Project-updates, part 2.

Music-




I currently have two records and a brand-new live band in the works.



First, the third record from my solo experimental electronic project LeVautourEnsemble is well underway. This one’s called “From the Sketchbook.”

Like the first two (2010’s “…whose wings are a dull reality”, and 2011’s “Machinique Meltdown”, both available for free download [with a whole lot of other neat stuff] on Headhat Records) this one is also a bit of an oddball repurposing of the idea of the “concept-record.” This time around, as the name of the record may imply, I’ve assigned myself the task of navigating a sketchbook where I had been jotting down fragments of transient ideas over the course of several years… and writing songs based on those fragments… even if (or, especially if) I have NO idea what the hell the initial note meant. To throw myself an additional layer of challenge, I’m tracking this record entirely on an ancient Tascam 4-track cassette recorder. (Special thanks to Dan Holmes for loaning me this phenomenally monstrous device).

I’ve nicknamed him “Brutus.” If anyone remembers tracking audio with these things, add about twenty-five years to let Brutus’s physical parts get downright-elderly in electronics-years, and you can begin to imagine how beautifully cantankerous and temperamental he is now. Working with Brutus is much like riding an ornery rodeo-bull; I’m definitely not in charge here. (I’ve always joked that the other members of LeVautourEnsemble’s “Ensemble” are machines and robots… this has never been more true.) By design, this record will sound NOTHING like what I envision it sounding like in my head. (Special thanks for this one are also due to the guy who owns "The Music Connection" in Manchester, NH, for having had the foresight to stock-pile the Type-II cassette-tapes that Brutus requires back when they stopped making them, while everyone else's response when I was trying to track them down was more like "You're looking for what? WHY??")



Some sneak-peak sample of tracks from this record can be heard here-

.. streaming/ download from a recent charity-compilation...

…and here-

Additionally, this album will be the last material I’ll release under the “LeVautourEnsemble” name. My plan is to consider the three records some odd sort of a “trilogy” (maybe even make some sort of limited-edition packaging of them as such available) and retire the moniker. This isn’t to imply that I’m going to stop making this sort of music (who knows), but more that the idea of maintaining false separations between various sorts of solo-content has run its course.



The second record I am working on is a recording of a live-DJ megamix-set of sorts… It’s called “Vulture From The Vaults”… basically, I spin and remix a collection of my back-catalog material from a variety of projects that were never officially released, linked together with improvised live shards of my particular breed of lo-fi indie-electronic music. This is sort of like a bizarro take on a B-sides/ rarities/ out-takes/ greatest (non)hits collection, mashed up with my sort of gadfly take on the “live-mix” records that DJ’s more traditional-style than myself like to release. My plan is to release physical-copies of this disc in such a way that make it very unclear whether it’s more of a CD that comes with a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork, or a piece of art that comes with a free CD… or something in between, or both.



My new live-band is called Snazzmobb.

Expect a crazy-high-energy explosion of indie-dance-rock madness. We’re brand-spanking-new (and dealing with an unforeseen early-lineup restructuring issue at the moment) so we’re not playing out yet, but we will be soon. (I’ve already given my band-mates an ultimatum; if this isn’t going anywhere by early spring I’m heading someplace warmer). In the meantime, follow us on Twitter (@Snazzmobb) and “like” us on Facebook… we’ll be dropping plenty of teaser-content soon enough. Peel your eyes.

Snazzmobb is currently a trio; I'm on bass and vocals, Adhesiveslipper (solo-artist/ Headhat Records boss-man) is on electronic-noise-wizardry and vocals, and Alex Hurschman is on drums and vocals. Think high-energy noisy funk meets post-punk? This will be a fun show, I promise.



(the third installment of this update-series will cover visual-art and odds-and-ends, soon.)

Headhat For Cats.

Headhat Records and Starving Raptors have teamed up to release an AMAZING charity-compilation, to benefit the New Hampshire SPCA. That's right, it's for kitties (and other animals).

This thing is, no exaggeration, 66 tracks long, and clocks in at almost 4 hours. It's only $5, which goes entirely to the charity, and features some phenomenal material.

My experimental-electronic outfit LeVautourEnsemble has a previously-unreleased, exclusive, otherwise-unheard track on this thing, called "Mamihlapinataei: Searching For Words In Other Tongues"... among an amazingly-diverse cast of characters, featuring some big names in indie-hip-hop, underground-celeb-types, and tracks that you probably haven't heard (but probably should) from as far away as Belgium, Australia, Japan... There's lots of exclusive content on this thing, and lots of things you'll hear and wonder how you POSSIBLY could have managed to sleep on up until now... Really, this is a QUALITY mix, from start to finish, that you absolutely need to hear.

Download it now here. (Dropped yesterday, MayDay, through Starving Raptors, available through Headhat later in the month.)

"Nails Dig In" writing-soundtrack....

