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A Wondrous Place is new writing, animation, video, music and delicious set design all directed by Chris Meads.

And yes, this one is also about me (again) – for I provided the theatre music and sound design.

With suitably wondrous contributions from talented fellow musicians:
Andy Hodson (real drums)
Janet Wolstenholme (bass guitar)
Eve Harrison (trumpet)
Lis Murphy (violin and viola) &
Gemma Weightman (vocals)

A Wondrous Place is currently on tour (up North):

Liverpool Unity Theatre – 15-18 May
Sheffield Crucible Studio Theatre – 23 May – 1 June
Newcastle upon Tyne Northern Stage 2 – 4-6 June
Manchester Royal Exchange Studio – 11-22 June

Proceed to A Wondrous Place site to buy tickets for A Wondrous Place

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Northern Spirit is creating a brand new theatre show in MAY/JUNE 2013: A Wondrous Place for which I am currently working on sound design and soundtrack with a spirited team and wonderful guest musicians indeed. My first ride of making theatre music

The show will be visiting Liverpool Unity Theatre (15-18 May), Sheffield Crucible Studio Theatre (23 May – 1 June), Newcastle upon Tyne Northern Stage 2 (4-6 June) & Manchester Royal Exchange Studio (11-22 June).

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I am continuing to support mastering engineer & music producer Ian Shepherd’s campaign for dynamic range in music (ie. quiet and loud volumes, not just all loud volume).

The campaign is expanding each year, so you can hop over to Dynamic Range Day website to find out more and how to take part. There is even a google plus chat going on this evening.

Here Ian cites an example:

And here is Earl Vickers from the Audio Engineering Society on the subject of hyper-compression.

The Loudness War: Background, Speculation & Recommendations from Earl Vickers on Vimeo.

Here’s my post for last year’s DRD

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A diverse and bold programme of events are taking place in Manchester this month of March under the umbrella of a larger 5 year project called Wonder Women | Radical Manchester.

It was 100 years ago when a group of seemingly respectable women shocked Manchester art gallery by smashing dozens of artworks (including the one above). Artists and organisations across the city present a short season of events – 3rd March to 4th April – to reflect on its impact and explore where we are at today.

And so, as part of Manchester Art Gallery Thursday Lates programme, a series of events are taking place. Starting with Unconvention’s Pussy Riot focussed event with performers of music and spoken word. Then yours truly as part of the Delia Darlings team will present an experimental electronic music Delia Derbyshire focussed event. Do have a peek at these free events on offer (though booking advised).

And then there’s the wonderful little Full of Noise Festival in Barrow-in-Furness on the West peninsula of Cumbria which will take place in July. Leading up to the festival are artist residencies and a series of radio programmes – FONair micro-commissions.

And, yes it is about me (again)..On WED MARCH 20 at 13:00 I will present a show about the Delia Derbyshire Day 2013 project around theme of ’space’. And I’ve gone and committed to presenting it live – couldn’t resist the element of risk

The o so competent AGF at FON festival 2011:

FON 2011 – AGF from Octopus Collective on Vimeo.

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Just catching up with myself after our first Delia Derbyshire Day and Delia Darlings little Northern Tour which took place in Jan 2013.

It was touching how much love and respect for the late great Delia Derbyshire and her experimental electronic music there is out there. The pixie/hippy in me hope she felt it. The response “inspiring” cropped up a few times. And some excellent radical programming went on tour wise, with Kara Blake’s creative documentary The Delian Mode being played to a room full of folk with pints and not a peep was muttered (or allowed once a good few shush’s had been expressed). Aces.

And, my, did i thoroughly enjoyed being back on stage.

Such a joy not struggling against all that horrid pain.

And employing a laptop on stage (with a variety of hardware effects) for the first time was also alot more enjoyable and performative than I had anticipated.

For more musings on my current live kit do visit a feature/interview with Kit monsters.

A few reviews of all the music performances can be perused at Delia Derbyshire Day project blog.

