Archive for October, 2009

I spent a ton of time last night with some of the pop ambient series on Kompakt but the early years which got me into the old Mille Plateaux catalog and other Kompakt ambient albums as well. So here are a few songs that made the early 2000’s really enjoyable, makes me think about close friends designing minimal futuristic flyers and teaching myself Adobe Photoshop late at night. I don’t know if can ever relive that again, you know being excited about Wallpaper magazine, minimal glitchy websites like seeing 2advanced.com for the first time, and mod backpacks, way to go 2001!

Triola – Leuchtturm

Sybarite – Secropia

Fridge – Cut Up Piano And Xylophone

Andrew Thomas – Fearsome Jewel 3

These days there seems to be a never-ending stream of “next-generation” graphical user interfaces being by trotted out by experts. Unfortunately for us, most seem to be fundamentally flawed in some way or another. They’re usually too expensive, ergonomically unsound, or otherwise impractical for whatever reason. I’ve worked with multi-touch systems before and while novel, they never seem to live up to the promise of “mouse-killer”. Sure, Microsoft’s multi-touch tables might make ordering drinks all super futuristic at some point, but no one wants to use Photoshop for 8 hours on a Ms. Pacman table. It seems the humble mouse — that tired paradigm of human-machine interaction we’ve been shackled to for decades — isn’t going down so easily.

There is hope though. Today I saw a video outlining 10/GUI, a new kind of graphical user interface that “aims to bridge this gap by rethinking the desktop to leverage technology in an intuitive and powerful way.” Whether or not it can attain that lofty goal is anyone’s guess. What really struck me about this particular system was the pragmatism exhibited by it’s developers. They’ve mixed in a healthy dose of innovation with tried-and-true familiarity to come up with a very compelling compromise that has me wanting to see more. As a musician and graphic designer I wonder if a system like this could ever address all of my needs, but I suppose I’d have to get my hands on it to really know. The main problem with envisioning the potential success of a new interface like this is that the current software we all use was created for the mouse. It’s easy to dismiss 10/GUI when comparing it to how I am accustomed to interacting with my computer, but if the applications I use were rewritten with an interface like this in mind, who knows how powerful it might be.

At any rate, the video is worth a watch, it’s an exciting proposition and perhaps a glimpse of what’s in store down the road. The actual demo beings around the half-way point. Video

What do you think? When, if ever, will we see any of these next-gen interfaces in our workflow? Finally, if something like this was available now, would you use it? Sound off in the comments

Via Ignore The Code | Official 10/GUI site

Simon Scott of Slowdive and Televise keeps the beauty from the guitar coming with his new album on the Miasmah record label. Miasmah’s discogs says “we want to make music for scenes and places” and this song Introduction of Cambridge does just that, what a wonderful way to start an album or even your evening.

I don’t know much about Pogo, I have this feeling that someone cut up and slowed down Passion Pit, Empire of the Sun, The Avalanches and a Disney movie to make it, pretty enjoyable idea for a song.

An original Detroit DJ now Brooklyn friend Lauren Flax is making bigger moves into production. Her single You’ve Changed that came out in June just dropped some remixes, I still like the original the most but this remix definitely caught my ear.

I know this is like the 3rd Neon Indian song i’ve posted in the last month but the album just went on sale today and i’ve loved it but I never had this song, probably because he sampled Pineapples, how are you gonna sample Pineapple’s without pissing off every Italo Disco fan ever, I hope this guy knows what he just did, good luck legal department:

Pineapples – Come On Closer

Simon Scott – Introduction of Cambridge

Pogo – Alice

Lauren Flax – You’ve Changed (feat. Sia) [Kill the Rocket’s Slam Dance Remix]

Neon Indian – Psychic Chasms

Assorted works by Dutch graphic designer Louis Reith. I really love the texture and the color of the paper he’s working on. I’ve spent hours in Photoshop trying to replicate that same off-white mix; can’t beat the real thing. Even more exciting is the color at work in the shapes — each hue is dialed in exactly where it should be. Some of the forms in the bottom image remind of the typographic stylings of Non-Format.

More info about Louis, including upcoming gallery showings, can be found on his Myspace.

I’ll be playing a live set as Tycho and doing a workshop as ISO50 next week in Tromsø, Norway as part of Insomnia Festival 2009. I’ve never been to Norway so I’m really excited to check it out. I’m assuming I’ll be needing to dress warm? Norwegians: What should I bring? What should I see while I’m there? Any tips would be appreciated in the comments. Röyksopp and Lindstrøm will also be playing at Insomnia so really looking forward to seeing them live.

Event Info:
ISO50 Workshop – Friday, October 23rd | info
Tycho live set – Saturday, October 24th | info

A full PDF event program for Insomnia 2009 can be downloaded here
Insomnia Festival Website – Link

Hope to see you up there!

Absolutely loving this brilliant work from Berlin/Zurich-based Katja Gretzinger. This is the kind of work that really expresses the core ideals of design to me; it’s efficient, functional, and pleasing to the eye.

