mcc
What I'm listening to today: "Dream Sequence", Stefan Torto
When Roland started making Volca-likes it seemed like they'd be watered-down versions of their super-expensive "boutique" virtual analog synths. But then the S-1 ($200) turned out to be *better* than the $600 SH-01A (unique features). Go figure.
Anyway this beatless but surprisingly intense track makes me think of: 80s production bumpers, sunrises with VHS tracking errors, a past when the future still existed.
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "Vegas Bound & Down", brokensines
A fun dance techno jam with cool clicky beats, skittering tones and some absolutely enormous sidechains. Good energy level. The video description makes reference to VCV rack, meaning this song was apparently made with a mix of physical modular synths and virtual modular synths on a PC, but the VCV part isn't shown on camera so it's not clear how that works.
The video has a flashing warning due to vfx.
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "four ( empress effects zoia, moog mother 32, make noise 0-coast )", i saw the SINE wav
Some excellent ambient/drone. Seems at first like it's just going to be unattended wom wom wom zone-out noises for 13 minutes, which would also have been good, but a few minutes in the musician starts more actively guiding things and some DC-offset popping noises that appear at first to be recording errors start to clump together into rhythmic percussion.
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "metronom", Duality Micro
Korg, who created a lot of synths including most of the good modern budget gear, once released a DS game. "Game", that is. KORG DS-10 was a little synthesizer/sequencer on a DS cart. (It was later released for Switch and iPhone/iPad as "Korg Gadget".)
This is a 2023 track composed on the DS-10 (with some very subtle bass guitar accompaniment) with a overpowered, Kraftwerky kick drum and a bumping groove. It's fun!
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "Cwejman, Trogotronic, Make Noise - 1st patch in the Needham Woodworks case with Eskatonic power", James Plotkin
An *incredibly* dirty modular synth jam with fast, borderline-IDM beats. Often modular synth music tends to single repeating measures in a way that doesn't lend itself to drum sounds, but this rack's so large it's able to support multiple complex parts and lots of different things going on. What do you call this? Dance industrial?
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "Music for Body Lockers", Chocolate Weasel
I am in the woods this weekend and this is what we are listening to in the woods.
This is a cool electronic funk track with Parliamentary synths and classic 80s hip hop samples. I do not know anything at all about this band. This just happened to be the best track on an old Ninja Tune compilation album that was on my friend's phone music collection. I would describe this as "a jam".
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "SynTesla IX DIY Synthesizer DEMO", Pj Tardiveau
This YouTuber designed and handbuilt(?) a 7-voice polysynth on the design principle of "it should look like a submarine control panel". I'm reasonably certain the unit in the video is the only one that exists. The track is a single looping chord sequence but Pierre continuously retunes the knobs to, apparently, every sound the synth can produce so there's a song structure. Also breakbeats.
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "Emotional Noises 230527", ナカヤマコウジ
This is a short, cryptic noise electronica piece with avant-garde beats, some cool shimmery dubby noises and weird feedback. Made on the Make Noise Trio, though you can see a Korg NTS in the background doing goodness knows what.
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "Melody Oracle + Wave Expander + B2600", A Magic Pulsewave
This is a short sound trip wherein chiptune tones are devoured by and re-emerge from clouds of echo fog. The track is created on, apparently, some sort of triangle, or multiple triangles possibly, festooned with lights and fractalline, possibly-occult designs. I don't actually know what's happening here and I have made a conscious decision to not find out.
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "nebulosity", BrokenSines
This is a complex virtual/rack modular electronic piece (same musician I linked last week, with the VCV/physical hybrid setup) with slow, thumping beats and enormous, dirty sounds. It feels muggy, like swimming through molasses, or a sleep paralysis dream. Lights twinkle in the distance, but your eyelids are heavy and you cannot lift your head to see them properly.
Speed this up 180% and you can dance to it.
