I am Ashley Elsdon

someone who's doing some things

Author: ashleyelsdon

Storyteller - Poet - Explorer

Going to Denovali Festival

Posted by on in Events, Festivals, MusicLeave a comment

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When I heard the Fennesz was playing I thought that I had to go along to see him again. It’s been a few years and I love his music. Getting to see everything else on the line up was a bonus really. Here’s the running order:

  1. Moon Zero
  2. Greg Haines
  3. Fennesz
  4. Jon Hassel + Ensemble

It was a nice venue on the whole, with the possible exception of people who appeared to think it was ok to just talk all the way through each performance. I just don’t get that at all. Anyway …

I’d never heard Moon Zero before. I thought he was ok. Nice big wall of sound kind of thing. I’ll probably look his stuff up on Spotify and see if I like the recorded versions.

Greg Haines was really good. Again I’d never heard his stuff, but I really did enjoy it and I’m now looking forward to hearing more of his music on Spotify.

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Fennesz was great. Played a lot of pieces I love and of course was the main reason for me going in the first place.

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I was also looking forward to hearing Jon Hassel but could only stay for a short part of his set sadly. Overall it was a good evening with some new things to listen to soon as well.

Investing in Chirp.io

Posted by on in Tech, The Internet of ThingsLeave a comment

I remember seeing Chirp.io back at a Music Tech Fest when it was at Ravensbourne college. It was an interesting idea and I was quite curious about it, but I wasn’t sure how I would use it and how it could be useful. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing of course. Sometimes it takes a while for things to find a place in my world and I like stuff to be actually useful to me.

So when I found that Chirp.io was equity funding on Crowdcube I thought I’d take a look. At the same time they’re expanding chirp into the IoT world with an SDK and Arduino code. It’s getting interesting now. Also, they’ve just announced a Chrome extension, which could be fun.

I wonder where they’ll go next.

This was the first (proper) single I ever bought

Posted by on in History, MusicLeave a comment

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It made a huge impression on me and has influenced my musical choices ever since. I can remember playing it over and over again, both sides of course.

These days, when I find a 7″ copy of it, I feel an overwhelming urge to buy it. So when I found this one in a second hand record store for £1 I did buy it.

I’m sure that eventually I’ll end up with a stack of these. Not that that’s a huge problem of course.

First impressions of Nil By Mouth

Posted by on in Listening, Music1 Comment

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I do like instrumental albums, and I enjoyed listening to this one from Blancmange. Not something they’ve particularly been known for in the past. Having said that, one of my all time favourite pieces from them is an instrumental. ‘Sad day’ is a stunningly beautiful piece in my opinion.

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Anyway, this instrumental album is rather lovely in places and I’ve quite enjoyed hearing it. As with many instrumental albums I’ve found it all too easy to get distracted from the actual listening process and so it’ll need further and more diligent listening I feel. However, it’s off to a good start, and it isn’t something that’ll be consigned to dark places of my music collection.