Recording
Locations
2008
Dinorwic Quarry, near Llanberis, North Wales
15/03/08
A walk around the huge disused Dinorwic slate quarry to test out newly acquired recording equipment yielded an updated library of slate percussion sounds.
Ferreira Port Cellar, Vila Nova de Gaia, Porto, Portugal
3/05/08
During a visit to the cellars of the Ferreira Port producers, some vintage port barrels were used to record some rhythm tracks and some bottles of Ferreira's excellent tawny port were purchased.
Casa de Musica, Porto, Portugal
3/05/08
Porto's futuristic state of the art music venue boasts a huge foyer space with remarkable acoustics. When PN-S visited it in May 2008, there was a grand piano set up, connected to a series of iMacs, which were programmed to interact with the piano. Some 20 minutes of Zoë's performance on the piano was recorded from various points around the building.
Afterwards, a derelict crane/winch was found on a piece of wasteland behind the Casa, and various creaks, squeaks and clangs were coaxed from it.
Port barrels in the Ferreira cellars, 3rd May 2008
Zoë playing the piano in the Casa de Musica, 3rd May 2008
Zoë recording some abandoned industrial machinery outside the Casa de Musica, Porto, 3rd May 2008
Old Town, Lisbon, Portugal
4/05/08
Zoë and Alan stopped off in Lisbon's historic old town for some food and drink and made various recordings of the general ambience, including an accordionist busker who seemed to appear wherever they went. Later that evening, further recordings were made around the university quarter of the city.
Zoë with the Norwegian experimental musician Kjetil Hansen on top of Bremnes Fort, midnight 12th June 2008
Performing live with guest Lasse Jensen at Kunstforening, Bodø, 13th June 2008
(photo: Linn Stemland)
Bodø, Norway
12-15/06/08
Zoë and Alan were invited to perform in the arctic city of Bodø as part of the Nødutgang festival of the avant-garde. The performance took place at the Kunstforening / art gallery, and involved a collaboration with the norwegian electronic musician Lasse Jensen, who Alan had played with the previous year at Bremnes Fort. The performance was recorded and was later combined with a recording of the Manchester performance the subsequent week to make a composite recording which is available as a free download, complete with cover artwork, here.
While in the area, several location recordings were made, including some inside Bremnes Fort, a WWII nazi gun emplacement, built inside a hollowed out coastal hill a few kilometres north of Bodø by slave labour during the occupation. A large gun outside the fort also served as a makeshift instrument.
T.R.I.P. Psychogeography Festival, Manchester
21/06/08
Zoë participated in the fascinating Territories Reimagined: International Perspectives festival which took place around Manchester between the 19th and 21st June 2008. Alan and Dewi came up to join her for a Parking Non-Stop performance at the festival's closing event at the Britons Protection pub. The performance was recorded and was later combined with a recording of the Bodø set the previous week to make a composite recording which is available as a free download, complete with cover artwork, here
Abandoned WWII German artillary piece, Bremnes Fort, 15th June 2008
Martin Brauner at Schiphorst, 5th July 2008
Avant Garde festival, Schiphorst, Germany
4-6/07/08
At the 2008 Schiphorst festival, Martin Brauner of the Frankfurt based space-rock group S/T contributed a spontaneous performance on a creaky outdoor table to Parking Non-Stop's sonic archives.
Ljubljana, Slovenia
22-24/08/08
En route to perform at the Days of Poetry and Wine festival in Medana, the group stopped off in Ljuljana for a few days. Among the recordings collected here were the mass car-horn symphony accompanying a wedding and the demonstration by a local civic dignitary of a new hi-tech waste recycling system. A full length film of torrential rain on the cobbled streets was made from the shelter of a local bar during a heavy storm, to the excellent accompaniment of a few glasses of Brinjevec
Trbovlje, Slovenia
24/08/08
Zoë and Alan took the train from Ljubljana to the industrial coal mining town of Trbovlje, home of the legendary industrial group Laibach, one of Parking Non-Stop's influences. Industrial recordings were made at the large cement factory in the town and several films were made, both in the town and up in the hills above it.
Alan in Ljubljana, 22nd August 2008
Alan recording the cement factory in Trbovlje, 24th August 2008
Wine barrels in a Medana wine cellar, 28th August 2008
Dnevi Poezije in Vina festival, Medana, Slovenia
27-31/08/08
Zoë and Alan were invited to perform at the 2008 Festival of Poetry and Wine, held in the small town of Medana near the Italian border. The area is full of vineyards and large quantites of very fine wines were consumed. The performance was recorded and part of it can be heard as part of an article by the American poet Forrest Gander, on the Harriet blog site.
Among further recordings made, were some wine cellar barrel percussion, to juxtapose with the Porto recordings made earlier in the year. The cellar owner can be heard on these recordings admonishing Alan for disturbing 'sleeping wine'. A group of singers who had been entertaining the poets and guests, were also caught later in the evening after several glasses of wine, spontaneously performing a selection of rousing soviet anthems.
Theatr Gwynedd, Bangor
22/11/08
Individually and collectively, the members of Parking Non-Stop had been visiting Theatr Gwynedd in Bangor regularly since it first opened back in 1975, performing there themselves in 2004 with the New Word Order show. One of the most loved features of the theatre was the taped announcements that alerted patrons in the bar to the imminent start of the performance. Upon hearing that the theatre was to be closed down in October 2008, Parking Non-Stop turned up at the final film showing (Cinema Paradiso) to record the announcements to use at the start of their own performances.
The Death Factory, 10 Martello Street, Hackney, London
22/11/08
In London for the Spectrum XXI festival of spectral music, and staying with friend and collaborator Andy Wilson in his Hackney flat, Alan took a small detour to make field recordings at 10 Martello Street, the site of one of Parking Non-Stop's biggest influences Throbbing Gristle's studios, and head office of the legendary Industrial Records.
The Death Factory, 10 Martello Street, Hackney 22nd November 2008
Broome Church, 26th December 2008
Church of St Michael and All Angels, Broome, Norfolk
25/12/08
During a Christmas Day country walk in Norfolk Zoë and Alan visited the small village church in Broome and recorded some improvised music using the church's hand-pumped pipe organ. Sounds of gunfire and pheasant squawks were also recorded during the walk.
St Mary's church, Ditchingham, Norfolk
26/12/08
Having recorded some organ music in Broome the previous day, another nearby church was visited on Boxing Day and further music recorded, this time on an electrically pumped pipe organ with quite a different character to the previous day's instrument. Further gunfire was also recorded.
Bungay, Suffolk
26/12/08
Despite the recent outlawing of hunting with dogs, the Boxing Day hunt still takes place in the Suffolk market town of Bungay. The general bustle of the huntsmen congregating in the town centre was captured, along with several hilarious snippets of conversation from the attendant crowd and the call of the hunt master's horn.
Bungay hunt, 26th December 2008