Wednesday 26 March 2008

Ian Baxter


My general feeling about the art-bat metaphor was that, in cricket at least, I've always rooted for the bowler. Unlike the Batsmen, Bowlers (like artists?) don't have an implement to wield or represent them. What that says about me I don't know.
Anyway my art-bat is this old delay pedal not only features in most of the pieces I've made but its very nature seems to sum up what I'm interested in. It sounds utterly charming in a way that modern, digital technology cannot hope to match. It seems to make everything sound good. I think this is mainly because it acts as a filter for high frequencies and I like the fact that technical people would object to this and see it as a design flaw and yet I exploit it and enjoy it's sound. Of all the bits and pieces I use in my studio it's among the cheapest pieces of equipment - just £15. This makes it even more magical to me, I feel like a get a lot out of it for putting very little in.

1 comment:

No Fixed Abode said...

The idea of the bowler is an interesting one which we're glad has been raised. Somebody said at the talk on Saturday, 'all this talk of bats, what about the ball?' In some ways I think that the bowlers are the speculators, they are the ones with the initil power and they are of course the ones that start any passage of play. In many ways the game is cyclical, the bowlers and the batters, for a short period of time, develop a relationship which is overlooked/monitored/contested by the fielders, regulated by the umpires, criticised by the spectators and documented or re-presented by the media. Sorry for the tangent but your point got me going.

Great to hear about the pedal, really like the way you have described it as indicative of you.