… on Pigeon Post

thanks to Matthew from PigeonPost who wrote a snipette on the House of Strange 

here it is

revenge of the evil space mutants …. episode 3

space mutants has been with us for some years now, 3 perhaps. it started as an excuse to not go out to dinner one night, but then became a vehicle to make our own sci-fi noises live to accompany awful acting. after a while it then progressed into an excuse for otis to do some 3D animation, and before we new it the House of Strange was experiment with some Vince dicola-esque sound tracks (Vince wrote alot of amazing 80 theme tunes and the rocky soundtracks, he is a king). the original the episodes were filmed on otis’ mini dv camera and edited by him. the sound was recorded by the house o strange and the voices by otis.

we have been planning this episode for a couple of months now. the story will be based around hell bastard and his new apprentice’s travels across the universe. hell bastard is getting an upgrade to his costume, he has a proper helmet now made by will (from the clockwork quartet). lovely. we are also upgrading the cameras for this new episode, which hopefully wont highlight our questionable portrayal of the characters.

EPISODE 2

EPISODE 1

ORIGINAL

PIKAPIKA tests

Jas blasts off

have you guys seen PIKAPIKA? they are a group of people from Japan (77 of them) who do animations with light painting.

there is no computer trickery here, the shutter is open for 30 secs on each photo, i was running around with lights while jas ‘charged up’.

im thinking of including some shots like this in the fairwell video.

done

dont get him mad

done

welcome and fairwell ….

a great friend of ours Fay Buzzard filmed Caribou playing some songs in a rehearsal space, not only was the room completely covered in pink cloth but all the music was recorded live! how exciting, a gig, that no one got to watch, in the safety on a rehearsal room.

house from above

that got my brain secreting all sort of envy chemicals. house of strange must do this, we have the space, and the props, and can sometimes play music.

that was all that was needed. i found a film crew of friends with sexy cameras (Sony Z1, Canon XL1s, and a mini DV cam) and started cutting confetti, making fake snow (Styrofoam in a juice blender), blowing up balloons, getting in touch with the extras (who were really the stars of the show), cutting curtains, connecting up projectors, that sort of stuff.

house of light

fortunately for us a bunch of people showed up on the day (i think it was a sunday) and provided some awesome dancing. we did a couple of rehearsals and then attack, one take of each song, then up to Ed’s for photos.

THE CAST

house of strangers

the videos will be up shortly ….

life at 1/3rd its normal speed

house of stamp

what would happen if you slowed down a song 3 times, played along to it, and then sped up the footage. and what would it look like if a photo camera was used to document the images. i didnt’t know until yesterday but it sure doesn’t look as far out as it sounds.

over the last couple of days i have taken about 2000 photos for these test shots. i took as many photos as i could (with my finger), which turned out to be about 4 fps. the camera could keep up with the speed with out needing to stop and compress the files. so i shot like that until the memory card ran out (around 2000 photos).

this is the version of Fairwell that the guys were playing along to (3 times slower, but in the same pitch)

here is a short clip of what you can expect from our next music video for the song Fairwell.

done

*the video is going to be shot up stairs in Patent House no. 7 @ Edward Saperia’s (Clockwork Quartet) apartment.

Alot can happen in only 12 Hours

Last Saturday, House of Strange Part 2 came and went. we started at 1.30 and with 8 people we set the show up over the next 6 hours. the time lapse (which you can see soon) lasted until 8 just before the doors opened. this being the second show at the space everything was less daunting and stress inducing. as usual the spaces employees were fantastic, no health and safety this and that. which made for a great show.

house of fear

the smoke was out in full force, we experimented with ducting to pipe the smoke around and keep it lower to the ground. although it didnt stay down being able to control its flow and direction better was a plus. ed seriously updated the confetti canons, the plastic water bottle on the back stores the confetti and the long poster tube gives alot more projection than we were used to. the space had also upgraded their in house projector so our visuals were bigger and richer in color than last time.

we even had a few more songs up our sleeve than last time. as i haven’t been writing too much (as i spend too much time in the kitchen) we have decided to start covering some more songs as an excuse to learn new things. Emmy the Great joined us for birdhouse in your soul by They Might Be Giants, Jeremy Warmsley aided us with Wonderful by the Beach Boys, and Cantopop Super Star sang Tomorrow Never Knows. we also managed a pretty faithful rendition of Daft Punks Robot Rock.

