#but like. the members have performed with a synth or another similar electronic instrument (not counting bass/guitar)

[elysianasterism]

just tweeted this but like. if you told past lucie, even lucie from last year, that they'd get obsessed with a pop band, they wouldn't believe you. but here we are 🕺

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 6, Number 4

Guided by Voices just dropped record #30!

We enter April wishing all of you good health and financial solvency, though we know that many of the musicians and artists and appreciators that visit our site are in very dire circumstances. Our own crew is, so far, not infected, though we are coping with varying degrees of success to the new normal. Some are writing more. Others are struggling. Almost all of us are listening hard to the music that sustains us, and hope that you are likewise finding some solace. This edition of Dust is a big one, as a lot of us have the attention span for shorter, but not longer pieces. Enjoy it in good health. Contributors included Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Mathers, Andrew Forell and Tim Clarke.

Aara — En Ergô Einai (Debemur Morti Productions)

En Ergô Einai by Aara

Swiss black metal band Aara offers a very high-concept LP, investigating the European Enlightenment, and the period’s complex and conflicting discourses on human rationality. In some ways, the historical period was enormously optimistic, featuring thinkers like Ben Franklin and Rousseau, who were committed to modes of thought that were scientifically rigorous and grounded in egalitarian ethics. But at the same time, European coloniality ramped up significantly, and capital became a rapacious, world consuming engine, churning out massive wealth and even more massive human suffering. Aara investigate that — or anyways that’s their claim. They haven’t published the lyrics to these songs, and the vocal stylings of singer Fluss are so brittle, so horrendously shrieked, that it’s impossible to decipher the words. The music is suggestive, however. It’s infused with a grand sensibility, and also charged with black metal’s negative intensities. The influence of Blut Aus Nord’s romantic Memoria Vetusta records is strongly present — and Vindsval, Blut Aus Nord’s principal composer, plays guitar on “Arkanum,” first track on this record. Its grandiosity is in tune with the philosophical enthusiasms of the Enlightenment. But it’s pretty cold stuff, like rationality itself.

Jonathan Shaw

 Ryoko Akama / Apartment House — Dial 45-21-95 (2019) (Another Timbre)

Dial 45-21-95 by Ryoko Akama

The one time I saw Ryoko Akama’s music performed, the visual poetry of the concert was at least as compelling as the music that was made. During one piece she, Joseph Clayton Mills and Adam Sonderberg walked calmly up and down a line of tables loaded with instruments and knick-knacks she picked up during her visit to Chicago, making timely sounds that seemed to accent their movements rather than issue from them. While it sounded nothing like the music on Dial 45-21-95 (2019), this album is likewise the work of sympathetic musicians expressing a composer’s impressions of a place and all that comes with it. The source material this time comes from Akama’s visit to the archive of filmmaker Krzystof Kieslowski. Objects she saw, words that she read, and the episodic pacing of his works all became part of this cycle of leisurely, gentle movements of music that is small in scale, but not exactly minimalist. The musicians, in this case the English new music ensemble Apartment House, often seem to be passing phrases from one to another, each recipient conveying a reaction to what they’ve heard rather than the same information. In this way they impart the experience of a story without telling one.

Bill Meyer

 Aidan Baker & Gareth Davis — Invisible Cities II (Karlrecords)

Invisible Cities II by Aidan Baker & Gareth Davis

What better time than when we’re all forbidden by pandemic to spend time in the company of others to listen to some quality sonic landscaping instead? Nadja’s ever-prolific Aidan Baker second duo collaboration with bass clarinetist Gareth Davis follows on the first Invisible Cities with a similar structure; Baker, credited on that first LP with just “guitar”, somehow summons up vast or subtle cloudbanks of hissing ambience, covert drones, even sometimes harsh blares (check out “The Dead” here) while Davis plays his clarinet like he’s carefully picking his way across a perilous set of ruins. Whether elegiac like the opening “Hidden” or more mysterious like the fading pulses threading around Davis’s work on “Eyes”, the result is a vividly evocative set of involving ambient music made using slightly unusual materials. Even though Baker and Davis fall into a set of background/foreground roles, both clearly contribute equally to what makes Invisible Cities II work so well (honestly, a little better than their fine debut as a duo), and although unintentional, the result can serve to give us temporary shut ins plenty of mental fodder as well.  

Ian Mathers  

 The Bobby Lees — Skin Suit (Alive)

The Bobby Lees may be from Woodstock, but they definitely do not have flowers in their hair. Skin Suit, the band’s second album, is a blistering onslaught of garage rock fury, at least as heated as last year’s Hank Wood and the Hammerheads S-T, but tighter, nearly surgically precise. Singer/guitarist Sam Quartin has a magnetic, unflappable presence, whether issuing threats sotto voce (“Coin”), insinuating sexual heat (“Redroom”) or crooning the blues. But everyone in the band is more than up to the job, whether Macky Bowman knocking the kit sidewise in the most disciplined way, Kendall Windall jacking the pressure with thundering bass or Nick Casa lighting off Molotov cocktails of guitar sound. Video (above) suggests that the record isn’t the half of it, but the record is pretty damned good. Jon Spencer produced and makes a characteristically unhinged cameo in “Ranch Baby.” Two covers ought to be a misfire—can anybody improve on Richard Hell’s “Blank Generation,” or add anything further to the Spencer Davis Group’s “I’m a Man”? — but instead bring the fire. Helluva a band, probably even better live.

Jennifer Kelly

 Rob Clutton with Tony Malaby — Offering (Snailbongbong Records)

Offering by Rob Clutton with Tony Malaby

Sometimes when one musician gets top billing, that just means they ponied up for the session fees. But on Offering, the words “Rob Clutton with” signal that the Canadian double bassist conceived of a sound situation and procured material suited to that concept. Clutton is well acquainted with the American soprano and tenor saxophonist, Tony Malaby. Their association dates back two decades, when both men were resident artists at the Banff Centre For Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Canada, and they’re both members of drummer Nick Fraser’s band. That common ground gets the nod on “Sketch #11,” a Fraser tune that occasions some of the most swinging music on this wide-ranging and thoroughly satisfying session. But elsewhere the genesis of the material lies in Clutton’s own improvisations, which he recorded, transcribed and analyzed in order to locate nuggets of musical intelligence worth developing into discreet melodies — or further improvisations. Either way, Malaby isn’t just the guy on hand to play the horn parts, but a known musical quantity to be either be written for or set up to set loose. Clutton must have had his tone, alternately ample and pungent on soprano, and his imaginative responsiveness to the melodic, rhythmic, and emotional implications of a theme in mind, for his own purposeful perambulations seem designed to give Malaby plenty to wrap around and climb upon. While the music is ever spare, it’s never wanting.

Bill Meyer

 Pia Fraus — Empty Parks (Seksound)

Empty Parks by Pia Fraus

Empty Parks, the latest album from Estonian neo-shoegazers Pia Fraus, deftly soundtracks crisp, blue-skied, late winter days when buds are emerging on bare trees and the promise of warmer days beckons. The Tallinn based band comprising Eve Komp (vocals, synth), Kärt Ojavee (synth), Rein Fuks (guitar, vocals, synth, percussion), Reijo Tagapere (bass), Joosep Volk (drums, electronic percussion) and Kristel Eplik (backing vocals) traffics in layered harmonies, swathes of synth and roving guitar lines over a solid, propulsive rhythm section. Most of the songs move along at a good clip with a great sense of dynamics and a focus on atmospherics. Sometimes one wishes they would let go a little and explore the hints of noise on standout tracks “Mr. Land Freezer,” “Nice And Clever” and “Australian Boots” which have traces of grit that, if given more prominence, may have elevated Empty Parks as a whole from enjoyable to compelling.  

Andrew Forell  

 Stephen Gauci / Sandy Ewen / Adam Lane / Kevin Shea — Live at the Bushwick Series (Gaucimusic)

Gauci/Ewen/Lane/Shea, Live at the Bushwick Series by gaucimusic

The cultural losses inflicted by the current pandemic situation are so immense that no record review is going to hold the whole story. But this one might clue you in to one culture under unique threat, and also shine a light on the spirit that may bring it back again. Since the summer of 2017, tenor saxophonist Stephen Gauci has been organizing a concert series at the Bushwick Public House in Brooklyn, NY. Each Monday starting at 7 PM up to half a dozen individuals or ensembles will play some variant of jazz or improvised music. This album is the first in a series of five titles, all released as either downloads or CDRs with nicely done sleeves, and each documenting a set that was part of the series. Live at the Bushwick Series is a forceful argument for the mixing of aesthetics. You might know drummer Kevin Shea from the conceptually comedic jazz band, Mostly Other People Do The Killing, or Gauci and Lane from the many recordings that showcase each man’s impassioned playing and rigorous compositions. Maybe you know guitarist Sandy Ewen as a started-from-scratch free improviser. But when you hear this recording, you’ll know that they are a band, one that makes cohesive and ferocious music on full of tectonic friction and fluid role-swapping on the fly. When the quarantines expire, there may or may not be a concert series, or a Bushwick Public House to host it. But it’ll take the kind of commitment and invention heard here to get things rolling again.

Bill Meyer

 Vincent Glanzmann / Gerry Hemingway — Composition O (Fundacja Sluchaj)

Composition O by Vincent Glanzmann / Gerry Hemingway

A composition is both an ending and a beginning. It establishes some parameters, however specifically, to guide musicians’ interactions. But the publishing of a piece can also provoke many different interpretations, especially when the composition itself is designed to be a work in progress. Percussionists Vincent Glanzmann and Gerry Hemingway developed Composition O with the intent to revise each time they play it, so that while there is a graphic score guiding them, it is subject to change. So, don’t expect this music to have the locked-in quality of, say, Steve Reich’s Music for Eighteen Musicians, any more than you might expect it to evince the self-creating form of a free improvisation. It proceeds quite deliberately through sections of athletic stick-craft, sonorous rubbing, and eerie extensions beyond the percussive realm enabled by the distorting properties of microphones and the deeply human communication of Hemingway’s vocalizations, which are filtered by a harmonica. The score keeps things organized; the concept means that this music will evolve and change.

Bill Meyer

 Magnus Granberg / Insub Meta Orchestra — Als alle Vögel sangen mein Sehnen und Verlangen (Insub)

Als alle Vögel sangen mein Sehnen und Verlangen by MAGNUS GRANBERG / INSUB META ORCHESTRA

In a previous review for Dusted, I characterized Magnus Grandberg’s sound world as “unemphatic.” The same applies here, and the accomplishment of that effect is in direct inverse to the size of the ensemble playing this album-length piece. For this performance, the Insub Meta Orchestra numbers 27 musicians, but it rarely sounds like more than four or five of them are playing at any time. The ensemble is well equipped to represent whatever Granberg suggests. In addition to conventional orchestra instrumentation, you’ll find antique instruments such as spinet, traverso and viola da gamba, as well as newcomers like the analog synthesizer and laptop computer. Granberg selects discerningly from centuries of compositional and performative approaches. The piece’s title, which translates to “When all the birds sang my longing and desire,” tips the hat to Schubert, but the way that timbres offset one another shows a working knowledge with contemporary free improvisation. It takes restraint on the part of the players as well as the composer to make a group this big sound so small in contrast to the silence that contains its music.

