Embers
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Posts posted by Embers
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Interesting... I added the WAV collection to my basket last night and they we're all reduced in price to $1.50 each except Portsmouth, which was still listed at $10.00.
Didn't buy them.
Then when I went back today, Portsmouth was now $1.50 and Utrecht was $10.00?
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australia sets shaun roz pls.
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Wow this an amazing band
Surprised to see this! Hometown rep (Brisbane). We named a bridge after them. The Go-Between Bridge.
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you have expressed my question clearly, point by point.
We know that the images have the 80s video as their source, so we must exclude any generative process on the false line of the effects of the windows player, so to speak. At the same time, often, video variations are perfectly coordinated with variations in sound, even very short accents. In order for this to happen, in theory, the original source ( the 80s videos) should be edited for a change of frames and colors in unison with the sound, but nobody wants to belive that there is a human being on this earth assumed a similar burden, for 13 hours. It would be a shocking revelation about the profound nature of the universe; I would come out of it changed. It is also true that, from time to time, the video freezes, as if it were in pause, and the sonic storm goes on.
For my part, even if I understood how the color beams were generated, I still can not understand how you managed to extract frames that contained the entire sequence, to be contracted, until a complete sign of meaning appeared. It's the way you manage to get the reverse process to leave me in the darkest mystery. And even less it is clear to me how, from the barely decipherable relics of a frame, you have been able to trace the original videos: infinitesimal details of compilation of advertising almost forty years old that not only google, but even HAL9000 and it's twins would not be able to intercept. Together with the images, do you get any codes? This fact amazes me more than the videos themselves. I feel the knowledge of the obsolet (me).
Maybe the sound is the video data. Not entirely unreasonable to assume some max/msp magic could handle the rigorous manual labour of what you suggested. Video signal (as stream of numbers) simultaneously sending to Jitter for video processing and MSP for audio processing. Similar atonal noise is made from loading up images into audacity.
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Big acousmatic vibes here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acousmatic_music
Acousmatic compositions are sometimes presented to audiences in concert settings that are often indistinguishable from acoustic recitals, albeit without performers. In an acousmatic concert the sound component is produced using pre-recorded media, or generated in real-time using a computer. The sound material will then be distributed spatially, via multiple loudspeakers, using a practice known as diffusion. The work is often diffused by the composer (if present) but the role of interpreter can also be assumed by another practitioner of the art. To provide a guideline for spatialisation of the work by an interpreter, many composers provide a diffusion score; in its simplest form this might be a graphic representation of the acousmatic work with indications for spatial manipulations, relative to a time-line. -
fun funky pop track with a pleasantly cheap synthline and her weirdly alien looks keep me fixated on the video
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So not a florist. Got it.
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So tonight I was introduced to the awfulness that is CupcaKke, pretty much all of her songs are about sucking or taking dick, which I can't imagine who'd want to this chick looks gross...
I really don't mind this. It's that pussy smashing rap guys make, only from woman's perspective? More power to her. Nice dancehall rhythm.
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interview in The Australian around their studio methods and upcoming Australia tour. Quote here because paywall. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/music/uk-electronic-duo-autechre-a-good-fit-for-dark-mofo/news-story/4891d8a017c356016d7769ccb50d54d9
UK electronic duo Autechre a good fit for Dark MofoIt’s a show business routine observed countless times around the world every night of the year: when the performers take to the stage, the lights dim to momentary darkness and the crowd is conditioned to understand that the performance is soon to begin.
