The players will be the same as last time, namely...

• Michael Bearpark (guitar)
• Os (keyboard/EWI/laptop)
• Steve Bingham (electric violin)
• Nick Cottam (bass)
• Andrew Booker (electronic drums)

I, yes I, the last named above, that is I, who have committed practically zero effort in advance of most of our outings this year, have been preparing for this gig. So has Os. Os has been slimming down his gear, and one item for the chop was his headphone amp, which was consuming an entire U of rack space just so I could listen to his click. He offered to buy me a small headphone amp if I could accommodate one. In fact I bought a Behringer Xenyx 802 mini-mixer instead. I already have a mixer in my live setup, either the Yamaha MG10/2 I'm using at the moment, or the larger Spirit Folio F1 14-2 if I have my laptop, for merging the two drum modules and other midi note sources and effects returns. Behringer call their Xenyx 802 an 8-input desk, but excluding stereo and aux returns it's really only a 4-input unit in practice. However that's easily enough to take a line-level click signal from Os and be a useful monitor of other stuff too.

For over a year now I have been taking my Boss RC-2 looping pedal out of its box at some gigs and processing midi notes, AM radio or my own vocals. I rarely do any singing these days, thus my vocal muscles have regressed almost to nostalgia, to something I used to have. In other words, I don't have much control over my voice, so if I want to do any live singing, I have to be able to concentrate on it, and I have to be able to hear it. My vocal looping is all textural - if I wanted rhythmic looping I would either have to sync up with Os or get him to loop me - so my approach is to fade a sung note in and out within the loop. That means I don't want the note to be heard until I've faded it in, but so far my only monitor has been my drum amp. You can see the problem... how do I make sure I'm singing a good note before I fade it up? So far, even in the relatively quiet ambience of Improvizone, it's been nearly impossible, which is why I've hardly ever tried vocal looping. When I did, with one or two exceptions, it was generally an embarrassing mess.

With a second mixer, I can now wire things up like this...

Notice my output is mono, going from my main Yamaha mixer to Os from the left channnel only. That frees up the right channel, and here I'm sending it to the looper, so I can select what to include or exclude just by panning. For my mic I use a Sure SM10 headset mic, going into the Behringer desk for me to monitor it through earphones. The Behringer aux send goes a right-only channel on the Yamaha desk, meaning it won't be heard until it has been through the looper. Additionally, my little Boss DB-12 metronome can also provide a reference note, which I can monitor while I'm singing. I've been trying this at home and it all seems fairly comfortable. I could even loop the reference note too, but it's kind of a boring squarewave.

I was thinking I could monitor the drums before playing them, to make sure I had chosen appropriate sounds. A lot of the time, after I've changed to a new patch at the beginning of a piece, you can hear me tapping discretely around the kit checking what's there. It would be much more convincing if I knew already, or at least made any adjustments to the sound before I started playing. That would only have been possible before by unplugging stuff. Now, I can send the spare aux output back to the Behringer monitor mixer. Slight problem with that is that Aux 2 on the Yamaha desk is post-fade, so I would need to pan hard right if I wanted to silence the drums but still have a loop going at the same time.

For my effects unit I'm currently using a Zoom 505 II unit that Nick gave me after he repaired it himself. Apparently it had been retrieved from a rubbish dump. I can see why it found its way there in the first place. No way would I use a crummy unit like this for any hi-fi application, nor any purpose for which I required any control whatsoever over the effects parameters. This is factory preset purgatory. However, even though this gig may be its last, it has contributed some filthy corruptions to my drum sounds over the last four gigs, especially the distortions.

As the local Roding Valley teenagers might say, what is it, like, one Godzillion years since I last posted a download from a gig? What is it, like, well long ago... And the like. Nor have I written anything about the last four. So here's a quick round-up of the last four.

Plough 31 Mar 2010
For this one we invited back Simon Taylor on trumpet. Simon is the only trumpet player we've had. Improvizone try Simon. Improvizone have no need to look anywhere else. He da man, yo. Plus we tried out bassplayer Ken Whaley this time. Nothing wrong with Nick, quite the opposite indeed, I just like to ring the changes, expand the gene pool, chop and change, pick and mix, generally make shuffly with the personnel every so often. Or at least I like the idea of being able to do that. Besides encouraging variety in our music, it means I can book gigs whenever it suits me, and bring in anyone who's available. The more people on the trusted list, the better. True, you'll notice mostly the same people have been doing the Improvizones for the last couple of years, because I like settling into a comfort zone as much as the next person that sits on a chair all day. But it can make the gigs harder to book. Anyway, Ken definitely chiselled himself and his semi-acoustic onto my not very long list of trusted bassplayers. Yes, you could tell he was having to get his head around my quirky random drumming for the first time, but his sound was great and in the second half we were cruising. Next time he plays with us it will be even better. For much of these gigs I'm trying to concentrate on my playing, knowing I have the luxury of listening properly to what everyone else was doing later. That's sounds rubbish of me, I know. Anyway, by now my left foot practice was starting to pay off. I could use it for alternate doubles, playing different sounds to the right foot, freeing up the hands for as much semi random stuff as my limited coordination allowed. Videotelephonically, for this gig I brought the same video as I'd used at the beginning of the month, in case the Plough had replaced the lamp like their projector was telling us all to do. They had not. In case you're wondering where I got that word videotelephonically, it's because I use my old Nokia N95 with its composite video output to play our visuals. See, I made it up.

