Cold Comfort

evrythng.tmp

modular, effects, and field recordings from a winter vacation in the southwest. a brief respite from the cold. snows melt and fall, icicles drip, sparkling rivulets flow down to the sun-warmed earth.

for this disquiet junto project, the first of 2017, i returned to the process of my last track from 2016: https://soundcloud.com/ioflow/meltwater-sunrays-warming

i still had unused raw material from vacation less than two weeks ago, so i decided to use some of those rhodes sessions and nature sounds as the basis for this track, along with a new recording just for this piece: miniature ice cubes periodically rattling in a glass. i chose my instruments and effects for the frozen, chilly appeal of their names.

i recorded two tracks with the modular, one at a time. first, the rhodes improvisation was run through mutable instruments clouds, which has nearly all of its parameters modulated by envelopes from mannequins just friends and cold mac, themselves attenuated by shades and isms. that audio then goes through a strymon bluesky reverb pedal, set to "shimmer" mode, which provides crystalline higher-octave harmonics.

for the second modular track, i used mannequins cold mac, which is normally a summing/logic utility, as an audio source. by patching "crease out" to "survey in" and carefully sweeping the survey knob, several points of scratchy whitenoise can be obtained from "mac out." i gated this noise in software to allow only the occasional click, and with heavy EQ it sounded much like additional shattering icicles or rattling cubes.

the modular tracks were combined with field recordings of snowmelt when temperatures briefly reached the low 50s, a most welcome thaw before winter returned.

recorded for disquiet junto 0262, "ice code." http://disquiet.com/2017/01/05/junto-0262/

a welcome thaw, midwinter dazzling

Dungeon - Pixel - 1b

Dungeon - Pixel - 2

Pressurewave Live at Moloko Plus at Blackstar in Orlando on 2/24/18. 

Everything sequenced live. System in a Pittsburgh Structure 208. 

Modules:
Winter Modular Eloquencer
Qu-Bit Wave (drum samples)
Malekko Mix-4
Sputnik Quad Function & Trigger Source
Intellijel Dixie II+
Mutable Instruments Braids
Mutable Instruments  Rings
Qu-Bit Tone
Sputnik Quad VCF/VCA
Doepfer A-138p/o 
Alright Devices Chronoblob

Live at Moloko Plus at Blackstar

A recording of my 2/24/18 performance at the Blackstar garden in Orlando, FL.

2/24/18 Orlando, FL Blackstar performance with Moloko Plus

with »redsuperstructure«, robert lippok created a new foundation for his musical endeavors. now – 7 years later – this system properly comes to life on »applied autonomy«. the title of the new album is a clear indicator as to what the berlin-based producer has been up to during the last couple of years, both on a conceptual level as well as how he molds his ideas into tracks.

»applied autonomy« orchestrates a certain state of frantic standstill, which occurs once a structure is set. has this state been reached, the artist is free to focus on other equally important aspects, balancing the various shades, pushing ideas even further to really make them shine and blossom in their self-declared autonomy. the more light one lets in, the more layers become visible.

layers are key when it comes to understanding »applied autonomy«. big chunks of the material with which the album has been produced derive from sketches specifically made for a club performance.

rather than meticulously devising each and every detail, lippok focussed instead on recording as many fragments as possible in a short period of time, elements which he could later combine and layer on stage. based on this material and his experience experimenting with it in a live environment, the album slowly began to shape. an album culminating in a collaboration with klara lewis, with whom lippok spent 2 days at the EMS studios in stockholm, approaching the idea of autonomy from yet another angle. during the session, both musicians played and performed simultaneously, yet not explicitly together, lost in their own thoughts and ideas, only subconsciously taking in what the other one was coming up with. the result is »samtal«, 14 minutes of a constantly evolving state of poise, magically connecting all the dots lippok had already defined as »applied autonomy«.

the artwork for »applied autonomy« has been created by the berlin-based argentinian artist luca gutierrez. over the last couple of years, he has made a name for himself with his spectacular AV performances.

Applied Autonomy

robert lippok »all objects are moving« taken from »applied autonomy«

ambient improvisation. piano and field recording. warm shadows, a hushed forest, trickling water, little birds chirping overhead. recorded for piano day 2018, march 29.

http://www.pianoday.org

Cold Comfort

Tony Miracle

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