.

We were all laughing at this and the idea popped into my mind that if you had two or three of these machines, you would have this audible sculpture phase piece.

The event that Wylie and I did was the first use of this piece, done with two machines. When it was done as a concert piece at the Whitney Museum in 1969, during an event of my music, it was 'performed' by Bruce Neuman, Michael Snow, Richard Sierra, James Tenney and myself. They pulled back their measured microphones and I counted off 4-4 and on the downbeat, they all let it go and sat down, including me. Then the microphones begin to 'whoop!' as they pass in front of the speaker because the microphones had been preset to be loud enough to give feedback when it's in front of the speaker but not when it swings to the left and the right. Over a period of ten minutes, which was a little too long for my taste, and as the pendulums come to rest, you entered a pulsing drone. Once it hit the drone, I would pull the plug on the machine and the whole thing ended.

It's the ultimate process piece. It's me making my peace with Cage. It's audible sculpture. If it's done right, it's kind of funny.

In my earlier days, I was involved with a lot of visual artists and the context for my work was art galleries and museums. This was definitely such a piece. The work of Richard Sierra was like that where he would have sheets of lead propped up against the wall by other sheets of lead. What you see is what you get. This piece does that and hopefully, it's effect is kind of funny at the same time.

Conceptually, it fits hand-in-glove with my other work. It's a phase piece, a process piece. It's the idea of a piece that runs on its own once you set it up and load it and you can walk away. In terms of what I've done from '65 to the present, it's a totally oddball piece. Bang On A Can did a 60th birthday for me at Lincoln Center (1996) where they performed "Pendulum Music." It's a very provacative piece because it's not something you usually hear at concerts. So, it sits there as kind of a loner.

It's not a piece that needs to be done very often. I was not interested in recording (it). The Avant Garde Ensemble recording is very good- the pitch content becomes kind of a phase piece. They wisely did several versions and presented them all- it's the only piece of mine that doesn't have a sonic outcome. I never have been close to John Cage but this piece was a way of saying "OK, here it is but it isn't!"

I just heard about the Sonic Youth version and now I have to hear it! Here's a piece that's been unrecorded for 30 years and now I've got two recordings of it!

Time to ask a certain friend to borrow that Sonic Youth Album.

I'm in love, and will certainly be trying this soon. Anyone who wants to help, please let me know so we can get some amps and microphones together. Think of the potential uses, pendulum percussion at a live show to name just one.

Filip at the 3Bs, Reading, England, May 14, 2008

2008-05-19T20:17:00.009+01:00

I played a gig last Wednesday. I supported Boredoms in the Bathroom and Skyline Dossier. I played three songs. Two of them old, one new. The gig was recorded.

Filip's second gig

The main song, for which you can find the lyrics below (including a few unused verses I have placed underneath), is pure fiction. People have asked.

Although the gig's not as snappy or fun as my first gig I managed to remember all the words without reading off a sheet or such and I think the lyrics may be better. Even if they're not, the recording (by Martin) is clearer than the last one. I've learnt a lot and will hopefully play again soon. With more instruments perhaps. And melodies.

Allegedly I sound "like a female Lily Allen". Or so Daniel Cooper tells me someone put it. I'm not sure what to make of that. Or what Lily should make of that.

Enjoy the song. I'm not 100% pleased with what I played and sang or how I played and sang it but it's all I've got and it wasn't disastrous.

I haven't posted the lyrics of the other two songs as I did them last time.

Please use the comment/comments button to tell me what you think I should do differently next time.

Roses Envelop Reading (performed version)

You're a fragment of the girl
You used to be
Your parents named you Emily
But everybody else knew you as trouble

Standing out on Broad Street
With a new song in your headphones
The world was gently peeling your skin and your bones away

And it's bring your kid to work day (x3)
And you work in a brothel.
The lights that covered lies
Were no match for her tiny eyes'
Surprise

And the smoke alarm was beeping
Took out the battery while you were sleeping
And as the flames burnt red and high
You stood and watched your daughter die
And you felt
Lonely
And tired
And proud
And the song in your headphones
Was relevant and loud

Oh Emily
Your face is burning
They're calling all the engines in
To Russell Street
Your home tonight
Your hands are charred and your face is thin
Uh oh.