Also, here is what is possibly my most personal interview as yet with Tim Abbot of Light Chronicles for his Technical Difficulties radio show on Resonance FM. Gosh can I waffle on.

And guess what, I will be appearing on CBBC with Dick and Dom as they present their new series Absolute Genius on CBBC with a programme looking at Delia Derbyshire. We did a ridiculous remake of Delia’s amazing realisation of the original Dr Who theme tune using largely found (and yes, animal) sounds. WED 20 FEB at 18:15 i believe..

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Well, Delia Derbyshire Day preparations are fully underway now with preview pieces now online such as Louder Than War blog and The F word blog.

And as part of this project I am – as are Ailís Ní Ríain and Naomi Kashiwagi – making a new piece inspired by hanging out with Delia’s amazing archive material held here in Manchester.

And as a creative music maker using technology, I am particularly interested in how Delia made her music at The Radiophonic Workshop – especially the period pre-synths and drum machines.

I rely and often take for granted the panoply of tools I have at my fingertips and I have a very modest home/bedroom studio set up at home. Multi-track recording, a few bits of hardware and too many virtual instruments, processors and software effects galore. Yet in the 60’s and early 70’s most of these tools were simply not invented or readily available. I became increasingly curious about the how when I hear so many effects and multi-track loops going on in Delia’s electronic music.

So, beyond grilling the ever so patient and passionate archive guardian, I did some researching of the internet variety. An article in Sound on Sound Magazine called the Story of the Radiophonic Workshop was most illuminating for me.

Apparently Delia was a dab hand at crash sync-ing – beat matching 2 or 3 tape machines by hand/ear – no mixer, the original DJ! And engineering wise, she was multi-tracking literally by hand.

To start with they had minimal budget and equipment and a handful of clever and creative engineers who made and adapted kit for them. They had no synths, but lots of test oscillators and a wobbulator (sounds like they were doing dubstep back then as well as techno and synth pop). They really did have to be creative as well as technically savvy to create such experimental music that was also accessible (to millions through radio and TV).

Apparently Delia “claimed to have made the sounds [for Delian Mode and Blue veils and golden sands] by analysing the partials of her favourite metal lampshade and replicating them with sine-wave test oscillators.”

Talking of Delia the article explains:
“She had a degree in Music and Maths from Cambridge that may have accounted for her unusual and analytical approach to sound: she is reputed to have always carried a book of logarithm tables that she used in her work.”

And so my starting point has been sine tones mapped to frequency of pitches in a few pentatonic modes modulating through the circle of fifths. And then I sampled my voice singing these frequency mapped tones and chopped off the attack. See, it all makes perfect non-sense.

For more information do read the article in Sound on Sound and can also peruse Radiophonic workshop engineer Ray White’s web site which contains the most detailed account of the Radiophonic Workshop and its equipment.

I’m sure there are many of you that know so much more about The Radiophonic Workshop and Delia D’s working methods.

Do feel free to share if so

Delia Derbyshire Day 2013 from Delia Darlings on Vimeo.

Delia Derbyshire Day will take place in Manchester, UK on SAT 12 JAN 2013. We will present a mini-symposium featuring a screening of award-winning documentary The Delian Mode , a panel of esteemed Delia D experts and an archives listening session. Our three new music commissions will then be performed in the evening. Buy tickets for DD Day 2013 at Band On The Wall

Delia darlings Tour N England JAN 2013 from Delia Darlings on Vimeo.

And we also have our upcoming Northern England Delia Darlings Tour Dates in JAN 2013 – Liverpool, Sheffield & Newcastle

So, I realised this week that it no longer feels right for me to go by the artist name of caro snatch.

I have shed a few skins, had to take some time out health wise and am no longer in such drastic levels of physical pain.

I therefore no longer feel the same urgency and need to seize life (the snatch bit was a carpe diem thing for me, grab life while you can because you don’t know when you will crash again).