Bill Meyer    

 Ivar Grydeland / Henry Kaiser — In The Arctic Dreamtime (Rune Grammofon)

If Ivar Gyrdeland (Danes les Arbres, Huntsville) and Henry Kaiser had first met in an airport lounge or a green room somewhere, you might not be able to hold this CD in your hands. They’d have sat down, started talking about strings or pick-ups or their favorite Terje Rypdal records, and who knows where that might have led. But they met in an Oslo studio, and one of them had some means of projecting Roald Amundsen — Lincoln Ellsworth’s Flyveekspedisjon 1925, a documentary of an unsuccessful and nearly fatal attempt to fly two airplanes over the North Pole. So, they set up their guitars and improvised a soundtrack to the film on the spot, which became the contents of this CD. Neither man regards the guitar’s conventional sounds as obligatory boundaries, and much of the music here delves into other available options. Resonant swells, looped harmonics, and flickering backwards sounds alternate with shimmering strums, skeins of feedback, and unabashed shredding, radiating with an icy brightness that corresponds to the unending polar sunlight that shone down on the expeditionaries as they hand-carved a runway out of the ice.

Bill Meyer

 Guided By Voices — ‘Surrender Your Poppy Field’ (GBV, Inc.)

Surrender Your Poppy Field by Guided By Voices

The ever productive Robert Pollard kicks off a new decade with a louder, more distorted brand of rock, his characteristic hooky melodies buzzing with guitar feedback. He’s supported by the same band as on last year’s Sweating the Plague— Doug Gillard, Kevin March, Bobby Bare, Jr. and Mark Shue, who like Pollard are lifers to a man. Songs run short and feverish with only a couple breaking the three- minute mark and the chamber-pop “Whoa Nelly,” clocking in at 61 seconds. And yet, who can pack more into a couple of minutes than the godfather of lofi? “Queen Parking Lot” ramps up the dissonance around the most fetching sort of melody, which curves organically around modal curves. “Steely Dodger,” layers rattling textures of percussive sound (drums, strummed guitars) around a dreaming psychedelic tune. The words make no sense, but tap into subconscious fancies. This is Guided by Voices 30th album. Here’s to the next 30.

Jennifer Kelly

 Zachary Hay — Zachary Hay (Scissor Tail)

Zachary Hay by Zachary Hay

Zachary Hay is an American acoustic guitarist, but please, put aside the associative baggage that comes with those words. If you do so, that’ll put you closer to the spirit that informed the making of this LP’s ten un-named tracks. Like Jon Collin, Hay seems to be intent upon capturing the mood and environment of a particular moment. The sound of the room, or someone turning on a tap while he’s recording — these become elements of the music every bit as much as his patient note choices. Hay likes melodies, but he doesn’t feel bound to repeat them, which imparts a sense of motion to the music. Things change a bit towards the end, when he puts down his guitar and stretches out for a spell on banjo and squeezebox, humming along with the latter like a man who knows that he must be his own company.

Bill Meyer  

 Egil Kalman & Fredrik Rasten — Weaving a Fabric of Winds (Shhpuma)

Weaving a Fabric of Winds by Egil Kalman & Fredrik Rasten

Some music is born out of commercial or communicative aspirations, or philosophical structural prescriptions. One suspects that this music originates from some agreement about what sounds good, compounded by other ideas about the right way to do things. Fredrik Rasten is a guitarist who splits his time between Berlin and Oslo, shuttling between improvised and composed musical situations; he has an album out on Wandelweiser, which should tell you a bit about his aesthetics. Egil Kalman plays modular synthesizer on this record, but he is also a double bassist from Sweden who lives in Copenhagen, and he keeps busy playing in folk, jazz and free improv settings; one hopes that someday, we’ll hear some recordings by his touring project, Alasdair Roberts & Völvur. But in the meantime, give a listen to this record, which patiently scrutinizes a space bounded by string harmonics and electronic resonance. Rasten uses just intonation to maximize the radiance of his sounds and re-tunes while playing to subtly manage the harmonic proximity between his vibrations and Kalman’s long tones. The synth supplies a bit of slow-motion melody. The album’s two pieces were performed in real time, and the effort involved in maintaining precise harmonic distance gives the music a subtle but undeniable charge. The title mentions winds, but this music feels more like a sonic representation of slight but steady breezes.

Bill Meyer

Matt Karmil — STS371 (Smalltown Supersound)

STS371 by Matt Karmil

UK producer Matt Karmil’s latest release STS371 mines a lode of straight ahead acid house and techno laced with enough glitch and twitch to appeal to the head as much as the body. Lead single “PB” is a maximalist concoction of ricocheting hi-hat, blurting bass, the panting of the short distance runner and an undercurrent of soft white noise. Karmil uses just a few simple elements to build his tracks which foreground the beats. Hi-hat and kick drums drop on tracks like “SR/WB” to highlight woozy synth washes. It’s just enough to let you breathe before the high energy tempos return and the strobes flash once more. STS371 touches on Force Inc clicks and cuts and ~scape minimalism beneath the rhythms but most of all Karmil is interested in keeping you on your feet. Mission accomplished.  

Andrew Forell

 Kevin Krauter — Full Hand (Bayonet Records)

Full Hand by Kevin Krauter

Indiana musician Kevin Krauter’s sophomore album Full Hand floats by like a summer breeze. The Hoops bassist plumbs 1980s AOR and coats it in an agreeable fuzz to produce 12 tracks of gossamer dream pop heavy on atmosphere if not always individually memorable. Lyrically Krauter mines his memories and experiences growing up in a religious household, self-discovery and coming of age with poetic grace that his delivers over drum machines, hazy synths, delicate layers of guitar, and low-key yearning vocals.

At his most direct on the title track and “Pretty Boy”, Krauter explores queer identity and his wish to be himself and express his desire. “Green Eyes” and “How” confront the dilemmas of doing just that. The songs are less confessional or revelatory than the sound of Krauter working things out in real time, allowing his audience the privilege of listening as he does so. There are no “big” moments but one comes away inspired by his words and warmed by his music.

Andrew Forell

 Nap Eyes — Snapshot of a Beginner (Jagjaguwar)

Album number four sees Nap Eyes open up to take in broader, sleeker vistas. For the most part, lackadaisical country-rock’n’roll is nudged towards expansiveness by spacey guitars borrowed from My Bloody Valentine’s Isn’t Anything. Nigel Chapman steps forward into his front man role with more aplomb than on preceding albums, marshalling his bandmates around him to explore more colorful musical territories. Most successful are the singles, especially opener “So Tired,” plus the canny repurposing of the “Paint It Black” riff on “Real Thoughts,” and the deft guitar work on “Dark Link.” Sometimes there’s a loss of focus, a feeling of stretching for something just beyond reach. But that’s OK; after all, the shrugging acceptance of their shortcomings is right there in the album title.

Tim Clarke

 Peel Dream Magazine — Agitprop Alterna (Slumberland / Tough Love)

Agitprop Alterna by Peel Dream Magazine

On second album Agitprop Alterna, Peel Dream Magazine sound just like early Stereolab, with occasional blasts of shoe-gazey guitar thrown in for good measure. It may come across as reductive, even dismissive, to make such an overt comparison, but there’s no getting round it. With Stereolab’s comeback reminding everyone how beloved the band is, it’s heartening that there are new bands carrying the torch of their glorious aesthetic. To anyone who grew up in the 1990s listening to this stuff, it’ll no doubt be startling how well Joe Stevens has pulled this off. It’s a love letter to the sound of droning organs, guitars hammering away at major sevenths, driving rhythms and zoned-out but tuneful vocals. It’s derivative, sure, but it’s so well done, and the song writing is so solid that the appeal is undeniable. A recording of John Peel’s reassuringly deadpan radio patter even makes an appearance on “Wood Paneling Pt 2,” midway through the album, as if posthumously giving the band his blessing. I can’t argue with that.  

Tim Clarke

 Sign of Evil — Psychodelic Horror (Caligari Records)

Psychodelic Horror by SIGN OF EVIL

Maybe music this astoundingly stupid shouldn’t be quite so fun. But Sign of Evil, a one-man-black-metal-psychobilly-mash-up from Chile, makes a racket that’s so oddly deranged that it’s hard not to be charmed. Imagine if Link Wray somehow managed to walk into a Dark Throne practice session, c. 1995, and decided to jam, and you might conjure some of the strangeness you’ll encounter on the doltishly titled Psychodelic Horror. It’s fitting that the best song on the tape is simply called “Horror.” Nuff said. But check out the whacko piano that Witchfucker (yep) gamely pounds through the song’s first 30 seconds, and then the wheezy guitar tone he abuses your ear with when the metal portion of the song starts. These are not the sounds of a well-adjusted intelligence. Nor are they the sorts of sounds made by jackasses that cynically profess misanthropic allegiance to Satan, even as they enjoy decades-long careers in the music industry. Watain and Gorgoroth and Dark Funeral only wish they could be this legitimately unhinged. It helps that Witchfucker isn’t a loathsome racist. Rock on, you weirdo.

Jonathan Shaw

 Tré Burt — Caught It From the Rye (Oh Boy)

Caught It From The Rye by Tre Burt

Tré Burt has a rough-edged voice and fiery way with the harmonica that can’t help but remind of a certain Nobel Prize winning songwriter, though his words are less oblique. This debut album has a raspy, down-home charm, framed by raucous acoustic strumming and forthright Americana melodies. The winner here is the title track, which glancingly references the J.D. Salinger classic, but mostly reflects a soulful, restless search for meaning in art and life and music. “All my favorite paintings/ they keep on fallin' down/And I need savin' by the grace of god/But I know he's off creatin' /another one like me,” croons Burt with sandy sincerity. It’s a resilient sort of music, where Burt’s yowling voice plumbs emotional depths, but his rambling guitar line maintains a steady cheer. Burt got his big chance from John Prine’s Oh Boy Records, and as that songwriter hovers near death, it’s a good time to celebrate his legacy of leaving the ladder up.

Jennifer Kelly

 Michael Vallera — Window In (Denovali)

Window In by Michael Vallera

Chicago photographer, musician and composer Michael Vallera releases Window In, a four-track album of ambient manipulated guitar and electronic drone. Vallera works in a liminal space between actuality and potential, with continual, albeit almost imperceptible, shifts from the general and the hyper-specific. He brings a photographic eye to his compositions. They are the aural equivalent of seascapes in which one basks before one is drawn to details and the secrets beneath. Vallera’s tracks float by on luxurious oceanic swells with undercurrents of hiss, subaquatic rumbles, the blips and bleeps of luminescent trench dwellers. In the process the source, the guitar, is rendered unrecognizable, erased from the results leaving only disembodied sounds that ironically feel anchored in the real. Fans of Wolfgang Voigt’s Gas project, Fennesz’ guitar based ambient music or Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops will find much to appreciate here. Window In is a meditation on stillness and calm in the eye of powerful natural forces, something we always need but more so now.

Andrew Forell

 Windy & Carl — Allegiance and Conviction (Kranky)

Allegiance and Conviction by Windy & Carl

Windy Weber and Carl Hultgren have been creating ambient space-rock for nearly 30 years now. The couple’s cosmic yet intimate output may have slowed — this is their first album since 2012’s We Will Always Be — but their sound possesses a timeless resonance. Stepping into their river of watery guitar and bass drones in 2020 feels like little has changed since we last left them — and yet, strangely, everything is new. Windy’s voice makes tentative yet emotionally insistent appearances on five of these six tracks, her words hinting at small-scale revolutions (“In the underground, we’ve got a job to do” — “The Stranger”). “Will I See the Dawn” is the only wordless piece, where electric piano and tape hiss manage to speak volumes. At only 38 minutes, this is a short album for Windy & Carl, but one that has enough shadowy depths to qualify as a worthwhile addition to their intimidating discography.  

