Notices by mcc (mcc@mastodon.social), page 12

What I'm listening to today: "Suck My Dick", Lil Kim

Lil Kim is *great*.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kJS8Uk0twE

What I'm listening to today: "It will never come back.", EAMFOS

A synth-solo-y 5-minute ambient track consisting of chime-y tones with deceptively complex timbres. Really emotionally evocative. Video shows fixed shots of empty fields and flowers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_oENexUIEw

What I'm listening to today: "Feng Shui Schematics", Radix

This is a serene, surprisingly quiet DOS mod/tracker tune with some meaty underlying bass and progressive, glitchy beats. A revival track by Radix— Radix was one of the tracker legends in the 90s, but this particular track dates from 2010.

Just a good feeling here. Beep beep, beep beep

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WffRtoUAs0

What I'm listening to today: "Transforming", EAMFOS

This starts off as a nice hypnotic synth drone and electric-piano jam. Then at some point there's a sort of strange shift, like two bones settling against each other in a way it doesn't feel like they're supposed to, and suddenly it feels more like something adjacent to epic heavy metal, the kind made in Scandinavia circa 2001. I have absolutely no idea what is happening in the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C86BWMMgtrw

What I'm listening to today: "Elektrical Activity", Mind over MIDI

When this track initially popped up for me in a playlist I initially assumed it was a new song, and was like, wow! What a nostalgiac 90s feel this has! Then I looked up Mind Over MIDI and discovered this song was actually released in 1995, and the feeling changed to, wow! What a futuristic post-90s feel this has! Anyway this is a driving techno track with a sick groove and some aphexy sounding synths.

https://mindovermidi.bandcamp.com/track/elektrical-aktivity

What I'm listening to today: "One Channel Music", Aleksi Eeben

This piece is a sort of parlor trick. The C64 has three sound channels, but each is reprogrammable— each can play any sound the SID is capable of. So composing for C64 it's good practice to learn to cram "two channels into one", rapidly switching timbres to alternate instruments. This track goes all the way to fitting *the whole song* in 1 channel. It's complex and interesting sounding, and shockingly funky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsXCnND1SiI

What I'm listening to today: "07", Scoth

Yamaha's QY line, first released in 1990 (three years before the Apple Newton!) and awkwardly branded as a "Walkstation", was an attempt to make something totally new— a fully portable, handheld MIDI music production station, run off AA batteries. This modern track was made entirely on a 1997 QY70 and it sounds great. Peppy fusion funk grooves and some gorgeous pad sounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_g3MFWFJZ0

What I'm listening to today: "MELANCHOLIA", roxxx303

Made on Roland's new budget desktop remakes of the 303/808 and Jupiter-8, this is a slow, gradually-developing, low-bpm acid techno jam with a good chill vibe. There's something nicely unique about this one I can't quite describe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URgJ18mKE74

What I'm listening to today: "Modification (Acid Jam 6.0)", INKOЯREꓘT

This is some hardkore, four-on-the-floor 90s techno, interestingly made entirely of newer reproductions of classic 90s gear: A tracker to drive the thing, but a Polyend Tracker instead of an old Atari; a 303, but a modern Behringer analog remake; a 606, but a modern Roland digital desktop remake; and an Access Virus, just an Access Virus (though I think the build they introduced in 2008). It's fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rjMxZ5vG8w

What I'm listening to today: "War Photographer"

Jason Forrest. Sample artist. Originally used the recording alias "Donna Summer" just to see how long it would take him to get sued. Creator of songs such as "My 36 Favorite Punk Songs" (it samples them all). His one brush with popular appeal was this *absolutely incredible* music video, which presents some kind of baffling narrative about a Viking mecha powered by rock music. You want to watch the video while you listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtYEz4OKCn8

What I'm listening to today: "You Didn't Break Me", Pedestrian Deposit

NOISE TIME. This is some kinda strange post-rock/metal… song? EP? I'm not sure. There's no separations, just one 20-minute track, but it has multiple distinct movements within it that feel like different songs but also like part of one whole. Big shifts, violins falling into harsh noise and such, like a harder Godspeed You Black Emperor. Definitely hits the feels hard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0U7PA2teMs

