If you follow Ann Annie’s music, then you may recognize the little tape cassette to the left of the deck in the new performance video “Blossom.” Just over a week ago, a couple dismembered Maxell tape cassettes — also pink in accent color — were visible in [one of Annie’s Instagram photos](https://www.instagram.com/p/BdqK8DrAPkq/), with a “feelin loopy” caption. Today the music that resulted has appeared.

feelin loopy /

A post shared by ann annie (@annnannie) on Jan 7, 2018 at 10:50am PST

The product of that whimsy is now evident in this footage, almost seven minutes of exceptional sonic transformation, as the tape loop is mixed with dense oscillations, all of which is shifted, looped, glitched, and warped. There are terse bell tones and effluent white noise, lens-flare grace notes and ecstatic birdsong to “Blossom,” which true to its name expands as it proceeds — what starts as loose and gentle gets more chaotic and rambunctious as time passes. The beauty of the video isn’t merely the color and framing, but how active Annie’s left hand is, adjusting settings on various synthesizer modules, tweaking the balance of the tape deck, and lending a conductor-like visual narration to the piece.

This is the latest video I’ve added to [my YouTube playlist of recommended live performances of ambient music](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MJxihgJkCPEnehAPvjoF71-). Video originally posted on Ann Annie’s [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pi5E2w28jU&t=0s). More from Ann Annie at [instagram.com/annnannie](https://www.instagram.com/annnannie/), [facebook.com/modularanne](https://www.facebook.com/modularanne), and [annannie.bandcamp.com](https://annannie.bandcamp.com/).

This short droning synthesizer piece from Andreas Tilliander, aka Repeatle, is largely autonomous, much like [the video I shared a few days ago](https://disquiet.com/2018/01/12/the-invisible-hand-of-ambient-modular-synthesis/). Early on in it, you see a hand come into sight and click a couple switches on the Buchla synthesizer interface, but after that it’s entirely the Buchla’s show, up until the very end when the hand returns. We have a knob’s eye view for the length of the composition, all rows of faders, banks of switches, and distant cables.

The thing about synthesizer autonomy is that all the activity is happening underneath the hood, as oscillators and filters and other facets of the collective instrument collectively make the drones and pulses, textures and tones, come to life. The primary external signal comes in the form of a few colored lights, in different colors, which align with aspects of the patch as the piece unfolds. On first listen, you might just take in the shuddering noise machinations, but upon repeat it’s worth keeping an eye on those lights and sensing how their pace and strength, how that coordination or lack thereof, can be mapped to shifts in the overarching sound.

This is the latest video I’ve added to [my YouTube playlist of recommended live performances of ambient music](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MJxihgJkCPEnehAPvjoF71-). Video originally posted at [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ivbGCtW25Q). More from Tilliander/Repeatle, who is based in Stockholm, Sweden, at [repeatle.com](http://www.repeatle.com/), [soundcloud.com/tilliander](https://soundcloud.com/tilliander/), and [twitter.com/tilliander](https://twitter.com/tilliander). And here’s an interview I did with him back in 2002: [“Click It”](https://disquiet.com/2002/11/15/andreas-tilliander-2002/).

The picture might seem to be a still image, but if you look to the center right you’ll see the ever so slow comings and goings of soft little red lights — proof of life, as it were — on the module marked A-143-1 Complex Envelope Generator. This stylishly framed video of a modular synth in action first appeared as part of Weekly Beats ([weeklybeats.com](https://weeklybeats.com/)), a biannual — that is, every other year — series of community challenges to music-makers. The Weekly Beats of 2018 is now in its second week, and this track appeared during the first week, one of a handful of modular outings ([I was also among the participants](https://weeklybeats.com/disquiet/music/electric-guitar–modular-synth), and hope to keep at it). The piece is by littlescale, who is based in Australia. It’s a remarkable achievement, a slow-paced sequence of drones that warp and throb, shift and develop, as they proceed, all without a single instance of human intervention for the full length of its nearly three-minute duration. Not once does a littlescale hand come into view to coax a knob or switch a setting.

This is the latest video I’ve added to [my YouTube playlist of recommended live performances of ambient music](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MJxihgJkCPEnehAPvjoF71-). The point of the playlist is to collect documents of people playing very quiet music in real time, in particular ambient music. The playlist serves several purposes, among them to make note of techniques and draw attention to what amounts to a particularly tiny niche in the vast database of online music videos. Another purpose is to explore the tension between ambient music, which generally aspires to a state of stillness or at least an affect of stillness, and performance, which by definition requires some sort of action. In this case the action is all internal, all within the mass of cables and modules. The little red lights are the only evidence of activity, and among the only hints at a correlation between system and sound.

Track originally posted at [weeklybeats.com/little-scale](https://weeklybeats.com/little-scale/music/wonder-less). Video originally at [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfXNvz7owwk). More from littlescale at [little-scale.blogspot.com](http://little-scale.blogspot.com/), a blog jam packed with circuitry and coding.