View current page
...more recent posts
Highly recommended: MEQ AND THE URS, four songs performed entirely on the Sidstation synthesizer, using its unique wavetable features to write sequences (as opposed to overdubbing separately played parts, which is the lazy way out around here). The Sidstation is modern hardware incorporating the much-geek-fetishized SID (sound-producing) chip from '80s Commodore computers, and while this page has complained repeatedly about a lack of substantive musical content in the so-called "gameboy scene" hyped by Malcolm McLaren as the new whatever, I'm pleased to report that the MEQ songs are dark, soulful, trancy little numbers with clever compositional hooks and surprising transpositions, working within the cheesy video game limitations of the chip while reveling in its sensuous sawtooth sonorities. I finally got the .sid-song player working on my Sidstation so have been listening to some of the '80s game stuff but prefer what MEQ is doing, which is exploiting the capabilities of a smart present-day instrument built around a success story of the early era of home computing. The point is not to be stuck forever in the '80s but to pursue hybrids between the overlooked or still perfectly good old and the ingeniously programmed and collectively vetted new. "A Tale About Reactivation" and "Union Bob" especially shine.
More on this thread. Jotsif explains it's two Sidstations (using wavetables) playing side by side in real time, sequenced from the Monomachine (another synth made by Elektron, the same Swedish company that created the Sid).
Next time someone says you don't support the troops because you're opposed to Bush's handling of Iraq, the reply is that Bushvoters don't support them either. Fundamentalist preachers aren't urging their congregations to enlist in the personnel-starved Army, Rush the Hillbilly Heroin Addict isn't exhorting his dittohead radio listeners to serve in Iraq, and the 101st Fighting Keyboarders (right wing bloggers) aren't doffing their khakis and polo shirts and quitting their jobs in the tech industries to help Uncle Sam. They all love to bay for war but don't think their kind should have to pay the ultimate price. The official word from Bush to America is still shop for the war effort. I'm sick of these people and frankly don't think anyone should listen to them. (excellent graphic from PST; rant partly recycled Gilliard and Kos)