Ground zero Bristol

Back in 2006, Mary Anne Hobbs, BBC Radio 1's champion of underground/experimental music, hosted Dubstep Warz and declared dubstep as one of the UK's most important musical movements since punk. Warz showcased the best dj's, producers and MC's in the scene at the time, most of them coming out of South London. Above is the so-called "Harlem Jazz" photo of dubstep in 2006, Mary Anne Hobbs at the center of the universe.

Now, two years later, after South London hit critical mass, the fall out has spread across the UK, Europe and made some ground here in the US. A second city has sprung up in dubstep and is taking the sound to new, exciting places. This past week, Ms. Hobbs hosted "Bristol: Rise Up", putting Bristol back on the map. Not since the days of trip hop and drum n' bass has the city stood out from the rest. 12 producers got 9 and a half minutes each to showcase their sound and no one disappointed. 

Ms. Hobbs also made a short video of Bristol featuring many of the artists from the show.

Earlier this year, Skull Disco head and Bristol local, Appleblim, had the honor of mixing Dubstep Allstars 06, an odd mix in the series but now standing out as the beginning of a new era in dubstep. His incredible mixes on podcasts for Resident Advisor and RinseFM (dubstep's flagship station) drew my interest, as well as many others.

The Bristol sound is less about the wobble and draws from so many influences, including Bristol's rich history of trip hop (Portishead, Massive Attack, Smith & Mighty) and drum n' bass (Roni Size, DJ Krust), but also techno, garage and reggae. The drawing from different influences into the dubstep template is what makes this sound so appealing, many of these producers and DJs are going to be better known soon enough, 2009 will be a big year for Bristol.

Every mix in the show is unique and cops its own style, Joker, Appleblim (pictured above), Gemmy, Komonazmuk and Headhunter being 5 of the standouts for me, but there's definitely something for everyone.

Check it here

Hopefully many more of these guys will grace the decks at Dub War, Headhunter's set in October was fantastic.

"our next act of retaliation will be to destroy London"

My new favorite VST

Another really good synth VST from Togu audio that I'd put up thee with Automat and Crystal Synth. Its a decent replication of the Roland Sh-101 (hey you can't beat the price), which is definitely one of my favorite sounding/most fun to play synths. Togu also makes a great juno sounding synth and a really nice dub delay, so check out their other (free) plugins.

Togu Audio TAL-Bassline

Specs:
Band-limited oscillators (saw, pulse).
Sub-oscillator: square -1 oct., square -2 oct., pulse -1 oct, pulse -2 oct.
-18 dB/octave low-pass filter (resonant/self-oscillating).
LFO (frequency: 0,1 .. 30 Hz, waveforms: sin, tri, saw, rec, noise).
Very fast nonlinear envelope (A: 1.5ms..4s, D: 2ms..10s, S: 0..100%, R: 2ms..10s).
Simple Arpeggiator (up, down, one octave mode).
2x Unisono Mode.
Panic button.
MIDI automation for all sliders and pots.
Precise fader control while holding down the "Shift" button.
Supports all sample-rates.
2x oversampling.
23 presets.
Tutorial PDF.
~2.5% CPU (Intel Core 2 CPU 6700, 44.1KHz, 24Bit, buffer-size 1024 Samples).

Blip Festival Trailer

Found this on Boing Boing yesterday, a trailer for a documentary on the Blip Festival, musicians that make music using gameboys/hacked NES and other 80s/90s era video game technology.

I've got gameboy with a Nanoloop cart myself. Its pretty satisfying the noises you can make with one. I've been meaning to buy an older gameboy because it has a louder output and richer sound.... apparently....

(trailer below, picture is of Baseck from Sonic Death Rabbit)


BLIP FESTIVAL: REFORMAT THE PLANET trailer from 2 Player Productions on Vimeo.

A humorous history of Midwestern American Breakcore

As a continuation of the Doormouse live set I posted earlier, I stumbled upon a couple of recent radio interviews conducted by Meatsock on 91.7 WHUS FM out of Connecticut.

