a quick one today for fellow ableton nuts and hot chip fanboys - felix from hot chip discussing the band’s move to ableton… there is also a tantalisingly brief clip of the
jazzmutant lemur that felix uses to control ableton live during hot chip’s live shows. i know its approximately 11 months and 3 weeks until my next birthday, but that gives you folks time to raise the
$3,899. plenty of time. make my next birthday my best one ever.
all the cool kids have lemurs. if you are not familiar with it, check out the link above to the website of jazzmutant, the company behind the lemur. basically its a fully customisable touch-screen controller, that looks like something you might find in the dashboard of the spaceship that daft punk were flying inside that pyramid they were getting around in. oh hang on,
it was part of the dashboard of the spaceship that daft punk were flying inside that pyramid they were getting around in.
blastcorp aka kris keogh, is a songwriter and glitch technician with a healthy love of both nerdy computer gear and twee melody, formerly based in darwin (where he helped to set up darwin’s happening art-farty nightspot
happy yess) and now he is hanging in osaka doing any things, including teaching. here he gets down and dirty with a simple homemade MPC-emulator application on a nintendo DS…
there is something decidedly unreal about this video, in the sense that it is totally unreal (ie like ‘bodacious’) but also that it doesn’t quite seem right. i don’t know if there’s been some kind of post- manipulation on this footage from the good man kris, i don’t doubt his ability to rock the beat so to speak, but there is just something weird about the way his hand moves in this. i like it.
here’s a recent acoustic demo from blastcorp. his voice reminds me of the UK band hood. much more on his
website. he a versatile dude!
here’s a picture of kris with some osaka students who have recently had their proverbial beats rocked… “had the pleasure of conducting a monome and reaktor workshop yesterday, but not to your usual tech nerds and electronica buffs. the crowd was mainly over 40’s japanese women who conduct a lovely english speaking class in fukai.”
christopher willits is an experimental guitarist/producer from san fransisco who puts out releases through the horrifyingly consistent and interesting
ghostly international label, here he is giving a crash course on why when he plays his guitar, god awful screeching sounds come out of his computer:
this clip, and the other two in the series - “what you talkin about, willits”, seriously - are worth watching if you want to know more about ableton live. he goes through it at a slow pace, excellent if you’re new to ableton. he is also quite strikingly handsome. i mean, look at his little hat! yes, the sounds that he gets out of his computer are kind of similar to the sounds it might make if you plug your toaster into your computer, but the concept is golden. and when he explains it, i die a little in his eyes every time.
honestly though, its a cool idea, using your guitar to trigger virtual synths in ableton. or even using it to trigger clips or move to different parts of your arrangement, or whatever. i don’t know why i’m not already doing this, because it seems like a carload of honest fun. i actually played a lot of guitars when i was in high school, but pretty much put them all away when i started using computers to make dodgy beats and crap synth sounds. now my fingers are all fat, the callouses are gone, and that only ever faint whiff of guitar skillz i ever had is pretty much gone. but i feel like getting back into it. thats why i’m going out the door, right now, to buy a guitar. wish me luck. guitar sales dudes make me want to excrete things.
i also just bought this on ebay:
many thanks nate from hawaii! if the next faux pas album is a whole lotta guitar synth, now you all know who to blame. nate from hawaii. another handsome man.
my ebay watch list hasn’t been this full in a while. i have an almost uncontrollable urge to shop.
some other things on my radar today:
- the fourth edition of
dungeons and dragons was released last week. i am reading through the new players handbook at the moment. its interesting. i’m still yet to work out if i’ll be able to convert my current character - theo, the monk conjurer, who looks like an
adult malcolm jamal-warner and can stun foes with his lightning-charged fists and has the power to teleport 10 feet in any direction at will four times a day - to the new rules.
- i’m listening a bit to this guy called
donovan. never heard of him before, but i tell you what, i think he’s been listening to a whole lotta of montreal. my mate also told me he did a cover of that butthole surfers song “
hurdy gurdy man“. what a wild and crazy guy! but yeah i’m listening to his album
a gift from a flower to a garden. here’s a couple of the reasons why i’m falling in love with it (aside from the fact that donovan is, by all accounts, another handsome man):
in case you haven’t seen it anywhere else yet, here’s lou reed and others getting their hands on the new ‘moog guitar’…
The Moog Guitar offers three unique modes…Sustain, Mute and Controlled Sustain. In the Sustain mode, it provides infinite, powerful sustain on every string and at every fret position; Mute removes energy from the strings, resulting in a variety of staccato effects; Controlled Sustain allows the musician to play sustained, single-note or even polyphonic lines with strong sustain and effortless clarity. In this mode, the Moog Guitar sustains the notes being played while actively muting the notes not being played.
it uses - wait for it - Moog Guitar Electronics! its not a synth, or a midi controller, just a guitar with some messed up insides. from
music thing.
i’ve been listening to the new
daedelus record today… its incredible! did you know that flying lotus, daedelus, matmos and ratatat all have new albums out (or about to be out)? it really felt like a slow start to this year, in terms of new releases - now its all coming in a rush!
i gets an email from bob
zeal, who is currently working on a faux pas film clip (and
blogging the process), which say:
made a wormhole this morning. sending a ship down it now :) i don’t know what stephen hawkings was on about. it’s not THAT hard!
a photo posted at the zeal blog provides more clues. for real, this is like some “dark knight” style viral marketing puzzle type shit for you. for example, at 54.3, a cat will be seen. at one point there will either be a long shot or a long shoe. and at 55…. re-unite! i’m not sure exactly what bob is re-uniting in this film clip, but i know i’m not the only one who hopes that it will be korea:
when i dream of playing in a band, i am often dreaming of playing in bands like these.. and in my dreams i am often playing on letterman, surrounded by synchronised backup singers and/or dudes in hoodies and/or hot english girls called ‘fanta’
in conclusion, robin uthappa, for real its ok, i get the general idea of what you are saying
