the blog of makemassair

BEDROOM RESEARCH@L’AERONEF, LILLE, 2007
I came across this video from a night last year with the rather excellent Bedroom Research people. Cool sound and cool visual. Check out their site for some free music, of which Monster X is a personal fave.

SOUND
Tiazitch http://prootrecords.free.fr
Milanese http://www.planet-mu.com
Subjex http://www.bedroomresearch.com
µ-ziq http://www.planet-mu.com
Orange Zebre http://www.bedroomresearch.com
Cursor Miner http://www.myspace.com/cursorminer
Monster X http://www.bedroomresearch.com

VIDEO
Tix http://www.myspace.com/tix1982
Deework http://www.bedroomresearch.com
Yamsk http://www.bedroomresearch.com
Legoman http://www.legoman.net
Moko http://www.mokolab.com

Charlton – Irronisch, forthcoming on the excellent Digital Distortions label. (check out MANTIS 012 for a showcase mix from label co-owner John Bushby)

1. Charlton – Irronisch
2. Charlton – Irronisch (Ion Driver 29CU Copper Mix)
3. Charlton – Irronisch (Ion Driver 26Fe Iron Mix)
4. Charlton – Irronisch (Deadman DJ Mix)

1. Charlton – Irronisch
Beautiful techno, lush synths and a scattered, dubbed beat give this track a lot of presence. Slowly, almost playfully extra percussion is added. A deep wonderful tune.

2. Charlton – Irronisch (Ion Driver 29CU Copper Mix)
Takes the original track in more of an electro territory. Glitching beats and shaped bass sculpt this remix. Ion Driver maintains the beauty of the original but adds wood blocked keys and deep synths.

3. Charlton – Irronisch (Ion Driver 26Fe Iron Mix)
Chunky echo’d beats, lashings of synthy bass, driving depth and structure with that hypnotic melodic feel from the original. Ion Driver has excelled at two equally strong remixes of this wicked track from Charlton.

4. Charlton – Irronisch (Deadman DJ Mix)
Electro dubstep wonk which verges on breakstep. Yet, Deadman maintains the driving depth of the original. A real rolling feel to the production. Well placed glitches, broken beats and rhythms, and sweet sweet bass

Overall.
A strong original, with three strong reinterpretations. I should add this is released on the 7th April.Which happens to be my birthday.;)

Links.
Digital Distortions
Digital Distortions Myspace
Charlton
MANTIS 012 – Showcase from John Bushby of Digital Distortions

01. Aloeswood
02. Hotel Chez Moi
03. Body Sonic
04. Cloud Over
05. Temple
06. Ultraviolet World
07. Subway
08. Red Light
09. Into Day
10. Morning Again

Deepchord’s Rod Modell is a fascinating character, operating outside of any regular techno circles and in possession of a rich and genuinely beautiful back catalogue that has kept him away from the more predictable manoeuvres so many of his contemporaries have fallen into. His love of suggestive sound sources and analogue processes is clearly not born out of any “fashionable” urges, but a true and rich fascination with the sonic detritus that litters our world and the space above us, as far removed from the pristine machinations of Minimal techno as can be imagined.

10 tracks of dubby, warm, atmospheric downtempo minimalistic techno. An album that takes over your headphase, infects your thoughts with it’s textured sound. This album has that warm electronia feel throughout.

Strongly recommended purchase.

Links
Deepchord
Deepchord Discogs

Forthcoming from Subgrade records. Another new signing, this time a 4 tracker EP from Agent 2.

1. Bamboo
2. Moscow
3. Snow Dolls
4. Sunspot

1. Agent 2 – Bamboo
Dark, simple electro vibes with a very satisfying bassy kick. Minimal elements of sound are well placed. A perfect track to use for a buildup mid set. Simple and solid.

2. Agent 2 – Moscow
A stripped minimal electro jacking vibe with bags of atmosphere. 4AM peaktime, wicked shit I do declare.

3. Agent 2 – Snow Dolls
Glitchier with a busier beat, but still lashings of atmosphere and depth. The beats structure reminds me of a dark version of Coldcut’s seminal Timber. A big, simple, Aphex Twin style breakdown complete this superb track. Reminds me of Selected Ambient Works 88-92.

