Just returned from a tour of Flanders with SANS: we were very well looked after, and the venues were part of a well co-ordinated network of cultural centres, all within an hour's drive of each other. So there was time to roam Ghent and Antwerp, taking in (among other things) the sound of the local bells: I'm writing a trio for tenor sax, marimba and carillon, to be played by the ensemble Parillax at a Canberra concert on January 21st at the National Carillon on Aspen Island. It'll be a somewhat damaged version of something familiar from The Nutcracker…

All those SANS gigs were recorded: there'll be a fair bit of listening and editing in January which we hope will yield an album's worth of material, ready for the next tour. That's to start in May, and we'll be in England this time.

Back in October I did some sound design for the Jigsaw Theatre show 'Michael Francis Willoughby in Elohgulp'.  The under(bath)world of 'Elohgulp' was a real sonic meddler's playground: voicing a monstrous but lonely sludgebeast plus several Sad and Sorrowful Wails, a Great Big Snorkelling Roar, some Bellybees, and a darksome subplugholian soundscape including splishlets, the odd gratuitous intestinal rumble and the slow dripdripdripping of slimy stuff. Mostly realised vocally, but some bass clarinet crept in too. Very good at creeping in, bass clarinets are…

Here's a nice review.

Now working on the FunMusic for Little Kids Christmas collection. For next Christmas. In the never-ending quest for new sounds I've managed to inject bombarde, gardon and melodeon into this one. And the bass ukulele!