Tagged “electronic”

Over the years I’ve seen Herr Henke (of Monolake fame) doing variously-themed live shows and in a variety of locations. I loved this particular show and it was made even better by catching him at The Tramway Theatre, one of my favourite venues and just 10 minutes walk from home.

Here’s a little about CBM 8032 AV in the great man’s own words:

CBM 8032 AV is an exploration of the beauty of simple graphics and sound, using computers from the early 1980’s. Everything presented within the project could have been done already in the 1980, but it needed the cultural backdrop of today to come up with the artistic ideas driving it. On stage are five carefully restored Commodore CBM 8032 computers, running custom software developed by the artist and his team. Three computers create sound, one machine is responsible for the graphics and one is controlling all the others, with their green cathode ray tube displays facing the audience, operated by the artist during the show.

I was there with Tom and Simon. Here’s a little phone recording captured by Tom.

We left in agreement that Robert really is a genius. I’ve always loved his music and he is still doing fresh, inventive and wonderful things.

Additional info:

• Tramway event page for CBM 8032 AV

I put together a fairly spacey and mellow selection of laidback electronic sounds with a little nod to summer.

Download my April 2022 mixtape.

Here’s the tracklist:

• Nale Sinephro - Space 1
• Culross Close - To Belong
• Other Lands - Matter (Reshaped)
• Mato – Summer Madness
• Desmond Chambers – Haly Gully
• Tom Churchill – Cast adrift
• Bright & Findlay — Slow Dance
• Quiet Force — Listen To The Music (Apiento & Tepper Mix)
• Fuga Ronto – Columbo De Domingo
• dreamcastmoe — l foot right
• Lord of the isles — Novwo
• Kofi B - Mmobrowa (Hagan Edit)
• State of grace — That’s when we’ll be free

This was a nice opportunity to get back into the rhythm of programming music of varying styles and tempos. Kit-wise, I used two Technics 1210s, a Pioneer XDJ-700, an Isonoe 420 mixer and an Eventide Timefactor delay.

Having a nice moment revisiting this amazing 2006 Ai records double-header from @datassette and @plant43_ and remembering pre-lockdown Glasgow life.

Great DJ mix by one of my favourite electronic producers, Datassette.

This mix is all about that 160bpm+ energy that first inspired me to make music. Around 1996 — to me at least, with the advantages of teenage naîvety — it seemed like electronic music had burst into a whole new tempo range, where there were no rules and anything was possible - as long as it BELTS (which is still true). If you go beyond 200 BPM, you reach that zone where 16th notes start to dissolve into 32nds and your brain latches onto a whole new outer layer of rhythm, like a fractal or temporal shepard tone. There is still much to be discovered!

I listened to this one while walking through the Glasgow Necropolis during one of those eerily-quiet Covid-era days, and it provided a welcome shock to the system.

Being’s Broxburn Funk arrived in today’s post and it’s a thing of beauty.

Enjoying it now with a ☕️. Amazing work all round—music, sound, artwork, the lot. Big up @WeeDjs for the stellar tunes and if @firecracker_rec’s 50th is their last, then they’ve finished with a bang.

Grab a copy at Rubadub

Feel like I’m probably really late to discover this website, but here’s “Music for Programming” from Datassette. Hopefully this’ll be of use to fellow programmers who like music, although I daresay you can probably enjoy it if you’re a normal person too.

Through years of trial and error - skipping around internet radio stations, playing our entire music collections on shuffle, or just hammering single albums on repeat, we have found that the most effective music to aid prolonged periods of intense concentration tends to have a mixture of the following qualities: Drones, Noise, Fuzz, Field recordings, Vagueness (Hypnagogia), Textures without rhythm…

As both a programmer and big fan of Datassette (the creator/curator of this website), how did I not know about this sooner?! Anyway, plenty to dive into now.

(via @datassette)

Looking forward to Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone show on 6Music tonight, talking about Plaid’s Not for Threes LP plus other experimental electronics. https://bbc.in/3nMeOS5. Headspin is still killer!

A mix of electronic, house and techno records I recorded at home in November 2019.

2019 has been a fairly quiet year for my and Tom’s record label The Nuclear Family. However with a couple of winter events coming up I wanted to share a little teaser mix to whet the collective appetite.

Inspiration

Earlier in the year I joined a fine bunch of pals on a night out at 69 at The Club, Paisley to hear resident DJs Martin and Euan plus a live performance from guest John Heckle. It was a fantastic night and particularly memorable for a couple of stellar tracks played by Euan. I tried to describe them to him afterwards but wasn’t sure if I was making much sense. Cut to a few months later and a mysterious parcel containing records I’ve never heard of arrives at my door. I was convinced that someone must have sent them to me in error until dropping the needle on the grooves and realising they were the tracks from that night at 69! Channeling Sherlock Holmes, I deduced that Euan – being the all-round good guy that he is – had bought and posted them to me as a souvenir of the night. What a guy!

And they are brilliant.

The first is Ricochet by Bambooman (a new name on me) on Matthew Herbert’s label, Accidental Jnr. It features a stuttering, percussive riff complimented by searing synth stabs – proper machine funk but with a heart. The second is a double-pack by the more familiar name of i:cube, with my favourite track Fractal P a dark, winding, bass-heavy trip reminiscent of ’91 classic Pressure Dub by Ability 11 but with its own distinct flavour.

I knew I definitely wanted those tracks in the mix.

Around those touchstones I added recent favourites from Joy O (under his Sin Falta alias), Phillip McGarva (the artist formerly known as Microworld) and Dego, plus a few oldies including Isolée’s Hermelin and Modern Tribe by Jellybean (AKA Glenn Underground).

In terms of kit, I recorded the mix on a pair of Technics 1210s and an Isonoe 420 mixer.

Fair play, Jeff – once this interview gets going it’s pretty damn good.

Amongst other ground, it covers:

• The technique of “Subtraction”;
• the last quarter of records being the best;
• the bar for electronic music being set too low;
• the complexity of the art form of DJing; and
• thinking about other things while DJing in front of 2000 people…

Plenty of good bits to chew over!