4. Agent 2 – Sunspot
Soundtrack depth with heavy, heavy, well placed beats. Wicked shit.

Overall.
Another very solid package from those boys over in Hungary and Budapest. Subgrade Records really is becoming a fave.

Links
Subgrade Records
Subgrade Records Myspace

High Eight, label head of Re:Connect is providing their 22nd release. Forthcoming in April. Here’s their blurb:

Next up for 2008 is the return of Re:Connect veteran High Eight.  Last seen paired up with Liz Melody on 2006’s “Rock My World”, and his stonking remix of Liz’s anthem “Forget U”, we’re proud to welcome back a brand new cut from the man himself. (more…)

Back in January 2008, MANTIS showcased Filippo Aldovini and his netlabel Zymogen.net. Well this is their first release this year: zym019, by con_cetta and I heartily recommended you get on the case and download this. I’ve been listening to zym018 (Letna – Tisza meets Dunav) quite a lot these past 2 weeks and really am in awe of this label. Filippo and crew, keep it up, beautiful sound, crafted and sculptured into a full artwork package for zero of your Earth pence. You couldn’t really ask for more could you.

Giuseppe, con_cetta’s real name, is from Sicily but now lives in Milan, which is the leading commercial and financial center of Northwestern Italy.

Sclerosis is his debut under this moniker and could be seen as Giuseppe’s attempt at escaping the chaos of the industrial metropolis, generally seen as lacking the color and poetry of everyday life.

This release is full of passion while the contrast between the two extremes is clearly audible and molded into the sound. Giuseppe explores many different languages in the field of electronic music, but his composition process is structured in a particular way. He begins with samples taken from different recording sessions and then processes every sound using Gleetchlab, a software programmed by Tobor Experiment, which, with its very intuitive interface, gives Giuseppe all the possibilities to express his feelings and imagination in a digital format.

DOWNLOAD (320Kbps MP3, FLAC available) | zym019 | Zymogen | MANTIS009: Filippo Aldovini

04 April 2008 6 to 9.30PM
Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG

Featuring:
Hiraki Sawa (Kanazawa, JP)
Black Out Arts (Bristol, UK)
Bruno Tait / Bopa (Cologne, DE / London, UK)
Ne1co (London / Birmingham, UK)
Narrative Lab (London, UK)

As part of the Late at Tate Series of events the audiovisual collective Ne1co present a very special ambient edition of London’s number one audiovisual event, the AV Social.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ll be down the front for this. Probably with a G&T or bottle of beer in my hand.

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Madison, Wisconsin based composer and Cycling ‘74 researcher Gregory Taylor composed the two pieces on offer here by applying spectral averaging and a structure inspired by systems music to source material taken from a recording of the gamelan piece Danaraja. All talk of the process (as documented in Taylor’s extensive liner notes) aside, the end result is two pieces of exquisite beauty: the first a flowing miasma of bell-derived drones which resonate peacefully even as they twist and turn, and the second a bouncing series of reverb-drenched tintinnabulation.

01 Seismic Profil    19:42 36.7MB
02 Orbital Phot      21:10 39.6MB

DOWNLOAD | Stasisfield Netlabel

I happened upon this interesting interview with *spark, aka Toby Harris. Blatantly stolen from the rather good skynoise website. Read on:

London’s audiovisual Howlin’ Wolf (it’s a sideburn thing ), Toby Harris (aka *spark), has been steadily building strong live video performances since the turn of the century, exploring his real-time video skills at countless festivals, sophisticated audiovisual performances and most recently on giant touchscreen plasmas within motor shows. He also founded AVIT, the real world spin-off of vjforums.com that prompted festivals around the world, so it was a pleasure to meet him @ Sonar in Barcelona mid 2007, as well as get his reflections on audiovisual possibility. Lotta words to follow, but worth the read for the pixel-inclined…

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Mysterious Ambient Dub | Svefn is about organic Ambient music, surface noise and harmonicism (which is a word i just invented). Svefn is Manchester-based Lee Chapman who created a tiny EP tellingly entitled “Lightness”. Svenfn refers to a song by Iceland’s ethereal superstars Sigur Rós who work fine as a loose reference also. Svefn is “Sven” with an additional “f”, and this is simply awesome.

DOWNLOAD ZIP | Svefn – Lightness | myspace/svefn

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