21/12/14

Lots of gigs in Coventry, classical and electronic this year, another voyage to India and low and behold I'm hitched. I cannot complain. Next year I look forward to more solo gigs and developing more my sitar skills. The new Hot Roddy album will finally come out on Bit Phalanx I am assured and the next gig in London is a 15 minute set at The Windmill, Brixton, on Thursday 12th February.

16/03/14

The Spirit Of Gravity collective in Brighton gave me my first ever gigs back in the early noughties and most of their compilations include a track of mine. Now I’m very happy that Same Actor – Music For Concrete Dawns constitutes the second ever release on the Spirit of Gravity bandcamp.

08/03/14

Hello from Coventry :) More confusion and stagnation on my part means less progress. Or a lot of time spent reconsidering what it means to make music and why I do it. In my twenties such thoughts weren't as prevalent because it was all new to me but now I surely get the same bus from running music sessions in the community and the promotion and preparation of this glorious day job maybe takes up the energy that used to go into moving 'Hot Roddy' and 'Same Actor' forward. I really typed the words "projects" then but I stopped myself because this music is more than a project. I have been saving new tracks on to hard drives constantly since 2000 that's for sure but solo public performance has ebbed away.

A few conclusions for the future…

collaborations are good for me. I look forward for example with more music making with Stuart Estell (one of the two tuba players that comprise Ore)

I will continue to build on my own sitar player, hugely influenced by Pt Shivnath Mishra of Benares as well as Ramesh Chandra, using it within and without my study of classical raga and tala.

I'll continue trying to make forward looking music and that seems like more of a challenge than ever. the whole of my solo album "The Lemniscate" was kind of about the subject of there being infinite good music available everywhere all the time. Even if there have been libraries of books too vast for human consumption for a long time, the internet has made things exceedingly daunting. And yet I'm not bemoaning this amazing resource that I'm lucky to have full access to (at least compared to those in countries where it's denied). I guess I need to keep on writing, recording and playing more than anyone particularly needs to listen.

Nevermind, for better or for worse I'm writing to point you in the direction of new solo music by me Chris Cook aka Same Actor / Hot Roddy in 2014

Here's some Bit-Phalanxremixes of Barbara Morgenstern including my popular Hot Roddy remixes

http://bitphalanx.bandcamp.com/album/springs-sprung-ep

Bit Phalax will soon release my EP “Busy Cancelling Things” and my album “Absolute Zero” while Spirit of Gravity will put on their new net label an EP of mine with the working title of “Sitars, Guitars, Synths and Noises”.

Finally I'll a play a solo gig at Taylor Johns in my new home of Coventry on Monday 26th May. This is big news by my standards, solo gigs are a rarity these days!

03/11/12

I have a remix on a new compilation CD, ANTIBOTHIS curated by the Bip Hop founder Philippe Petit. The remix is of "Devine" by my friend Bela Emerson. It looks like a really great comp to be a part of, featuring also Machinefabriek, Cindytalk, Murcof, Scanner, Si cut dB, Mark Beazley and KK Null.

Meanwhile I crop up playing sitar and guitar on this free album by Wil Miles called Near Wonstonia. Recorded by a stretch of the A12 built in east London in the 1990' s, 'Near Wanstonia' is an atmospheric journey, a distillation of a rich variety of sounds.Almost twenty years ago, large scale protests against the construction of the road were ignored and Wanstonia was one of several 'free states' set up by occupying environmental activists along the proposed route. The album, although at times resonant of sadness felt, is also a resilient, optimistic and an occasionally humourus expression of sonic life by the fast lane.

The Near Wanstonia pre-launch event and private view is on Friday 7th December 2012 @ the 491 Gallery, Grove Green rd. Leytonstone, London, E114AA. 8 'til late free entry
Upstairs : Near Wanstonia Photographic exhibition and album installation
Downstairs, Live : Foulkstone, Allen Strachnid, H 0 0 v e s, Baby, Bela Emerson, Nick Wilsdon, Debora Nash, Same Actor . . .


20/08/12

Three years since I last posted. So long that the old domain name was allowed to expire and get taken in a totally different direction. So welcome to sameactor.com and to the latest news about my musical exploits. Having enjoyed working on music workshops with elderly, learning difficulties and mental health groups in London I know that while I regret not writing, recording, releasing or performing much solo stuff in recent years, I am lucky to spend my days making music with people. Amazing people at that.

The big 'Chris Cook solo music' news is that there is a new album finished. Prompting this new lease of online life for myself is actually a release not by Hot Roddy or Same Actor, but 'Chris Cook'. The first release under my own name, "The Leminiscate", a free 10 track download album on Peter Nelson's Wombnet label. It's been great adding lyrics to my music, and using my own voice. The album includes the best of many many vocal tracks created over the last two years. It comes with a cover photography by Ben Cox and I've written an essay to try and explain the themes that I'm trying to communicate with the release.

Meanwhile I've recorded lots of instrumental tracks that I'm looking to release somehow. It is for ome reason relevant for me to explain that I moved away from the North Circular Road. My East London jobs kept me form straying too far but I spent most of 2010 in a warehouse in Stratford, 2011 in a warehouse in 2011 and now I'm in a beautiful building in Walthamstow. In each place I've discoveerd and shared a lot of music, notable culminating in a collaboration with Tru Tiger. I'm looking forward to playing more live solo sitar gigs though I've no plans to incorporate singing into gigs. Since 2009 I've also been performing regularly with Jerico Orchestra and I've played some (Indian) classical sitar sets.