Tim Clarke

[zcbrilliant-blog]

Sonic Performance Blog

Here’s the link to my live performance: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1EcyXFsqUxl9ov5MXQdTo8OhkH3Y1O-ap

Week 1 - Research in the field 

This week I am focusing on my live influences. I want to focus in on the key characteristics of some of my favourite live performances, not necessarily to copy them but to analyse how and why they contribute to a great live performance. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8EbpV0F-Dd/

World music artist Sydney, signed to Black Acre records, has a show I’ve seen live on several occasions which has been a strong influence on how I view a live show. For his show he converts his ‘electronic’ tracks into a performance with a band; he replaces his synth lines for guitar and saxophone lines and plays out some of the percussion that was programmed in the studio track. This is the approach I want to take with my performance, taking programmed synth lines from my productions and playing them out on my guitar. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZiuwvaAMDw

I have had the pleasure of watching Waldo’s Gift perform multiple times, as they perform regularly at a venue close to where I live. My experience of watching them so often has definitely influenced what I hope to achieve with my performance. Most of their performance is a live jam, with the guitarist navigating where the other members will move to sonically. I hope to to have an element of improvisation in my live performance. I am currently practicing my electric guitar to make this possible. 

Week 2 - Learning Ableton live 

This week I am focusing on learning how to perform within the software Ableton Live 10. As this is the DAW I already produce my music in, it was very interesting to find out all the extra functionality it has as a performance software. Using the clip view to trigger different sections of music is a completely new way for me to work on music and I found it very fun to play with. The follow actions the clips provide means you can be creative with live structure; I particularly like experimenting with the ‘random’ triggering Ableton offers. 

I learned how to create an audio effect rack, and how to programme parameters to be controlled and modulated by different elements of the music. I aim to include a variety of audio effect racks in my performance, as to have as many options for live audio processing as possible. 

I’ve also been learning how to use Ableton live 10’s ‘Looper’  plugin. Its taking me some time to understand its full functionality, but I’m hoping to become familiar with it so I can use it to play multiple parts at the same time in my performance. 

Week 3 - Converting my work into a live format 

This week I am learning how best to convert my productions into a live format. I am learning how to efficiently bounce out different stems to control in the clip view of Ableton, so I each section of my music plays properly without any parts missing. I am taking my time to decide what elements I want bounced out and controlled using Ableton clips, and what elements to leave out so I can play them live on keys or guitar. 

One thing of great interest to me is converting pads and textures I have created in Ableton (mainly using sampling) into guitar lines. For this I am learning how to use Native Instruments Guitar Rig 5, which offers a huge variety of software amps, distortion units and other effects. I am learning that there is always a way to make my guitar sound similar to my synth lines, but with added timbres and characteristics from the guitar. https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/guitar/guitar-rig-5-pro/

This week I am also focusing on which of my studio tracks to choose to perform, and how best to transition between them. I am considering taking a ‘DJ’ approach to this, matching the tempos of my compositions and EQing them appropriately so they can play at the same time. I am also considering more performative ways I could make these transitions, for example automating the timbre of my guitar between one track and another. 

Week 4 - Setting up my midi controllers/organising what to play

At this point in my performance development I am setting up my Ableton session ready for my performance. I am experimenting with what parameters to automate that push sonic boundaries instead of sounding dull. One way I am doing this is automating the file position in a granular synth, creating an interesting texture with lots of energy.

I am also focusing on how best to set up the controllers I am using. I have Novation Launchkey 49 and an Akai APC Key 25, that I plan on using to their full potential as I don't want to use my computer mouse during any point of the performance. I have mapped the levels of my tracks to the faders on my Novation midi controller, and I am controlling my Ableton clips using my Akai controller. Together they definitely provide me with enough functionality that I’m only limited by my imagination. 

My aim is to set up my performance so that it's easy for me to ‘jam’. I want to enjoy the performance and have freedom to control what section it moves to and when. 

Week 5/6 - Practice and recording 

I am finally at the point of practicing my performance and getting to a level where I feel comfortable performing it live. This process is a long one and there are no shortcuts. With each take of my practice I am making less mistakes. I have planned how I’m going to record my performance using a webcam and recording the audio within Ableton.

[xmwkristian4242-blog]

Varieties Of Music

For the reason that introduction of digital devices and synthetic sound units within the early 1900s, digital music has developed into a singular style. In ancient instances, http://www.audio-transcoder.com/ corresponding to with the Historical Greeks , the aesthetics of music explored the mathematical and cosmological dimensions of rhythmic and harmonic organization. Within the 18th century, focus shifted to the experience of hearing music, and thus to questions about its beauty and human enjoyment ( plaisir and jouissance ) of music. The origin of this philosophic shift is sometimes attributed to Baumgarten in the 18th century, followed by Kant By way of their writing, the ancient term 'aesthetics', which means sensory notion, received its present-day connotation. In the 2000s, philosophers have tended to emphasize issues moreover magnificence and pleasure. For instance, music's capability to specific emotion has been a central subject. An opera may very well be defined broadly as a theatrical presentation (a play) during which the characters' strains are sung reasonably than spoken. The vocal fashion used in historic opera displays the fact that before digital amplification voices needed to be big and loud so they may very well be heard in a large live performance hall over the orchestra used to accompany them. A rock opera is simply an opera (sung play) that uses the model and devices of rock music. Examples of rock operas are Lease by Jonathan Larson, Tommy by The Who, and Jesus Christ Superstar by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. The term 'rock opera' is usually used as a synonym for 'idea album' (equivalent to My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade, The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Membership Band, or Pink Floyd's The Wall), however only those with a transparent narrative (a storyline with characters and occasions) that is informed fully in music (no spoken traces) ought to be referred to as rock operas.

Rockabilly; what some name the original Rock & Roll. A mixture of hillbilly and rock containing a western swing and a bouncing party vibe. With parts of piano-based Leap Blues and electrical boogie woogie, it made it is mark on the music scene indelibly. Almost everyone's named contained a "Y". essays larger ranges of similarity with the Energetic and Conventional genres (e.g., pop music). wonky : Wonky is electronic music characterized by synths with unusual time signatures in summary, hip hop-type beats. Wonky takes cues in its sound from instrumental hip hop and glitch however sets itself aside primarily by its lack of the heavy quantization seen in many digital genres. Alice had her breakthrough after winning the Sanremo Music Festival with the tune Per Elisa" in 1981, followed by European hit singles like Una notte speciale", Messaggio", Chan-son Egocentrique", Prospettiva Nevski" and Nomadi" and albums like Gioielli rubati, Park Lodge, Elisir and Il sole nella pioggia charting in both Continental Europe, Scandinavia and Japan. Very good voice. If you load up the page in your browser , youвЂll be greeted with a large wall of colored text hyperlinks. Each represents a selected genre of music. ThereвЂs everything from “Taiwanese pop” to “dark psytrance” to “Danish jazz” to “vapor twitch” to “Brazilian gospel” to “funk rock” to “discofox” to good ol†usual “hip hop.” With greater than 1,500 completely different music genres mapped, itвЂs all there. 1995When the Brill constructing met Lennon-McCartney: continuity and alter within the early evolution of the mainstream pop tune. Widespread Music Soc. Another instance of sub-genres influencing one another was the punk beginnings of Queercore. A response to the societal disapproval of LGBT citizens, Queercore was one of many many music communities created in the US and UK which offered cultural alternate between members and allies. So here, for a little bit of enjoyable with information and musical exploration, are a few of the most strangely-named genres on Spotify. You may click on them to listen to what they sound like. This record is so incomplete and so pathetically inept in its order that I consider I'll pee-yook. Rush at #5??? The third top-selling band ever. Solely The Beatles and The Rolling Stones are forward of them. Gordon Lightfoot at #sixteen…just spit in his face. He is been putting out music for over SIXTY years. What about Bob Ezrin? Pink Floyd's The Wall" wouldn't exist with out him. Neither would a couple of KISS albums, Alice Cooper tunes, Pat Benatar and several other others. Gary and Dave…Ian Thomas is high 20. I don't argue against Neil Young, kraft dinner(kd) Lang in #4? Rufus Wainwright? Ron Sexsmith does loads, but has no business being on this checklist. Had been you individuals smoking herb if you thought up this muddled mess? Horrible…absolutely horrible. Battle hardened in the golf equipment of Hamburg, the fab four remodeled from squeaky-clear pop sweethearts to rock monsters in the course of the course of their career, and produced a few of the finest music ever made alongside the best way. They constantly pushed boundaries, took their sound to locations you'd by no means assume potential and along with pioneering producer George Martin used the studio as an instrument unlike ever before. Their story and their music is legendary, and you just can't look previous them as the best British rock band of all time. Fresh production work on Jay-Z's 2001 album, The Blueprint (soul nuggets clashing with Bowie and the Doorways) announced Chicagoan West's expertise, parlayed into modern solo records drawing from more and more eclectic soundworlds (folk, classical, synth-pop) and minting an over-sharing confessional blog-rap style whose overcome the lengthy-reigning gangsta idiom was symbolized when his 2007 album, Graduation, pipped 50 Cent's Curtis in a hyped-up sales race". West's genius for digital-period publicity makes him unignorable - his avidity for new musical territories makes him inimitable. Allways use the large picture and follow logic and scientific criteria. The truth is that each one those genres you hear arround you (this rock or that rock, or this jazz or that jazz) are SUB-genres, not genres, they use nearly the identical language and range only in particulars. I thought it could be useful to share a playlist featuring one music from every of the genres listed. Given the various vary of content we've got coated, it is a really combined bag — but it's sure to get you enthusiastic about all the obscure genres that you just're currently missing out on.I guess this is not a style, maybe it is only a group of bands from different metallic subgenres specializing in certain lyrical themes. Holt, Fabian (2007) Genre in Standard Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. You're in all probability already aware of at least among the music by well-known composers like Mozart and Beethoven. You could even be conversant in some of the work by composers of baroque music who preceded them, equivalent to Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel. And most people immediately have heard the work of recent composers who use elements of classical music in their scores for main Hollywood motion pictures.

[mariettadejesus-blog]

