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mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Teisco Synthesizer 110F (1980)", Werkstatt Matlak

This is the synth shop I linked earlier this week, posting the "Final test after repair & service" for a fascinating synth by Teisco, a company I've never heard of (in part because they were folded into Kawai shortly after this synth was made). The test track showcases some lovely timbres Boards of Canada would be proud of, in an alternate universe where BoC were interested in drum & bass.

youtube.com/watch?v=EgI4qjk9z0

18 Mar 2023 at 20:30 | Open on mastodon.social
26 comments
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Eurorack idm", Sinking Feeling

Sinking Feeling appeared way up earlier in this thread with one of my favorite electronica tracks on YouTube, and lately has been streaming a lot. This is a 20-minute stream that seamlessly transitions between 3 or 4 notional songs all using the same sonic palette. It's sparse & minimal in a way that feels like crisp morning air, all skittering taps and distant curious warbles. Really unique in its simplicity.

youtube.com/watch?v=ywHtJOl4BT

What I'm listening to today: "Eurorack idm", Sinking Feeling

Sinking Feeling appeared way up earlier in this thread with one of my favorite electronica tracks on YouTube, and lately has been streaming a lot. This is a 20-minute stream that seamlessly transitions between 3 or 4 notional songs all using the same sonic palette. It's sparse & minimal in a way that feels like crisp morning air, all skittering taps and distant curious warbles. Really unique in its simplicity.

19 Mar 2023 at 20:11 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Law – Unreleased Jungle Selection"

Jungle is the older, rawer, more chaotic older brother of "Drum & Bass". This YouTube video is mysterious, a CD-R-length mix of 17 songs by 10 artists. Searching I find the tracks all recorded ~1993-1995 and variously unreleased until the 2010s, released in the 90s (but not as the same mix?), or seemingly found nowhere else on the Internet. Who is "Law"? Unclear. It's a *very* good mix tho, dark & driving.

youtube.com/watch?v=h7T8br7jO8

What I'm listening to today: "Law – Unreleased Jungle Selection"

Jungle is the older, rawer, more chaotic older brother of "Drum & Bass". This YouTube video is mysterious, a CD-R-length mix of 17 songs by 10 artists. Searching I find the tracks all recorded ~1993-1995 and variously unreleased until the 2010s, released in the 90s (but not as the same mix?), or seemingly found nowhere else on the Internet. Who is "Law"? Unclear. It's a *very* good mix tho, dark & driving.

20 Mar 2023 at 19:00 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Digital", Roni Size Reprazent

New Forms was the album that introduced "Drum & Bass" to a lot of people internationally— as a teen in Texas it massively changed how I thought about music. But besides being a D&B position paper it's got an amazingly unique, self-confident tone of its own. "Digital" isn't the most avant-garde track on it but it's maybe the stickiest, building an incredible groove out of soul-flavored vocals and a D&B skeleton:

youtube.com/watch?v=JU_KPIjcRS

What I'm listening to today: "Digital", Roni Size Reprazent

New Forms was the album that introduced "Drum & Bass" to a lot of people internationally— as a teen in Texas it massively changed how I thought about music. But besides being a D&B position paper it's got an amazingly unique, self-confident tone of its own. "Digital" isn't the most avant-garde track on it but it's maybe the stickiest, building an incredible groove out of soul-flavored vocals and a D&B skeleton:

21 Mar 2023 at 19:43 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Threat Actor", Jamie Myerson

I have this Cohost post of recommendations for Bandcamp Friday, and so I have a Simplenote file where I stash a reminder list of bands to add to it next time Bandcamp Friday rolls around. When I came back to look at it this month, I found the last line was

"threat actors?"

What… was this? I have no idea. Searching Bandcamp finds only this one song, which I don't think I'd ever heard. Actually it heckin rules

jamiemyerson.com/track/threat-

What I'm listening to today: "Threat Actor", Jamie Myerson

I have this Cohost post of recommendations for Bandcamp Friday, and so I have a Simplenote file where I stash a reminder list of bands to add to it next time Bandcamp Friday rolls around. When I came back to look at it this month, I found the last line was

22 Mar 2023 at 20:21 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening today: "7:10", Plug

Luke Vibert is a man of many names and many styles. This is the first track on Plug EP 1, which was released as "Visible Crater Funk" in Europe or mashed into CD 2 of "Drum & Bass for Papa" in the US.