When English electronic music duo Autechre is about to play, however, there’s one major difference: once the lights go out, they stay out.Most major touring artists — in the spheres of pop, rock, dance, heavy metal and everything in between — put quite a lot of thought and effort into their light show. For some, the timing of certain visual effects is just as important as hitting the right musical notes at the right time.Accordingly, an entire profession has emerged around this skill: that of the lighting engineer, whose job it is to make the on-stage happenings look as beautiful and compelling as possible at all times, in the hope that the entire concert experience leaves an indelible impression on the minds of those who paid to see it.Autechre is different in many ways, but in the live arena, it might be the only popular act to take this singular approach of removing all light sources. This policy, dating back years, has become an attraction in its own right.Picture it: a dance floor filled with bodies moving to loud, disorienting, shapeshifting sounds composed by two men who have devoted their lives to learning and mastering a sequencing software whose limitations are boundless.On stage, their screens are dimmed to the lowest possible setting, and only the booming speaker system gives you a sense of where they are positioned in the room. But otherwise? Total darkness, for an hour or more. To the inquisitive music fan, doesn’t that sound like just the sort of thing that should be experienced at least once in your life?“There’s something more cinematic about not being able to see it, paradoxically,” says Rob Brown, who formed the duo in 1987 with Sean Booth.“Because you’re listening to the music, and you don’t have to close your eyes; we’ve done you that favour. It’s almost like everyone was listening to a really high quality headphone mix, but with that anonymous kind of group dynamic in the room.“Taking the lights out really does give people something else — which is really backwards, but it works,” says Brown via Skype from his home in Bristol.“There’s something about following that line with us for an hour or longer: we’re in the same place together, and it’s not like there’s any border any more. With lights, it almost defines the border between the ‘them’ and the ‘us’. With this, it’s more immersive, it’s more inclusive, and there’s really no compass whatsoever.”There was a transition period towards darkness, of course: the duo didn’t just flick a switch from one show to the next.After its 1993 debut album, Incunabula, was released on independent label Warp Records — home to Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada, among others — Brown and Booth followed up with Amber the following year.While touring that album, they played under amber tones, but began to query their lighting engineer about exploring the darker end of the spectrum. They knew red occupied the lowest frequency, but entire shows drenched in that one hue wasn’t quite working for them. Brown recalls: “Sean was getting to the point of saying, ‘F..king hell, just turn the lights off.’ ”So they did, and so it has continued, though not without slight difficulties in booking venues that agree to the unusual blackout request. It’s fitting, too, that one of Autechre’s three Australian shows this week is part of the Dark Mofo festival in Hobart.Another way in which Autechre is not your average electronic music act is the fact that its most recent release, NTS Sessions 1-4, is an eight-hour collection of music that was first broadcast live on digital radio station NTS in two-hour blocks on four consecutive weekends in April.“Some people will take it and run with it, and they’re our kind of people,” says Brown of the eight-hour duration. “That’s what happens when you expose yourself to certain things: at first it might seem daunting, but afterwards, you realise: Actually, well, why isn’t all stuff like this?”Though Incunabula and Amber were rooted in electro, hip hop and industrial music, it was 1995’s Tri Repetae that truly announced the duo as creators of a sound that is entirely and unmistakably its own.That intent has certainly carried through to NTS Sessions 1-4, which received a near-perfect rating on influential online music magazine Resident Advisor, which defined the style of music using just one word: Autechre.“A lot of people were really enamoured by that moment, because it was finally not IDM,” says Brown, referring to the “intelligent dance music” label with which the duo has been laden for many years, alongside Aphex Twin and others. “It was finally not ‘glitch’, not ‘electronica’. I think we’ve always seen (our music) like this; we’ve always seen it as us.”Between those early releases in the 1990s — which are easily accessible to anyone familiar with the concept of using computers for sound composition — and today, Autechre has released an extraordinary amount of material.During their 31-year partnership, Brown and Booth have amassed what Resident Advisor has described as “one of the most labyrinthine sound worlds in modern music”.It is music created without instruments, as such, but instead programmed using software called MaxMSP, which essentially operates as something of a third member. As they pass files between their home studios in Bristol (Brown) and Manchester (Booth), the software is constantly responding to their individual habits and instructions.“It’s hard for me to describe it as ‘learning’ from what we do,” Brown says of MaxMSP. “If anything, we build systems that actually register the kind of things we like in music, or the things we would do. It sort of impersonates us. It’s a system that gets more and more vast and increasingly complex, but is actually built on doing the things that we like to do. Sometimes we’ll connect certain modules and patches — and then there’ll be two things playing off each other, like me and Sean playing off each other.”Brown compares the software to the concept of building with Lego: with enough blocks, the possibilities are limitless. While that blank-slate approach to composing and arranging music might be terrifying to some, for these two friends — who met through Manchester’s graffiti scene in 1987 — the software has enabled a perfect fit between two men and their machines.“We love it,” says Brown. “I think we’re both quite easily distracted, and we like to get our teeth into something that appears to be new. I think that’s why we’re not getting bored at any point soon. The way I see it, I’m not a programmer; I’m not even a musician. We’re just inquisitive.”It is that sense of boundless curiosity and exploration that Autechre will bring to Australia this week, for its first visit to these shores in eight years. When the lights go out, and stay out, do not be alarmed.Autechre will perform in Sydney on Wednesday, followed by Melbourne (Thursday) and Hobart (Friday). -
honestly it's not like it's terrible, i just hate how conceptual his work is. i don't think i ever liked opn, i just like tangerine dream so i love russian mind/rifts. and replica was something special. but he's pulled a tim hecker and gotten very full of himself.
yes! the conceptual baggage has bogged down his work more and more with each record. his music comes across as very clunky and bombastic to me, not many subtle sweet spots. he’s got talent and like you said it’s def not terrible but it’s all very overblown to me.
