This piece presents, Always Looking Over My Shoulder by Superhand which is a 15-minute live music experience available to stream via Soundcloud. Superhand is a freak-blues music group based in Cardiff, South Wales, and one of the chosen artists to take part in Wales Arts Review’s most recent series, Artists in Residence. Throughout 2017 these artists will take a leading creative role in what Wales Arts Review publishes, centring their skills on a challenging project over the course of a month. We were inundated with applications, receiving hundreds of emails about the positions, and it was no easy task whittling down all that talent to this final eleven. Our team of six editors debated long into the night, and in the end, we decided on a collection of people who we most want to work with, and whose work excites us. We think you will be excited by them too.
For our A.I.R. with Wales Arts Review, we wanted to create live improvised pieces of music and this is our first work. We often use this process, as part of our writing, to create new ideas. This time we are sharing these off the cuff ideas and vibes with you. This is part of our musical development, as a two-piece.
American Teeth, was our first album, we created it with some level of experimentation, but also with traditional songwriting methods. You write the song, then produce it, or produce the music, and sing a song over it…etc. During this process, we created a big sound, which included lots of live instrumentation: live drums, bass, strings, horns, organs, synths, and then (obviously, in hindsight) we found this hard to recreate in a live setting.
Since that time, we have been working more, and more with electronic equipment, evolving and experimenting more in the electronic field. Technology is moving fast, and there are loads of new toys which we are discovering to use to create an interesting sound as a two-piece.
We have been listening to and are influenced by experimental music from the 60’s/70’s and the German New Wave era – people like Neu, Can, Faust, also the improvised work of Yoko Ono. We like the freedom in these musical movements.
As a group, we experiment with making sonic loops and capturing the live moments.
This track was made using a Moog Sub37 and a Moog Modular 15 synthesiser, Elektron and Korg drum machines, vintage and modern delay effects and Roland and Korg looping machines. It was recorded as a live improvised performance.
Warning #explicitlyricalcontent. Please play at maximum volume and set aside 15 minutes to experience this work.
This piece, Always Looking Over My Shoulder by Superhand is part of the Artists in Residence series.
