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"Jay Jay's Apartment" (cool version) [mp3 removed]
"Jay Jay's Apartment" (nerdy version) [mp3 removed]
A bit slow in getting around to this, but please listen to the marvelous "Rodchenko in My Bauhaus," by Candy Chang [dead link - download was from the Red Antenna site which handles Chang's music]. This lascivious come-on set to a slinky electro beat abounds with visual art and design references, and is possibly the only song you will ever hear that rhymes "Moholy-Nagy" with "love collage," or entices the listener to "put your function in my form." You can check out other music by Chang at her website; songs are available for download from her Typography EP (the instrumentals "Bravo Futura" and "Telegram 41"), and the Impulse Sealer 12" ("My Radio Is So Casual"). I first learned about Chang hearing "Rodchenko" on Red Antenna's New Electric Policy 2 CD (which I play a lot), one of the last things I bought at Throb before it crashed and burned.
It must be said, I don't want New York electro to be over, because it's a great contribution to the world and a quantum leap over the old synthpop and new wave dance music, in that the technology is so much better now, and 20 years' knowledge of how to push amplified sound around makes all the difference. Anyway, sorry for that rant, be sure to check out those Chang instrumentals.
I cut another minute out of "Blues for DG" [mp3 removed], and it's better now, I think. Also, the piano version of "Reel for Omniverters" ain't half bad for a guy playing with three arms: [mp3 removed]. The synth version is here, possibly to be revised with better synths.
Photos from the Wrecking Ball, a twice-monthly "Evening of Electronic Musical Debauchery and Mayhem" in Brooklyn. Top, Heat Sensor, three intense guys with laptops, who've gotten some ink recently working with hiphoppers MF Doom and King Ghidra. All glitchy texture and monotonously elegant looped beats, this was hard to stay focused on, except for occasionally ear-tickling Kruder & Dorfmeisterish atmospherics. Middle photo, Bubblyfish, incorporating 8-bit/gameboy sounds organically into danceable techno. This could be pop music in Europe, and that's meant as a compliment (because I hear they have techno on the radio over there, and not just in car commercials). Her final number--begun and ended with a childlike pecking out of "Good King Wenceslas"--especially shined. Not pictured because the photo was overexposed: Man From Planet Risk's jenghizkhan, the most dissonant and "art," as opposed to arty, entry in the program. He had beats, but also skronky sounds resembling giant uncoiling springs overlapping in reverberating, Stockhausenlike crescendos. Also, like Bubblyfish, some pretty melodies wafting into the mix.
Heat Sensor
Bubblyfish (and speckly texture on the photo--sorry)
"Reel for Omniverters" [mp3 removed]
A friend commented that he likes the music I wrote for the Macintosh SE better than what I'm doing now, because what I'm doing now is "dance music." I disagree that anything written in the last six months is particularly danceable, although I use a lot of dance tropes because I love it. FWIW, "Reel for Omniverters" is more in the old style of writing, just with newer instruments.
Technical crap: this piece uses Cubase to control three synths, one "outboard" and two virtual. I spent a frustrating week trying to adapt my writing method to the Cubase environment and finally gave up. In Cubase, staff notes are contained within "parts" on a timeline, and you can't cut and paste notes, only parts. Which means constantly moving in and out of the parts to write. So what I did here was write the whole thing for piano in my notation program, which allows one to easily move notes around on any number of staffs, and then saved it as a MIDI file, which I imported into Cubase and used to play the instruments. So, why not just use the notation program to play the synths? Because it's limited to its own (conventional sounding) virtual instruments and its MIDI control isn't very good. Cubase is more compatible with the virtual instrument environment. Because the next step is to eliminate the use of Cubase's "house synths" and import (or control) better sounding ones.
UPDATE: Bonus--piano version [mp3 removed]
Music studio (a work in progress). I have almost everything depicted here and am gradually learning to work it all. I drew this to keep track of all the different cables but it's helping me conceptually. I find I'm not intimidated by Cubase (beginner set); it's just a fancier version of MusicWorks and the notation software I've been using--in fact all the big music and paint programs are just refinements of clunky interfaces from the 80s. I will have to spend some time learning to control the instruments with the sequencer, however. I got some good results with the Sid last night but the MIDI connections are imperfect. Still trying to find a balance between having basic studio competence and doing things "wrong," which can lead to good results. As for the lack of a musical keyboard in this setup: I actually prefer entering notes on an old-fashioned staff, that's a matter of choice. Making music player piano fashion perversely appeals to me and gives me a greater range than playing notes. This is not ambient or noise music I'm making, these songs have tunes, but I am more interested in composing and sound-sculpting than playing; it's posthuman in that sense.