I recently finished the first completed draft of a piece of short fiction that I'd had in the works for quite a while. I'm in the process of sending it out to some gracious readers willing to provide some feedback for future edits, help me get it out of my own head for a bit...

In the meantime, I figure I may as well share an idiosyncratic yet essential aspect of my writing-process. Many of my pieces of writing are composed to a dedicated "soundtrack;" as a musician and a writer in whose writing music and sound tends to play a large role, it's essential for me that the piece that I'm working on maintain a particular "sound" in the style that it's written in. Most of the "tone" of my writing is based first-and-foremost on sound. Therefore, I make a playlist of the sound and tone that I'm trying to achieve (often, like this one, including songs of my own that were composed exclusively for the purpose of capturing and understanding the "sound" of the piece of writing at hand [not all of my own pieces on this list were composed explicitly for that purpose however, some just fit the mood well] ) and listen to that exclusively while writing and editing.

Here is, then, the "soundtrack/ playlist" for a piece titled "Nails Dig In (In The Mouth of the Wolf)."

(wink/ hint/ wink to those who stumble on this while helping me edit/ reading for submission/ reading the work if it happens to get published somewhere; these tracks also feature/ include a few easter-egg internal-references within the work that add additional layers of meaning.)

1) LeVautourEnsemble- Physical Consent

2) The Stiletto Formal- ...tastes like black licorice

3) Placebo- Protect Me From What I Want

4) LeVautourEnsemble- Hybrid Eyes

5) Crystal Castles- Not In Love (feat. Robert Smith)

6) Miike Snow- Plastic Jungle

7) LeVautourEnsemble- Mamihlapinatapei; Searching For Words In Other Tongues. 

(Sorry, this one is currently unavailable. It's slated for a forthcoming compilation as a "previously unreleased" track, and it wouldn't quite be "unreleased" if I dropped it here, now would it? ;) )

8) Bright Eyes- Lover I Don't Have To Love

9) Yeasayer- O.N.E.

10) LeVautourEnsemble with Antoine 518- Wave (Our Confusion Is Just What We Need)

(this is another in the previously-unreleased category, this one a recent collab-track, but I'm dropping this one here. That's right, this is exclusive-type-shit. Brand new, just for you.)

11) Bloc Party- Like Eating Glass 

12) The Strays- Life Support

13) The Mars Volta- Ilyena

New LeVautourEnsemble record out now!

My solo musical outfit, LeVautourEnsemble, has just released our second record, "Machinique Meltdown," on the world-infamous Headhat Records!

Like the first LeVautourEnsemble record, (2010's long-delayed "...whose wings are a dull reality"... as well as Tipsy Cougar's notoriously chaotic 2011 album "Immaculate Conceptions" and a ton of other awesome and awesomely-odd stuff) this one is available to download for FREE/ donation through the "webhat" imprint. Download it here.... now. Because I said so. I mean, it's free, what do you have to lose??

Predictably, this record is an odd one. It's sorta-kinda a concept-record. It's sorta-kinda a response to a perverse challenge (I like challenges). It's sorta-kinda a hip-hop record (?!?) (emphasis on the sorta-kinda). It's sorta-kinda a whole bunch of things that it's really not at all. 

As many who know me personally are probably aware, I get a strange sort of thrill from finding new odd-ball accolades for my press-kits ("... like a young CC Deville wielding an out-of-control fire-hose," anyone? "...mystical..."? lol) Well, from this one so far I've gotten an absolute GEM courtesy of Headhat label-boss/ noise-beat virtuoso Adhesiveslipper. (as if I needed MORE reasons to love Headhat to death.) This record, apparently...  "has the headiest liner-notes of any record we've released so far." I'll take it! Thanks Dan! (To the rest of you, please take that as a challenge to listen to this record and give it the most out-there review [good, bad, outraged, indifferent, wtf, whatever]. It probably deserves it, and I'd love to hear what you think.)

Since I know that very few people even OPEN the file with the liner-notes in it for digital-downloads, I may as well just post those notes here, give you a taste of what this thing is about, what you're getting your eardrums into with this one....

LeVautourEnsemble- Machinique Meltdown

“Machinic, a word that does not exist, translates the French machinique, the adjectival form of le machin, a gadget, a watchamacallit.”  

This footnote from editor/ translator Robert Brinkley’s notations to Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s 1975 essay “What Is A Minor Literature?” provides part of the title and a sort of a point-of-departure for this collection of songs and sounds. 

This album was spawned as an outlet for a meltdown of various sorts, in the immediate aftermath of a graduate-literature program which found me, by the end of the final semester, deeply immersed in attempting to understand and apply the critical-theory of Delueze and Guattari to a variety of research, writing, and art projects... resulting in a sort of troubling void where Deleuzian concepts such as rhizomatic mapping, deteretorialization, assemblages, “becoming,” and, of course, the ever-elusive “machinique,” acquired vast  degrees of personal resonance on many different levels. 

