Punched-Hole Tunes: Ritornell’s Musicbox Business Cards, as Delicate and Magical as the Music
Experimenting with twinkling timbres made both by acoustic and electronic means, the music of Ritornell (the duo of composer Dr. Richard Eigner and pianist Roman Gerold, Austria) is effortlessly expressive and spontaneous. Little wonder that that spirit could translate even to a small object.
Designer Katharina Hölzl made business cards into both a signature identity for Ritornell and a physical manifestation of how they play their music. They’re not just a physical gimmick, though: audiences get to participate with music making in the production of live, performative loops. (Sadly, no site for Katharina – you just have to get hold of one of her designs!)
Description of the project:
Ritornell’s business cards are inspired by the project’s live show. The improvised concerts evoke a lively atmosphere by the combination of filigree electronics with playful timbres of diverse acoustic instruments and utensils such as egg whisks, toilet brushes, chopsticks or sewing needles. As an integral part of their set list, Ritornell invites the audience to bring along their private musicboxes. Arranged in a big circle, the players’ speed of turning levers is conducted: the results are as shimmering as you would expect.
Katharina Hölzl designed very special business cards to recreate this playful sonic universe. With the aid of laser assisted milling, nine micro compositions consisting of circles, triangles and Ritornell’s contact information were applied onto a long musicbox paper stripe. Before handing out the cards to interested adressees, each individual subdivision is played back via an especially designed musical box – thus providing every business card receiver with a tailor made musical experience.
More information on the project:
Ritornell for Musicbox
Punched cards of this kind of a profound relationship to generative music and computer music. For its part, the very genesis of the computer comes from punched cards: the punched cards in early mechanical looms used for textiles would inspire Charles Babbage. It’s possible that Max Mathews’ first digital audio, and other computer music that employed punched cards, would not have done so without the precedent of the textile industry.
And, of course, the music box and player piano also owe their genesis to punched cards, and thus the pre-digital mechanical reproduction of music. In an era before MIDI, composer Conlon Nancarrow made his own piano rolls, punched to his custom specifications, to play parts that would otherwise be impossible – before complex, glitchy, tracker-made electronic music. (Kyle Gann has a great piece on Nancarrow.) Those piano rolls have echoes in the interactive work of digital artist Toshio Iwai, and in the mechanical, push-button simplicity of the falling tracks of gems in music games from developers like Harmonix. By adding hand-cranked audience participation, though, Ritornell brings the mechanism into the realm of jazz.
And speaking of jazz influence, it’s well worth looking at the rest of the music of Ritornell.
As glowing ambient worlds cross paths with cooly-casual jazz, Ritornell’s music is to me endlessly evocative. Jazz gesture and good humor merge with waves of richly-imagined sonic textures. It’s music that’s both cinematic and improvisatory, dreamlike but well worth repeated listens. (I find it quite hard not to put it on loop, with warm swells of timbre against percussive rhythms, it fits perfectly with the deep mustard and gold hues of the last wave of autumn leaves in November.)
With the slightly-distant allure of Vienna-based vocalist Mimu added to the mix, the music is a kind of ambient pop reverie.
Don’t miss the music videos, shot seemingly through a thick, warm mist. And check out the rest of the music on the site. I hope we hear more from these folks.
Listening:
Golden Solitude, an eclectic, jazz-inflected sonic journey of an LP
Richard Eigner also did drums on “German Haircut” for Flying Lotus’ epic Cosmogramma
Punched-Hole Tunes: Ritornell’s Musicbox Business Cards, as Delicate and Magical as the Music
Experimenting with twinkling timbres made both by acoustic and electronic means, the music of Ritornell (the duo of composer Dr. Richard Eigner and pianist Roman Gerold, Austria) is effortlessly expressive and spontaneous. Little wonder that that spirit could translate even to a small object.
Designer Katharina Hölzl made business cards into both a signature identity for Ritornell and a physical manifestation of how they play their music. They’re not just a physical gimmick, though: audiences get to participate with music making in the production of live, performative loops. (Sadly, no site for Katharina – you just have to get hold of one of her designs!)
Description of the project:
Ritornell’s business cards are inspired by the project’s live show. The improvised concerts evoke a lively atmosphere by the combination of filigree electronics with playful timbres of diverse acoustic instruments and utensils such as egg whisks, toilet brushes, chopsticks or sewing needles. As an integral part of their set list, Ritornell invites the audience to bring along their private musicboxes. Arranged in a big circle, the players’ speed of turning levers is conducted: the results are as shimmering as you would expect.
Katharina Hölzl designed very special business cards to recreate this playful sonic universe. With the aid of laser assisted milling, nine micro compositions consisting of circles, triangles and Ritornell’s contact information were applied onto a long musicbox paper stripe. Before handing out the cards to interested adressees, each individual subdivision is played back via an especially designed musical box – thus providing every business card receiver with a tailor made musical experience.
More information on the project:
Ritornell for Musicbox
Punched cards of this kind of a profound relationship to generative music and computer music. For its part, the very genesis of the computer comes from punched cards: the punched cards in early mechanical looms used for textiles would inspire Charles Babbage. It’s possible that Max Mathews’ first digital audio, and other computer music that employed punched cards, would not have done so without the precedent of the textile industry.
And, of course, the music box and player piano also owe their genesis to punched cards, and thus the pre-digital mechanical reproduction of music. In an era before MIDI, composer Conlon Nancarrow made his own piano rolls, punched to his custom specifications, to play parts that would otherwise be impossible – before complex, glitchy, tracker-made electronic music. (Kyle Gann has a great piece on Nancarrow.) Those piano rolls have echoes in the interactive work of digital artist Toshio Iwai, and in the mechanical, push-button simplicity of the falling tracks of gems in music games from developers like Harmonix. By adding hand-cranked audience participation, though, Ritornell brings the mechanism into the realm of jazz.
And speaking of jazz influence, it’s well worth looking at the rest of the music of Ritornell.
As glowing ambient worlds cross paths with cooly-casual jazz, Ritornell’s music is to me endlessly evocative. Jazz gesture and good humor merge with waves of richly-imagined sonic textures. It’s music that’s both cinematic and improvisatory, dreamlike but well worth repeated listens. (I find it quite hard not to put it on loop, with warm swells of timbre against percussive rhythms, it fits perfectly with the deep mustard and gold hues of the last wave of autumn leaves in November.)
With the slightly-distant allure of Vienna-based vocalist Mimu added to the mix, the music is a kind of ambient pop reverie.
Don’t miss the music videos, shot seemingly through a thick, warm mist. And check out the rest of the music on the site. I hope we hear more from these folks.
