Name: Theme 78 by Astral Sync
Duration: 3 min 56 s
Description: Moog Sound Studio (bass, leads) & Arturia Minifreak (pads/ strings). All squirted into a Chroma Console for cassette, phasing fx.

Native Intelligence

It’s a sci-fi theme that uses intertwined conversational melodies to move the sonic story along and is loaded with synth ear candy that sounds great on big systems with subs. Give it repeat listens in headphones to hear some intricate stereo imaging and more detail.

Composed and performed on Ableton Push 3 Standalone and finished off in Live 12 Suite.

ARTISTIC NOTES
- Uses individual evolving melodies to build tension
- Avoids chords to make room for synth ear candy and melodic evolution
- Melodies are conversational
- Main motif is 1,2,3,4,5 phrase against 8 which creates some fun rounds
- Sense of a clock and time
- Cinematic orchestration and dynamics and tempo changes
- Hocketing
- A bit of a twist at the end

Decoder

The first demo of Stay the Ride was bit faster and more nasty sounding on that crazy arpeggio.

Stay The Ride - First demo (Simple 308 V01)

Gusgus live @ Nasa 2011.06.18.  Add this Song.  Legendary Performance including Earth drooping one of her solo songs at the tail and Högni stepping up in the bridge

Add this Song (live@Nasa 2011.06.18)

The Happy Dictator (feat. Sparks)

Moog Sound Studio (bass, leads) & Arturia Minifreak (pads/ strings). All squirted into a Chroma Console for cassette, phasing fx.

Theme 78

The Beak vs Father Haddock

This ambient piece was improvised live in one take by Machine Ghosts for the Winter Solstice 2025 online concert, hosted by The Rocky Mountain Synthesizer Meet and Moray Firth Synthesizer ClubScotland.

Machine Ghosts is an ambient improv ensemble featuring:

- Mark Mosher (Push 3 with Live for melodics) — Boulder, CO
- Langdon Crawford (Push 3 with Live for drones) — Denver, CO
- Michael O'Bannon (iPad with AUM for textures) — Atlanta, GA

We've been improvising together over Zoom since 2024 and have performed three online concerts.

The ensemble performs in real-time using Sonobus, with one member hosting the combined audio to Zoom using "professional audio" mode.

Huge thanks to Mark Dammer from Moray Firth Synthesizer Club for introducing us to Sonobus and helping us get started.

Since 2024, Machine Ghosts have done 11 sessions together, including 3 performances.

Sonobus with overhead cameras in Zoom makes us feel like we're in the same room, which allowed our roles to emerge organically. Despite being in different locations, we've developed ensemble intuition and now we simply agree on a root note, key, lengthy, and vibe—then listen and play. 

I really love where we've made it too so far.

Theme 78

Astral Sync

Related tracks