The resulting album was initially intended as a concept-record about varying sorts of apocalypses. In its finished form, in many ways it is this indeed... though, in true Deleuzian form, in a far more confusing, meandering, and easily-misunderstandable way than initially intended. You could probably refer to each resulting “song” on this short album as a “Plateau,” (and you probably wouldn’t be entirely wrong)... but I’d kind of prefer that you didn’t. 

This album was recorded between January 2011 and December 2011, primarily at the LoftDeLeVautour, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. All instruments, sounds, voices, noises, etc were performed, created, and/ or mutated and heavily manipulated by Bernard P. Provencher LeVautour. 

Again, in true Deleuzian fashion, I choose to refuse to explain anything about any track on this album with any further degree of detail within these notations. 

Questions may be addressed directly by email, at bernard.levautour@yahoo.com




For a taste of the record, as your download is downloading, and a taste for the accompanying video-footage (If I remember right, there's some sort of video or other for the vast majority of the tracks on this record if you visit my Youtube channel)... here's the intro-track, and the outro-track. Believe it or not, I totally feel that, over the course of the record, the transition between the two begins to make a little bit of sense.

(LeVautourEnsemble- Preface)

(LeVautourEnsemble- Hybrid Eyes)

Music updates, part 1

Big news on the music-front (well, big to me, anyway.)

After a year hiding out in our clandestine studio on the New England coast, my first "real" band in years, Pull Trouble From The Fire, just finished our debut record (as of yet untitled), to be released soon, after a string of phenomenal sessions with Richard Marr at Galaxy Park Studios. It sounds amazing, I promise. Stay tuned.

We have also just booked out debut live show, staying true to our word that this would come as soon as the record was complete. We'll be headlining a show at Dodge Street in Salem, Massachusetts (yes, THAT Salem) on Thursday, July 14th, with Cardinal Law. The show is at 9, it's FREE, and it's "Thirsty Thursday," so, you know, drink specials and shit. Plan to come and get crazy with us. (I'm totally willing to help set up caravan/ convoy/ carpool options from various New Hampshire spots, [as well as possibly going in on a room or something, for those of us who don't have to work too early on Friday], so if you're considering making the trek down, be in touch. It's not that far, and Salem's a super-fun city. [Duh.]) I'm working on a flyer and a facebook event-invite today, I'll post it as soon as it's done.

In other music news, the second record from my solo-project, LeVautourEnsemble, "Machinique Meltdown," is coming along, slowly but surely. I dropped a new video of a track from the record this morning. Check it out.

A Rare Personal Entry... Some Sort of Catharsis?

I rarely post purely personal essays here.... (this will be my first entry in a while that doesn't feature the "promo-whoring" tag...) but I've had a lot on my mind lately that makes me think that it might be time (and since I assume that a good chunk of my readers are at least acquainted with me personally, this doesn't seem all that out of line.) For some reason I just have a gut feeling that, as a writer, I need to explore and explain my last year a bit. This may be more for my benefit than yours. I don't think that it matter, I just feel that a few words on the matter need to be said.

This blog is, at its most basic level, about exploring my quasi-academic/ artistic interest in identity-construction, post-post-structural-reconstronstruction, whatever you want to call it (I am well aware that only a small handful of my readership has any idea what I mean by this... the rest of you, thanks for bearing with me...) and therefore a quasi-critical examination and sharing of my own projects must, by necessity, factor into what I do here, in some sort of meta-identity-crit way (hence all the "promo-whoring" tags... tangentially, for my academic friends and readers, I should probably make a long-overdue point here that what I mean by "identity-crit" has nothing to do with the contested, controversial critical camp that we problematically call "identity-politics.") Therefore, returning for a moment every now and then to where I'm coming from as it relates more directly to my personal-life doesn't seem to be a terribly large departure.

I've been, off and on, for the last couple weeks, in an odd, spacey, twitchy sort of mood, and I initially couldn't figure out why. There didn't initially seem to be any tangible triggers. Then it dawned on me. Last year around this time, I was in the process of making a series of conscious decisions to step back a bit and try to change the way that I look at things, think about things, deal with things.

Easter weekend of last year, I was presenting a paper at a literary-conference in New Orleans. Academically, the semester had been quite rocky prior to that; I had been having lots of internal arguments with myself, of the "what is our job exactly?" and "to what end?" sort. Personally, it had been a long time prior to that since I had gotten an opportunity to take any time off from my paying-gig waiting tables. Perhaps more importantly, it had been even longer since I had had any sort of "me-time," particularly in a place where I don't really know anyone (a situation that I tend to thrive off of, to clear my head and reassess.) It was a wonderful weekend. More pointedly, though, in all three ways, that weekend became a sort of a turning-point for me. Stepping back from my usual routines, stepping onto the plane, and then onto the streets of the French Quarter, I began to realize that I felt like I was running on a treadmill, physically, mentally, emotionally. Academically, the experiences of the conference certainly didn't answer any of my questions about our scholarly pursuits and goals, but gave me a far more nuanced way of asking myself them, and gave me a glimpse of the giant academic-dragon we were all trying to ride and wrangle like a rodeo-bull. Personally, I realized that my sanity and stability required a more regular exposure again to the invigorating "myself alone in a crowd" stimulus I had thrived on at certain points in the past, but had tried to ignore or forget for a block of years prior, out of various sorts of apparent "necessity." In short, I realized that weekend that quite a few things that I had come to assume to be "necessities" and "priorities" needed to be reassessed.

