syphus

SYPHUS_LIVE_10.08.10 from Cerebral Scars on Vimeo.

Well, it’s over…once more. I decided to wind Syphus up at the end of last year, but a couple of very sound local guys were putting on their inaugural semi-regular Newcastle chip-related clubnight and I thought that instead of my memory of my last gig being of a traumatic and miserable event in the dead of winter on the other side of the country, it should be of a fun little outing on a fine summer’s evening here in God’s country – north of the river and east of the god damned mountains.

Up-and-coming Minimal Chipno (yes, I just invented it for him) genius floorshaker Cerebral Scars took some video and edited it into the fine piece you see embedded above. Sorry you can’t hear the violin too well (not CS’s fault; it wasn’t that audible on the night) and also sorry that I’d apparently forgotten how to play my own song in only 10 months (the final one in the vid), but thanks to everyone who was there and to the other guys who played awesome sets. Turns out it’s massive fun to play heavy guitar alongside some of my heavier chippies, but it’s still time to move on and work on new things… Maybe Syphus Live will get a zombie resurrection in the future, who knows. In the meantime, I’ve got hundreds of unfinished tunes which may eventually get finished and thrown up online.

Thanks again Ewan for making me such a nice souvenir :) It’s been fun!

Edit: oh, live ‘retirement’ notwithstanding…I am planning to release an album soon. It’ll probably be 60% new material and the old material will be remastered/rearranged a bit, possibly with some guitar, violin and/or other surprises thrown in. I’ll call in some favours from graphicians, maybe ask some kind people for help with design and try to make it something special for anyone who’s interested – physical as well as download.

This is hardly news-worthy by anybody’s standards, but here’s me saying I’m taking an indefinite breather from doing live Syphus performances. Yes, I know it’s not like I’m kicking out the keytar jams 24/7 anyway, but my whole routine has sleepwalked into stagnation a bit, and I can’t find the time or head-space to evolve it. And besides, I’m something of a traditionalist and I don’t desperately want to contrive an evolution of my live chip-style outlet when it probably doesn’t need one. Why force it?

It started in my bedroom, on grey Sunday afternoons with ProTracker, then years later it coincidentally happened to become popular in the ‘real’ world and I had a great deal of fun playing it live; improvising; reinterpreting it for fresh audiences. So I guess now it’s going back into the Sunday-afternoon/bedroom domain, where it belongs and where I get the most enjoyment out of it.

I’ll still be making occasional Amiga tunes and working on demoscene productions, but I plan to focus on getting back to composing fully-sequenced music, expanding on the bits and pieces of games music writing I’ve been doing lately and generally driving myself forward rather than treading water. Maybe I’ll even get the swathes of unreleased tunes released, and unfinished tunes finished.

This isn’t some sort of tearful goodbye, and I’m not conceited enough to think that anybody should give a toss, but I do want to say that I’ve:

• met some cool people
• played some cool gigs with some cool people
• seen a few more crevices of the world than I might otherwise have done
• had my grumpy sourpuss old mind opened up to some things beyond the scope of the demoscene
• opened some other minds up to things within the scope of the demoscene
• had my Blip Festival visuals done by The C-Men
• got shitfaced with Firebrand Boy
• got lost in Manhattan with Trash80
• been attacked by a London gang, along with Minusbaby, Starscream and Nullsleep
• watched Nullsleep literally headbutt his way out of the situation
• driven a tour bus at 90mph whilst technically and medically asleep
• been part of some triumphant organisational successes (and some triumphant organisational failures)
• watched a hooker give a copper a blowjob in a Newport carpark whilst our audience were being arrested and loaded into a paddywagon across the road
• taught USK all conventional English swearwords, plus a few custom ones of my own devising

and much, much more. So, y’know, things could have been a lot worse ;)

The exhibition’s at FACT, but I’m playing the launch’s after-party at Chameleon Bar in Liverpool – L1 4NL – from around 9pm :)

Space Invaders: Art and the Computer Game Environment
Preview: Thursday 17 December 2009, 6.00pm – 8.00pm
FACT, Liverpool
Booking: rsvp@fact.co.uk

Syphus
Firebrand Boy
SoundMatrix
Jellica/Kittenrock DJ mix
DS Orchestra