I was thinking about my first ever recording experiences, and while it wasn't in the field per se, the one machine that ignited the fire in my imagination for recording and manipulating sound was the TEAC A3340 four track recorder. This particular machine had become infamous by local experimental music hero Chris Knox and his studio/front room band The Tall Dwarfs. Using tape loops, splicing, overdubbing, reversing and track bouncing Knox and band mate Alec Bathgate had produced a series of brilliant EPs for the Flying Nun label, perfectly illustrating the potential for multitrack recording, even if it was only four tracks... Back in the mid 1980s I was living in Christchuch, playing bass guitar in a band, appropriately named The Unknown. We played lots...
The best place to start a new blog? The beginning! I grew up on my parents farm, Dalbury, near the mouth of the Rangitata River in the South Island of New Zealand and I think living in such a place had a profound impact on my senses. I have since read of how some of the early settlers who moved to the Canterbury Plains went crazy as they just couldn't handle how "big" the sky was! The plains reach from the Southern Alps out to the East Coast, and on a sunny day it can feel like sky consumes most of your visual field. But I also think growing up in such a place helped develop my love of nature and quiet places. Many of...