Online Sequencer Boards

After downloading, these information should play on a Windows pc just by double clicking them, but you may be much more productive when you load them into a midi editor. WAV format is essentially the most detailed and wealthy of the available formats in Windows XP. All of the detail is recorded at the chosen bit rate and sampling speed, and it is all finished without compression schemes. It's digital sound presented in all its glory. Unfortunately, it takes up enormous quantities of memory in the course of. Four or 5 minutes of WAV sound can consume forty-50MB of memory, making it difficult to retailer an honest number of recordsdata. For that cause, you seldom see these information being bought over the Web — they're simply too bulky. The Convert commands can generate interesting results when used on pre-present recordings from your assortment, but in addition when used on your own recorded materials. For example, you can file your self singing, playing guitar, and even beatboxing and use the Convert commands to generate MIDI that you need to use as a starting point for brand new music. Now that CDs have traveled down the identical road to obsolescence as cassette and eight-track tapes, the power to successfully archive your music library in the digital realm has develop into a beneficial commodity. We tested all the features of free and for-pay audio converter software program to make sure we recommend a product that can handle all of your audio manipulation needs for present and future music codecs. MIDI was invented in order that electronic or digital musical devices might communicate with each other and in order that one instrument can control one other. For instance, a MIDI-compatible sequencer can trigger beats produced by a drum sound module Analog synthesizers that haven't any digital part and have been built prior to MIDI's growth will be retrofit with kits that convert MIDI messages into analog control voltages. 9 :277 When a be aware is performed on a MIDI instrument, it generates a digital signal that can be used to set off a be aware on one other instrument. 2 :20 The aptitude for remote control permits full-sized devices to be replaced with smaller sound modules, and permits musicians youtube to midi & mp3 converter and video download - clipconverter.cc mix instruments to realize a fuller sound, or to create combos of synthesized instrument sounds, equivalent to acoustic piano and strings. 25 MIDI also enables other instrument parameters (volume, effects, and so on.) to be managed remotely. Members of the USB-IF in 1999 developed a normal for MIDI over USB, the "Universal Serial Bus Machine Class Definition for MIDI Devices" a hundred and one MIDI over USB has become more and more widespread as different interfaces that had been used for MIDI connections (serial, joystick, and so forth.) disappeared from personal computers. Linux, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh OS X, and Apple iOS operating programs include customary class drivers to support devices that use the "Universal Serial Bus Machine Class Definition for MIDI Gadgets". Some producers select to implement a MIDI interface over USB that's designed to operate in another way from the class specification, utilizing customized drivers. A vital difference between Direct MIDI to MP3 Converter and similar programs is that, this MIDI Converter offers direct MIDI conversion with out sound recording. The principle advantages of the direct MID conversion are CD audio quality output recordsdata and silence during conversion. You don't need to hear MIDI music and adjust recording degree while converting. Not that it issues a lot although; Digital MidiSynth is ready to override the Home windows default Midi device and provide it is own software-stage synth. Considering newer sound playing cards don't even have MIDI hardware to start with this doesn't really matter. Hardware MIDI simply doesn't make any sense. Now excessive-finish sound playing cards are about sampling rates and SnR. XLD is an open source utility Mac software which will convert audio file codecs from one format to a different. Should you want to convert a listing full of FLAC information to M4A info with metadata etc preserved. The flavour you need is the first 'MPEG4 Audio' you may choose underneath 'Desired output formats', there you select AAC. REAPER - "Audio Manufacturing With out Limits": REAPER is knowledgeable digital audio workstation (DAW) for Home windows, OS X and WINE. It comes with an uncrippled evaluation licence and helps advanced audio and MIDI recording, arranging and mixing. The assist of several plugin codecs (like VST, DX and AU) as well as the extraordinarily versatile routing capabilities make it a robust production suite. Since version three.12 REAPER is scriptable with Python, permitting entry to internal actions and components of the API. FLAC, quick for Free Lossless Audio Codec, is a kind of lossless audio format, which implies it gives the identical quality as the original audio file. The FLAC audio file takes up a lot less house on your hard drive than the unique audio file however it isn't appropriate with every kind of units. So the next converters come into being to fix this downside.

[shinhwa-updates]

Shinhwa's "Heart" is Perfectly On-Trend

K-pop veterans Shinhwa are back with their latest mini-album, “Heart”, in celebration of their 20th anniversary. The longest-running K-pop boy band in existence, Shinhwa have continually defied expectations of disbandment, in an industry where five years is considered a long career. Refusing to let the times and newer generations leave them behind, “Heart” is a trendy and competent pop album consisting of 6 songs, including their title track “Kiss Me Like That”.

The album opens with the spacey and mellow future bass track “In The Air”, featuring esteemed female rapper Yoon Mirae. With sentimental piano chords, fluttering synths and echoing vocal chops, the song is a gentle yet upbeat introduction to the album. Yoon Mirae’s vocals are a great addition, though at times they overshadow the male vocals beneath. While nothing special, the song is pleasant and introduces the relaxed, melodic pop sound that comes to define the album as a whole.

An interesting and welcome choice of title track, “Kiss Me Like That” is a minimalist pop song centered around an acoustic guitar riff, simple groove, and catchy melodic hook. The song makes the most of Shinhwa’s status as an idol group consisting of mature grown men, with lyrics that are a lot more sexual and direct than you’d expect from most idol groups:

When you touch me like that, touch you right back All up in your body I’m a kiss you like that From your lips to your neck, whips and cream Melting vanilla ice cream Girl what you wanna do, just tell me, we can go to bed We can ride till the sunrise, ok we gon have a good time Dreams turn into reality, it’s a dangerous adventure

Quiet but by no means lacking in energy, the song is impeccably arranged, allowing the vocals to take center stage and filling the remaining space without ever overcrowding. With mostly live instrumentation (the highlight of which is the brass), the song is refreshingly different from what most other pop title tracks sound like nowadays. The simplicity of line distribution also works in their favour – each singer or rapper has a whole verse to themselves, making each section more cohesive, the song simpler to follow and each member more memorable. All in all, it’s one of the better and more original songs on the album, and as such is a title track deserving of its place.

The album then brings us more of an upbeat disco vibe, with a song that would not sound out of place on a SHINee record. “LEVEL” is a mid-tempo disco-funk track showing off Shinhwa’s vocals, with jangling guitars, rumbling basslines, and retro synths. However, while perfectly competent, placed in the middle of the album the song is somewhat forgettable and is not quite catchy or groovy enough to make a strong impression.

Opening with an intriguing guitar intro is “HERE I COME,” creating a more mysterious and suspenseful atmosphere that has been shown so far. However, the song soon changes to a mid-tempo disco-funk song that is a little too similar to the previous song to make much of an impact. Still, “HERE I COME” has a little more dynamic variation, interspersing the choruses with quiet sections where the drums fade out and the introductory guitar riff comes back in. Overall, the song has potential but fails to really pull all of its elements together to make it the cohesive and powerful song it could be.

“L.U.V” marks another high point on the album. A melancholy pop ballad, the song particularly suits Shinhwa’s vocals and they perform it well, falsettos and all. A vocal chop breakdown keeps the song sounding modern, adding an interesting instrumental element to what might become a typical ballad otherwise. Relaxing and tastefully arranged, “L.U.V” contrasts with the previous two songs nicely and brings the album towards a gentler and more pensive close.

The final song, “Don’t Leave Me”, follows the melancholic vibe set out by “L.U.V” with a more traditional pop ballad, furnished with pianos and acoustic guitars. At least, it seems like that until the song bursts into a more contemporary, electronic sound, replacing pianos with synths and guitars with vocal chops. While it balances the two styles well, this song also feels forgettable; the ballad writing is quite typical, and the future bass style production begins to lose its novelty, having already been used several times on the album. Still, as the final song, it’s perfectly listenable and pleasant enough to round the album off well.

Overall, Shinhwa have returned with a surprisingly on-trend collection of songs. “Heart” could easily compete with younger K-pop groups’ releases, and in fact outshines many by opting for more mature and understated production that doesn’t bombard the listener with noise and unnecessary details.

That said, it’s questionable whether Shinhwa even need to be competing on the same level as these newer generations; as a group with 20 years’ worth of history and musical artistry, some of the songs on this album are almost too trendy. It would have been nice to hear a more unique sound that takes more musical risks, but “Heart” is still a perfectly competent K-pop album – one that may yet gain Shinhwa new fans, 20 years into their career.

Album review: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/in-the-air-with-yoonmirae/1434377234?i=1434377237&app=music

sr: Seoulbeats

[rainydawgradioblog]

RDR Essentials - Hard Rock (2/26)

RDR Essentials is a weekly newsletter of alternating genres that outlines key releases of the past month, upcoming events around Seattle and happenings in the specified music genre.

Made in collaboration between Rainy Dawg DJs and the Music Director.

Releases:

I Don’t Know How to Be Happy - Deli Girls

https://sweatequitynyc.bandcamp.com/album/i-dont-know-how-to-be-happy

Deli Girls crawled out of the grimy New York underground hardcore scene thanks to the group’s wild performances and fiercely gay noise, which was channeled into their first album Evidence. In a similar vein, their newest album I Don’t Know How to Be Happy pushes their trademark sound even further. The album starts off to “Officer”’s serrated beat, which hisses beneath an automated phone message regarding a court date, functioning as a brief adjustment period before exploding into passionate screaming, rapping, yelping, and laughing of lead vocalist Danny Orlowski. Orlowski continues this manic verbal assault through the rest of this album, which pounds along with a righteous and dark violence against the patriarchy. “Peg” stands out especially, pushed along because of Tommi Kelly’s fresh layer of poppy synth arpeggios. “Here We Go Again” follows, one of the more eerie cuts on the album. “You will never win because you will never be as angry as the rest of us / Another day I didn’t end my miserable fucking life” screams Orlowski, with interludes of laughter on the brink of breakdown. Get ready to run head first through whatever glass ceilings or brick walls you might experience in 2019 with this incredible album.

- Max Bryla

Vain Attempt  - SLANT

https://ironlungpv.bandcamp.com/track/the-trap

There’s really not a whole lot out there about SLANT, a newer classic punk band that hails from Seoul, South Korea. Their recent EP, Vain Attempt 7” is just 4 tracks with the longest clocking in at 2:02, and is issued by Seattle punk label IRON LUNG Records, available on Bandcamp. Labelmates like Diät and Iron Lung have had some more mainstream success, but SLANT is much newer to the scene. They have pulled members from other bands like SCUMRAID and BLOODKROW BUTCHER, another Seoul and Boston punk band, respectively. Vain Attempt 7” definitely has a higher production value than those counterparts however, and it benefits because of it. Tracks like “Dry Heave” get right to the point, and don’t stick around too long. Terrific, fast paced drumming combine with some great vocal heft to make a really solid punk album, and this is a band that has a solid future with them, and hopefully some US tour dates.

- Max Bryla

Protogoni Mavri Magiki Dynasteia - Mystifier

https://mystifier.bandcamp.com/

Brazilian blackened death metal band Mystifier have announced their first album in 18 years with the pre release of their track Weighing Heart Ceremony. This track plays similar to their older material with its guttural vocals, creepy and eclectic atmosphere, and overall eeriness. Their 1993 album Goetia is regarded as a landmark in South American extreme metal, showing clear distinctions from European and American artists of the same time. This new track still has the same occultish aura of the band’s earlier material, but also features a much more blackened tonality, meaning more melody and less dissonance. Rather than sounding like the soundtrack to an occult ceremony (basically the narrative of Goetia), this track is a lot more brooding and pensive. If you are into slightly untraditional black/death metal, you should check out this album when it drops on March 8.

- Zac Weiner

Forgotten Paths - Saor

https://saor.bandcamp.com/

Saor is a scottish based atmospheric black metal band that has been pushing black metal to its most serene and experimental boundaries. Forgotten Paths sums up exactly what atmoblack is all about: beautiful tremolo picked melodies, the occasional folk instrument interlude, and a placid nature shot on the cover. This project is the perfect soundtrack for a solo walk through the woods. While some of the interludes can be a little dramatic for an experienced listener, the album makes up for it with bone chilling screams which sound even more emotional over the Gaelic sounding guitar melodies. This album is very digestible and could serve as an excellent introduction to black metal: the production is clean, the riffs sound like they were written by the bard at the Renaissance fair, and every blast beat is met with an equally long folk interlude.

