Sunday Synth Jam: This abstronica jam captures what Richard Devine does when he’s not busy watching a lake form around his house.

The patch combines Tiction – an animated nodal music sequencer for Mac, Windows & Linux; monome; and the touch-screen JazzMutant Lemur controller.

MOOG + PACIÊNCIA

Slow animal, fast images.
Music and video by Arthur Joly.

BT – This Binary Universe

Description:

This is BT music video for The Antikythera Mechanism, from his fantastic DVD This Binary Universe.

via pensierarte

This is the Dali-influenced video of Alessandro Amaducci, Discussion On Death.

Note: Totally NSFW!

For 200 Nanowebbers, Semiconductor created a molecular web that is generated by Double Adaptor’s live soundtrack:

Using custom-made scripting, the melodies and rhythms spawn a nano scale environment that shifts and contorts to the audio resonance. Layers of energetic hand drawn animations, play over the simplest of vector shapes that form atomic scale associations. As the landscape flickers into existence by the light of trapped electron particles, substructures begin to take shape and resemble crystalline substances. 

Jan van Nuenen’s Evolizer:

Black and white figures are moving around in a futurist city. One of the figures, carrying a mystic box, leads you inside a building. The box opens and begins to reveal its own laws of physics. Basic elements begins to modulate spontaneously creating more and more complex organic species. There’s a violent struggle for life. Who is the fittest?.

A clip from R. Luke DuBois and Lesley Flanigan’s Bioluminescence performance at Issue Project Room in NYC.

Two performers, one singing and one processing, create a dense pallet of sound and imagery derived entirely from voice.

John Kannenberg’s Reductive Waves is a meditation on the visualization of sound, via contrasting natural and human-crafted environments.

It features two main visual elements, the first of which is non-manipulated video footage of light moving across his living room wall, shot during a summer sunrise. The second is a series of digital images created via a reductive process in Photoshop, creating 150 abstract images which resemble soundwaves by using his photographs of resonant architectural spaces as source material.

These images were then animated and set to a soundtrack of manipulated field recordings of urban construction and waves on a lakefront along with synthesizer melodies and drones.
Reductive Waves premiered at Soundwalk 2008, East Village Arts District, Long Beach, California, 20 September 2008.

Circuitastrophe 2008 – a celebration of circuit bending, robotics, 8-bit music, hacking & electronic music will be held in Cincinatti Sept 4th & 5th, 2008. Reed Ghazala will be in the house.

Here are  the details:

Art Damage Lodge
Thursday, Sept 4th

7:00 French Crips
7:40 thejunkyardcatalyst
8:20 Hardon Collider
9:00 Ben Allen
9:40 Alex Inglizian
10:20 Fluxmonkey
11:00 Tentacle Boy
11:40 Crème DeMentia
12:20 Monkey Boy (lecture of folk art and bending)
—————-
Art Damage Lodge
Friday, Sept 5th

7:00 Pelzwik
7:40 Datura 1.0
8:20 Talking Computron
9:00
9:40 Dan Demchuk
10:20 Spunky Toofers
11:00 Mike Una
11:40 Circuit Ben Reaction
12:20 Peter Edwards
—————-
Workshops at Murmur
Saturday, Sept 6th:

10:00 AM – 12:00 PM Collin Raffel
Interfacing and controlling your bends

12:30 PM – 2:30 PM Alex Dyba ( GetLoFi.com ,
Talking Computron) 555 Timer Workshop

3:00 PM – 5:00 PM Highly Liquid Midi
Controller Workshop
—————-
semantics
Saturday, Sept 6th:

5:00 -7:00 PM Bar B. Q. and Installation Opening
Mike Una, Loud Objects, Mike Hancock,
Peter Edwards, Brad McCombs, Monkey Boy (Scot Scarboro)
Amy Youngs, Mark 1/2 Mang (Shafer)
7:00 PM – 7:40 Mike Hancock performing
his installation
—————-
The Mockbee
Saturday, Sept 6th:
8:00 – 9:30 PM
Q. Reed Ghazala The History of Circuit-Bending
Free “Funky Little Chunk” of Circuit-Bent History
http://www.anti-theory.com/

