NEAL SPOWAGE & DANAI PAPPA – ARIEL ARIEL (2020) Unreleased
NEAL SPOWAGE – TEN YEARS (26th Sept 2019) OBS Records.
All of the sounds on these eight recordings derive from pedestrian physical movement and are recorded live with very little post production. Five pieces (Sib Conduit, Frozen Venus, Cold Papaya, Uncertain Construction and Ariel Ariel) were recorded with dancers and performed as duets. Two were solo works (New Track Of Unknown Terra I & II), and one was a duet with another musician (Pensile Decumbent) who was also working with physical movement. Pensile Decumbent and New Track of Unknown Terra II were the only works arranged in post-production.
This album contains studio recordings made between 2009 and 2019. Only two of them are studio compositions in the traditional 20th century sense of the word (Composition Number six and The Dys-Appearing Body). The other four are either live or studio sessions (recorded in a single take, so may as well have been live). They are adjuncts, comissions, parallels or by products of my academic instrument building and composing activities. Playful works done for the crack, which is sometimes when the best work gets done.
Every piece explores our umwelt, or immediate environment as we experience it. Our umwelt includes each other and the audience.
The instruments are assemblages of discarded objects with the addition of DIY electronics to generate sound by utilising movement, pressure, touch and proximity.
There is video footage of every performance, except Ariel Ariel, available online from the De Montfort University Open Research Archive (DORA). dora.dmu.ac.uk/handle/2086/13237
SCREAMING BANSHEE AIRCREW – SUGAR (2009) Resurrection Records
http://www.resurrectionmusic.com/acatalog/info_18972.html
Rock and Roll baby, that’s all.
NEAL SPOWAGE – THE SADKOWSKA COMISSIONS (2015) Unreleased
https://soundcloud.com/nealunreal/sets/the-sadkowska-commissions
This set of works was comissioned by Ania Sadkowska between 2013 and 2015 as soundtracks for her series of fashion videos. They consist of interviews with men, recorded by Ania in various different settings, where they discussed their personal experience of fashion and the ageing process from a male perspective. The brief was to keep the interviews intact and create sound art. The video which featured Dis – Comforting was first prize winner at the POLIMODA & ASVOFF Video Contest For IFFTI2015 (International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institute) annual conference in Florence, Italy which is organised by the international fashion institute, Polimoda: MOMENTING THE MEMENTO.
Neal Spowage 