The first one is a fantastic mix by House of House.
(really really loving everything they are doing)
HOUSE OF HOUSE MIX FOR RESIDENT ADVISOR
Romanthony – Testify (Soul Vamp)
Rudoulpho – Touch Me
Paperclip People – Slam Dance
Kuba Sojka – Voice Of Soul
Joe Claussell – Je Ka Jo (Crazy Vocal Mix)
Francois Kevorkian – Edge Of Time (Tees’s Freeze Mix)
JohNick – Play The World
The Soundman – The Factory (Klubb Kidz Flava Dub)
U.B.P. Presents Jay Williams – Testify (Mousse T’s Test-A-Dub)
House Of House – Rushing To Paradise (Tapesh Remix)
Heaven & Earth – Space And Time
Peter Van Hoesen – Face Of Smoke
DBX – Bleep
Emptyset – Seclusion
The Martinez Brothers – Won’t Somebody
Peverelist – Clunk Click Every Trip
Mariah Carey – Fly Away (Butterfly Reprise)
STL – Loop
The other is from our friend Paul Dickow aka Strategy who will also be performing with Miracles Club at Linger and Quiet's Nightclubbing next saturday night. woot woot. paul' s mix is strictly Portland roots mon. check it jah!
STRATEGY
01 Watty Burnett "Rainy Night in Portland" (Black Ark)
02 Strategy/DJ Slip "Drumsolo's Revenge Remix" (ORAC)
03 Atole "Dirty Bird" (Community Library)
04 Nu Shooz "I Can't Wait" (Atlantic)
05 Solenoid "Ingrid" (audraglint)
06 Jungle Nausea "Uniform" (Inner Mystique)
07 Reanimator "Blown Subidah" (Community Library)
08 Lifesavas "Headexercise" (Quannum)
09 Nice Nice "See Waves" (Warp)
10 Portland Bike Ensemble "unknown" (Olde English Spelling Bee)
11 Jefrey Leighton Brown "Prayer for Earth" (Jaffe)
12 Daniel Menche "Vulgar Scratch" (Gender-less Kibbutz)
13 Operative "Pulse" (Ecstasy)
14 Strategy "World House" (Community Library)
15 Miracles Club "Chango" (Leech Remix)" (Ecstasy)
16 The Ash Street Peddlers "U Dubbed Me" (Flooded)
17 Hedford Vachal "Toys" (Tirk)
There was a long process in putting together Operative where I was researching building a variety of synthesizers and other equipment and then using some concepts I found there (and in early acid house and psychoacoustic music) as the starting point for our early songs. I also wound up building a modular synthesizer of my own that's a relatively conventional analog synthesizer, mainly from printed circuit boards designed by Ray Wilson.
The stuff that really got my mind reeling is built by a category of builders, designers, musicians, and engineers that I call the "fringe synth" inventors. I don't mean that pejoratively, but because most of this stuff is so diabolically creative, utopian, and strangely beautiful that it is in a class all its own. Some of these instruments would work fine in a rock or pop band, but most tend towards idiosyncratic uses dreamed up by their creators. But I thought I'd share some of my findings with the heads of E-Blog.
The Stribe
The Stribe is actually not all that out there, its a USB connected touch controller for video and audio developed by Josh Boughey. Set-up something like a mixer LED readout with a touch sensitive ribbon controller over it, it can interface with computer based software like Ableton Live, Max/MSP, etc. It just looks amazing, though and has that Star Trek console feel that a good electronic music instrument should. I believe they were made for a second, but seem to exist mostly as an open source DIY project.
The Harmonicon
I know much less about the instruments on Nick's World of Synthesizers, but Nick is apparently one very prolific dude. My favorite has to be his Harmonicon, which is an analog just intonation synthesizer, which if it were easy to build, I would have built it long ago. Because it is an all analog synth and standard 1V/oct CV control doesn't really hack it for the mathematical precision of just scales, Nick went and build a separate oscillator per note for a total of 88 oscillators and what was probably a wiring nightmare, not to mention the hassle of doing whole number ratio math just to come up with your own scale! The Harmonicon is truly an epic work.