Listening:
Golden Solitude, an eclectic, jazz-inflected sonic journey of an LP
Richard Eigner also did drums on “German Haircut” for Flying Lotus’ epic Cosmogramma
Modeselektor and Thom Yorke in Crazy-Good Track: New Video, More from Monkeytown
Absorbing the earnestly-nervous urgency of Thom Yorke’s rhythms, Modeselektor dial in a perfect collaboration on “Shipwreck,” a highlight from their latest full-length. Tony T. Datis directs the music video adaptation into a dark narrative. Wandering children set the scene, but keep watching as the cadence of the video begins to gather momentum; Datis finds his way into the phrasing of the music and the story becomes gripping as it moves on.
Thom Yorke, meanwhile, has quietly become a voice beyond his band or even his solo work, effortlessly stepping into extraordinary electronic collaborations in recent years.
And Modeselektor, for their part, have I think a real triumph with Monkeytown. I caught the duo in an intimate setting in Berlin, and was struck as always by their compulsive, sometimes whimsical invention – it comes across in their music, in the gleeful rapport they share together. That’s a fancy way of saying these boys enjoy messing around with music. (They also enjoy, in the show I saw, ripping apart the walls, fiddling with strobe lights, and spraying champagne on people. But that doesn’t stop them from operating their machines beautifully.) The album deserves a track-by-track review – I welcome guest contributions in case I don’t get to it – but in one terrific collaboration after another, Gernot and Sebastian craft perfect, dance-inspiring songs. The PR says something about how they still “assault the dance floor” with songs with “structure” but that doesn’t sound nearly as good as it feels.
Have a listen and let us know if you can put it better. With Busdriver, you get a much … less dark … sound than the one above, with some of the signature humor Modeselektor manages to make eminently danceable. On SoundCloud:
Modeselektor feat. Busdriver “Pretentious Friends” (MONKEYTOWN) OUT SEP 30 by Modeselektor
“Shipwreck” EP release, with HD video, is out on November 4.
Shipwreck @ Monkeytown Records
For everything else:
http://www.modeselektor.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Modeselektor/104116429625888?ref=ts
http://twitter.com/#!/modeselektor
http://www.myspace.com/mdslktr
http://monkeytownrecords.de/
How to Gather Artists Together to Make Stuff: Morning Music + Coffee Consumption
Let’s get together and play music.
The Morning Music & Coffee Consumption series, an informal gathering of artists, aims to do just that. The assumption about digital music production may be very different – the solo artist, holed up in a bedroom alone with a laptop is the default image. But instruments and laptops go together, and laptops can increasingly be played comfortably as instruments, so there’s really no excuse. And Jared Smyth’s mm-cc series, having already produced a volume of music and image, is both an inspiration and a potential model. Creator Jared says he’s hoping others will join in with similar events and share the sonic results – perhaps that’ll be you and your friends, wherever you are.
The series, shot in sumptuous macro video by Charlie Visinic, looked good enough in film that it made appearance on our sister site Create Digital Motion (where I erroneously described the series as being Charlie’s creation, an error I can happily now correct):
Meditative Short Films with Hypnotic Music, Made in the Realm of the Micro
With the aim of inspiring (welcome) copycat events, I asked Jared to tell us more about how this series is organized and how it works.
CDM: Tell us a bit about the idea behind mm-cc.
Jared: I started mm-cc as a ritual to reconnect with what made me want to play music in the first place: community. It’s getting together with friends with no pressure to create something marketable, and simply hanging out and creating noise together. mm-cc is my concept (though not that original … people have been getting together to make music and drink coffee long before I called it ‘mm-cc’). I host the website, create posts and also host occasional mm-cc sessions myself at my home in Florida. Charlie also hosts sessions in southern California. The idea is for more people to take part as Charlie does – hosting their own sessions, creating their own visuals and then letting me know about it so I can do a post on it. There’s even an upload form and a forum I built on the site for people to send in samples of audio, or clips of video to be used in other people’s sessions. I really want mm-cc to be as collaborative and eclectic as possible.
How did you organize people to do this?
Some of the time it’s by creating a Facebook event; other times it’s word-of-mouth. With Charlie Visnic and the California sessions, it just sort of happened that he wanted to host sessions at his home over the summer. We met through the monome forums and then became friends as each of us was working on a 365×1 blog goal. (On that note, I started mine over on January 1st, and am now on day 261 – see uprlip.com.
At what point does the coffee kick in?
7am(ish) – people show up around 10am and we play till noon…. I’m usually fairly wired before they show up. I try to buy really good, locally-grown coffee and make it in my French Press.
Are there any special moments or surprises that have happened through the various sessions?
No individual event springs to mind. But it’s always really special for me to look through my studio, where cables are strewn about and there are five or six people drinking really strong coffee and spacing out on their respective instruments, and then into my living room and see my daughter drawing, one friend hand-sewing something, and another knitting, all while listening to the music we’re creating. The chatter and movement of the non-musicians filtering into the room (and often the mic’s) where we’re recording serves as a very natural field recording to accompany us. I love listening back to a session and hearing my daughter giggling or friends talking faintly in the background. It’s a really ethereal experience when that sort of all comes together. That’s exactly what I want from mm-cc – togetherness.
Are you releasing the music separately? If so, where?
There are plans for that in the works. The session that John Keston, David Andree and I did in Minneapolis earlier this year (see video, top) has a much longer recorded form than what’s represented in the video, and we’re very much planning to make that the first (of many?) mm-cc releases. Josh Mason at Sunshine Ltd. has agreed to release it; we’re just not sure of a date yet.
How do you work across coasts?
Well, we’ve only done one session that was ‘trans-coast.’ (video above) For that one we defined a set of notes within a set key that both session’s players would play. I shot the video clips here in Florida and then sent them off to Charlie to edit as he wanted, and he sent me the audio from their session. I then mixed that with the audio from our session, and then sent the final mix back to him, and he cut the video to it. I would like to do more this way – it’s sort of a blind/deaf jam session. We had no clue what theirs would sound like and vice-versa. As for the other sessions that Charlie has hosted, they’re all him. I really have very little to do with them. He just lets me know when he’s going to have one and I then do a post for it when he’s done, and has a video uploaded.
