"the basics"
^ a little light functional music for to help in your reading delectation and to aid concentration.
Ah, summer 2023. Image credit: TCO Gill
I moved to Liverpool in 2005 to study and, aside from a couple of glances over one shoulder or the other, haven't really looked back since. It took me too long to realise that not everyone feels the same - really quite intense - way about music as I do, which is fine because I landed in similarly sound-obsessed company from the get go. A brutally acute summary of what's gone on in that nearly two decades? Don't mind if I do...
⧝ I was the first in my family - both sides, now - to go to university. My undergraduate dissertation was on the relationship between visual art and music movements throughout the 20th century, from dada and fluxus to classical and post-punk.
⧜ Musical projects to date include co-founding Ex-Easter Island Head with Ben Duvall. We made performances and recorded pieces as a duo, a quartet and a trio: the simply and aptly named Mallet Guitars One, Two and Three - plus a series of large ensemble outings that climaxed at a 'Cultural Olympiad' in Nottingham.
⧞ Other groups: Shit the Bed, a noise rock band I formed with coursemates; Indica Ritual, a formative five-piece I played bass in and honed chops with Andrew PM Hunt, Tom Gorton, Nicholas Hunt and Michael Ferguson; Stig Noise, who I joined for an eye-opening tour of mainland Europe in 2008 and stayed with for five more years; a stint with a.P.A.t.T., the perpetual motion machine of experimental pop in Liverpool; Mother Earth, the band that became the basis of a long-term sonic kinship with James Freeman. Then solo stuff came as Pariah Qarey, Big Effigy, Unicursal, and variations of my real name.
⧝ Mid-2010s I took a break from bands and what-not in order to focus on hosting music artists and acts in my city, stepping out with what would become Cartier 4 Everyone in 2016. Shortly after I started working in radio.
⧜ In 2017 I joined the team behind The Popular Music Show, "the longest-running alternative and specialist music programme on UK radio". Continuously helmed by Roger Hill since 1983, it's truly unique and lives here.
⧞ When my live events work evaporated in March 2020, I switched to facilitating online equivalents. I still keep an iota of this freelance working going, post-pandemic. A resumé of such work exists online at Central Services.
⧝ One current creative preoccupation revolves around the working title of 'Under The Spell', essentially a song cycle trying to get a grip on and come to terms with the illusions, delusions and infatuations of the contemporary global psyche.
⧜ The other focus of musical activity for me at present is as a member of the band Landscraper, a coming-together of Joel Murray, James Freeman, Nick Hunt and myself. What to say? It's been described as a "yes-ocracy". Watch this space.
⧞⧞⧞
⧝ I was the first in my family - both sides, now - to go to university. My undergraduate dissertation was on the relationship between visual art and music movements throughout the 20th century, from dada and fluxus to classical and post-punk.
⧜ Musical projects to date include co-founding Ex-Easter Island Head with Ben Duvall. We made performances and recorded pieces as a duo, a quartet and a trio: the simply and aptly named Mallet Guitars One, Two and Three - plus a series of large ensemble outings that climaxed at a 'Cultural Olympiad' in Nottingham.
⧞ Other groups: Shit the Bed, a noise rock band I formed with coursemates; Indica Ritual, a formative five-piece I played bass in and honed chops with Andrew PM Hunt, Tom Gorton, Nicholas Hunt and Michael Ferguson; Stig Noise, who I joined for an eye-opening tour of mainland Europe in 2008 and stayed with for five more years; a stint with a.P.A.t.T., the perpetual motion machine of experimental pop in Liverpool; Mother Earth, the band that became the basis of a long-term sonic kinship with James Freeman. Then solo stuff came as Pariah Qarey, Big Effigy, Unicursal, and variations of my real name.
⧝ Mid-2010s I took a break from bands and what-not in order to focus on hosting music artists and acts in my city, stepping out with what would become Cartier 4 Everyone in 2016. Shortly after I started working in radio.
⧜ In 2017 I joined the team behind The Popular Music Show, "the longest-running alternative and specialist music programme on UK radio". Continuously helmed by Roger Hill since 1983, it's truly unique and lives here.
⧞ When my live events work evaporated in March 2020, I switched to facilitating online equivalents. I still keep an iota of this freelance working going, post-pandemic. A resumé of such work exists online at Central Services.
⧝ One current creative preoccupation revolves around the working title of 'Under The Spell', essentially a song cycle trying to get a grip on and come to terms with the illusions, delusions and infatuations of the contemporary global psyche.
⧜ The other focus of musical activity for me at present is as a member of the band Landscraper, a coming-together of Joel Murray, James Freeman, Nick Hunt and myself. What to say? It's been described as a "yes-ocracy". Watch this space.
⧞⧞⧞
& ok so what have you done for me lately?
• Co-written & performed on recordings that have received airplay on BBC Radio 3 and 6Music and critical acclaim from The Wire and The Quietus.
• Performed music live as part of touring groups in countries including Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Slovenia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, Scotland, Wales, and England.
• Worked in and around the highly creative team at the core of one of the UK's most-beloved now-defunct music venues.
• Hosted touring acts in my home city from across the musical spectrum and from a variety of backgrounds and locales.
• Moved from roles in the Live Music Venue sector to the Online & Digital realm, transferring skills from this time into performance streaming, creative collaboration and more novel ways working.
• Co-written & performed on recordings that have received airplay on BBC Radio 3 and 6Music and critical acclaim from The Wire and The Quietus.
• Performed music live as part of touring groups in countries including Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Slovenia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, Scotland, Wales, and England.
• Worked in and around the highly creative team at the core of one of the UK's most-beloved now-defunct music venues.
• Hosted touring acts in my home city from across the musical spectrum and from a variety of backgrounds and locales.
• Moved from roles in the Live Music Venue sector to the Online & Digital realm, transferring skills from this time into performance streaming, creative collaboration and more novel ways working.
