Project Dark -- The Rocket Propelled Records of Project Dark

I was first exposed to Kirsten Reynolds and PROJECT DARK when she opened up for PIGFACE on their December 1998 RED NECK WHITE TRASH BLUE MOVIE tour. Unlike most DJ sets, I found her performance to be very interesting and exciting. She actually drew me out of the downstairs bar, she was so good! What astonished me even more was that she was playing noise, not the traditional techno
I usually find so irksome. An agreeable and kind woman,
she has indulged my request for an interview.

How long has Project Dark been around? Also, please fill me in on your creation of unique seven inches. I find that particularly interesting.

    We started in September 1995 just after Ashley and I did a 5 week European tour playing in a band called Headbutt ( lots of bass players, lots standing up drummers and a guy shouting - very energetic, a bit tribal and great fun!!).
    Whilst in the van for many long days of driving we had a million conversations about all sorts of things and one of them was about how records could be stranger than picture discs in weird sleeves. We discussed the idea of a catalogue of records where some of them could be ordinary vinyl and others would be made from a variety of materials such as etched glass, metal or slices of tree trunk. On arrival back in London with a huge amount of energy left from the exhilaration of the tour we set about making some of these records, all in numbered limited editions, with catalogue numbers, sleeves and more often than not with ridiculous bad humour titles!
    By December of the same year we were bored again and were discussing ways to get out of London over Christmas. We spoke to a fantastic guy who had helped us out on the previous tour (with transport and beer!) and he agreed to organize some exhibitions for the 7" singles if we could also make a short film to show alongside them. So a short tour with 'Mad Frank,' or Frank Castro as he is now known, was arranged for Aachen, Germany, Eindhoven, Holland and Liege, Belgium over Christmas and New Year 1995/6.

The exhibition consists of each single framed in the same way as gold discs are. We did a series of one night only exhibitions over Christmas and New Year 1995/6 at the Raststatte Galerie in Aachen, 2B Eindhoven, Holland, and La Zone, Liege, Belgium. We have also had exhibitions at the Metro in London and will be doing a residency at the Fabriek in Eindhoven, Holland, in October this year, this will end in an exhibition and live show. In order to make the film we talked to Tony, an old friend of Ashley's who is a video/filmmaker and he was only too pleased to work with us on what would eventually be called 'Seven' (before the unfortunate Hollywood coincidence) and come with us to film documentary footage and enjoy European hospitality! Tony has now become a full member of Project Dark as over the years the video component has become more important with the use of spy cameras and huge projections that are now needed in large venues.

The film was subtitled 'One Hundred Uses For Your Redundant Records' and showed some suggestions of possible uses for old singles so we made roller skate wheels, grinder discs, sunglasses and buttons from black vinyl singles and filmed them in use with a narrated soundtrack.

The spy cameras enable us to show the small details of the records rotating on the decks as they are being played live. We have 2 cameras and one can be moved in sync with the music, we mix between the 2 images so it is like creating a live music video which is then projected on a giant screen behind us.

    The exploding record player came about in the early days when we were still using many old hi-fi decks from the 70's. They came from jumble sales and flea markets and often didn't work properly. Whilst trying to fix one I noticed that even when not plugged in to the mains the stylus still generates a sound signal, so I was thinking of ways of making the turntable rotate with out power.
    Based on my experience with a large scale pyrotechnic percussion group. The Bow Gamelan from years ago I thought that a rocket would probably provide the relevant motivating force to rotate the record. Rather nervously I did a test at home and it working fantastically and is now the explosive climax to the live show. The high voltage player is the result of a similar experimental process. Tony wanted to have a Van de Graaff type spark emerging from the stylus so after talking to my father - Ian Reynolds - (who is something of an expert in many strange areas!) a parcel arrived in the post containing a spark generator and a system of relays which generated 10,000 volts of high frequency low current in the form of a large and very noisy blue spark!
    We have now merged this apparatus with a record deck and the spark plays' a metal record and makes a fantastic sound at the same time!

Aren't there any safety concerns, like getting ZAPPED? Do different voltages have different sounds, or do different metals have different sounds?

Although we are using 10,000 volts it is at high frequency and the amount of current involved is tiny so there is not much danger of being zapped! darkgreen.jpg (11385 bytes)

Certainly I am the only person in danger as you would have to be very close to it and extremely well earthed for the charge to be tempted to go near me! I have felt a small buzzing sensation from the wires once.It also broadcasts at random radio frequencies and so we have had problems with our other equipment picking it up although everything has been massively insulated since then.

At the moment not very often, we are only doing about one gig a month. We were in Berlin in January and Amsterdam in March.

Photo Courtesy of Project Dark Web Site and gio (at) backspace.org

In May we will play on the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hall and will project the live video onto the wall of a neighbouring building. This is all on the South Bank of the Thames in Central London and the whole thing will be visible from the other side of the river!

Some examples are an etched glass single, a metal single, a tree section single, a Danish biscuit single amongst many others.

Our live show is based entirely on playing these objects on turntables. The sounds generated are processed and sometimes looped. They are played in a percussive manner and hours of testing has gone into getting the best sounds from each particular disc.

Also, what types of sounds did the 7"s make? Any particular favorites?

The sounds range from abrasive, crunchy sounds made by things like sandpaper and grinding discs to soft sweeping sounds generated by playing the hair and carpet singles. My particular favourite is the circular saw as it creates a rushing metallic sound on the flat part and a mad rhythm on the blade teeth!

Also, do you have a discography and/ or abbreviated list of gigs you've played?

Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany, January 1999
Paradiso, Amsterdam, March 1999
ISEA Festival, Liverpool, September 1998
MS Stubnitz in Stockholm Harbour, Sweden July 1998
Queen Elizabeth Hall, John Peel's Meltdown Festival, London June 1998
Music in the Anchorage, Brooklyn, New York, USA June 1997
Berlintokyo Galerie, Berlin, Germany April 1997

Additional Notes

Project Dark was to play on the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London on Friday 14 May 1999. They were going to use a robot mounted spy camera to project live video of the singles onto the wall of the Royal Festival Hall which can be seen from the north side of the Thames as well as from Waterloo Bridge. They were to be joined with Otomo Yoshihide. This event was to be part of the "Cities On The Roof," an event to coincide with the new "Cities On The Move" exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. This exhibition explores urban existence in Asia.

[Editor's Note]

While doing a follow-up on the London concert with Project Dark, I received email from Kirsten who informed me the London venue was cancelled. Here is what Kirsten had to say about the concert:
"We've just got back from playing the Sonar Festival in Barcelona.... Unfortunately the
show on the roof with Otomo [Yoshihide] was cancelled at the last minute as the local council were worried about the noise levels. Some offices have just been converted into nobby apartments for rich boring people who don't seem to realise that there may be occasional noise in the centre of a city next to an internationally renowned cultural art space!! SO they seem to have influenced Lambeth Council and we would have had to play at less volume than a polite cough! I think we will be doing something there later in the year but inside this time. We are also playing at a festival called Drift in Glasgow in Scotland on 5 November 1999. I don't have any further information yet but I can send it on later."

-- 22 June, 1999

Watch Last Sigh Tours section this late summer for further information on Project Dark in Scotland, or visit their site at: http://www.backspace.org/dark/