Moldover – Four Track

Moldover has kicked off a new project, Four Track – an album that he says is “waaaaay more than an album”:

This album is my life’s greatest work and I want it to be enjoyed by as many people as possible, but I can’t release my new music as just a simple download. I needed to create something really special. For my last album I pioneered the idea of “instrument as packaging” with my Light Theremin CDs. I had a ton of fun making them and I learned so much that I decided to re-invent the idea for Four Track. The result is a cassette-sized instrument I call The Voice Crusher.

Details on the album and The Voice Crusher are available at his project site.

24 thoughts on “Moldover – Four Track

    1. Moldover is smart to turn his release into something more than just digital files, something unique and creative and desirable. Back in the days of LPs musicians realized this, but most of that creativity disappeared with the shift to CDs and then digital downloads.

      1. True creativity transcends the medium, things like this have always been done and will always be done. Creativity didnt disappear, you just have experienced it recently. The reason every artist doesnt do this is it decreases replay value…no matter how good music is novelties dont go far and they make the experience a pain in the ass. Instrument albums are nothing new by any stretch and its super lame to see someone taking credit for pioneering something that was pioneered before he was born and had already fizzled out. User experience is fine, thats cool and fun, but its not unique….at all. This would have been pulled off better without the lame explanation and internet begging. I’m sure people will like the music and all, but that goes without saying this is completely self indulgent. Even Obituary did the internet begging thing and Obituary only wanted half on what he wants…and thats a band that IS pioneering in a genre, has a LONG standing in the genre, and is much, much more well known. I hate to rant and all, but I really cant stand beggars…especially credit taking beggars. Your fans are not your credit card….Visa gets their money back with interest. With Kickstarter you have musicians wanting MORE MORE MORE.

        Lets put this bluntly…for a mere $55 you get a niche artist’s four tracks on an unconventional medium plus mp3s (which will be to what you listen anyway) and some other junk people give away free at shows sold on a site based on community donation of which he has shown in his 3 years of membership that he has no wish to actually take part in the community as he has only cared to participate in said community TWICE, one of which being something he takes part in himself, indicating he would like you to just give him your money for ‘his greatest lifes work’ while you get A) Some music for a crazy price on inferior mediums and B) A bunch of free promo shit (and not even a fucking shirt). Oh, and he wants you to upgrade his gear for him too. WHY DO YOU NEED A THOUSAND DOLLAR MIC IF YOURE GOING TO PAY $1,500 FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO RECORD IT ON A BETTER MIC????? Im sure he’s a nice guy and Im sure his music is great to some people, but this was an all around jerk move.

        I hate to take the piss out of a fellow artist but this entire article makes electronic musicians, and musicians in general, look really bad.

        1. The name of the project is “Four Track,” after the old cassette format. He’s not recording only four tracks.

          There’s nothing unconventional about the delivery of the material, either. A standard USB drive is attached to the Voice Crusher circuit board that you plug into a computer. It will contain the album in good old mp3 format. The Voice Crusher is simply a clever (and totally unrelated) electronic audio mangler that you get for pledging $55 or more. It’s a smart way to upsell a music project.

          As far as his equipment goals go, at least he’s being absolutely honest. He wants to buy better gear for his home studio. Other Kickstarter projects simply don’t mention what they intend to do with the profit.

  1. At first I thought, “jesus, more hipster bullshit”. But then i watched the kickstarter campaign and realized he was chipping away at my jaded asshole exterior. He seems like a decent guy with quite a few talents.

  2. Censored! Sorry for making a point you didnt like. What ridiculous reason now? Gonna call it a personal attack? Was there an ill-placed profanity? Whatever, I’ll just cut it down to just facts this time….he participated twice in three years of membership on a community based donation site. He lists redundant costs for things he just plainly and clearly doesnt need. The successful funding of the two projects he donated to was something he takes part in. The concept is nice for those who will pay for it, but pioneering the concept is just not true. Larger, more established acts have asked for half of his goal. Much of what you get are things that are typically given away free as promotional items. Im sure I forgot plenty but that much alone is enough to make this look asinine to me.

    1. When a comment is held for moderation (because of length, links or content), it will show up on the device you made the comment on, with a ‘held for moderation’ indicator.

      A comment held for moderation will not show up on any other browser or device, because the site does not have any way to know its you with the new device.

      FWIW – it should be clear to any long-time reader that we don’t ‘censor’ comments, but we delete spam and we expect comments to be on topic and respectful.

