Graduates 2024: Greta Carroll: Digital Music and Sound Arts

 

greta carroll

“I have loved my tutors and the technicians and how inspiring they are. I have learnt so much and now I know the ins and outs of both the history of sound; I’ve enjoyed learning to record the sound of electricity and having a deep knowledge of artists and what they do. I’m dyslexic and had very low confidence in myself all my life. I feel the course has really freed me up and I feel I can hold my own now in a conversation in sound and electronic music.”

 

Tell us a bit about your work

“Here is my artist bio: Experimental pop musician and producer and performer CURRENTMOODGIRL makes sounds that dance between the dark and the light, resembling her the industrial landscape of Manchester, her Northern hometown. Utilising electrical pick-ups and dark, glitching synths, she creates textured soundscapes melting together with her siren-like but raw vocals, her rhythmic beats and anchoring basslines eminently danceable.

“CONTACT is about connections and the means of control between ourselves, our bodies, our minds, and one another. Manifested through sound, movement, and visuals, it is a multidimensional live performance intended to be experienced in the flesh. The work involves a self-made touch sensitive dance pole as an instrument which captures the sensory movement of the body. CONTACT is a sonic experience of electronic music and sound performance presented through a 5.1 soundsystem, transforming our visual sensibilities and challenges our societal idolisation of fragility and the female form. The performance grew out of the heavenly and broken unravelling of the self, trusting one’s own body, sexuality and celebrating being alive through the bad, the good and everything in between.”

CONTACT was performed at the Graduate Show.

greta carroll

greta carroll

 

What made you choose your course?

“I have been a musician for many years, and I was feeling dissatisfied with how limiting it was and I felt unfulfilled. I found the course when looking for alternative music and sound production courses. As an artist whose work spans numerous mediums, I needed something wild and unconventional that questions everything and uses abstract techniques to create sound. When I discovered DMSA, I immediately felt like I belonged there.”

Can you tell us about your favourite part of your studies and how it helped the development of you and your practice?

“I have loved my tutors and the technicians the most on the course and how inspired thay have left me. I have learnt so much and now I know the ins and outs of both the history of sound, all the facts and scientific stuff about sound too. For example Iv enjoyed learning to record the sound of electricity and having a deep knowledge of artists and what they doo.

“I’m dyslexic and had very low confidence in myself all my life. I feel the course has really freed me up and I feel I can hold my own now in a conversation in sound and electronic music.”

Can you tell us about any staff who particularly inspired you?

“All of them in different ways, its great to have a woman as the course leader Johanna Bramli has really looked after me, I feel she has been there for me alot.

“Stephen Mallinder is is a uplifting person to be around, he’s helped me lots to have more confidence in my writing and studying I’ve always struggled with  reading and studying as Ijust have never felt good enough but Mal has always picked things for me that suit me as female artist and I’ve really enjoyed that part of my course witch was unexpected.

“Caleb has been really inspiring, his classes are the most fun for me. I took a lot from him in my exploring new sounds, he understands the way I make music, and helped me dive more into the weird side of sound.

“And our technician Paul, he’s taught me lots of production and mixing techniques and taught me how to play the modular synth and use other equipment.

“I feel all the staff have given different things to me so I am going away from this with so much, I feel like Digital Music and Sound Arts BA(Hons) (brighton.ac.uk) can do anything now.”

Can you tell us your plans after graduation?

“I’m planning to move to London and work more on my music. I would like to do a residency to further my practice, I’m also going to be doing some sound workshops. I’m thinking of doing a masters but I need a little break first to reset from all this madness.”

Finally if you could give your 17 year old self any advice about going to university what would it be?

“I’m a older student so I came to uni at 31 years old. I’m glad I waited, I think that was the best thing I would do I also have been against uni for as long as I new so this was a big surprise i never thought I would do, i would say to myself that just cos I had a horrible time in education before this. But uni is different and I shouldn’t let my dyslexia and mental health stop me from thinking I’m any less than anyone else.”

Instagram @currentmoodgirl_ 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/24pePTKrry9Zv7xrmHRqF7

Bandcamp: https://currentmoodgirll.bandcamp.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CURRENTMOODGIRL/

 

Greta Carroll was the winner of the 2024 Outlands Prize.

