One thing I enjoy about Unleash is the fact that I get to make two 10 minutes mixes for the message counters. For this year’s mixes I went with the following:
Counter 1
Massive Attack – Paradise Circus (feat. Hope Sandoval, Gui Boratto Remix)
autoKratz – Always More
BT – Suddenly (Celldweller Mix), from These Hopeful Machines
Counter 2
Fleetwood Mac – Dreams (Mingus Rude edit)
RJD2 – Let There Be Horns (from Colossus)
BT (a selection from) “These Hopeful Machines” (B Side)… around the 25:50 mark
This little 8-bit experiment was created and live performed directly in Nanoloop on the Game Boy, captured in Garageband, and sweetened a little with a pad from Argon (iPhone synth).
So I’ve been toying with Nanoloop on a Gameboy for a few months and have found it to be a very satisfying 8-bit musical experience. Today I learned that it has been released as an iPhone app. If you’re interested in 8-bit/chiptune music I would recommend checking it out.
New video from Massive Attack. I’m just stunned, so amazingly beautiful. And the amount of detailing that must have gone into this piece is astounding.
Today the nanoloop cartridge arrived. Last week the GBA showed up. Now I spend some time attempting to synthesize a musically valid song on a Gameboy. Why am I doing this?
Repeat to yourself “the monome is still relevant, the monome is still relevant.” Then watch Richard Devine demonstrate the tactile environment of Open Lab’s DBeat. Amazingly fun.
You may “get this,” you may not. You may think it’s just plain weird. But it’s quite interesting. The iPhones process an audio signal input, then react off of one another. Musically valid or not, I appreciate concepts that are way out of the box such as this. Fascinating.
In the utmost of live looping and creativity I really dig this track from Dub FX. (head’s up, it is hip-hop and will probably have some NSFW language). But what mastery of beatboxing, looping, effects, and general musical flow.
Wouldn’t you say this is the epitome of white guy hip-hop?
This weekend marked the beginning of a new series, Don’t Get Married Until… For the visual package and opener Perry’s sole request was that it should an element of hip-hop. Listening to the 90s station the other day I heard some Heavy D and I instantly knew it was the right choice. The goal in this piece is to set up the series with “if you’re ______, then you’re not ready to get married.” Here’s the resulting opener.
Tomorrow I’ll post of the preproduction details (and a special preliminary video), sketches, and talk a little about the process.
Electric Independence has a great, well shot interview with Moby in his home studio. It clocks in at 12+ minutes, but I would highly recommend it. By favorite line at 11:37, “There is no such thing as a cool electronic musician.” Speaking as one (if only in my own headphones), I agree.
I love intentionality, and personal preference aside, I dig when things are chosen for a reason.
For the series How to Survive the End of the World we choose songs for the counters in the theme of “apocalypse” or “the world is ending.” Some weeks there was more than one track used, but to cover our bases:
Megadeth – “Symphony of Destruction”
Nine Inch Nails – “The Day the World Went Away”
U2 – “Until the End of the World”
Zager and Evans – “In the Year 2525″
The Rolling Stones – “Paint it black”
R.E.M. – “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”
U2 (feat. Johnny Cash) – “The Wanderer”
Nice set of free loops. They appear to be intended for the Star6 app, but are WAV files that are accessible by just about everything. Agile Partners – Star6 – Free Audio.
What a fun idea. Nudge, an online tone-matrix style sequencer. It’s worth at least 15 minutes of your time to create some digital music. And you don’t even have to leave the avclub to try it out since they so kindly let you embed it right here.
This is AV Club, online presence of Ken Wilson, Visual Director of NewSpring Church. Learn more. Watch some videos.
I'm a big fan of Twitter and Vimeo and live out much of digital life in these forums. Won't you join me there?