You can have a look through the rest of Katja’s excellent portfolio here.

You want a gentler side of M83 or Telefon Tel Aviv for the upcoming winter months? well Jakob Skøtt and Anna Cecilia will have a beautiful Syntaks LP out very soon to fill that void. They’re giving away this 2 song EP on here for free.

I’ll never give up the opportunity to post music by Studio, this duo can’t do no wrong in my mind, I love how they give us almost 10 minute on this “radio edit”. 1:30 and beyond you get this enjoyable reverse sounding low end mixed with a slowly churning rhythm section, its worth sitting thru all the slight changes.

My friend Wisp will be on tour with Venetian Snares this month, check out the tour dates here and the song above, I have no doubt in my mind he is one of the most talented composers of melody in the 21st century.

Where The Wild Things Are comes out this week and to celebrate here’s the Arcade Fire song from the trailer. Who’s going? i’m going with my mom I think since she told me this was my favorite book from when I was younger and that i’d actually introduce myself to strangers as one of the monsters.

Syntaks – Sudden Dream

Studio – No Comply (Radio edit)

Wisp – Roads Up Over

Arcade Fire – Wake Up

This book caught my eye over at Book Worship and the aluminum slip cover reminded me of Alex’s Set In Stone project (although that cover was in Zinc). Looks like the cover worked, the books are in great shape for their age.

Via Book Worship

This one is for all you analog synth geeks out there (but mostly just Beamer): Tom Oberheim is producing a new line of SEM modules. This is big news for any synth enthusiast as the Oberheim SEM (introduced in 1974) is widely regarded as the best sounding synthesizer ever made. Unfortunately they are very rare, complex, and expensive machines so until now it’s been pretty difficult acquire and maintain a working example.

I have an Oberheim Four Voice (pictured below) and while it’s not the synth I use the most, it’s certainly the prize of my collection. I really do love working with older machines, but for the sake of reliability I prefer using newly manufactured versions of the originals (e.g. the Moog Voyager). That is, of course, as long as they sound like the original and according to Mr. Oberheim — see video above — these new SEM’s are very faithful to their predecessors. Here’s hoping someone will make a faithful recreation of the Korg Mono/Poly because it’s pretty scary knowing my favorite synth is about to turn 30 years old.

Oberheim Four Voice sitting atop a Fender Rhodes

Joe Zawinul (Weather Report) at the Oberheim Four Voice

And just for good measure, here’s Jan Hammer (who also used an Oberheim Four Voice) freaking out on a Minimoog:

Edit by Scott: FYI: Will Calcutt used a Canon 5DMKII to shoot these videos. Really amazing stuff.

There is techno out there and then there’s Audion, I remember the first time I heard Matthew Dear play as Audion and I was standing right in front by the stage and holding my hair with clinched fists, I remember looking down and I actually pulled out a good amount of hair from my head.

The slow build and swelling of sound can only be explained by the feeling if your getaway ride is a helicopter thats trying to start in a warehouse while a bunch of people with guns are coming after you(that we gotta go go go nightmare chase feel), you’re just watching the propellor false start and finally it just feels like the power of a typhoon hits you and you getaway at the last second.

I don’t think anything in dance music is this high end, unique, and hypnotic. Audion plays at a slow pace which seems to be the magic behind keeping people dancing at 5 am still because people still have the energy unlike some crap club DJ pace. The installation visuals are wild looking, I can’t wait to see all of this live. I was actually at the DEMF/Movement show where all the masked people walked around, I was one of them funny enough, really freaked people out. Below is some info about the Live tour scheduled in the US:

“In ancient Greek, “Hecatomb” is the word for “large-scale sacrifice or slaughter”; in Audion’s universe, it’s a live audio/visual experience like no other. Hecatomb is a dazzling and gorgeous assault of light that spins and twists into the ether. Musically, it’s the new live Audion—a relentless percussive onslaught that will leave you breathless. A whirlwind of light and sound, Hecatomb was created by longtime Audion art director Will Calcutt and renowned artist Eno Henze.

Audion spent the summer bringing Hecatomb to a series of European clubs and festivals—now, he’s trucking the whole light-and-sound spectacle to North America. Check out the dates, and take a peek at the new audion.me for photos, video, news, and other Audion goodies.”

TOUR DATES
11.06 San Francisco, CA @ MIGHTY
11.07 Los Angeles, CA @ AVALON HOLLYWOOD
11.12 Montreal, QC @ KARMA
11.14 Vancouver, BC @ LOTUS SOUND LOUNGE
11.19 Washington, DC @ MUSE
11.20 Chicago, IL @ SMART BAR
11.21 Toronto, ON @ FOOTWORK
11.28 New York, NY @ LE POISSON ROUGE

Audion – Mouth To Mouth

Audion – Vegetables

Hot Chip – No Fit State (Audion remix)

Blackstrobe – I’m A Man (Audion’s Donation Mix)

The Juan Maclean – Happy House (Audion Remix)