This is D&B (Jungle?) by the basics but the basics are pushed to a point of total chaos. Amen break in a blender to create a maelstrom of drums, and discomfiting, minimal synth tones. It grabs you really well.

youtube.com/watch?v=0dgrUQbP_n

23 Mar 2023 at 20:02 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Brown Paper Bag (Nobukazu Takemura remix)", Roni Size Reprazent

"Brown Paper Bag" was the album-seller track on New Forms, mostly due to the *incredibly sick* timewarping music video which had a different, punchier, vocal mix not on the album. But my favorite version remains this rare remix by Nobukazu Takemura, a Japanese glitch musician I once saw live by accident.

(You might find the first two minutes here offputting. Give it a chance.)

youtube.com/watch?v=bJ-CEoJWQJ

What I'm listening to today: "Brown Paper Bag (Nobukazu Takemura remix)", Roni Size Reprazent

"Brown Paper Bag" was the album-seller track on New Forms, mostly due to the *incredibly sick* timewarping music video which had a different, punchier, vocal mix not on the album. But my favorite version remains this rare remix by Nobukazu Takemura, a Japanese glitch musician I once saw live by accident.

24 Mar 2023 at 19:56 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Point of View", LTJ Bukem

LTJ Bukem ruined drum & bass for me. This is not his fault. "Journey Inwards" is stripped-down, minimalist D&B that exposes its inner workings, and once Bukem showed me the Pattern I heard it everywhere. D&B's seemingly infinite fractal complexity was revealed to mostly be K–S––KS– over and over.

I have to forgive Bukem. He also gave me this pair of tracks, this Yoko Kanno-esque sea of violin samples—

[CONTINUES]

youtube.com/watch?v=O5ehV1HsL5

What I'm listening to today: "Point of View", LTJ Bukem

LTJ Bukem ruined drum & bass for me. This is not his fault. "Journey Inwards" is stripped-down, minimalist D&B that exposes its inner workings, and once Bukem showed me the Pattern I heard it everywhere. D&B's seemingly infinite fractal complexity was revealed to mostly be K–S––KS– over and over.

25 Mar 2023 at 21:32 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Viewpoint", LTJ Bukem

[CONTINUING]

—and then this lovely track, which blows past D&B's occasional aspirations to being an intellectual descendent of jazz by just, like… making some jazz.

"Viewpoint" is a refreshing, bouncy showcase of jazz bass, electric piano riffs and, at one point, threaded in sneakily, the violin sample that "Point of View" (the previous track on the album) deconstructs. Just such a good feeling to it.

youtube.com/watch?v=ind_xkefnK

26 Mar 2023 at 20:27 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Lessness", Tom Djll

A mesmerizing abstract journey. If you're used to "music" this track might be a good intro to ambient sound collages. Let it guide you from point to point, a soundtrack for images in your mind maybe.

The parts this is made from are kind of interesting: An honest to goodness VCS-3— the closest thing 1971 had to desktop eurorack, famously used by Pink Floyd— mixed in with a modern desktop eurorack, mixed with a trumpet.

youtube.com/watch?v=3jdWHMPLDS

What I'm listening to today: "Lessness", Tom Djll

A mesmerizing abstract journey. If you're used to "music" this track might be a good intro to ambient sound collages. Let it guide you from point to point, a soundtrack for images in your mind maybe.

The parts this is made from are kind of interesting: An honest to goodness VCS-3— the closest thing 1971 had to desktop eurorack, famously used by Pink Floyd— mixed in with a modern desktop eurorack, mixed with a trumpet.

27 Mar 2023 at 19:53 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "LOST SOULS - MODBAP", leonardoworx

This is a fun, single-minute hip hop jam with an MPC drum machine, Make Noise's desktop modular synths and some Nas samples.

90s west coast hip hop always had a thing for 70s east coast synthesizers, so there's something that feels like a natural extension to try to do that style of hip hop* with the west-coast synth methods used here**.

* Except Nas is east coast.
** And Make Noise is in North Carolina.

youtube.com/watch?v=BrZ8A_NMdH

What I'm listening to today: "LOST SOULS - MODBAP", leonardoworx

This is a fun, single-minute hip hop jam with an MPC drum machine, Make Noise's desktop modular synths and some Nas samples.