10:00 Loud Objects
11:00 Roth Mobot
11:40 Unicorn Dream Attack
12:20 DJ Tendraw (UK)
1:00 Albino Ghost Monkey
—————-
Contemporary Arts Center
Sunday, Sept 7th:

11:00 AM – 2:00 PM
The Mystery of Electricity;Panel Discussion & Brunch
Ken Rinaldo (OSU); http://kenrinaldo.com/
Amy Youngs from (OSU); http://hypernatural.com/
Brad McCombs (NKU); http://www.bradmcco.net/
& Mark Shafer (NKU)

2:00 – 5:00
upstairs in the UnMuseum, all ages
Circuit-Bending 101 Workshop with
DJ Dan Demchuk and Patrick McCarthy

On Soft Lunch, Motzer creates improvised glitchtronica soundscapes. While Motzers’ sounds are often bitcrushed and abrasive, they are filtered through a wash of ambient reverberation, turning aggresive glitch sounds into more relaxing soundscapes.

Motzer creates a tension by placing the crunchy electronic sounds of glitch music in a huge reverberant acoustic space. As a result, the music moves almost imperceptibly from sounding grating to melodic to hauntingly beautiful. It’s an interesting combination, because it retains the quirkiness and edginess of experimental electronica while also embracing the warmth and depth of ambient effects.

Motzer’s Soft Lunch is not the type of ambient music that you’re likely to use as sonic perfume. It demands more of you as a listener – but if you enjoy more experimental electronic music, it also offers more rewards.

Tracks:

• Soft Lunch
• Blue Samari
• Embrace
• Gelid
• Chi Moto
• Zen Assembler
• Spellbound
• Shadow Guitar
• Sadness
• After They’ve Gone

On The Beeps, Yoko Solo explores experimental loop-based abstronica that sometimes borders on the danceable, but more often goes into IDM territory. Rhythms and grooves here are a tool for catching your ear so that that it can be taken on a new tangent. Beats jump in and out of the picture, while Yoko Solo drops in spoken world samples, noises or ambient effects, creating an aural collage.

The music has a very unfinished, punk feel to it that is frustrating, because it sometimes seems to go nowhere, but it is very fresh, too, because you never know where the music will go next.

Yoko Solo is brave enough to risk not satisfying your expectations, which is always interesting.

Tracks:

• Kluge (?!)
• Pigbucket Blam Blam
• Don’t Fall Asleep I’m Warning You Don’t Fall Asleep
• Infinite Collapse Pt. One: I Blew It (Infinite Undo)
• Infinite Collapse Pt. Two: Sickly Assassin
• Infinite Collapse Pt. Three: Bang U Up Dummy
• Krak V.2 “I Rebuke Thee”
• No Party, Wind/Vomit
• These Are The Beeps
• The Alarm (9øøø)
• Covered In Feces…Stronger Than You, Rotten
• Partial Collapse / Useless Control Systems (I’ve Got No Rights)
• noWave
• Cosmonaut Tragedy

Description:

Some elements you discover on the way may sound familiar; this is because we have taken inspiration from many genres and styles and tried to give them an experimental twist. If you like the music released by labels such as Warp Recordings, Planet Mu and Ninja Tune etc, we think you are going to love this sample library.

We have aimed to keep the content experimental and cutting-edge and perhaps a little weird, but at the same time fully usable and adaptive to all styles of music. If you are a producer for auditory or visual media you will find plenty of material ideal for radio, television and film scores.

We think you will find the content very varied indeed – manic beats, chilled out pads, disturbing SFX, serene vocals, futuristic synths, gentle guitars and a whole lot more!

This library is your first-class ticket to great sounds – which doesn’t by any means promise a comfortable, safe or banal journey; but what you can expect is an exhilarating and erratic tour of the world of abstract.