And this is all over thankfully. So new phase needs a label that is more fitting both in meaning and phonetically.

I also chose “snatch” when I started out as I thought well i’m just a snatch having a go. And the cheeky undertone prevailed. Grown out of this phase now.

And Caro C is also a more tidy way to bring together my roles as performer, producer of my own experimental music plus engineer and facilitator for others’ musical visions.

Apologies for any confusions in advance – caro snatch is my creative output up to November 2012; Caro C henceforth.

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So, Delia Derbyshire Day is go!

Tickets now on sale for our special afternoon and evening event at the lovely Manchester music venue Band on the Wall – early bird offer and concessions available on Band On The Wall Delia Derbyshire Day.

And, in other news I am helping out Dick and Dom who have an electronic music Delia related mission. Can’t give away too much at the moment, suffice to announce my acceptance (finally) into the ranks of the avant-garde with my friends’ kids favourite presenters

Here is a clue of what my role will be and a splendid example of Delia’s technical competence and creative music spirit:

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Well, time to venture out the cave and get back on stage. Eek and stoked.

So, after 2 years of no gigs as i replenish healthwise, I have said yes to these most interesting improvisation performance festivals. A celebration of women in music, performing and visual arts.

For someone who carefully considers and cogitates my creative outcomes, this is a refreshing opportunity to just do it (and hope the outcome is at least as interesting as my experience!).

THURS 4 OCT – In MCR i’ll be collaborating with the wonderful Maggie Nicols, Bunty and Aby Vuillamy.

SAT 13 OCT – And in Newcastle I will be cooking up something with visualist Jo Burke.

Documentation and archiving is central to this project which also involves Women’s Liberation Archive exhibition at Bureau Gallery in Manchester.

More info will be made available as it all unfolds at IMPRINT art blog and IMPRINT on FB

And a taste of Maggie Nicols in spontaneous action:

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Thanks to Women in Electronic Music postings I happened across this article that appeared yesterday on BBC website:

Why are female record producers so rare?

And it is great that this question is still being asked, but yet again a very complex issue fails to be unravelled thoroughly. This does tend to frustrate me a tad when it’s the same old (negative) questions and the debate is not moving forward enough for me.

My initial response was disappointment. The same old what we are not doing.

Hence why I set up last year a new page on here called Women in.. compiling resources on what we lasses are doing in the fields of electronic music and studio recording.

And there was me thinking things had improved, I was starting to transcend my own gender separatist outlook. And I was also assuming a trickle up effect was surely occurring as I come across increasing numbers of lasses in the sound engineering trade. I guess this might be as I was more aware that the role record producer has become a little outdated as most music industry producers are not working the big time pop sector, and the roles of producer, engineer and artist are much more blurred nowadays it seems.

But actually this article does present more positive and encouraging voices. One of the top pop producers Steve Levine’s comments generally resonate agreeably and some interesting sharings of experience from Trina Shoemaker.

I have to take issue with a couple of conclusions though. “There are no social barriers to a woman becoming a record producer,” says Professor Susan Rogers.

Having been asked this question lots of times I came to the conclusion it is about confidence and someone once hit the nail on its head for me when she said many girls just don’t consider it an option. I don’t see how anyone can isolate social barriers from career choices. Could once get away with claiming the same for lawyers, doctors, MPs etc?

Also, the point about the job being too hour intensive and demanding for women does not wash with me. Being a successful fashion model, athlete, dancer, nurse or Mum requires dedication and long working hours. I think it is alot more due to it being a more hidden and elusive profession.

And as Steve Levine argues, I would say our conditioning predisposes us to have some useful recording engineer/music producer qualities: empathy, listening and caring etc. Though I would not subscribe fully to such assumptions as I know a fair few male engineers/producers who also possess these qualities and skills.

Anyway, give it a read and perhaps a moment or two of your reflection. It is ultimately one of the more positive/helpful articles on the subject that I have come across.