Suitably oblique subject header: check
Nice glass of bourbon in hand: check
Ideas for semi-righteous rant but topical observations: check
Yep, you guessed it, it's time for the new 405 blog! With me, your gracious e-host, Danny! So, with no more ado but anything, I will regale you with wonderful tales of whimsy...
The first of which being a very general observation about Loop festival. For those of you who haven't read the previews up on the site, the various press about it, or are just in-the-know (or who haven't had the perspicacity to reach into the near-future and read my forthcoming coverage) Loop is a two day left field festival in the heart of Brighton in conjunction with Onedotzero, a collection of artists, animators, and anyone remotely interested in and capable of incredible animation and such.
Now, the music on display (as it were) was fantastic, generally speaking. What marked out the occasion for me though was, as you might've guessed, the more alternative stuff. The most striking of which was seconded in a little room to the side of the main concert hall of the Corn Exchange, and featured a panaromic three-screen visual installation. It displayed a number of animated, abstract videos, very much in the vein of early Norman McLaren work, that seminal Canadian, all tied around the concept (as was his) of Synaesthaesia.
The idea (and indeed for some, the reality) that you can see sound, hear colour, is endlessly fascinating. The guitarist in one of my old bands (no, you won't have heard of us...) claimed that he saw music in his head as a landscape. The key of E minor had a colour, it had a shape, it was a topographical feature. How fucking ridiculously awesome is that? These videos came as close to representing that concept visually as so called 'normal' (painfully so in this case) people like you and me will ever come to experiencing it...but damn what a good effort!
It's impossible to describe them, so hopefully i've piqued your interest enough to just bloody well go and check them out, see (taste, hear) it for yourself...those folks are inspirational in the truest sense: www.onedotzero.com/home.php (can't link properly because Myspace is getting upset when I try)
My train of thought is now completely and utterly derailed. Somehow though, I think it's what Onedotzero would want.
Signing out,
Da n n y Wad e s onnnnnn....