Various Artists Tone Science Module No.8 Tone Science Live DiN:TS08

Release date 6th October 2023
Limited to 500 copies. Digipak CD format

Tone Science sub-label, from DiN records, continues to explore the world of modular synth music.

The first seven volumes on the Tone Science sub-label featured 63 musicians (9 on each album) with varying backgrounds and styles, showcasing the wonderful richness and variety inherent in the world of modular synthesis. The next step was to transfer this concept to a live performance and hence the inaugural Tone Science Live concert, which took place at the Capstone Theatre in Liverpool on the evening of 22nd April 2023. 

All five musicians were set up onstage simultaneously and each played solo before joining together at the end. Field Lines Cartographer opened the evening with a beautiful set full of glistening textures and pulsating oscillations. Next came Nigel Mullaney with a more upbeat performance, featuring the famous “Pale Blue Dot” speech from Carl Sagan which seemed very appropriate as the 22nd April was Earth Day. After a short interval, Polypores took to the stage with a breath-taking display of modular synth virtuosity, with him constantly shifting and morphing the myriad sequencer patterns and tones emanating from his modular system. DiN label boss Ian Boddy followed with a sonic trip through four ambient sections, seamlessly mixing minimal ambience with vibrant pulsing sequencers before falling away to a tranquil conclusion. After another short break, Scanner played a stunning set featuring field recordings and disarming vocal samples and building up a monumental industrial rhythm from the simplest of ingredients.

The evening ended in fine style with all five musicians taking to the stage and performing an ambient drone piece inspired by the early American minimalist composers. At the helm was Scanner, mixing and shaping the overall sound of the music as it slowly grew in intensity to fill the hall with a mesmerising wash of tones. A fitting end to what was a fantastic evening of music from five musicians coaxing such varied and beautiful sounds from their small modular systems.

The entire evening is presented as a double CD in a 6-panel Digipak with accompanying 8 page booklet. A must-have album for followers of the Tone Science series.


Track listing:

01 TSL Set 1 by Field Lines Cartographer   23:43
02 TSL Set 2 by Nigel Mullaney   27:44
03 TSL Set 3 by Polypores   22:42
04 TSL Set 4 by Ian Boddy   23:58
05 TSL Set 5 by Scanner   28:45
06 TSL Set 6 by Tone Scientists   23:58

Total Time: 151:00

Tone Science Module No.8 Tone Science Live

Buy 2CD / download

Tone Science Module No.8 Tone Science Live Demo Mix

Ian Boddy has been at the forefront of the UK electronic music scene since 1983 when he both performed at the very first UK Electronica Festival in Milton Keynes and released his first vinyl album The Climb.

In the 4 years preceding this event he had been experimenting at an Arts Council funded studio in Newcastle whilst at University. His early work resulted in 3 cassette only releases on the Mirage label as well as several local concerts. These early tapes showed Boddy gradually forming his own style through a long self teaching process in the techniques of analogue synthesis and tape manipulation.

After the success of 1983 he went on to release another 2 vinyl albums, Spirits and Phoenix, as well as performing several concerts throughout the UK. However it wasn't until 1989 that his first CD release, Odyssey, came out on the EM label Surreal to Real. After Drive, his second release on the Surreal label Boddy formed his own record label, Something Else Records , through which he released a further 4 solo albums as well as reissuing his 3 early vinyl albums and the cassette only release Jade on CD. Furthermore he released three collaborative CD releases with some of Europes finest exponents of EM, namely Andy Pickford, Ron Boots and Mark Shreeve.

He continued to expand his concert appearences which have now surpassed over 100 events with concerts in the UK ( including several more UK Electronica appearances, two shows at the Jodrell Bank Planetarium & two at the National Space Centre), Holland ( five festival appearances ), Germany and three shows in Philadelphia, USA.

Alongside these mainstream EM activities Boddy has also built for himself a formidable reputuation as a sound designer having produced a series of sample CD's & virtual instruments for sampling specialists Time & Space. In late 2008 Boddy set up his own downloadable sample CD company with the Waveforms series of sample packs. Furthermore he is also involved in library music having composed 11 such CD's for the publishing company deWolfe as well as producing some music for a computer games company.

Thus we come up to the present with the formation of his DiN label in 1999. Unlike his private Something Else Records the DiN label was set up to allow Boddy to actively form different collaborations with a wide variety of musicians as well as release other artists music. DiN has achieved widespread critical acclaim for it's adventurous outlook at the world of EM and has seen 39 releases with Boddy being involved in 21 of these ( five solo and sixteen collaborative projects ). 

In 2008 DiN expanded it's catalogue with a series of download only releases featuring Boddy in concert both as a solo performer and with other DiN artists. 

Robin Rimbaud (Scanner) is an artist and composer working in the UK, whose works traverse the experimental terrain between sound, space, and image, connecting a bewilderingly diverse array of genres – a partial list would include sound design, film scores, computer music, avant garde, contemporary composition, large-scale multimedia performances, product design, architecture, fashion design, rock music and jazz.

Since 1991 he has been intensely active in sonic art, producing concerts, installations and recordings, the albums Mass Observation (1994), Delivery (1997), and The Garden is Full of Metal (1998) hailed by critics as innovative and inspirational works of contemporary electronic music. He scored the hit musical comedy Kirikou & Karaba (2007), designed the sound for the new Philips Wake-Up Light (2009), and campaigns for Stella McCartney (2017), Chanel’s Fall-Winter collection (2012) and Jaguar (2014).

In 2019 he designed the sound for the Cisco telephone systems used in offices around the world, whilst his sound work in Vex House in London was voted as RIBA House of the Year. His work Salles des Departs is permanently installed in a working morgue in Paris.

Committed to working with cutting edge practitioners he has collaborated with Bryan Ferry, Dangermouse, Coil, Laurie Anderson, Carsten Nicolai, The Royal Ballet, Wayne McGregor, Merce Cunningham, Hermes, Hussein Chalayan, Philips Design, Mike Kelley, and Miroslaw Balka. His work has been presented throughout the United States, South America, Asia, Australia and Europe.

Felix Perez (a.k.a Mindphaser) is a Chilean composer of electronic/dark ambient and progressive colours based in Santiago. He has strong influences from the Berlin school of electronic music, especially from Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream.  His compositions are a journey to both; imaginary worlds and the realms of astrophysics  and astronomical phenomena. He is an engineer who occasionally collaborates with his son Sebastian, an astrophysicist/guitarist who works on planet formation.  
You can find a selection of his compositions in his soundcloud and bandcamp pages.

Art and illustrations: Valentina Perez

Tone Science Module No.8 Tone Science Live Demo Mix

ianboddy