  3. Heads up synthhead…getting some bizarre site messages across multiple devices. Got a couple of 404’s and site traffic messages. Think you may be maxing out? BTW, that would probably be the reason it looked censored to me…the comments disappeared for a few minutes, so I checked on my phone and they were still gone, then popped back up again hence, why I thought I was censored. Sorry about that, seen it happen in the past.

  4. Something about this video bothered me, and then I realized what it was. At 3:18: “Even after we hit that goal, please keep donating.That extra investment will help us make music videos, book tours and design new instruments.” Why are we expected to fund these things? Every day, month and year musicians struggle, work crap jobs and sell off things they’d rather not sell off to fund the aforementioned.

    I’m truly sorry for this guy’s hardship, and I’m glad he reconnected with music through because of it. But nothing in this video says he’s struggling. He has a huge network of friends who are already helping him and a studio full of equipment. More importantly, he has the capacity to share his music through various other networks.

    I understand the kitsch factor, but who really benefits from this kick starter? The instrument he “created” is nothing new. It’s a bit crusher for crying out loud. It’s a bit crusher attached to a thumb drive. If this is really your best work, just put it out there. Those who find it and connect with it will still find it equally as valid even without the marketing gimmick. And I’m sorry, but that’s all this is.

    1. Until last week I had been on the street for 3 years. I ate cheap, I saved like a motherfucker to by gadgets like a nanokontrol and a cheap behringer controller. I spent my days rounding up food and hustling cash anyway I could without asking for it. I had some gear from when I had a home stored at a friends house. I burn CD’s, made the package with any scraps I could find, I even found a remote spot with a lone socket that I could plug my gear into without looking insane having analogue synths on the street. Eventually I saved and got a battery powered PA, made my way to Hollywood, and electro busked like a motherfucker till my PA eventually got stolen. I booked it up to Ventura, scraped up items from Goodwill and sold them at the Pawn shop for a few dollars more to buy a sweet boombox I could busk with. Eventually after a couple weeks the cops smashed my boombox and dumped me at a river bottom. I spent the next year back in LA for a while then I booked it and went traveling. HItching, Greyhound, however, and I came across another ghetto blaster for free. I’ve busked a shitload of cities from LA to NC and back. Ive sold and gave away a bunch of DIY cd’s, I have a catalogue of over 500 songs now. In my time on the street Ive seen people killed before me, brutally. I slept for a week next to a dude that turned out to be a serial killer. Ive had more bullets sprayed at me than I care to count. All this happened after my wife left me, I took a job on a fishing boat in Alaska and the thing sank with all my cash on board. I also have a daughter I had to send to stay with family because of this. I was barely able to feed myself everyday for a while let alone a kid. I have ZERO sympathy for him. In these few years, I did not beg once. Not even a cigarette. So sad for his hardship, so sad for his career. I had one too, Ive worked with plenty A-List bands, worked in great studios with awesome clientele, and I can say I tuned the very monitors freakin Thriller was recorded on. That may shed some light on why I think it’s pathetic he’s begging, more lame he’s taking credit for too much, and way stupid he bothered to share his problems in order to sell you something. Im just of the opinion he should wipe that smug look off his face, shut up, quit begging, and do what you need to do to make what you need to make happen. Screw kickstarter musicians, I have zero respect for beggars.

      1. I just got back from Jamaica about a month ago, a land full of nefarious beggars. “Hey Rasta, help me feed my children,” “Can you spare some change for us poor peep-el, Rasta?” Beautiful people with soul who need some help. What an island! They bled me dry but I had a smile on my face the whole time. AND they’re fully analog!

        And far preferable to an island full of the bitter and self-righteous, Rasta 😉

        Wait what we’re we talking about? Oh that Moldover. What a nut!

        1. If that story is true you are a happy sucker sir. Thats the trick to spanging, make people smile. Thyats why I didnt do it, its like your whoring yourself…much like kickstarter musicians.

      2. Sorry your life seems tough, but it seems like the proper response would be to get a job and support your daughter, instead of living on the street selling CDs and being self-righteous about it.

        Cut Moldover some slack for actually having his act together enough to have fans that will fund his kickstarter project halfway to his goal with 30 days to go. That’s not begging – it’s called building a fan base and offering them something that they want.

  5. Honestly, his music sucks. Electro-blues or whatever the hell he’s trying to do just doesn’t appeal to many people. Now begging for money, he looks like he already has money, if he squandered it that’s his problem. Screw his tape ring modulator crap idea, there used to be an edge on this guy. I’m not feeling it anymore.

