My laptop is getting fixed
and thus the separation anxiety is unimaginable. Mainly because on it is the latest of my recording session - an addition to A Priori with Oscar Jemmott on viola. Great musician, that guy. Here’s a track of his. Was great fun; at times I had him playing up to the bridge and at others I made him tune the whole thing down half an octave.
Apart from that, I hope you have had an excellent Christmas (or the appropriate relgious/secular holiday or non-special period of general life). I spent mine at the little country town of Blackbutt- so remote that its Wikipedia entry is just a header paragraph. Without internet or phone, I turned to picking up a set of clubs for the first time in ages and tried to get my juggling back up to scratch.
Apart form that I’m just deciding when to start my uni course- my instincts tell me to put it off for a while to concentrate on making some more stuff and maybe looking for jobs… Not sure if I’m ready to live on the coast by my lonesomes and be all adult-y just yet.
- kalku
ps. I like this “ask” thing tumblr has going on, but I’m not a fan of every answer resulting in a great big box on the blog. So from now on please don’t be offended if you don’t get a response but have a big theoretical box of gratitude from me.
Thanks man; it’s always nice to see live performers try their hand at filmmaking. I’m sure you’ll come up with some cool stuff, and that most of all you’ll enjoy it!
And I wish you the best of luck in studies and all as the new year commences! :D
Thanks man. Let’s hope 2011 is a good year for everyone.
I’d love to see it; good luck!
Thankyou!
Good choice, friend.
Recording a film score with Eden
So today my friend Eden came over and she spent the day in front of a microphone while I made a choir out of her bit by bit. It was a pretty huge challenge- this piece, called A Priori, has a lot of odd chromatic stuff going on and there’s pretty much a keychange every bar. One of the most musically complex things I’ve recorded for sure. But it was lots of fun; I’ve posted a rough mix of the vocal tracks here. Tomorrow I have a friend playing viola on the record too!
Eden Young - A Priori (rough mix) by Kalku
Although you probably can’t hear it, there’s a lot of influence here from the chord progressions in the Matrix series’ film scores. Also, I’ve had the progressions and builds from The Mars Volta’s Askepios in my bones ever since I first heard it. I just love carrying through a note in a melody and then just applying a weird chord to it that still fits. Anyway, I’ll keep at it and we’ll see how the strings turn out!
Right now my room looks like some kind of evil lair held together with duct tape. On my own it’s filled with beaten up old instruments and cables, but with my friend Shuwei over it’s a makeshift film studio sporting whatever cheap equipment we can possibly get our hands on. We’re editing our latest film- a creepy nonsensical one whose title is Words of the Mouthless.
There’s something really liberating about the way we do things- and I know I talk about this all the time. But running around with one SLR, getting friends to act, editing films on laptops, and piecing together the sound and music with one microphone… It’s about ten times more rewarding knowing that, rather than being invested in by some executive, you’ve truly built something from the ground up- using only your willpower, your ideas, and the dodgiest equipment you can find lying around.
All my instruments are complete rubbish- but I love them just the same. My late great grandmother’s mandolin… or a family friend’s old drum set that he got sick of… or the little accordion I got in an LA market… they all find a home in my recordings. If they could think, I’m sure they’d rather be making music than being in a case in an attic or hung up for decoration. But perhaps personifying my instruments is a sign of having no real life friends. Sigh.
Anyway- I’ve reached a certain momentum that has a really good vibe to it. Shuwei and I have just enough experience now to sort of know what we’re doing- and it can only get better from here. Honestly- even if I never made anything of my self in the “industry”… even if in 10 years I’m an accountant… even if Roger Ebert showed up at my door and told me to give up hope… I would still be a filmmaker. I could do this all day, I love it.
Maiden Tumblr Voyage
Well, here I am! My name’s Josh; I’m seventeen, from Brisbane, and along with my friend Shuwei, co-founder of Ennui. We’re known best for our short film called To Claire; From Sonny. I thought I may as well start this little blog so I could post snippets of things I’m doing (as part of Ennui or otherwise) and just offer people a more regularly updated space. Cool.
One of the things I’m working on at the moment is a solo album called Space Paranoids. It’s going to be a 20-track collection of finished songs (as well as some new ones). It’ll be truly a mixed bag- with some electronic, some industrial rock, some folk, and some ambient stuff too. But overall it should have a nice and weird feel to it and I’m looking forward to making all the tracks flow into each other really nicely. If you’re interested, give Happy Places a listen. I was lucky enough to be a finalist in a local contest called QSong with it last year- and it’ll be track 6 on the album.
Also in a couple of days, Shuwei and I will start filming a creepy but fun experimental short film with the working title of Eavesdroppings where we basically point the camera at objects and narrate their thoughts. A very unambitious and quaint little project, but it should be an opportunity to really hone down on the cinematography and music side of things, which are our respective specialties. We will have the help of our friend Eden Young for the soundtrack and voiceovers. She’s a hugely talented singer with a dream of joining the likes of Cirque du Soleil- and I reckon she’s got a big change of getting there.
Apart from all that, I’m just settling in to the post-highschool phase of life, going to all my friends’ 18ths (the old fogeys we now are), emailing some really cool industry-type people back and forth, blogging (clearly), and listening to a lot of 65daysofstatic and This Town Needs Guns. Fantastic bands.
Anyway, I hope this turns out to be something worthwhile for you to read. I’m not that crazy about the whole social media hubbub, but I feel like I owe you nice people something more current and detailed. Especially seeing that you guys on Tumblr were a big help getting our first film off the ground. So thanks; and I’ll keep posting stuff here as much as I can.
- Kalku