- Zac Weiner

Xiu Xiu - Girl With a Basket of Fruit

https://xiuxiu.bandcamp.com/album/girl-with-basket-of-fruit

Xiu Xiu is an noise pop / experimental rock outfit fronted by multi-instrumentalist Jamie Stewart which can never quite settle on a single sound. They’ve been consistently churning out full-length albums every year or two, varying from anti-folk to electronic indie rock to harsh noise and everywhere in between. Doing away with the cleaner indie rock sound they explored on their previous album Forget, their newest release, Girl With a Basket of Fruit, is a return to the noisier and more experimental tendencies of their early output. Produced by Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier and featuring vocal contributions from Oxbow’s Eugene S. Robinson, the album repeatedly shifts from frantic tribal rhythms (Scisssssssors, Pumpkin Attack on Mommy and Daddy) to abstract heavy electronics (title track, Ice Cream Truck) to droning ambient passages (The Wrong Thing, Amargi ve Moo) and back again, tied together by the harsh synth sounds and uncomfortable samples Xiu Xiu fans are so familiar with and Jamie Stewart’s characteristically unsettling vocals, which are pushed farther than ever on this release, whimpering one minute and screaming the next. After over half an hour of head-spinning erratic noise, the album leaves the listener on a softer note with Normal Love, a slow, stripped-back and sweet (for Xiu Xiu standards) piano pop song. RIYL - Suicide, Coil, Oxbow

- Elliot Hansen

Angel Bat Dawid - The Oracle

https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/the-oracle

The Oracle is spiritual jazz clarinetist Angel Bat Dawid’s very first release. She recorded and mixed the album entirely by herself and performed every instrument except the drums on one of the eight tracks. The recording process, done entirely on a cell phone, was split between London, England, Cape Town, South Africa, and Dawid’s hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Though the album features not much more than clarinet, drums, Angel’s vocals, and the occasional electric piano or miscellaneous wind instrument, the numerous overdubs and effects used turn these elements into cosmic, psychedelic soundscapes, greater than the sum of their parts. Dawid’s lyrics, when present, largely reflect on African American identity and experience, as evidenced by the third track, a re-interpretation of Margaret Burrough’s poem “What Shall I Tell My Children Who Are Black?” Reverberating, overlapping vocal harmonies ebb and flow and give way repeatedly to much more abstract melodies and stranger sounds, ranging from squealing horns to wide, cosmic phaser textures and long-winded erratic improvisations. RIYL - Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman

- Elliot Hansen

Upcoming shows around Seattle:

02/26/19 - Cannibal Corpse / Morbid Angel / Necrot / Blood Incarnation @ Showbox

Openers include Necrot and Blood Incantation, bands that represent the death metal renaissance occurring in recent years and provide some of some of the freshest and heaviest sounds of the 2010s. Morbid Angel (of the cult favorite Altars of Madness) follows as the midbill. Headlining the night is Cannibal Corpse, a group that’s  infamous for their graphic album covers and truly grotesque lyrics. 8PM / $29 / AA

02/27/19 - The Big Band at the End of the World @ Vermillion Art Gallery

18 piece improvisational ensemble featuring strings, horns, electric guitar, harmonium, 3 drummers, and live visuals led by local avant-garde/free jazz saxophonist Gregg Miller. 8PM / $5-10 / AA

03/02/19 - Sandy Ewen / AF Jones / Greg Kelley / Ambrosia Bardos @ Vermillion Art Gallery

Ewen, a touring experimental guitarist, Jones, a local avant-garde composer, and Kelley, a free-jazz/noise trumpet player will perform as a trio. Ambrosia Bardos, a local noise artist who also performs under the name Morher, will perform a solo set. 4PM / $5-10 / AA

More to look out for:

FILM: Lords of Chaos / @ Grand Cinema March 16th

Depicts the sensationalized history of black metal, is now out in theaters. This film has been met with mixed reviews for its lack of honesty in portraying the events (and some really terrible cinematography) but still has merit as an introduction to the genre.

Upcoming Releases and Tours:

3/8 The Coathangers - The Devil You Know via Suicide Squeeze

3/15 The Minneapolis Uranium Club - The Cosmo Cleaners via Fashionable Idiots/Static Shock

4/2  Empath - Active Listening: Night On Earth via Get Better (”Soft Shape” video out NOW)

6/5 - Royal Trux @ Neumos (rescheduled)

[veryotl]

Sooo for the past... three or four albums I’ve done a reaction to the Highlight Medley... And I really need to get back into making content again! So here we go! Here’s my breakdown of the “You Make My Day” Highlight Medley!

1. Oh My!

I will be completely honest here: I wasn’t liking the sound of this song until I saw the MV teaser. It felt a little bit busy with all the noises in the background, and a little bit jarring without a before or after section to show a progression in music. However, in the MV teaser, we got a little bit more of the song as well as some of the dance to kind of bring the beat and melody a little more to the forefront, and with the added context of the progression of the song, I can now say I’m very excited to hear the rest of this song. It’s not really like anything Seventeen has ever done, and relies a little more heavily on strange synth-y noises instead of the Seventeen style of funky bass and really present instrumentals. If I had to draw a connection anywhere, it would be to Change Up. A repeating melody line with mostly simple instrumentals, however even that isn’t exactly what this song is. But as always, far be it for me to say what Seventeen’s style is or isn’t, not after Clap and Call Call Call were so good. They constantly subvert my expectations and I trust they’ll pull this off like they always do.

2. Holiday

The snippet of this song we’re given seems to be from the first chorus, judging by the drop and how kind of understated and simplistic the backing vocals and instrumentals are, if it was later in the song I think there’d be more. It seems like a lighthearted fun song like Thinkin About You or Healing, although a little more chill and laid back than those. There’s not a whole lot I cans say about it from the teaser, except for that it seems to really fit the flow of this album? Thematically speaking, this album looks to be really cohesive and strong, but we’ll get back to that later.

3. Come To Me (Vocal Unit)

If you have been following me for any length of time, you probably know how excited I am for this song because for years I have been talking about how much I want to see Vocal Unit break out of their ballad element. Don’t get me wrong, I love their ballads, and they’ve taken some interesting creative turns like Don’t Listen in Secret having a jazzy-nightclub feel, but they haven’t had an upbeat happy song since 20, and while I can understand wanting a vocally impressive song it’s not like you can’t do that with a brighter tone. In the past, I’ve recommended a 50′s-60′s style song or a Vocal Unit Band song to break Vocal Unit out of their arena, but the direction that this song takes is much more chill house vibes, which is kind of the style right now. Which is fine, especially since Joshua has already exhibited his abilities to jive with that style on Rocket. You can really tell this is a vocal unit song, though, because even in the short clip they gave us you can hear like 3 layers of harmony. I’m super stoked for this departure from the norm and I hope this song is vocally challenging and also successful enough that it gives Vocal Unit some confidence to explore other styles!

4. What’s Good (Hip Hop Unit)

Now it’s time for the pendulum to swing in the complete opposite direction, and that’s because Hip Hop Unit has done it AGAIN. They’ve done a full 180 on my expectations and explored yet ANOTHER new style. Hip Hop Unit is probably the most unexpected unit in my opinion because every time they drop something new it’s completely against their established style. Ah Yeah seemed to be a good solid style, but then Fronting came out of nowhere with this peppy chill vibe, then Monday to Saturday took it a step up and brought back some kind of classic Hip Hop vibes while still exploring this idea of laid back rapping, and then Lean on Me comes out of nowhere with vocals and ballads, and then If I seems to go back into a darker vibe with some super heavy backing instrumentals and melody, and then Trauma goes modern??? With autotune and Mingyu doing vocals?? And now we’ve got this weird... pop... upbeat... groovy song? Hip Hop Unit always zags when I think they’re gonna zig. I cannot wait for this song and for Hip Hop Unit to zag on me again. This is gonna be great. 

5. Moonwalker (Performance Unit)

In some aspects, Performance Unit is similar to Vocal Unit in that they found a style with the success of Highlight and Swimming Fool and are sticking to it, and Moonwalker is in that wheelhouse. However, I can’t really begrudge them anything because they’re all FRICKIN BOPS and the style they’ve found I think really fits with their general feel as a group and the individual styles of the members. Plus, with songs like Who and The Real Thing, the members will often break out of their comfort zones and I appreciate that. Maybe in the future, I’d like to see another Who-style sexy intense song, but for now I’m perfectly content with another Electronic dance song, especially if accompanied by a sick dance like Swimming Fool was. Plus, I lowkey expect Dino to shine in this song, which is something we haven’t seen a whole lot of.

6. Our Dawn is Hotter Than Our Day

First off, this sounds like it could be a bridge-esque clip, maybe near to the end of the song, so the flow of the song might be different. Secondly, I think this might be a mistranslation, where “hotter” or “뜨겁다” should refer to a burning passion instead of a physical heat? Either way, I love this clip. The8 seems to be the main voice with maybe Coups and/or Wonwoo backing him, and it seems like a real impact moment, and I love that they’re kind of giving it to The8 as the main instead of their usual impact-hitters of Jun or Wonwoo. In terms of the general sound, it’s got this kind of lower energy vibe to it, something kind of akin to Campfire or Smile Flower in terms of atmosphere, but also more hopeful and positive in terms of feeling. The kind of song you listen to in the dusk of a summer night with the top down and the feeling of winding down instead of at 3 am with the feeling of looking back and crying. A very content song, I think. In general, the teaser doesn’t give us a whole lot in terms of progression, but I really want to see where the song goes as a whole and what they do with it.

Full Album Summary

In general, I think this album is a lot more thematically put-together than some of the older albums. I feel like they’ve recently tried to be thematically consistent, but there’s usually one song that breaks the theme, like Swimming Fool on Al1 or Clap/Hello on Teen.Age. That’s not a bad thing necessarily, especially in the recent years of not having to listen to an entire CD to hear the songs you like. However, having a super solid album that is consistent from top to bottom could make it so that more Hip Hop unit fans start to listen to Performance Unit, more people listen to the full album every time instead of just various songs, more people want to buy the entire album. 

As for the style, it’s a direction I didn’t really expect Seventeen to take, however it feels like a natural progression from Teen.age thanks to the inclusion of songs like Rocket and Change Up and even Without You to an extent? I think it’s a step away from Seventeen’s established style, but not necessarily a step in the wrong direction. In fact, I love that they don’t feel trapped in making the same song six comebacks in a row to have to keep their fans. They’re free to explore genres and styles and evolve and change, which is a necessity for any artist who doesn’t want to feel confined and trapped in their art. 

To make some predictions for this album, I think DK will become a real star this time around. This style really appeals to some of his voice’s natural charms. Joshua is going to do well with this concept, but I’m worried he’s not gonna get a lot of recognition for it due to the fact that he fits it so well that it feels very much like he’s a part of the furniture and not necessarily having a spotline shone on him. More on the concept of the MV, I think Seungkwan will be a big point in this comeback because the color scheme fits him super well and he stands out against warm colors really nicely. Also, we can expect to see more of debut, childlike playful Hoshi coming back this era. Vocal Unit’s solo will be a summer staple, Wonwoo’s solo part in the Hip Hop Unit song will kill and Vernon and Mingyu will shine in the concept, and Dino will come into his own with this Performance Unit song. Hopefully, The8 will become a popular pitch-hitter like Jun and Wonwoo this comeback as well!

No matter what, though, I absolutely cannot wait for this comeback!

[ribosomemusic]

Experimental Music - Favorites of 2017

I’m not an expert of what’s cool in experimental music. I don’t read the magazines or most of the review sites. (Sometimes I’ll read reviews if I like an artist and want to learn more about them.)

But as a host of a regular podcast focusing on unusual sounds, I spend a lot of time digging independently through new releases. Certainly you’ll have heard of some of them. Many others are underground, self-released artists who may not yet have a lot of listeners.

In this music, I usually look for artists who try to find their own paths towards musicality and coherence, rather than jump onto an established genre and work there.

Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society “Simultonality” https://eremiterecords.bandcamp.com/album/simultonality A jazz release with tight whirling dervishes and a mix of western and Moroccan instruments. Explorations through repetition. One of the tracks seems to resemble Terry Riley’s “In C” in how the score is followed.

AGF - Solidicity https://agf-poemproducer.bandcamp.com/album/solidicity Jlin’s release is further down this list, but AGF shares a similar sensibility: fast, frenetic sampler-based dance music that treads deeply into sonic exploration and experimental sounds.

Andrea Belfi - Ore https://andreabelfi.bandcamp.com/album/ore I have a weakness for percussionists who work electronic sounds into their sets (Sven Kacirek, Erland Dahlen, Solyst, etc). Here’s one!

Apulati Bien - OO:NE https://promesses.bandcamp.com/album/oo-n Another release from this electronic dance / experimental music hybrid that’s popularized by Jlin. I’m not sure what it’s called yet, but here’s a French cassette that was also good.

Felicia Atkinson “Hand in Hand” https://feliciaatkinson.bandcamp.com/album/hand-in-hand Felicia Atkinson’s compositions combine text passages, electronics, instruments and found object sounds in a way that make me think of carefully-constructed surrealist radio plays. This has been my favorite release of hers so far.