A few really messy and hectic weeks later, I chose to end a long-term relationship with a live-in-girlfriend the night of my 28th birthday. (Note to self/ word of advice- Do not make life-trajectory-altering decisions on major memorable dates like birthdays. Bad idea. Again, this has been a year of learning-experiences.)

This week, I turned 29, marking off a full year since these events. I'm not going to pull any punches, my 28th year was far from my best. It's been a roller-coaster year, in so many regards... experiments (which didn't all work, by any means) with various new ways of thinking about things led to so many moments of varying kinds of instability, for sure. (Massive props to the people in my life who were there for me and supportive through these times. You know who you are. I can only imagine that I've been pretty difficult at times.)

But, hey, looking back, some good things are coming from volatile times... and that was certainly part of the goal. I completed my Master's Degree in December, with marks that I'm certainly not ashamed of (in fact, oddly, my final semester clocked in my only grad-level 4.0 finish, despite personally feeling a bit of a shit-show and a nut-bag at the time.) In need of a distraction over the last summer, I joined my first functional full-line-up band in quite a few years (Pull Trouble From the Fire), giving up in certain regards on my long-running (mis-guided) attempt to quit making (non-oddball/ experimental) music cold-turkey.... which has provided a great return to something that legitimately makes me happy. One recent weekend, oddly situated within that strange span between Easter and my birthday, I went down to Galaxy Park Studios in Allston, Mass. with that band to work on our forthcoming record, marking my first time recording in a pro-caliber studio since I was... 23? Of course, doing so at the beginning of my 29th year inevitably brought to mind the old cliche about "make it by 30 or hang it up"... which becomes an even more quirky and tongue-in-cheek thought considering that, for the first time I can recall, I'm actually the youngest member of this act and (not to throw anyone under any busses here) the only one who has yet to reach that age. A thoroughly wonderful, stimulating, and revitalizing weekend, for sure. My second record with LeVautourEnsemble, the apocalypse-themed quasi-ironic-hip-hop-ish thing that I intended to bust out really quickly as some sort of post-semester catharsis keeps, appropriately, running into various hang-ups and stalls. That's probably a good thing, in the long-run. On a personal note, I realized yesterday that, after a long string of back-to-back LTR's, this is the first year that I've spent completely (intentionally) single since I was 19? And as much as I can't claim that I was always great over the course of the year at figuring out how to DO that again after an entire decade, a full third of my life, it was totally something that I needed. I feel like I'm on a far better track to figure a lot of things out than I was at this point last year, as much as I can't say I'm necessarily any closer to answers. When are we ever? What are "answers"?

In other words, a full year later, I'm getting my motivation back, and feeling like I'm actually starting to live again. The official end of this very messy year feels like a net-positive change. I'm ready to be functional again, in so many regards.

(ok, ok, my quasi-narcisistic verbal-diarhea ends here. I commend anyone who made it this far into this self-centered mouth-explosion. Thank you. For everything.)

You As You As Man-Consciousness-System

Last night I finished and posted a new video for another track from LeVautourEnsemble's forthcoming second album, "Machinique Meltdown."

This one comes about as a response to a sampling-duel with Ross Boyd of The Tuna Fish Discrepency, prodded and mediated by Adhesiveslipper of Headhat Records. It's on, Ross. Can't wait to see what you make of this absurdity.

In my contribution to this excellent game, I mashed the wacky sample in question up in a steaming pot of  crazy-broth with some robots, kittens, bass, beats, and spirally chaos. Who doesn't like those things???

As per usual (or at least often) with LeVautourEnsemble content, I think a little disclaimer is in order here. Since I've had some issues in the past relating to online censorship of nude mannequins (no, I'm not kidding. When I initially dropped the current logo for this site, among similar images from the same concept/ photo-shoot of Miss Chloe Claustrophobia, I was flagged on several websites by the content-gestapo who apparently can't tell plaster from flesh...), I should probably point out that anything in this video that appears in any way naked is NOT human. Most often it's a robot... sometimes a kitten.

Post-indie, Post-youth...