Seems I'm the minority, but I really enjoy how conceptual this album is. OPN's world is darkly oblique and very obscure and Age Of has honestly been one of the most refreshing and challenging listening experiences in some time.
Exploring a data dump in a technological wasteland is only really possible because we have entered an age of sophistication with machines where these concepts are no longer exclusive to science-fiction but are intersectional with a potential reality. 'Toys 2' is based on the idea of Robin Williams not wanting his likeness used in future media, like a CGI young Carrie Fisher in the film Rogue One, or a Michael Jackson hologram on stage. Or take 'Same', where a self-aware AI is alone and imprisoned and sings about deleting itself- machine suicide.
These possibilities realised because of recent technological developments. It's not a stretch of the imagination to place these concepts in an apocalyptic setting, in fact they are quite at home; Boards of Canada did the same thing with Tomorrow's Harvest just with different reference material. The glitch, noise and horror elements of Age Of add directly to that atmosphere.
Stylistically OPN is confusing and obfuscating on this album, but to me that's the point. We are moving into an uncharted digital future with unknown possibilities. Age Of simply explores some of these unknown possibilities.
And it's sweet and sweet on repeat.
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The gentle FM-pop vibe keeps me coming back to this album. Very aquatic and serene at times, especially diggin the latter half of Toys 2. The first OPN I've given a repeated listen! Definitely growing on me ~
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The autotuned vocals have the same sound/vibe as those from the "Channel Pressure" collab with Joel Ford. Sounded much more refined on that album, perhaps because it was Joel's voice.
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Around 2006, back when MSN Messenger was the chat client and you could have the now playing thing next to your name. A friend of mine from Trinidad was playing BoC's In A Beautiful Place ep, in particular the track Zoetrope. "Boards of Canada - Zoetrope" caught me and that string of words spun around in my head for a few days. I had to listen just to find out what it all meant and I got instantly hooked on their music.
last.fm was also insanely popular at the time and after playing BoC for so long Autechre's Amber came up as a recommendation. I had a look, saw they were on the same label as BoC and that got me intrigued. The artwork alone gave me such an immense alien feeling. At one point I just spent an hour just looking over it, just feeling it. It gave me absolutely no indication of what Amber would sound like, but it gave me the feeling of the album. It was beautiful.
Listening in, the first 3 tracks were pretty good but didn't get me hooked, but then SLIP came on and my whole musical world was shattered. It was bewildering, confusing, so smoothly crystalline and tonally vibrant all at once. The melody and background flutters are super lush. The modulations keep the whole things fresh for 6+ mins. At the time I couldn't believe it was made in the early/mid-90s, and it still sounds so futuristic today.
I dove headfirst into the discography deep end after that! I bought nearly everything on CD they had released up until that point.
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so many casuals (good tracks)
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this album is giving me major Global Communication vibes
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Haven't been into one of their albums so much since Hydroponic Garden. Defos picking up the vinyl for this one.
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I came across an interesting quote in my readings and saw the immediate applicability to the album. This quote was so powerful and the connections to the album so clear that I contemplated it for days and wrote up my thoughts. Or maybe I'm just severely autistic, eh, probably. You make up your own mind.
Marcus Manilius (fl. 1st century AD), a Roman poet and astrologer, said of the Gemini twins in his poem Astronomica,"From the Twins come less laborious callings and a more agreeable way of life, provided by varied song and voices of harmonious tone, slender pipes, the melodies inborn in strings and the words fitted thereto: those so endowed find even work a pleasure. They would banish the arms of war, the trumpet's call, and the gloom of old age: theirs is a life of ease and unfading youth spent in the arms of love. They also discover paths to the skies, complete a survey of the heavens with numbers and measurements, and outstrip the flight of the stars: nature yields to their genius, which it serves in all things. So many are the accomplishments of which the Twins are fruitful."Astronomica itself is a hexameter didactic poem.The number 6 and associated symbolism (primarily, hexagons) is a recurring item in Boards of Canada's music.Didactic refers to something that is "intended to teach, particularly in having moral instruction as an ulterior motive." - Tomorrow's Harvest could be interpreted as didactic, commentating on how our current behaviours affect ourselves, our environment and inform our future (direct instruction / teaching), but also providing an opportunity for self-reflection, reparations and a path to salvation (moral instruction - "a more agreeable way of life", "banish the arms of war", "life of ease...in the arms of love").Comments on phrases from the quote, as they relate to Tomorrow's Harvest"...laborious callings..." - a direct reference to the album's title. A call to action. Work that must be performed soon. Something that must happen in the future. Something that must be faced in the future. Tomorrow's Harvest. Ties in with the sense of "something impending" oft used to described the album, even by the brother's themselves in an interview."