Well, we are waving a fond farewell to a fantastic summer in NZ, the highlight for us was our set on the main stage at Splore with our new video rig and 3-D cube screens. Was fun to deliver a new look for our show and at such an awesome festival.
We also played at the 40th birthday party for the Govett-Brewster Gallery in New Plymouth in March, a wicked outdoor street party with mapped video projections by Tim Gruchy on the front of the building. We had a chance to re-map the video show to the gallery and dropped a mean set.
We've picked a few of the tracks from these shows and will be putting them up for free download in the near future. We will send a small mail out once these are up.
We've also been working on new material, bouncing stuff back and forwards between each other and further refining our dub techniques. There'll be some tasty new gears out later in the year.
We've also been busy in our individual musical lives, Paddy has been writing music for Atamira Dance Company and the Wearable Arts TV show, and Mike has just completed an exhibition called Underland Domain for the Taupo Festival, an interactive show playing with the vibrant energy of the land and its relationship to the body, working on an arts show for the World Expo in Shanghai, as well as knocking off a remix for Super Cozi (http://www.supercozi.com/) under his Misled Convoy moniker. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________
25.01.10
Ti Coleing has given our UK label an excellent DJ mix of Pitch Black tunes which you can download for
free.
Jeepers - the last month seems more like a year: we made a very quick trip to the States, a roller coaster ride through Europe's capitals and then a snow flaked mission to British Columbia in Canada.
Highlights include the event in Kansas being busted by the police 20 minutes into our set, another rocking night in Zagreb, playing with Zion Train in Vienna and driving across the stunning landscape of Canada to Haunted Hill for a superb Halloween rave.....what a night! Hats off to DJM for the best dubstep set we have heard in ages.
Many thanks are due to our tireless compatriot Mikey Ray for his sterling work helping us out all over Europe, to all the amazing promoters who put us on, and most of all to those of you who came and danced your socks off.
We are now getting ready for the final shows of the year: four in Australia and two in New Zealand. We are performing with dub maestro International Observer and his son, the cheeky riddim renegade otherwise known as Tapes. You can check them out online at www.myspace.com/internationalobserver and www.myspace.com/tapeshifi.
Paddy is also off touring with Salmonella Dub, having produced much of their new album, while Mike has been reviving his Misled Convoy guise, remixing Warp Technique and digging out archive recordings from his garage, as well as planting tomatoes.
We have recently reorganised our YouTube page (www.youtube.com/pitchblackofficial) to include live footage and videos made by others. If you have uploaded anything of ours, please send us the link so we can add you to the playlists. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________
22.09.09
We've been pretty busy since our last post: two wonderful excursions to North America and some shows in Auckland road testing new material in front of an audience. We have also knocked out remixes for Tiki ("Sleep Whisperer" on the new "Flux" album), The Laya Project ("A New Day" on the forthcoming remix album) and International Observer ("House of the Rising Dub" on the digital EP of the same name). Paddy has been busy producing Salmonella Dub's new album (out in November) and Mike has been working on the forthcoming World of Wearable Arts and New Zealand Music Awards shows.
We are now setting up for the final tours of the year: a return to North America for shows in the US and Canada, followed by our only European dates this year. Then we are heading over to Australia for shows with International Observer and Tapes, who are also playing with us at our final NZ gigs for 2009 the week after. All the dates are on the live page.
Remixes of our track "Harmonia" will finally come out as two digital EP's in November: we ended up with so many great mixes from our remix competition that we have split them into two very different selections. Finally, we have started writing tracks for a new album, and are also remixing our European label mates Warp Technique.
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14.07.2009
Hi all. It's been a busy couple of months since our last update!
Since then we have played a stack of shows across the USA and also Australia. This week Paddy and I are setting up our creative composition rig at Coherent nightclub in Auckland.
The aim is to create some new vibes to develop for our live shows and then for the next album. We will be playing this development on Thursday 16th July at Coherent, 262 K'rd at 9.30pm. Entry is by koha(donation) We will also be playing @ Club Sandwiches in Wellington this weekend. Would love to see you for a drink and to have an audience for these new tracks. Please feel free to bring friends Look forward to sharing these raw new ideas with you
Mike and Paddy
PS. Check the gig page for upcoming US and European shows.
