These are various software interfaces selected from new music technology that was on display at the NAMM convention this past week, as part of the excellent and thorough coverage at createdigitalmusic.com.
Each image below clicks through to the related CDM post:
The full CDM coverage of NAMM is located at createdigitalmusic.com/tag/namm09.
This is Digiki, born Antonin Gaultier, in advance of a lecture he’ll be giving on Sunday, January 18, at Tokyo National University of Fine Art and Music:
“Everybody wanted to be a DJ, now everybody is a DJ and wants to be a curator.”
The lecture takes as its subject what DJing and curating having in common. More at maudevintage.com/diginikki.
Over at ubu.com, the Internet archive of the avant-garde, a landmark 1985 album has recently been added. Ubu.com hosts all manner of freely downloadable content, including a growing catalog of MP3s and other sound files. In 1985, Wergo Records released the two-LP set Sound Sculptures, which presented audio recordings of numerous artist-created instruments, including work by Siegfried Fink, Hans-Karsten Raecke, Wolfgang Roscher, Klaus Hinrich Stahmer, Wilfried Jentzsch, Klaus Ager, Herbert Försch-Tenge, Anestis Logothetis, Christoph Wünsch and Peter Vogel. One highlight, among many, is Vogel’s “Kleines Fünfstimmiges Minimal Music Object” (MP3), a bit of lo-bit, video-game-sounding experimental electronic music that builds layers of blips and oscillations. It’s refreshing to hear this music from when it was entirely new and evolving, rather than a retro flashback. Get the full set at ubu.com.
Following up last week’s Rare Frequency podcast with Hiroshi Kumakiri and Jessica Rylan (disquiet.com), the duo switched handmade instruments for a second part of their live performance (MP3). As might be imagined, they have less initial comfort with each other’s tools. The opening noises are just that: tentative and sloppy, in an experimental, finding-your-boundaries, self-orienting sorta way. But as time passes, melodic playfulness and dramatic flair arrive, as does a back’n’forth that suggests two robots (from different manufacturers, if not different planets) on a first date.
More details, including photos of the event, at rarefrequency.com.
Certainly among the most thorough sets of Buddha Machine remixes must be Buddha Machines on Fire by Salakapakka Sound System, a Helsinki, Finland-based musician. Or make that Hell-sinki, as he puts it on his blog, at ikuinen-kaamos.blogspot.com, which is where he posted Buddha Machines on Fire as a pair of rapidshare.com-served, freely downloadable archives (tracks 1 – 4: ZIP; tracks 5 – 6: ZIP). These are sourced from the first Buddha Machine, though at times Salakapakka utilizes small modulations that suggest the pitch bending that is part of the recent Buddha Machine 2.0 upgrade.
Though the original loops on the FM3-produced Buddha Machine are generally less than a minute in length, Salakapakka’s mixes range from five minutes to a dozen, each combining the loping cadences and heady synthesis of the FM3 material with various effects and sonic elements. For example, “Street Buddha,” the album’s penultimate track, add the tremulous, quasi-flamenco original (fans of the Machine will know which I mean) with street noise and chanting, before the piece expands into a chasm of echo. “Monk with No Name” suggests a gothic dance effort by Enigma or Dead Can Dance. “Delayed Mantra” adds heavy, noise-laden feedback, much of which is applied to a clip of a spoken prayer. Another, “Kapina Tiibetissä,” adds the thundering heavy metal; the translation of “Kapina” is explanation enough for what might otherwise sound like an inexplicable combination — the word means “rebellion.” Two particular favorites are “Lo-Fi Buddha” and “Buddha Doesn’t Smile Anymore,” both of which are among the album’s softest, most pleasant tracks, and are, for Buddha Machine regulars, tonally most of a piece with the source.
Salakapakka is a good guide through his own work. On the post in which he announced these mixes, he said the following of “Street Buddha”: “Street Buddha is a growing piece which includes various FM3 loops, material of chanting beggar monk, shopping mall noises and ringing bells I recorded during my visit to Osaka.”
More information on the Buddha Machine 2.0 (and its predecessor) at fm3buddhamachine.com. Read the recent Disquiet.com interview with FM3’s Christiaan Virant, “Buddha Machine, Reloaded.”
