More often than not the album that goes in the CD player is his Loop-finding-jazz-records release on the amazing ~scape label, an exciting label thats output seemed to have slipped off my raider and now has ended entirely, which is disappointing.

Unlike normally, the album that filled the room last night was Textstar, a much earlier release from Jan Jelinek and arguably ever so slightly edgier sounding as a result. Although all the tracks are great and many seeming to be earlier versions of those found on Loop-finding-jazz-records, one in particular stuck out that’s beginning has a smooth and minimal quality, just before the main parts of the track begin.

I really love this beginning and so decided to do something of a homage to Farben, by creating something with this sound in mind. The temptation was there to place the beat along side, as appears in the original, but I resisted and instead made some minor adjustments to the sound to bring it somewhere slightly more in my style perhaps.

I hope you enjoy todays upload, and thank you Jan Jelinek for such great music and inspiration over the years.

(one last thing I just remembered, there was a track I wrote back in 2002-2003, that was actually used in a free download release on the label TIBProd, that was very much inspired by Jan Jelinek, it was called Fruiboize, and is still actually online after just checking…we can never escape the internet, feel free to take a listen :)

I can’t help but wonder again how much an association or time and place with equipment influences how it is used. I look at my Nord Modular and can’t hear such things like Techno coming from it, but sounds that are more tools to use perhaps in creating the samples needed. It is obviously not saying the Nord ‘can’t’ do Techno, obviously things simply don’t work that way, but I felt when using it today, I was having to find a place in the long gap between the last time to this time, where I created such styles. The working environment seemed familiar, but at the same time an impostor, an emulation.

I find too, when trying to set the parameters on the Nord Modular, as I would with the SH-101, it just felt all wrong, and the marks or places of these parameters, didn’t line up with what I remembered, like reading a different interpretation of the same philosopher…it just feels all wrong.

This reminds me also of time when we might re-visit something we believe we remember well, only to be surprised and slightly confused at what we discover. A familiar yet seemingly and almost entirely forgotten part of history might sit before us, as we realise that old series, game or film was not so good as we might have thought.

So, what do we have for todays sound? Well I would have to say it is something that for me showed again the importance of how we think about our equipment, our tools, our technology, and how we think about it for its purpose, its context.

Ultimately again I feel it is a matter of perspective, and from what I have learned recently, a matter of shifting ones perspective is all it takes to keep things exciting, or making things happen. Often the emphasis is on being stimulated by news sounds or new technology, that one replaces another or the old must make way for the new, where I am finding more it is the same things over and over that can be just as stimulating, if we can just think about ourselves and how we can change each time we interact with something.

Unfortunately, or fortunately Sommerville’s patch wouldn’t load in my Nord for some reason, but this turned out to be a good thing. The patch is pretty easy to copy, with most of the settings being visible from screen shots. However, after hearing this patch, I was a little surprised at the clunkiness of it, but from programming my own could quickly see what could be done to improve it.

I have patched in a wet/dry control, tuned the delays to sound better suited for my own uses, and also put in controls for envelope settings on both the delay and the dry signal. I also in trying to create a feedback, accidentally implemented in an option to allow it to be used as a really affective midi looper, allowing some experimenting with sound similar to what can be created with any audio looper such as a Memory Man.

Todays upload definitely has some nice sounds within it, particularly the muted chord in the right channel, but feel it is more a demonstration of sounds with the delay more than anything else. I am often finding a need to go through a few stages of getting to grips with the patch before I can really get out of it what I feel totally happy with, but for the most part I am pretty pleased thus far, and gotta say I am pretty excited in general by the potential of this new direction with the Nord Modular, and am really keen to create some midi based loops and more delay fun.

Hope you enjoy todays upload…oh, also if you fancy your Nord Modular G1 to delay too, email me and I am more than happy to share the patch with you.

I have yet again attempted a noodle-like patch in the Nord Modular, in a dub/techno-like style. I can’t say I am totally convinced by it, but feel it is probably as close as I could get and with it being only one patch for sound and a second for compression and a bit of hiss, its not bad. I really feel the urge to play the chord instead of having multiple oscillators triggered, but I am determined to get the Nord Modular sounding somewhere handy in this style one way or another, and believe it is getting closer than some previous efforts.

Its interesting to use some of the techniques from other patches, but in a style of sound creation that perhaps doesn’t quite gel as well, but is in some ways giving some interesting results. I like the off balance eq, and the resonant body sound to it…resonance being something I have always enjoyed working with ever since in my early teens, although perhaps it does just sound like Rod Modell in a bucket haha…(thanks Yves :)

I hope to get uploads back to being earlier in the day, and perhaps begin this on Monday. I have been experimenting with different times of the day to create, for productive and focus reasons, but also to see how the time of changes the sound.

I hope you enjoy tonight’s sound, I suggest standing in a resonant body big enough to hold you while you listen to it.

Good night :)

Todays upload has taken the form of of the sounds and moods presented to me while listening to Finn’s set. It is a slow, and simple repetitive fluctuation of tones that seemed to have naturally slotted into this mood. I wasn’t intending on doing this, and wasn’t sure what to do actually, but went with what I felt at the time, and in the haste of getting ready to leave the result is what you hear today…and I am certainly feeling this one.

The dub influence is very very subtle, but it is in there through the subtle beating of the tones. This reminds me yet again to revisit my dub project Pokk!…I must do this sometime soon, very soon actually. It has been too long I have been holding off with this project, and if I was a man who took heed of signs, which I am, Finn Albertsson is a pretty big sign :D

Enjoy todays upload.