We'll also be back in Aussie with International Observer later in the year!
Stay tuned! _____________________________________________________________________________________________________
25.04.09
^$&%#! Can you believe it's almost May?? This year seems to be rocketing along... We hope it's been treating you as well as it has us: we have had a pleasantly cruisey start to the year, with only a handful of shows and a couple of festivals.
We haven't been resting on our laurels though, and are proud to announce the imminent release of Rhythm, Sound And Music, a collection of remixes of tracks from Rude Mechanicals. Some of our favourite from artists around the world have stepped up to the challenge of tweaking the originals: Bluetech, International Observer, Simon Flower, Patch, Kerretta, Friends Electric and many more. The full track listing is below.
You can check out the tunes in full at last.fm or most of them are also up on our myspace. You can either buy the 14-track CD from one of the online stores below, or if you are one of those thoroughly modern interweb peeps who prefers a download, you can get the surgically-enhanced 20-track ultra augmented bumper edition!!
To celebrate the new release, we are heading across to Australia in June for some shows in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, and then swiftly over to the West Coast of the USA for a handful more. All these dates are below, we'd love to see ya! We will also be heading to the UK and Europe in October, so keep an eye out for us and we'll keep you updated closer to the time.
Enjoy the tuneage, we look forward to seeing you on the dancefloor sometime soon!
Release Dates
NZ - May 4th in stores, April 27th online
AUS - May 30th in stores, May 12th online
USA - May 16th in stores, May 12th online
UK/EU - May 26th in stores, May 12th online
Online Stores:
NZ - available from Amplifier for NZ$22.95 + p&p
AUS - available from Vitamin for A$20 + p&p
USA - available from CD Baby for US$9.99 + p&p
UK - available from Dubmission Records for £6.96 incl p&p
EU - available from Dubmission Records for £7.70 incl p&p
Special downloads:
NZ - 20 track version available from Ampilfier for NZ$19.95
USA - 20 track version available from iTunes for US$9.99 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________
The remix parts for Harmonia are now up as a 103mb Zip file
The Zip file contains 24bit WAV files and an Ableton Live 6 Project with the WAVs laid out in Session View.
If you're not a Live user, just grab the WAVs from the Samples > Imported folder.
......... Why are we doing this? What's our aim for all this?
Well, firstly we love hearing our stuff remixed!! We love hearing other people's take on our sounds.
In putting out this remix kit we also have two plans:
- We will be releasing a Pitch Black Remixed CD in the first half of 2009. We will put one or two of these Harmonia Remixes on it. We will split the ownership and publishing of these remixes 50/50 between the Remixer and Pitch Black, and also pay an advance of NZ$500. In addition to the advance, the remixer will receive 50% of any money generated from the sale or licensing of the Remix.
- We will also be putting a selection of the remixes on a digital download single in early 2009. Ownership and publishing of these will also be 50/50 Remixer/Pitch Black, but we won't be able to pay out an advance on these. However, you the remixer will still receive 50% of any money generated from the sale or license of your Remix.
Can I use the parts in my own tracks? A: YES! If you want to use the parts in your own tracks or shows - please do! However, if you are going to make money off these tracks, please get in touch with us and we'll work out an appropriate and fair arrangement.
Basically: just let us know, we'll say yes, and cut us in on a bit of the action. In putting this out there, we're hoping that open-ness and honesty will prevail and good times will continue to be had by all. (How's that for the Pitch Black Corporate Mission Statement?)
Happy Remixing!
If you have any queries or questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us.
Finished remixes can be sent to us via a file sharing service like yousendit.com or by post to either Po Box 78014 Grey Lynn Auckland New Zealand 1030 or PO Box 14988, London SW6 2WL, UK.
To celebrate the stupendous achievement of having 10,000 friends on Myspace and because there's been a general demand for live tracks, we have posted up two FREE downloads on our website - live versions of "1000 Mile Drift" and "Rude Mechanicals".
Please go to http://www.pitchblack.co.nz/livetrack - "1000 Mile Drift" is available from that page, but for "Rude Mechanicals" you will need to enter an email address to download it - cheeky, we know, but we would like to be able to keep in touch with you more easily than this system allows.
Anyways, happy listening and hope to see you on a dancefloor sometime soon!