90s west coast hip hop always had a thing for 70s east coast synthesizers, so there's something that feels like a natural extension to try to do that style of hip hop* with the west-coast synth methods used here**.

28 Mar 2023 at 18:59 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Ambient then heavy", Jay Hosking

Jay runs a Patreon; the deal seems to be people crowdfund him to buy the most expensive synthesizers in existence, in exchange he makes music with them & posts it.

The in-video captions explain this as "I wanted to create something that starts dreamy and goes heavy", and he does this by using a pair of Moog keyboards for huge padscapes then dropping in dense IDM beats from a purpose-built modular skiff box.

youtube.com/watch?v=Lzfw27iYgK

What I'm listening to today: "Ambient then heavy", Jay Hosking

Jay runs a Patreon; the deal seems to be people crowdfund him to buy the most expensive synthesizers in existence, in exchange he makes music with them & posts it.

The in-video captions explain this as "I wanted to create something that starts dreamy and goes heavy", and he does this by using a pair of Moog keyboards for huge padscapes then dropping in dense IDM beats from a purpose-built modular skiff box.

29 Mar 2023 at 19:01 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Live Techno Jam #6 - Roland TR6S - Quadrantid Swarm - Minitaur - BlueBox - Blofeld - NTS1", Spadehead

Have I like… boxed myself in to needing something interesting to say about each of these tracks? Because this is just a good, thoughtfully-composed basic four-on-the-floor techno track with a table of 2010s-2020s desktop synths and a really nice 90s feeling. Good background/focus music. I like the obviously-synthesized-strings voice.

youtube.com/watch?v=fdWNPAjq-l

What I'm listening to today: "Live Techno Jam #6 - Roland TR6S - Quadrantid Swarm - Minitaur - BlueBox - Blofeld - NTS1", Spadehead

Have I like… boxed myself in to needing something interesting to say about each of these tracks? Because this is just a good, thoughtfully-composed basic four-on-the-floor techno track with a table of 2010s-2020s desktop synths and a really nice 90s feeling. Good background/focus music. I like the obviously-synthesized-strings voice.

30 Mar 2023 at 20:29 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Heavy Medicine", Jon Gee

Jon, like Jay Hosking, is constantly pushing highly-developed synth music to his YouTube, but rather than the community focus it all seems very personal. A lot of his video titles use words like "meditation".

Last April Jon posted a *bunch* of absolute bangers all in quick succession, and this was my favorite from that block, a futuristic synth-rock track based around the two synth "trios" from Make Noise and Moog.

youtube.com/watch?v=fxm-OOEkul

What I'm listening to today: "Heavy Medicine", Jon Gee

Jon, like Jay Hosking, is constantly pushing highly-developed synth music to his YouTube, but rather than the community focus it all seems very personal. A lot of his video titles use words like "meditation".

Last April Jon posted a *bunch* of absolute bangers all in quick succession, and this was my favorite from that block, a futuristic synth-rock track based around the two synth "trios" from Make Noise and Moog.

31 Mar 2023 at 19:00 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Serge Modular Live Patching Improv - Modular Notes Vol.2 10 - Pure Serge Eurorack"

This box is a rebuild, in modern form factor, of Serge Tcherepnin's 1970s "west coast" modular synth.

The video builds a patch gradually, one wire at a time, which means just listening to it you get a very slowly evolving drone that grows from a buzz to a weird melodic moan. It's some nice, meditative rhythmic ambiance, and it's cool to watch it being built.

youtube.com/watch?v=Leu_bSCx3S

What I'm listening to today: "Serge Modular Live Patching Improv - Modular Notes Vol.2 10 - Pure Serge Eurorack"

This box is a rebuild, in modern form factor, of Serge Tcherepnin's 1970s "west coast" modular synth.

The video builds a patch gradually, one wire at a time, which means just listening to it you get a very slowly evolving drone that grows from a buzz to a weird melodic moan. It's some nice, meditative rhythmic ambiance, and it's cool to watch it being built.

1 Apr 2023 at 21:05 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Ambient patching with Prism Circuits Canvas and Quasar systems, BPoOT (20220825 191252)"

Prism makes modern re-imaginings of Serge/Buchla style modular systems. These systems excel at patches where control is driven by feedback loops and voltage logic rather than programmed sequences.

