Moog Music has published a nice interview with Chris Kilmore, of Incubus.

In the interview, Kilmore discusses how he uses his Moog gear:

When I first moved to LA in October of ‘95, I met a friend named Danny. He was the boyfriend of a girl I knew and was in LA to attend Cal Arts film school. We hit it off because we were both into music and film. I had just graduated from the George Washington University with a radio/tv/film degree. I moved to LA to get into foley work or some kind of film related job.

used to go up to Danny’s place in Valencia. It was like E.T. meets blacksploitation. I wish I had a pic of his place. It was black lights, lava lamps, b-rated film posters, zodiac signs, Star Wars sheets and Parliament records… oh and Minimoogs!!! It was like the ultimate clash of pop cultures.

I would bring my decks and samplers, and we’d just sit around and dissect funk records looking for cool samples. We would smoke a lot of weed, and he would go off about Bernie Worrell and his sounds. And in no time we’d have the Minimoog hooked up to the decks. It was sci-fi heaven after that.

I was into the sounds we were making. We would sample ourselves, make our own songs (some better than others) and have a lot of fun just experimenting with the sounds. I spent a lot of time on his Minimoog. It definitely was like learning a new language. I had no clue what I was doing, sometimes I would turn the thing on and couldn’t get any sound out of it (what I now know wasn’t only my problem). I eventually figured it out and started making my own scratch records that were heavily Moog influenced. Those records played a big part in my early years with Incubus.

See the full interview at the Moog site.

In a Trouser Press interview from 1982, Brian Eno shared his thoughts on ambient music:

Brian Eno On Ambient Music

I like it as an ambiguous term. It gives me a certain latitude.

It has two major meanings. One is the idea of music that allows you any listening position in relation to it. This has widely been misinterpreted by the press (in their infinite unsubtlety) as background music. I mean music that can be background or foreground or anywhere, which is rather a different idea.

Most music chooses its own position in terms of your listening to it. Muzak wants to be back there. Punk wants to be up front. Classical wants to be another place. I wanted to make something you could slip in and out of. You could pay attention or you could choose not to be distracted by it if you wanted to do something while it was on. I can’t read with a pop record playing, or with most classical records. They’re not intended to leave that part of the mind free – my mind, anyway. Ambient music allows many different types of attention.

The other meaning is more pronounced on On Land: creating an ambience, a sense of place that complements and alters your environment. Both meanings are contained in the word ambient.

Critics don’t like these records, but people do. The response has been really encouraging.

People are doing the most interesting things with the records. I got a letter from a woman in Cleveland who works with autistic children. She had one child who never spoke; he had never made a single vocal noise in his life. Another one wouldn’t sleep; he was ultra-nervous, in a wretched state. She put Discreet Music on one day, and the kid who had never slept just lay down on a concrete floor and went to sleep. So she went to the group where this other kid was, and she kept playing Discreet Music. And this little child – not only because of the record, I’m sure, though the other one was – started talking. I’m not claiming Discreet Music can make the dumb talk, but it’s nice to know it can be used as part of an atmosphere that produces physiological change in people, or seems to.

When Music For Airports came out and sold fairly well, I thought people assumed it was going to be another Before And After Science. It takes a long while to learn whether you’re selling on the momentum of your successes. I don’t think that’s so anymore. I’ve almost shifted audiences. I meet people who never knew I made a record of songs.

Critics can’t stand these records, by and large, because in their search for eternal adolescence they still want it all to be spunky and manic and witty. They come back to rock music again and again, expecting to feel like kids. That isn’t what I want from music anymore – not in quite that way.

I’m interested in the idea of feeling like a very young child, but I’m not interested in feeling like a teenager.

In a Trouser Press interview from 1982, Brian Eno shared his thoughts on composing:

Brian Eno On Composing

I’m always starting pieces of work. It’s the only thing I do, really; these pieces don’t go anywhere. For some reason, one of them will touch something in me. I never understand why at the time. As soon as I’ve got that, I recognize it as being the seed for something. There follows a period of looking at it in different ways, putting things with it, seeing how it reacts with other things – as you might do with a chemical.

The breakthrough stage is when I suddenly get a strong sense of mood or place. It’s like a fetal idea at the time. I have to surround it with things that will nourish it, if you like; that’s when I start thinking about psychoacoustics and electronics. Then craft enters into it.

Craft has to be dropped at a certain point. You’ve gotten somewhere and you have to decide what you want to do there. The sense of place becomes a seed for the sense of what happens in that place. There’s another way of working which is quite different. I sit down and think, If I connected this to this, and I set this up this way so that this happens to that, something might happen. That’s the technological way of working: imagining a novel technological situation. If you understand those technologies to a certain extent, you have reason to believe a particular novel format might give you something.

