Author: catsynth
CatSynth pic: Cat playing Nord Stage 2
From american_music_and_sound on Instagram.
american_music_and_soundEven the #cat wants a turn. ??❤️?#nord #nordkeyboards #music #potd #instamusic #songwriter #artist #keyboard ・・・
Repost from @joaguero via @igrepost_app, The Cat Synthesizer rocking #NordStage2 #Iseenord #music #CatSynthesizer #NordKeyboards
We at CatSynth are of course big fans of Nord. The Stage 2’s predecessor (Stage EX) is our main keyboard in live shows.
Mensa Cat Monday: One Year Ago…
It’s been exactly a year since J.B. (Jason Berry of Vacuum Tree Head) posted the very first Mensa Cats comic strip. Here it is:
Looking forward to many more scenes from the Mensa Cats universe in the future.
Outsound New Music Summit: Vision Music
The final night of the Outsound New Music Summit featured three sets combining music with visuals. The room was dark, with all illumination coming from the visuals on the screen and the sonic elements abstractly arrayed around them.
The evening opened with Mika Pontecorvo’s project Bridge of Crows performing an improvised set to a segment Pontecorvo’s film The Bedouin Poet of Mars: The Last Poet.
[Photo: PeterBKaars.com]
The film’s story is a bleak tale of a poet who is the last survivor of a once-thriving civilization on Mars, searching for a home for himself and the last surviving plant. He sees the results of several self-destructive civilizations on his journey. Despite the dark subject matter, the visuals themselves were lively and abstract at times, with lots of interesting visual and image processing.
The music moved in and out of a variety of textures and dynamic levels, though the focus remained on the visuals throughout. Joining the regular ensemble was Bob Marsh, wearing one of his trademark suits and performing on a string instrument made from a tree.
[Photo: PeterBKaars.com]
One disadvantage of the darkened environment was that I did not get to see much of Marsh or his instrument, which I would have liked to. Rounding out the ensemble were Kersti Abrams on winds, Elijah Pontecorvo on electric bass, Greg Baker on electronics, hydrophone and clarinet, Mark Pino on percussion, and Mariko Miyakawa on vocals.
Next up was Tender Buttons, a trio featuring Tania Chen on small instruments, with Gino Robair and Tom Djil on analog modular synthesizers. The trio performed sounds against live interactive video by Bill Thibault.
[Photo: PeterBKaars.com]
The set was anchored by Chen’s piano, which ranged from intricate and complex to loud and aggressive, augmented by small toy instruments. The piano interlaced with Thibault’s abstract visuals, which started out simply but grew more complex over the course of the set. Throughout, the visuals displayed words from Gertrude Stein’s poem Tender Buttons, but were increasingly mixed with the more complex elements.
[Photo: PeterBKaars.com]
Robair and Djll provided a variety of adept sounds from modular synthesizers and circuit-bent electronics to complement the piano and video.
The final set featured live interactive video by Bill Hsu with James Fei on reeds and Gino Robair returning on percussion.
[Photo: PeterBKaars.com]
I am quite from the minimalist quality in Bill Hsu’s visuals. The began with very simple geometric elements, but soon hope added a bit of controlled chaos that led to very organic elements on the screen.
Befitting the visuals, the music in this set was more sparse, with moments of quiet and loud solo bursts from Robair and Fei. Robair percussion worked best with the early geometric elements, and Fei’s complex runs on saxophone worked well with the more organic visuals.
I enjoy sets that integrate visuals and music into a single unit. It can sometimes be a challenge to take everything in, much less write about it afterwards. But I hope this gives a little insight into the evening. It was a good closing concert for this years Summit, and was appreciated by those who came only that night as well as the loyal audience members who were there most or all days. This concludes the 2015 Outsound New Music Summit, and I look forward to its return next year.
World Cat Day, and Update on Luna
August 8th is World Cat Day. As described on the Cat Blogosphere, it’s an “annual event to simply recognize the beauty,
majesty, humor and fun of cats”. And we at CatSynth love all cats! But this year is tinged with mixed feelings on this day as we continue to worry about the cat we love most.