{free-form, ramble, random thoughts. Go.}

There's something odd about the various forms of late-'90's/ early '00's "indie-rock." Something that reminds me a bit of the "where do we go now?" in critical-dialogues post- post-structuralism and post- deconstruction?  This seems to me to be a bit of an "elephant-in-the-room" right now in the current vogue media-conversation about "what is the hipster"... where does the lethargy, near-fetishistic interest in irony, "lost-generation"-esque nihilistic pompous-non-chalance come from, particularly for the late-20's/ early-30's demographics that most closely fit the stereotypes of that label, yet most fervently hate being associated with it? I'll give you a hint- most of those people, between '97 and '03, were all either playing or avidly listening to some form or another of the "indie-rock" of the time... emo, screamo (before those terms meant what they do now), post-punk, the early-incarnations of "metal-core," melodic-pop-punk... etc. And prior to that? Most of those kids were in punk and hardcore bands in high-school, witnessing the final death-kicks of (the pre-commercially-viable later-incarnations of) those scenes.

I'm reminded of this by quite a few things lately that are unrelated, but tend to weave in and out of each other, nostalgia-wise.

First, there's been a strange superfluity of seminal bands the we all listened to in that era either suddenly getting back together or releasing their first record in countless years within the past couple of months. And there's the constant question at play with all such projects- what SHOULD the new record sound like, when all of the current "hipster" acts are all influenced by your back-catalog, but your "sound" is very conspicuously date-stamped.

I present as example two acts that chose very different answers to this problem.

1) The Get Up Kids are back together. If the handful of tracks that I've heard are any indication, they've taken the "extreme-update" approach-

Sure, this sounds like a whole bunch of what I listen to in 2011. But it certainly doesn't sound like the Get Up Kids... so I'm totally torn on it. There's definitely a bit of the odor of "trying too hard" lingering around this one.

2) The new Bright Eyes record is coming out soon. It's currently streaming in its entirety via NPR- http://www.npr.org/2011/01/31/133278431/first-listen-bright-eyes-the-peoples-key . I'm not sure yet that it lives up to the tall-order tag-line the NPR blurb bestows on it: "This is the best record Bright Eyes has ever made".... but it's pretty good (it always takes me a few listens for a Bright Eyes record to REALLY sink in). And there seems to be a complete indifference to the date-stamp issue here, either in terms of recreating past records (which they certainly don't do) or "updating" too conspicuously or exaggeratedly.

Other things that bring this disconnect to mind include the occasional random flare-ups of sudden nostalgic interest in online content related to an emo-pop-punk band I used to play bass for, called Rusted Tricycle... or that, still, for some reason, regardless of how many projects I've played with since, when I go out at night in New Hampshire, I'm most likely to get "aren't you the guy from Rusted Tricycle?" than any other recognition (If anything, I would expect it to be the high-visibility management position I held with an unnamed adolescent-targetted retail store for years prior to moving to Arizona and going to college, but nope. It's that random band that never toured, never recorded a real album, and broke up ten years ago. Strange.)

(photo via Macalastair Ming of Tipsy Cougar.)

For some reason recently, I had a strange impulse to download a whole lot of old Saves The Day material. I have no idea why. And I'm thinking about throwing a random throwback-emo/ pop-punk track into the middle of my forthcoming ironic-"hip-hop" record with LeVautourEnsemble... just for fun. There's something odd about the music of that time (maybe that time in general?) for us, for sure.

LeVautourEnsemble Update.

I'm currently working on a new record with my solo-electronic project LeVautourEnsemble. This one will be called "Machinique Meltdown," and is a follow-up to "...whose wings are a dull reality," which came out this past October through HeadHat Records. (If you haven't gotten a copy yet, it's downloadable for free/ donation- click here.)

I'm hoping that this one doesn't take NEARLY as long to finish. In fact, I was originally shooting for exactly the opposite extreme, to start and finish the record in a single week, right after I finished school... but the week turned into two, and now it's been about a month, I have two songs and a bunch of fragments (which, of course, is still a step in the right direction, since that's FAR more accomplished than in any single month over the course of the ten years I was working on the last one for.)

I decided this one is going to veer a bit more into the hip-hop(ish) direction... because I felt like it.  This will also be a bit more of a themed/ conceptual endeavor- a collection of tracks about various sorts of apocalypses.

Here is a video for the first track on the record, "Preface."

Another track, "I Am The Tongue," that will appear on the album was actually originally completed as part of an academic project... but as of now I think that it'll still work-

If anyone out there happens to be interested in dropping a cameo on the new record, by all means, be in touch. I'd love to pack this thing with as many odd-ball guest-appearances as possible.

Also, if you're perversely curious how that "PASTICHE" show that I had alluded to before turned out, peruse the following, at your own risk-

"PASTICHE: an evening of post-modern sound-experimentation."

Friday, October 22. Manchester, NH. The Jam Factory (next to/ between Raxx on Elm). Be there.

This will hopefully be the first in a series of nights called PASTICHE in Manchester, trying to find a consistent home for the area's experimental music community (right now we're focusing specifically on electronic material, but down the road that will probably be open to interpretation.) 