Eric Archer rules. He makes electronic music instruments that are useful and familiar, but are out there enough in terms of design to place him marginally within this category. Above we have a brief tour of what I think includes some of Eric Archer's personal equipment for his group E Squared plus a few more inventions that have been available in small batches as kits. The second video is of the Andromeda Space Rockers, small modular drum machine circuits synchronized by infared light.
Last but not least, one of the big dogs, Peter Blasser of Baltimore, MD, Ciat-Lonbarde. Peter makes a variety of instruments including the Sidrassi Organ, a pressure sensitive organ, and the Cocolase voltage controlled 8 bit sampling delay box. Locally here in PDX, Ju Suk Reet Meate of Smegma makes great use out of the Sidrassi and Todd Dickerson of Soup Purse has elevated the finicky and insane Cocolase to a (somewhat) precise art. Ciat-Lonbarde's instruments are like psychedelic folk art and have a strangeness and mystery to their musical interface that's just plain uncommon. Liberate your mind and check out the Ciat-Lonbarde youtube playlist to see what I'm talking about. You need to experience the thing itself! Or if you're feeling crafty, do some clever Googling and search out Peter B's paper circuits, which offer glimpses at what a proper C-L machine can do.
I'm leaving out tons of inspiring builders and maniacs (I'm even leaving out locals, Folk-Tek, who deserve more than the quick mention here), but hopefully its good enough to get your brain jogging.
Generally speaking, Rafael and I prefer to have nothing to do with fur because, let's face it, animals are really cute when they are ALIVE. but when Bryce Isbell sent us 'clears throat' a new song of his under the Fur moniker.. we just couldn't resist. REMIX! (in my rapper voice)
for some reason, today kinda feels like blade runner friday. why? i have no idea. maybe because we are back to winter, post-fake spring here in portland or maybe because i've been listening to some greco-futuro-ambient metal techno vibrations of hours of worship. because we are crewtial bros(and a hella, crunk cat collage i made them a while back) they give me privy to their secret record that will be coming out very soon. and there is some rumor going around that they have covered a voivod song?! which is funny because i saw voivod open up for metallica at the warfield in san francisco when i was like, 18. and i only went to look cool to a guy that i had a crush on who was in the band neurosis. there i said it.
Hey, everybody, we're very pleased to announce two of our artist/contributors to E-Blog, have a spring offering for you.
OPERATIVE "Pulse"
"Pulse" is our homage to the square wave and to its self-modulation, implying steady rhythm but also variation by its very structure. Binaural high-hats beat out a martial time while analog circuits bubble out into a thick, stroboscopic sunset. If our song "Ramp" is James Tenney trying to meet Joey Beltram half-way, then maybe "Pulse" is Steve Reich "Music for 18 Musicians" slouching towards Orbital's "Halcyon & On & On".
"The ecstasy laser sweeps down on Friday night, you and your crew. This is dream house, a sound not unlike what triumphed in mid-Eighties Chicago, but with a shimmering, psychedelic sound world. "Light of Love" is the beauty of the road and the wide-open plane, the feeling you're all alone on the dance floor and that you own the night. Awhirl in a collage of piano, conga, acid-touched bass, and "a-la a-la-la-la-la" you find yourself echoing waaaaaay past the dawn."
Operative (via Root Strata) and Miracles Club have digital EPs out now (or soon) at you're favorite digital download outpost (iTunes, Boomkat, etc), so keep an eye out. In a matter of weeks we'll have the 12" vinyl edition available through the bands with click -to-order links here. Hit up operativegroup@gmail.com and miraclesclub@gmail.com respectively for updates!
meet our cutty, situationist-acrobat friend avalon. we've seen him put on all-day drum circles with multiple full drum kits, make face-paint in the dark, sneak around the bins collecting artifacts for secret happenings, share the birthday of one adam forkner and lastly, develop a passion for throwing together a last minute, chicago house set with dancers and singers and even gloves! so exactly one year later we beg him to please please send us something, anything. and so he did. thank ya.