The first one is with Doormouse (Dan Martin) and its about an hour long. He tells the story of Meat, a short lived hardcore/electronic/noisecore/throwingmeatataudiencecore band that somehow got into playing raves in the mid 90s in the midwest. The band was pretty much a bunch of guys getting drunk on stage, throwing meat at ravers, cutting themselves on stage and pissing into cups and drinking it.



He also talks about his independent label Addict Records and his upcoming project with Otto Von Schirach "Pimp Queetoe".

Interview With Doormouse by Meatsock

The next interview (also by Meatsock) is with fellow Meat member and vastly underrated breakcore artist Stunt Rock (William Flegal), whose entire career has pretty much been an experiment in regret and self destruction. His album "This Is Stunt Rock Volume 3" was one of my favorite releases of 2005... loaded with mediocre breakbeats, kick ass guitar riffs and hilarious movie/tv samples. He uses no sequencer, pretty much just Sound Edit pro on a Mac running OS9.. just samples other artists or from his VCR. Take THAT Burial!



He sets the record straight on Meat as being part of the "anti-rave scene", then talks about his very unsuccessful career as Stunt Rock, doing stand up at his shows, his method of creating his music, continuously being ripped off as a musician and his sample library which originates from a collection of over 900 Betamax tapes. His latest release "Regret Volume 3" comes as a CD and 10", a book, stickers, buttons etc... SO DON'T BE AN ASSOLE AND BUY IT

Interview with Stuntrock by Meatsock

Addict Records (Home of Doormouse and Stunt Rock)
Stunt Rock

Mileece Makes Music... From Plants

From wired's listening post blog:
"Mileece, a London-based artist who makes excellent experimental ambient music under her own name for labels like Fat Cat, managed to coax plant life into producing some really beautiful sounds...."

She's got a tune on Planet-Mu's "Sacred Symbols of Mu Compilation" and some ambient stuff on Bleep under Lo Records. Read the article... short but interesting...

Hacking around obsolete technology

So I've always been lusting after an MC202 just because the sequencer fascinates me. Its a monosynth that has a synth engine pretty much identical to that in an SH101. The one major drawback of both synths being they were manufactured just before MIDI was designed. The MC202 does have a tape sync in and out for backing up sequences to tape.


Well some guy, about 10 years ago found a way to convert midi information into the tones used for the tape sync backup using Java 1.0 and has remained relatively unmodified other than OS updates.


This means you can have the MC202 be played by midi sequences on the computer...yes this does take away from the draw of the MC202's interesting/frustrating sequencer but this guy is working on programming a reverse method. The program is still available for a small fee and has been updated to OSX.


202 Hack - A Better Way to Program Your Roland MC 202


And yes there's plenty of DIN Sync to midi convertors out there (one from Kenton I believe). If you aren't looking to spend any cash... someone in the Ableton forums also created a live set with tempo sync tones for the MC202, but it only works at specific tempos (and there's not much room for shifting within those tempos).

John is Faster's Ableton Sync Solution

Live full Doormouse set

I've got to say I'll always have a special place in my heart for Doormouse. His music is hard, insane, hilarious and stupid. I mean that all in the best possible way.

One day I'd love to see him at a show like this...an outdoor field of ravers trying to keep up with an onslaught of breakcore dropped on them by a dude chugging beer behind a laptop. I think about 10 minutes in everyone gives up and is just confused as to what to do. It's like a metal show exploded inside a rave. This is a guy who has a track called "Six Million More (Every Single Rave Is The Same, I'm Just There For The Money)" and stops his set toward the end to play his tracks at 666 beats per minute. Mental.

Doormouse: Live @ Shawnee Cave in Murphysborough, IL 07-07-07

Live Richard Devine Acid

Nothing better than one of electronic music's greatest minds jamming on a a 303 and a 606 at an audio convention. This is my equivalent to watching Jake E. Lee guitar shred videos on youtube, I guess.



I saw Devine in 2005 at the Little Temple Club in LA. It was the sonic equivalent of being hit in the face with a baseball bat. Truly hard. Truly intense.

