Hannes
Some things old and new.
As mentioned in one of the previous Blinking Lights posts I do like to swap albums with other artists. So far, all these trades have brought me into possession of some wonderful albums, which perhaps I would otherwise never have found out about. I’m happy to say that the trend is not changing and I’ve gotten two new, great albums! The first one is a collection of dense, brightly atmospheric drones and ambient pieces, the second revolves around melancholic piano loops, sometimes combined with subtle electronic rhythms.
I can definitely and wholeheartedly recommend both of them!
In a recent article on CDM, Peter Kirn suggests to do the same with Bandcamp download codes, which is actually a neat idea. So, if anybody wants to trade some, let me know!
Talking about albums: Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has a new album coming. Pre-order + 2 tracks are up on Bandcamp.
It’s either a totally brilliant idea, or just completely silly. Though as somebody who spends a lot of time obsessing over the tiny details that make hardware UIs work, I’m really intrigued by it. I do like to speculate about how the simple act of visually hiding knobs and buttons, radically changes the way you might interact with a modular synth.
The online forum llllllll aka lines has proven to be a great place for collaborative musical creation. Not only does it host the ever inspiring Junto project, it also keeps producing very interesting collective albums. Two have been recently released: one was a compilation revolving around the creative use of feedback loops, the other a collection of trios.
The first one is described like this by its initiator John Mitchell (aka Midcentury Modular, aka Golden Chorale):
Back in late January, I started a process thread to share my plans for a creative project I wanted to challenge myself with in the upcoming month–try to create a new piece of art utilizing some sort of new feedback loop each day as a creative technique. The response was supportive and the idea of having a compilation came out of that discussion. After a month of many members sharing ideas and experiments in the thread, I ended up with 15 contributions to the compilation, ranging from minimal drones to harsh noise to peaceful ambient…even a few tracks veering into the pop side of things.
The trios project was part of the LCRP (Lines community remix project) series, even if it didn’t really involve much remixing. Rather it was about collaborating with other musicians in a non-realtime way. This is how it worked:
Participants organise yourselves as you like – more below.
Participant 1 creates a single musical layer, then passes it to participant 2.
Participant 2 adds a layer, then passes the combined layers to participant 3.
Participant 3 adds a layer, and submits the track as done.
When we’re done, share notes in this thread.
Last year, greatly inspired by the many collaborative projects on lines, I did a similar remix project for my duo kvsu. Since February the resulting album can be found on Bandcamp.
Initially it was supposed to be a mix of unreleased materials, remixes of the album tracks (made by ourselves) and maybe some collaborations. The more we thought about it, the more we realized that we wanted it to be a dialogue, a cultural exchange, an experiment in mutation and musical gene manipulation. so we did a risky thing. We went to llllllll.co and posted an open call for remixes. The rules were few and simple: pick a track, do whatever you want, but use the vinyl itself as the source material.
You can find out more about the project here: kvsu.net/ironaugust/
Here’s some FREE download codes you can use: m7bm-7wxp | 7pv3-53su | vlbg-hebe | 77va-whpn | rl4v-54uy | erd7-7raj redeem at kvsu.bandcamp.com/yum (let me know if you used one, so I can remove it from here)
Last but not least, because Amulets is always wonderfully inspiring:
Patrick Tabb