lovely sounds

the 2014 studio diary is a project where i will be exploring sounds in my studio on a day-to-day basis (or whenever i'm not too busy to play.) typically i'll be making loops, phrases, sounds... experimenting with different equipment and techniques. no rules, no big goals, just exercising my creativity and hopefully learning a lot along the way.

i originally intended this to be a modular synthesis sound-a-day project, as i have fully  jumped back into eurorack after 10 years away from it, but the creation of a nice loop with some non-modular gear as i was setting up my new studio lead to the start of the project. i will always choose serendipity over most planned courses of action.

please check back to this diary on a regular basis. i will do my best to explain the sounds when i can and if you have any questions please leave them in the comments section.

may your 2014 be creative, productive, and peaceful.

2014 Studio Diary

Estrelas

monk

Selection

Exclusive cover of Donovan's 'Get Thy Bearings' for Bonobo's Late Night Tales, released 17th November.

Order direct: http://goo.gl/xBh6nz 
Order via iTunes: http://goo.gl/jL0XoQ 
Late Night Tales iTunes room: http://goo.gl/ABJ5X 
Spotify: http://goo.gl/Q98T7d

Follow Late Night Tales:

Web: http://latenighttales.co.uk
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/latenighttales1
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LateNightTales
SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/latenighttales
YouTube: http://youtube.com/latenighttalestv
Instagram: http://instagram.com/latenighttalesofficial
Spotify: http://goo.gl/Q98T7d
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/curator/late-night-tales/1233898093
Bandcamp: https://latenighttales.bandcamp.com/

Bonobo ft. Szjerdene - Get Thy Bearings [Exclusive Cover] (Late Night Tales: Bonobo)

Unstitch

More info, full EP and HQ download: asip.me/ASIP028

There’s always private pleasure in seeing beauty where others don’t. Sometimes it’s just a case of the personal outweighing the spectacular but in a part of the world as vast and stunning as Yorkshire, the abundance of scenery makes finding that place an infinitely easier coincidence. Ilkley or ‘Heather Spa’ is one such place for 36 aka Dennis Huddleston. A moorland area on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, it’s served as both a place of escape and inspiration.

“It’s a place I’ve visited many times at various stages of my life,” he begins, “coming from Bradford, which has had its fair share of social and economic problems over the years, Ilkley provided an escape from the city and is somewhere me and my friends spent many days and nights. It isn't the largest, nor the most beautiful countryside in England, but it has an undeniable charm that’s felt by everyone who’s visited.”

You feel that connection throughout ‘Heather Spa’. It’s one of familiarity and rejuvenation with the exhale of the strings evoking happiness and a gazing contentment. ‘Heather Spa (Burning)’ is just as poised and gentle with its slow, weaving melodies and whilst it’s more clouded and subdued, it leaves a determinedly resonant impression.

“There was a huge fire in 2006 which destroyed vast areas of the moorland,” Dennis explains. “I had visited it only a few days prior and the lush green land was replaced by charred cinders, completely decimating the landscape. It was quite a sight to behold and there was an undeniable melancholy in the air. Reseeding efforts and the tough will of nature has reversed most of the damage and Ilkley Moor is alive once again.”

The initial inspiration for the ‘Shadow Play’ album, this final instalment of ‘Heather Spa’ marks the culmination of Dennis’ personal trilogy, and helps the ‘Heather Spa EP’ feel like a very natural conclusion to a journey of transition, progression and redemption.

"It's come full-circle in a way,” Dennis muses, “Heather Spa as a concept was the catalyst for my latest album 'Shadow Play' and you can see three distinct yet fully-connected chapters on what is a single story; the inception with Heather Spa, the realisation with Shadow Play, and finally with this EP for the ASIP Places Series, an epilogue. I think they're some of the most emotional pieces of music I've worked on and I hope you enjoy taking this final journey with me, right back at the place where it started."

ASIP028 36 - Heather Spa

Selected as the official Digital Bonus Track for the Japanese edition of Nils Frahm’s ‘Screws Reworked’ – out December 11, 2015. More info: www.inpartmaint.com/site/15218/

Nils Frahm - You (Teen Daze Rework)

A first preview to Marsen Jules new album "Beautyfear" to be released in January 2014 on Oktaf Records.

