I just got back from a few days with my brother recording some great new music together with percussionist extraordinaire Paul Clifford. I’m really looking forward to editing and mixing those new tunes. In the mean time, here’s a (slightly strange) music video I made of a new Seznec Brothers tune:
You can also watch a video of us playing it together at home. This version has a pretty different feel:
You can download the mp3 of the video version
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I always love reading what happened on this day in history, and today is particularly fun. On this day in 1785, French inventor Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American doctor John Jeffries crossed the English Channel in a hot air balloon, marking the first aerial crossing and setting an example of Franco-American cooperation that I can’t help but be proud of. Ballooning was all the rage at the time, according the Blanchard’s wikipedia entry:
The early balloon flights triggered a phase of public “balloonmania”, with all manner of objects decorated with images of balloons or styled au ballon, from ceramics to fans and hats. Clothing au ballon was produced with exaggerated puffed sleeves and rounded skirts, or with printed images of balloons. Hair was coiffed à la montgolfier, au globe volant, au demi-ballon, or à la Blanchard.
Monsieur Blanchard made a career out of ballooning, and ended up touring America and Europe, wowing George Washington and four future presidents on one day alone. He also teamed up with Sébastien Lenormand, the inventor of the parachute, endorsing it as a great way to escape safely from a hot air balloon (the parachute had been invented as a means to escape from burning buildings, but Blanchard had a one-track mind). Blanchard took his obsession slightly too far, and eventually had a heart attack whilst inside the balloon and fell out and died. His wife suffered a similar fate a few years later (which was documented by Norwich Duff, born down the street from me in Edinburgh), though not before she was proclaimed the “Official Aeronaut of the Restoration” by Louis XVIII.
For his part, John Jeffries studied medicine in Edinburgh, was a Loyalist who was involved in the Boston Massacre trial (he testified that in Ireland the soldiers would have fired even sooner) and was a surgeon for the British Navy during the occupation of Boston. Also, this fascinating article claims that he and Blanchard pretty much hated each other, and may have killed a small dog during their journey.
All of this reminded me of another balloon journey that took place much later – the ill-fated attempt by S.A. Andrée and his two assistants, Nils Strindberg and Knut Frænkel.
Mr. Andrée was a Swedish engineer with a passion for ballooning who got caught up in all of the turn-of-the-century excitement surrounding polar exploration. He combined these two interests and formulated a plan for travelling across the North Pole in a balloon from Sweden to Canada. His plans were based on completely unproven and blatantly impossible theories (steering a balloon with ropes, for example), but his enthusiasm appealed to the Swedish power structures at the time, which were concerned that their supposedly inferior neighbors Norway were winning the polar exploration race (who eventually won is disputed, but the Swedes certainly didn’t end up doing that well at all). The Swedish Academy approved his plan and funded his project.
The expedition was doomed from the start. The balloon couldn’t hold air, the steering mechanism didn’t work, they didn’t bring enough food, and their clothing was totally unsuitable. After a disastrous first attempt, one of Andrée’s assistants quit, and was replaced by Knut Frænkel (who seems to have been younger and less critical). They finally took off in 1897. The steering ropes and seven hundred and forty kilograms of weight were jettisoned within a few minutes of takeoff. The flight lasted 10 hours, followed by 41 hours of bumping along the ice before they landed. The three of them wandered around the ice floes for three months (with Knut taking lots of lovely photographs) before dying, probably from contracting a disease by eating raw Polar Bear meat. Their bodies were found 33 years later and they were returned to Sweden as national heroes.
And 75 years later, my brother Cory and I read about this expedition and wrote a song about it! It’s called “The Ballad of Knut and Nils”, and you can listen to it right here:
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The song features me on guitar, recorded in Pittsburgh, and my brother on a Bolivian Charango (which was subsequently destroyed by British Airways). It is on our album “Sediment”, which you can buy simply by emailing me (rolo at theamazingrolo.net).
I also can’t help thinking that this all somehow relates to Mujik, with the balloon thing and all. Hmmmm.
