From Where? to Here

Craig Winstanley and Jon Ogara in the form of C ÷ M present a journey as metaphor, with recurring themes and basic structure supplemented by imagery, improvisation and artificial intelligence-driven diversions into the unknown; a multi-media audio-visual postcard; oscillations between ideas from C and M; convergence/divergence of the conventional and experimental; constructed under the shadows of the pandemic and the debilitating political landscape; chaos from order.

Recent and upcoming performances:

Small Seeds, Huddersfield (17th Feb 2023)

Watershed, Slaithwaite (24th March 2023)

Marsden Mechanics, Marsden, Huddersfield (9th June 2023)

Performed live as part of the Brighton Fringe (6th and 7th May 2022), St Augustine’s Centre, Brighton.

Performed live as as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe Festival 2021 (18th and 25th September 2021): https://greatermanchesterfringe.co.uk//

Venue: The Empty Space, Salford https://theemptyspace.live

Videos from the 25th September 2021 show:

Trailers/tasters..

Trailer videos:

From the Brighton show:

Trailer videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Uvbz23L3xg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLqozYW2z4U

See https://allopenelectrics.com/2021/03/19/from-where-to-here/

C÷M: From Where? To Here

Birth: A beginning; post gestation; fruit of collaboration.  Images introduce the idea of the unfamiliar within the familiar, a theme that recurs.  Lyrics set the scene of disturbing underlying politics, revisited throughout.

Thunderstorm: Incorporates recordings from a storm.  Clouds gather…

Shifting Sands: Beware Straw Man, Law Man, Flag Man, Bogey Man, fooling fools.

Water Tower: Ethereality in Romanesque Revival sandstone; journey through time-space.

Echo Chamber: Addresses the entire history of human communication since the dawn of time (conclusion: we aren’t very good at it); imagery of being trapped in the chamber; WARNING: contains references to an annoyed void, a thing best to avoid…

Forgotten conversations: Recordings of voices reciting the phonetic alphabet, scrambled and reimagined.  Bubbles of turbulent communication; Incorporating The Curve: musings on past, present and future; It takes all your nerve to flatten the area under the curve.

Reflections: Rebirth; A life story (part one); Following the path of least resistance.

Sunrises: The camera lies; Awakening; Improvisations over orchestral backing track; Images derived from manipulations of multiple photographs of sunsets, taken on a country walk.  Hundreds of images from this walk are used to accompany Rustic Silence: The country as escape; fantasy; will CRUSH you again; ‘always different, always the same’.

Journeys from Where? To Here: Journey through space-time; Unconventionally rhythmic backdrop for trombonic improvisation and rhyming unhinged polemic (Cheer the nicely spoken thief, kick the gift horse in the teeth).

So Far: Lost in her dreams; We find the sun.

Who are we Here? And who are we There? Using an artificial intelligence system developed by Dr Anna Djambo (University of Leicester), recordings of neural network representations of our musical DNA are used to play a variety of sounds, accompanied by improvisations. Each performance will be unique.  Incorporates Whistling Warriors: Bravely fighting phantom wars, they haunt the modern mediascape.

Waiting For You: Still waiting; Images return to the familiar as unfamiliar, using only photographs taken of the surface of a garden table; Portals to the next level.

Quorum Sensing/Sunsets: Community; we are legion (greater than the sum of parts); an ending and offer of hope.  Images derived from photographs of sunsets.

C÷M are Craig Winstanley (C), ex-scientist released for good behaviour, embarking on journeys new and Jon Ogara (M), experimentalist and conceptualist. 

C: Guitars, vocals, images, arrangements, melodies

M: Flute, saxophone, guitar, trombone, backing vocals, AI experiments

All songs and images are by C÷M.

REVIEW: https://thegmreviewer.wordpress.com/2021/09/18/c-div-m-from-where-to-here/