CB2 07 Apr 2010
I'd been meaning to try a Cambridge gig ever since violinist Steve Bingham joined us on 06 Aug 2008. He lived near Ely at the time and I felt bad about dragging him all the way down to London to play a quiet gig for free. A gig in Cambridge would be much better, I figured. A good 18 months later I called CB2 and they seemed keen to try us. I was very slightly apprehensive about playing out of sight in the basement, but thanks to Steve twice over, I needn't have been. For one thing he brought along most of our audience. For another, he directed his wife to bring us an Improvizone! Tonight! Downstairs! Free! poster to stick on the door. People saw it and came down, and when they got there they a healthy audience watching us. While Steve filled up our audience, we total filled up the stage. Setting up was plenty kerfuffles. We all seemed to descend on the room with our carloads of gear at the same time. I put the drums in the middle at the back and, shocks and stuns, had to move forward to the front. Before the arrival of the Steve Bingham appreciation collective (some musicians he'd been working with that afternoon), we soundchecked to an empty room with something rather nice. And then we cruised along for the rest of the gig with some lovely interspersions here and there. And great to have a mixed audience... dare I even quantify them to the extent of a mainly female audience. Blimey.

Plough 21 Apr 2010
Back to the Plough with the regular quartet for a relaxing evening this time introducing Os's modular synth he had put together himself, including his own custom control interfaces. He was triggering sequences from his laptop, nicely bang-on in sync with his click in my earphones. Meanwhile I was mucking about with the timing as I notice I've been doing a few times lately, ie placing the pulse every three-quarters of the beat, and then playing a pattern in five over the top. Nick is unfazed, because he's been playing bass with me for nearly 15 years, and locks in with random cycles. Mike doesn't care either, and fits ambience or interjections over the top. Back with the same video for the third time, hoping they'd changed the bulb, hoping we could watch it properly. Nupe.

Upstairs At The Ritzy 25 May 2010
For our most recent gig, we tried a new venue. I saw them listed in the Evening Standard and got them interested in trying us out. I then repeatedly checked out the London A-Z for possible routes to Brixton. My geography of North London is pretty good. My geography of South London is feeble. Shite, actually. On arriving in Brixton I needed at least 10 minutes to negotiate the residential roads to get to the back entrance of the Ritzy. Luckily for me Os had got the first and could provide telephone guidance. We unloaded outside the fire exit. The fire escape route went on for ever. And then turned a corner and carried on a bit further. The stage was tiny, but we all fat on. Alright, we all fitted on. I think fat was funnier. Os had left his keyboard at home to save space, yet he seemed to be just as interesting for the entire evening without it, his modular synth sequences providing both rhythmic boost and tonal hypnotism. To my delight, though I guess not surprising for a cinema, the Ritzy had not one but two projectors. The entire back wall was our projection screen. However the stage lights were shining on it the whole evening, so once again I didn't get to see the video I had taken to the fourth consecutive gig. Nicely, we hit sweet spots several times during the evening, and as I handed out CDs I found many people who were enjoying us. However, I fear this is another venue who need their music to make money for them directly. Plus Brixton is a looooong way away for most of us. It was a nice try though, and they gave us free drinks and complimentary cinema tickets.

The full location address is Upstairs at the Ritzy, Ritzy Cinema, Brixton Oval, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton SW2 1JG. Very close to Brixton tube, provided the Victoria Line hasn't been closed for its series of nightly maintenance works scheduled for completion some time after the sun has exploded into a red giant.

The players will be the regular quartet of

• Michael Bearpark (guitar)
• Os (keyboard/EWI/laptop)
• Nick Cottam (bass)
• Andrew Booker (electronic drums)

On the six-strung device often bearing no audible resemblance to electrical guitaring, Michael Bearpark will assume his usual position seated behind his array of many and several pedals. From behind a carload of synthesizer devices, possibly including modular ones he has soldered together himself, Os will be sampling and resampling and generally making indescribable, except to say very nice, noises. For the fourth time, and now fully comfortable with the unit, Nick will be negotiating around his fretless bass, and not worrying in the least about intonation. Last and least, I will fit into a slot on the side somewhere and flap my sticks up and down all evening, having programmed no new drum patches, uploaded no new samples to the SPD-S, bought no new effects units, and worked for about three minutes on phase two of my drum software, still nowhere near ready for live deployment.