This time around, we've got The Attic Bits, a chiptune/ 8-bit act from the seacoast (if you don't know what that means... they basically "DJ" using modified video-game equipment. It's pretty entertaining (and extremely listenable, and often danceable, for electro-fans, even if you don't pick up on the particular schtick.). 

Ross Boyd (frontman of The Tuna Fish Discrepancy, etc.) will be throwing down some electro noise (under an ironically-pompous-sounding moniker that promoter Sadi Khan and I pressured him into assuming for the set {"The Ross Boyd Experience"). To be perfectly honest, I've almost gone out of my way to NOT ask Ross what he has up his sleeve for the night, because I want to be surprised, and I know that it will be epic. (For a taste of Ross doing more electro-ish stuff, T.F.D. released a new record yesterday through Headhat Records, called "Old Haunts." It's rumored to be the last recording in the era of T.F.D. in its pre-full-band format, and features Ross delving into some fun experimental terrain. Download it for free {or donation} here. It's good. Really good.)

And I'm playing a set as LeVautourEnsemble. (now, I'm wracking my brain at the moment, but I believe that, in the 10 years or so I've been recording under that name, this might be the first time I'll perform under the moniker? Weird.) 

 Here's the thing, though. I don't plan to play any of the songs off of the new record. I know, I'm a stubborn bastard like that. Nope, this is an experimental electro-noise event, not a normal "show." My plan is to drop (with an assortment of junk compiled into a sort of deconstructed-"DJ"-rig) a seamless set of ebbing and flowing sound. I plan to get up to play with a couple lists of beats, samples, noises, etc. that COULD possibly be used,  some extremely vague lyric-prompts, maybe some pieces of my poetry to steal lines from, and improvise. 

Here's where I would like your help. This is the perfect opportunity to incorporate a bit of crowd-source magic, to make this a surreal and cathartic experience for all. So I have a couple of extremely minor requests. 

First... if you come to the show, and I walk up to you with a hand-held device of some sort, and ask you to say something that seems strange to you, please play along?

Second... I want to try to compile a list, between now and the show, of odd requests, prompts, propositions, etc... and try to work as many of them as possible into the set. So, either in comments to this post, the discussion-board thread on the L.V.E. Facebook page, to me directly in email, or on the clip-board I'll have at the merch-booth at the show, send me random ideas of things to make up lyrics about, things to sample (samples must make it onto the list at least a day before the show), etc. Then just show up at The Jam Factory and listen for how I incorporate YOUR idea! Sounds like fun, right?

Third... when you come to the show, bring some junk that makes noise. We'll be throwing down whole-room-style, and you don't want to be left out. 

I'm working through some ideas, and talking to some people, about guest appearances, etc... but I'm always open to more suggestions in that regard. Like I said, I'm thinking of this as less "show" and more "experimental {noisy} club-nite-event." So... if you're a visual-artist who wants to set up a projector-screen during my set and show some work? AWESOME! Are you a painter who wants to prop up an easel and create something live while I play? GREAT! PLEASE be in touch. That's the sort of night I'm thinking here... and I need your help to make that happen.

Other than that... just come. If you haven't gotten this idea yet, take my word for it. It's going to be fun. If for no other reason, you get to watch me do my trademark spasm-robot-dance ALL...NIGHT...LONG.

More music...

First off... As I alluded to in my last entry, after being "in the works" for the better part of ten years, the debut record of my experimental literary-electro project LeVautourEnsemble has finally been released!

To get this thing out, we've teamed up with a great little record-label out of Newmarket, New Hampshire called Headhat Records. The partnership is a really good fit for the project... Since 2001, Headhat's been putting out interesting, experimental, and obscure material, with a refreshing strategy that reminds us of a digital-updating of the D.I.Y. attitude of the cassette-mixtape labels we grew up with.

The record was officially released Monday, 10/4/10, and is available for download now, with album-art, liner-notes, etc, here... and the best part is? It's available for FREE (or optional donation if you're feeling particularly generous and supportive).

Don't forget to browse the rest of the Headhat catalog as well, there's a lot of neat stuff over there.

Also, don't forget to stop by and "like" LeVautourEnsemble and Headhat Records on Facebook!

Other music news... 

Check out Pull Trouble From the Fire. I've been making some noise with these guys lately... very exciting stuff, a ton of fun... very interesting things to come on that front I'm sure.

Following up on something else from my last entry, the show that I sat in with The Tuna Fish Discrepancy last month was a ton of fun, and I want to thank Ross and company immensely for the opportunity to tag along and mangle their songs. 

Video-footage from almost the entire show is available here...

This is my personal favorite-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0YJFLZlT8Y

In news of other shows upcoming... mark your calendars... Friday, Oct. 22 will be the first in a (hopefully) recurring series of experimental electronic nights called "PASTICHE: an evening of post-modern sound-experimentation" at The Jam Factory (Next to Raxx, on Elm St.) in Manchester, New Hampshire... I will be playing an improvised LeVautourEnsemble noise-electro set, with The Attic Bits and The Ross Boyd Experience. A flyer and more details (particularly some crowd-response prompts to allow YOU to help me make my set as crazy as possible) will be coming in my next entry... hopefully tomorrow.