...less laborious callings and a more agreeable way of life..." - the quote indicates that the Twins call for an easement in work, or hardship, and a better way of living. This ties back into the moral instruction of the album. The only way to prevent our future suffering is to better ourselves in the present, to unburden ourselves from potential hardship. We can change the future by changing the present, that we do not need to walk the path of self-destruction."...provided by varied song and voices of harmonious tone, slender pipes, the melodies inborn in strings and the words fitted thereto..." - a direct reference to the music.After the trumpet vignette (which itself is a signal of the coming apocalypse, as said in the Bible's Book of Revelation), the body of the track Gemini fades in with strings.slender pipes and melodies - woodwind, particularly flute-esque melodies, are a recurring theme in BoC's music.words fitted thereto - the album heavily features both subtle and non-subtle samples of human spoken word, Gemini included."...the gloom of old age..." - the emphasis on the old age being a negative ties in with the moral instruction to change for the better, that something has changed or will [have to] change for the better. The transition from the old age to the new age, from darkness to light, that something is not the end but the beginning. This further ties in with the theme of cycles on the album. This is perhaps reflected in the track Gemini by the swirling, oscillating noise that backs the intense striking of chords. The album itself goes through 5 cycles of birth>death>rebirth and can be correlated to the 4 sides of the vinyl edition.Side A: Gemini (the call for better living) > Jacquard Causeway (an uneasy, perhaps perilous time or journey)Side B: Telepath (a new kind of life) > Collapse (destruction)Side C: Palace Posy (a very indigenous beat in this track, almost tribal/primitive, represents the dawn of a new society) > Sundown (coming of darkness)Side D: New Seeds (a new beginning, a new era, a new society) > Come To Dust (to die), followed by Semena Mertvykh ("Seeds of the Dead" - a new society emerges from the ashes) which cycles back onto the first track, Gemini."...unfading youth..." - BoC often touch on nostalgia, most often tied to sensory experiences that occurred in our youth, and directly ties in with BoC's style and sound. In the context of the quote, it implies a positive: direct instruction to be carefree, to live well and happily. However, on Tomorrow's Harvest, it is commentary that we are negatively tied to the past, and the moral instruction to better ourselves is to unhinge from the past and instead look forward to where we are headed. The duality of this interpretation, not only a reference to the duality of the Gemini twins, but also highlights the tension between where we currently are at, and where we should be. That tension is change, specifically and how society often oscillates (cycles) between change and resistance to change."...discover paths to the skies..." - reflective of the album's imagery, particularly the music video for "Reach for the Dead" which features scenes of flying through the sky, the air, the sign of Gemini. But also implies a level of technological sophistication, as a human requires understanding and invention of tools to fly. It is interpreted that technology may be our downfall, that it may outstrip our control, causing a catastrophic event. The album is littered with reference to understanding and technology, from the radioactive yellow on the vinyl (nuclear technologies requires understanding of matter), to the idea of a harvest (a human development that requires understanding of agriculture and associated technologies). Perhaps the idea is that which brings us so much ease and knowledge, that which identifies us as human - our ability to craft and use tools - can also undo us. Not an original idea for the album, but a common one used in all sorts of media that touches on catastrophic/apocalyptic failings of humans."...complete a survey of the heavens with numbers and measurements..." - a call back to BoC's earlier work that was heavily laden with references to mathematical concepts (numbers and measurements). A meta-reference that BoC themselves have yet again changed their sound on Tomorrow's Harvest. It may be BoC saying they as people have changed ("We've become more nihilistic", as quoted in an interview), an implicit example that people can change. The idea of surveying and measurement also ties back into the previous line of thought of technological sophistication and building knowledge. But can also be abstracted into the idea of surveying and measuring how things are, to make an assessment and to make changes for the better."...outstrip the flight of the stars..." - still following the line of thought on technological sophistication."...nature yields to their genius, which it serves in all things." - commentary on the ubiquity and pervasiveness of technology in nature. That their genius (their technology, their ability to manipulate their surroundings with said technology) serves all things (complete control of nature). But when we are so in control of our environment, what do we do with all that power? That is the core question presented on Tomorrow's Harvest- and we can be destructive or fruitful. This is the ultimate moral consideration presented here."So many are the accomplishments of which the Twins are fruitful." - the ultimate direct instruction. We should use what control have for the better, to be fruitful, and for all to prosper without war, but in peace and love. To not live in the old age, but move into a new age. To live a more agreeable way of life.-
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Max/MSP
in EKT General Discussion
Posted
+1 to 'aren't sure what to do with it' aspect. I understand what max can do, but really didn't have any ideas about what can I do with it. Step by Step has given me a fundamental way build up patches from very simple beginnings.