Luna continues to recover from her surgery and rest comfortably. She is eating well and communicative, but a bit lethargic and depressed. That is not uncommon after major surgery, for cats or humans. But the cone is particular source of misery. So we’re giving her a bit more cone-free time under supervision.
When liberated from the cone, she perks right up and even displayers her “happy tail.”
We haven’t heard any lab results yet, so that is leaving us still quite anxious about what comes next.
Outsound New Music Summit: Electro-Plate
The third night of the Outsound New Music Summit featured three sets that spanned a wide range of electronic music history, from analog modular synthesizers to digital laptops and an eclectic mix of technologies in between.
First up was a “power trio” on Serge Modular synthesizers featuring LX Rudis, Doug Lynner and Dmitri SFC.
[Photo PeterBKaars.com.]
I have heard all three perform of Serge synthesizers before, but never together in this way. The result combined their very different performance styles, with intricate and meticulous musical details from Doug Lynner and driving beats from Dmitri SFC. There were also a variety of drones, noise hits and other sonic elements throughout the performance, which consisted of a single 40-minute improvisation.
Next up Instagon with edition 684 of Lob’s long-running project. This all-electronic mixer set featured Andrew Wayne, Tim White, Thomas Dimuzio, Marc Schneider, Mark Pino and Jack Hertz.
[Photo PeterBKaars.com.]
As with most Instagon mixer sets, each of the performed improvised freely in his instruments, with Lob conducting and sculpting the performance in real time on a mixer. The result is at times chaotic and cacophonic, but appropriately so and mixed with sparser moments where the details of a particular playing were brought out. One of the unifying elements was recorded text that appeared at various times before being obscured beneath the noise.
The final set was a digital laptop trio featuring Thea Farhadian, Aaron Oppenheim and Tim Perkis. This was an ensemble formed specifically for this concert.
[Photo PeterBKaars.com.]
For a while it was rather common to see musicians performing solo or in ensembles exclusively with laptops and digital-processing software. It seems to be less common at the moment with the resurgence of hardware synthesizers, and it is becoming more common to see electronic musicians including analog synthesizers like the classic Serge modulars from the first set. This transition is something I have myself participated in as a performing electronic musician. But the trio on this night reminded me of some of the unique sounds that digital systems can create, with access to samples, jumps, and signal processing that takes advantage of artifacts and computation, such as FM and granular synthesis. There was also more subtlety in the music for this set, with some very quiet moments. Unlike the previous sets, this one was broken up into a few distinct compositions.
Overall, it was interesting to hear the different strains of disciplines within electronic music juxtaposed as they were on this evening. Perhaps an interesting follow up would be to pair a modular synth performer with a digital laptop performer in a future concert.
CatSynth video: Dreadbox Erebus
Titled “how to unbox a greek synthesizer (Dreadbox Erebus)” by Neoplasma on YouTube, via matrixsynth. You can guess where the cat ends up at the end of the video 😉
You can see more related Dreadbox Erebus videos in the original Matrixsynth post.
Wordless Wednesday: Spheres (San Francisco)
Outsound New Music Summit: Vacuum Tree Head, avantNoir and Cabbages, Captain and King
While the first night of the 2015 Outsound New Music Summit was billed as “Quiet Noise”, the second night was something altogether different. The concert features three exuberant but very different bands spanning a wide variety of musical techniques and styles.
First up was Cabbages, Captain and King, a trio featuring Eli Wallace on piano, Karl Evangelista on guitar, and Jon Arkin on drums.
[Cabbages, Captain and King. Photo: peterbkaars.com.]
I have become quite a fan of Eli Wallace’s piano playing, which is virtuosic and energetic. Combined with Evangelista’s intense and varied guitar performance and Arkin’s drums, the trio packed quite a punch. The speed and energy rarely let up throughout the 45-minute set. The music had an unsettled quality, always moving forward and never quite reaching a groove or tonal center. There were occasional quiet moments when the overall intensity of the performance let up, and the final notes with prepared piano were a nice touch.
