Imyme: Cue the Pyrotechnics.
Sometimes you come across something that you love and enjoy so much that you feel you need to share it with the world. Luckily for me I have the ‘Brighton Collective’ to do this.

I came across this album through a group of friends, that I have actually known for a very long time and we go way back. It was this group of friends that have worked on this album and created it and the mastermind behind the whole project was Joe Isherwood.

This album is so beautifully produced and the level oftalent that has gone into it is stunning. There is no single Genre to this masterpiece but I believe it has a little something for everyone and when played through a really decent quality sound system you almost feel wrapped around with soothing sound and beautiful riffs and melodies.

“What I wanted to achieve was not to make money, in fact I’ve probably lost money with this project, but what really matters to me right now is making people find something new in sound and sonic art that they can enjoy whether it be on an intellectual level, emotional level, or even just something they like to dance to. The album is one big force of multiple expressions focussed through varying mediums of style and genre and was catered by myself and my productions and compositions in many ways, but I definitely owe a lot of it’s resounding success the talented people who took part in it’s creation:” (Joe Isherwood)

A lot of artists contributed to this Album and are listed bellow. All deserve the recognition.

Jim & Oli O’Gallivan (O’Gallivan Brothers), Ben Goodfellow (Emrys), Sophie Burrows, Hunter Evans (Enora), Oli Austin (Moulettes), Emma Gatrill (Coda Luna), Ted Brunning (Hyper Acid), Katey Singleton (Otherwise I’m Oblivious), Engine Room, Natalie Santana, Franzi Mullers, Rose O’Donnell, Viktor Nenov and Rose O’Gallivan (artwork).

“All of these people did fantastic jobs and deserve a massive round of applause.”

All tracks are original compositions excluding:
Your Protector by Fleet Foxes
Twice by Little Dragon
&
I Need A Dollar by Aloe Blacc

“This is my 3rd ‘solo’ album although there is an album of 15 tracks due to be recorded with an old school band ‘MetroGnome’, a few Drum & Bass tracks due to be released on an EP called ‘Project IKC EP’ by Imyme (my music alias) and James Jones (MC, Lyricist), and a piss-take band called ‘Satan’s Peg’ featuring Imyme and Ben Oliver (Crumple Face) which now have around 5 complete songs which are building up to make a comedy, electronic, metal fusion album.
I also have plans to start up a Electro-Swing outfit with Rob Carmier (Robleblob from Brighton’s ‘Flash Bang Band’) where I will be offering my composition and production skills again in a more live performance context mixing electronica and dance with 1950′s swing jazz influence.
My previous two albums were ‘Clicker Head’ (2007) and ‘Truthful Emu’ (2008).. not forgetting the album I did with ‘Othewise I’m Oblivious’ called ‘Ideas For Feathers’ (2009)

So I’ve done a fair bit already but nothing to match say Schubert’s 900 lieder and 9 symphonies he managed to write before he died at the age of just 31. Which is most often the context I try to aim for, I wish to compose sound of all kinds for the rest of my life and would love a stable income from what I can enjoy doing and do well. Composing from visual media is what I’m currently aiming for with my Uni course ‘Digital Music & Sound Arts’ but also being able to make money from the music I write in my own time would be amazing.” (Joe Isherwood)

This album will also be sold in ‘Resident Music’ & ‘Rounder Records’ (Brighton) so if you happen to know a friend who may also like this sound collective, then help Joe get some sales in the shops, or if you’re not local to Brighton then just email me him at: imyme91@googlemail.com

Will Brett-Atkin

Remember the names! James Caldicott and Samuel Apley, the founders of arts collective Circus Kinetica have big plans. I caught the inventive duo at their base beneath the Embassy Court edifice, where they craft their naturally powered automata and autostrumenta (self-playing instruments) from recycled materials.

How did you start working together?