With "Beautyfear" on Oktaf Records the German electronic musician Marsen Jules (CCO, 12K, Kompakt) delivers one of his most outstanding albums so far. Mastered by no one else than 12K-labelboss Taylor Deupree and with a coverpicture taken by the highly acclaimed photographer Erik Madigan Heck from NYC, the best conditions are laid for a lasting experience of abstract musical poetry and touching soundscapeism. Jules has never been this dense, subtile and fragile before. All twelve tracks on „Beautyfear“ were created during a week stay in a theatre workspace on one of the hills of Lisbon. The panoramic view over the dusty city in spring seemed to have been the perfect surrounding for this cloudy soundscapes, which at some points remind of Angelo Bandalamentis‘ work for David Lynch‘s "Mullholland Drive". „It‘s an album on the fragility of beauty“, as Jules describes briefly. Music that can neither be described as ambient music or experimental sound art, but more likely delivers a poetic approach to music, live and sound itself. With „Beautyfear“ Marsen Jules makes a great start into 2014 and with the already announced cooperation with Swedish filmmaker Anders Weberg and an upcoming release of his works from a residence at the legendary GRM studios in Paris, one should definitely keep an eye on what is coming next. ﻿

Releasdate: 27.01.2014
Pre-Orders: 01.01.2014
Label: OKTAF www.oktaf.com
Distribution: Kompakt

Marsen Jules - Beautyfear  -  Beautyfear III (First Album Preview)

Greg's Official site: http://greglaswell.com/site/
Greg on FB: facebook.com/greglaswellmusic
Greg on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GregLaswell


Buy on iTunes

Greg Laswell - "Comes and Goes In Waves (2013 remake)"

The thing about France Jobin's music that never fails to impress is that it works on so many levels. Listen to it at the threshold of perception (the way it is mastered) or at very high volume, on headphones or through loudspeakers, and you will hear new sonic relationships, new structures, a new logic every time. Things simultaneously are and aren't as they seem; sounds you hear are and aren't really there.

Montréal sound/installation artist France Jobin has come a long way since her days as a blues keyboardist in the 1980s. In 1999, after a hiatus that lasted a decade, during which she raised two sons, she turned to experimental electronic music of the very quiet, rumbling, abstracted kind, and started performing and releasing music under the moniker i8u. Slowly but with great assurance, she built a much-lauded career and kept on refining her art, ever digging deeper into the core of sound. When the revered LINE label offered her an album (Valence) in 2012, she abandoned her alias and started using her own name.

In her own words:

«The Illusion of Infinitesimal represents another chance to refine the unique essence of each sound and composition, in an effort to better communicate intent without influencing its unfolding, a delicate balance between perfection and detachment.

A parallel could be drawn from particles of matter, which, "as far as we know, are infinitesimal points of zero size, yet they have measurable amounts of angular momentum. Does the concept of rotation even make sense for a featureless speck? Angular momentum seems to be a more foundational concept than rotation itself. The angular momentum, or spin, of a single particle is restricted in strange ways. It can have only certain values, and not all values are allowed for all particles." (1)

Perfection and uncertainty.»

(1) Collage of quotes from Jim Pivarski, "Spin", Symmetry Magazine, March 2013.

France Jobin - 0

A Rework of the track "Si" by Nils Frahm for Nils' Screws Reworked project 2014.

http://reworked.nilsfrahm.com/

Nils Frahm - Si (Sleep Orchestra Rework)

Sept 30, 2014 (the last night of september)

a slow layer of 3 oscillators (shapeshifter, piston honda, verbos harmonic) being sequenced by a turing random sequencer and volume controlled by a make noise function with an intellijel linix.

signal mixed and going through a make noise echophon and erbe verb.

oct 09, 2014 (slow oscillators)

just a quick one tonight as i fired up the qubit nebulae module which had its firmware upgraded today and i played a sample that i already had in it through the intellijel springray reverb.... i then resampled the loop into the sound machines UL-1 looper at a different length and passed that one through a variable high pass filter (pittsburgh modular) so you hear the two overlapping loops.

there's a steady tone from an oscillator going as well.

i like the dirtiness of the sound.

oct 10, 2014 (dirty loop)

oct 11, 2014 (beauty, distance, dust)

looping xylophone and the voice of ichiko aoba from recordings we did together in japan.

sound sources:
xylophone
voice (courtesy of ichiko aoba)

processors:
qu-bit nebulae
mungo g0
make noise phonogene
modcan cv record
intellijel korgasmatron
intellijel dr. octature
pittsburgh filter
serge resonant eq
intellijel springray
make noise erbe verb

modulators:
flame c3
eowave zone b.f.
mutbale frames

december 18, 2014 (of xylophone and voice)

this is a very rough, first experiment with a process i've been meaning to try for a possible follow up and "sequel" album.... using the same concepts i used a long time ago, executed in a very different way.