Catch-all seasons-change plugs-and-shout-outs.

A very long summer is finally over, and my last semester of my Master's program has begun.

Predictably, I had several blog entries in the cue that I had been trying to get in before summer ended, but that obviously didn't happen. Most notably, I realized I hadn't written any record or show reviews in a while, and wanted to get back to it a bit... more about that later.

This entry, therefore, will just be a truncated collection of plugs and shout-outs that I need to get out before I become completely swept up in reading and research.

First. Most of you (at least those who know me personally, or have read my blog in the past) are probably aware that I haven't played a live-show as a musician in quite a while (at least a few years? Maybe more?). Well, this Saturday (Sept. 11th) that's scheduled to change. And, hey, what way to get back in the swing than with something completely strange, right?

I've been asked to sit in that night with The Tuna Fish Discrepancy. Those good gentlemen were looking to do something a little more... abstract... for their set at this show... and I'm honored to have had my help requested in order to make that happen for them. Basically, I'll be throwing down some noise, on an odd-ball sort of "DJ"-rig.

...and, if we're going to make it a strange and memorable night you don't want to miss, we may as well go all the way, right? So, Nat Ward and I will be closing out the evening by throwing down a very rare sort of tag-team set of live, improvised, free-form electro-noise chaos. You're welcome. Be there. 

September 11th. Manchester, New Hampshire. "The Jam Factory," inside Raxx Billiards. 8 pm, 21+, $5 at the door.

Let's see... other news...

Oh yeah. I have finally put the final track on LeVautourEnsemble's "...whose wings are a dull reality," a record that's been in the works for the better part of ten years.... and I'm finally calling it officially finished. Options for its release are currently being discussed, and more details will come soon. 

Here's the video for that final track, called "Physical Consent"-

{Disclaimer- This song was composed to get inside the head of a fictional character and scenario. The lyrical content expressed herein does not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or ideas of Bernard P. Provencher LeVautour, LeVautourEnsemble, the Asbjorn Arts Collective, or their affiliates.}

OK, I think that's enough for tonight... part 2 coming, hopefully tomorrow, with the rest of the things I wanted to discuss... but tonight I need to get back to reading Chaucer.

Madcap Recap, Part 2: Transition-periods, Creative-writing, Workshopping-groups...etc.

OK, so I should really stop posting "to be continued" at the end of entries here. That phrase seems to be a bit of a curse on this blog; the trigger for some of my longer absences from posting, for which I have very little in the way of excuses.

So, where was I? I believe I was recapping a semester (and now half of a subsequent summer) in which I haven't posted much...

Since I left off with some site-housekeeping, it seems appropriate to resume on a similar note. You may notice that there's a bit of a new look around here... I figured it was time. Let me know what you think, I'm still tinkering with it, and there are elements that I'm not sure whether I like or not.

You may also notice, if you had scrolled to the bottom of the page recently, that I finally got around to putting together a new logo for the Asbjorn Art Collective. Again, it was time.

Continuing, then, with assorted Asbjorn news... I'm pretty sure that since my last regular updates, there have been quite a few new videos added to the collective's Youtube channel, from Tipsy Cougar, Civil Vain, The Green Sea, LeVautourEnsemble, my solo acoustic stuff, etc. Stop by, check them out, leave snarky comments that will make us laugh, share the ones you like with your friends.

You may also notice, by the badges on the right sidebar, that there are now fan-pages on Facebook for LeVautourEnsemble, The Green Sea, Tipsy Cougar, and Swords We Swallow. Stop by, check out some audio, and "like" us (well, if you, umm, like us...).

One of the side-effects of grad-school is that my creative-writing work has taken a near-complete hiatus for the last year. (It's seemed increasingly ironic to me lately that there's such a wide disconnect between studying Literature and writing [non-critical] Literature.... and I definitely have some personal qualms with that gap.) Therefore, one of my personal assignments to myself for the summer has been to get my chops back up to where they were prior, resolve some craft-issues that have been sitting on pause, and hopefully have some of my own non-academic work written, edited, and (ideally) ready to be submitted for publication before the next semester starts. To help with this goal, I've been working on getting together a new work-shopping group, with both online forums for critique, and, hopefully, physical meetings, to help our members push each other toward achieving their personal writing-goals. We are still actively looking for members; If you're interested, stop by the Asbjorn Writers' Workshop group-page on Facebook, take a look around, and send a request to join!