Okay, if this has made you interested in becoming involved, here’s where to go to do it.
http://mm-cc.org/
Vimeo channel
Community / host your own session
Musical Ideas into Musical Invention: Handmade Music at Amsterdam’s STEIM, Video, Open Call
In late September, CDM travels to Amsterdam and the legendary STEIM, a hub for research and experimentation in electro-acoustic music. The Patterns + Pleasure Festival will explore live electronic music practice and more, from controllerist laptop musicians like Edison and Moldover to the likes of sculpture-trained artist Nina Boes working with drawing and video instruments. The afternoon of September 28, we’ll have an open celebration of DIY electronic music culture with a special installment of Handmade Music.
If you’re in the Netherlands or nearby, we hope you’ll stop by. And if you have something you’d like to share, for show-and-tell, performance, and mingling with artists participating in and attending the festival, we have an open call for works.
You can see our video from last time. The video doesn’t really convey what a blast we had. Don’t be afraid by the crackles and whistles, either; I love that there’s a range of sound in electronic inventions, from the crackly experimental to instruments that work in more conventional contexts, too.
This installment already promises to be far bigger. I can’t wait. And if you’re far from the lovely winding canals of Amsterdam seen below, we’re working on extensive coverage so you can feel like you’re there from anywhere on the planet.
Here’s the call for works; feel free to spread it around:
Open Call:
Handmade Music at STEIMAs part of the Patterns + Pleasure Festival
28 September 2011
14:30 – 17:30
Frascati Theater, Amsterdam
Deadline: Tuesday 9 September 2011Hosted by createdigitalmusic.com and STEIM; curated by Peter KIRN with Takuro Mizuta Lippit
Attention, makers of things that make music! Be part of an open laboratory, a science fair-style show and tell of work. We want to see your creations, including but not limited to:
Custom circuitry
New custom synthesizers
Creative controllers
Open source hardware and software
Audiovisual software
Original acoustic and electroacoustic instruments
Sound art/sculpture
Circuit-bent designs
Instruments and composition and performance tools made with game technology, mobile technology, Kinect cameras, and the likeThe essential element is that you’ve built something yourself, in hardware, software, or both.
Please be prepared to show a self-contained presentation of your work. Some display/projection and amplification will be available, but we encourage you to bring your own displays and speakers if you can.
We will setup works for show-and-tell style exploration, as well as brief (5-minute demos) and short (5-10-minute), variety style performances and jams. We’ll also lead a discussion with artists and engineers, and encourage you to meet other makers and exchange ideas and techniques.
We are unfortunately unable to provide expenses for travel, so you will need to provide your own transportation to and lodging in Amsterdam. All projects will be covered on createdigitalmusic.com.
Please submit:
1. Your name, as you’d like it to be listed
2. Your project name
3. If applicable, a link to a project site
4. Photos of your project (a link to Flickr, Picasa, blogs, etc. is fine)
5. (Mandatory) Video and or audio documentation of your project in action (Vimeo, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc.)
6. Space requirements
7. Technical requirements (power / audio / safety concerns if applicable)
8. A brief description (two sentences is fine) of your project.
9. If you wish to propose a performance, please describe in short how you perform with your tool.
10. Your contact information, so we may respondSubmission form:
http://cdm.fm/pt99dqWe prefer to capture information on the submission form, but if you have difficulty with it, please email peter (at) createdigitalmedia [dot] net directly with the subject ‘STEIM HANDMADE MUSIC’
Live from Beijing: Audiovisual Broadcast Today, and a Platform for Conversations and Education
Presenting artists from around Earth to viewers around Earth, a center in Beijing has found a way to do live performance for a sleepless world without waking the neighbors.
Let me start out by saying this: if you read CDM from China, say hello. We’re in the wrong language, we have no translation, and I seriously doubt our Texas data center is delivering this site with any speed (until we upgrade to an international CDN), but the only reason I still run CDM is in order to reach people, and to hear from a wider world that knows things I don’t, and imagines things I can’t. And if you’re not in China, we still get very nice, high-quality video streaming. Think about that for a second: we’re on a planet that has a circumference between poles of about 24,860 miles (40,000 km), and we can share video and recording as if we’re in the same room. That’s pretty ridiculous; almost more impressive than recording itself. (I had similar thoughts a few years ago, somewhere in the jetlag going from New York to its nearly-furthest point on the globe, Perth, Australia.)
Shan Studios is a platform for artist conversations, residency, audiovisual performance, and learning. If you’re in Beijing, China, this center is forging connections between European audiovisual practice and China — and it’s a place where you can go to learn tools like Ableton Live, SuperCollider, and Max/MSP/Jitter. But if you’re anywhere else in the world, tonight/today you can watch a performance of audiovisuals. (That’s 11:59p Beijing time, 4:59p London time, 11:59a New York time).
The best part of this: by broadcasting to the Web but being silent in person, the performance won’t disturb the neighbors.
Using an array of webcams, DIY synthesizers, medical equipment, projectors, busted radios, and many unconventional instruments, the performers will create a completely immersive audiovisual experience in the Shanstudios sound laboratory. But the actual performance space will be silent – as to not wake the neighbors and simultaneously experiment with the best distortion box ever created (the Internet!) – all sounds will be processed digitally and virtually. The event is entirely exploratory and will hopefully lead to greater investigation of the Internet as a viable medium for other such experimental performances.
Shan Studios is the brainchild of multimedia artist Sheng Jie (gogoj), who returned from studying in France with artists and education to share with young people in China.
That pattern is very familiar. In fact, it’s hard to imagine where we’d be now without international exchange. First, research centers exchanged knowledge and technology – think, for instance, American Miller Puckette visiting Paris’ IRCAM to go on to create what would become Max/MSP, but also investigations spanning Brazil, Japan, Australia, and so on. With more democratized access to technology (read: s*** gets cheaper), that’s gone beyond any centralized locations to knowledge and artistic ideas that cross all six populated continents.
Whereas this was once one-directional – even in the US, aspiring artists often headed to Europe – now I think the compass could spin in all directions.
Anyway, I should be quiet so you can go watch the video:
http://www.livestream.com/gigonline (something interesting happening there already, and I think they’re just warming up)
http://shan-studio.com/?lang=en [English Shan Studio info]
Side note: if anyone is interested in making a Mandarin-native site companion to CDM, do get in touch. We’re not, ahem, sponsored by Intel, but I can see what we can do. Hell, I’d be pleased to have one page, or content in English that does a better job of what’s going on on the other side(s) of the globe.
CDM + Handmade Music Lounge at Solid Sound: Meet These Sonic Builders, in 11 Noisey Videos
This weekend in North Adams, Massachusetts at MASS MoCA, the band Wilco is gathering their very own music and arts festival, Solid Sound. It’s become a real oasis of unique programming, musical and otherwise, and I’m pleased to be a part of it. Wilco’s Mikael Jorgensen and I put together a showcase of some of the best musical builders and DIYers. We’ll be gathering this weekend and talking to all the artists, so any questions you have, we’ll have answers, wherever you are in the world, from Massachusetts to Moscow to Madeira to Macau.