I initially set out to create a delay line in the Modular, but very quickly iI went the wrong way with the patch, and not wanting to start all over again I decided to experiment with what I had and see where it put me. I can’t say it is what I had in mind, with this upload having more a ‘nice’ feel to it, but none the less, I found it an interesting and helpful experiment.

I have a feeling subsequent attempts might be more fruitful, with this sound having perhaps the potential to be sampled and reused, or equally to be thought of as a sort of filler to something more darker or richer to follow…I guess time will tell.

It is something a little different, but I hope you can enjoy it all the same.

I am quite enjoying the reworking of previous sounds and might in-fact do this a great deal more than I have been. I am a big fan of replication, and comparing the similar. The battle with wanting to change or improve, against the concept or notion of wanting to stay the same or familiar, is a constant reward of contradiction and restriction that I have always found a joy and benefit.

I am enjoying comparing todays sound to last weeks, wondering what is thought of as the original. I like that even when the copy is considered the inferior, in so doing it further highlights the supremacy of its alternative and as a result could be considered as equally valuable and intrinsic to the evaluation as a whole.

Today I think I prefer last weeks sound, but perhaps tomorrow this could change, and I like the idea that it might. :)

Although I can’t say the same for everyone, from my experience of Sundays there is a underling rule that somewhat governs what we do and how we act. An almost separate consideration for the Sunday comes into play, in that it can’t or at least shouldn’t be structured like any other day, and that we in fact make an exception when thinking for the Sunday.

I have even experienced a subtle displacement of time, of feeling of having the wrong day, to then only realise it is actually a Sunday, and not Saturday like I may have initially thought. When this happens I suddenly have to reboot, in order to consider my day in the light of how Sunday demands it.

On Sundays we often have different foods, different schedules, sometimes meet different people or sleep different times. We do laundry, organise our possessions go for walks or drive slowly through country lanes.

I wonder how much the Sunday feeling is one felt strongly in other countries, and if so how it differs to that of my experience of it in the UK.

Coming from a sleepy seaside town in Dorset, I wonder if the sleepy Sunday is more a attitude I have brought with me to London, and that perhaps the difference I experience is coming more from me than the seemingly sleepy streets in my neighbourhood.

As I look across out of my window again, I see someone else is also doing their laundry, their sheets hanging from their window to dry.

Also a new format of images to be included, coming from the ever popular Instagram, so expect more images of my life, the studio and various other joys I hope.

Also another change comes in a slight revamp of this blog as I improve the design, it is not a huge change and I am going to do my best to keep things roughly where you expect them, and by doing a little bit whenever I can, I will hopefully get it nearer a ‘finished’ state.

Finally, as some of you might already know, me and Lucia will be performing at Oboro in Canada on the 3rd of Mach, so will be away from the 28th of Feb for a week and wont have access to my Nord Modular. What I have decided in doing, is a second creation each day until we leave. To keep the work load manageable, these sounds are going to be simple variations of what you hear ‘this’ week. What this means is that I have to do two sounds a day in preparation for this…phew!

Wish me luck.

Often during the creation of a ‘sound’, I concern myself with time, I have other things to do in a day and that often while working o a patch, the sounds just wont behave themselves and the magic just doesn’t quite happen. Another time when experiencing it all start to come together, it might do so in an unexpected way, delivering to my ears a challenging style of sound…and as it does this a question mark appears over my head and asks what is actually my taste in sound? and what is my preference when choosing parameters when creating sound during the creative process?

Today I found myself creating a sound that seems to sit on a line of what I might consider ‘my style’ or ‘me’ and yet it also sits dangerously close to falling into a world of genres I generally don’t feel myself situated. I suddenly realise how changing the context I find myself in, is a little more complex that I might have initially thought. I have my own restrictions that fall outside my intention, that are building through a residue or affect of ‘doing’.

I also suddenly realise what I initially was thought as an exciting and exploratory project with the Nord, has become an almost intimidating endeavour, as I experience yesterday as the first real day of difficulty in creating something I can feel confident and happy about.

I don’t think there has been a collection of Nord sounds from one artist created like this before, at least not one I have found, and although this is not something I had considered until now, it does demonstrate the potency of a ‘collection’ of things, as apposed to those experienced as individually. With each morning passing and upload being made, slowly a collection of sounds are emerging that are in conversation with themselves and the sounds around them. I am very excited by what form they will take once a year is complete, and further, what smaller collections of sub styles might emerge out of this overall collection.

I am really enjoying the creative process being channeled and focused to that of only making a sound, and nothing more. I can concentrate on particular types of sounds in more detail, creating through an idea, concept or from inspiration, all the while not having to worry about larger matters such as context or more macro structure.

I really can’t recommend this enough, it really is a wonderful experience.

Todays image was quickly made this morning and is inspired by Eleh’s ‘Homage To The Sine Wave’.

Graphic Design and perhaps more specifically Typography, also seems in direct connection in regards of the communication and the practicalities essential of that to support it. The understanding and importance of positive and negative space, position, scale, vertical flow and the various other methods applied, in delivering something that well…just seems to work.

I wonder if when removing certain elements, the functionality of a building for example, or perhaps the legibility of a text, where these fall in regards of being understood in their initial context? ‘Experimental’ is perhaps one term that is used to place these uncertainties in a nice metaphorical labelled box. The problem with experimental, is there seems a blurring of defining what can simply be thought of as good or bad experimental. The range is vast, the language is complex and the context is so varied that an understanding to be experienced of that found beyond simply ‘experimental’ is rather tricky to achieve. To go back to the two examples before, a building that falls down, or a text that cannot be read is pretty unanimously thought of as failing, yet the same clarity is difficult to find when considering a experimental performance of a man kissing a guitar then blowing a duck whistle against another seemingly doing almost nothing behind their laptop. At the very least is seems most certainly a tricky defining situation.