James: We both came to Brighton to study in the same year, but didn’t know each other. Sam was at the Art College and I was up at the Architecture Department at Mithras House. After finishing uni, I used the foyer of Embassy Court as an Open House to exhibit some musical windmills that I’d made, with a soundtrack of the windmills recorded at different places in the building. It won first prize in the Brighton Fringe Visual Arts thing and I met Sam at the same time. Everyone had been telling me about this guy in town who’d been making water-powered instruments…

S: Yeah, big rain-powered instruments. I’d been commissioned after I finished my Wood, Metal, Ceramics and Plastics degree but was just working as a fabricator, doing welding and industrial stuff. I came to James’ Windjam private view and that was it. Quit my job and was like, ‘right, let’s start making things’.

J: Secret Garden Party festival were looking, so we made this piece with a piano. A large scorpion creature with a piano harp in it, a wind device to play it and loads of hammers for people to play it themselves. I think we did the whole thing in eight days, from drawing the thing to taking apart two pianos, using the big machines up at a forge near Stanmer Park, then coming down here to finish little bits and setting it up… What happened next?

S: Then Beachdown Festival…

J: Life water bottle company contacted us because someone who worked for them lived upstairs [Embassy Court]. They said, ‘We want to make a recycling point but turn it into a bit of a visual spectacular – have you got any ideas?’ We suggested this thing using old tent poles and bottles… went to V festival to go tatting for tent poles. Going to after-festivals, it’s like going to the end of the world.

S: As far as you can see, just derelict chaos. You find incredible things. Tents with crates of beer in them. Lights. Stereos.

J: The amount of barbecue packs – unbelievable. We had enough for every other festival after that.

You could make some monumental sculpture using everything that you found after a festival…

J: With the dome tents alone you could make the most massive stage, or all stitched together into a huge hot air balloon…

One of your planned projects on the website is a tent.

S: We’re hoping to do that this year.

J: We’d like to take the tent to festivals, events and communities and be able to do big visual spectaculars. So it would be for staging as well as for our own thing – running workshops.

S: The original idea was to create a travelling mechanical circus, hence the name.

J: We want to get into producing electricity onsite – renewable energies. Eventually we’d like to go to places where they need small renewables and do projects just using the materials they have around them. That’s the dream…

Can you tell me about your inspirations?

J: ‘An outsider artist’, Bob Rowberry mentored me. He makes mechanical contraptions out of recycled metals and wind-driven stuff. Little wind contraptions using feathers and tin cans. I worked with him for quite a few summers, giving workshops and doing site décor for festivals and events.

Theo Jansen, the Dutch sculptor who makes walking wind-powered creatures on the beach. Jean Tinguely and Alexander Calder. I happened upon the Tinguely museum in Basel when we were doing this mad drive through Europe at Easter time. Just mind-blowing. He was from a similar background to me, a farming community, so loads of the machines were made out of bits of old farm equipment.

Other inspirations? Coffee. Coffee’s quite a big inspiration for me. Green tea for Sam. And biscuits!

S: Definitely biscuits… Music. James – he’s changed the way I work, taught me new techniques, new ways of looking at things. Mutoid Waste and Arcadia. It’s recycled sculpture, but it’s big… messy… diesel… junky… real 2000AD. Post-apocalyptic. They’re ecologically minded but looking at it from a different perspective.

J: Sam’s an amazing fiddle player and all his first sculptures were all string pieces – bows and sound chambers… There’s a delicacy about your work, Sam, even though you’re a blacksmith fabricator.

Reminds me of Studio Ghibli flying ships. Slightly whimsical, not entirely functional, little motifs…

S: Yeah, it’s got a bit of a Heath Robinson vibe to it.

J: We have plans for an airship…

You can see Circus Kinetica’s work as part of Hove Museum and Art Gallery’s Precious exhibition until May 2010. Circus Kinetica are also producing a collaborative visual arts / performance piece for the Brighton Fringe – The Deadly Sins of Palilalia.

For commissions, sales or to look at their range of recycled wood-burning stoves, contact James and Sam via their website at http://www.circuskinetica.com/.

Written by Jo Dimbleby