FREEZE-FRAME! Amsterdam Artist makes Studio1824.com proud

Every so often you come across a stranger on the internet, that you call out to, rattle a knee-jerk phrase to, or send a request to – and let the ether take care of encrypted delivery down the wire, up to satellites and into a near-anonymous in-tray. At least if you are me you do. I am forever looking for collaborators that come up with the goods, that actually, you know, run with it, and that spend minutes of this finite life coming up with something really worthwhile. Tonight was the culmination of one of those occurrences where the internet just WORKS. Because t’internet is only as good as the DNA either side of two keyboards. If the funders of this project read this, and I hope they do, I want to them to know how tonight, the project just got amazing value for money. We owe an artist big-time.

So… I met this artist either on facebook or linkedin. I’ve had a bottle of Zinfandel tonight so I can’t really remember. Don’t judge the wine. If I am honest, I was a little disappointed by my recent lack of audiences to shows. I type this text in a village of 900 in the far east corner of Caledonia. There’s an opening on Friday. We’ll be lucky to get 20 or 30 – but if you are reading this, you might make it 21 or 31. Mind you, I’ve been impressed by Sutherland audiences before. If you can read this text you are invited.

OK. I set up a record label.

The label is for recordings about, or made in, Helmsdale Icehouse. I am now expanding my rules a little to say it can include other icehouses. It will primarily be a netlabel. www.studio1824.com is launched this coming Friday. www.studio1824.com is the end of my residency, this week in Helmsdale Icehouse. But I will manage the label after the end of my residency.

I’ve been to the village of www.helmsdale.org three times now. One of those times was a month. And I wanted this record label to release these recordings I have made from a 1964 cassette recording of a fisherman called Neil MacKay. And it is. Lots of it. But I have also made it global. At least European.

Shailoh Phillips is about my age and works as a Researcher and screenwriter at VPRO Television in Amsterdam. She has made for me “a short underground film and audio piece. Literally underground.” Her words. And it was. Underground. Sort of. She found an icehouse near Amsterdam. She found musicians. She got in. She was good to her word. She made a superb professional recording of this collaboration by writing lovely lyrics and making a film I am jealous of and then posting it on youtube. She’s a do-er. I am actually slightly moved, well, no, moved that someone would find time in their week to write words, music, use their creative network and a no-bullshit approach for free, for me and you, to make a wonderful piece about an icehouse at her end of the world. I will be screening this piece on Friday night at the opening in Helmsdale. I want her to come and be part of it.

I just want to say Thank you miss Phillips. I haven’t posted to this blog in a few weeks. I feel rough. I had to take a half day off work today. But I suddenly feel a lot better. This is great, confident work.

We have never met.