"Blues for DG" [mp3 removed]. This is me tickling the synth ivories and slappin the skins roadhouse blues style. Not really, but it was done in real time bending notes and then edited down. I originally called it Blues for Donald because I was imagining variations on a few notes like his iterations of aluminum cubes out in Marfa, only bluesy, but I changed the title because I hate overt homages to past art and don't want it to be "about" the Judds. "DG" is a complete red herring.
UPDATE: Trimmed about a minute out of this.
My music studio setup from a few months ago. I got the idea of using this particular Photoshop filter for a studio photo from a prog rock musician I admire, whose site is no longer online apparently. A line out from the Mac SE (the screen on the right) goes to the mixing board on the left (note improvised gear rack). Another line out from the PC (floor) also feeds into the mixer, and the audio is then routed back into the PC through the LP recorder box on the floor. The audio out from the PC was the voice of Microsoft Sam reciting numbers in German, gradually slowing down and changing pitch because there wasn't enough memory in the text reader. Beats came off a DIY drum program streaming off the internet. The SE, running MusicWorks, supplied a background jingle. I've recently started using off-the-shelf software and felt I needed to post this to establish my street (Povera) cred. I consider all this visual art, for any curator who thinks I've stopped working. This is why I probably won't apply for a Creative Capital grant: they'd never understand. I'm not sure I do.
Surfing around electronic music links yesterday. Throb.com has vanished. That was the site for a great record store where I bought a lot of vinyl from '99 - '03. Somewhere owner Load Rezenhand has a shop's worth of amazing inventory in storage--if I was rich I'd track him down and buy it all. One of the most helpful people at the store that I found early on was DJ Prozac. Incredibly knowledgeable, with discriminating taste and a strong point of view (until I found this Discogs link I didn't know his name or that he'd made these tracks). His taste was consistently harder, harsher, and more experimental than what I liked but he took pity on me and recommended more of the "beautiful" or seductive electro and tech-house I was looking for. He is friends with artist Meredith Danluck and through her he briefly became electronic music maven of the art stars. (Well, I'm told one relatively famous artist who used a Wolfgang Voigt composition in his work learned about him through Zach.)
Some survivors (more on all this later):
http://www.selwaymusic.net/
http://www.satamile.com/label.jsp
http://www.satelliterecords.com/live/index.php
"Pops at 49" [mp3 removed]. Noisy, dirty micro-trance. If it was a car someone would write "wash me" on it. Pops commencing at :49 are pretty jarring but as Pee Wee Herman would say, "I meant to do that" (I think); gratuitous filter sweep at 1:49 takes you to climax, meaning the loud end of the song.
"XP Hardware Failure: Intro and Main Theme" [mp3 removed]
Made this awhile back and never put it up. Inspired by Clown Staples' immortal "Windows Noises," I did what many did on hearing that music--said "I could do that." Of course I couldn't, but it's taken a few months to see the charm in my own klutzy hubris. It's all done--poorly--using the little sndrec32.exe editor lurking in every Windows OS, with some help from Goldwave, a shareware .wav editor. Think I'm ready for drum and bass now.
Old School Techno from Dallas, Part 2
Ravestock '94, Dallas. That is seriously a lot of stripes. And girls.
x-eleven "Ecstasy" 1992 [mp3 removed]
Previous post on x-eleven is here. Since it was written, Gary Wicker has put up some more tracks, including "Ecstasy," the one highlighted above. Not sure where it's going at first, the sampled "ooh" sounds silly, but at the 90 second mark it grabs your attention, and at 120 seconds, when the Larry Heard-ish house part with the synth-flute kicks in and those "oohs" become joyful, stuttering vocal science, it really takes off. Some of the appeal is rooted in time travel but this is among the happiest music you'll hear, and Wicker feeds the retrograde desire to hear lots of arpeggios played at high speed. Haven't checked out Todd Hixon's videos yet, also from the vault, but will--just wanted to get this track up. It's weird, I'm nostalgic for a scene I never participated in, except in my studio listening to these tunes on the radio. I moved to NY the next year and found drum and bass everywhere--right about the time Wicker sold his gear and stopped making x-eleven tracks. "Ecstasy" is earlier--'92.