My first piece that I'm working through with the group is tentatively titled "Nails... Dig... In," a short work that I've been somewhat snarkily referring to as "commercially viable, gritty, art-house fiction." At this point I'm in the brainstorming stage of my process... to be perfectly honest, due to a particular quirk in the way that I tend to write, what I'm working on right now is putting together a recording of a track that the DJ in a particular scene might be spinning, to help me to better "get inside" the story and the idea in my head... chances are this track will appear soon from LeVautourEnsemble, since such experimental aspects of my writing-process are pretty much the sole reason that that particular project exists.

In other new-music news, Tipsy Cougar is working on a studio-track? That's right, my noisy indie-electro outfit that has stubbornly prided ourselves for a couple of years on our extremely primitive recording techniques (much of our record "Immaculate Conceptions," which we keep claiming is done and then changing our minds, was recorded live with a single mic in the middle of the room, sometimes straight to cassette-tape) finally decided to see what would happen if we actually {*gasp*} record something. What happens? Well, it's not done yet, but so far it reminds me of what it might sound like if Lou Reed, Prince, and Kanye West teamed up to collaborate on a club-banger for hipster electro-DJ's. I might be exaggerating a bit, but I'm definitely not kidding.

On a more personal note, I'm tired of transition-periods. And it feels, lately, like my life is a constant string of them. I moved from Dover last month, and I'm currently staying with family in Manchester until I move in to a new place in Portsmouth in August. I'm living out of boxes and spending more time than I would like commuting to work on the coast. But, if you're in Manchester and want to meet up before I head back out that way and things get hectic again, be in touch.  

Some Poetry...

Larger Constructions: Dedicated to the Influence of Walt Whitman, The Performance-Artist, Not the Poet, Documenting his Projects in Poetry.

I’m like a
Journalist on
Assignment, embedded
With a community
Of Artists,
Made up of
Mirror-reflections
And shattered
Refractions of
One.

Of course, to
Get the inside
Scoop, the
Journalist must
Also be a
member of the
Community, his
assignment part and parcel
Of the projects of the
Group.



And, some more poetry... this time on video, accompanied by live beats... This is "A Trilogy of Poems About Music."

Finishing Projects, tying-up pre-semester loose-ends...

... or, how many items can I cross off my "I don't have time for this during class so I better get it done now" list in a week?

In my last post, I linked to audio of a song that I had recently completed for LeVautourEnsemble... This week, I finished putting together the video for that track, pieced together out of footage snapped live while I was recording the track, on the webcam of a tiny blue netbook that I like to call the "baby robot." Obviously, there was quite a bit of editing involved here as well... Check it out.



I have also started a new Youtube channel for the Asbjorn Arts Collective. This channel is intended as a sort of evolving museum-collection, a kind of dumping-ground for content from myself, my collaborators and my friends... if you're interested in contributing content, or have material elsewhere on youtube that you'd like me to add to the page's "favorites," email me. The goal is to make this channel into a sort of one-stop-shopping destination for odd, abstract, and interesting videos from artists affiliated with present, past, and future incarnations of the collective. Stop by, check out some videos, leave some feedback, subscribe to the channel.

LeVautourEnsemble... back from the dead.

Sometimes projects that lay dormant for a while come surprisingly back from the dead.

I didn't see it coming, but in retrospect, my accidental decision to revive LeVautourEnsemble seems to make sense. The project was started while I was extremely busy with schoolwork as an undergrad. I think about things in an unusual way sometimes, so occasionally, when I was working on writing something or understanding a literary-concept, I would need to make some noise, drop a "soundtrack" for the scenario to tape in order to arrive at my "Eureka!" moment. LeVautourEnsemble was my solo-project dumping-ground for the outcomes of such sonic experimentation. The medium was mostly electronic, but quite a bit of other sonic textures slipped through the filters at various times as well.

During the couple of years I took off between degrees, I didn't need L.V.E.. I had collaborators around, and time on my hands. Fun records from both Tipsy Cougar and Swords We Swallow came out of this time. My first semester in Grad.school, however, I was back to the grind, with little of the vague "I'm a musician" time to work with that I had gotten temporarily used to. I still had sounds in my head, though, ideas that couldn't be worked through in any medium but sound. That's just how I work. So I kept a recording-file open on my macbook, and my equipment plugged in and ready to go, and when I hit a road-block, I would open it up, make a bit of noise, and let off some scholarly steam.

I ended up working on one track over the course of a single semester. It's called "Metamorphoses"... it's kind of a sonic and conceptual mess (as the single audible product of an entire semester should be, right?), but I'm fairly happy with it, considering...

So, between a new track that fits succinctly into the initial purpose of the project, and the video that I posted on Christmas Eve that I could think of no better umbrella to throw under, I guess LeVautourEnsemble is back... and my record "...whose wings are a dull reality." WASN'T really "completed" in 2006 like I thought that it was.

The track is available streaming on both Myspace (click here), and on our new Facebook fan-page (click here). Become a fan/ friend/ whatever... and let me know what you think! (Additional audio and videos from the project are available at both sites as well, and I would assume that more will follow. But as you can probably tell, this one's pretty much out of my control at this point.)