This strange, spacey patch creates an ocean of strange cross-interacting sounds loosely driven by a 16-step sequence the circuit moves through as it chooses.

youtube.com/watch?v=u2yL9NCNkK

What I'm listening to today: "Ambient patching with Prism Circuits Canvas and Quasar systems, BPoOT (20220825 191252)"

Prism makes modern re-imaginings of Serge/Buchla style modular systems. These systems excel at patches where control is driven by feedback loops and voltage logic rather than programmed sequences.

2 Apr 2023 at 18:59 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Cartesian Somersaults", FΛDE

Okay, do you remember the "PC speaker"? The piezoelectric beeper thing inside old tower PCs, could only play one note at a time? Well this is a full, catchy, multi-instrumental song created entirely for one of those monophonic beepers (apparently the one in the 1980 Commodore PET). It even fakes drums with short chirps. It hurts to listen to and the waveform in the video hurts to look at, and I kind of love it.

youtube.com/watch?v=LF1nsMBS5S

What I'm listening to today: "Cartesian Somersaults", FΛDE

Okay, do you remember the "PC speaker"? The piezoelectric beeper thing inside old tower PCs, could only play one note at a time? Well this is a full, catchy, multi-instrumental song created entirely for one of those monophonic beepers (apparently the one in the 1980 Commodore PET). It even fakes drums with short chirps. It hurts to listen to and the waveform in the video hurts to look at, and I kind of love it.

3 Apr 2023 at 19:03 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Call Me Up Again", FΛDE

The PC speaker musician again, making something even weirder: have you heard of the "Fairchild Channel F"? The very first "video game console", 1976. It had a beeper inside the case, but it could only play 3 different notes. This song, recorded on actual Channel F hardware, uses some bizarre modern algorithmic magic (manual FM synthesis!?) to squeeze out "impossible" sounds like arbitrary chords & white noise snares.

youtube.com/watch?v=STp1IxOk6M

What I'm listening to today: "Call Me Up Again", FΛDE

The PC speaker musician again, making something even weirder: have you heard of the "Fairchild Channel F"? The very first "video game console", 1976. It had a beeper inside the case, but it could only play 3 different notes. This song, recorded on actual Channel F hardware, uses some bizarre modern algorithmic magic (manual FM synthesis!?) to squeeze out "impossible" sounds like arbitrary chords & white noise snares.

4 Apr 2023 at 19:04 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Chi-Fou-Mi", FΛDE

Okay this is my third song in a row from the same musician but like, how many songs do you know running on Channel F hardware? Because I only know these two (or I did until I got this reply yesterday: mastodon.social/@Korcenton@mas). This is less catchy than the other track but more technically impressive (and more enjoyably technically disastrous). The video has the cryptic caption "HOW IN THE F*CK DID THE TRIGGERING GET BETTER"

youtube.com/watch?v=5kOZEckhuL

What I'm listening to today: "Chi-Fou-Mi", FΛDE

Okay this is my third song in a row from the same musician but like, how many songs do you know running on Channel F hardware? Because I only know these two (or I did until I got this reply yesterday: mastodon.social/@Korcenton@mas). This is less catchy than the other track but more technically impressive (and more enjoyably technically disastrous). The video has the cryptic caption "HOW IN THE F*CK DID THE TRIGGERING GET BETTER"

5 Apr 2023 at 19:39 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "It's Universal", Croaker

Somewhere out there in the 90s, before mp3, there must have been an *incredibly* cool scene of BBS-shared tracker music that I missed out on completely (I had BBSes, but could not figure out how to operate Player Pro). This is a groovy drum & bass bop made in 1998 in ImpulseTracker for DOS by… a teenager named Jaakko Iisalo who… went on to become the creator and lead designer of the Angry Birds series. Um. Okay wow

youtube.com/watch?v=pRblrgQ3Ji

What I'm listening to today: "It's Universal", Croaker

Somewhere out there in the 90s, before mp3, there must have been an *incredibly* cool scene of BBS-shared tracker music that I missed out on completely (I had BBSes, but could not figure out how to operate Player Pro). This is a groovy drum & bass bop made in 1998 in ImpulseTracker for DOS by… a teenager named Jaakko Iisalo who… went on to become the creator and lead designer of the Angry Birds series. Um. Okay wow

6 Apr 2023 at 20:36 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Slub", STU

The Atari home computers probably deserve more cred in music production; they had a working MIDI/DAW ecosystem back before Windows was viable or Macs were affordable.

