Monkey mind. A Seamus Anthony Song by spindickle

a different type of engineering 
tripplah

new kid in town 25

Clan Analogue continue their epic TB-303 exploration

Following in the sequence steps of Cognition 303: Bassline Deviations – now up the squelch with Cognition 3031: Further Deviations

Clan Analogue celebrated their 30th birthday during 2022 in style – by releasing the epic Cognition 303: Bassline Deviations, a compilation exploring the 40-year history of the Roland TB-303 Bass Line machine. Clan Analogue artists from across Australia heeded the call to create a new collection exploring all versions of this instrument and its expanding musical lineage. The result was a stunning collection of 14 squelchy masterpieces.

There was so much great work submitted for the Cognition 303 release that many impressive tracks were not able to make it onto the original compilation. These additional tracks were heard by a select few who bought the album from Bandcamp and received them as an additional bonus download.

For its 31st birthday, Clan Analogue marked the occasion by giving these bonus tracks the attention they deserve, remastering them and packaging them up for release as the new companion volume Cognition 3031: Further Deviations. This collection explores the classic acid and techno sounds which made the TB-303’s reputation as an integral part of electronic music history. Ranging from classic late-80s acid house, through to 90s-style ambient beats to 2000s industrial techno, this compilation is for all who love the resonant bleep of classic acid and techno.

As well as his techno output as Speedloader, Sean Sully runs Melbourne's Squelchy Sessions, a regular live electronic music event. For "Blood of Christ" Sully pairs some samples from his collection of Covid-pandemic-era recordings with TB303, TR707 and more.

Blood Of Jesus

THE WHOLE WORLDS WAITING FOR ME TO GO INSANE

“Alright” is a testament to Valley Forge’s ability to create lush soundscapes with an anthemic melodic hook, shimmering harmonics, pulsating electronics and thought-provoking lyrics, all packaged within a tightly composed pop song structure. The track will also appear on the forthcoming new Valley Forge album, scheduled for imminent release. 

Valley Forge frontman Freeman Lowell says, “Like a lot of other artists’ output from the last few years, “Alright” was seeded by the global COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns that affected the entire world. Its theme is that you have zero control over a great many things in life, and sometimes you simply have to keep your foot to the pedal and turn that corner, without knowing what the outcome will be.”

The stripped-back ‘Ambient Mix’, drops the BPM and emphasises the sonar-inspired percussion hits, filter-sweeps and vocoders while adding arpeggios which syncopatically echo into the musical distance.



Alright (Ambient Mix)

"When listening to this track, I think about walking alongside a section of Merlynston Creek that snakes through sunken rubble. Fake flowers litter the landscape." David Prescott-Steed

Melbourne electroacoustic sound artist David Prescott-Steed releases his first album on Australia’s legendary Clan Analogue, the expansive and evocative Shadow Music.

Shadow Music immerses the listener in shifting ambiences, fragments of found sound, granulated modular synthesis, weather-worn strings and percussion. The album is inspired by the Jungian concept of the shadow self, with eight tracks that twist and turn into fragmented distortions of identity, neurodiversity, alienation, hyperfixation, love, loss, and memory. Caliginous stream-of-consciousness vocals punctuate post-industrial soundscapes, kicking up sonic dust along the way.

Underfoot

The single’s “flipside” track, “The Elephant’s Foot” is an instrumental elegy inspired by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, filled with sombre and sinuous bass, melancholic pads, flickering sequences and insistent Geiger counter percussion. The title refers to the radioactive mass of corium discovered eight months after the meltdown which became a modern day Medusa – lethal to anyone who viewed it without the aid of a protective suit.

Says Valley Forge production auteur Freeman Lowell: “The Elephant’s Foot” needed to capture multiple concepts: impenetrable blackness, danger, stark post-nuclear landscapes, pride and loss – and I wanted to install a sense that at the song’s “core”, for want of a better word, there’s a vast and powerful energy source that is simply hiding – crouched and waiting, while it gradually weakens over the centuries.”



The Elephant's Foot

Jacek Tuschewski’s work is a creative venture exploring harmonics, hypnotic soundscapes, meditation, sound healing, sonic visualization, and storytelling. He delves into frequencies, higher truths, and the multi-dimensionality of the human experience. It is a journey of self-discovery.

Ode to the Bliss of Frequency Modulation is the last track completed by Melbourne sound artist and composer Jacek Tuschewski before he sadly passed away in 2024. Clan Analogue are honoured to release this track on the new compilation Sublime Wavelengths: The Cosmic Bliss of FM Synthesis. The version of "Ode to the Bliss of Frequency Modulation" on the compilation is a slightly edited shorter rendition so we have here made available the full-length version for people to appreciate in its original epic form.

Jacek left us with some technical details on how he created this expansive and transcendant work:  

"So yes this track is "pure FM" no other synthesis has been used for all the instruments. As the title suggests it is an ode to the sheer bliss of what can be done with frequency modulation extra so today.

The instrument used:
Osmose which uses the EaganMatrix the best and most sophisticated FM synths engine in 2024. The EaganMatrix was the trigger of the mpe avalanche that is disrupting real time synthesis and performance as we know it... I only just got it so it was a very late addition... but it is there!     
    
FM-Lab by Yamaha and Steinberg, possibly the most updated version of original and new DX algorithms, which started the whole FM revolution.

f. 'em (best synth name ever!) by Wolfram Franke of Waldorf fame. Wolfram really pushed the traditional DX/FM structure. It is a 13 oscillator synth that allows to freely create DX style algorithms in a matrix for 8 operator FM. It also eats CPU like there is no tomorrow. 
    
modwave by Korg, it has advanced Wave Sequencing (wavestates) and altered FM architecture. It is one of the few creative wavetable synthesis that allow sophisticated realtime modulation of wavetables.            
   
For this track; basically all the parts/instruments are played "live" and minimally edited/tweaked before mixing."

Sublime Wavelengths: The Cosmic Bliss of FM Synthesis takes listeners on a journey through the shimmering tones, intricate modulations, and futuristic landscapes of FM synthesis. The compilation is a celebration of the iconic synthesis method of frequency modulation which revolutionised sound design in the 1980s and defined an era of electronic music. The artists on Sublime Wavelengths explore FM synthesis in all its manifestations. The album is dedicated to the memory of Jacek Tuschewski who passed away prior to the release of the compilation.

Ode To The Bliss of Frequency Modulation (full length version)

Barry C. Douglas is my rwal name and Spindickle is my stage name, I play guitar and write songs

Monkey mind. A Seamus Anthony Song by spindickle

Barry C. Douglas

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