Glenn Marshall – The Nest That Sailed The Sky, Computer-generated Visualisation 2009

Glenn Marshall does something that few video artists do – he makes abstract videos, based on generative processes, that are full of beauty and wonder.

His work is almost a visual analogy to Brian Eno’s work with generative music.

This is his video for Peter Gabriel’s The Nest That Sailed The Sky.

Details on Marshall’s video below.

via MediaArtTube:

Glenn Marshall: I developed 6 animation sequences using this imagery, all showing different stages of birth, life, transcendence, decay etc.

1. single cells growing on ends of stems, with dark underwater shading , I also added concentric ripples which emanated from the growing vines.
2. empty nests with trails of red berries being left behind where ever the stems grow from, against subdued morning sky shading.
3. the boy in the nest appears, against sunset shaded background.
4. boy in nest against brighter blue sky shading.
5. star child luminous effect on dark background.
6. single cells again, without stems, dark watery shading.

I rendered out each sequence for the entirety of the songs duration. The shapes of the vines and positions of the sprites are exact for each sequence, this allowed me to dissolve each sequence at any point from one into another and maintain a natural looking transition. In post production, through simple dissolves, I could experiment with and craft together a visual narrative that changed with musical cues in the song.

Musikmesse 2009 update: Peter Gabriel Voice Extraction

This demo showcases sonicWorx Pro – a Mac app that can split audio signals into their components, allowing you to view and edit audio based on the actual sounds present within the mix.

sonicWORX Pro allows displaying, extracting and suppressing individual instruments and voice in a mix in a semi-automatic manner using a powerful pattern detector. Prosoniq’s  pattern tracker automatically detects, tracks and resolves conflicts with other instruments based on hints given by the user.

sonicWORX Pro will be shipping in July 2009 at a recommended retail price of 1.690 Euro ($1.849 USD). It’s a steep price – but I expect competion in the audio editing area to drive the cost of this technology down fairly quickly.

Give this a look and let me know what you think. Is this the most powerful remixing tool ever?

via audioporncentral

This is a music video by Glenn Marshall for Peter Gabriel’s The Nest That Sailed The Sky.

“I was asked to develop the ’story’ further, and got some visual ideas from looking through photos from the original OVO album shoot,” says Marshall. “I got three extra visual ideas from this – single cells, an empty nest, trails of red berries.”

Marshall’s work is very abstract but is also very sensual in its use of shapes and color. You can see more of his work at his Vimeo site.

Let me know what you think!

Creative Commons licenses are designed to protect your rights to your music, while allowing people copy and share it. 

Creative Commons’ Eric Steuer notes:

This year, NIN released both Ghosts I-IV and a second album, The Slip, under a CC BY-NC-SA license. Both albums were downloaded for free and shared legally millions of times by fans under the terms of this license. At the same time, NIN found great financial success in selling cool, well-crafted, limited edition physical editions of both sets. Back in March, Wiredsaid the band made $1.6 million on Ghosts I-IV in its first week of release alone.

Additionally, Radiohead’s song “House of Cards” is up for several Grammys, including Best Short Form Music Video. The video’s animation data was released under a CC BY-NC-SA license earlier this year (see previous post).

Congratulations to Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead for the nominations. Also, congratulations to all of the other artists whose work was nominated for Grammys this year, including Brian Eno, Diplo, Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo (AKA Gnarls Barkley), My Morning Jacket, Gilberto Gil, Peter Gabriel, Thievery Corporation, and Cornelius – all of whom have used Creative Commons licenses and/or have supported CC over the years.

Musicians like NIN are using Creative Commons licensing, and giving away their music, to actually gain more control of their careers.

It remains to be seen whether unknown artists will be able to create new careers at the scale of groups like Nine Inch Nails, though.

Glenn Marshall’s second video for Peter Gabriel, based on a recursive, repeating pattern technique developed in After Effects. The song is a remix of the more commercial single Steam. 

Marshall took images out of the original video and remixed the video as the audio had been remixed.. 
What I thought was unique is that both the song and the video were remixed into a completely new piece.

“What I thought was unique is that both the song and the video were remixed into a completely new piece,” says Marshall.

Recent videos by Glenn Marshall for electronica groups have turned us into fans – but this older video, for Peter Gabriel’s The Drop – is just as interesting:

This was my first music video, for Peter Gabriel, made in 2003. 

About 2 months to make, I paid special attention to the lyrics, and how imagery and motion would cue up on certain words and phrases.

I also developed further my fascination with choreographed, complex moving patterns, using the same techniques in Butterfly, which involved attaching sprites/images to particle systems. 

Marshall also tells a great story about how this video came to be at his site.