Handmade Music Lounge is presented by Moog Music, who themselves build their instruments by hand in North Carolina, carrying on the legacy of Bob Moog. Dr. Moog, of course, got his start building Theremins while still a student, so we believe that the lifeblood of electronic musical invention – and a great gateway into understanding electronics, physics, math, and culture – is DIY.
Here’s the lineup — and plenty of video inspiration to get you familiar with the broad spectrum of what people are doing in electronic instrument making and invention today! Queue it up and watch…
Latest tracks by casperelectronics
Peter Edwards, casperelectronic
A brand new analog sound and light super synth from a master of circuit building and bending.
casperelectronics.com
http://soundcloud.com/casperelectronics
Todd Bailey, Where’s the Party At 2
The debut of a new open source, 8-bit sampler, in the spirit of lo-fi samplers employed in early hip hop.
http://blog.narrat1ve.com/
Peter Kirn, MeeBlip and createdigitalmusic.com
A hackable, affordable, open source synthesizer with MIDI anyone can use, backed by a growing community of hundreds of synthesists, new and expert.
meeblip.com
Jeff Snyder, Snyderphonics
Sophisticated multi-touch homebrewed instruments for futuristic Bluegrass music and alternative tunings.
snyderphonics.com
Brian and Leon Dewan, Dewanatron
Part sculpture, part solid-state instruments, original analog creations. Recently featured by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross in the Social Network soundtrack.
See also:
DIY Wizards Build Otherworldly Synths for Trent Reznor: Video [Motherboard; video, top]
The New Yorker
hereandnow.wbur.org
Autocratic.com interview
Travis Thatcher, Voice of Saturn
Original synthesizers and sound and performance control creations, as produced for a variety of music including Animal Collective.
recompas.com
voiceofsaturn.blogspot.com
Christopher Kucinski and Owen Osborn, Critter and Guitari
From pocket pianos to video synthesizers, new electronic designs are portable works of art.
Ranjit Bhatnagar
Among other creations — the 8-bit violin is an acoustic violin for a digital age, cut from plywood by a laser-cutter but playable as a conventional violin.
And now we hear Ranjit is bringing an instrument packed by JELL-O
Lara Grant, Felted Signal Processing
Felted Signal Processing is an arts and research project focused on soft interface design and sensor development (fsp.fm)
Josh Silverman, Synplode
Synplode is an interactive, rhythmic dance floor pulsing with light and sound.
prettyextreme.com
Brendan Gaffney, Burnheart Synthesizers
Crafted in wood and electronics, Casper Electronics collaborator Brendan makes wonderful synths, modulars, and effects.
…and our hosts, Moog Music, are showing off a prototype
The Handmade Music Lounge is made possible with support from Moog.
Chief Engineer Cyril Lance is coming to the Handmade Music Lounge to talk with our other makers about the craft of designing musical instruments. And he’s bringing along the latest Moogerfooger, the Cluster Flux. That means CDM will also get a unique first hands-on with the instrument’s prototype during its first venture out into the wild. Previously:
Moogerfooger Cluster Flux: Flanger + Chorus + Vibrato + LFO; Pricing and Availability Details
I’m actually really pleased that readers did ask some tough questions about the new Moogerfooger in comments on that story, and I’ll make sure we get those questions addressed directly to the engineer. Talking to the actual engineer and not just going through the filter of marketing is really important to me.
If you’ve got more – particularly those from an engineering perspective – let us know.
I’m also excited to mix and mingle someone working with a major-name maker and some of the folks on the DIY side of things.
You know where to find them:
moogmusic.com
With Neon Guitars and Immersive Projection, 1024 Architecture Become Audiovisual Rock Band
When a brainy, abstract audiovisual act can elicit some laughs and cheers, you know something is going right.
Euphorie, the live music and projection act by François Wunschel, Fernando Favier, and stage designer Pier Schneider of the collectives 1024 Architecture and EXYZT, isn’t brand new. But in the cavernous, packed Usine C at Montreal’s Elektra Festival earlier this month, it surely shone. Inside that booming rehabilitated factory, sound and video elements seemed to just click, the happy result of months of development, practice, and iteration meeting a highly appreciative crowd. Projectors and software, props and vocals, laptops and electric sounds were all jamming together like a band should. Part inventors, part musical performers, the duo are finding the sweet spot between technological magic and live jam.
The French duo of François and Fernando start slow, with a somewhat timid doodle on a projection screen. But that doodle grows into squares and boxes, as monochromatic projection across multiple scrims immerse the performers in electric-light scaffolds or showers of pixellated sparks. And then the neon guitars come out, and it’s on.
Conceived as a set of individual songs, each set piece couples simple musical compositions with visual elements, mindful in each of an inventive sound-to-image relationship. The pairings are traditional, but performed with a conviction and charm that’s irresistible.
The projector-and-laptop, doodle-and-geometry combinations might be as familiar as the instrumentation of a rock quartet; the achievement of 1024 Architecture is making them actually rock. A couple of darker numbers get into some strange lyrics and a creepy talking head, but in more spare, economical moment, the duo manage to hit upon something elusive: wit. There’s a sense of humor and liveness to the whole act, a sense that the artists are comfortable poking fun at themselves, or at least in being ceaselessly sincere and unpretentious. There’s even a sequence that takes on a game mechanic; the silliness paradoxically completes the illusion of being immersed onstage. Tron-style, Daft Punk-like EL wire suits seem slightly tongue in cheek, but in the midst of all this drawing and playing and screaming solos on guitars, you really do get the sense that the players have lept into the computer. It’s a real entry into the digital world, too, minus any Disney Hollywood trickery.
The duo and their set designer are also extremely clever in their use of minimal stage dressings to get a maximal immersive effect. Using three translucent scrims spaced across the stage, combined with basic translation and rotation effects in the 3D software, they produce surprisingly-convincing illusions of onstage depth. It’s not even really quite projection mapping: rather, it takes advantage of fairly conventional stage effects that, thanks to human perception, are also highly effective.
In a late number, shouting the names of programming languages and software tools (Objective-C! MySQL!), the duo almost goes a bit nerdcore – or at least would top my list of “bands to write a theme song for CDM.”
None of this really comes across in the videos, which to me is partially satisfying. It really feels like a live act; something happens between audience and performer. That said, it’s worth looking through their documentation and exploring their other, impressively-prolific collaborations.