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "Violence", Andy Stott
Back in the 10s during whatever "Vaporwave" was, Andy Stott released a couple albums that either helped create the genre or elevated it to something else. "Faith in Strangers" is 54 minutes of darkness interrupted by half-glimpsed forms; "Violence", the high point, is a calm/terrifying blast of anti-pop, sharp blurry distorted objects, too close to see and too loud to hear. I can only describe it using visual metaphors
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "Live on KEXP", Black MIDI
Black MIDI is a British post-rock group that broke out around 2020. I tend to prefer their first album ("Of Schlagenheim"), but I highly recommend this live set, wherein they get an entire horn section on deck and really make their second album come alive. There's frenetic drumming and an upright piano and the lead vocalist is wearing a weird white suit. In all the world there's no escape from this infernal din
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "CZ-3000.mpeg", Grégoire Blanc
For a period in the 80s Casio produced a high-end "CZ" line, which used a unique synthesis method called "phase distortion"; it's like FM, but way cooler.
Grégoire Blanc is a professional concert thereminist. The video desc explains he found his old CZ-3000 in the attic and the wave of memories inspired him to compose this.
This is… beautiful, actually, and deeply enigmatic. What is the emotion of this piece?
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "Melodic Techno Live Looping Roland Juno 106 analog syntheziser at Mauerpark Berlin", TribalNeed
A man lays down a rug, a looper, a vintage Juno 106 synthesizer, and various toy instruments in a public park in Berlin, and as a crowd gathers he begins playing first chill techno and then dance rave music. Dancing ensues. Every person in this video is beautiful and it makes me happy just to know that this moment in space and time existed
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "7", Luke Stewart
Some algorithm burped this up for me (YouTube or Tidal, I forget) and it gripped my heart. I'd never heard of Luke Stewart but apparently he's in like 6 bands and Wikipedia assures me he's a big deal in contemporary jazz. This is from "Works for upright bass and amplifier, Vol 2", one of two solo drone albums in which Stewart makes unearthly, impossible sounds with a cello and amp feedback. It's cinematic and super intense.
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "Pianophonic Module Extended Demo", Knobula
This device makes realistic piano sounds using wavetable synthesis, where a sampled sound is cut up into individual microsounds. This video demonstrates what happens if you mess with the parameters to make hyper-un-realistic piano sounds, creating awe-inspiring drone. Imagine you're in a David Lynch movie and someone is playing the piano while simultaneously the concept of "a piano" is degrading.
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "Live on KEXP", Squid
Squid is a British post-rock group that broke out around 2020. I tend to prefer their second album ("O Monolith"), but I highly recommend this live set, wherein they really make their first album come alive. They've got enough overlapping guitarists I lose count, and the drummer sings, and there's a five-minute drone freakout segment with a trumpet. That's why I don't go outside
Video switches to an interview at 35:40.
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "Blue Skies", maleficent hardware
A "modular study" wherein cross-wired modules self-generate an ambient composition made of distant howls and shimmers and occasional interruptions from a corrupt harpsicord. A hand occasionally snakes in to nudge the machine's momentum in whatever mysterious direction, but less often than I'd have expected given the complexity of the piece. Uses that one pedal that makes everything sound like old cassettes.
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "Drone Noise Performance 043", Stereo Pig
This is a weird NES dirge with lots of strange background noises in the background, performed by knob twiddling on a small Eurorack.
"Om" is understood to be the primordial noise, the still-resonating sound of the universe's creation. The contemplation or chanting of Om is understood to be putting oneself in alignment with that resonance, so reaching a higher, simplified mindstate, closer to Godhead
mcc
What I'm listening to today: "200528 Quick FM Jomox Alpha Base", Calvin Cardioid
A short indie-game-soundtrack-ambient piece (my roommate actually came in and asked what game I was playing) with a funky, bumping beat. Makes you want to dance in ways the human skeleton doesn't move.
When I heard this I was convinced I'd found the device 90% of all circa-2000 dub electronica was made on, but in fact it's from 2017 (tho apparently based on earlier Jomox standalone boxes).
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