mmd

Not much of a concrete nature I can report on at the moment so I’ll proceed with a general update:

There’s a few articles I’m writing and a minor release of an old album I’ve got to write up all in progress. I’m largely waiting for the right headspace to do these to give them justice and make them a nice read. Fortunately summer here is a quieter time (both at work and locally with events, etc) so time allows for these things. This also means I’m freed up for the time being from live commitments with Ghost Inputs, and I can get back into composing and recording on Renoise.

I’m particularly aiming to finish two respective EP/albums with Beatslaughter and Alex Strain, most of which simply require the always daunting task of recording vocals. Since I have more time I’ll be trying to sing more daily to get the voice up to an acceptable level. It’s very difficult and I find myself often thinking that I’m just not cut out for it. But other moments everything flows and sounds good, so I’m aiming for the ‘more equals better’ process. I think, though I’m not sure, two roadblock songs will be finished very soon: “The Objector” with Beatslaughter, and “The 4th” with Alex. The pressing need to move on grows daily, and I have my own albums and projects I want to finish off in 2009.

I’ve recently acquired a Tascam BR-20T, and I’m looking to play around with it for mastering purposes. I don’t write here much about clients I’ve been doing mixing/mastering work for, but I’ll mention two that are exciting me somewhat: Aflare and Distance (aka Lackluster) – I’ll try to link you all to these finished works better than I have been doing in the past.

Oh, and a little update from the last post’s story regarding my car exploding. My Dad and I are going to see if we can do various things to the motor down at his home in Taree before Xmas (i.e. machine a slightly warped cylindar head). If that all goes well I’ll be up in Brisbane relaxing until after new-years. I might even write some noisey stuff on the laptop…

Suva has quite kindly featured my music in his second episode of Remixta. The featured track is Long off my album 3 Smargaid Maerd, which is also featured as a complete work. For those of you who don’t know yet Remixta is a podcast of Renoise artist’s work, both of which have been high quality. This episode has a chill-out theme, and features stuff by Mick Rippon and Xerxes.

Occasionally this blog shares the good oil on what counts a interesting listening, and I’ve a few to recommend today. About two weeks back R and I made a quick holiday to Brisbane to soak up some warmth in respite from the long slog that is Armidale’s winter. I can’t tell how thankful I am that spring is finally arriving, sun and warmth make all the difference to your spirit and motivation. Anyway, one of our purposes for heading north to the city was to see some live music:

Room40.org played host for Tujiko Noriko, who played at the Judith Wright Centre on the 20th of August. Playing to an audience seated or lying on the floor with eyes closed, Tujiko delivered an interesting set of ‘avant pop’ by simply singing along with her laptop as it played the backing tracks. Her voice was so captivating, full of confident yet understated melody that lulled you into some sort of magical place – it became the central focus of the performance. The most amazing moments were when the backing track became paired down to minimal elements allowing us to focus on the drama of her performance. It certainly was a treat to see and hear, and largely unlike the usual live bombastic noise we’re used to with rock and pop experiences. She has a new album out which I picked up, U. A particular standout (as it was at the gig too) is ‘I Can Hear The Heart’, which is both dark but reaching toward the light. You can find out about the album here:

Worth mentioning also is the support act, Melbourne’s II. Armed with just two guitars and an array of effects devices, they played two loop-based long-form improvisations that merged post-rock warmth with ambient strangeness. Their moments of gold were produced with sensitivity to melody’s relationship to emotion, yet keeping it interesting with abstraction. You can get more here:

Now patiently waiting for Spring to emerge…

Welcome to the inaugural edition of The ReSelektor! This is the first of many monthly “best of” roundups of the songs released by Renoise artists. The aim is to showcase these tunes to show the community how Renoise can be used to make amazing music. These songs are full of technique that show an In-Depth knowledge of Renoise usage.

The format will be as follows: Name of artist or artists with website link; a title which is a link to the mp3/ogg of the song (we’re not doing streams at the moment); then followed by a short description of the song. You can also subscribe to The ReSelektor Podcast. At the moment the podcast only features available mp3s, not the songs that are in OGG or are hidden behind PHP downloaders.