1024 Blog
Euphorie Project [FR]
1024 Architecture Cite
Here’s a great behind-the-scenes / interview video by Le Cube (French-only):
These videos are rougher, but come closer to the performance I saw:
Tests, early performance documentation, and rehearsal videos get you a bit closer to the work, including this fascinating neon-guitar which I think really stole the whole show. (They’ve obviously been practicing, as they were far better at playing these at the Elektra show than they were in the early test videos or even some of the performance videos online. Touring, practicing, and audiences make a huge difference – it’s a good thing.)
Stay tuned to Create Digital Motion for more on the mechanics behind the projection techniques here. The goal of CDM for me is to have in-depth technical information on music and motion – each of which are fundamentally specific by nature – while the actual artwork straddles the two media.
Lovely, Ethereal Music, Made from New and Updated Reaktor Patches You Can Download
The wonderful, sometimes-inspiring, sometimes-daunting capability of the computer is to make any sound you like. Give someone an open toolbox, and they really limited only by skill and imagination. Graphical modular environment Reaktor by Native Instruments has a reputation for crunchy granular sounds and elaborate, multi-layered glitches, and those are to some of us certainly a good thing. But here’s some music made in Reaktor that tends in another direction. The creatoors give us some nice tools, to be sure, but they also give us some actual music and sounds to explore.
At top, our friend Peter Dines has been continuing to iterate with his granular tools, Loupe. Here, OpenSoundControl control signals from an iPad running (recently-updated) TouchOSC translate to new sounds. Multi-touch control seems to me perfect for this sort of continuous parameter control. The download updates his $15 patch set, and there’s an extensive tutorial on using OSC and Reaktor on his Noisepages blog:
Loupe 1.5 for Reaktor – now with bidirectional OSC mappings for TouchOS [Modulations @ Noisepages]
Even if for some bizarre reason you’re not interested in this patch, the article above is a must-read for any Reaktor user hoping to experiment with OSC.
Via the ever-prodigious Synthtopia comes three other free Reaktor ensembles. For free ensembles, they’re really polished – there’s a 4-oscillator atmospheric pad synth, a 3-oscillator bass synth, and 2-oscillator “pluck” synth. If you don’t own Reaktor, there’s even a free 3-oscillator bass synth instrument for Windows VST. The results produce dreamy, dense layers of sound:
The trio, entitled “The Colorspace,” is the work of Italian-based musician Dario. He makes music under a number of identities, but I’m partial to his ambient projects Kiis and “need a name.” A Kiis release is available as a name-your-price EP on Bandcamp:
There’s also some seriously chilled-own, pleasantly-ambient (even when beats make appearances) music as “Need a Name.”
Whether this music is specifically your cup of tea or not, it’s great to actually hear some music from the person making the tool. You can take it as further inspiration, a chance to be closer to the person who makes the Reaktor patches you use, or even a challenge to make your own work with the same sonic arsenal distinctly your own.
The Reaktor patches, for their part, are available free:
http://www.thecolorspace.net/software.html
Bonus – back in glitchland… As I write this, I see that there’s an updated TouchOSC control layout for Richard Devine’s GrainCube, a free Reaktor patch built by DevSnd, Rachmiel, TwistedTools, and Antonio Blanca. See previous coverage here on CDM from last year; a different video below, and a picture of the new layout (which looks nice). Of course, no reason you can’t use this same tool to make something that sounds very different…
More downloads: http://devinesound.net/
Update info / TouchOSC update [devsnd Blog]
With Inventions Mechanical and Whimsical, Artist Ranjit Again Tackles an Instrument a Day
Like a fresh ingredient in food, sometimes all you need is a good idea. And whether your work is digital or analog, acoustic or mechanical, compositional or improvisational, sound artist and musician Ranjit Bhatnagar can provide ample inspiration. His best idea: forcing himself to come up with one musical idea a day for a month. Of course, having mad chops in instrumental invention doesn’t hurt.
Ranjit’s creations are remarkable partly in that people can pick them up and play them as instruments, as with the 8-bit violin – a pixelated concoction of the lasercutter – seen at top in action with real fiddlers at the Thingamajigs DIY Instruments Tailgate Party.
Other creations are best seen as sound design etudes, one-off timbral amuse-bouche, and all the more delightful for it. This year’s installments, gathered in the (shorter) month of February, included a number of imaginative daily, reflective productions. A rotating corn cob became a score. A speaker cable became impromptu MIDI output. A set of gears became a mechanical sequencer – the ratios producing different tones.
I’ve collected some of my favorites below, but of course the best way to inject some Ranjit-style aural inspiration into your day is to follow moonmilk.com. True, I’m more than a bit behind as these projects were developed in February. On the other hand, only now, fiddlers are picking up the fruits of those labors – and the change of season and coming of summer (or winter, southern hemisphere dwellers) means the timing couldn’t be better.
Now, some favorite videos – whether strictly “digital” or not being entirely immaterial:
Listen to Amon Tobin’s Sound Design Magnum Opus ISAM; Commentary, Behind-the-Scenes Details
With a full length record, we also get a glimpse into sound design and live touch control, along with a cross-media event involving photography and sculpture. It’s the latest Amon Tobin, and for lovers of digital sonic manipulation, it’s big news.
Amon Tobin’s ISAM arrived this week, and it’s an epic opus of ambience and digitally-sculpted sound candy. It’s digitally-distorted without being glitch, off on cinematic reveries through noise before breaking into the odd deep-bass break. It’s also a virtuoso solo album on digital control via the Haken Continuum Fingerboard. Like that instrument, it seems free in its exploration of sound space, totally untethered from gravity.
A lot of it is pure synthesis, says the artist, though there are plenty of recorded vocals, too. (I assume when Tobin says there are “no samples,” he means “…of other people’s sounds,” as there’s definitely a lot of recording, unless he’s been holding off on us and he actually is a robot, thus making a direct digital connection to his computer.) I could imagine some finding the endless digital stretching effects and morphs and punctuation fatiguing, but tracks don’t overstay their welcome; each is a miniature sonic tableaux, and delicate moments balance the bass-ier staccato scenes.
You can have a listen without any particular narration, but Amon makes use of the commenting feature on SoundCloud to provide little annotations about what he’s doing and what you’re hearing. The full album is available on SoundCloud and sounds reasonably listenable as a 128k MP3 stream – certainly good enough to determine whether you love or hate this, and whether you want to buy a proper, high-quality download.
