Category: Watching

Super synth

If I had the space for it, I would find a way to get the UDO Audio→ Super Gemini 20 Voice Dual Layer Polyphonic Binaural Analog-Hybrid Synthesizer. This large white and orange 61-key instrument produces amazingly spatial music, and the sounds people have been creating with it are truly special.

A large white and orange and grey 61-key synthesizer with many faders and knobs and a horizontal ribbon

Watching demo videos of this (J3PO meets the UDO Super Gemini→ on YouTube is a great example, especially his performance and patch of the last 2.5 minutes – that arpeggiator is stunning!) makes me want to sit in front of my own synthesizers again – while I can’t use the Super Gemini, just hearing it inspires any kind of playing.

I’ve been plucking and strumming 6 and 4-stringed acoustic instruments since the beginning of the year, which is why I haven’t worked on electronic music the past couple of months, but I plan on taking more time for digital musicmaking in the near future (I have a couple Endlesss riffs in Loopy Pro waiting to be arranged and recorded, for example).

Fred again.. – Actual Life

Last week I was introduced to Fred again.. with his NPR Music “Tiny Desk Concert”→ (on YouTube) from April 2023. I’ve watched that and listened to his 3 Actual Life albums and Boiler Room London DJ set repeatedly over the past days to collect my thoughts on this remarkable musician.

Working with a looper behind the desk, he staged an acoustic-electric rendition of some of his Actual Life songs. Playing marimba, upright piano, drumming on a table, tapping the pads of the Maschine sampler to cue voices singing, talking, spoken word poetry autotuned into melodies (all shown on a vertical screen in the background), and singing parts himself, he produced an intimate performance of his diary of lockdown and pandemic times.

Ending the show, “Faisal (envelops me)” culminated in a euphoric minimalistic crescendo of marimba strikes, a stark difference to the original song.

His ability to change up versions of his songs for so many mixes is awe-inspiring.

Thom Yorke – ANIMA

Thom Yorke’s rhythmical melodic soundscape ANIMA of 2019 is one of the albums that I keep coming back to. The electronic aesthetics match my taste exactly.

The song Dawn Chorus has such a warm keyboard sound/ synthesizer patch (reminds me of my synth story “20210425 chase”). The simple synth playing and monotonous singsong vocals confer so much expression. I first heard it in the short film ANIMA by Paul Thomas Anderson, where that song plays a prominent role in the story – the romantic choreography in the scene adds movement to the meaning.

20210425 chase from Synth stories by what lasts FAQ

A thousand tiny birds singing
If you must, you must

— Thom Yorke, Dawn Chorus

Ben Böhmer – Cercle liveset

Ben Böhmer playing his Cercle liveset in a hot air balloon among many other balloons over Cappadocia, Türkiye is some of the most beautiful tv ever made…

His music is uplifting, he’s bouncing to the beat as he cues the controllers, the sun is rising, and the hot air balloons float in the air over the hills and valleys, rock formations and “fairy chimneys”.