Cool Monolake article

Right, well if you haven't heard of Robert Henke or Monolake you've got an immense catalog of music to start wadihttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifng through. Ultra digital minimal techno with plenty of experimental and dub influences. The duo also helped to design Ableton live.

Anyway, Monolake seems to consist of solely Henke now and here's a write up about him at Window: Scene, talking about his live international jam sessions and his latest project.


Robert Henke/Monolake @ Window: Scene)

(from Window: Scene): Monolake describes his music thus: “I create music people can dance to, music people want to experience also with their bodies, massive rhythmical structures, temporary sonic architecture with carefully choosen textures, shimmering details, constantly breathing and pulsating objects in time. …Music in which is nothing is static and which wants to exist as a state rather then a story, music which is the result of an intense occupation with detail and which still leaves enough room for interpretation. Music which improves if played loud over giant speaker stacks. Those works are released under the project name Monolake and usually labelled techno, minimal, electro or dub.” He has performed as Monolake a number of times at various prestigious festivals such as Mutek in Montreal (www.mutek.ca) and Transmediale (www.transmediale.de).

Mario Theme. Played by tesla coils. Yep.

Yeah we've seen the Mario theme covered numerous times in millions of different ways. Apparently, the guys in this video do many different numbers with these dueling coils. Sure its pretty much just electricity synced to music... I don't know how this is done but its fun to watch.

Mooooooon River

One of the many Kid Koala youtube links keeping me happy this weekend. I'm sure this is old but hey there's nothing like a turntablist re-interpreting Moon River. Koala and co. never cease to amaze on this set of videos (the Skanky Panky one is great as well).

PLAID

Saw Plaid this weekend at the Knitting Factory. Was a good show, definitely surprised with all the new material they played. Definitely not as gentle and melodic as previous efforts, also detected a little bit of a dubstep influence in their sound (albeit a lot faster and plaid-like).

Didn't recognize any of the tracks except "Rat's Step" from the Tekkon Kinkreet soundtrack. The encore they played was quite good. Visuals were alright, but not as awesome as people say they are. Can't wait to hear the new album.

 

Not really any crazy equipment to report as they were pretty much in the back of the stage behind their laptops and a big ass mixer. Think I spotted a novation remote sl though.

Eliot Lipp opened which was quite nice. Heard a mix of his through the Alpha Pup Podcast, he did not disappoint. He played some funky instrumental hip hop jams, definitely worth checking out. He was rocking a Korg MS20, MFB Synth II (may have to consider getting one of these, it sounded great), Akai MPD24 in addition to a mixer and some pedals. Some really thick analog sounds and the Knitting Factory sound system was perfect for those thick basses.

Top 10 Albums of 2007

I know its February, but I'm all gung-ho about getting the blog up and running again and I'm also all about supporting my friend Justin's website, Tenning, which is a place where you can go and make top 10 lists. Here's my list and arguments why at Tenning.com

Top 10 Albums of 2007

Episode 8: Rusuden Live From Buster's

Episode 8 comes courtesy of Rusuden again, a live set DJ set recorded by the man himself and forwarded along to me. Good mix of acid and electro.

Episode 8: Rusuden Live From Buster's

(Itunes link here)

Tracklist:

1- Arpanet- GroBvater Paradoxon (Record Makers)

2- Techno Animal- PolyToxic (Porter Ricks Remix) (Force Inc.)

3- Arpanet- Illuminated Displays (Record Makers)

4- Squadra Blanco- Night of Illuminati (Holosynthesis)

5- D'Arcangelo- Diagram VII (80's Mix) (Rephlex)

6- Polarius- Introperspectivity (Creme Organization)

7- Drexciya- Universal Element (Tresor)

8- Legowelt- Detroit 707

9- Japanese Telecom- Cigarette Lighter (International Deejay Gigolo Records)

10- The Tuss- Shiz Ko E (Rephlex)

11- Sleeparchive- Elephant Island (Sleeparchive)

12- Sleeparchive- Bleep 01 (Sleeparchive)

13- Spac Hand Luke- Barrave (Rephlex)

14- Whitetrash Shaolin- Madman on the Loose (Rusuden Disco Mashup) (Soho Six)

15- Rob Acid- Turtle Acid (Dj.Ungle Fever)

16- Metroneem- Skip Code (Satamile Records NYC)

17- Drexciya- Organic Hydropoly Spores (Tresor)

Episode 7: "Perhaps" by Vorpal

Episode 7 comes courtesy of Vorpal, a brand new original track by the man himself, a track called "The End" from an MP3 release of the same name.