‘ISAM’ – Full album with track-by-track commentary from Amon Tobin by Amon Tobin
‘ISAM’ – Full album with track-by-track commentary from Amon Tobin by Amon Tobin
Via Topspin, there’s also a download of one track available. (See our notes on Topspin earlier this week.)
Want the album?
Buy direct from Amon Tobin if you’re in the US or most parts of the world or –
Buy from Ninja Tune if you’re in the UK/EU to save a few euros/pounds
The other unique aspect of this release is its multimedia versions. In addition to the digital release and t-shirts and whatnot, we get:
- The installation. Saatchi Collection artist Tessa Farmer works with Amon Tobin on a collaborative installation that employs the creepy, beautiful organic dead insects and other creatures in her sculpture. May 26 – June 3 at (aptly) The Crypt Gallery in London – let us know, readers, if you’re in London and can make it.
- The AV show. Amon Tobin has made a lot of doing audiovisual performances. These promise to be particularly involved, however. The artist will be presenting a live audiovisual show for Montreal’s MUTEK on June 1, which I expect may prove to be a real highlight of this summer’s event calendar. Also in June, he’ll take the show to Berlin, Brussels, and London’s Roundhouse.
- The photography. Working with the same materials, there’s some heavily evocative photography to enjoy, too, available on the site. Put that in full screen, crank the album, and bliss out.
All of this is covered on the official site for the album:
http://amontobinisam.com/
Making Of…
Spectral morphing is at the heart of the work on this album. As such, I would view the record’s process as an extension of a continuum (cough) with some of the landmark electronic albums of the 90s and 2000s rather than something wholly new. But I think it can be enjoyed just as that, as a kind of Baroque take on lush digital sound design. A making-of video explains the sound production work:
Here you can see the artist playing on the aforementioned Continuum instrument:
I’ll be curious to hear thoughts on this.
Patch Cords, Buttons, Pixels, Noise: Free Modular Code-bending Instruments as Playgrounds
illucia is a project at the intersection of lots of forms of goodness and imagination. The physical interface – what you see first in the image and video here – is a DIY modular controller, complete with Buchla-style patch cords and arcade buttons and pretty knobs. But while that might lead you to believe we’re in analog synthesis land, the physical controls are just a tangible cockpit for what the artist calls “code-bending.” Connect the USB controller to software, and it modifies audiovisual games in modular, interactive fashion.
Since you probably don’t have this particular physical controller lying about your home, you can also use these games directly with whatever software or hardware interface you like, thanks to OpenSoundControl (OSC) interfacing.
The result: free, Creative-Commons licensed audiovisual “playgrounds.” The video at top is just a teaser, but there’s more to come, says creator Chris Novello. Chris tells CDM:
In a quick sentence: I make games that can play other games, and I’ve designed a physical console to interact with them.
The vimeo video’s accompanying text offers some explanation, but here is some extra info as well:
“Codebending?”
Codebending is the mutant daughter of live coding, circuit bending, and modular synthesizers. It gives software “patch points,” and allows for connections between otherwise-unrelated computer programs. Anything can control anything, and computer software tropes collapse into strange generative art. In terms of implementation, these patch points are really just OSC addresses, which allow for easy transmission between programs. http://www.paperkettle.com/codebending has more general information on codebending.“Instrument?”
illucia is a physical instrument for making these connections – it gives the software patch points physical counterparts, and is a real life console for routing information between programs. The act of building and breaking connections (of exploring generative emergences via patching) becomes a form of play. In terms of hardware, I use Atmega mircocontrollers to encode the state of the device (connections between jacks, knob positions, and button presses) into a tiny byte array, which then gets sent to my computer over USB. This state is used to update a software model of illucia on the computer, which determines the routing between several games / programs. I use Max/MSP a lot for rapid development of routing utilities.All of my games are written in Processing. They utilize classic arcade mechanics, but are more like modules in a modular synthesizer. I also add some twists, like:
“Soviet Life Sequencer,” which is a Tetromino step sequencer that is remixable by Conway’s Game of Life. I remember a CDM post about Conway sequencers, as well as one featuring the game Chime, but I think I’m the first person to combine Cellular Automata, falling Tetrominos, and a Step Sequencer : 0
also, “Pile of Secrets,” which is a codebendable text editor. Office software is a surprisingly fun companion to video game mechanics.
I’m in the process of releasing the first wave of info right now, but I’ve got a ton on the way as well!
For more information:
http://vimeo.com/22732435
paperkettle.com/
twitter.com/paperkettle
facebook.com/paperkettle
Chris also says he’s sending over some more images, so I’ll add those to the story.
This should start the conversation, but if you have questions, fire away and I’m sure we can get Chris to answer them!
More images (all photos courtesy Chris Novello; used by permission):
Meet the Music and Sound Oscar Nominees, and Learn from Hours of Info from Sonic Masters
The Internet, as the subject of one Oscar-nominated film, is full of short attention spans and flirts, social dysfunction and lust. But there’s another side of the Internet. Someone interested in finding expressive inspiration, in learning the craft of music and sound, can virtually apprentice themselves to artists and engineers they love. There may be no substitute for stepping into a studio with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, or sitting face to face as Greg Russell to talk mixing. But barring that, for the aspiring sound and musical creators of the future, you have immediate access to astounding hours of collected knowledge, to the same technologies that produce the films grabbing the Oscars, and even to simulated, augmented-reality dreams on your phone.
That revelation might not make a good movie, but it’s sure a great thing. And who knows, from Indiana to India, the next studio to craft a great score could be your own.
Rounding up some of the better resources on the Internet, I’m in particular indebted to a couple of great sources, particularly on the previously-unsung craft of mixing and sound. I don’t have a statuette to give them, but I will introduce them:
Designing Sound by Miguel Isaza and Jake Riehle is a fantastic, advertising-free blog dedicated entirely to the craft of sound design in film, television, games, and other media. I’m honored to host the site on Noisepages for CDM, and equally pleased to get to sit back and just read (and not write or edit) the content. This is a perfect opportunity to cull some of the sharp, savvy analysis and exclusive interviews from that site. You might find you have something to do during ad breaks on the Oscars, film lovers.
Soundworks Collection tells the story of sound production in extended-format, high quality videos. You can watch video about just about every major release. In fact, their collections may become to those of us who are sound enthusiasts as invaluable a companion to movie-watching as popcorn.
And from the world of paper, Mix Magazine has been doing loads of coverage on the production side in film.
Forgive me for not looking at the “Best Original Song” category this year; arpeggiators everywhere lament the absence of Daft Punk’s “Derezzed,” but what can you do? (I definitely didn’t envy Daft Punk the challenge of trying to live up to Wendy Carlos’ landmark original score.)
