An Exclusive Holiday Gift from Ostraka

Posted on December 25, 2010 by John C.S. Keston

Here’s a set I recorded live to Ableton during a performance at Nick and Eddie Thursday Funhouse hosted by Jon Davis, December 16, 2010. This is all new material that I’ve been working on, except for the last track, which is a remix of Illuminator Console from Precambrian Resonance (Unearthed Music 2009). Here’s the download link for the 37:28 minute set hosted on Unearthed Music. Expect to hear lots of Grain Machine, as well as synth sounds from the Casio CZ-1000, the Korg MS2000, the Roland D-50, my Sequential Circuits Pro-One, some old Hammond rhythm programs, and even a little bit of Rhodes electric piano.

Download Live Ostraka Set at Nick and Eddie Thursday Funhouse (89.9 MB)

Video by Jon Davis of an Ostracon Performance

Posted on December 20, 2010 by John C.S. Keston

I just came across this five minute video shot by Ghostband artist Jon Davis on his mobile phone of my duet project Ostracon performing at the Kitty Cat Klub in Minneapolis on July 17, 2010. I’ve been enjoying a lot of these lofi videos that Jon puts up on YouTube, and it reminds me of a quote I read recently from David Byrne in the liner notes for My Life in the Bush of Ghosts: “…we came to realize that high fidelity was a vastly over-rated convention that noboby had bothered to question…”. I can’t agree more, except that today, thankfully, it is being questioned more than ever.

What is Your Favorite Poly Synth?

Posted on November 18, 2010 by John C.S. Keston

For the last few of years I have been craving the sound of polyphonic, analogue synthesizers. Although I’ve got a collection of aging monophonic (and one duophonic) beasts, I haven’t owned an analogue polyphonic slab since I had an Oberhiem Matrix-6. Before that, it was one of my first instruments, the Korg Poly-800. Both of these synths sound great, but I can’t forget the frustration I experienced with their lack of tactile potentiometers. Although I wish I still had it now, the membrane buttons on the Matrix-6 were especially annoying.

Recently I joined a trio name DGK (Jon Davis, Tim Glenn, and John Keston) that I think would benefit from a versatile polyphonic analogue instrument on top of my Rhodes electric piano. I have few rigs in mind (insert vintage Korg, Roland, or Akai), but I’m looking for a good knob to dollar ratio (more knobs and less dollars). What are your favorite poly-synths and why? Ever get rid of something you wish you hadn’t? Or have you been assimilated by the latest software synths?

Electric Independence: Oneohtrix Point Never

Posted on November 16, 2010 by John C.S. Keston

I just checked out the latest episode of Motherboard‘s series, Electric Independence, on synthesist Oneohtrix Point Never. I have no argument against his return to the rich tone of instruments like the Roland Juno-60. Just have a listen to some of his work and check the interview above.

Pulverisateur Experiment by Ostraka on Audiotool

Posted on August 9, 2010 by John C.S. Keston

I made this ambient piece using Audiotool a couple of months ago thinking that I might add some more layers, but I’m pretty fond of it as is and thought I would share it here. My original goal was to try automating some parameters and processing in Audiotool, and learn about Pulverisateur in the process. Pulverisateur, which I unfortunately spelled wrong in my track title, is a modular style virtual synthesizer that I connected to a Tonematrix for Monome-like programming. It has an amazing sound and, to my ears, sounds as least as good if not better than Reason‘s Subtractor. The image above will give you an idea of the signal flow for the piece. Checkout the audio, or make a remix on Audiotool if you like what you hear.