I was working in a studio in Canada recently. They had a Fender Rhodes piano there, a standard studio instrument I almost always ignore. I thought, I’ll use that for a change. How can I use this to do something surprising? I looked around and found an old amplifier with a rattly speaker. I took the speaker and sat it on the sustain pedal of a grand piano so the strings were all open. The sound from the Fender Rhodes would make the piano resonate in sympathy with it. Then I set up a microphone with a long plastic tube on it, one of those tubes you spin to get a note. The tube resonates at that frequency, so it was selective. (I did this with my engineer, Daniel Lanois, who always helps me very much.) I sat down and checked out various notes on the Rhodes. One note – just one note – made the whole system come to life. It made the speaker shake with a beautiful purring sound, like a huge foghorn. The piano was ringing away, and the pick-up through the tube particularly resonated around that frequency and all the harmonics.

This was a case of having a technological idea and then seeing if anything could be made of it. It would have stopped there if that sound hadn’t appeared. The avant-garde technique would be to go ahead with it anyway, because the process is supposed to be interesting in itself. I don’t go for that. I think if something doesn’t jolt your senses, forget it. It’s got to be seductive.

Of course, when I got that sound, I was back in the seed position of the other way of working. It immediately suggested a direction I still haven’t resolved. I didn’t find anything more interesting than just the sound on its own. Everything I put on covered up parts of the sound.

First off, there’s the presents:

• a poem about tacos
• some pleasant quasi-soft-core porn
• a book about tea production
• a vegan cassoulet (a french dish normally made from sausages and pig fat)
• Reading through loads of  ‘happy birthday!’ emails

Not sure about the taco poem – but it’s probably by Beck or something.

Then he’s off to have lunch with Jean Michel Jarre, to chat about how to deal with piles of cash and what to do with all those promotional synths that companies give them.

Next up, it’s time to hang out in Paris with Scarlett Johansson.

Not bad for a “weird bald guy“, eh?

via Moby

The concert will feature two compositions by David Borden, the group’s leader who taught at Cornell University for 37 years.

For Sunday’s concert, Borden will be joined by keyboardists and frequent collaborators David Yearsley, Blaise Bryski and Josh Oxford.

Details are available at the Mother Mallard site.

via stargazette

Manchester Midi School King Unique Masterclass

via midischool:

A Masterclass from one of the worlds leading electronic DJs and producers, King Unique’s Matt Thomas.

Matt is a self-confessed studio junkie and he brought in his Monume midi controller, demonstrating how he uses it to create music using the hardware rather than musical ideas.

He also bought in his rare, mint condition VCS 3 which was the first ever portable analogue synthesizer which was used by Pink Floyd on Dark Side of the Moon, The Who and Jean Michel Jarre amongst others.

A portrait of Henry Till, synthesizer aficionado and all-around good guy.

Update: Unfortunately, this video has been locked at Vimeo.  : (

This is the first live TV-performance by the norwegian band Royksopp in seven years.

The song The Girl and the Robot is taken from their latest album Junior.

Guest appearance by the swedish electropop-songwriter Robyn.

via don2maso

Alec Empire – Making of ‘Shivers’ + Interview

via THVStudios:

After 2008s’, The Golden Foretaste of Heaven, Alec Empire releases Shivers, a 7 track mini album that serves up as a little taster for his highly anticipated new album out later this year.

This is the most recent output from The Hellish Vortex, the production team founded by Alec Empire and Nic Endo.

Last year, Empire announced a change in direction, a departure from his signature digital hardcore sound and called it The Sound of New Berlin. This sonic revolution has brought about an influx of hipster collaborations in the form of Raveonettes, who got their single remixed by Nic Endo and Alecs mutual pairing with one, Patrick Wolf, whos Berlin musings have led to the hotly tipped single, Vultures.

Part 2 of the video below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Co

Mother Mallard presented its first concert in spring 1969. The group was founded by David Borden and has been recognized as the world’s first synthesizer ensemble. The first concert took place in Barnes Hall on the Cornell campus, and each piece on that concert was an Ithaca premiere, including a few by Morton Feldman and John Cage. The 40th anniversary concert will take place in Barnes Hall at 8 p.m. Sunday, March 29.

Three pieces will be given world premieres, with the featured work being Viola Farber in 7 Movements with live video showing Farber’s dancing and choreography both as a soloist and with her company. In addition, a section from Borden’s The Continuing Story of Counterpoint, composed in 1979, will receive its first performance. And finally, a piece honoring Jimmy Giuffre, the gifted jazz composer and clarinetist/saxophonist will be premiered. Giuffre was Borden’s first composition teacher who died last April at the age of 87.