Original Musical Scores
‘The Social Network’
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
I’ll come right out and say it: I think this is the film, out of this extraordinary bunch, that deserves the award. In a way, the score embodies the ideas of the film, emotionally and conceptually, more than the movie itself can. From the now oddly-famous small batch synth invention Swarmatron to air conditioners and pianos, Reznor and Ross concoct a sonic and compositional world. It’s relevant, topical, and now, like Facebook – but it may have greater lasting power.
Speaking of dreams and lost, The New York Times got to do what I imagine we all would love to do: step into the Reznor/Ross studio.
And long after the movie is forgotten, I expect this soundtrack will have a beloved spot on the playlists of many readers of this site.
Mashable Interviews Trent Reznor
As it happens, I wound up by coincidence in a conversation with Jeremy Peters, who does licensing for Ghostly International. His thoughts on why this score deserves special mention:
It was great to see them go a bit outside the box and hire Reznor, and I felt like it did what the score was meant to, which is tell the story that is not being told in the visuals and dialogue, and it did it really, really well, so my vote has to go to that score.
Peters also laments, as a person in the licensing business, that so many original songs “stick out like a sore thumb,” when better musical collaborations and licensing are possible. That makes it doubly nice to see fresh faces in the nominee category here.
More Swarmatron, for good measure:
‘Inception’
Hans Zimmer
It’s hard to say much about Zimmer’s stunning score for ‘Inception’ that hasn’t already been said. But it’s worth noting that, outside the film, a ground-breaking interactive app took the dream space into mobile, generative and reactive form. Built on open source technology at RjDj, Inception is the first app to use the libpd embeddable Pure Data library seen here previously. Aside from the musical achievement here, the technical advancement is that delivering interactive music to nearly any platform is no longer just a dream.
In fact, ‘Inception’ could be seen as interactive music’s first blockbuster, topping the charts on iOS. on iTunes
’127 Hours’
A.R. Rahman
Boy, it’s a tough year to compete in soundtracks – and a great year to listen. A.R. Rahman’s fluid, genre-crossing ambient soundtrack is as expansive as the film’s desert landscapes. And it’s another achievement for the connection between India’s titanic film industry and Hollywood’s. (Rahman also contributed “Slumdog Millionaire,” a process about which he spoke to Apple’s Joe Ceillini, since it was done entirely in Logic, from laptop to studio.) The first interview that follows is more specific to this film, but the second, Indian-produced interview I think is … well, better.
‘How to Train Your Dragon’
John Powell
So, the adult dialog was Scottish, the kids are American, and the music was Celtic, even as all the characters were Vikings. It was nonetheless a lovely score (though I’m sorry that last year’s animated ‘The Book of Kells,’ set in historical Ireland with Irish accents and Irish music, didn’t get more coverage, as far as Celtic scores). For more on this movie’s sound – even if Randy Thom didn’t need another nomination this year – see Designing Sound’s interview.
Composer John Powell himself comes from a Scottish background, and says he was influenced, too, by Nordic folk music. In an interview, he explains how he lent the film a lot of its character:
John Powell Goes Epic to Score ‘Dragon’ [The Wrap]
‘The King’s Speech’
Alexandre Desplat
Understated and elegant as the film it scores, Desplat (“Deathly Hallows”) has another beautiful soundtrack. The only bad news: he’s partly overshadowed by one Ludwig van Beethoven. (Desplat says that was originally a temp track. You try out-composing Beethoven.)
Sound Mixing, Sound Editing
‘Inception’
Sound Mixing: Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo & Ed Novick
Sound Editing: Richard King
Known in particular for its use of Edith Piaf in the score, Inception is clearly our star here (and perhaps a shoe-in, as a result), a film that creates entirely different imagined worlds. Videos and interviews, via Designing Sound:
“Inception” – Exclusive Interview with Richard King
I feel it’s very important to get new sounds for each film. It’s so important to get the sounds which you feel and imagine could be there. There’s always a lot of manipulation afterward of course, but recording new raw material is so important. I’d love to record everything every time, but the most important thing is to find the sound which provides that feeling you’re looking for regardless of where it comes from.Richard King, to Designing Sound
Gary Rizzo Talks About “Inception”
Mix Magazine on the Sound of Inception
Bruce Tanis Answers Reader Questions (a foley and sound effects editor on Inception)
‘The King’s Speech’
Sound Mixing: Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen & John Midgley
‘Salt’
Sound Mixing: Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan & William Sarokin
Greg Russell has an astounding fourteenth nomination for ‘Salt.’
Interview: Greg P. Russell on “Salt” and Mark P. Stoeckinger on “Unstoppable”
More About the Sound of “SALT”
‘The Social Network’
Sound Mixing: Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick & Mark Weingarten
Some of the grand achievements in sound may not be immediately noticeable – like making a loud club party scene where you can actually hear the dialog.
Ren Klyce Talks “The Social Network” Mix
‘True Grit’
Sound Mixing: Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff & Peter F. Kurland
Sound Editing: Skip Lievsay & Craig Berkey
Skip Lievsay Talks “True Grit” Mix
‘Toy Story 3′
Sound Editing: Tom Myers & Michael Silvers
Toy Story 3 may have gone unnoticed by many this year, but it required major innovations in surround sound, making the interviews below must-read. (For the opposite, low-fidelity end of the spectrum, see the exclusive interview for a fascinating story about the “futz boxes” used to make the little snippets of dialog the toys produce.)
“TOY STORY 3″ – Exclusive Interview with Tom Myers, Michael Semanick, and Al Nelson
With Gary Rydstrom we continued the conceit that when the toys are interacting with humans, (when they are inanimate objects), they should sound smaller in scale compared to the human “real” world. But when they are interacting with each other, and walking and talking, they have a larger, almost human scale to their sounds.
Tom Myers to Designing Sound
Dolby Surround 7.1, Toy Story 3 and The Future of Sound In 3D Films
‘Tron: Legacy’
Sound Editing: Gwendolyn Yates Whittle & Addison Teague
More About the Sound of “TRON: Legacy”: Score and SFX Mix
More About the Sound of “TRON: Legacy”
‘Unstoppable’
Sound Editing: Mark P. Stoeckinger
Yes, even Vanity Fair cares about sound editing.
Vanity Fair: Mark Stoeckinger Talks Unstoppable’s Sound Editing
Finding Beauty in Samples, Musicians Make New Music from Another’s Raw Materials
Remix albums are ubiquitous, and sampling has become one of the fundamental techniques of electronic music. But how much do raw materials impact the end result? And given that a sample might simply be a prompt or starting point, why not take on someone else’s samples instead of your own?