There's a strange smell in the town tonight
And you're its saviour.
You were born in Slough
But you were let out for good behaviour
And...

And Queen Victoria's looking down
At a Swedish girl that's throwing up in the centre of the town
And in the 3Bs bar and in the 3Bs bar
There are three young women cheating on their boyfriends

She knows who they are
She knows who they are
She knows that they'll pay in time.
Ungrateful swine.

And a 1,3,5 is all he played.
He was terrified
But he was on a stage

And he's a singer songwriter
But no one knows his name
All his songs are about death and girls
What's worse they sound the same

He came late to his first show
Everyone was standing still
Having fun

You're a romantic in sheep's clothes
Your husband's knife it glistens in the winter sun

Bloodied notation
Songs without effort
And your lips are numb.

You were young and afraid
You were drunk on lemonade
When the council came to get your mum.

Choking on Wotsits
A cheesy death
You're blameless in the eyes of the police
But look at what you've done to your family

Throwing rocks at the soldiers
In their tanks as they're passing by
You thought his love would make you happier
His kisses made you want to die

He said he wanted to sleep with you
So you took three packs of sleeping pills
And he wondered in his head
Why all the girls he took to bed
Ended up dead

And you rose from the grave and said...
"I want roses
To come up from the ground like hands.
And torture everybody
Who doesn't meet with my demands."

And as the roses overgrew
The only one not scared was you
And as their skin began to harden
Took yourself down to Forbury Gardens

Where a brass band played
And the players lay in the grass
Impaled by thorns
No one could hear a word you're saying
Underneath the Thames they're laying girl

You bought a time machine
To rip off The Beatles
I thought you were bolder
Got a bullet in your shoulder

Oh Emily
You're dumb but learning
The sirens call you cannot win
A Careful C
Around your arm
A severed head in your recycling bin

Oh oh.

I knew we'd had a falling out
You were throwing utensils all about the town.
Don't worry about your address love.
I've got it written down.

22 Donnington Gardens

I had a dream
We were in the Natural History Museum
And there was a giant squid in the main hall
And turtles around the sides
We had nothing to hide
We knew this was the future

Where dinosaurs aren't cool
Since they tore apart your school
Oh Emily you recognised their faces
To them you're just a low cut top and braces.

I Woke Up Next to You + Hot Dog Love (lyrics here)

Roses Envelop Reading
(alternate verses that got lost on the way to the stage)

You were terrified
Hunted by a wolf you didn't recognise
Trembling against the wall
As the light shone down on Broad Street Mall
All night.

The only thing you had
Were some albums that you copied off a friend
It was the end
Of life
And you liked it there
Your Art Deco chair was worth it

And the sky above is looking down on you.

And you looked up at the stars and said
Lord give me roses

With their thorns running deep
They'll send everyone to sleep

And the clouds rolled in
Your eyebrows and your feelings
Withered sick and thin

The town became your study
With the clouds painting your ceiling.

Front Page Filip

2008-03-24T12:45:00.007Z

It's my first time so it's rather exciting. I'm also the main story on page three in the same issue.

Remix in the Bathroom

2008-03-24T12:08:00.004Z

After years and years of wanting one, Studio Josephine has a sampler. Faced with excitement and four huge instruction manuals, Filip thought the best way to learn how to use this piece of equipment was to remix two of his favourite friends' band's songs. This remixing took place over a weekend. The results can be heard below. More information about Boredoms in the Bathroom, the band whose songs these are version of. More information about Dale Gilbert Jarvis, whose storytelling is used in/takes up most of Labrador.

Evil (Coarse 18 Remix)
Labrador (Whistling Ghost Remix Featuring Dale Gilbert Jarvis)