Find out about studying Digital Music and Sound Art at Brighton.

WARM UP FESTIVAL call out

WARM UP FESTIVAL

ARTIST CALL OUT
 
We are looking for emerging artists/designers to showcase at our event and have small grants available. Our deadline for applications is 20th Feb 2020.

Warm Up Festival, Aug 21-23 2020, is a new three-day music festival set in the pine forests of Hertfordshire: 
https://www.warmupfestival.co.uk/.

Our vision is to engage all the senses in an immersive environment by bringing captivating contemporary art to our woodland setting. We are looking for art in the form of unique sculptural works, curious installations, bespoke light pieces, performance art, and video work either pre-existing or site-specific proposals.


‘Home is where the house is’ is our family motto. As such, we are particularly interested to find artists that explore the concept of ‘home’ because community is at the heart of our festival. A take on the theme can be abstract or entirely literal. We are also open to other artworks/proposals that do not necessarily adhere to this concept.


Warm Up is a visionary pillar of the London club scene, earning itself a reputation as one of the most respected dance music communities in the city, famed for its legendary parties, welcoming atmosphere and forward-thinking sound palette, representing the best in techno, house, progressive and electronica.
 
Please send proposals to: karen.wuf@gmail.com

AUDINT UNSOUND: UNDEAD 23rd Jan 2020 @ Fabrica, Brighton – BOOK NOW (free to DMSA students)

Don’t miss out: Free to All DMSA Students!

(Non-DMSA Tickets: Workshop £8/5 concs. Evening £8/5 concs. Combined ticket: £12/8 concs.)

AUDINT
UNSOUND: UNDEAD
A daytime workshop with evening performances from the sonic arts group AUDINT and their affiliates.

AUDINT is a London-based art collective operating across the fields of sound, performance, theory/fiction, film and installation. Following recent exhibitions and performances at Spike Island and Tate Britain, this event opens a window into the themes explored in their recent Book UNSOUND: UNDEAD. Working at the intersection between the latest sonic theory and practice, AUDINT push contemporary sonic making and thinking into new realms, between the real and the fictional, the living and the dead.

This workshop and live event extend the collective’s research with performances and presentations from AUDINT members and collaborators, including Eleni Ikon, Agnès Gayraud, Jenna Sutela, and Anne Duffau (TBC)
www.audint.net

Afternoon seminar // 2-4pm // SPECIFIC DISSONANCES
Eleni Ikoniadou, Al Cameron and Caleb Madden will explore the perceptual and cultural peripheries of the sonic in a seminar based around contributions to the recent AUDINT – UNSOUND: UNDEAD book.

For the past ten years the group has been researching the periphery of sonic perception (unsound) and its potential to activate a continual intersection between fiction and fact, pressuring thought to become something other than what it has been. The group’s recent volume Unsound: Undead collates 64 new essays to probe how unsound serves to activate the undead. Contributors from a variety of disciplines chart these warped zones, mapping out a zigzagging timeline stretching from the 8th century BC (the song of the Sirens), to 2013 (acoustic levitation), and speculatively extending into 2057 (the emergence of holographic and holosonic phenomena).

Evening event // 7:30-11:30PM // UNSOUND: UNDEAD * brief descriptor for each act to follow.
A series of live performance:
Eleni Ikoniadou and Caro: The Lament – (voice and live electronics)
Agnes Gayraud – (voice and glossolalia piece)
Jenna Sutela, and Anne Duffau
Harrga

TO BOOK YOUR PLACE EMAIL: s.w.mallinder@brighton.ac.uk

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

Eleni Ikoniadou is a member of AUDINT and Senior Tutor in Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art. Her research is situated at the intersection between computational culture, theory-fiction and audiovisual practice. Her latest monograph is The Rhythmic Event: Art, Media, and the Sonic (MIT Press, 2014). She is co-editor of the Media Philosophy… Read more »
www.urbanomic.com

https://www.urbanomic.com/book/unsoundundead/

For as long as recording and communications technologies have existed, the potential of the vibrational continuum that connects sound to infrasound, ultrasound and other inaudible frequencies has been evoked to access anomalous zones of transmission between the realms of the living and the dead. For the past ten years the AUDINT group has been researching…
www.urbanomic.com

 

DMSA: DEBUTANTS

Monday 9th December 2019, 8pm
KOMEDIA, Brighton | MAP
FB Event Page

EXPERIMENTAL | LIVE PERFORMANCES | ELECTRONICA | DJ’S

DMSA:Debutants is a showcase of live music performed by students from the Digital Music and Sound Arts course at the University of Brighton.