Bellows “Strand” https://shelterpress.bandcamp.com/album/strand A nice halfway point between 4/4 “ambient dance” music as popularized in the mid 90s, and more abstract, improvised-sounding music. This has the warm, dreamy, otherworldly quality of the former, with a sense of being in an empty, windblown warehouse.

Greg Fox “The Gradual Progression” https://gregfox.bandcamp.com/album/the-gradual-progression An energetic jazz release that brings in tight bursts of tuned electronic percussion sequences and dub influences. 

Glochids “Ni Fila” https://glopuntia.bandcamp.com/album/ni-fila Mind-expandingly abstract and bizarre sounds, but with a sense of narrative and coherence that it’s easy to forget is possibly in this kind of experimental music. The alien-ness and sense of structure remind me of Oval’s excellent run in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Grampus “Bludge” https://grampus.bandcamp.com/album/bludge-2 Grampus has a great set of trio instrumentation: trumpet, trombone, and percussion, and all 2 of the members also proficient with samplers and laptops. Their first record, while fun, focused mostly on avant-garde and graphical score composition. For their sophomore record, there’s more of a groove, more high tempo, high energy playing, giving it a sensibility common with my favorite fusion and psychedelic rock records.

Jasmine Guffond “Traced” https://jasmineguffond.bandcamp.com/album/traced Ambient sampler-based experimentalism in the vein of Jan Jelinek or perhaps Vladislav Delay. However, perhaps more composed and more suspenseful than either of those examples.

Jlin “Black Origami” https://jlin.bandcamp.com/album/black-origami My prediction is that this release will be the one that appears on the most end-of-year lists. Jlin is a producer out of Gary, Indiana, and she’s one of the premier producers of this new genre that I’ve seen cropping up over the last 2 years or so. I’m not sure what it’s called. Is it “footwork”, or is footwork simply the dance genre that it’s closest to? The rhythms seem to be inspired as much by Algerian doumbek music as anything from western electronic genres.

Audun Kleive & Jan Bang “The Periphery of a Building” https://www.amazon.com/Periphery-Building-Audun-Kleive-Bang/dp/B074KW846W A percussion/live-sampling duo from Norway. It’s hard to put into words what I love about this EP: It combines the rhythmic energy of some of the “footwork” (?) releases on this list, such as Jlin, AGF and Apulati Bien, but perhaps with a slightly more free-improvised energy.

Lepidoptera “Minus Sign” https://analogcowboyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/lepidoptera According to Bandcamp, I’m currently the only person who bought this. (That’s true of a number of these releases.) That’s a shame because it’s a wonderful ambient drone session that takes the listener to several different landscapes as it travels.

Oby1taopy “Tachyon” https://oby1taopy.bandcamp.com/album/tachyon As much as I enjoy experimental modular synthesizer music, many of the releases I hear for this instrument gravitate towards well-known staples and stay there: formless new-age ambient baths, storms of electronic squiggles, walls of noise, 70s Berlin-school uh… tribute artists? Oby1taopy seems to enjoy the process of exploration itself, and presents us with a collection of temporary almost-worlds.

Off World “2” https://offworld.bandcamp.com/album/2 Bucking a trend of most of the synthesizer players I hear, Sandro Perri retains the role of traditional instruments in his compositions, so you’ll hear electronic drums, approximated bass and piano sounds, and a sense of “band-ness” in this release. There are hints of fusion, early synth rock and even lounge music throughout the record. This doesn’t stop the music from being pleasurably “out there”. Recommended if you like: Herbie Hancock’s “Sextant”, Jon Hassel, Pekka Airaksinen.

Oto Hiax “s/t” https://otohiax.bandcamp.com/album/s-t A collaboration between Mark Clifford of Seefeel and Scott Gordon of Loops Haunt. This is unusual for the ways that it is both typical and atypical: The typicality comes from the individual sounds. Experienced experimental ears have heard many of these sounds before: the highly-textured guitar processing of Seefeel’s recent releases, the surf-like droning wavecrests of the genre I’ve been calling “Tim Hecker”, instruments recorded in reverberant spaces, a touch of harsh noise and a decent amount of amplified found objects and environmental sounds thrown in. What’s unusual is that a release could have all of these elements and sound as focused and purposeful as this record does. It’s a great record from start-to-finish.

Safety Scissor Death Squad “Songs for a Dying Shell Diver” https://acriacysoundlabs.bandcamp.com/album/songs-for-a-dying-shell-diver One of the downsides of being a fan of experimental music is the sense that too many musicians are concerned with blowing my mind. Then once in a while a recording actually does it - in this case, this very quiet, patient, minimal recording of blown bottles, chimes, and occasional digital turntable gestures by Tennessee’s Jovontae Pride. It was originally composed as a companion piece to Nurse With Wound’s "Echo Poeme: Sequence No. 2", but I’m completely happy with it like this. Recommended if you like Steve Roden.

Schneider Kacirek “Radius Walk” https://schneiderkacirek.bandcamp.com/album/radius-walk This is one of the newest entries of a genre I’ve been following, even if I don’t know what to call it: sterile, clean synth & live drum solo and duo projects that are very subtle and gradual about how they bring in their unusual elements. Acts like Andrea Belfi (listed above), Erland Dahlen, Solyst, Kreidler and Sven Kacirek. Maybe it’s my version of easy listening. This latest is a collaboration between Kacirek and Kreidler’s Stefan Schneider. Kacirek is a specialist in carefully tuning up very specific percussive sounds - a trio of prepared piano plucks here, a snare recorded from inside a cardboard box there. This has been my favorite release from either musician in some time.

Spellling “Pantheon of Me” (LP) https://spellling.bandcamp.com/album/pantheon-of-me-2 Tia Cabral’s solo project lets you think you’re going to be settling in for an album of live looping singer-songwriter stuff, but then the other elements start to creep in - electronic sound design and instrumentation usually heard in industrial/ebm music are applied flawlessly to something more like reflective folk ballads. It keeps on surprising.

Ssifoo “LuzS” https://ssifoo.bandcamp.com/album/luzs A mysterious sample-based composer out of Mexico City, I don’t know much about Ssifoo other than the name and a couple of EPs that came out this year. Each one contains 3 instrumental songs of very thoughtful and careful musical blooms.

Colin Stetson - “All This I Do for Glory” https://colinstetson.bandcamp.com/album/all-this-i-do-for-glory You won’t believe that this is an album of songs performed in real time on sax with no loops, but it gets deep, detailed, musical and rhythmic. 

Střed Světa “Rozmístění opakováním” https://babavanga.bandcamp.com/album/st-ed-sv-ta-rozm-st-n-opakov-n-m This is probably the record on this list with easily detectable 4-on-the-floor beats, but I appreciate the artist’s approach which at turns sounds like: Various synthesized bodies falling down stairs, to a disco beat, or a collection of floating glass jars stuck in the spin cycle of a washing machine with echoes, to a disco beat.

Cristobal Tapia De Veer - The Girl With All The Gifts (OST) https://mondotees.bandcamp.com/album/the-girl-with-all-the-gifts-cristobal-tapia-de-veer A beautiful, mysterious, understated horror movie soundtrack, composed largely with voice loops and samplers. 

Sunrise Transparence “Prism” https://sunrisetransparence.bandcamp.com/ A solo project by A. Vancura out of Los Angeles. As a mostly electronic experimental music fan, it’s not often that mostly acoustic projects catch my attention, but this one did. Many of the compositions work in a similar vein to Brian Eno’s ambient tape loop compositions, or even William Basinski. Not to say it’s all pastoral - the third track, “Churning” is downright frightening. The instrumentation is mostly piano, clarinets and muted trombone, all played by A.V., and I really appreciate the special attention she pays to the acoustic spaces she records in.

[aion-rsa]

The Doctor Strange and Pink Floyd Connection

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Marvel's Doctor Strange has a weird history with psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd. Get ready to expand your mind.

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Doctor Strange and Pink Floyd both got their start during the 1960s, a decade known for mind-expansion, psychedelic experimentation, and the pushing of cultural and artistic boundaries. Neither were exactly in step with the rest of their genre.

Doctor Strange, unlike his spandex clad and heavily muscled contemporaries, used occult practices like black magic and astral projection to defeat his foes instead of brute force. Pink Floyd were never really the kind of post-Beatles psychedelic pop group that were still common in the late '60s, nor were they ever the kind of blues-based hard rock or technically-oriented progressive rock band that dominated the 1970s. Unsurprisingly, Doctor Strange comics were popular on college campuses as the counterculture revolution of the 1960s began to take hold and it's easy to see stoners disappearing into Steve Ditko's surreal artwork while early Floyd records played or why psychedelic rockers were more drawn to these than traditional superhero fare.

Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson dropped a number of Pink Floyd references on Twitter during the production of the Doctor Strange movie (not to mention Bob Dylan, The Talking Heads, T.Rex, and other bands), so I was waiting to see if a Pink Floyd song would actually make its way into a Marvel movie. 

I wasn't disappointed. 

Video of Pink Floyd - Interstellar Overdrive [HQ]

Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive" plays during a key early sequence in the movie. It comes from first Pink Floyd album, The Piper At The Gates of Dawn, which abandoned the melodic but skewed psychedelic pop of their early singles, "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play" for a collection of songs that were more metaphysical, sinister, and occasionally (like in the case of "Interstellar Overdrive") freeform explorations of sound and feedback. The album version clocks in at nearly 10 minutes, but live versions could run longer, as long as the band wanted, really, and were accompanied by a psychedelic light show and oil projections that were conducive to mind-expansion. Those visuals wouldn't have looked out of place in the Doctor Strange comics of the era, either.

Pink Floyd's guitar player, singer, and driving creative force in 1967 was Syd Barrett, who left the group the following year due to worsening mental illness that was likely accelerated by his voracious appetite for mind-altering chemicals like LSD. Marvel's Doctor Strange movie certainly leans heavily on imagery consistent with the visuals associated with LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline trips (Strange even accuses the Ancient One of spiking his tea with psilocybin), which is fitting, even if it isn't a direct connection to Pink Floyd.

Listen to Pink Floyd The Piper at The Gates of Dawn on Amazon Prime

Barrett was still present on a few tracks on the band's second album, 1968's A Saucerful of Secrets, which has a semi-hidden image of Doctor Strange on the cover. The collage effect is not only reminiscent of the band's light shows and a representation of the psychedelic experience, but the placement of Strange himself makes it look as if the whole album cover is a spell being cast by the Master of the Mystic Arts. 

The Strange elements come from a story in 1967's Strange Tales #158, with art by Marie Severin (Doctor Strange co-creator Steve Ditko had left Marvel almost a year earlier).

Here's the page: 

(and thanks to Richie who pointed out the specific issue in the comments of our article about all of the easter eggs in the Doctor Strange movie)

The title track, "A Saucerful of Secrets" is kind of like the sequel to "Interstellar Overdrive" as it's another extended instrumental that places more emphasis on experimental sound than it does on anything resembling a traditional rock song structure. In other words, it's the perfect accompaniment to your reading of weird-ass Doctor Strange comics from the era.

Listen to Pink Floyd A Saucerful of Secrets on Amazon Prime

What I somehow never realized until this NightFlight article pointed it out to me is that you can also spot Marvel cosmic entity The Living Tribunal in the upper left-hand corner of the album cover, too...

Doctor Strange was still on the band's radar enough that they included him in the lyrics of "Cymbaline" from their third album, 1969's soundtrack to the Barbet Schroeder film, More. "Suddenly it strikes you, that they're moving into range," Syd Barrett's replacement David Gilmour intones solemnly, "and Doctor Strange is always changing size."