Performing on this concert will be keyboardists David Yearsley, Blaise Bryski, Josh Oxford and David Borden, with Gabriel Borden on electric guitar. Live video is by Noni Korf Vidal and Franck Vidal.

The concert is free and open to the public. Visit music.cornell.edu or call 255-4760 for more information.

Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Company

Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Co. was formed in 1969 in Ithaca, NY as an ensemble dedicated to performing music not heard in the Ithaca area. It performed pieces by Robert Ashley, John Cage, Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Steve Reich and others. In less than a year, it developed into a live synthesizer ensemble, considered to be the first one in the world.

The group performed their own pieces for an RMI Electric Piano, three modular Moogs and two MiniMoogs, including the prototype which is now on display at the Audities Foundation at the Chinook Keyboard Centre in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Brian Eno And David Bowie in a live interview about Art Sale for War Child.

Not a great interview (or interviewer), but still interesting.

Brian Eno discusses autotune and using it as a creative tool.

Here are five electronic musicians that had great blogs in 2008:

Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails blog was probably the most influential electronic musician’s blog of 2009.

Reznor, more than any mainstream musician, has deftly used Internet media and social networking, and his blog has tied his multi-pronged approach together.

In 2009, Reznor used his blog to tease fans about new projects, highlight NIN media from Flickr and YouTube, release two albums of Creative Commons licensed music, share an insider’s view of one of the biggest concerts of the year and just to share his thoughts about the world.

In 2009, Reznor set an example of how musicians can use new media that will be hard for other artists to match and hard for Reznor, himself, to duplicate.
In 2008, Jean Michel Jarre used his blog aerojarre to offer personal insight into his life and also to talk about highlights of his 2008 tour.

Readers got to see where Jarre went in 2008 and meet the people that Jarre met. Readers got to share Jarre’s excitement about things like trying out a new instrument and the story of how a street musician in Budapest got a once-in-a-lifetime chance to jam with Jarre. 

When people were upset that YouTube was removing Jarre fan videos because of copyright infringement, Jarre made a video response and posted it on his blog, stating that he was sorry about the situation and that he personally approved of the idea of fans sharing their takes on his music. 

Jarre is the oldest electronic musician on this list, but the way he used his blog and new media in 2008 shows that age is no hindrance for artists wanting to make intelligent use of the Internet. 

Moby has been blogging a long time, Of the electronic musicians included in this list, he tends to use his blog in the most personal way.

In 2009, Moby did use his blog to promote his new album and a project that offers free music licenses for indie filmmakers. And he used it to engage his fans with a user-generated video contest. 

But the main point of Moby’s blog is to share his take on the world.

That means Moby’s blog often featured mini-essays on his liberal-leaning concerns, ranging from his work on the board of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function to net neutrality to the environment to the 2008 election. It also offered tiny views into his life, ranging from the movies he like to things that he saw on the street.

Moby’s postings are frequent, chatty, unfiltered and uncapitalized, which complements his artsy everyman personae. 

Whether or not you are a fan of Moby’s music, you can’t ignore the way he’s used blogging and Internet media to express himself and to promote his music. 

David Byrne is not the most obvious choice for this list.

While his solo work and work with Brian Eno in the 80’s was seminal electronic pop, his more recent albums have focused more on traditional song craftsmanship and less on experimentation.

Much of his work, though, is as experimental and electronic as ever. His Playing The Building was an electroacoustic installation that let visitors to play a building as a musical instrument, through the interface of a hacked organ. And his recent colloboration on Julio, a robotic vocalist, challenges our concepts of what is human.

“Like many animals, humans sing for pleasure, for sex, for attention, to express pain, to relieve angst and to join and participate in a social group,” writes Byrne. “All of these urges seem, if not uniquely human, at least not at all machine like. To see machines mimic these aspects of human life, is to watch some part of our imagined souls being appropriated.”

Byrne’s blog offers some of the most interesting and intelligent writing coming from any electronic musician. 

Finally, it wouldn’t be a Propa list without mentioning the journal of Charissa Saverio, aka DJ Rap.

Ever wish that you could get gear tips and insider industry info from an uber-hot superstar DJ/producer/model? 

Then you’ll want to check out Saverio’s Propa Journal. It’s a basic blog and Saverio doesn’t update it very frequently – but when she does, she offers her take on what it takes to succeed as a DJ. 

In her first post of the year, Saverio offered her take on DJ equipment:

Decks: Although I still own the one and only pair of turntables I’ve ever bought, SL-1200’s the Pioneer CDJ-1000 or DVJ-1000 is my weapon of choice. I simply LOVE Pioneer. [yes I love vinyl, no I haven't abandoned it. but you try carrying 20 20lb. crates to Ibiza only to find the crates nicked when you get there!] So CD’s are what I spin.

