Andrew 'Group Five' Loughnan releases his second EP, mini-album, what-you-will. Distant Stations is a half-hour of musical maaaayhem in a subdued last-ditch stylee, and it features both real and synthesized cowbells.
The tracks are:
You can download the tracks from LastFM
Great Days: This began life as two separate tracks for my spot on the Wellington City Gallery's Late Night Sessions. I'd had some grand idea of writing long static tunes that you could talk over without missing anything - these two clocked in together at twenty minutes. Later I pulled them out for a live spot on Radio Active, combining them, cutting it all down to three minutes, and then adding a heap more stuff into that three-minute frame. So, from attempted stasis, I may have created my most relentlessly mobile work...
East India Company: this isn't the first thing I wrote under that name, but since the first thing was crap, I salvaged the title. You may notice that the melody for the first minute is the same as that of 'In Camera', or you may not. As the harmonies are so different it may not be immediately apparent. This tune has only had one public airing that I'm aware of: Stuart and I did a little DJ spot for an end-of-year event at the Massey Uni School of Fine Arts and Design: we'd originally intended to divide our set between our own compositions and those of others, but as the set got underway, we rapidly decided to ditch our own compositions. I think this was one of the tunes that got through before we changed the plan.
Groundwinter: another one from the Late Night Sessions performance - this one retains some of the static qualities I was seeking (it was the most successfully static work), but for recorded release I've cut it down to three minutes again.
Distant Stations: this one goes back to the same period as 'Burma Road', although it's been mightily reworked from the original version. I'd used the original version as an excuse to have a military tattoo as a break beat, though the tattoo I created was bastardly complex and would've caused a complete breakdown of military discipline if used for marching. This version dumps the tattoo, emphasising the actual tune bit. And I hope that ditching the military rhythm projects the tune forward rather than retarding it. Incidentally, the title refers to a sample of J.R.R. Tolkien discussing wireless technology, which I didn't use in the end, even in the original version. I liked the way that the title on its own suggested rail as much as radio.
The New Science: oh, this one was fun to record... it's probably the most scratch-heavy thing I've ever done, and if you listen to it, you'll see what I mean. It had its genesis in me buying a beats'n'breaks record for $5, sound unheard, and finding the record was crap when I got it home. Again, if you listen to it you'll see what I mean. It got its first airing at the Late Night Sessions, though barely fitting my concept for that gig, and I've cranked it out live on Active as well.
Little Hours: I originally wrote this to provide something I could play to a woman I was dating at the time, for whom I suspected the rest of my music would have little appeal. I set myself the task of utilising samples of only stringed instruments (she played guitar...) However, the first essential stringed-instrument sample was of the resonant decay of a harpsichord, and my interpretation of my own rules only got more liberal. Which kinda means that if the rules still existed, the point didn't. For the record, the dating thing didn't last and I've never asked the woman in question what she thought of the track...
Et Cetera: the oldest recorded thing on either this or In Camera. When I started writing stuff in my current manner, I generally struggled to come up with anything longer than a minute. After I'd compiled a large pile of these one-minute works, Stuart encouraged me to edit the best together into a megamix. This one, however, was written just after compiling that megamix, and just before I started writing longer pieces, so it never really had a home. I reworked it into a much longer piece, which has been a staple of my gigs at Bodega, but when I was putting together In Camera, I decided the long piece wasn't good enough. And I guess that was when I went back and rediscovered this one.
A Small Photograph: I played this at my first gig at Bodega in 2003, and never again since. People liked it though. But I wasn't happy with the beats, which seemed leaden to me. Now it's got unleaded beats, so I'm happy.
All tracks written and produced by Andrew Loughnan.
Additional programming on 'A Small Photograph' by Stuart McDonald.
Design by Andrew Loughnan.
2007.