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Brico020
James Schidlowsky
Wood & Wires

1-spooning 1'49"
2-doigt de digit 2'27"
3-chitinous surfaces 3'58"
4-aluminum fuzz 1'33"
5-chimewand 2'33"
6-jar of ghosts 2'35"
7-Loeffelstreichen 1'45"
8-stretchsing 3'40"
9-skje 5'42"

total time - 26'02"

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technical_info

9 pieces recorded straight to disc using prepared guitar with spoon, wood, plastic, metal and bicycle parts by James
Schidlowsky, March 2003 in Montreal, originall released as aktiv006, ltd to 20 copies, which included 6 bonus peices.
This version (re)mastered and edited by Jon Vaughn for BricoLodge, Jan. 2005

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label_statement
Noisy fields and ambient plateaus are peppered with eerie twinkles and calculated dissonances to resonate with dark matter
within James Schildlowsky's "Wood and Wires". Schidlowsky's own label, Musik Aktiv, hosts the original version of this
introspective and moody recording. BricoLodge co-Director, Jon Vaughn, edited and remastered this version of the album
to highlight the fascinating details within the live sound manipulation and performance.

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artist_statement

what is a guitar? a block of wood with some wires on it. if it's electric, then there's an electromagnetic pickup or two. but it's still
a resonating board with vibrating strings. what would we hear if we could listen to the object itself vibrate, rather than the air that it
causes to vibrate? what if we could listen to both at the same time?

what kind of sounds would be produced if one were to weave a spoon into the strings just so? and then what if we were to rub those strings with
an aluminum rod, or the bottom of a jar? what about bringing the effects pedals in intermittently? what if one were to try
to blur everything so that when you hear these sounds, you don't think of a guitar, nor even wood & wires?

i had been playing prepared guitar for a few years, and then upon hearing Klaxon Gueule's album "Grain", was inspired to
develop a more "electronic" style. perhaps a meaningless term, but i was searching for something that was less about
droning and repetition and more about bursts and bubbling of sound. it wasn't entirely about changing preparations or
effects, but in attitude. some new objects, like the spoon and smooth aluminum rod were added, but most importantly a
contact mic. using a mixer, i could create a sound based on the usual pickup on the guitar as well as the more physical
sounds of the guitar body via the contact mic. both of these had differing amounts of effects and EQ.

i sat down every evening and limited myself to one object for 30 minutes, as opposed to my usual constant changing.
this forced me to discover new sounds. when i found some interesting ones, i would write the parameters in a notebook
and record a little improvisation around it, as an example.

at some point i felt i really needed to get something out, and i enjoyed listening to these short improvisations which
i felt could stand ontheir own. a selection of them thus became _Wood & Wires_, which i released on a limited blue CDR
in March 2003.

i was intending to record a second album, which would utilise a more mature version of the techniques learned, as well as
exploiting 2-channel sound. a few pieces were recorded, but, due to various circumstances, i was tired of prepared guitar. for this
reason and because _Wood & Wires_ received a poor response, i was no longer motivated to finish the album.
in fact, i stopped playing for a year.

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artist_bio

James Schidlowsky started playing guitar in his teens, battering away at his lovely 6-string acoustic steel-string guitar
in what eventually mutated into a mixture of f**ked up blues, folk, rock and roll, jazz, funk and general sloppiness. 20
years later, still playing in his livingroom for an audience of nobody, his technique was further refined using bizarre
tunings, messed up sounds and further sloppiness. This he called "my style", which he used to excess on long
improvisations that ran the gamut of all manner of everything. Then suddenly in late 1998, during a period of acute
thurstonitus, he decided to kill his idols and began messing around with his cheap electric guitar with borrowed effects
and AM radio interferences.

Discovering this ubiquitous and free source of mind-numbing sound, the abstract AM radio, drone, he spent a good deal of
time creating lo-fi, monolithic pieces, scavenging radios from the dumpster. This expanded to the use of more (borrowed)
effects, feedback, contact microphones, cassette tape players, and all manner of wires and adaptors connecting anything
that could be connected together in order to investigate what sounds could be produced. Parallel to this noise-making
was some rudimentary prepared guitar work, mainly in the form of mallet guitar. First concerts involved the duo The Live
Wires, providing background noise for spoken-word man Matt Bain.

2000 : Some primitive solo shows, then the fortuitous and fruitful meeting up with the No Type crew, when the emphasis
switched to prepared guitar and free jazz/noise, playing with Philémon & A_Dontigny as they worked for the great but
unfornutately unknown composer, Yves Hudon. During these adventures, Schidlowsky began to play live and work with a
great many people, in various projects, such as QuiJoueQuoi? with Magali Babin, and various noise projects with
A_Dontigny (Micro désastre) and Érick D'Orion (Trio Saccacomie), and outdoor jams with Monstre and JRobot.

2001 involved more live events with different people like Camp, Sam Shalabi, John Heward, Alexandre St-Onge, Guillaume
Théroux Rancourt. Much work with abstract radio sounds, culminating in a week-long residence at the Avatar studios in
Quebec City, producing the radio-only piece "Radios par Radio" for the Excavation Sonore radio show.

2002 saw James refining his prepared guitar technique, developping a more abstract and quieter sound, returning to his
beloved mind-numbing drones and a more meditative state, often working in a nameless duo with bass-trombonist Jacques
Gravel, and another nameless duo with experimental singer Zazalie Z..

In early 2003, inspired by Klaxon Gueule's Grain album, James developped a more "electronic" technique of prepared guitar,
incorporating the abstract droney stuff with jagged and bizarre sounds, due to the addition of a contact mic and mixer.
This was showcased at the Machines08 event, and documented on the Wood & Wires CDR. Meeting up with the natacha's
recordings and Rivers and Mountains collectives kept him going, playing various instruments in several crazy hippie/disco
type events. Toward the end of the year, Schidlowsky dropped out of the scene, terminating most projects, giving up
prepared guitar and returning to his roots of the acoustic guitar (now a lovely 12-string).

2004... Maintaining a low profile, James is slowly getting back to working on the pile of solo projects that were on hold.
As for collaborations, only two remain. Playing prepared zither, the bizarre psychedelic acoustic-electronic duo with
Alexandre St-Onge formed in 2003 continues, expanding into further strangeness with more people. Another duo started
in 2003 with Alexis Bellavance (of the périphériques collective) continues to examine the little-heard sounds in the
context of conceptual sound investigations.

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BricoLodge is a net.label for eclectic techno, playful composition and
complex experimentation that emerged from artistic and cultural exchanges
between the site directors, Carrie Gates and Jon Vaughn and other artists
from across Canada and the world since the turn of the 21st Century.

http://www.notype.com/bricolodge/

bricolodge@gmail.com

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