FEF

6IE.CR comes out as a link in the newsletter. I clicked on it thinking it might be a promo video or something before I realised what happened

Arrived in Ireland on Saturday. Sign took weeks to arrive, turned out they mistakenly sent it by standard mail instead of tracked (but sent a refund for the difference)

Amazed by how X4 feels packed full of kaleidoscopic detail but also really airy and spacious

Stupid brain is registering the title as POST ?

They should do this and have an exclusive bonus track on the Japanese edition

I disagree because the pianist either plays a score or otherwise decides what to play (e.g. improvisation) as distinct from generative elements. I only have a sketchy understanding of how Max works but as I understand it you can use it to trigger musical events within defined parameters and then refine the parameters to produce more desirable results. I would assume Sean & Rob construct parts with instructions like "play notes in this scale within these rhythmic limitations" or "play combinations of these six notes" and apply conditions and exceptions. Or maybe they invent a melody or chord sequence and have randomized (but controllable) things happening to it or against it. Edit: and I know they've mentioned using "if A then B" type commands My overall point being that it's a different method of composition / performance than sitting down at the old joanna, "Seinfeld voice" not that there's anything wrong with that. One of the most revealing comments they've made about their process, I think, is comparing it to jazz, though it's (as I understand it) generative factors (controlled, to varying extents, beforehand or in real time, by them) that are producing the variations, rather than the decisions (also dependent on parameters) that go into a jazz solo. Also think of Cage and others expanding the parameters of the piano with prepared piano techniques, e.g. using objects to damp the strings or change the timbre - there's a direct lineage from that to the way our bois mess with the envelope

new rig

“The piano is beautiful but it’s dumb,” Booth told me. “It separates the artist from the string.” The clear implication here is that the harpsichord is ugly but intelligent, and you can get right in at them strings

Since they dropped the solo stats bombshell (and "how do you know we haven't" made a solo record) imaginations have gone wild but that should be tempered with this (from the SFJ interview): “We’d get in touch and it would turn out we were doing the same kind of thing, without even talking,” Brown said. “I’m not sure we could do it in the same room now. But we’re often thinking the exact same thing.”

UNDERSTEPS

The background colour and texture of the cover has reminded me of this from the start, reinforced by all the green talk - though I think the spectre of Saville looms over much TDR stuff And while a plain orange inner is probably far from unique, that reminds me of this https://www.discogs.com/Neworder-Roundround/release/77671

Sign Felled Two albums about nothing

RESIGN in a nod to Metallica's mediocre Load / Reload diptych

All 5 tracks are on the download that comes with the vinyl though

twelb-elpAE