Anyway here's a 2017 Atari ST tracker song I just really like. Chiptune you can just *almost* believe could have been a synth pop song in the 80s. The hook in the second half slays me, there was seriously a day last week I listened to this song like five times.

youtube.com/watch?v=KuOcR2cAPW

What I'm listening to today: "Slub", STU

The Atari home computers probably deserve more cred in music production; they had a working MIDI/DAW ecosystem back before Windows was viable or Macs were affordable.

Anyway here's a 2017 Atari ST tracker song I just really like. Chiptune you can just *almost* believe could have been a synth pop song in the 80s. The hook in the second half slays me, there was seriously a day last week I listened to this song like five times.

7 Apr 2023 at 20:30 | Open on mastodon.social
Jimmy Stabbedguy replied to mcc

@mcc didn't the ST ship with MIDI I/O and the ability to play digital samples? those were both add-ons you had to pay hundreds of dollars for on PCs

7 Apr 2023 at 20:34 | Open on monads.online
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today, "Yay Bahar", Görkem Şen

This is a performance on the Yay Bahar, a fully acoustic instrument Mr. Şen himself invented, perfected and built by hand. It's got some similarity to traditional Turkish bowed instruments but with loose springs and large resonating tubs to act as amplification, echo effect and occasional additional playable element. It sounds Evocative as heck and Şen seamlessly moves from wowing you with weird sounds to violin solo.

youtube.com/watch?v=CIRTYKuZYu

What I'm listening to today, "Yay Bahar", Görkem Şen

This is a performance on the Yay Bahar, a fully acoustic instrument Mr. Şen himself invented, perfected and built by hand. It's got some similarity to traditional Turkish bowed instruments but with loose springs and large resonating tubs to act as amplification, echo effect and occasional additional playable element. It sounds Evocative as heck and Şen seamlessly moves from wowing you with weird sounds to violin solo.

8 Apr 2023 at 22:36 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today, "Return", STU

This is by the Atari ST tracker artist I linked Friday, from their Bandcamp. This song apparently started life as an ST demo, but at some point they got carried away and made a conventionally produced song that uses an Atari ST as an instrument. The result is dark, echoey dubstep with strange chiptune blood flowing through it and I really ~~~ dig ~~~ the ~~~ vibe ~~~.

stumusic.bandcamp.com/track/re

9 Apr 2023 at 19:16 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "Hivemind II", Max Ravitz

The "Mavis" is a single-oscillator budget Moog synth; it's a more expensive, less interesting version of their old "Werkstatt" kit. But it did give us this really interesting video where a Moog employee densely cross-wires seven Mavises to produce every sound in this complex idm track. (The eurorack at the bottom does sequencing and adds a bit of echo.) Never mind the product demo, this is some good dance techno.

youtube.com/watch?v=X2GbnenF5v

What I'm listening to today: "Hivemind II", Max Ravitz

The "Mavis" is a single-oscillator budget Moog synth; it's a more expensive, less interesting version of their old "Werkstatt" kit. But it did give us this really interesting video where a Moog employee densely cross-wires seven Mavises to produce every sound in this complex idm track. (The eurorack at the bottom does sequencing and adds a bit of echo.) Never mind the product demo, this is some good dance techno.

10 Apr 2023 at 19:14 | Open on mastodon.social
mcc replied to mcc

What I'm listening to today: "20230226 - live @ Baitattack!", @nonmateria

"Orca" is a 2D programming language / music production environment by 100 Rabbits. This is a livecoding performance with Orca, recorded at a concert space in Trentino, Italy that I think might be operated out of someone's home. The Karplus is very Strong in this one.

The upload post (mastodon.social/@nonmateria@me) links some other sets from the same night. The video contains a slowly flashing light.

youtube.com/watch?v=iWNW_wWMoH

What I'm listening to today: "20230226 - live @ Baitattack!", @nonmateria

"Orca" is a 2D programming language / music production environment by 100 Rabbits. This is a livecoding performance with Orca, recorded at a concert space in Trentino, Italy that I think might be operated out of someone's home. The Karplus is very Strong in this one.

11 Apr 2023 at 19:00 | Open on mastodon.social
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