Posts tagged electronic
Starfucker - Isabella of Castile
I know you have to go
But I want to keep you to myself
Like a dream, I can tell
You’ll never be all mine
Adebisi Shank - “Thunder” (Sargent House Studio Sessions)
Adebisi Shank perform a new song live from Entourage Studios in Los Angeles. It was recorded to multitrack and mixed by Toshi Kasai (Melvins, Indian Handcrafts) while the band was over for their summer tour in the US with Fang Island. This is part 1 of a 3 part session.
I didn’t care much for Adebisi Shank’s second album, beyond a bright moment or two (like the Velcro-tight rhythmic pummeling of the outro to “Genki Shank”). Seemed like they ditched what made their debut stand out in favor of carnival carousel weirdness. This is a bit closer to what I liked about their first record, though it sounds like touring with Fang Island rubbed off on them quite a bit.
“ [Music] is a statement that folds back into itself and can’t really be written out. It is, in part, this wordlessness — this sensuous “irrationality” — that draws me to pure, instrumental music. What is more mysterious in art than the emotions, narratives, scenes, and everything else these non-denotative tones can invoke?”
Boards of Canada - “Gyroscope”
The repeating drum figure is creepy enough on its own, but when paired with children reciting numbers on a broken radio… pure awesome.
they used this song at the ending of the sinister movie. it was killing me because i knew i had heard or listened to the song several times.
you never fail me boards of canada. perfect song for the perfect ending of a movie. can’t get over this!
The Land Of The Snow - “Prayers to a Goddess”
The Land of the Snow is a one-man-band and a state of mind of Swiss experimental guitarist Joel Gilardini. The roots of this project are to find at the end of 2009 in a challenging question: If DJs and electronic-musicians stand alone on stage, why can’t the same be done with a guitar?
The Glitch Mob - “We Can Make the World Stop”
Alongside more of their signature synth, this trio known for some TRON remixes and plenty of buzz online delivers warmed-up beats run through a garbage disposal that was already filled with piano and guitar. An anthemic war march on writer’s block, coding, painting, or fixing the garbage disposal.
Chairlift - “Sidewalk Safari”
I’m bad with bows and arrows
I’m not so good at guns
Poison seems old fashioned
And hired help’s no fun
But I do know how to drive a car
Faster than a man can run
Seven Lions - “She Was” (feat. Birds of Paradise)
I don’t really dig on American dance music, brostep, club electronic music, or, really, most mainstream pop music in general (which explains why I’m just writing about this now)… but I have to admit, Seven Lions is crazy good. Because he’s different.
Tracks like “She Was” or “The Great Divide” erase my previous, long-standing gripes with American “dubstep.”
Seven Lions’ approach to production and composition sets him far apart from most. There’s the drops, sure, but the emphasis, the zenith of his tracks are these amazing splurts of synth goodness. This noise is varied. Sculpted. And it’s not even the main focus. My word, it’s actually melodic, in a way that suggests late night meditative contemplation as much as it suggests dancefloor molestation. Just lovely. It’s refreshing to finally hear something like this. It took me a long time to try to force some ‘step down, and a little more time after that to begin to enjoy some of it, but I have few complaints about any of the Seven Lions remixes/songs which I have heard thus far.
The Velvetine track in particular reminds me of Coloris era (2008-present) she, but with overt, trendy dubstep drops, and a breathtakingly gorgeous break starting at around 2:20. It’s still childlike, but in terms of the sense of excited wonder, the sense of scale and spacey, futuristic, cyberpunk beauty it evokes—a welcome antidote to the “midrange cack” that seems to butt its ugly bass in everywhere these days. Something like last year’s “Make Me Real” would make a fine companion on a playlist.
Hand-carved in the bedroom, kitchen, and living room of an apartment in Chinatown, a collection of experimental home-recordings and instrumental scenes with influences from jazz, blues, dance, and old-fashioned rock ‘n roll. A synaesthetic blend of chill electronics and warm organics.
Heart cooks brain; the only question is whether you enjoy it over easy, sunny side up, or scrambled with hot sauce. Colestock poaches and cooks breakfast a variety of ways, but on “Lowdown,” he hits the Goldilocks zone. This tune feels like drifting into a stoned sleep under the autumn sun, listless and carefree… but yet, there’s an insistent pounding behind your eyes, synced to the drumbeat: the impending jamais vu of concrete reality.
A detuned tape reel effect rides front and center, flying the indie electronic/”chillwave” banner high and proud. For the uninitiated, it’s like someone drunkenly mashed Play/Record at the same time while trying to sample an old funk record, then sanitized and doped it up with digital preservatives. It sounds as pure as broken glass, and it’s the stuff of an apothecary or hypnotist’s wet dreams. For the rhythm section’s part, its aforementioned anxious insistence is accentuated at various intervals with jangle guitar surfing a distorted, lo-fi tidal wave, like someone threw the end of “Paint It Black” in the washing machine.
It gives me great joy to say I have found a suitable companion/playmate for Betamaxx’s equally acid-washed and funkified “Disaronno Brain Feed.” (Raiding the fridge for groovy funk riffs never hurts electronic producers.)
