Work in progress, Yaya the lost dog and a Bristol balloon...

Louise and I set out on a sunny afternoon, via the Bristol Cider Shop (on Christmas steps, we recommend it highly - the fella keeping shop was great - he let us try all the ciders, all from within 50 miles of Bristol. They know their suppliers - we ended up with some delicious medium dry cider made by Roger in Somerset...)




We took our cider to Leigh Woods, climbed an old scots pine and enjoyed the sun... Lou filmed some songs I'm working on...

In the next tree, not a tea tree but known to me as the tea tree from tea drinking there with Neil long ago, we somehow managed to distract a dog from it's owner and ended up spending an hour with Yaya, a hyperactive black labrador who we eventually managed to calm enough  to make sit and read the owner's phone number and the name on it's collar... So Yaya lends his name to this previously untitled instrumental I'm working on... 

On our way out of the woods, me had a conversation with the people flying this balloon...

"Alright up there"

"Yeah!"

"Nice day for it!"

etc...

Only in Bristol... 

Not a dead bird, the 'Sexual Ben' version and the rest of our household...

My friend and housemate 'Sexual Ben' has covered my song 'Not a dead bird'...
I really love it and you can listen here:



He has a myspace where you can find more of his music:
http://www.myspace.com/benjibebop/

He's also half of Marathon Tuxedo with another friend and housemate Leon Welchman:
http://marathontuxedo.bandcamp.com/

and seeing as I'm talking about housemates now, here is a great Leon version of Satie's Gnossienne no.1:



Leon is also the lead guitarist in the band 'Von Bartha' : http://vonbartha.bandcamp.com/

and here is the final member of our household, artist Louise Phillips, singing 'Love me or leave me':



It's a happy house :-)

DIY is all you need preview, opening tonight!

DIY is all you need at utrophia on 120-122 deptford high street starts tonight!

Artwork from Francois of Francois and the atlas mountains, Rachael dadd, Louise kelly phillips, alessi's ark, Kate stables of this is the kit, ben meschko, Carrie Hitchcock, Rozi plain (who has also made a swing boat!), Anika mottershaw, Jonathan Farr and myself. It's looking beautiful...
Tonight utrophia opens at 7, there's live music for the opening and Stephen will be selling smoothies outside on his custom built tricycle.
Don't miss it, the exhibition runs til the 14th of June...

Here are some preview photos...

Circle festival, Fukuoka, 19.05.12...

Will Newsome`s EP, Winter Shed, is available on iTunes and amazon...


Circle festival at umi no nakamichi kohen in Fukuoka had a brilliant lineup - i feel very privileged to have played alongside these musicians...



Aside from playing with harada ikuko (above), whose songs i now have on constant repeat in my mind, standing out for me was the music of UA with her raw, soulful voice and passionate anti-nuclear stance:


Salyu Salyu with their brilliant vocal arrangements reminiscent of the dirty projectors collaboration with bjork and the 'le fil' days of camille:


And akiko yano, an incredible pianist and singer:


Now back in England, on the train to Bristol after this unexpectedly long trip away, excited about seeing my friends and thinking about getting prints ready for the utrophia exhibition and recording a couple of covers of Harada's songs...

DIY is all you need...

Will Newsome`s EP, Winter Shed, is available on iTunes and amazon...



At Utrophia on the 1st of June is the opening night of the DIY is all you need exhibition... I'll be exhibiting lots of photos (some of which you can see below) and playing music as The Hand with Rachael Dadd :



Here are links to some friends who are playing and exhibiting - it's running from the 1st to the 14th of June...

Louise Phillips, brilliant woodcut printmaker, artist and vintage hairstylist...

Rachael dadd, songwriter musician and artist, making beautiful machine-embroidered creations on recycled textiles

Jeffrey Lewis, singer songwriter and comic maker, I don't know him well but once met him when I returned a towel Rozi had borrowed off him in England to his flat in New York...

Alessi's ark, Alessi is a writer of warm and incredibly satisfying songs...

Francois and the atlas mountains, stunning bilingual songs and watercolours...

Rozi Plain, quirky addictive songs and beautiful sun-weathered artwork...

This is the kit, Kate's voice soars so beautifully, I'm always amazed by how affecting her live performance is and I like her fondness for triangles...

Don't miss it!

Pinon-Pinon and the happiness it brings part 2... (04/05/12 - 09/05/12)

Will Newsome`s EP, Winter Shed, is available on iTunes and amazon...






This time at pinon-pinon,

a different role...

Niwashigoto, pruning trees,

piano practice in the gallery.

More experiments with filming the kora;

I`m fascinated by how the frame-rate of my camera captures the movement in strings and shows them undulating like a sine wave.

It feels like there`s a lot of maths in motion here, a happy instance where the artificial inadvertently exposes a fundamental; an underlying system like the phi in feathers, the fibonacci in a fern...

Recently, since seeing Yanokami at Roppongi Hills,

I can`t get this song out of my head - 

Rei Harakami died unexpectedly last year but he left us with some beautiful music...

This song, `owari no kisetsu` - (the end of the season?) is a cover of a Japanese folk song;

listen loud, get lost in it:

ノット・ア・デッド・バード / Not a dead bird

My friend Jun (喜多村 純) at Pinon-Pinon in Tsuruga has translated the lyrics to my song `not a dead bird` -



ノット・ア・デッド・バード


見あげてごらん
沈んでいるときは
森の中の空き地で
ぼくらは眺めている
月が木の葉を織りあげる
いろんな顔、いろんな石
星座、万華鏡みたいに


ちいさなものが
落ちてきたよ
木の葉の天蓋の
屋根裏部屋から
死んだ小鳥じゃない
でもちょっと驚いた
緑の目みたいに眩しくて
ぼくらのお喋りは
その歌の中で
ときにふと途切れ
ぼくらの言葉と鳥の歌が
降り積もる


迷子になって
高さの違うどこかで
飛び立つ予感と
目眩のあいだで


ぼくらの言葉と鳥の歌が
降り積もる
ぼくらの言葉ともっとやさしい歌が
降り積もる




★対訳に際して、Willさんと相談の上、部分的に意訳してます。原詞をあわせてご参照ください。

(original lyrics here)