An event that will encompass a wide range of different sonic and visual material, with live acoustic and electronic music – DMSA:Debutants is a celebration of sound without the constraints of genre.

8PM-1AM
£3 OTD

INCLUDING:
___________________________________
Experimental Music
Live Performance
DJ Sets
Acoustic Sets
Noise Music
Ambient Music
Techno Music
Projections

PERFORMANCES:
____________________________________
Meller & Jared Swift
Ike Goldman
Aidan
Hippo Island
MAL
Cyphon & OBZERV

DJs:
_____________________________________
Patrick Mckeever Crowcroft
Jack James
Finley Mist

Professional Practice Masterclass: Fraser Owen

Monday 18 November, 5.30pm
Performance Studio, GP

We are happy to have Fraser Owen, one of our current students presesenting on our next masterclass. Fraser, under his alias Vince Vanity, has been producing cutting edge electronic music combined with drag performance and visuals.

For this masterclass Fraser will guide us through his experience combining these mediums, performing as a queer artist, and developing artistic identity.

Follow Fraser on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vince.vanity/

OUTLANDS Presentation

Thursday, October 31st
5.30pm, Performance Studio, GP

We are happy to have Caleb Madden of OUTLANDS to do a presentation to our students on the project’s upcoming events with QUJAKU (JP), IMPATV (UK) and GROUP A – DEAD SLOW AHEAD, and inform them on how they can get involved.

More info about the events and the artists

A rock gig with a difference – Japanese four-piece band Qujaku perform with spectacular newly created visuals and light show created by UK visual artists IMPATV.

Ensō Sone is an original audio-visual collaboration between Japanese psych band Qujaku and UK visual artists IMPATV. Audiences can expect an amalgam of projection methods, visual mapping, lighting and set design, co-joined with a heavy apocalyptic sound resulting in a full-blown psychedelic display to rattle the senses… + Special guests group A open the event with a spectacular new AV set.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

QUJAKU

QUJAKU are a Japanese heavy psychedelic rock band based in Hamamatsu. Their dark and heavy psychedelia filled with rich distortion and feedback creates a unique decadent ambience which is beyond comparison. There is not only a brutality but also an ephemeral beauty behind it. Delicate yet strong, destructive guitar with feedback, repetitive rhythms, and deep, bellowing bass.

FB: https://www.facebook.com/Qujaku/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/qujaku_info

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/qujaku_jpn/

Website: http://www.qujaku.com/home/

Bandcamp: https://qujaku.bandcamp.com/album/qujaku

IMPATV

IMPATV is a collaborative video and stage production project from UK artists Isadora Darke and Jamie Robinson. Using new digital technologies and live mixing methods combined with costumes and stage design they produce immersive installations, music videos, art and music productions.

FB: https://www.facebook.com/IMPATV/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/impa_tv

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/impatv/

Website: https://impatv.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/impatv

GROUP A – DEAD SLOW AHEAD

group A’s hyper electronic industrial music meets with Berlin based visual artist DEAD SLOW AHEAD for live A/V performances which feature geometry, strobe, and visual explorations.

FB: https://www.facebook.com/groupAband/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/group_a_band/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/group_a
Bandcamp: https://groupa.bandcamp.com/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/deadslowahead

Tumblr: https://slowmindbending.tumblr.com

Professional Practice Masterclass: AJA

Monday 21st September
5.30-7pm, Performance Studio

We are happy to have AJA with us to deliver a mastericlass-workshop to our students.
AJA has taught across the UK and Europe at such institutions as for Ableton, Huddersfield University, Loughborough University, Confetti Music Institue, Fine Arts Institue (Vienna) and Teatro do Bolhão (Portugal) and have over 10 years experience in performing and writing music. AJA also has experience in teaching LGBTQ+ and female/non-binary focused workshops such as The End of Gender, Sounds Queer? and ITOUS.