this a rough tracking with little or no care taken to the mix. i am, however, encouraged...

december 19, 2014 (sti.ll experiment)

slow music... loops and modulations. don't listen to while driving.

sound sources:
xylophone recorded onto a cassette walkman looped by a make noise phonogene.
verbos harmonic oscillator
piano loop on qu-bit nebulae

modulation by a livewire vulcan modulator

reverb by tc m2000 and make noise erbe verb

december 23, 2014 (slow music)

recorded in florida over christmas. a recordable cassette walkman resting inside a cheap upright piano.

i tried to make long, 20-30 minute passages but the recorder kept failing.

december 25, 2014 (tape piano)

as dirty as the christmas tape piano....

testing out the synthrotek dirt filter (kindly gifted to me from marcus fischer for christmas) on a loop playing from the qubit nebulae.

resampled by the phonogene, filtered by an MMG and intellijel korgasmatron. various modulations, various signals, various hopes and dreams ground into the dirt.


december 30, 2014 (dirt loop)

Inititate is a unique track. Its very organic piano playing enables to forget any technical stand point in order to focus on the feelings it conveys. This track is an attempt to translate the feeling of willpower at the genesis of everything we create: an ode to the first impulse.

Instar

Initiate

Last, the first track of "Those Glorious Heights".
Composed and produced in Reykjavík, Iceland.



Those Glorious Heights

Last

Solo Remains are previously unreleased tracks from Nils Frahm’s album Solo, which was recorded on the M370, the world’s largest piano, built by the visionary piano maker David Klavins in 1987.

Nils fell in love with the sound of this giant and joined David for the new project – building an even higher piano – the Model 450. The aim of it is to explore the not yet reached physical limits of the piano instrument and also to push forward into new musical dimensions. The M450 will be characterized by an even clearer sound with more depth and richness of overtones as well as an unrivaled frequency spectrum and intensity of sound and tone. In time for the 2nd anniversary of Piano Day, Nils decided to give four previously unreleased songs from that very session to his fans and supporters of the Klavins 450 project.

“In the end, every album production leaves you with the same tough task – making the choices for the final track selection. You leave out some tracks for various reasons: some of the tracks are wonderful by themselves, but they simple don’t fit anywhere in the album and others have to be left out because otherwise the vinyl would become too long for a cut in good quality. However, these outtakes are often as important as the final selection and I thought, they might be a great surprise for Piano Day too. I hope in this case, it’s both …”

Solo Remains is available for free download in 24-bit and mp3 format.
http://www.nilsfrahm.com/works/solo-remains/

published for Piano Day 2017
of the upcoming album 'Chameleon'

www.lisa-morgenstern.com
produced by Sebastian Plano
mastered by Martyn Heyne
photo by Miguel Murrieta Vásquez

Codex

One that didn't make the cut. 
Free download on Bandcamp if anyone wants a copy.
https://deadmelodies.bandcamp.com/track/certain-beasts

Download

Certain Beasts

CloudBurn & Factory - Visitor (Free)

the ending track of the (imaginary) album :
"The Traveling Magician" by Victor Candela Cordoba

for "some perfect curtains // vol. 2"
a project by Marco Lucchi

2017

more info @
www.facebook.com/groups/291971631253804/?fref=nf

VictorYibril - Arriving At The Quiet Place

Blue.Hour explores the high contrast colors created in the landscape during “l’heure bleue,” the period of twilight each evening when there is neither full daylight nor complete darkness. Directly following the ‘Golden Hour,’ know for its diffused yet powerful light, the Blue Hour retains the diffusion but lacks the strong light source giving this period of the day an especially melancholic and meditative atmosphere.

Blue.Hour is presented here in stereo with some compositional elements added to make it more suitable for home listening.

Yann Novak - Blue.Hour (Excerpt)

With over 100 physical releases since its inception by Taylor Deupree in 1997, New York-based music label 12k has decisively defined and developed the concept of minimalism in the realms of electronic music for more than a decade. Fusing elements from Ambient and Electro-Acoustic Composition with carefully arranged digital textures and associative micro-noises, the label's aesthetics revolve around a precisely-outlined, yet deeply emotional concoction of the technological and the organic. Eschewing the typical marketing mechanisms of the commercial music industry, Deupree has sculpted a platform whose influence today extends well beyond the confinements of the experimental community. 12k's integral approach, in which the label's instantly recognizable, elegantly spartan artwork enters into an inseparable symbiosis with the music, has created a timeless audiovisual language respected and appreciated all over the world.