Superheated Water – Dance of the Blobs

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I love the texture of this sound – it’s infinitely sampleable, and equally uncontrollable. A thin coating of oil, rubbed into the pan – then heat it on high for 5 minutes. After a while, the water becomes so hot and isolated from the surface of the metal it superheats (boils without bubbles). This creates the beautiful dancing effect you get, similar to when mercury is loose on a solid surface.

The recording was made on a fostex FR2LE with a canon digital camera for visuals. The single hits would be cool for super fizzy percussion, don’t you think? Sampled at 24/96 on a fostex fr2le in stereo, 12 inches above the pan.

Tom

High quality download here:
Superheated oil and water – dance of the blobs

YOUTUBE link – Superheated Water & Oil – Dance of the Blobs

Bicycle Converted into a GMS Input Device

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Checkout this video made by Chris LeBlanc. Chris is using LEDs attached to a rotating bicycle wheel as an input device for the GMS. Chris and I had a session recently where I showed him ow to sync the GMS up with Ableton, and the next thing you know he’s come up with a new way of using the software. Nice one, Chris!

Upcoming Ostraka Performance and New Album

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My experimental music project, Ostraka with Graham O’Brien on Drums, is performing on January 27, 2010 at Big V’s in St. Paul, Minnesota. I’ll be on laptop using my custom developed application, the Gestural Music Sequencer (GMS). I’m also using my iPod Touch controlled grain-table glitch generating Max patch for another layer of texture. Chain Fight and Juhyo round out the bill.

It’s also about time I mentioned that I’m in the process of producing a new Ostraka album that features Graham O’Brien on drums. We recorded it recently at Masters Recording, formerly Flyte Tyme of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis fame. The studio was just sold again and from what I understand will be called Madison Media Institute. In any case it was an amazing facility to lay down tracks. Here’s a shot of our setup in Studio A.

Video of Fives Performance

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Five Movements for Five Sampled Sounds in Five Loud Speakers from Unearthed Music on Vimeo.

This video was shot during a performance of Fives at the University of Minnesota last December. The sound quality is poor, but I think it illustrates how I was able to sort of “pour” my looped granular experiments into each of the five channels using the iPod Touch as a controller. For more about this project visit my portfolio site at www.johnkeston.com.

Google Nexus One as an Electronic Music Device

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With all the Android devices appearing recently, I’ve decided it is time to upgrade my four year old Sony Ericsson K800i to a Google Nexus One smart phone (I think I’ll hold off on calling it a super phone for now) and perhaps consider using it as a controller as I have been with the iPod Touch. Another consideration is attempting to do some music software development on the Android platform. Perhaps porting the GMS, developed in Processing.org, may even be possible with the Nexus One’s 1 GHz Snapdragon (Qualcomm QSD 8250) processor and the built in video camera.

I currently have the phone in hand and will write about my impressions once I’ve had time to familiarize myself with it. It’s definitely going to take some getting used to, but so far I can say that the display is gorgeous and for the most part the functionality is wicked fast.

Music applications for Android under development include TouchOSC, and I’ve read several articles on CDM highlighting others that are available or in progress. I’m curious about Android music or sound based projects and applications that are either currently available or under development. Please comment if you’ve encountered articles or examples on this topic. After doing some research, perhaps I can start experimenting with some of the apps and writing about them here on ACB. Thanks!