First Point of Origin

Just as for everyone else, 2020 has thrown a big spanner in the works of pretty much all my planned activity.
I have to confess that the complete loss of the usual outside stimulus initially left me feeling rudderless, with a complete dearth of inspiration, it's been amazing to realise just how many ideas I can pick up in the  (previously) normal course of things: playing music with others, a walk in the city with a cheap camera, cinema, galleries, even a short coffee break with a conspirator, all options that have been suddenly lost and are only now appearing throughout the mist.
Without any plans, I decided to go back to some of the primary source elements of sound, what better place to start than with drones and echoes?

Echoes, I was once told, "...remind us we are still alive, without echoes, there is only a void." This from an eccentric friend of my father's who went so far as to place his home telephone in a large empty oil barrel, as he found the increased reverberations jolted him onto the present whenever it rang.

The first of these "limited element" pieces can be found here:



.....heavy use of bass guitar fed through a delay pedal, drones courtesy of SuperEgo and Ebow, and driven by minimalistic "You must play monotonous!" type rhythmic backing augmented by sliced and processed pieces of the underlying drone.
This one sounds a bit Neu! -  but that's OK by me, and I hope the listener too....

Tim Bowness - Late Night Laments

I am guesting on upright bass on Tim Bowness's upcoming album "Late Night Laments".
Described as "..a collection of lush, atmospheric songs with a wide lyrical scope", there's  more details about formats and all those involved on Tim's website.


Pre-order is now live from: https://burningshed.com/store/timbowness 

Hold It

Tape 6

A pay what you like download of a bonus track from "Allusions" which I left off to keep the original release more concise, but if you prefer an elongated listening experience, please click below:

Interview with Beyond the Dutch Podcast

Across The Evening - Jon Durant and Robert Jurjendal

I am on fretless bass for a few tracks on the new collaborative album from Jon Durant and Robert Jurjendal.  Expect deep atmospherics at the intersection of ambient/jazz with a twist of ethnic music.


Pre-Order now on the links below:

Digital : https://jondurant.bandcamp.com/album/across-the-evening
CD: https://burningshed.com/jon-durant_robert-jurjendal_across-the-evening_cd

For anyone unfamiliar, I've previously worked with both Robert and Jon separately, see previous blog posts here and here. See also:

https://burntbelief.bandcamp.com
https://burningshed.com/colin-edwin_jon-durant_inna-kovtun_cd
https://burningshed.com/colin-edwin_robert-jurjendal_another-world_cd

Brave Browser

A different blog post for today.

Back in the early days of the internet, and I wasn't a particularly early adopter, I can remember telling a friend of mine how useful and potentially game changing the web could be, only to get the cynical reply - "But yeah, but it's just a load more people trying to sell you something isn't it?"
He was clearly irked by the advertising, which has only got more invasive since then, not to mention subtle.

Looking back, it's also hard to argue against the notion that the early promises of the internet have been subverted by a handful of now enormously rich tech companies for their own massive gain, while ordinary internet users have been exploited by aggressive data collection and insidious advertising practices, not to mention the exploitation of creators of all kinds.
One way or another, on the internet, we're all being milked.

Could there be an answer? ....well maybe...please read on.

I've been using Brave as a browser for a while now. It seems like a solid project and the functionality works quite well for me.
The idea behind the Brave browser is to allow a higher level of user privacy, which it does by blocking lots of the trackers and ads that many websites don't even tell you they've put on your system.
Brave also provides a function for users to tip websites and content creators directly.
Rather than being bombarded by ads, which makes some websites unreadable, users of Brave are rewarded for viewing advertising, with rewards paid in the project's native BAT token.

As for the tipping system of micro payments, this means creators of all kinds can be rewarded for providing content, which is something sorely needed in the current internet model.

Changing the internet in a positive way by facilitating micro tipping and receiving rewards for viewing ads (and giving up personal data) is an idea I first read about in Jaron Lanier 's excellent book "You Are Not A Gadget", some years ago.

I am sure there might be other projects around that do a similar thing, but Brave is the only one I am aware of, and IMHO it has a huge potential to change the currently exploitative model of the web, or at least to be a first step on the path.

I am not enough of a tech head to have delved too deeply into the exact workings of the project or the associated BAT token, but I'd encourage anyone interested to take a look at Brave in more detail here:

https://brave.com

My youtube channel and my Twitter page are now set up to accept Brave tips, which I am happy to say I've received.  Where possible,  I've also micro tipped some of my favourite websites and creators, so I can vouch that the system actually works.

Lastly, if you do decide to give Brave a try, please use my referral link below:

https://brave.com/col130