Vorpal has released material on Sublight and Cock Rock Disco. Totally original stuff, totally underrated. Enjoy

Episode 7: Perhaps by Vorpal

(Itunes link here)

Episode 6

Right. So London was a fantastic place musically but I just couldn't be arsed to continue the podcast while I was there, but before I left I put something together that was a mix of lots of downtempo stuff I was listening to at the time. This might be the only mix I've ever truly been happy with.

This picture was the view from my flat in West London. I couldn't think of a name, so its just Episode 6.

Episode 6

(Itunes link here)

Tracklist:

1- Luminfire- Jewel Scarabs (Merck)

2- Tom Burbank- Blabber Mouth (Planet-Mu)

3- Cappablack- Counterattack Intro (~scape)

4- Phoenecia- Dilido (Schematic)

5- Thomas Fehlmann- Slinky (Plug Research)

6- MD- Kkowboy (Merck)

7- Eight Frozen Modules- Left Me (Terminal Dusk)

8- Team Shadetek- Gal Yu Nah Beg (Balkan Nights Mix) (Shockout)

9- Takeshi Muto- Rotea (Schematic)

10- Modeselektor- Hasir (Bpitch Control)

11- Vorpal- +5 vs. Werewolves (Sublight)

12- Mochipet- Bass Against The Machine (Remix of Machine Drum) (Merck)

13- Gescom- Slow Acid (Skam)

14- SinQ- Epilogue (Monotonik)

15- New Delhi FM- Continuing What Is Yet to Come (Monotonik)

16- Monolake- Bicom (Monolake)

17- Seven Ark feat. MC Simian- Version 1 (Detroit Underground)

18- DJ Food- Inosan (Black Devil Mix Part 1) (Ninja Tune)

19- Clark- Night Knuckles (Warp)

20- Rusuden- Breathe Smoke (Soho Six)

21- Awol One & Daddy Kev- Agony (Meanstreet)

22- Machine Drum- Offs (Live Jam Mix by Bauri) (Merck)

Episode 5: "Of the Desert" By Chip

So in between working a job in East London, rushing to find a flat, getting my macbook repaired and finding proper internet access, Chip became the 2nd artist showcased on Electronicons.

The story with Chip goes, I met him at a show in Los Angeles where I saw him open for Sonic Death Rabbit (live breakcore/metal/hip hop band featuring Baseck). His music was probably the exact polar opposite of SDR, really gentle melodic bright IDM type stuff (you know what I mean).

Anyway, I kept him in the back of my mind, mentioned the podcast to him and he sent me a bunch of soon to be released tracks which I mixed together into a Chip showcase. Its good stuff, take a listen.

Episode 5: "Of the Desert" by Chip

(Itunes link here)

myspace.com/chip

Episode 4: Welcome to August

Rounding off the Electronicons summer of 2006 blitz was this one, nothing special, just a basic mix of what I was listening to at the time, stylistically all over the place but hey thats what electronicons is all about. 

The show then went on a brief hiatus as I packed up and moved to London.