Sound Info

• 1350 Acidized Wav Files
• 530 Rex2 Files
• 1250 EXS24 Instruments
• 1250 HALion Instruments
• 1250 Kontakt Instruments
• Reason Refill
• 40 x Full Construction Kits
• 215 x Breakbeats / Drum Loops
• 165 x FX Presets and Fx loops
• 170 x Percussion & Drum Kit Sounds
• 128 x Synths loops and Pads
• 80 x Bass Loops
• 25 x Guitar Loops Presets
• 35 x Vocal loops

This multi-format sample collection gives you the ultimate in sampler and software compatibility: Acid-ready WAV files. Emagic EXS24 sampler instruments, HALion sampler instruments, Kontakt sampler instruments, Reason Refill and Stylus RMX compatible REX2 Recycle files!

Product Code (SKU): ZG-140

Retail Price: UK£ 59.95 / US$ 99.95 / 89 Euro

This Binary Universe comes as a CD/DVD set. While both are excellent, the DVD offers 5.1 sound, along with computer-animated videos. I listened to the music in both formats, and this is one of the first electronica releases to really showcase the capabilites of 5.1. While many 5.1 releases sound like the stereo release, opened up, here it sounds like 5.1 is the master, and the stereo version is a reduced, edited version.

This Binary Universe is likely to disappoint some listeners expecting dance tracks. The tracks are abstronica – glitch-filled abstract electronic music that is close enough to popular music forms to be recognizable, but unabashedly experimental, nonetheless.

This is a new direction for BT which may leave some people guessing. The music is bold, and it’s likely that it will take some time for people’s ears to get used to it.

BT kicks starts things off subtly, with All That Makes Us Human Continues. This track has an underlying ostinato on which BT layers relaxing bell tones and glitch noises. BT then builds to a guitar-focused section that recalls the Americana sound of his Monster soundtrack, before returning to the more relaxed sounds and density of the beginning, fading this out slowly until just the ambience of the sounds remains.

The track is This Binary Universe in a nutshell. BT takes a simple theme and repeats it, but instead of just looping it, he makes every measure different. And the variations aren’t just random, but help build the piece from nothing to an intense climax.

The next track, Dynamic Symmetry, is one of the highlights of the release, and the track that will probably be most accessible to fans of his more pop-oriented music. BT starts the track of with a short melody played with bell-like tones, but immediately builds it up with his trademark drum sounds – except that they are in 9/4.

But as soon as he gets it going, BT breaks it down and explores glitchy variations. Then BT moves to a mellow jazz interlude, that is interrupted by a driving 4/4 section, before returning to the jazz glitch vibe. .

The Internal Locus
continues in a similar vein, exploring delicate parallel keyboard harmonies that would be familiar in Debussy or jazz. BT backs this with environmental sounds and hints of glitch. BT then moves to a full orchestral section, where he filters his theme through the orchestra and back through his electronics, blurring the lines between the electronic and the acoustic. BT returns to the beginning to wrap up the piece, but not before taking a quick detour into the land of 4/4 breakbeats.

1.618
is the golden ratio, and the title of the next track. The golden ratio has fascinated mathemeticians and architects for thousands of years, and musicians for nearly as long, because the proportions it represents can be found in both simple and complex ways throughout nature. BT’s music explores delicate ambient sounds, contrasted with percussion effected with different acoustics, giving it an almost breathlike effect. This is one of the most restrained tracks on the CD, but also one of the most powerful.

See You On The Other Side
flows from the subtle ambience of the end of 1.618 and gradually brings in a repeating motif, again played with bell-like tones. This is the most hypnotic of the tracks, evolving slowly with a minimalistic focus. BT is bold enough to take his time, drawing out this initial section. He moves on to a pensive section that adds bass and guitar and finally to a more electronic third section. Even at its peak, though, See You On the Other Side keeps the intensity restrained. This track recalls Eno’s idea that ambient music should be as ignorable as it is listenable. In this case, BT’s approach makes it almost relaxing, but the complexity and constant, subtle change, adds an intensity that gives the music a depth that lets it be listened to repeatedly, with each listen revealing something new.

