IG88 - Mututal Mastication

Mutual Mastication marks the second full length solo release from the IDMf net label since the grandiose cyborg-tronica from Synaecide's Scientifica. Being a community of musicians brimming with talent, the label has yet to fully define its 'sound' beyond the extremely liberal constrictions of IDM. However there is one constant throughout their catalogue and that is sheer quality.
IG88's release is no exception. Moving through the brooding 80's darkwave aesthetic of album opener Poission D'avril to the rolling rhythms and luminous melodies of An Ice Cube's Sunrise, you can feel a overwhelming sense of majesty in the music and we're only half way through.
Overall the album feels very visual, possibly influenced from the psychedelic track titles, but images of hazy digital forests and purple smoke fill my mind, extremely dreamy yet never sedating. I also contribute a remix of the track Nebulous Eyes which acts as the album closer, so there's another reason to go and get this musical gem for FREE.

Download
IG88 on Myspace

Frequency Nine

Carl Sagans Ghost

Awesome ambient (duo?). Very mellow, very slow shifting washes of sound and ebbing melodies.
Lots of stuff to download for free, and they have stared a collaboration project that i'm interested in. Check it out on the site.
http://carlsagansghost.com/

Daniel Klag

Was looking for some experimental music stuff for Lydia Loop to check out when she went to New York. Stumbled upon this guy. More mega ambient experimental stuff in the vein of William Basinski but with more composition and harmonic development. He told me he's looking for a label to release on, from what i heard i would suggest Moteer or Raster Noton.
http://www.myspace.com/danielklag

University of Brighton Degree Show 2009

My time on the Digital Music and Sound Art course has come to its conclusion. For my final year university degree project i created an interactive installation using glass bowls and contact mics. The signal from the mics were sent to a mixer and then to a laptop where all the sound processing was done using the Plogue software Bidule. Each of the five mics used had a different chain of effects which created the strange sounds.
Included was:
*Music boxes
*Rubber tipped mallets
*Rulers
*A whisk
*Wooden spoons
*Bottle caps
Participants were invited to be creative and experiment and make their own compositions and soundscapes regardless of any previous musical experience or aptitude.
The installation was named Contact.
A huge thank you goes to Alain Guisan, without whom this would not have been possible.

see more photos here










Other amazing stuff included:

Hemisphere
Zak Norman

Another interacitve installation, Hemisphere used an EEG scanner (more commonly used in hospitals) which scans your brain frequencies and converts in to data that can automate parameters of a prefabricated musical composition as wells syncronize with visuals.
Different levels of thinking (concentration, logic, memory, emotion and facial expression) resonate at different frequencies which are picked up by the EEG consequently changing different aspects of the music and visuals.



The creator, Zak Norman, and his screens.



TEEJ
Tom Marshall

A live improvised performance with electric guitar, drums, keyboards and live looping using Ableton Live, all of it was played against a giant backdrop of audio responsive visuals. It was amazing, check his blog here.





Duffular
Dan Duff

A touch screen granular sampler. Users can select from a bank of samples and set loop points whilst effecting them with, filters, reverb, delay, pitchshifting and distortion. Generates beautiful soundscapes reminiscent of Tim Hecker.



The Listening Tree
Adam Ward

A walk-in environment consisting of a simulated tree surrounded by fake leaves, lights that look like fruits and real bark on the floor. There were eight speakers hung around the room that played a montage of field recording soundscapes, moving from a rainforest to the sea and into the busy urban sounds of Brighton's center. People could enter the space and sit on the bench provided to hear the 10 minute piece. This was one of my favourites.


Sadly, Dan was not part of the installation.

Lo-Fi Hi-Fi
Max Hart

Another notable piece was the work of Max Hart who studied Performance and Visual Art which was exhibited just down the hall from our room. Three perspex tubes were mounted on to three upward facing motor fans, each housed a steel rod that guided a vinyl up toward a tonearm needle, dismantled from an ordinary record player. The fans were automated by programme normally used for a lighting rig, they would push the vinyls to the top of tubes and cause them to spin against the needle which was played out through a loudspeaker. It looked and sounded genius-insane.

Free We Yes You No track

The Maternity website is growing! Although still in its prepubescent developing stages, i am happy to announce that the track 'I Live In NY' by We Yes You No is available for free to download off the maternity website.
Its a delicate and melancholy piece of music that commences the gradual release of their entire EP 'Somewhere on a Train' and it's awesome so go on and download it.
Maternitymedia.com

You Are Atlas

I finally uploaded the album to archive.org
i thought it was safest there, it's a magical place and people actually listen to your music, which is nice.
Continuing with the previous ethos employed by the past albums, all music is improvised and recorded on to cassette tape. This means there is a lot of muffled whispers and random clattering, which can be interpreted as added 'ambience' if you like...
I condensed about 3 hours of material into 8 separate tracks, its very strange, but i like that and hope you will too.
Download Link

Fluid Mix - Hypnotize

So this is my first mix for Fluid-Radio, i don't have any fancy mixing software so the mixes are pretty medieval....but it means you get to hear the whole tune, so there.
Friday 19th December
7pm GMT
www.fluid-radio.co.uk

Halogen - Hypnotize (Fluid Mix) by Halogen

IDM Forum Compilation

One of my tracks was picked for a lovely little EP by very special website:
www.idmforum.com, they made their own Netlabel and InDepthMelodics is the first of many free download albums they're releasing.
There are some really incredible tracks on here, my personal favourite our by 'ZXYZXY', 'Binary Pulses' and 'JWilson', but they are all pretty stand out tunes.
A special mention to the Mastering engineer: Altered Tensions, who did a stellar job.

Download here

Bent Wires

Here's something the Snoot sent me via StumbleupOn.com (no.1 all time procrastination tool). It's certainly one of the more brutal devices i've seen, doubles up as a weapon complete with a blood curdling scream to alarm enemies. More info and videos at www.pinktentacle.com.
I'm building a collection of broken, borrowed and stolen kids toys to rewire in the hope to create my own Modified Toy Orchestra. These guys are insane, no midi, no synths, just crazy modified toys.

Bent Not Broken - A short documentary about a group of circuit benders




Useful Circuit Bending Sites:

Wikipedia - Circuit Bending - Brief article on the history and innovators of the experimental process.
Modified Toy Orchestra - The official band wesbsite.
Circuitbenders.co.uk - Mod shop, tips and tricks for all your circuit bending needs.
Anti-theory.com - Rewiring pioneer, Reed Ghazala's personal website.
Casperelectronics.com - Crazy gadgets and custom creations.
GetLoFi.com - Diagram for circuit bending the infamous 'Speak n' Spell'.

Music made with Rubik's® Cubes?

The website reads:

"The Cubing audiovisual performance explores performative gestures through the relationship between colour and sound. The manipulation of simple Rubik's® cubes under video cameras sets off a chain of introspective synthesis and digital treatment. In this setup, the cube is an intuitively and precisely controllable audiovisual instrument."

So basically its two guys moving coloured blocks at cameras and creating insane glitchtastic textures. There's two movies demoing what the stuff is capable of here (35min.) and here (7min.).