In September 2023 I supported the legendary gabber icon Rob Gee in Melbourne's QQQ St venue for Axed. Some of the earliest gabber tunes that got me interested in the genre were ones by Rob so there was definitely some pressure to do something special that honoured the man himself. I knew I wanted to play live and I knew it was going to have a strong gabber flair to it but, given my recent hardware shows had been a bit of a mission to set up (and the space available on stage for me was limited), this one needed to be a more stripped-back affair.

With that in mind, I set out to put together a rig that had three things. A high level of control over the flow of the music, nods to classic gabber and hardcore tracks, and plenty of compression and saturation. In the end I settled on three pieces of gear. A Roland TR8-S, an Elektron Octatrack, and an Analog Heat. Octatrack taking care of samples running into the inputs of the TR8-S. TR8-S handling the main drums and running into the Analog Heat. Analog Heat giving everything the crunch factor and running out into the sound system.

As for the performance, it was a bit of blur to be honest! One of those ones where you put the head down, get into a bit of flow state, and just play for the dancing goblins in your brain. It's loud and hectic and a bit rough around the edges. Hope you enjoy!

- Dave Encrypter

***You can read the extended liner notes for this release on my Bandcamp page***

GEEBAGS & GLADRAGS - LIVE HARDWARE GABBER (23:09:23)

Encryption prescription.

Encrypter is a hardware-focused composer and producer of electronic music. He has been obsessed with texture and processing recorded sound since he was a teenager, capturing field recordings on a Sony Walkman as fodder for creating garbled noisescapes through cheap guitar effects. Since these early days, he has released ambient, downtempo, industrial hardcore, glitched-up jungle, splittercore and a variety of takes on techno through his original works and remixes for the likes of Myler, Diarmaid O Meara and Weever among others. As a result of two burglaries and a stubborn refusal to back up his work, he has restarted his entire creative practice twice in a decade which has led to his current focus on creation with a sense of immediacy. This is helped along by various dusty pieces of hardware used alongside unusual production techniques such as balanced feedback environments and generative approaches. 

Originally from Ireland, now based in Melbourne, Encrypter splits his time between composition, production, DJing, running the SEQARP record label (hardware focused techno and electro) and the Rhythmic Shift nights (breakbeat and atmospheric techno and electro), teaching himself TouchDesigner, lecturing in electronic music production and trying to fit in a lot of coffee and beers with friends in between.

Bookings: numberdave@gmail.com

Encrypter

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