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Get that bleedin' kettle on

Wondrous 68 year old animation: Norman McLaren - Dots

Firstborn will have to sit through lots of Norman McLaren if this is anything to go by: captivating abstract animation from 1940, with an electronic soundtrack years before its time.  There's loads more McLaren on YouTube but I think I'll save myself for the boxset.

Filed under  //   animation   normanmclaren   youtube  
Posted October 28, 2008
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Droids in Poladroids

Mainly 'cos I can't resist fiddling with Poladroid a bit more, here's some gratuitous Tomy robot vs. analogue synth gear porn below, some photos I took for a mixtape cover last year. Interesting how blue the robots-with-patch-cable-dreads looks in comparison to the green-y one, wonder if that's the randomness of Poladroid kicking in. 


Actually the random element is the key to the addictive nature of the program. You could work out a macro in Fireworks, Photoshop or GIMP, but it'll pretty much give you similar results each time. I really like that there is no control over the effect settings in Poladroid; there's no way of setting the crop or the green vs. blue balance, you just get what you're given. One of the photos in the previous set I posted, Lee sat behind a set of silver drums, turned out massively better than the original, which I'd previously dismissed as being a bland nothing sort-of shot - the crop and the subtle brown sheen really lifted it.





     

Click here to download:
Droids_in_Poladroids_tag_polad.zip (408 KB)

Filed under  //   poladroid   random   robot   synth  
Posted October 27, 2008
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Poladroid - daft little photo messer-upper

Been playing with this Poladroid program (there's a bit more over at paper-jam) and it's daft but really good fun. The idea is that it spits out Polaroid-y style photos, with attendant slightly knackered colour, Polaroid surround and aspect ratio, and a slight vignette. There's a slightly random quality to it, you're not quite sure what you'll get out - some photos that you expect will be great don't quite work, where others are mysteriously transformed. Whichever way it goes, they seem oddly bleak. Unless that's just the photos I've chosen, of course.

Here's some of mine. Also check Guido van den Anker's set on Flickr, and the Poladroid tag group for more.

             

Click here to download:
Poladroid_-_daft_little_photo_.zip (398 KB)

Filed under  //   photos   poladroid  
Posted October 27, 2008
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Don't watch this video if you're tempted to buy a Monome

One view of this and I went straight to the Monome site, angling to see if I could get on their waiting list - thankfully they've sold out for now. 

I love seeing what people are doing with the Monome as a canvas for developing simple interfaces to laptop-based sequencers, although writing this stuff for me would be too much plumbing when I'd just want to get on with it. The open nature of the Monome seems to give it a definite edge over the much fêted Tenori-on - although that still much has potential, check Jordan Rudess triggering external gear with his. 

The Sixty-Four is the smallest Monome, but with the way that SevenUp's creator has it set up with the row of buttons dedicated to paging between button sets, it's not so much of a restriction. Although you could go mad and sign-up for a 256, when they next become available - here's Daedelus with his:

Filed under  //   controller   monome   music   production   tenori-on   video  
Posted October 21, 2008
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Coldcut does the Radiophonic Workshop

Matrixsynth has the scoop on a load of photos of Coldcut working on a live mix of BBC Radiophonic Workshop stuff for the Electric Proms. Look at that lovely EMS Synthi A. Mmmm. But what no massive tape loops, then?

Apparently it'll be on Annie Nightingale's show, possibly next Saturday at 5am?

Filed under  //   ems   radiophonicworkshop   synth  
Posted October 18, 2008
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Delia Derbyshire and Barry Bermange - The Dreams

Intergalactic FM played a whole bunch of Italian soundtrack rough funk earlier on, and then dropped the temperature a million degrees by playing "Falling" from "The Dreams" by Delia Derbyshire and Barry Bermange. 

I thought I had the lot, all the Delia Derbyshire bits floating around the ether, but it was the first time I've heard this, sounding utterly terrifying - a series of cut-up voices talking about dreams against a minimal electronic backdrop. Vaguely reminds of the also-very-scary "I before E except after C" by Yazoo. 

It was broadcast in 1964 on The Third Programme (shit, great name for a band that - shame it's taken by, um, this), but no need for a time machine: the always great Mutant Sounds blog has the five tracks, complete with evocative AM radio buzz and hum.

Filed under  //   bbc   deliaderbyshire   electronic   music   radio   radiophonicworkshop  
Posted October 16, 2008
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Serge Gainsbourg - Les Années Psychédéliques

Can't stop listening to this compilation of Serge Gainsbourg's late Sixties breaks and soundtrack stuff, including the particularly great "Breakdown Suite", "Pas Mal Pas Mal Du Tout", and um, this massive, minimal funk classic which I'd happily loop for days:



Unfortunately Les Années... seems to be out of stock in most places, but (ahem) there's always the torrent until you manage to pay your respects and pick up a copy.

Edit: Warpmart seem to have it in stock.

Filed under  //   music   sergegainsbourg   soundtrack  
Posted October 16, 2008
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Kelpe live - badass live drummin' and laptop action


Reminds me vaguely of the Fourtet/Steve Reid thing or Clark, but a lot more fun. Dunno how the drummer keeps it together without a clicktrack, must just be bloody good then. 

There's some cracking tracks on Kelpe's Myspace from a recent remix EP. It's out on vinyl, so hooray - but for extra points, when you hand over your five quid you also get a voucher for a download of all the tracks on the 12" plus some extra ones which didn't quite fit. Which seems to me to be the way to go - much as I love the black plastic I'll also want to play it on my iPod thing when I'm out and about.  

Filed under  //   drums   electronic   kelpe   live   music   video   youtube  
Posted October 12, 2008
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I am the last person in the world to start watching "The Wire"

...and loving it so far, even though I'm only a couple of episodes into the first series. And I'm also loving this quote from the creator of the series, David Simon, from an interview with Nick Hornby.


My standard for verisimilitude is simple and I came to it when I started to write prose narrative: fuck the average reader. I was always told to write for the average reader in my newspaper life. The average reader, as they meant it, was some suburban white subscriber with two-point-whatever kids and three-point-whatever cars and a dog and a cat and lawn furniture. He knows nothing and he needs everything explained to him right away, so that exposition becomes this incredible, story-killing burden. Fuck him. Fuck him to hell.

Filed under  //   quote   thewire  
Posted October 4, 2008
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2008 VEMIA auction of old analogue synths and effects

The VEMIA auction website is maddening, but there's lots of lovely old stuff on sale, including a lovely looking and rare-as-a-solvent-bank PPG 1002 monosynth, a bunch of old Korg stuff including an MS50 expander (starting at the eye-watering price of £950), the useful MS-02, and this spruce SQ-10. 

The auction ends on the 8th November.

Filed under  //   synth  
Posted October 2, 2008
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