Description:

The editors of Keyboard magazine have culled that era’s most insightful and landmark articles and combined them with a wealth of insight looking back now some 20 years later to paint a vivid and accurate picture of just how groundbreaking the keyboard’s role was in crafting the sound of an era. The book features 20 in-depth interviews with noted players and producers like Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes, Depeche Mode’s Vince Clarke, Peter Gabriel, and The Human League, as well as such visionary pioneers as Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Frank Zappa.

Keyboard magazine editors Ernie Rideout, Stephen Fortner, and Michael Gallant uncover the true stories behind the gear, the production techniques, and the real stories of some of the 1980’s most definitive keyboard-driven recordings.

MSRP $19.95.

Peter Gabriel has announced the launch of The Filter, a personalized discovery engine for digital entertainment content.

Its aim is to make sense of the overwhelming amount of digital content available on the web by filtering out the stuff that an individual probably wouldn’t be interested in and filtering in the stuff they would be interested in – all based on their tastes and moods.

In other words, it could recommend music that you are likely to be into, based on the stuff you’re into and the artists that you’re into.

“I’m a tired thumb person, I’m a channel clicker. Maybe it’s a male thing. I know there’s good stuff I’d love to watch out there but I don’t want to search all the time,” says Gabriel.

via TechCrunch

Music community mi7.com has announced a new music contest in conjunction with Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios. MI7 is offering one artist or band the chance to record in this legendary studio for three days.

Musicians throughout the world can enter the contest for free by simply creating a profile at mi7.com, uploading some songs, and letting other members vote on them. The artist judged most deserving of the chance to record at Real World will be flown to London, chauffeur-driven to the beautiful English countryside of Wiltshire, and enjoy three days to record their music in the Big Room of Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios with a world-class producer – all expenses paid.

“At MI7 we’ve always believed in giving musicians the best tools they need to make their music”, said Per Larsen, CEO of MI7 “We’re now taking it to the next level and giving them free access to one of the most legendary recording studios in the world. We’re proud to be able to offer this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a great new band to live their dream!”

Official contest rules and details.

Real World Studios was founded by Peter Gabriel and is one of the finest studios in the world. The Big Room is why Real World is justifiably famous. It offers space and versatility on a grand scale for live recording and tracking. Equipped with a 72 channel SSL 9000 XL K series console together with a varied array of outboard equipment (including a large selection of vintage Neve modules), it offers the potential for truly state of the art recording and mixing.

The Real World Studios contest is now accepting songs and will run through October 31, 2007. As an added bonus, all entries submitted before June 30, 2007 will automatically be entered in a random drawing to win one of the world-class microphones available at Real World Studios, the SE Electronics Gemini. No purchase necessary.

MUDDA, the Magnificent Union of Digitally Downloading Artists, is trying to revolutionize the music industry. Unlike other organizations, though, MUDDA is backed by Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno. Eno and Gabriel are industry veterans that bring a unique combination of experience and vision to MUDDA.

According to Gabriel, the Internet has created a unique opportunity for musicians. “We are now witnessing the most fundamental transformation of the selling of music since records were first invented. The economic restraints of the traditional business model have for all these years dictated what music can be made and when and how it can be sold. If artists are willing to act together, there are extraordinary opportunities both creatively and commercially.”

Gabriel argues it’s time to transform the industry using the tools of the Internet. “We are determined that we should try and take advantage of this situation and help transform the music business in such a way that artists are on level terms with record companies, receive fair payments and have new opportunities to be their own retailer when they choose.”

The MUDDA site has published a manifesto that states the aims and goals of the organization:

THE MUDDA MANIFESTO

WHY? – Transform creativity.

• No constraint, editing or external control over what is released.
• No time limit on the length of music.
• No more waiting for an album cycle.
• Be creative with what you sell and how much you sell it for. For example, release several stages of the process, sell a process, the evolution of a song and not just a single ‘piece of product’.

WHY? – Full, fair and fast payment.

• By allowing artists to become their own retailer they can be at the top of the food chain, not their traditional place at the bottom.
• The official artist Web site is a great place from which to see your catalogue, so why not allow fans to buy downloads from this site.
• Sales can be monitored instantly.
• Artists’ share of retail can be accounted for monthly.
• Where artist can license directly (on any project where there is no record company) artist can get the full dealer price as well as a percentage of retail.

WHY? – Reasons to be cheerful.

• We can put music back in the hands of musicians.
• Artists can take some ownership and creative control of the output and delivery as well as the content.
• Artists can negotiate from a position of strength.
• With enough artists acting together it’s not too late to transform the music business to be one of partnership – not just contract and servitude.
• With good filtering and easy access, we can use the technology to compete with free.

It’s too early to tell how MUDDA plans to act upon it’s manifesto, but knowing the track records of Eno and Gabriel, the organization is certain to be worth watching.