Mixer: Now, I’m really fussy about this shit. It HAS to be a Pioneer-800 for me. I don’t care what anyone else says, it’s the best. For me the effects, are stellar. The Pioneer-600 sounded a little too woody and muffled, if you like, often there were feedback problems.

Monitors: In my home studio I use the M-Audio BX5’s and the 10-inch sub that goes with it. I find they are incredibly accurate and really translate well to the dancefloor. I also use a pair of NS-10’s which help me with what I call the “car radio mix test.” In other words, if it sounds good in my car, it sounds good anywhere. For my mains, when I’m writing and producing I just got a hold of a pair of VXT-8’s which have a MASSIVE sound.

Headphones: I only ever use Sony-MDRV700DJ’s. They’re solid. And I haven’t gone deaf yet.

In a more recent post, Saverio offers her perspective getting played by DJ’s:

Make sure you print a label on your CD with all the relevant contact info. Pictures of yourself on the CD are a bad idea (I’m not kidding, I get those too) unless of course you look like Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Ryan Reynolds… ok you get the picture!

A note (preferably typed on a letterhead) with a BRIEF explanation of who you are (this is why a small bio is a good idea) and why you think this label is right for your music. That’s right, you have to think about where you feel your music fits… no good sending drum and bass to a house label like Subliminal or Impropa Talent, when you know it needs to go to Propa Talent! lol…

Don’t spend all your time gushing how great you think the label/DJ is.

Ok – that’s my take on five great electronic musician’s blogs of 2008. Let me know what you think in the comments. And, if you know of an electronic musician’s blog that was better than these in 2008, leave a link!

This video captures an interview with Brian Eno from the 80’s. 

Eno touches on a variety of topics, some of which are dated, but many which are still relevant.

The Orb are looking for more gigs for 2009
Current mood: adventurous
Category: Music

The Orb and related projects played about 78 official gigs in 2008 and it proved one one the band’s busiest years. It is now that time again when thoughts for shows and tours are spilling over into the new year.

If you would like The Orb or any of the related projects to play near you, at your venue, festival or any other gathering you have planned, then get in touch. All it takes is the contact details of the event organisers or if you are an event organiser yourself then let us know what you have planned and we’ll see what we can do to put you on the tour schedule.

Here are the contact details:

DJ bookings (The Orb’s Alex Paterson) More gigs please!
filipe rosa
controlled artist management
bookings at controlledartistmanagement.com
http://www.controlledartistmanagement.com

Live Bookings (The Orb) More gigs please. Europe, Australia and USA get in touch!
alex nightingale and jack notman
ec1 music agency
jack at ec1music.com

The Orb Australia Tour assembly: jack at ec1music.com

The Orb USA tour assembly: grace at vital-talent.com

management & licensing
mike gillespie
the sunday club
theorb at thesundayclub.com
http://www.thesundayclub.com/

Shin yamada (co-manager, Japan)
root & brance
shin.yamada at m6.dion.ne.jp

John bryan (co-manager, north america)
johnb at mutualism.tv

Gerry Gerrard (usa/mexico/canada/carribean)
chaotica inc.
inquire at chaotica.com
http://www.chaotica.com

Get your own – Open publication

DJ – is a coffee-table style collection of DJ portraits by Krijn van Noordwijk.

You can preview the book above.

Description:

With over 140 studio portraits of DJ’s from all over the world, photographer Krijn van Noordwijk honours today’s musical hero.

Most of the time, your average person in an audience only catches a glimpse of the artist, standing behind a pair of decks on a vast distant stage. Now this book is showing some of the personalities close up, in more than one sense. It puts an icon to the idol.

All studio portraits are shot in a classical way but the expressions and emotions of the subjects are rather contemporary. Van Noordwijk spent over two years of DJ hunting to create this unique collection of portraits of some of the world’s best-known and most talented DJ’s. Carl Cox, Sven Vath, Armin van Buuren, Derrick May, Tommie Sunshine and Juan Atkins are just some of the names that go with the portraits in this book. Krijn’s idiosyncratic style of portrait photography makes this collection a true tribute to the DJ.

via BeatPortal

News reports, from 1986, on Jean Michel Jarre’s Rendez-Vous Houston, a concert performed on the evening of April 5, 1986.

For a time, it was considered the largest outdoor “rock concert” in history, with figures varying from 1 to 1.5 million in attendance.

Watchmojo had a chance to talk to Moby about his most recent album, Last Night.

Live electronic music from SWiY (Someone Who Isn’t You).

Free LIVE ONLINE CONCERT on Halloween Night. 10/31/08 Starting at 11:30P.M. EST

Moby talks about his new album, Last Night, and talks about MobyGratis, his free music project for filmmakers.