25/07/09

Hard to believe it's now a year since I did those shows in Norway and Germany. this year I've enjoyed revisiting Germany and collaborating with some amazing musicians. Shows this summer include Freak Magnet in London on Wednesday 29th July and the Dislocation Festival in Luton on Saturday 22nd August, all details are on the myspace.

In the discogs page you will find a few 2009 compilations that feature my music. Fothcoming releases inclusde a split tape with minimal guitarist Timothy C Holehouse and a collaborative 3"CD with Isnaj Dui on Discordance.

On thing that I have been busy this year is relaunching my website for listing experimental/electronic/improv/ interesting gigs and workshops in London. These are events that have nothing to do with me except that I want to help pulicise them. Check out experimental-list.com

16/11/08

Here's a bit of youtube a nice souvenir of the all night White Night festival at the Phoenix Gallery in Brighton, snippets of the all the wide variety of performers.

Same Actor "More and More Finite" EP is available for free at acroplane . Recorded in my home at the time, the tractor shed in Epping Froest, it features "Fears Prioritised" which is one my favourite tracks ever.

30/07/08

In two days time I'll be taking my sitar on an aeroplane. Hopefuly it will survive the experience and I'll go on to have spectacular shows in Stavenger on 2nd Aug, Hannover on 4th and at Incite's house in Hamburg on 5th Aug. I feel priviledged and lucky.

More of my music will soon appear via this net label acroplane

18/03/08

"The Of End The Garden" is the new Same Actor 3" CD EP on a fairly new UK label called Discordance. It's all instrumental but there are still some underlying themes:- paranoia, the descent into madness, climate change and the cosy end of the night feeling when everything feels great even though you've only got one hour of sleep before you get up work. Well those themes aren't actually very obvious but they were in my head at the time of putting it together and it's certainly quite a sober 20 minutes of music.

"Strophe1" one of many new tracks recorded in this big house with big rooms last year. I've been starting most of my Same Actor live sets off with this very fragile structure. The live sitar plays dorian phrases against sampled sitar quarter tones.
"Don't Wait To Be Invited" .... to the asylum, early Same Actor recording from 2003 in Brighton fitted the creepy vibe
"The Overtaker" the opposite of an undertaker, a short burst of sitar samples made in Romford last year
"Text Rain" this track I made in 2004 is the like the low point (or the highlight?) of the EP, I haven't made many tracks as dark as this. It should make evrything else seem optimistic. Actually it's all made from a 2003 Urban Myth CDR. Urban Myth was a Brighton improvising group with Henry Collins, Adam Bushell, Jim Black and Kirstin Elliot. they released a recording of their gig with Steve Beresford "Live at the Friends Meeting House" on Planet Mu. Well anway needless to say this tune just uses sounds from another UM session that Jim Black gave me and doesn't sound anything like UM.
"Jaune4" sitar stretched beyond its elastic limit, approaching the plastic
"I stand still as I ride in circles" another recording from this big house this time involves me on my bike going round and round the micrpphone. I thought if I went fast enough I might get somewhere by drilling into the ground but alas is just turned out to be a popular mellow song at the end of an otherwise pretty difficult listening experience...

Just finished the artwork so it'll be out in the next few months.I know you're probably a lot smarter than me but I feel compelled to warn you not to put 3" CDs in Macbooks with those thin slots. Twenty minutes of your life you'll never get back.

30/12/07

And so there's only two nights left of this year, and then two years left of this decade. Well this hasn't been a bad year for me although I've hardly made much musical advancement in all honesty. Most of my music has been involved with my dayjobs more than being a solo electronic music artist so to speak. Maybe that's not such a bad thing: I'm lucky to have this fulfilling work: music sessions with elderly and special needs groups. Some exceptions though: I recorded a new Same Actor album in the big communal rooms of this wonderful building I'm lucky to live in, and collaborations with vocalist Charlie Porter yielding great results.

I've inevitabely seen (or heard?) some good gigs this year. This isn't hard living in London where I realised there are interesting shows just about every night. (Except over Christmas and New Years). Two very different sets that spring to mind would be the beautiful Society of Imaginary Friends at The Cross Kings and the noise of Bloodyminded downstairs at The Foundry. My favourite films were "The Lives Of Others" and I saw Tarkovsky's "Stalker" for the first time, I still haven't found a spare three hours for "Inland Empire". Of the 40 or so shows I played this year my favourite was probably the Halloween set at Clean in Coventry: a rare coincidence of the night being good and me playing a half decent set.

Next year I don't think I'll be playing so many gigs and only two releases are planned: a 3"CD on Discoordance ("King Hell") and an untitled 7" on Peter Nelson's Womb label. Now that there's terrabytes of media available on the net to keep us amused until the end of time, I'm kind of going for a 'less is more' approach, and keep all the nice but boring tracks on my rickety old harddrive.

At this reflective time, I send out peace and love to all those who've spurred me on in one way or another this year. Hope you find happiness and success in 2008.

09/11/07

New website... finally but then you've probably already worked that one out