Resident Advisor Interview

I did an interview for Resident Advisor [LINK]. It's studio focused, so mostly it's for the hardcore music tech geeks and synth nerds among us, but even if you're not an über geek there's some wonderful pictures to look at.

NEWS ITEM. BRAZIL EP. Poetry, photographs, vinyl records and Elijah Wood.

Hello there much neglected blog, I have some relevant information to impart.

BRAZIL EP, after much time maturing in a metaphorical oak-barrel, is finally seeping into existence. The digital number-swirl-MP3s have been packeting around the internet for a few weeks already, and by now the fully-real physical manifestations should be sitting in the racks and shelves of your local specialist music store. I urge you to buy the vinyl. URGE. URGE. OK?

here is some relevant information about this release;

- new 'slow' version of Brazil, a club-tempo mix of the track for DJs who want people to dance in circles
- old 'album' version of Brazil, a strange song of unknown powers, designed by a blue magician high with the energy of future duct-flow particles, playable by DJs who want people to stand still and then dance in triangles
- GOLD PANDA remix, a talented man who is very nice and who is welcome in my house for a cup of tea any day
- ETIENNE JAUMET remix, a shaman of modern synth music who oozes awesomeness from his hands
- Grumble, a new track I did, it features a bass-line, it has a bit where it slows down, deep within it is the sound of child saying the word 'balloon'

URGE.

NEWS FLASH! MORE RELEVANT INFORMATION TO FOLLOW

There is a video for Brazil, that's right, a VIDEO. The VIDEO was made by me and two other people. One of the other people is Katherine Mager, she did all of the camera work and she also did thinking about the video before it was made, she is a photographer usually and this is her first video, she has a fine eye for interesting things to look at. And the other one of the people is Sam Riviere, he did all of the writing for the text that is in the video, he is a poet and a very nice man, he would probably do a better blog post than this if he was in charge of the LUKEABBOTTMUSIC blog, but he's not and I am, so you're stuck with me prattling on with these stupidly long sentences not knowing when to finish saying something, using too many commas, deconstructing grammar into a conversational tone and writing URGE in unexpected places as some kind of callback to an earlier part of the blog post. I also did some stuff for the video, editing and thinking and stuff.

Here is a link to watch the video on Vimeo, where you will find a lot of other visual entertainment that features my music.
VIMEO LINK

..and it's on youtube also, here is that link.
YOUTUBE LINK

Watch it full-screen in HD with the sound up and your glasses on.

And finally, Elijah Wood of cinematic fame has made his bid in the race to become my most high profile fan. Don't you worry, I love everyone equally, there's no favouritism in my house. But having said that, why not take a leaf out of Elijah's book and get really famous and help me sell some record yeah?

ELIJAH WOOD LINK





URGE.

my new live set.

For a while now I've been gigging with a laptop set. I've had no end of problems with MIDI controllers; I tried the evolution controllers and they just go wrong for no apparent reason, I had one of those Behringer ones with the motor-faders and the rotary controllers on it were awful and the motor-faders didn't work too well either, I had one of those AKAI APC40's which also suffers from shit rotary controllers as well as bad design and poor build quality. Eventually I got so frustrated with the poor design and cheap construction of most commercially available controllers that I built my own MIDI controller based around a Doepfer USB64...

...this actually works pretty well, the pots are really nice and much more responsive than stupid-awful-slow-backwards endless encodor things. Also, it's really strong cos I got the faceplate machined out of aluminum, so it's much more road-worthy than most other things I've owned.

But in a typically dissatisfied manner, I was still a bit frustrated with my software-based live show. It's just seems a bit unnatural for me to go from a studio full of hardware to a live show that's all software. So I've decided to reinvent my live set as a more hardware orientated affair. Anyone who managed to make it to my album launch party at Ginglik would have seen me playing with a small modular case, this was my first attempt at bridging the studio/live divide with a hardware solution. But it turns out that modular synths should really stay at home, as gigging with them is asking for trouble, not to mention backache. And with that in mind, in a financially and logistically inadvisable fashion, I've spent the last month or so buying new gear for my new live set up...

...heavier, less functional, more prone to damage, more expensive, harder to travel with. Yep, this is less practical than a laptop set in almost every way. But, it sounds better and it's more fun. And I still have to carry a laptop around anyway as all this stuff needs to get it's MIDI from somewhere, and I'm not gonna start gigging with my MMT8 cos the buttons are breaking. Oh well.

Anyway, for the synth-nerds reading this, here's a run down of the kit I'm using;

Soundcraft Notepad mixer - only 50 quid and sounds great, makes nice distortion on the 2 mic channels if you turn the gain up, especially good for adding a bit of weight to kick drums.

DSI Tetra - despite the absolutely terrible editing software, this is still the smallest good sounding polysynth you can buy, so I didn't really have much choice.

