Biography
Starting out from a bedroom in Brixton, Antenna Farm began its life in 1998, as a very primitive 'plunderphonic' DJ unit, we used multiple decks and CD players, a crappy KPM mixer with sampling function, and 4-track cassette mixer to improvise dense, messy, chaotic mixes using a wide range of other people's music. We played a bunch of shows with allies like V/Vm, Speedranch, Goodiepal, Diskono, etc., and toured Germany and Austria with Process, Transient Waves and DJ Alex Knight as part of a FatCat package.
Over time, some new kit (minidisc players, an Atari, a Zoom sampletrack unit, etc.) was organically integrated and the source material was pushed and manipulated to become less and less identifiable and more and more our own. We started folding field recordings made with the MDs into the mix, as well as using radio receivers and occassionally guitars. Around 2000, the sound and processes changed again with the introduction of powerbooks. We used these to compile our first album, chopping up piecing together a range of material we'd improvised and recorded down to DAT and MD. This was released as 'Early Mess' (or 'Fog / Splinter Tracks') on the US label, Phthalo in 2001. The same year, we spent a week living, recording and improvising with Main (our friend Robert Hampson) at Extrapool's little electronic studio in Nijmegen. The results were later edited together to form the 'AF_M' album, released that year on Staalplaat imprint, BromBron. Around this time, we played numerous shows at home and abroad with Main, V/vm, Diskono, Alejandra & Aeron, Janek Schaefer, Motion, Duplo Remote, Team Doyobi, etc. Alastiar played with V/Vm at the notorious Sonar Festival show in 2000.
In 2002, we put out four tracks on the Spanish OOze.bap label, on a CD shared with Artificial Memory Trace and Diskono's Gabriel Amato. This was heavily (processed) field recording-based and the process pretty influenced by tighter, more academic concrete stuff. We did an improvised live collaboration with Icelandic guitarist Petur Hallgrimsun at a Kitchen Motors / FatCat festival in Reykjavik, and also with Icelandic guitarists Skulli Sverisson and Hilmarr Jensen at the Smallfish shop in London.
Since 2003, we've played a lot fewer gigs and been a bit anal about not putting stuff out - either because we haven't had the time / space to properly piece a coherent release together, or not been fully happy with what we have been doing. We have continued to irregularly meet, improvise and record everything down onto MD. These recordings regularly get fed back into the playing, so there's a constant reworking and reappearance of lots of old stuff, which gets more and more mulched down. We do a fair amount of recording / processing / programming separately and get together when time allows to fire things together and see what sticks.
Working under the pseudonym, The Experience, Alastair put out some releases based on field recordings taken on various jobs he'd done working on installations for the Millenium Dome (released as 'One Amazing Day' on V/Vm), and others at various car shows, trade fairs and new museums. He studied Max MSP and has played live with the LMC Radio Orchestra, and collaborated live with Ivan Seal, Ben Drew, as well as numerous solo shows.
After a couple of years during which Alastair spent much time working in Japan and Dave became a father, we became a bit more active in 2006, doing a live improvised collaboration with Tujiko Noriko and Vibracathedral Orchestra, and breaking a long release-silence by producing a soundtrack for a Semiconductor film, 'Brilliant Noise'. In 2007, we started doing some laptop-based live A/V collaborations with Semiconductor, utilising their 'Sonic Inc.' live drawing software. We also did a live improvised collaboration with German prepared pianist, Hauschka, with whom we hope to do some recordings. We also hope to finally rework and release some of the last 6 years worth of recordings that have sat gathering dust.
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