FEBRUARY - MA.

With no money [or internet for all of February] I had no option but to stay home and work for a few weeks on the new MA album. The live parts were recorded on Dec 16th @ Fish Market studios, with Ben Lamdin engineering.

For those who don't know: Ma is led by saxophonist Tom Challenger [or Cake, as we call him] of Outhouse/Red Snapper. Before I joined, Ma had existed for some time as a trio with Ross Stanley on organ and Dave Smith on drums. They recorded a great album Jyketie in 2008 that sadly very few people have heard or probably even know about. They began to change direction when I saw them with Steve Arguelles guesting on live sampling [also a drummer, check his duo Ambitronix / his label Plush]. Ma had never sounded like a regular organ/sax jazz group but now they sounded even more original.

After seeing this I basically invited myself to join them around May 2009. I used to do live sampling with [TTT's] Tom Rogerson, it's actually how we started off - in a group with Cake too. The two Toms also did a really interesting duo record last year Cable Street Shorts [recorded at Urchin Studios].

MA is the one band I'm in where I don't play guitar. I did some synth stuff on the record, but otherwise it’s just live sampling/processing of feeds from Cake, Ross and Dave mostly using Ableton Live.

On the 20th MA did a gig for the Loop Collective's Loop Festival at the Vortex [above photo from soundcheck: Alex Bonney, who was also on hand to assist with live sound]. A few weeks later it got aired on Jazz on 3.

'Noir' - MA. [Live @ Vortex 20.02.10] by mattcalvert

JANUARY - TTT EP3

Finished EP3 on Jan 4th. Like EP2 it was made quickly [recorded Dec 19-20 in Urchin Studios, 21-23, 27-29 at mine, and mixed at Urchin 30-31 + Jan 2 with out friend Dan Cox, then mastered on 4th]. Lots of the ideas had been in place since August/September, but we didn't record until December mostly through hesitating about new ideas since we were aiming for something different, but reassuringly it got some good feedback when released in April [on Blood and Biscuits]:




BBC
Subba Cultcha 7/10
Soundblab 8/10
Glasswerk 8/10
Alt Sounds