Why me so useless? Last month I moved house, temporarily upping sticks from our South Woodford habitat to a location on the very edge of Essex. It's like I'm inching back homeward. We're only here until October, yet boxes are still awaiting unpacking, work areas are still awaiting organising, nine-month-old Baby Boy is much more fun than any of that... plus there's the garden. If you're a similar weed-whacking, rubbish-clearing, earth-digging type to me, you can appreciate whither the odd half an hour here and there will be disappearing these days.

One other reason for my lack of off-stage graft is the realisation that I don't really have to. It would be better if I did knuckle down to some drum work eventually, of course, but even playing on all the same patches with all the same sounds, no gig has yet turned out much like any another. I say all the same sounds, the fact is I seem to have a lot more naturally at my disposal these days, and I think the reason is that I have stopped using the SPD-S to play midi notes. I am using its plentiful effects library, and the bunch of cruddy sounds I loaded onto it at the end of last year, as a proper half of the drum kit, instead of just an add-on. Also, regular practising has freed up my left foot enough so I can make a bit more rhythmic use of it. My timing seems to have gone to hell instead, but hey. A few times in the last couple of gigs I've woken up and realised the click in my ears is somewhere else entirely. But then, this is always a danger when I'm enjoying the music enough. I'm looking forward to having plenty more music to enjoy next week, even if it means concentrating a bit harder.

Meanwhile between now and next Tuesday, I'm mowing the lawn and trying to come up with new ways to make the baby laugh.

• Steve Bingham (electric violin)
• Michael Bearpark (guitar)
• Os (keyboard/EWI/laptop)
• Andrew Booker (electronic drums)
• Nick Cottam (bass)

After a long delay we welcome back The Legendary Maestro Steve Binksy Bingham on electric violin. Steve last joined us back in 2008 during the run-up to the No-man gigs, which featured Mike, Steve and Yours Occasionally. At the time, I felt bad about dragging him all the way down from Ely or furtherabouts to do a quiet gig in Walthamstow, and have been considering a Cambridge gig ever since. This is it.

Besides its handy proximity to Mike, Os and Steve, other reasons for playing in Cambridge are all rather lightweight and vacuous, thus explaining the eighteen months or so it took me to find a gig there, or that I'm posting this less than 24 hours before we will be appearing there.

One, I like the place. I occasionally hung out there during my student years, jealous of the close-knit student community that seemed not to exist in London. Plus I once picked up a vinyl copy of Eddie Jobson's Zinc album in the market. Two, it's straight up the M11 for me. Three, Darkroom have a history of playing there, including at CB2 itself. In fact everyone knows how to get there except me and Nick. Four, and this is just my natural prejudice kicking in, if I'm interested in anywhere north of London within reasonable distance of us all, where we might find people with a passing interest in our brand of live low-ish intensity exploratory ambient electronic music, chief suspect would be Cambridge sooner than Canvey Island. Canvey Island is too far. Of course, if anyone wants to convince me that either Bishop's Stortford, Great Chesterford or Six Mile Bottom is a preferable epicentre of well-attended musically unusual evenings, speak! Or better, email! Or even better than that, turn up at CB2 and tell me in person!

Meanwhile, we'll be recording the whole thing as usual, so that I can get round to doing mixes from it some time before the 2016 Olympics. Therefore if you're interested in how we get on without our usual comforting surroundings of the Cockney tongue, the jellied eel, or the more contemporary set of 370,000 roadworks, best come and check us out, or you'll be waiting a little while before finding out from our downloads.

• Michael Bearpark (guitar)
• Os (keyboard/EWI/laptop)
• Simon Taylor (trumpet)
• Ken Whaley (bass)
• Andrew Booker (electronic drums)

We welcome back Simon Taylor on trumpet. Simon joined us for a couple of gigs last year and blended some superbly restrained but explorative playing into our eclectic electrical sound. Also we welcome Ken Whaley to his first Improvizone gig. Ken plays with The Green Ray, who are regulars at the Plough, and were the first band I saw there three or four years ago. I can't remember if we had started Improvizone by that point, but when we needed a new venue in August 2007, I suddenly remembered the Plough, and we've been playing there regularly since. So in a way I have the Green Ray to thank for most of the last two and a half years of Improvizone gigs. I always pay attention to the bass player when I go to gigs, especially to Ken's fluid bluesy jamming, and I have wondered how he might get on at playing at one of our Improvizones.

I'll be using the electronic drums again, having lately devoted a few fractions of an hour here and there to sampling more noises from battered rehearsal room drums and household objects just before they get thrown in the bin. Idea! I could sample the bin too! Original.

In case they don't have their projector lamp fixed yet, I wish I had time to make a video entirely the red spectrum. In the event that the unit is still functioning at all, this should suit the yellow wash from the ailing light bulb, and to our additional advantage, will blend with the walls.