About the masterclass/workshop

The workshop will be around how to make field recordings and create a wide range of different sounds and textures by only using simple, built in Ableton Plugins. Participants will learn to build ambient/drone/noise textures, experiment and discovering new sounds as a group through live demonstration. The workshop will also include:

Open discussions about safe spaces
Listening meditation
Ableton Demonstration
Unique Sample Packs created for participants to take away for free
Live soundscape/track created
Archive of costumes from LU LA LOOP and discussions in visuals and illustration and creating your own merch.

Professional Practice Masterclass: Louis Sterling

Monday 7th October, 5.30pm-7pm
Performance Studio

We are happy to have one of our recent alumni back to give a masterclass to our students. Louis Sterling was the founder of the student-led imprint IDS. During his studies with us he won an employability award for his enterprenerial projects, he went on tour with internationally acclaimed music producer David August.

About the masterclass
“Synesthesia to the Sound-system”

In this session, Sterling will be unveiling the process behind his experimental music and curation of his debut record ‘Adisceda’ on Rough Trade, with insight into the music industry from the perspective of business – from signing contracts, to networking with your favourite artists, promoting your work on social media and creating your own unique platforms.

About Louis

Louis Sterling, also known as Auxx, is a British recording artist currently signed to David August’s label 99Chants.

With experimental works making their way onto BBC Music, NTS Radio and URBNET Records, his debut record ‘Adisceda’ would become an ethereal project compared to the likes of Tim Hecker, The Dedekind Cut and Aphex Twin, making it’s way onto 12″ vinyl, courtesy of Rough Trade.

Louis on British Music Collection.

Masterclass on artist branding with Petal Largie

Monday 30th September 2019
5.30-7 | Performance Studio, Grand Parade Campus

The new season of masterclasses starts with a very important consideration for the carreers of all our graduates: BRANDING. We invited Petal Largie, founder of Artist-2Artist coaching and a specialist in the field.

In this Masterclass with Petal Largie we’ll explore and deepen the definition of Who You Are as an Artist by:
• Examining your Identity vs. your Artistic Identity
• Uncovering your Core Values or Pillars
• and defining a Mission or Vision Statement for your Artist Brand

About Petal

Petal Largie developed her unique intuitive coaching style via years of professional work in Fashion Trend Forecasting, Consumer Insights, and Journalism. Additionally she cut-her-teeth first hand in the Music Industry, landing in Europe in her early twenties as one of the few self-managed- female- woman of color- DJ’s, amassing an impressive gig list which includes headlining in 8 countries to date. Current industry workshop clients include: Innervision Records, Ritchie Hawtin’s Social Media Team, and Stil vor Talent (amongst others).

Her official music industry forays include; working with legendary artist manager Danny Goldberg (Nirvana, Stevie Nicks, etc.), interning in the booking division of Blue Note Entertainment Group (NYC), and pioneering an innovative YouTube Channel and video based blog for the musician Peaches (XL Recordings).

No stranger to managing and producing nights in New York City in her early DJ career, once landing in Berlin circa ’99-10′, Largie curated memorable club nights with then, up-and-coming artists; Peaches (XL Recordings), Dixon (Innervisions), Alex Barack (Jazzanova), Boris (Panorama Bar), Jamie Lidell, Mocky (Feist’s Producer), and Gonzales, to name a few.

Largie is also a consummate ‘Creator’, i.e. Vocal Artist, DJ, Music Journalist, and Event Curator: As a DJ, she’s headlined major festivals and venues in: Germany, Switzerland, Israel, the US, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, and Italy, is featured on the W Hotels DJ Mix App, and has held residencies at New York City’s: Ace Hotel, Sleep No More, and the W Hotel Union Square.

Professional Practice Masterclasses 2019/20

As the new academic year kicks in, we have prepared a series of masterclasses for our existing and new students both for our BA and MA courses. As with previous years we will focus to showcase various strands of professional practices and carreer pathways from within our BA, MA and PhD student & staff community and beyond. This year we are happy to have a wide range of topics ranging from Artist Identity Development, Sounds Queer? experimental music production, Heritage Sites and sound art, music and mental health, freelancing work, cross-dressing and sound arts, composing for film and video games as well as, radio plays and music production projects.

Professional Practice Masterclasses are supported by Creative Sound & Music, University of Brighton.