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Sam & Say. Do you like horses?
A couple of months ago me and Linde and Salkin made a jam in a cave. Now the Internet2008 corporation has accepted 4 of the songs that we made. They're made with C64 and Amiga and a Casio keyboard and other stuff. Get them here.
I like everything forever!
Stockdon Documentation
When playing for Brand, Rsms did GÄSTFLÖJT for my performance, and secretly recorded it with a dictaphone in his pocket. In other words, hi-fi pocket bootleg! Get Datahell (destructive dictaphone version), live @ brandfesten.mp3. Also, Shawn Phase showed up all the way from USA so I suggested that he'd sing something. Check the video recording here!
At Hatebit in London I improvised live with Dan Stowell, who used his own neat setup. His voice is translated into the Spectrum AY-soundchip in real-time, giving it a truly crunchy dialect (like this). There are rumours about a recording all around the internets, but we'll see. There are some bits of video here. Update 100507:
Bughug#2
So coders, how do you explain this?
I made a 5 minute gabber tune in Protracker for my Amiga, but when I loaded it today it had turned into this. It freezes just after you press play, and loops the pattern-position it's on (usually). But the song keeps changing though.
This is 3 videos edited into one (cuts at 1.08 and 1.33) but no other postproduction has been made. FYI, the speech synthesis in the beginning says Protracker Rules, and is there every time I start Protracker. Hot scripting action!
If you like this, you probably break down in happy tears from this.
WORM-residence: SID-beats and ARP-heat
Since 2007, the allround venue Worm in Rotterdam has housed CEM - a studio that dates back to 1956. Last week, I had the opportunity to spend 4 days there, amounting in around 20 (sketches for) new songs. These will be released over time, but for now you can listen to three tiny teasers at wormstudio.
I used the Arp 2500 and a Commodore 64. I sequenced, played the keyboards and tried different ways of synchronizing them. Eventhough the studio has so many machines to use, I deliberately focused on one in order to gradually improve my trial and error methods (being somewhat inexperienced with modular monsters).
The C64 has analogue filters and is not as deterministic as other computers - something I always appreciated. I saw this residency as an opportunity to amplify and recontextualize these characteristics, in order to take the C64 into a new ultra dimension.
Neither of these machines are optimum for setting exact tempos. Unlike today's standards they are influenced or even determined by electric currents. On the 10-step sequencer of the Arp, you have a knob to set the tempo, and every millimeter counts. To me it also seemed to fluctuate a bit in the tempo, possibly caused by other signals leaking into the clock signal. (This can be solved, but I like to encourage these things)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZnAfEasEwI
On the C64, you normally have predetermined tempo-settings to choose from. If you hear a C64-song, it will likely be in either 125.31 or 150.37 BPM. In European PAL-country that is, because the tempos are derived from the electric current.
However, with my dear Defmon software I can set the tempo with maximum precision - down to a tick of the processor. Going out of the inherent tempos however, has consequences for the sound. You can no longer be sure that envelopes and loops sound the same. To avoid this, I usually have the C64 as master, but this time I adjusted the tempo after the Arp.
The process was this: output the clock signal of the Arp as audio, sample 2 minutes of it, analyze the BPM, convert the BPM into hex-values according to the other speed settings of Defmon, and you got it synchronized. Sort of.
I can hear all you tech-geeks sighing over this lamer solution. But it was wonderful to leave the machines running, hearing them mutate by themselves since they were slightly out of sync, or due to electrical leakages in the Arp and uncontrolled bugs in the C64. From a technical point of view, this might be possible to do with a laptop, but this was sometihng profoundly different from working with über-data-control.
All this amounted to several hours of recordings. Some of these 30 minute improvisations can be cut up in parts, and overdubbed with more C64, to create songs that also relate to eachother quite specifically. But we will see what happens. I already miss that studio with tropical heat and sparkling beats!
Remember Goa?
When I was young, Goa trance was high on my hate list. The first time I played live solo, my prejudice was confirmed since I got thrown off stage by evil goa trancers from hell. Anyway. I still made some very silly goa music, because I thought it was so stupid. (and that makes me....?) So, a fresh batch of unimaginable goa trance, which ranges from slow fox goa trance to high speed data tekno goa trance. (?) I think I have an acapella goa trance amiga MOD somewhere aswell... (eek) More on internet
goto80 - goa
goto80 - datagoaskit2002
goto80 - happy goa boy
goto80 - goa (screw)
oh, and there is also some other stuff that might be worth checking:
wexiö crack crew - dojo dunk (C64, C64, MIC, DELAY, REVERB) = soft space techno)
goto80 - frak (very good C64-game, blabla)