I’m back in Scotland now after a lovely break with the family in the States. I got to play a few shows with my brother Cory – together we are the Seznec Brothers, and in between our shows we managed to record a couple of videos and even a new song! Here is the first of these:
August was a slightly crazy month of amazing projects for me, which were all topped off by a visit from my brother Cory. We played two gigs at the Edinburgh Book Festival, which turned out to be a brilliant little venue. We had tons of fun, and we were able to get a few videos recorded. Here are two songs for you…first is “Fat Fanny Stomp”, which is an old song by a pianist called Jim Clark that we found in this awesome collection of old 78s. The second is a Seznec Brothers song called “Promised Land” which is based on a 19th century spiritual. Enjoy!
If you made it this far, you can also listen to our original recorded version of Promised Land here:
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Posted 2 years, 3 months ago at 11:43 am. Add a comment
My brother Cory and I are both at home in Maryland, and we’re going to try and make a few more semi-improvised videos like this one over the next few weeks…enjoy!
Posted 3 years, 1 month ago at 3:22 pm. Add a comment
This June, like last June and the June before that, my brother Cory and I met up in Paris to work on a play with our cousin Fabrice Macaux at the Abbaye de Maubuisson.
This year the play was called “Pour un monde meilleur”, and it featured a 12 person choir! Cory and I composed all sorts of music and sound design that used the choir together with our trademark electro-acoustic hybrid style.
Cory was a character in the play, whilst I was a shadowy background character, controlling all of the sound from behind a fence behind the stage area. I think the crowd could just see my head. I was doing lots of live sound design, manipulating recordings and live sound in real time to go with the dream-like atmosphere of the play. During one day of rehearsals and performance I took a photo every 10 seconds with the built in camera of my laptop. I’ve made a medley of the sound design and music from the production to go with it, to give a vague idea of how it sounded:
If you would like to hear what the choir sounded like without my computer trickery, here are two rough recordings we made in the Abbey:
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I’m now back in Edinburgh, working hard on the Loop Machine, and enjoying the long summer days!
Posted 3 years, 7 months ago at 10:06 am. 1 comment
Today’s issue of The Independent features not one but two articles that mention me! I’m very proud.
The first is about Wii development, and discusses the Loop Machine at length. The second is about The Groanbox Boys, otherwise known as my brother Cory’s band. I co-produced their first two albums, and we’re planning on doing a third at the end of the month. If you’re in the UK you should catch one of their shows this month, they’re incredible!
Posted 3 years, 9 months ago at 2:18 pm. 1 comment
I just finished working on the new Groanbox Boys album, which we recorded entirely at the family farm in Maryland. Details and samples will follow in a few weeks when it’s all printed up, but for now I’ll say that it’s really dark and complex and unlike anything you have heard before.
Now Cory and I are in New York, and we are playing a show on saturday afternoon in Brooklyn. It’s a free outdoor block party show at the Jalopy in Red Hook. We’ll be on for about an hour at around 1 pm. Hope to see you there!
Posted 4 years, 5 months ago at 5:30 am. Add a comment
Cory and I recently finished the play we were working on in France. We wrote and performed original music at a 13th century abbey outside of Paris, and it all went quite well. We recorded most of the music, here is the main theme:
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For this song Cory would play guitar and sing, and I would sample and loop his playing and singing to build up all of the layers in real time. It was a bit nerve racking but it worked each time!
In other news, you will notice a new link in the upper left corner of this blog, replacing what was previously my “links” page. Instead I have an online resume (or CV, depending where you’re from) that lists many of the projects I have been involved in over the past few years. Please take a look at it and email me any thoughts (or job offers).
Finally, there is some interesting movement afoot on the Wii Loop Machine front, stayed tuned for further updates.
Posted 4 years, 7 months ago at 10:03 am. Add a comment
The Amazing Rolo is Edinburgh-based sound designer, musician, and digital artist Yann Seznec. He specializes in interactive installations, ragtime piano, custom music software creation, and sound art. He is founder of Lucky Frame Limited, a small company that makes fun digital things, and teaches occasionally at various universities.
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