Dkon's Tips for Creative Success
1. Less is more.
If you read nothing else in this article, read this. Having more options is not good for your creativity. Learn what you have, use what you have. Having a limited set of options forces you to focus.
2. You don’t need expensive stuff.
There are a lot of people who think you need to keep improving your studio, and getting the latest, most expensive gear in order to have the ability to be able to make something good. This is nonsense. From an economic point of view, the 800 EP cost me about $125 to make. (Renoise license of about ~$75, and I bought the 800 on Craigslist for $40). I made my first several albums (*Lost Subject*, *Greater Cascadia*, and *Mythology of the Metropolis*) with very limited means and equipment. Make do with what you have. Buy gear secondhand, but only what you will actually use. Use free or cheap software. Use free or cheap plugins.
3. It doesn’t matter what software you use.
There are so many DAW options now, but they all do basically the same thing. The only real difference is workflow. Pick one that appeals to you, learn it as you go along, and you will succeed. I have been using mostly Renoise for the past few years because I like the workflow and relatively simple interface. It may look confusing if you’ve never used a tracker before, but once you get the hang of it, it’s incredibly fast to get your ideas down, which is a major advantage. When inspiration hits you, the faster you can start working, the better.
4. Work around the limitations of what you have.
If something is limited in some way, use it to your advantage. Why do you think things like the 303 and 808 are still universally adored? They are both incredibly limited instruments, but what they do, they do very well. Using a more concrete example in my case, the Poly 800. It’s horribly tedious to program, but has a great sound and a lot of character. If it was covered in knobs and sliders, I don’t think it would be as appealing in a bizarre kind of way. The limited nature of the instrument encourages creativity.
5. Treat everything as a sample.
Especially in regards to software like Renoise. Find a sound on an instrument you like. Record yourself playing a few chords or a sequence of notes. Chop it up, sequence it, and rearrange it. Usually, if I do this, the sequence that ends up being used is different than the one that I originally played. Move things around, play with the pitch, change the envelopes. Being imprecise with your editing gives it a more humanized feel, without resorting to adding “humanization” after the fact.
6. Fidelity is highly overrated.
Do you think anyone is going to care if your snares are amazingly compressed and EQ’ed if your song is terrible? No. Making your music sound “nice” should be an afterthought. Focus on content, not gloss.
7. If you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong.
Making music, or art of any kind, should be fun. Treat it as play, not as work. Don’t think of what you want to make before you start – let the finished product reveal itself through your work. Dive in and explore without conscious thought.
http://www.deceptikon.net/
http://soundcloud.com/dkon
http://www.renoise.com/
The Dear Hunter - “Mandala”
Part of prolific Dear Hunter mastermind Casey Crescenzo’s epic Color Spectrum series of EPs (a set of 9 short releases, each named for a hue that describes the synesthetic feel of the music within), “Mandala” seems to encapsulate the head-in-the-rainclouds spirituality of Indigo.
Softly thundering piano plonks weave together with warm electronic fuzzies and Crescenzo’s unmistakable falsetto and multi-tracked chorale. The increased prominence of electronic sequencing and synthesizer washes on Indigo lend the EP as a whole a transcendent tone; it’s a digital sound bath in all the right ways. Indigo also possesses perhaps the most cohesive feel, from start to finish, of any of the Color Spectrum series, and it’s remarkable that two of the best, most emotionally-affecting and human tracks from the series as a whole—“Progress” and “Therma” (which immediately follow “Mandala” in that order)—are almost purely electronic jaunts. The musical headspace into which they groove was explored briefly by Incubus on “Aqueous Transmission”: “floating down a river…”
Indigo’s watery, ambiguously introspective tone makes for a record that will sink you into inner peace. Whether that’s into bathtub, pillow, or office desk in meatspace matters not; this EP is an exceptional entry point into the sprawling, 36-track Color Spectrum rainbow, as well as a genuine “wow” effort from the band I’ve had trouble acclimating to as a successor to/replacement for The Receiving End of Sirens.
wrench - “Unmechanical”
“Unmechanical” begins innocently enough with a decidedly mechanical bass grind, but the track soon livens up and blossoms into a mysterious raga, with a playful lead instrument like a hot theremin (or a very loud Reaper indoctrination) digging the hook in deep.
wrench is the pseudonym of Swedish composer and sound artist Jonas Kjellberg. […]
“I tried my best to create a sound world that felt fresh and original, staying far away from the hashed out blipblop stereotypes that are usually associated with games (especially those involving robots). This resulted in about 50 minutes of new music, with a lot of focus on ambient textures combining the mechanical and organic elements found throughout the game. Aside from music I also assisted in designing some sound effects.”
Unmechanical, the game, already enjoys a beautiful, unique art style that bumps elbows with Amanita Design, and a warm reception from the gaming public since its release last week. wrench’s glorious electronic soundtrack further fleshes out what could otherwise have been cold and lifeless, much as Tomas Dvorak’s work on Amanita’s similarly themed robot puzzler Machinarium.
The full OST streams on Bandcamp and is available as a $5 download.