Without further ado, here is The ReSelektor – 1

Beatslaughter – Innere Leere :: Released for the Camomille 100 release, this is Beatslaughter at his slick and dark peak. Crisp sound-design rolls funk-glitch grooves over reflective ambient atmosphere. Strange futuristic sounds grunt in primitive echo, a soundtrack to de-evolution.

Mushen – Breakhopcore :: As the title suggests Mushen tries his hand at a street-smart acid groove fusing breakcore’s fast percussive antics and the arrogant strop of gansta-hiphop. Amen and acid nostalgia abound.

BotB – Kreissägebläter :: BotB makes a second submission into his recent foray into creating nightmare dramas of epic proportion by welding breakcore violence with Wagnerian orchestral excess. This very well could be the song played with the next war in your local neighborhood.

Kaneel – Pyjama Lapin :: The multi-talented Kaneel continues the dark brooding emotion of recent work with his trademark cute melodic weirdness and melancholic melodica. Released for the excellent first compilation of Petite & Jolie.

It-Alien – Churches Of Umbria :: The Renoise Ninja-Grandmaster It-Alien returns with an epic folk-classical soundtrack that has a richness that no one else is capable of. We’re still asking the question: How is this possible to do with a computer?! Listen and believe.

Kenny Beltrey – Ffwd :: With a breath of fresh sonic air Kenny Beltrey returns with a straight-up groove that begs being danced to, along with atmospheric repeated melodies sweet enough to carry you through the night.

Hektic – Back To The Future :: Short and sweet, Hektic marries oldschool tracker blop with enough thick and weird sonic texture to put this in a class of it’s own.

Danoise – Kys mit blodrøde smil :: Totally unlike most dance oriented scene music, Danoise masterfully takes us on an emotional journey through pop-folk with excellent placement of avant-noise. The soundtrack to soul and sky being ripped open.

Void Pointer – Stoorzender :: Difficult to categorize but unmistakably irresistible, Stoorzender grooves with uniqueness. Bridging zones between psychadelic and hiphop, it’s a lofimat danceparty on an inter-dimensional ice sheet.

Le Monsieur Baguette and Mushen – The Unbelievable Attack Of Les Horrid Bananas :: Monsieur Baguette teams up commando style with Mushen for an all out breakcore gorge-fest full of comical insanity and pure pining emotion. Amazingly done with nothing but native Renoise effects, check out the XRNS here.

Alex Strain and mr_mark_dollin – Uneasy :: Dark cinematic introspection weaving through lost jazz melody and doom-atmosphere. Free of drums, deep space is given to a tense narrative, like waking up sweating from some obscure nightmare.

Thanks to Room40.org Armidale got a little live music treat last Saturday at The Armidale Club. Supporting their new albums, experimental and avant-pop acts Tenniscoats, For Barry Ray, and Lawrence English played to a well mannered appreciative crowd of 30-40. And as an extra bonus, all members mixed and matched their presence in the sets to make for deep, human and dynamic renditions. Music of this level of delicacy, sensitivity and freshness doesn’t happen here often, so I naturally gave thanks at the end and picked up the following:

Tenniscoats – Totemo Aimasho

For Barry Ray – New Days

A little more about Lawrence…

I had the chance to meet and chat with Lawrence. I passed on copies of my albums Futurology and 2 Smargaid Maerd’s Unconsciousness half – which he seemed encouraging about. We discussed the opportunities of playing soundscapes live in Brisbane and about some people I should network with to make that a possibility.

In the weeks since getting my RAM established I’ve been working probably harder than ever at generally every project. Nothing to boast of yet in the way being finished, but some new twists and turns are leading me down new avenues. My previous soundscape work (linked to above) was largely based on automations, samples and in some cases noise. Now, things are moving in a much more melodic ambient direction. I am getting deeper into using tape-loop processing to build large progressive pieces using my guitar as the main input, not dissimilar at all to Robert Fripp’s method. I’m working on being able to perform this live. It may prove to be a more direct voice for my unrestrained ideas, being less of the compromised-commercial variety (like some of my works in progress, ala Paradox). Ideas are floating about to play in conjunction with art-gatherings, or non-pub venues.

Along with everything else being worked on, I will share some of these slow melodic pieces soon…