Funny enough, "Cymbaline" was known as "Nightmare" when it was performed as part of The Man and The Journey suite of songs, meaning it shared a name with the first villain Strange ever fought in the comics. Soon the band's lyrical focus drifted away from metaphysical concerns and into more earthly ones, and while they continued to produce extended musical compositions, the atonal sounds of "Interstellar Overdrive" and "A Saucerful of Secrets" gave way to the more melodic "Echoes" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond."

read more: Pink Floyd Members Reunite on Stage in New York City

But if Doctor Strange was an influence on the band in their early days, you can perhaps see hints of Pink Floyd's influence on the character in the 1978 Dr. Strange TV movie, which has a synth-heavy, at times funky, electronic soundtrack and an astral trip visual sequence that looks like some of the light show projections the band were known for. The final song on Michael Giacchino's Doctor Strange score, "Master of the Mystic Arts" subtly evokes some of the band's 1970s work, too.

But one final piece of Doctor Strange/Pink Floyd synchronicity popped up in 2016. Doctor Strange star Benedict Cumberbatch joined former Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour on stage to sing "Comfortably Numb," a song which started life as a demo called, funny enough, "The Doctor." Whether this is coincidence, or simply the universe bringing the Pink Floyd/Doctor Strange connections full circle is entirely up to you to decide, of course. Maybe Doctor Strange 2 can find room for more Pink Floyd music when exploring the Dark Dimension or somewhere similar.

Cast spells, or at least talk psychedelic rock and comics, with Mike Cecchini on Twitter. We have a playlist of all songs discussed here...

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Feature

Movies

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Mike Cecchini

Jan 6, 2020

Doctor Strange

Music

Pink Floyd

Marvel

from Books https://ift.tt/2MZF2R3

[shemakesmusic-uk]

Introducing...

Pocket Sun.

Get your very own slice of Cosmic Soul from the Euphonic Galaxies. Pocket Sun create a kaleidoscopic, hyper-melodic sound through lush layers of vocal harmony, synth and beats, which will keep you vibrating positive energy long after your heart returns to Earth.  

Influenced from a plethora of alternative electronic pop artists including Little Dragon and Washed Out, the band craftily combine electronic and vocal sound sources, creating a radiant beam of velvety soundscapes.  

Pocket Sun is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist and songwriter GMT, who has been quietly hatching a mountain of audiovisual art from her Bristol home. In 2018 the colourful five-piece came together to embrace her vision, and have since been working behind the scenes on their blissful live show.

We had a chat with GMT about the origins of Pocket Sun, their debut single 'Plastic' upcoming EP and more. Read the Q&A below.

What brought the five of you together and make you want to begin this musical project?

"I'd been performing as a solo artist for years under various names, but nothing was really taking off. I’d always wanted to get a band together but it felt like a bit of a pipe dream. Then in late 2017 I had a kind of ‘wake-up’ moment when I realised there’s no better time than now to try, and started fresh with the name Pocket Sun.

"The band members come from different places musically, creating quite an eclectic mix of people and tastes. Most of us have worked together before in other bands so that’s where the connections began. Hazel (keys, synth and backing vocals) and I are actually sisters, and she’s my rock! Not only does she bring so much to the band, but having watched her own project continually blossom (Ever Hazel) she’s been a super inspiration in life and music. Alex on drums was instantly one of the best I’ve heard when we started playing together in another Bristol band, Iguanas. He’s renowned for his skilled playing - usually on rocksteady/reggae grooves with The Mellotones, but I thought I’d take the chance and poach him for Pocket Sun. Beau, similarly is a spectacular bassist naturally owning the perfect blend of solid playing meets intricate and tasteful riffs (after every show he’ll get so many compliments!). He also plays in Iguanas and makes his own amazing music and art (Beau Hulse). The newest addition to the band was Madeleine, on synth and backing vocals. I’d seen her perform and was instantly in awe of her stunning voice and stage presence! Check out her other project Myla, a really beautiful and unique folk/hip-hop act."

Who or what has the biggest influence on your music and songwriting?

"I just love music that somehow transports you away to another place or makes you instantly feel something. I find it really magical that you can be physically somewhere mundane, yet emotionally in another world from what you’re listening to in your headphones. I tend to be instinctively drawn towards soulful and unusual chord progressions, as well as that nostalgic chorus-driven 80s sound. Big influences for me personally have been Little Dragon, Tame Impala, Washed Out, Badbadnotgood and Toro y Moi…but that’s a tiny fraction of a constantly growing list!"

You recently released your debut single 'Plastic’. What inspired the song?

"The song emerged from the baseline looping round in my head, so I quickly laid it down along with the groovy drum pattern. It came together like a whirlwind and almost felt like the chords and melodies were writing themselves (sounds cheesy I know haha!). For a while I considered leaving it as an instrumental, but somehow it didn’t feel finished. The subject of global warming and plastic pollution has been such a hot topic on social media and the news, and it’s something I feel really passionate about, so I thought that could be interesting to weave into it. (Also I don’t think I’ve heard another song about that before!) When I began writing the lyrics it was actually quite challenging, and the song went through many re-writes before reaching it’s final form. As soon as I found the line ‘Sending signals into the sky’ it clicked, and I was envisioning a tiny alien warning us about the damage we’re doing to earth. I’m very interested to see if anyone has deciphered this from the lyrics!"

'Plastic' is taken from your upcoming EP Sleep Inventions. What can you tell us about the record?

"The songs on the record all share similarities within themes of dreaming and imagination, so Sleep Inventions seemed like the perfect name to capture just that. The EP is a set of five tracks and begins with exploring the wildness of dreaming, and towards the end turns to finding comfort in loneliness, and feeling safety in escaping reality,

Finally, what else is next for Pocket Sun?

"We’ve got another single coming out very soon along with a quirky animated video, so we’re looking forward to sharing that! We also have quite a few live shows coming up in Bristol and beyond, and will be recording and shooting some live videos to release online. We recently started working with INC, a new Bristol based record label, who have been amazing at helping us grow and reach new audiences, so we can’t wait to see how things continue with them!"

‘Plastic’ is out now.

[trevorbailey61]

Susanne Sundfør

Glee Club, Birmingham

Wednesday 14th March 2018

The stage had been erected along one side of the main square in the northern Spanish city of A Coruna. It was still early afternoon but clouds obscured the summer sun and a light drizzle filled the air. A barrier sealed off the area around the stage but neither this, nor the weather, deterred a group of about fifty who had gathered as close as they could to secure the best place for the show that they would still have to wait several hours to see. Their patience was soon rewarded, however, as various members of the band started to saunter out onto the stage, pick up their instruments and begin their soundcheck. Every bang of a drum, strummed chord or snatch of a melody was greeted with loud cheers from this dedicated group, carried over the gap from where they were held so that the musicians smiled and waved in response. A group of backing singers sang into hand held mics but the star himself did not appear, a stand-in took his place so that his entrance later would retain its spectacle. And spectacle it was, as darkness descended, the crowd had grown to fill the square and bright lights picked out the figures as those backing singers now added their voices in tightly choreographed moves always close to the main man. Even though we couldn’t even begin to guess what his songs were about, there was no doubting his stage presence as he reached out to the furthest parts of the vast crowd. They responded to every verse, every chorus, every movement with wild cheers; sang along to every song and took selfies to remind themselves and others that they were there. Whoever this guy was, in one Spanish city at least, he was huge.

Who he was: before wandering into the square that afternoon, I wouldn’t have had a clue and despite being carried along by the enthusiasm of those around me and the show itself, seven months later I can no longer recall his name. The few parts of his biography that remain tell me that although based in Spain, he was originally from Argentina and that his long career had occasionally brought him into contact with artists I have some familiarity with. Outside of that, however, he had written songs, recorded albums and toured without making the slightest ripple outside of those who share the same first language. With a huge potential global audience of Spanish speakers, it may appear that this would be enough but periodic albums where he sings in English suggest that he has tried to broaden this appeal. That these have been met with indifference is a sign of how difficult it is to translate success from one audience to another and as an artist well into his forties, it seems as if he will have to remain content with the passionate Spanish fans who filled the square in A Coruna.

Susan Sundfør is very popular in Norway. Classically trained, she has a keen ear for a range of musical styles that she puts together to produce a sound that is very much her own. Her albums show shifts in form and style to produce wonderfully varied music with just her extraordinary voice to show that they all originated from the same source. Despite continually wrong footing her audience, she has had four number 1 albums in her homeland and has a loyal and devoted following. Like many from the northernmost parts of Europe, she writes and records in English which means that, unlike our Spanish friend, she doesn’t have to balance interesting native speakers with broadening her appeal. Her previous album, “Ten Love Songs” looked as if it would provide the breakthrough; an unexpected leap from her folksy routes, it was her disco album; electronic beats, layers of synths and joyous uplifting melodies that helped to disguise the failed relationships and emotional turmoil found in the words. It was certainly interesting and at times exhilarating but possibly a little knowing in its adoption of the bittersweet norms of Scandi pop. In writing all the songs, playing most of the music and producing the album, Sundfør piled the pressure on herself and at a time she should have been taking the music out to the audience she sought, suffered a nervous breakdown. Whilst this could be seen as a missed opportunity, she could at least draw on the depths into which she fell to make another musical leap to produce the stark and brooding “Music for People in Trouble”, most of which she will perform tonight.

As she tells us, this is her first visit to Birmingham which means that I am probably alone amongst those at the Glee Club in that I have seen her before. This was about three years ago at Latitude, one of the few UK shows she did to promote “Ten Love Songs” and dressed in bright colours and with glitter on her cheeks, she was very much the glam pop princess. In contrast, tonight sees her all in black, an oversize pinstripe jacket covers her dress and she will occasionally wrap herself up by folding her arms and pulling the lapels across her chest; a little insecurity perhaps finding its way into the confidence with which she presents herself. So assured is her English, there is just the slightest hint of an accent, it is a surprise when she slips into her first language to explain some slight adjustments she wants in the sound. She feels the songs can speak for themselves and rather than explain their origin, between them she lightens the mood by reflecting on their recent travels and asking for advice on what to do during the morning they are to spend in Birmingham. When no one in the audience can come up with anything she chides us that we should show more pride in where we live. She does, however, pick up a little Brummie and repeats the words “alroight bab” after they were suggested as an example of the local dialect. Well into her tour now, the atmosphere is relaxed and easy going drawing us in to the sparse and sometimes harrowing songs she is here to perform.

The tone is set with the opener, “Mantra”. Seated, Sundfør accompanies herself on an acoustic guitar, often picking out just single note rather than putting them together to form a chord. Alongside the fearsome power and startling range of her voice, this minimal setting works to such a haunting effect that there is a moment of silence as the last few notes reverberate around the room where the audience take a moment to fully process what they have just heard. Throughout this, the two musicians with whom she shares the stage stare at the keyboards in front of them before adding a few embellishments towards the end. The set rarely strays from this understated sound and as Sundfør seems more than capable of adding the guitar or piano accompaniments, it is tempting to wonder whether she really needed anyone on the stage with her. They do, however, allow her to occasionally add her vocals without also having to accompany herself and provide strings or solos on the flute or bass clarinet as a counter to the devastating vocals. “Mantra” slowly reveals itself, sounding almost optimistic at the start where it is possible to bask in a bright summer’s evening as she sings; “I’m as lucky as the moon: On a starry night in June”. The shift in attention from the imposing disk of the moon to the heavens beyond, however, releases the self doubt that is the main feature of her recent work; “I’m as empty as the Earth; An insignificant birth”.