[Eli Wallace. Photo: peterbkaars.com.]
Next up was Liza Mezzacapa’s Bait & Switch performing her project avantNoir. The pieces in this project were all inspired by noir fiction. The first half was based on “hard-boiled” stories by Dashiell Hammett set in 1920s San Francisco – with many familiar places and streets references – and the second half was based on “soft boiled” stories by Paul Auster set in 1980s New York (also a familiar setting).
[Lisa Mezzacappa’s avantNOIR with Bait & Switch. Photo: peterbkaars.com.]
The music fit into the punctuated jazz style I have heard many times from Mezzacapa and her bands. But there was a distinctly 1970s crime show vibe to many of the pieces that contrasted with the times and places of the original stories’ settings. The interplay of bass, guitar with wah wah and drums, along with some of the electronic sounds from guest performer Tim Perkis led to this 1970s feel. The project itself suggests film scores for the stories, and I liked the idea of changing listeners’ expectations, especially if they have seen Hollywood versions of these stories. In addition to Mezzacapa and Perkis, the set featured Aaron Bennett on tenor saxophone, Jordon Glenn on drums, John Finkbeiner on guitar and special guest William Winant on vibraphone and sound-effects percussion. I found Winant’s seltzer bottle and tiny door particularly amusing.
[Aaron Bennett and William Winant. Photo: peterbkaars.com.]
Then it was time for Vacuum Tree Head to take the stage.
[Vacuum Tree Head. Photo: peterbkaars.com.]
Led by Jason Berry who was conducting this evening, led us through fast-paced set of short pieces that ranged from classic jazz to deep funk to something approaching metal rock. Above the fray were vocals by Amy X Neuburg, who brought her theatrical and operatic voicings to the rather challenging music along with her very distinctive performance personality.
[Amy X Neuburg and Jason Berry. Photos: peterbkaars.com.]
Many of the pieces, which were composed primarily by Berry and Michael de La Cuesta who together formed the band in 1989(!), were premiers. The band made the most of the variety of music, with an extended fusion keyboard solo by Amanda Chaudhary in DL DS, deep funk from the whole band behind Rich Corney’s guitar in EMS, a blindingly short jazz tune inspired by the Akhnaton dynasty of ancient Egypt, and a loud metal tune that may have been a first for an Outsound New Music Summit.
[Amanda Chaudhary et al. Photo: peterbkaars.com.]
Rich Lesnick (also a band-mate of mine in Reconnaissance Fly) brought solid saxophone and bass clarinet, including an extended moody bass-clarinet solo in Cushion Fortress; and Michael de la Cuesta featured in many songs on analog synthesizer, guitar and glockenspiel. Justin Markovits held things together with his drumming, assisted in the rhythm section by Tom Ferguson on bass. There was even a bit of abstract electronics from Amy X Neuburg on Blippo Box and Amanda Chaudhary on modular synth.
[Michael de la Cuesta and Justin Markovits. Photo: peterbkaars.com.]
The set was very well received by audience, some of whom were longtime fans of the band and some hearing us for the first time. And personally, it was quite a privilege to be part of the band for this event.
Overall, it was a strong evening for the summit, one that stood out as quite contrasting among the sets as well as with the other concerts.
Luna is home
Luna has come home after her surgery. Basically, she had a full mastectomy and removal of a lymph node that was a likely target for spreading. She recovered well during her overnight stay at the hospital, and indeed was quite energetic and charmed the staff with her sweet and affectionate nature. She will have to wear the cone of shame for a while, but somehow she manages to still look good with it.
She’s going to need quite a bit of care and support over the next few days as she heals, including pain medication and comfort. And we are anxiously waiting for the oncology report from the removed lymph node later this week. This will determine our next steps, and right now we’re holding onto hope for a good result. So far she has been quite resilient through this ordeal, and hoping that will be a good sign.
As always, thank you all for your purrs and thoughts, and please keep them coming!
-Luna and Amanda