What I'm listening to today: "SOMA Pulsar-23 + Piano // Dreamy Ambient Machine", Dexba

This is a gorgeous piano piece, played on an electric piano overlooking a window somewhere in Ho Chi Minh City (and accompanied by a few beastly glitch machines— but↓ reverb-squashed down until all you hear is the quiet rush of a river and the strange distant chirping of robot birds). Is the music I link sometimes… uh, a bit much for you? Well, here's something a bit gentler.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGUIIt_qD3M

What I'm listening to today: "Buchla 200 at the Evergreen State College.", Giselle Garcia

Some drums-not-needed analog synth music on a vintage unit at a college in Olympia, Washington. Chill but with a distinctly sharp energy. What I used to think of as "Space Mountain Music".

There's a gap of about two minutes halfway through this video as the musician configures the unit for her second song so you may want to stop the video at 2:40, but I do like the closeout track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgl-UuwMUKs

What I'm listening to today: "Testing stereo field", Fantastic Dan

I was watching through this musician's videos on YouTube and my favorite wound up being their very first. It's clearly a test video (it cuts off suddenly at the end), and it's got unusual binaural audio that pans as the cellphone moves. But I really just love the groove!

This video is 4 years old, and in all this time it's only got 18 views. The Internet is full of beautiful and secret things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UhK33bjBO8

What I'm listening to today: "Joyous", 12 Rounds

I was one of 12 Rounds [ft Atticus Ross]'s very few devoted fans in the 90s, but I didn't even know until recently about their first, pre-Nothing album, which apparently got so buried CDNow never listed it. "Jitter Juice" is 1/3 tripe, 1/3 tracks that later appeared on My Big Hero, and 1/3 solid gold, ending with this lovely little, fully-orchestrated, goth/trip-hop kiss-off. The lyrics have deep personal resonance to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwaVP9BYQo

What I'm listening to today: "Morning Practice", Todd Barton

Made on a modern reissue of one of Buchla's "Easel" style suitcase units, this is an improvised performance of strange, quietly unnerving alien sounds. You may not recognize this as "music". It's basically the noises you'd hear in the background in some sort of science lab or alien spacecraft in a 60s movie (probably because those sounds, in those movies, were in fact made on Buchlas). It's definitely intense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrvpTaMl6nw

What I'm listening to today: "Cottonwool", Lamb

In the golden age of trip-hop, Lamb was known for two things: A really good Kruder & Dorfmeister remix; and an undignified incident where one of their albums got widely distributed on Napster/Gnutella after someone relabeled it as an "unreleased" Portishead album. Unfortunate: Lamb deserves to stand alone. I like this track for its layers of lounge jazz and breakbeats, satisfyingly distinct and unmixing like oil and water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvHMHOGrG8E

What I'm listening to today: "Estuary", nk

This week I've been posting tracks in which a modular synthesizer makes many short, fast notes in a random-feeling way. This is… that again, to start, but it quickly changes, dropping in a skittering, jazzy-erratic beat and droning bassline. Once it gets going the mood of the piece is really interesting, very determined, like something large and heavy in dogged motion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyCtqyyX5ts

What I'm listening to today: "The Day Of Opening The Tomb", Aural Holograms

This is a 23-minute recording of atmospheric drone ambient, from 2008 and a genre somewhere adjacent to black metal. Metal sounds and distant clanking, sounds that could be wailing or maybe just wind. The YouTube thumbnail actually summarizes this track better than I could. As a connoisseur of structured humming noises, the 23 minutes I spent listening to this were very high-quality ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zkoprENdAo

What I'm listening to today: "Neutral Labs Elmyra DIY drone synthesizer & friends", nyppy

The Elmyra was a DIY/"Open Hardware" clone of the SOMA LYRA-8, with 3 operators instead of 8. A drone box, basically. In this video the box's designer demos the Elmyra with a variety of other equipment (including, in some clips, a LYRA-8). A buffet of atmospheric booming sounds.

I try to limit this thread to single tracks but frankly, all 22 of these pieces are really compelling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I5FMplMQOY