Next up is The Antikythera Mechanism. The title refers to a mysterious geared mechanism, that dates from over 2,000 years ago, that was found in a shipwreck. Its complexity has confounded scientists and historians for years. While the mechanics of the device are thought to describe the mostion of the planets and the sun, no one is certain of how exactly it worked.
BT’s work seemlessly builds from a gentle section built around a piano motif, to a full orchestral section to a climax that brings the orchestra together with his more electronic effects.

BT ends the CD/DVD with Good Morning Kaia, a reflective piano piece that seems to capture the poignance of love and loss that one can feel when one has children. Every wonderful moment one has quickly becomes a memory of something lost.

The work is inspired by BT’s daughter Kaia, and is one long crescendo. BT takes a simple piano motif, processed to give it an underwater parking garage effect, and repeats it, gradually introducing instruments. The piece builds to become a passionate rock anthem, before fading back to the piano motif at the end.

The DVD features visuals that are largely abstract. While they aren’t as compelling as the music itself, they gel together with the 5.1 sound in an impressive way. The abstract animations are at times stunning. The most emotionally powerful video, though, is the BT-directed Good Morning Kaia, which features a scrollling love poem from BT to his daughter, set against a backdrop of images of Kaia and her family.

This Binary Universe may be BT’s finest work yet – it could be up there with works like Brian Eno’s Ambient 1, or Giorgio Moroder’s I Feel Love, music that opened up worlds of music that weren’t fully appreciated for years.

All in all, BT’s This Binary Universe is one of the most interesting and affecting releases, in any genre, of the year. It’s highly recommended, and make sure you check it out in 5.1.

Here’s the preview for the DVD:

BT talks about his This Binary Universe in a promo for M-Audio:

Tracks:

• All That Makes Us Human Continues
• Dynamic Symmetry
• The Internal Locus
• 1.618
• See You On The Other Side
• The Antikythera Mechanism
• Good Morning Kaia

Disc: 2

• All That Makes Us Human Continues
• Dynamic Symmetry
• The Internal Locus
• 1.618
• See You On The Other Side
• The Antikythera Mechanism
• Good Morning Kaia

em:t’s recent gaudi:test 1105 Continuum is no exception. The cd brings together Gaudi’s electronic soundscapes and grooves with the organic sounds of Antonio Testa.

The music ranges from drone-based, pure abstract pieces like Prologue-Helictite Labrynth to the ambient space grooves of tracks like Dub Hypnosis. A reference point for comparison would be the organic electronica of Robert Rich.

Highlights of gaudi:test 1105 Continuum include Night Watch, which alternates between murky ambient sections and dub grooves; Micro-Evolution, which features sequenced synth bass underlying all sorts of madness, and is the most propulsive track on the CD; and Bass Instinct, which layers sampled effects over a hypnotic middle-eastern beat.

gaudi:test 1105 Continuum is an interesting collection of ambient and downtempo music, and continues em:t’s streak of great releases.

Tracks:

• Prologue – Helictite Labyrinth
• Deimos’ Prophecy
• Night Watch
• Dawn Cliffs: Il Risveglio Delle Pietre
• Micro-Evolution
• Interlude
• Dub Hypnosis
• Bass Instinct
• Space-Mind Continuum
• No Escape
• Epilogue – After the plunge

As McNight puts it, “You will find a sampling of strange, unique and truly original songs that spark the imagination and puzzle the soul.”

Tracks range from ambient to aggressive industrial in style. Check out My Liquid Life.

While you enjoy the free tracks, don’t miss the Pre-Booty Agreement. Might come in handy…..

You can find all of OCP’s free stuff: http://www4.archive.org/search.php?query=ocp

There are also some very interesting free videos of some of these tracks available, go to: http://pygar.pt.vu

gel-sol is a solo project of Andrew Reichel. Reichel’s music follows in the tradition of synth music pioneers, but freely mixes in dance music elements and samples that add a post-millenial edge.