MFB 522 - I love the MFB stuff, it's brilliant. This drum machine is small, light, cheap (for what it is) and it sounds brilliant. I love the kick drum especially.

MFB Nanozwerg - just sounds great, this synth is really well thought out, amazing price for what it is.

TC Electronic Nova Repeater - I've had a few different delay pedals recently, I never realised how fussy I am about delays... this one is by far the best designed and best sounding one I've found, the way it's laid out make it really playable, it's more like another instrument than an effect.

Behringer CS100 - this is a really crap compressor pedal, I bought it at a car-boot-sale for 4 quid, it makes loads of hum and buzz and it distorts things in a very cheap and nasty way, so obviously it's fantastic for doing weird things to drum parts. Splashy popping fuzzy hats and clonky snare hits. 4 quid well spent, I wish I could have found everything at boot-sales.

All that in an extra large pedal board to make setting up and gigging a little bit less stressful. Plus, the laptop sending MIDI out everywhere, and a couple of audio channels incase I need to fill-out the sound, and a LauchPad and a FaderFox (the two MIDI controllers that I still like) to control all that.

EFF WHY EYE

FYI. All the videos (so far) that have been made in support of my music (mostly by Dan and Mikey) are all in one place, for easy high-ish-quality internet viewing. That place is the wonderful new LUKEABBOTTVIDEO vimeo page.

Mix on Vessel

I probably should have blogged this sooner, in fact i may have done so already and forgotten, but either way... I did a mix for Vessel Music, you can find it here. It's got some lovely tracks in it I think, but I would say that coz I chose them. The high point is the R Stevie Moore track 'Skin Mags', which is quite possibly my favorite recording ever. Anyway, listen to it loud and please excuse all the vinyl crackle.

Acid Housework

Socks box (x0xb0x) is finished. It sounds, well, it sounds exactly like a tb303, that's because it pretty much is one. I have been celebrating by playing with it all morning while slowly getting on with the house work, making sure it is up loud enough to be heard over the vacuum cleaner.

In other news....

I have rid my self of all urges to live in a forest with a MachineDrum... and have instead decided to challenge James' modular system with a system of my own. It has been said that the wonderful thing about modular systems is that individual modules are undetectable by girlfriends, so I'm looking forward to navigating my way down a slippery path that will eventually end in growing a beard and a belly, and wearing flip-flops and a cardigan. And maybe even making some music.

Before I open the flood gates on that one though I've got to finish building my x0xb0x... Word of advise, if you ever buy one of these kits make sure you get them to put the USB chip on for you... surface mounted chips are horrible to solder. But I'm almost done, I should finish it tonight providing I don't have to do any washing up or cooking or anything. I can't wait to hook it up to my tr606 and get early acid-house all over the living room.

Some things that i have been using to make music with recently...

Broadway Cinema

This Thursday night I'm doing some music/pictures with my mate Dan Teledisco.. it's at Broadway Cinema in Nottingham where Dan currently has some work being displayed by way of a projection in their window. I think we're playing in the bar, i don't know what we're going to do yet but we'll be using this kind of stuff...

...so if you live in Nottingham and you like to watch people risk electrocution in the name of art, then come along.

And if you live in London and are looking for adventure on Saturday night, then come along to Ginglik where I'll be doing a laptop thing and there'll be lots of other people doing lots of other things too, and it'll be fun... and if that's not enough for you then come to Sonic Cathedral on Sunday as well to see Ricardo and James doing more music!

Ciat Lonbarde

 
Here is something else that I made on a table... it's a Ciat-Lonbarde 'Fourses' instrument.  You can buy them as a kit and put them together your self, and as long as you can hold a soldering iron and read instructions then it's not that hard.

It's a pretty bizarre instrument, it screams and squeaks all kind of wonderful electronic gibberish.  Since i built it about two years ago I've been on a mission to tame it's madness, mostly through building various sequencing devices for it, the most successful of these was based upon this running light sequencer which once i adapted it slightly managed to make the Fourses do some sort of electro rhythms reminiscent of sounds from Radioactive Man's excellent Body Trap album.  I also use the Fourses hooked up to a hacked TR626, they seem to get along quite nicely and the 626 can act as a midi clock master which is handy if you want to use the Fourses for things that stay in time...

 The guy who runs/is Ciat Lonbarde is called Peter, I met him when i was in New York once at the Bent Festival ..I didn't talk to him for long, but I got the impression that we were probably from different planets... I have a massive amount of respect for him though, he making some of the most beautiful and  innovative electronic instruments I've ever seen/heard.  

Tuesday EP

The best reason to buy Tuesday ep on vinyl is the artwork... it took me and my girlfriend Kat ages to get it right, my favorite things in it are the bunting and the clouds, both of which Kat did, I did the more manly things like building the hills and doing the grass and stuff like that.  I really want to make another diorama, but i haven't got reason to make one at the moment...