Category Archives: Music

Musitronic

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Recently I stumbled across an archive of a late night Keston and Westdal jam session buried in a dark, moldy and neglected sub-folder. I looped two bars and put a fade at the end, but otherwise left it untouched. It consists of bass guitar (Nils Westdal), a breakbeat, and myself on Wurlitzer Electric Piano. More specifically a Wurlitzer Electric Piano packaged by Musitronic for use as a student model. I picked this one up in the mid-90’s for a couple hundred dollars. I don’t use it that much since I prefer the sound of the Rhodes, but I think this particular recording is a nice example of the Wurly sound.

Musitronic

Blitzen Machine

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Here’s a snippet from a track I started working on today. I began by using the same techniques I described in Robot Music and in Robot Conspiracy, only I was more deliberate about the patch changes so that they lock in with the tempo a little bit more nicely.

Another technique I used was to cut up individual slices of my recordings and load the samples into Ableton’s virtual drum machine, Impulse, so I could program patterns of the samples into a variety of MIDI clips. I also used a couple of very short sections of AM Radio Static diffused with a healthy amount of reverb.

Blitzen Machine

Mississippi (Founders Mix)

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AudioCookbook.org has been featured today on ccMixter, “ccMixter is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want.” Along with the announcement, the ccMixter artist, Victor (aka fourstones) posted a remix called Mississippi (Founders Mix) using several recordings from AudioCookbook.org. Samples used include, Roof Racket, Piano Mallet Loop, Pro-One Dub, AM Radio Static, Time Expanded Radio Static, vocals by Kristin Hersh and several others. Checkout the mix on ccMixter for more information. Since the track uses several samples from AudioCookbook.org I am posting it here as today’s entry into the “One Sound Every Day” project. This marks the first time that I have not directly produced the daily sound, however, I feel this is an excellent example. If you like the track, head over to ccMixter and give some love to Victor for this tasty mashup.

Mississippi (Founders Mix)

Ultraviolet Amphibian Live Segment

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This segment of Ultraviolet Amphibian was recorded during a live performance at the Nomad in Minneapolis on June 10, 2008. I’m including it as today’s sound to give you an idea how Keston and Westdal’s live performances sound compared to our studio recordings. There’s more improvisation during our live shows as well as the addition of live drums. This performance features Graham O’Brien.

Unfortunately board mixes like this one are rarely balanced because the sound is being mixed for the room. Anything loud or amplified on stage like bass guitar or drums don’t come through very well. Since the laptops, Rhodes and synth are going direct they are much louder in the board mix. I ran the recording through some pretty complex equalization and compression to try and bring out the bass guitar, but it still lacks the luster of the mastered studio version.

Tonight we are playing at the Kitty Cat Klub in Minneapolis. Tuesday, September 2nd we are performing at Peavey Plaza in downtown Minneapolis for a pro-art and political progress rally put on by TheUnConvention.com, and held during the Republican National Convention. For more information please visit our shows page on unearthedmusic.com.

Ultra Violet Amphibian Live Segment

Studio Version of Ultraviolet Amphibian

Zhiguly

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I stumbled across this gem, that was recorded during a jam session between myself on Rhodes, Nils Westdal on bass, and Kyle Herskovitz (DJ Zenrock) on turntables. This session happened more than four years ago on March 11, 2004.

I couldn’t stop myself from messing about with it until I got this simple 0:22 second arrangement. I automated a filter on the Rhodes as well as running it through an amp modeling plugin and then topped it off with a touch of ping pong delay.

The main thing that attracted me to this archive was the skillful turntablism of Mr. Herskovitz. I have been fortunate to work with him off an on for more than a decade. Kyle is the most talented, creative and dedicated DJ and turntablist I have ever heard or worked with, so I have included a solo snippet of his track from this session so you can hear some of his magic on its own.

By the way, the photo is from a video installation we produced. It was performed during a show at the convention center in Minneapolis on a co-bill with Keston and Westdal and Zenrock last year.

Zhiguly

Zhiguly Scratch