house of doctors

Emmy the Greatest

this time the show went down with even more chaos than usual. although that seems to be a recurring theme to our shows we cant seem to iron out. it might be something we are actually good at. sound was a problem on stage but my in ear monitoring for the first time really helped to not over sing. we tried a new arrangement on stage to give us a bit more room to maneuver but alas. we were still tripping over chime bars, standing on gongs, and slipping on confetti (which was everywhere).

the costume this time were really brave. pete started with a chicken on his head, hugo had an el mariaci wrestlers mask and a pig on his head, jason was dressed like a japanese BFG, emmy was holding a pillow and a flexitone, i wore  a wet suit, cantopop super star was wearing his potent moustache, but i think hannah ballou won all prizes with her green and blue looks. check bellow for proof.

house of strange w/ cantopop superstar

the clean up was pretty monumental, i had lost all motivation by then and clara took the reins and organized the clean up squad. i think we managed to save all the confetti, apart from the bunch hidden deep in Marco’s hair. i wonder how many times we are going to be able to reuse it before it is too drenched in beer to fly from our canons.

lamb chop magoo does CLEANING

house of mess

im thinking of changing venue for the next House of Strange and Friends in Dec, some where more accessible to people, and not in the middle of nowhere. with a backstage (for costume changes), large ceilings (for confetti and epicness), and staff that are not too conscious of health and safety (for an all round more extreme experience). thoughts? suggestions? ideas?

house of flames

* i wonder if we were checked by a doctor whether he would diagnose us as insane for traveling around with this much equipment with out massive monetary gain. filling up a transit full of equipment only to bring it back again 12 hours later.

Frankie Buckle’s photos can be seen here

done

making your brain do more than it wants to (Pigeon Claw Video Shoot)

do you remember when it last snowed? maybe it was sometime in feb or march. i went to bed and woke up to a very white Bethnal Green and on my way home in very unsuitable summer crocs i started going over this video idea that was discussed over dinner at petes a few days earlier.

House of Snow

the idea was that me, the band, and guy would all be in separate environments but be able to interact with each other. i would be the only thing in real life, guy would be inside a television screen, and the band would be back projected behind me and guy, but in a way that looks like we are in the same room. just trying to understand what my brain was telling me was hard enough, actually making it happen would take a couple more weeks for forcing my brain into really uncomfortable places.

from the beginning i knew we would have to record the band, and guy to a click track so they were perfectly in sync with each other. making it possible for me to throw something at the band, the same time guy, threw something out of his television. hopefully making it look like guy has just chucked a bunch of coins out from his tv screen at the band (which are in a projection). hmm head fuck.

once guy and the band had both been shot, they needed to be synced together using two different computers, one playing logic (with guy), exporting midi to another computer using ableton (with the band). then once the master computer was started, the slave would follow along, sending the bands video signal to a projector behind our white cloth, and guys image into the TV screen.

while filming guy we putting him on a chair that would bring him to the same height he would be in the screen, so when i put my arm in to take his hat off, or pour water on his head, or drop crumbs on him my hand would match up with him in the screen. i think this was the main key to making this all work so well. the korg pad visuals behind guy were being filmed live next to him and sent to a projector behind the screen he was in front of. all the lighting changes were done live as guy was reading his poem.

the toughest part came at the end when trying to get the lighting and camera position right so that the band in the back projection was clear enough, guy was in shot enough, and that i was lit up sufficiently. the more we would bring up the lights in the room so i could be seen, the more the back projection faded away. this problem hung about for days, and it wasnt until euge showed up with a fresh head that we managed to get the shot we used.

guy and guy

me, my self, and i

although the lighting was all sorted we still needed a complete take of me interacting with the TV and back projection. this took some hours and ended at about 2 in the morning. which might be why my performance looks like that of a man who wants to be in bed. during the final shot euge was manning the camera, i was “acting”, and stu was behind the TV holding the hat, and throwing the key. three man team. sweet.

so we have an awesome single shot of the whole thing but we decided guys rant at the end of the video the audience should be inside the TV screen with him, the slow zoom in on the master shot was done on final cut, then cut to the ending footage we filmed of guy. all the kaleidoscope visuals were filmed using a tiny web cam into eds Canon XL1s pointed right into the sexiest kaleidoscope on planet earth. pictured below.

