Segue

A couple of interviews hit the news-stands and interwebs. Segue was on the cover of Zebra magazine this week, the dance publication as part of Australia’s Time Off. They ran a fun “In The Studio With Segue” style piece (check this photo and that photo) that touches on the collaboration with Vitreous. Moving further into that topic, an interview on Inthemix.com.au gets down into the gig I just played with Chris “Vitreous” Buckridge at the wonderful Bar Soma on Friday night. There is one factual error that I have to correct there, in that Leo is no longer a member of Segue and has left to pursue his DJ’ing. I made a dumb joke about that, saying that he has gone “Underwater“, but it’s a bit of an extreme Underworld fan pun that only the guy from Time Off got. Dance music is serious business. I’ll save the jokes for the next time someone asks me how stable Ableton Live 8.1 is. Thanks ITM & Zebra!

Two things mark this week out as interesting. One being the beginnings of our run with the street press and dance music media, and the other being me finally going to see a medical professional about a torn something-or-other in my shoulder by way of one too many slips on New Zealand mountains a while back. What has this got to do with anything? Gigs. With gigs comes lugging flightcases, and with gigs come some common questions from the media and even promoters. Namely, about what your sound is. So what is the sound of Segue these days? Let’s find out in this informative movie.

Segue and Vitreous are playing a special live set together at Bar Soma in Brisbane on the 4th of December. Vitreous will be flying in from Amsterdam for an incredible night in support of Jamie Jones. Jamie is a very cool cat from London, on the Deep House and Detroit tip and amid a mighty world tour. You can feast on his Essential Mix or check out some Youtube here and here. This is going to be a great gig and Vitreous and I are excited to be able to bust out some of the deeper and jacking sounds that we have been bouncing back and forth. There will be some fresh takes on some of our released collabs as well, including Guise and Pine. If you are in the neighbourhood, come on down. More info on the event here. Also, if you want to hear something more down the line of the Deep House angle we have been writing together, join the Segue Mailing List as I will post a fresh download to it in the next week.

A great week for music keeps on getting better. I got started on doing a remix for Melbourne’s Fromage Disco, which came at a great time as I have pulled out the bass guitar and am using it as a great vehicle to record some riffs with. I posted a quick and early snippet of this in progress over the weekend on the Segue Twitter account, which you can still listen to here. It has been an enjoyable track to work on, and play on, and as it would happen the Fromage Disco lads are coming up to play at Bar Soma in Brisbane this week. Check them out if you’re in the neighbourhood. I’ll be popping in, though it’s a big week with both Sasha and Jaytech hitting Brisbane in quick succession. If you’re wondering what the photo above of the sock puppet has to do with me remixing Fromage Disco, you can check out the film clip for their single, entitled “Vicious”, on YouTube.

Here’s an update that is frustrating to make. Some of the previous posts since I got back from Hong Kong have gone missing in an update in the back end of the site, so I will have to restore those this weekend. As for right now, there is a lot of excitement bouncing around like a ping pong ball in zero gravity. New hardware, new music, new releases on the way, a new remix for Fromage Disco to start and new gigs booked. Also a new haircut thanks to Harley at Orb, notable only as a rush before shooting some proof of concept photos for an idea I’ve had for promo photos with Vitreous. We’ve got some media and gigs coming up so we are working through ideas for a bio photo of us that gets around the fact that we are, at present, in different countries. One idea involved VHS cassettes, a hung blanket, a few lamps and the 450D giving some quick test shots. I’ve now learned how hot it can be standing still for half an hour wrapped in tape. Which is to say, hot. So there’s an update. Now I’m off to practice some bass guitar and tear my piano fingers up a little more.

Just a quick post from Hong Kong, where it’s hot and humid and we eagerly await the arrival of a bunch of guys from Essex. Or, in other words, one of the world’s leading electronic live acts. Aside from them, it is a city deserving of attention. I’ve enjoyed simply wandering among the chaos, recording some audio samples, and have had a few interesting track ideas pour out back in the hotel at night. The city smells like something. I’m the tallest person here. I got the nickname of “pacman”. I walk around and eat everything in site. I’m off to an arcade to fight Gundam robots. I’m feeling electric.

Over the past week I have mixed down both a remix and an original single of sorts. I say of sorts as that is a collaborative single by myself and Amsterdam-based colleague Chris “Vitreous” Buckridge. We have mixed a Pacific Mix and an Atlantic Mix of our track “Pine”, which will be out on Smash Bang Records shortly. Also I’ve knocked out a very quick and short-deadlined remix for Alex Ward and his Dektek label. This is for his track “Showcase”, which should be out on or around the day of the Dektek showcase gig that I’m playing live at.

Here’s a snippet of unmastered versions of Pine and Showcase.

Without taking it all too seriously, we were pleased to see Segue and Vitreous riding up into the Best Seller charts on Juno Records this week just gone. One of the great things about charting so strongly is that the release has been pushed purely by word of mouth and has escaped the “local” orbit that we happily released it into. Following that, it was with a bit of luck that Juno charted my Segue remix of Guise in their Disco Recommends chart. Put in front of people like that, the remix had a run up the charts and the EP moved with it. I daresay by this time next week we won’t be found anywhere near the charts, but for now, here’s the highlights over the week as we have seen them:

#13 Guise – Segue Remix – Juno Records Disco Chart
#56 Guise – Segue Remix – Juno Records Best Selling (Tracks)
#20 Guise EP – Juno Records Disco Chart (Releases)
#63 Guise EP – Juno Records Best Selling (Singles)
#63 Guise EP – Juno Records Best Selling (Releases)

A big thank you to everyone buying this tune, and of course for all the support of those playing it out. We would love to hear any feedback, so drop us a line. If you haven’t grabbed the tune yet, grab it now on Juno Records.

I was just surprised by a message from Nate B, of Fromage Disco fame, that Juno Records has listed the Segue remix of Guise at #11 in the Disco category of the Juno Recommends list for August 2009. Needless to say I was surprised, and not in the least because some of our friends are still amused to see the name “Segue” anywhere near the word “Disco”. It puts a smile on my face tonight, as I was already happy about the new setlist falling together and was going to post about how well the gear, concepts and tracks are coming together for the new live set. That and I’m sitting here running Moog riffs through an SSL Alpha Channel. It’s a good night all round. Thank you Nate for letting me know, and thanks to everyone for the various real-world and digital comments since! I’ve just been listening to the other tunes in that list while typing and adding a few gems to my download crate. A great way to start the week!

Check it out: Juno Disco Recommendations August 2009

This is not, really, an update. I’ve been getting into the routine of at least a weekly update of something tangible, but this week falls a bit short. All but one of the remixes for “Coming Around” have come in, the original mix is nicely acidic and tribal, and there is just a final mixdown left. The new studio is totally set up and I’ve got just a few tweaks left on some articles for Create Digital Music on the topic of Arturia Origin multi-samples and sound banks, plus a final check on my Ableton template for the JazzMutant Lemur. Add to that a pile of music technology to review for Time Off, thanks to Rockinghorse (a Stanton SCS.3d), Lightsounds (an American Audio Radius), and as ever the formidable Musiclab (Korg Microkorg XL, Akai XR20, TC Electronics Konnekt 6). Now I’ve just got to get “Coming Around” out the door, before getting through a number of great collaborations with Vitreous, another Segue single to be announced, and a couple of fun remixes. So, there’s nothing really cool or interesting coming out of Segue land at the moment, but hopefully you can appreciate how great it feels to be doing interesting things inside of Segue world. A world of, finally, neat and tidy cables, and well sorted files. For now.