Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Space at the Waldorf

 I am excited to announce my new artist workspace! I am officially renting a studio space at the gorgeous Waldorf Hotel, across the hall from the Black and Yellow Gallery to work from, hang out at, and eat cauliflower in. I might also occasionally sell things there as well.

 Vancouverites can see some new work at both SPREAD and THE CHEAPER SHOW 10 coming up in the next month!

 My beloved Japanese friends can also see some new work at the CAN YOU SEE THE RAINBOW FROM HERE show in Tokyo.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

The Mall is out now!

I'm afraid I don't have a lot of time to write, but I wanted to take the few free moments that I have to let everyone know that THE MALL is officially out!

You can buy it here at the ACHE RECORDS website as a $4 download: http://www.acherecords.com

"Vancouver, BC wunderkind Andy Dixon has been a punk rocker, visual artist and record label boss, among other vocations. But it's his role as Secret Mommy that has made him a name east of the Rockies. On sophomore LP Mammal Class, Dixon began inserting found nature sounds next to samples of Pink and Shania Twain. On fifth full-length The Mall, Secret Mommy hasn't looked back, this time creating an entire album out of bleeps, chimes and faint voices mined form one of Canada's many bustling shopping malls. At eight tracks under 30 minutes, everything about The Mall works as highlights, from the elastic, spastic rhythms that accompany "Music at the Bay" to the cut/copy mash down of "Clothing Racks (Sears)" and the claustrophobia beats of "Thank You So Much (the Body Shop)." With The Mall, Dixon gives Canada its own shining electronic visionary, giving Matmos, Herbert and the Books a run for their money." - Exclaim.ca


"Vancouver’s Andy Dixon returns with yet another experimental passage of sounds set to clicks, pulses and warm chunky fart-like tones made musical. The Mall is technically a field recording of Dixon’s wanderings through a local mall, which is later chopped, sliced and diced and blended to create a rather listenable piece of music. Comprised of eight movements that blend into each other, The Mall is a landscape of emotive tunes that remind one of the Books, Brian Eno or Mr. Projectile, only more subdued.


The journey begins in an upward-moving elevator. The doors open and you are drawn into the ambience of the human beehive where we buy things en masse. Feet pad past, voices lilt and ring about and money changes hands. With this musical mosaic you are taken to a place quite different than where “normal” music can take you. After a few minutes of ambience, the electronic manipulations kick in more soundly and the flight begins, all the while snippets of dialogue and mall sounds filter through, bringing you back to earth and the present.

For a field recording set to music this is surprisingly easy to enjoy. Spazzy electronic music can be a tough pill to swallow, but I find myself grooving and weaving to this short but sweet bit of tuneful low-key ambiance. Who would have thought that IDM/glitch and a day at the mall would fit so well together?" - Discorder

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Secret Mommy's new album

I'm really excited to be putting the finishing touches on my newest audio output, The Mall. It's going to be a download only release on my own label, Ache.

If you scroll down just a little bit, you'll see the blog entry I made about a recent one-time-only performance for a symposium called Listen Again. Well, the composition I came up with for that evening ended up being something I was quite proud of. I decided to take the piece back to my lab for a bit of retooling. I edited it a little bit, adding a few new moments here and cutting a few moments there. However, I tried my best to retain a certain loose spontaneity that can only be found on "live albums". I didn't want it to lose all of the performance's spirit among too many heavy, precise edits.

The result is an 8 part piece of music called The Mall. It is made entirely of recordings I made of our culture's greatest cathedral, the mall. I travelled to 3 malls in the lower mainland here in British Columbia, capturing hours of audio ranging from intricate recordings of elevator buttons, clothing racks, and footsteps, to huge ambiences, water fountains, and underground parking lots. I then, chopped it all into little bits and reassembled into 30 minutes of "music".

The official release date is April 5th. You will be able to download it here: acherecords.com . I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it!

If you'd like to help me promote this album, please get in touch because, frankly, I am terrible at that aspect of making art (and, come to think of it, life in general).