Film aficionados routinely trade film – sometimes even double-exposing someone else’s roll, for unexpected results. Here, a group of musicians take on another artist’s samples, starting with 40 minutes of material by Forrest Reiff (Off Balance Atlas), shared on SoundCloud. The results are eclectic, sometimes exotic, sometimes chaotic, but well worth a sampling yourself. And if you decide to give them money, you can get a handmade cassette copy in the deal.
Forrest explains the project:
This album was initiated from an idea in my head to have other people hear the sounds that I sample and create their own interpretation of the source material. It’s not really a remix album because there is no linear path that any of the sounds were presented in..it is more a reanimation of raw crystal sound waves into a new gem fortress. The artists were not asked to use the material exclusively, but merely to implement it into the creative process. Thank you to all the producers who participated out of their sheer creative drive in the first round. May the future bring bright things for us all.
The album is being offered free of charge but if you donate $8-$10 you will be guaranteed a physical copy of the release in cassette format. Feel free to donate less if you just wish to support the idea and enjoy the digital album. I will be hand making the tapes initially but if the interest becomes great and I receive enough donations a full on pressing will commence and you will receive a “professionally” dubbed and printed tape…which will mark the first official skylight gymnasium records release. We live in an extraordinary world filled with vast stimuli and beauty…I humbly thank you for your interest in this project and possible endeavors of the infinite beyond.
-Forrest Reiff (Off Balance Atlas)
One of the participating artists, Judson / Sumsun, sent us a heads-up on the project and shares his impressions:
I really enjoy listening to all the artists interpretations of the material, you can hear a little bit of Off Balance Atlas or hear a bit that I almost sampled, but then the songs really sound like the artists using the sample.
He fills us in on some of the process and background, too:
It’s a lot of Roland SP sampling ([BOSS] SP-505 and [Roland] SP-404), cassette and mini cassette field recordings, random vinyl rips, hydrophones, analog and digital synths, you know, meat and potatoes type stuff. Then he sent the soundcloud page out to a bunch of friends and they sent it to their friends and it grew and grew. He started this months ago but just put the finished product up online. The label my project is on, Leaving Records, debuted it in a simple blog post:
http://leavingrecords.com/happening/sample-based-life/
Leaving is a small LA label owned by sonic wizard Matthewdavid and is a subsidiary of Alpha Pup Records (Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder label is also a subsidiary of Alpha Pup).
The images here come from Forrest’s sampling setup, and I’m sure aren’t dissimilar from many readers’ noise-making closets.
SoundCloud was the means of sharing the files, for samples like this one:
Samplebasedlife (1) (DL able now) by samplebasedlife
SoundCloud and services like it, in turn, will be the subject of a lot of the hacking happening this weekend at the first-ever New York installment of Music Hack Day. I’ll be interested to see if that helps spawn more ideas like this.
On the other hand, you don’t need fancy technology; you could even mail a cassette tape.
http://samplebasedlife.bandcamp.com/
Tried something like this? Got a way of organizing samples, even for yourself? Let us know.
Lullatone Have New Music to Make You Happy, DIY Keyboard Stand to Make You Tidy
Hypnotic and daringly simple, full of the tinkly jangle of toy instruments, Lullatone’s music will just make you feel good. It’s unafraid to be innocent and childlike.
Now, following in the footsteps of Brian Eno’s Music for Airports, they’ve concocted “Elevator Music” in a pay-what-you-wish Bandcamp album. (That’s part of the beauty of Bandcamp.) The duo of Shawn James and Yoshimi Seymour is joined by guest vocalist Tateishi Souta and the Sakuragaoka Junior High School Choir. If it sounds a bit like music for tots, see the looping lullabies album after the break. (With all the electronic artists I know having babies, this may be just the thing.) But it’s also more than that, they say:
We propose a new kind of elevator music – one that makes you want to snap and clap, and talk to the stranger next to you. We’d like to feel like going up and down vertically in a box held up by wires is a magical adventure. But, we’d also like elevator music that sometimes makes you want to get out of the elevator and take a walk outside. Lately most of the elevators in our city don’t play music, so we imagine songs like these when we ride them.http://lullatone.bandcamp.com/album/elevator-music Speaking of simple ideas that can make the world better, Shawn sends CDM a quick video of their DIY rolling keyboard stand. Making the music keyboard coexist with a computer setup has long been a challenge, with some sometimes-odd solutions. (If you haven’t seen the infamous Creative Labs Prodikeys demo, take a moment.) This rig is essential for making the clean, tidy setup they need to make this sort of music – but might also work for the same reason for you, too. (Or, if you need to make something more grungy, then I suggest instead heaping your keyboard atop a mound of dirty laundry instead.) Updated: Those aren’t IKEA desks. The smaller one with casters they built themselves; the larger one is store-bought, but from a Japanese maker, not a Swedish one. Shawn writes:
All of the wood is pine from our local hardware store. It is only a 3 minute walk from our house, so I am always in that place. The base is 3cmx3cm pieces and the top 35cm x 90cm. The bottom are the smallest plastic wheels we could find. At first I tried to build it all without any screws, only using pegs and glue. But after it was all together, I realized that my less than expert handyman skills left me with a wobbly mess. So I went back and re-inforced it with stainless L brackets hidden on the backside. After that, smooth rolling! I had a nice sketch, but my little helper drew trains and scribbles all over half through, so I had to wing it from there. [The larger desk] is from a Japanese company called Nitori. But, it is really similar to Ikea.More Lullatone goodness:
A good album to start with, I think, in terms of its range, is their 2006 “Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous.” For all its dreamlike minimalism, it’s got real songs on it.
The latest lullabies release is “Looping Lullabies” from September, and perhaps as welcome for insomniacs or fans of daydreams as it is for babies and parents.
From a pure sound design perspective, their 2003, all-sine-wave “Computer Recital” put the duo on the map. It’s the sort of self-imposed restriction that’d terrify most of us, and they pulled it off.
I love their aesthetic sensibilities, visually and musically; they’ve really created this dreamy, saturated, sparse childhood wonderland. And they’re doing terrific things with electronic sounds and vocals (solo and young persons’ choirs) at a time when each of the two can fall into familiar ruts. I can think of no better time for it, either; their terrific blog and albums are like having instant access to the musical/visual equivalent of a Seasonal Affective Disorder lamp.
Now I can go back to them and be a good kid and clean up my workspace now and then…
http://www.lullatone.com/
http://lullatone.bandcamp.com/
All photos courtesy/(C) Lullatone.