  6. I was blown away by Moldover when I first saw him live with his original tricked-out Remote SL. Completely changed the way I thought about making music with controllers. It’s been inspiring watching his work evolve over the years, both with his custom instruments and his music. He is a true pioneer in controllerism. And much of his work is about giving to the community – his Octamasher collaborative performance instrument, the cool mini-instruments he creates for his albums, the events he organizes. You may look at it as “selfish” and “begging” to ask for funding but I don’t. Unlike most of you and me, Moldover lives off his music and his instrument creations. He is a an artist, and artists often need financial support to make their dreams come true. And I am more than happy to be a part of making his vision a reality… Perhaps selfishly, so that I can be inspired by his work for years to come!

  7. There’s something about him finding his old recordings as a kid that really connected with me. Maybe it’s because it made me realize that I wish I could reconnect with music in such a passionate and innocent way.

    I really don’t get the bashing of the guy the fact is he’s done more to popularize what’s now a multi-million dollar industry than anyone else and he has some how been left completely in the dark while everyone else profits!

    I can remember going back to the 4 or 5 years ago he talks about in the video when controllerism was taking off and it was impossible to not run into moldover. Even Ean Golden credits him as the guy and Ean himself has had a huge influence on everything thats happened in the last 5 years. I remember seeing them both perform at Namm and thinking that these guy were gonna change the industry for the next gen. And they ultimately have when you see the amount of people and especially young kids taking about and getting into controllerism. But he kind of fell off the face of the earth and now after seeing that video I know why. And I don’t think he’s going for sympathy points – he’s being honest and vulnerable. Which is something that takes a lot of courage that I know I certainly don’t have.

    Say what you will about him not pioneering cassettes or whatever, but the man IS controllerism and he IS what many people wish they had the ability to be – a true artist with integrity and an intuitive passion for the things he does and for that he has my respect and pledge.

  8. So, will the album be recorded on tape and/or will it be released on tape? I like cassette tape, so that’d be nice. Not important or mind-blowing or whathaveyou, just nice.

  9. Quite a typical internet experience- watching this video and then reading the comments. Typical as in, a piece about a musician I find a little cheezy, followed up by rants by cry baby, uber-critics in the comments section that are worse than cheezy…they’re angry and pissed off and damn it, they’re gonna speak up about how shit the person in the article is! Oh what fun zzzzzzzz

    I can’t begrudge Moldover for begging a little, times are tough for musicians who want to actually make a living off of their music. Cause as some of you may know, no one actually pays for music anymore unless they have to. And they usually don’t.

    To me, Moldover’s kickstarter plea is a bit more like that PayPal “Donate” button on sites that give you free software. People who appreciate Moldover can chip in a little money and become a part of the “Moldover Experience”. Cheezy? A little. But living with your parents is worse!

  10. Living with your family is worse than begging? You spent way to much time on the internet if you think anyone is actually angry about this. Do what you will, some of us will go on making music, some will beg and give to beggars but trying to say I’m an ubercritic is silly…I could care less about the guy, I can just articulate my thoughts a bit past 4chan. In general, yeah, kickstarter ,musicians piss me off….is this my life? Are my feelings on particular subject what defines me? Absolutely. Glad you had the money to go to Jamaica, thats fairly expensive! Come back when you have some perspective. The comments sections are FOR ENGAGING, grow up and quit knocking people for using it as its for. Speaking of, thats what we’re talking about….kickstarter being used for what its for! Snarky mf

    1. Snarky mf! Thanks for that one . Got a real ring to it.

      Sorry man you’re right, I’m not engaging properly. I defer. And I’ll quit knocking people who are knocking people. Alls I’m sayin’ is that Molder is focusing his energy and doing something and I respect that. Sorry I don’t respect unfocused anger. But we all need to get it out somehow, and so please do continue sharing your lifestory in run-on sentences (I skimmed through that post, fascinating!). Cognitive therapy might be more effective though. Healing through dialogues rather than monologues. I learned that at my fancy dancy university, which gave me a job at Microsoft that pays BIG BUCKS. Last month Jamaica, next week shopping in London. I just might buy Big Ben.

      Cheers,
      Snarky mf

  11. I don’t like his voice much. I also didn’t love that he needs $500 dollars for a “Touch-Screen Controller”. I thought he builds controllers?.. So he needs an iPad? I don’t know… In other respects – He is using kickstarter exactly how it was intended to be used. So I don’t fault him there, but I also won’t be giving him $55. He kinda smells ratty, but i can also sense some passion-ish stuff. meh… Next article.

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