716 Playlist – Ian Watson

Ian Watson is an artist, born in East Sussex, England, and now lives in Cardiff, Wales.
He produces limited edition DIY runs of physical media containing experimental audio recordings made with a combination of home-made electronic instruments and off the shelf effects and applications, but he also works as an illustrator (the cover of this article is from him), publishes his own Brain Blood Volume zine and used to run Phantomhead label.

I have discovered him when I was preparing the article about Antoni Maiovvi, that would go along with his 716 Mix. I found out about his Phantom label that released a tape of experimental electronic music from Maiovvi. I got interested to know more about Ian and started to check his bandcamp.

I listened to his own productions as well as his work with Andrew Webster for the W / W project and I loved it : experimental quiet music, subtile and not boring. He also does very nice mixes uploaded on his mixcloud.

So here is his Playlist. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. There is a bonus track down the page.

1) Delia Derbyshire – Blue Veils & Golden Sands
I was introduced to the BBC Radiophonic workshop as a teenager by a friend who had a home studio with a reel to reel. It wasn’t until years later that I really paid any attention, apart from a couple of sound effects records I had collected from charity shops. In recent years 1/4” tape and reel to reel players have become something I love to work with. Recently they have become part of my artwork as well as recording. I’ve been running loops off them and mounting small scale sculptures and radio cameras on top of the reels,broadcasting these to large projections that play within the same space as the audio.

2) Skjølbrot – Rue Victor Masse to Gare d’Austerlitz
My mate Daniel Bennett here as Skjølbrot from the album ‘Maersk’ this entire album is something I save to listen to on train journeys where it’s filmic score to travel and trade-routes really aids the imagination and the sense of freedom in train travel…. I don’t drive and somehow imagine this to work best with trains. Also check out his recent release with Stephen Cornford ‘Fellfield Draff’ on the Hideous Replica label.

3) Black Dice – Endless Happiness
When this record first came out I was playing with some friends in a band called The Sound of Aircraft Attacking Britain and it felt to me as if this was what we were trying to do in some ways. It’s still a favourite record of mine as it introduced me to Black Dice’s back catalogue and Wolf Eyes’ stuff which in turn sent me down the rabbit hole of all that American noise stuff that has been such a great influence to me over the years.

4) Autechre – Rpeg
Autechre have kept me amazed with each release, I love that they’ve kept producing music to such an incredible standard and for so long, always moving forward.

5) Belong – I Never Lose, Never Really
The Belong album ‘October Language’ was my morning commute soundtrack for an edit job starting early and ending late, in a windowless room – so pretty much always in darkness. It made it all a bit more dream-like and somehow easier to tolerate.

6) Tim Hecker – The Piano Drop
The first track from Tim Hecker’s ‘Ravedeath 1972’ Reminds me of my friend David Eason and his excited enthusiasm for odd gear and his patience when I try to describe things i’d like him to help me build.

7) Jonathan Bepler – The Man in Black
From the soundtrack to Matthew Barney’s ‘Cremaster 2’ film – featuring Steve Tucker of Morbid Angel’s vocals and Dave Lombardo’s drumming. Insanely good. If you can get to see the films or soak-up the soundtracks on youtube they are all great but this slice has a certain appeal to me because of the Slayer & Morbid Angel connections.

8) Gabriela Fridriksdottir – South
From Tetralogia – The musical pieces on Tetralogia were the soundtrack to Gabriela Fridriksdottir’s piece for the Icelandic pavilion at the Venice Bienalle in 2005. The exhibition, and the ‘complete’ world it inhabited were a great influence to my own art practices and are something I return to now and then to remind myself of how i’d like to work. The music itself features a piano phrase that the artist made in her youth which is repeated and meditated upon throughout the exhibition in various compositions.

9) Gamelan Son of Lion – In Scrolls Of Leaves
I picked up this amazing 2CD collection ‘Gamelan in the New World’ a few years back as a present for a friend but ended up soon grabbing another copy. I’ve always wanted to join a Gamelan class here in Cardiff – there are a couple of complete Gamelan orchestras in the St David’s centre here but for some reason i’ve never gotten round to it… If you live in Cardiff, go and check it out, you can see them if you look over the edge of the stairs up to the theatre-entrance.

10) Keith Fullerton Whitman – Lieus (version numérique)
From ‘Schöner Flußengel’. I’m not sure what it is about this that I love, I used to work in TV and would try to sneak this into programmes or trails and it never happened… It wasn’t really likely as I mostly worked on magazine programmes and really cheap stuff that only used music in the current charts, or a narrow pool of pre-paid music. One day…

Bonus track) Machine Shop – Novo Derekus
Drew from Machine shop is a great friend and the other half of W/W. This is his long-term project with percussionist Karen Stackpole. They do this stuff live with a collection of gongs and mics. (check the 716 Mix of Drucifer that came afterwards)