Whilst gorgeous melodies and lush orchestrations of “Ten Love Songs” helped to disguise the pain in the words, and also invited comparisons with Abba, now, with a greater prominence given to her voice, there is little to sugar coat the message. This painful soul searching is reminiscent of John Grant, a comparison given greater sway as he adds his vocals to the final track on “Music for People in Trouble”. Like Grant, much of Sundfor’s self worth is determined by the actions of others towards her and when they let her down, as inevitably they will, she directs the pain inwards and towards her own frailties. “Undercover” takes a cynical view of the motives of the other; “Don’t trust the ones who love you; Cause if you love them back; They’ll always disappoint you; It’s just a matter of fact” into a fantasy where; “We could live our dreams; we'd sail on golden wings”; the piano accompaniment moving from the minor chords of the reality to the uplifting melody of the fantasy. In just three verses, the slow and haunting “Good Luck, Bad Luck” brutally dissects the superficiality of a former lover; “Freeloader wisdom from the books he never read”. Coming from her excursions into the world’s trouble spots, during her recent sabbatical she visited North Korea and the Amazon rainforest, “The Sound of War” is a stirring description of the bleak landscape left after the killing has finished. Similar in tone to PJ Harvey’s “The Hope Demolition Project”, Sundfør’s clear and ghostly voice perfectly captures the horror of the scene. Possibly the starkest expression of the place in which she finds herself is the crushing “No One Believes in Love Anymore”, performed as the first of two encores. Against the backdrop of a delightful melody, played to stunning effect on the flute, Sundfør finally confronts her inner demons which, in turn, by the end of the song allows her to find some hope as she returns to the moonlit scene of the opening song; “Looking up at the Moon, up at the Moon; We’ll all get there soon, looking up at the Moon”. The theme is developed further in the up tempo “Reincarnation” where she finds the sprit within herself to move on.

“Ten Love Songs” is not ignored completely but the two songs that she draws on, “Silencer” and the final encore “Trust Me”, are those that can be stripped back to the same stark setting. “Trust Me” in particular emerges all the better without the waves of synthesised strings in the background. Her earlier work, however, is a better fit and “Can You Feel the Thunder” and “White Foxes” need little reimagining to find a home. It is one of her earliest songs, however, in “Walls” that has been rearranged most brutally. Accompanying herself at the piano, she has stripped away the rather predictable chords changes and flourishes she originally used to create something far more interesting.

Sometimes musicians need a sudden shift to help define their career and Sundfør has already been through many. The synthesised Abba pop of ���Ten Love Songs” was fun but she possibly felt that the spectacle was a distraction fro the songwriting and in taking it all back to its basics, the focus is very much on the songs. They are more than capable of holding the interest without all the embellishments and show a raw emotional heart that can be quite painful. Despite the dark nature of much of the music, the uplifting melodies and her own humour helped to make for an inspiring evening. Tweeting after the concert, one person noted that the music would not seem out of place at Symphony Hall and whilst it is possible to see what he is getting at, it would then have lost much of both its intensity and intimacy, something that helped to make the evening so special. The breakthrough to play a venue that size is probably still some way off although the nearly full Glee Club showed that, unlike our Spanish friend, she is developing a large audience outside her homeland. It will be interesting to see whether her next step will be back to easily accessible pop or something as raw and emotional as where she currently finds herself.

[tallavapassion]

Tallava Passion: Artists facing the ethnomusicological object


In 2012, I discovered via YouTube a musical practice I had never heard of before: musicians were filming themselves at home frantically playing traditional melodies on their synths. After a few hours of research, I realised the web was full of similar videos, apparently originating from various countries of the Balkan Peninsula.


I quickly shared this with another composer of electronic music, Aymeric de Tapol, as we regularly swap sources of inspirations and other musical favourites. Both fascinated by drone music and the melisma of polyphonies of the Middle Ages, we quickly became infatuated with this virtuoso and languorous synth music. One of its peculiarities consists in being played by the musician's right hand, while his left hand deals with the pitch bender to render the inflections and tonal scales that characterise some Balkan instruments.

Within a few days, we sent each other many videos based on YouTube  suggestions, without really being able to identify this musical object but starting to aesthetically frame it: this music expressed a powerful melancholy, through its throbbing and hypnotic rhythms upon which long melismatic melodies stretch time.

Words and phrases that we did not initially understand often appeared in the videos descriptions or comments (1): “tallava” (or “talava”), “dasmash”, “valle”, “sevcet”, “gio style”, “kalle kalle” ... We soon managed to track their geographical origins and drew up an initial inventory:

Tallava is a musical genre played in Albania and Kosovo at festivals and weddings (“dasmash” in Albanian), and dedicated to dance (“valle”). “Kalle kalle” seems to be a recurrent injunction targeting the audience. As for “Sevcet” (also nicknamed “Gio Style”), he is the best known representative of the genre and lives in Germany, like many of these musicians. The limited available resources, our lack of understanding of the Albanian language, and an obvious lack of research methodology prevented us from going any further.

As mere curious musicians, always searching for new inspiration, we found ourselves unprepared in front of an ethnomusicological field: We had purely been seduced by the musical characteristics of Tallava, and perhaps, somehow, by these videos whose significance we did not fully grasp. However, we had barely questioned its social and anthropological reach. We only wanted to share this music, without delving into analytical concerns, as our musical world, through DJ culture, has always encouraged such an approach. So we simply decided to create a blog named Tallava Passion (2) on which we would simply gather these videos. At our level, it already was a form of resistance as we felt we were facing a kind of heritage ethnomusicologists had not been interested in, perhaps because of its cheap and strictly synthetic aspect, far from the great musical traditions of the Balkans.

 In 2014, after posting pictures on a fairly regular basis for two years, we felt the need to discover and experience it in real life. We were aware that this remote viewpoint had only given us a partial outlook of the phenomenon and that field research could tell us more. Above all, we wanted to record local musicians to try and produce our own Tallava record with the strong belief that it could trigger in Western audiences and DJs an interest about this particular music.

Thanks to our own networks, we were able to get in touch with Violand Shabani, a Kosovar musician who nevertheless belonged to musical spheres far removed from our own. Indeed, Violand was a member of a fairly popular Albanian metal band and he also worked as scenographer on national television. Even though he did not seem to understand our appeal for this music, he was really keen to help. His first e-mail gave us important information we had not yet come across: "Well about the Tallava music Albanians usually do not play it but Roma community usually do, but we can get in touch with them no problem."

Our fascination with this musical object had kept us disconnected from the anthropological questions revealed in this first message. However, his next email was reassuring: "a friend or mine we work together from Roma community, he said that he knows four of them, which means that we can get in touch with them fast! "



It was on the plane that arrived in Skopje, our first step before Kosovo, that we encountered the first difficulties. Aymeric spoke with his Albanian next to him who explained that Tallava was a "Roma music" and that it "invaded the whole Albanian culture".

These kinds of statements would frequently come up through our stay, with part of the population warning us against the dangers our field of study. In any case, once we arrived in Pristina, no signs of Tallava: we met Albanian musicians who told us a little more about the practice of this music, we found some recordings in record shops, we heard turbo-folk variations in the bars of the city centre but it was impossible to glimpse at what we were looking for: this music seemed to be hiding from us.


Indeed, Roma people form a separate community and live mostly outside the city. Even though they became a recognized minority in Kosovo with the advent of socialist Yugoslavia, they were caught in the grip of the 1990s cultural conflicts between Serbs and Albanians.

Many Roma replaced the latter when they massively resigned from public administrations to protest against the persecutions of the Slobodan Milosevic's regime (3). The Serbs also "used them as gravediggers to bury the victims of abuses or of the conflict itself"(4) which branded them as "collaborators". Since the end of the war, in 1999, Pristina has turned entirely Albanian (5) and the Roma have had to flee for the suburbs or northern towns with a Serbian majority. 

Meeting Sead Ramic, Violand's Roma colleague at the television (one of the few places where communities still mix) finally enabled us to approach what we had come for. He explained that almost all the musicians he could identify on the videos were living abroad, which was bound to compromise our recording plans.

He however offered to take us to a place where we could hear Tallava live.

We reached a huge restaurant in the mountains north of Pristina. It must have been 10 pm. At the door, three hostesses seated on a stall were sipping energy drinks while chain-smoking. The room was empty except for a few men chatting around a table.
A young man was casually playing synth on a small stage: the lack of public seemed to hinder his motivation. He played a rather fast and festive music, close to what we had  heard in town, much too loud for this empty space. We were disappointed and told Sead this was not quite what we had been looking for; He explained that it was still early and, after clicking his fingers at the musician and having a few words with him, the latter slowed the rhythm down and put his left hand on the keyboard to produce the characteristic unison, before gradually unfolding the melody with his right hand. The girls at the door rose up and began to perform a slow dance, strolling across the room in a single line. For the first time, we heard the music we had been musing over for almost two years, behind our screens, resonating in its natural environment.



The atmosphere was quite weird, the sustained gazes in our direction discouraged us from using our microphones. Our guides, who didn't seem very comfortable either, soon wanted to leave. We were annoyed to have to leave so fast, but not knowing where we were we had to follow them.

On the way back, we discovered that the young musician playing that evening was featured on our blog. We just had not recognized him. Indeed, he did not play nearly as well: as Sead explained, playing Tallava is above all a means of earning money and YouTube videos are a showcase for finding gigs, hence the quality of performance there.



Despite our strong insistence, we were unable to meet him again. This was followed by a string of failed encounters with professional musicians only looking for contracts.Eventually, Sead came to our flat with one of his cousins so that we could record some musical material to bring back with us, though this was not enough to make a record. 

This narrative shows how our artistic point of view profoundly shaped the Tallava Passion project: from its formative stage, it lead us to fictionalize reality, preferring the aesthetics we defended, far from the axiological neutrality that characterizes the work of researchers. This lack of ethnomusicological method may have in fact enabled us to understand this music in the most natural way, to really listen to it, without replacing it in a historical perspective nor observing it through anthropological filters.



However, the reality on the field propelled us into political and cultural issues: through conversations bearing the sequels of ethnic conflicts between Albanians and Serbs, but also because of the difficulty of meeting the Roma community, forgotten between two populations. It is obvious that our lack of methodology in preparing for the field limited our chances of reaching our goal, and we were undoubtedly naive to think we could collect a coherent musical material in ten days on the spot. For nearly a year, we sought funding to be able to go there. The means to be put in place were beyond our own resources. Unfortunately, the organisations that usually subsidize our creations found little interest in helping a record project that would not bring anything tangible into their territory.


The more we advanced in time, the more our object escaped us: like all synth music, Tallava heavily depends on technology and within a few years, its tones had radically changed, rhythms had been contaminated by banks of western sounds and increasingly conformed to international mainstream music. So, rather than embarking on a search for an imaginary music able to convey our initial emotions, the best testimony might ultimately be this collection of images.


Maxime Denuc

 ( with a little help from Aymeric de Tapol )

English Translation by Valerie Vivancos

1 The borders between the Albanian Tallava, the Serbian turbo-folk or the Romanian “manele” are not always easy to delimit for a novice ear. To make things simple, let's say that Tallava uses slow percussion rhythms, few harmonic modulations and melodies inspired by the phrasing of the traditional Albanian gaita bagpipes.



2 http://tallavapassion.tumblr.com/

3 Dérens, Jean-Arnault,  (Article in French): Kosovo no longer integrates its Roma, migrants without a country of origin, Le Monde diplomatique, November 2013, available at: https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2013/11/DERENS/49769



4 Despic-Popovic, Hélène,(Article in French): Kosovo another hell for the Roma, Liberation, 17 October 2013, available at: http://www.liberation.fr/planete/2013/10/17/le-kosovo-un-autre-enfer-pour-les-roms_940263

5 According to the 2011 census figures, Albanians represent 97.7% of the population of Pristina (source: http://ask.rks-gov.net )