The first track, assemblage point, begins with the washes of sound similar to the early ambient guitar work of Fripp and Eno, and then moves into chill-out territory with the addition of electronic drums.

ombai strait features is a great track combines early space-music synth influences with dance beats and some very weird samples. The most prominent is from Greaser’s Palace, an obscure seventies movie:

One moment please. I bring you a message. Exactly six miles north of Skagg Mountain in the Valley of Pain, there lives an evil devil-monster. His name is Bingo Gas Station Motel Cheeseburger With A Side Of Aircraft Noise And You’ll Be Gary Indiana. And he loves to hurt people. The last time I saw Bingo Gas Station Motel Cheeseburger With A Side Of Aircraft Noise And You’ll Be Gary Indiana, he told me what he wants to do. He wants to come down here and kill each and every one of you. But I said to him: ‘Bingo, wait a minute!’. And the reason I said that is because I believe in you people. I believe you can do the job. I believe you can help each other. I believe you can make this world a better place to live in. That’s it.

Gel-Sol uses a lot of unusual vocal samples on other tracks. In montauk, soundbites exclaiming the virtues of technology pepper the track. Later in the track, an announcer lets you know how you can win $125,000! The contrast of the mundane samples with the ambient backing gives the tracks as sense of irony.

numby numbs is one of the stranger tracks on the CD. Drums, guitar and keyboard lock in complex syncopated rhythms. No longer in ambient territory, numby numbs sounds like Chick Corea’s Return to Forever sent through a blender.

schwein kuchen is a gentle ambient track that features Dreamweaver-esque synth strings, and quirky reversed sounds. The track unfolds over nearly eight minutes, and builds by adding sequenced synth blurps and drums. It builds to an almost trance-like effect, and then the pulse gradually slows, until the drum beats stretch out to a grainy audio blur.

few and far between and feeling butter all the time both mix danceable beats with more quirky samples. Here the feel is more IDM than chillout or ambient.

Gel-Sol1104 is very original, and may challenge listeners that like their ambient music to stay ambient. More adventurous listeners, though, will find this an interesting release that doesn’t fit into any pat category.

Fans of danceable ambient electronica should check this out. Reichel has samples and free tracks available at the Gel-Sol site. The CD can be purchased directly from em:t.

Tracks:

• assemblage point
• ombai strait
• ach werden ijler
• montauk
• numby numbs
• schwein kuchen
• few and far between
• feeling butter all the time

Eno was born Brian Peter George St. Baptiste de la Salle Eno in England. As a child, he was fascinated with recordings of American pop, because he felt that they seemed mysterious and without a context. He studied art in Ipswich and Winchester, where he learned about avant garde composers such as Cornelius Cardew and, especially, John Cage. Eno participated in performances of avant garde works, and became interested in systems of generating music and art. In 1968, he self-published a book titled Music for Non-Musicians, exploring a theme that has carried through his career.

After he graduated, he joined Roxy Music, as a technician. He contributed signifantly to their early sound, but his flamboyant image (he cross-dressed) and theorizing put him at odds with leader Bryan Ferry.

This was the beginning of Eno’s explosion of creative work in the seventies. In 1973, he collaborated with Robert Fripp on the album No Pussyfooting. The album features Eno’s tape-loop treatment of Fripp’s guitar improvisations. The result holds up very well as a precusor to the ambient music that followed. He also released a string of LP’s that showcased his quirky approach to pop music, including Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Another Green World, and Before and After Science. These albums are exciting and frustrating, innovative and strange, and have been tremendously influential.

His interest in more mellow sounds continued, with more albums with Robert Fripp, and his Discreet Music, which some consider the first ambient music. His ideas about this type of music came together with Ambient 1: Music for Airports.

He founded Obscure Records, and released several albums by experimental musicians. Eno also began handling production for many significant pop musicians. He worked with David Bowie on some of his best albums, Low, Heroes, and Lodger. At the end of the seventies, and in the early eighties, Eno continued to produce, working with Ultravox, Devo, Talking Heads, and U2. His work with David Byrne on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was some of the first pop music to explore found samples and the idea of “world” music.

More recently, Eno has worked extensively in the area of video installation, and has applied the same ideas he explores in his ambient music to video. His more more recent ambient music is extremely minimal, which makes it very functional, but maddening to listeners looking for traditional “musical” signposts.