House of Suits

expect more videos like this coming from us. there is a plan afoot to make a music video like this but with out a fixed camera position. imagine a character, jumping out of a computer screen, into an IPOD, then into a mirror, and into a TV screen, all with the camera following his movements. realistically this wont be done till next year as the next video will be back to stop-start animation style with shadows and miniature set.

the video can now be seen here

imogen heap and the song that never was

hugo and the rest of us are happy to say, “we are massive fans of imogen heap”, the voice harmonizer used by huge in the house of strange is the same one she used to make hide and seek, and we always seem to be a step just ahead or behind her on the collection of crazy instruments. anyhows, a couple of months ago she made some vocals available to download from an unreleased song and hugo being wise now into the world of computers downloaded and we got to work creating the music that would accompany these unreleased vocals.

you can hear the song now here

dx7

vibraphone

the initial chords hugo laid down seemed to fit the vocal melody perfectly, although we changed the impression of the 1 beat in the bar a few times, and removed some beats altogether. it would be wicked to hear what immy had planned for those strange bar lengths.

so once the chords and initial repetitive dx7 keyboard sound doubled with a vibraphone (played by hugo and pete)

were inplace we just started layering. alot. i think this one made it to 120 tracks. lots of the beats up to the entrance of the bass line were done with a piece of software called SevenUp writen by MAKINGTHENOISE which is for the monome and ableton.

monome and apple

we also used an old scientists oscillator for alot of the intro and first verse, this was going through a boss dm-300 to create the spacey swoops.

 

Oscillator and boss Dm-300

the quivering voice sound towards the beginning was hugo singing into a gig-fx’s chopper and then into vermona retroverb for spring reverb.

there are also pieces from the clockwork quartets percussion kit, clocks, cogs, and wurring things

. and check out this wobbling sound made with the retroverb and an LFO modulating VCA

vermona retroverb

one of my favorites is the ride bell rolls just before the entry of the live drums.

another great sound was the synth during that section, it was arturia’s cs-80 through logics bit crusher. a great way to replicate the christmas on mars screaming intense blistering moments.

pete and the pearl export

i think the idea to remove some vocals from the final chorus was curious and really made the song end in more of a MJ rock out way than how immy would have probably intended. also ending it as abruptly as we did, with the sound of the drum sticks moving about makes the whole journey come screeching to a halt, a serene 3 mins with a whip crack back to reality. fun for the whole family.

it was really a pleasure to work with such awesomely recorded and blissful sounding vocals. go imogen. go buy her album on the 24th of Aug and follow her on twitter, and facebook.

House of Strange and Friends (episode 2)

On the 12th of sept, the House of Strange and Friends will be taking over The Space in the docklands, in an old converted church.  We will be putting on our typical show – not only including all our favorite stage props but our favorite bands as well. For just 4 English pounds you will experience Emmy the Great, and Jeremy Warmsley, who will both be singing with the Strange. Then there’s Stricken City and the Woebetides who be joining in on the fun. Even Canto Pop Superstar is expected to be making his debut appearance in london.

It is a night not to miss, with gigantic smoke ring canons, leaf blower powered confetti machines, drill enhanced sparklers – the stage will be infront, behind, and above you…

House of Strange and Friends (episode 2)

Stricken City’s VHS shoot

in july just after the 1st House of Strange and Friends, Stricken City came into the studio to film a live show for a DVD extra available with their latest single (a couple songs of the single were produced by jeremy warmsley and engineered by me). the video shoot was directed by Sam Crack who has done their previous 2 music videos, and was shot on 3 VHS cameras.

stricken city clapper

stricken city @ the house of strange

they played 7 songs, and it should be available to watch very soon. get their new single.

some of the guys from Stricken City will be playing at the House of Strange & Friends on the 12th of Sept, http://tiny.cc/yR1zP

more photos on FLICKR