Episode 4: Welcome to August

(itunes link here)

Tracklist:

1- Kerrier District- Realistique (Rephlex)

2- OOO- Chakra Alignment (Sublight)

3- Alex Smoke- Meany (Soma)

4- John Tejada- Forced Fiction (Palette Recordings)

5- Burial- Distant Lights (Hyperdub)

6- Surgeon- Floorshow Part 1 (B2) (Counterbalance)

7- Wisp- 1stop (Sublight)

8- Kettel- Mauerbrecher (Sending Orbs)

9- Scuba- Harpoon (Hotflush)

10- Plaid & Bob Jaroc- Super Positions (Warp)

11- Rusuden- New Religion (Soho Six)

12- Boxcutter- Rikta (Planet-Mu)

13- Richard Devine- Jiffacid (Sublight)

14- Daedelus- Samba Legend (Mush)

15- Machine Drum- Lectro Cherokee Mix (Acidwolf Remix) (Merck)

Episode 3: Modern Times Mix

Yes, this was the third episode, the podcast had been around for a month and I was being pretty consistent... probably because I was unemployed and bumming around Ithaca at the time. 

Actually this mix was kind of a sham because I had found an old tracklist of mine of a set I did on 92 WICB (electronicons: the radio show aired on 106 VIC, the kinder, gentlier sister station) and it was a decent set, a shame I didn't record it. You see at the time (late 2004) WICB was flirting with the idea of having a dedicated electronic music show, sharing a 2 hour slot with a goth/industrial show. Needless to say, after a few episodes, the show was cancelled. ITHACA RADIO/THE MAN/THE SYSTEM JUST WASN'T READY FOR ACID AND BREAKCORE, MANNNNN

 I had just sold my turntables at the time so I decided to just recreate the mix digitally keeping it as true to how I remember the mix as possible.

I feel this mix pretty much sums up my taste in electronic music circa 2004. 

This one's more about the tracklisting than the mixing. Enjoy.

Episode 3: Modern Times Mix

(itunes link here)

Tracklist:

1- Epstein- Cherry (Merck)

2- Squarepusher- Venus No. 17 (Warp)

3- Plaid- Zala (Warp)

4- Venetian Snares- Einstein Rosen-Bridge (Planet-Mu)

5- Amen Andrews- Amental (Rephlex)

6- Syndrone- Triskaideka (Merck)

7- Ceephax Acid Crew- Acid Vaccination (Breakin')

8- DMX Krew- Bad Sector II (Rephlex)

9- The Frost Jockey- Thekobi (Planet-Mu)

Episode 2: Acid Mixes from Rusuden

Continuing on posting the Electronicons episodes, episode 2 came shortly after from Mr. Rusuden who has since become a friend and noteworthy supporter of the electronicons podcast. He had just finished up a small European tour with Line 47, X&Trick and Ceephax Acid Crew and his live set had been posted on the Terminal Dusk website.

Story goes like this:

Me: Hay I liked your live set and your tunes, wanna do podcast?

Him: Sure, here's some exclusive acid remixes of some of my old material.

Me: Sweet.

Him: Stop mentioning I'm from Kentucky.

Me: I'm an idiot.

Anyway if you've never heard Rusuden, he's put out stuff on Terminal Dusk and Soho Six (his own label). He's very underrated and I'm always glad to receive new material from him.

Episode 2: Acid Mixes from Rusuden

(itunes link here)

Tracklist:

1- Gudon (Acid Doritos Mix)

2- Varricane (Acid Morning Mix)

3- Penk-ki (Acid Monkey Mix)

4- Swolnip (Acid Band-Aid Mix)

5- Baloo is Bear (Acid Over Brazil Mix)

Rusuden's website

Episode 1: Acid 20

So long story short: I created this blog about 2 years ago and then forgot about it. I've been busy with other endeavors in my life so the podcast has been put on hold for awhile, but it will hopefully be returning soon (I've got to have some free time eventually, right?)

Anyway, if you are stumbling upon this blog and are unfamiliar with the Electronicons podcast, here is the first episode. This was sort of an experiment in several things: A.) If I could get off my lazy ass and teach myself how to even do a podcast. B.) If I could churn out said podcast at a semi regular rate (look how THAT turned out). C.) If I could mix 20 acid tracks from 20 years in 20 minutes...next time I'll leave my voice out of the beginning....

This was the 1st episode, I put it up July 2006. Hope you enjoy it!

Episode 1: Acid 1985-2006 (link launches in Itunes)

(raw feed here)