Eric Tamm has written an excellent book on Eno and his work.

Recordings:

• 1973 No Pussyfooting (with Robert Fripp)
• 1974 Here Come The Warm Jets
• 1974 Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)
• 1975 Evening Star (with Robert Fripp)
• 1975 Another Green World
• 1975 Discreet Music
• 1977 Cluster & Eno (with Cluster
• 1978 Before and After Science
• 1978 Ambient #1 / Music for Airports
• 1978 Music for Films
• 1978 After the Heat (with Roedelius and Dieter Moebius)
• 1980 Ambient #2 / The Plateaux of Mirror (with Harold Budd)
• 1980 Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics (with Jon Hassell)
• 1981 Ambient #3 / Day of Radiance (by Laraaji with Eno producing)
• 1981 My Life In The Bush of Ghosts (with David Byrne)
• 1982 Ambient #4 / On Land
• 1983 Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks
• 1984 Begegnungen
• 1984 The Pearl (with Harold Budd)
• 1985 Thursday Afternoon
• 1985 Hybrid (with Daniel Lanois and Michael Brook)
• 1985 Begegnungen II (with Roedelius and Dieter Moebius)
• 1989 Textures
• 1990 The Shutov Assembly
• 1990 Wrong Way Up (with John Cale)
• 1992 Nerve Net
• 1993 Neroli
• 1995 Spinner (with Jah Wobble)
• 1997 The Drop
• 2001 Drawn From Life (with Peter Schwalm)
• 2003 January 07003 | Bell Studies for The Clock of The Long Now

The titles of his pieces on Propagation capture the spirit of the music: “Animus”, “Lifeblood”, and “Whispers of Eden”. Each of the pieces on the album has a dark texture, where sounds seem distant or veiled.

The pace of the album is very slow. The pieces have a pulse, played out on acoustic percussion, but they are very lanquid. Rich plays a variety of flutes, including bamboo and PVC, and treats the flutes with a great deal of reverb so that they have an almost pad-like texture. He also plays various synthesizers, slide guitar, dumbecs, talking drums, waterphone, key tree, chimes,  and rainstick.

While the overall texture of the album in ambient, it is often melodic and sensuous. His flute melodies give the music a tranquil feel. Several other musicians add their improvisational touches. Lisa Moskow contributes Indian sarod melodies, Forest Fang adds oriental violin melodies, and Carter Scholz plays Indonesian gamelan.

The CD is well-thought out, and plays well as a coherent whole. The pieces are tied together through the use of similar instrumentation, but each piece has its own personality. The murky textures and lively playing on Propogation capture the idea of nature reproducing itself in dark and beautiful ways.

On Beaubourg, Vangelis creates an abstract electronic tone poem. This is not unlike some of the work of other electronic composers of this time (late 70’s), but is one of only two albums of this type of music that Vangelis has done. Listeners that like Stockhausen or Morton Subotnick will be right at home with Beaubourg.

Beaubourg is a city in France, but it’s difficult to know if this piece is supposed to be inspired or paint a picture of the city. Vangelis is somewhat reclusive, and rarely talks about his work.

The music is very abstract, and sounds like Vangelis improvised it on several of his Yamaha CS-80’s. It’s expressive, in the extreme sense of the word. He uses dramatic transformations of the sounds throughout. The sound palette is fairly consistent, but Vangelis plays with tonality by playing recognizable melodies for a few moments, and then drifting off into distorted madness. Pure tones transform themselves into distorted, clangorous metallic noises.

Some sections sound very tonal and even melodious. These features quiet, plaintive melodies. Vangelis plays with tonality by playing recognizable melodies for a few moments, and then drifting off into distorted madness. Most of Beaubourg is less tonal, and more clangorous. Vangelis plays with the ring-modulator on the CS-80, which transforms simple tones into complex, metallic noises.

This music will sound foreign to the ears of listeners accustomed to Chariots of Fire or 1492. It’s a must have for hardcore Vangelis fans. New listeners will want to try a few of his more accessible experimental pieces, though, like Heaven and Hell.