Giddy Flame
with Scott Gailey / Hotspring, 2022–, in progress
Ambient-pop project
First performed at Performance Works, Vancouver, June 25, 2024, opening for Laraaji
Hermann Hendrich, The Will o’ the Wisp and the Snake
Scott Gailey and Michelle Helene Mackenzie. Photo: Sungpil Yoon
Laraaji, Performance Works, Vancouver, 2024
Performance Works, Vancouver, 2024. Photo: Brandon Thomas Ng
Giddy Flame is an ambient-pop project with Scott Gailey.
The project began in 2022 as an exploration of pre-industrial nightscapes, biphasic sleep patterns, and the fascination with the dangers and possibilities of the night — “pestilent damps”, vapours emanating from the moon, night spirits, the ghost lights of bogs, Greenteeth, the Will o’ the Wisp or giddy flame: ghosts, fairies or elemental spirits said to lead wanderers along a path that is often false, one that leads into the depths of the night, and occasionally a pond.
We began taking field recordings from every hour of the night, from dusk until dawn, throughout Southern California and the Sonoran desert, recording desert winds, nocturnal animals and insects, and night-cloaked oceanscapes.
Giddy Flame was first performed in 2024 at Performance Works, Vancouver, opening for Laraaji. Our first LP is being recorded and mixed.
The result is a mixture of organic and synthetic sound, combining field recording, modular, analog and digital synths (Buchla 100, Arp 2600, Eurorack, DX7), hardware, guitar, amplified objects, and voice.