CATSYNTH

cats synthesizers music art opinion

Author: catsynth

  • APAture Festival: Music Night

    The APAture Festival (Asian Pacific American artists) is currently underway here in San Francisco. It began last Thursday (September 18) and continues until next Saturday (September 26). The APAture festival showcases the work of Asian American artists and is produced by the Kearny Street Workshop, who also co-produced the Present Tense Biennial exhibit.

    We actually begin with the second night of the festival: “Music Night” at the Poleng Lounge. The music was relatively mainstream, focusing on hip hop and rock artists who all happened to be of Asian or South Asian heritage.

    Nomadik Messengers opened the evening with Bay Area hip-hop by way of the Philippines. Hip hop is generally about the words, but I find myself focusing on the beats, samples and instrumental sounds in the background, and I liked their use of classic funk and R&B from the 1970s (for which I have a soft spot). In his set, Mandeep Sethi (originally from the Los Angeles hip-hop scene but now residing in San Francisco) did call out the mighty MPC 2500 while creating words about social consciousness and cultural issues. Compared to the other hip-hop artists, Hopie $spitshard’s sounds were less old school and more infused with electronics, sirens, and synth noises reminiscent of contemporary dance clubs. Her words and stage presents was also fun, including her line “I’m glad you guys are here because it makes it more funner…and less creepy.” Her high energy vocals seemed to melt from one line into the next, and were full of electronic effects.

    Lumaya’s music was a stark contrast to the hip-hop sets, and quite reminiscent of 1990s indie rock from my college years. As one would expect from an indie-rock power trio, it was loud and hard, with both blues and chromatic elements. Lead singer Olga Salamanca’s vocals and presence were the central element and her ethereal but forceful voice seemed to blend musically into the rock vibe, but it was somewhat hard to hear what she was saying due to sound issues in the room.

    Johnny Hi-Fi’s style of pop rock seemed to be from a different era than Lumaya, either a decade earlier (1980s) or later (2000s). I think this as much due to lead singer/guitarist/keyboardist Eric Hsu’s visual style as well as the style of the music. The keyboards gave the group more of a singer-songwriter sensibility as well. Sometimes it seemed a little over-emoted, at other times a bit light, like a small-club rock show where people dance and hop around. I did like the last songs, including their soundtrack to a documentary on domestic violence (a topic in sharp contrast to the otherwise light and fun nature of their music); and especially the encore song which was sung in Hsu in Chinese. I thought this was a fitting way to conclude the event.

  • CatSynth pic: Uni on the keys

    Submitted by Torley, from his flickr photostream:

  • Weekend Cat Blogging: Grass!

    It seems like a fine weekend to enjoy some grass:

    “Rosy’s” is our favorite brand, in part because of the little black cat on the tag. It has appeared previously on this site.

    Luna had been obsessed lately with the grass growing the flower pots on our patio, so it seemed like she was really craving it. Perhaps this is a trait picked up from our friend Mickey.

    (A bit of trivia: the photos in this article are scaled to 420 pixels.)

    Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted by Samantha and Tigger of Life from a Cat’s Perspective, now at their new home in Texas.

    The Carnival of the Cats will be up this Sunday at House Panthers, of which Luna is a proud member.

    And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

  • Singing Kitties

    A little light entertainment from rathergoodstuff, via matrixsynth:

    Cats with Autotune. If you are easily offended by Autotune, you probably don’t want to watch this video.

    This is the same rathergood.com that did this classic chillin’ kittens. I still like that one better – you can see it here.

  • CatSynth pic: Custom Fizmo

    From the sodium potassium pimp on flickr, via

    You can see the original Ensoniq Fizmo here.

    I was interested in some of the things the Fizmo (and other late model Ensoniqs) were doing with “trans wave” technology. But I think I have that an more with software-based granular synthesis.

  • Wordless Wednesday: Tank Hill

  • CatSynth pic: I’m in yr synths… oscillating yr banks

    From Masonic Boom on flickr:

  • CatSynth pic: Fishpants and the MFOs sequencer

    From sduck409 on flickr, via matrixsynth:

    “Fishpants is about a year old in this picture. She has decided that living in my studio is a good idea.”

    We at CatSynth agree.

  • Dieb13, Djll, Greenlief, Robair, and Ueno at CNMAT

    Last Thursday, I found myself back at my old “stomping ground”, the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) to hear an evening of improvised music.

    Dieb13 (aka Dieter Kovacic) opened with a solo set for multiple turntables. It started with a single turntable producing noise/static sounds, and gradually incorporated electrical hums and synthesizer sounds, along with complex repeated rhythms. The rhythmic patterns were sometimes metric, sometimes more stuttering. With three turntables going at once, Kovacic’s performance seemed more “synthesizer” and less “DJ.”

    Dieb31 was then joined by Tom Djll (trumpet and electronics), Philip Greenlief (saxophone), Gino Robair (percussion and electronics) and Kenn Ueno (extended vocal techniques). The set began with “scraping sounds”, Robair blowing a small horn against a drum and Greenlief scraping a mouthpiece cover along his tenor sax. Indeed, the acoustic instruments as noise sources dominated the first section of this extended improvisation, before the Blippo Box, the other electronic instruments and Dieb31’s turntables entered. It was interesting to hear how the sounds from the turntables an Ueno’s vocal techniques matched the acoustic instruments, and it was a challenge at times to tell which sounds were acoustic and which sounds were electronic.

    Another notable confluence was Ueno’s throat singing set against low-frequency sounds from the turntable and the Blippo Box. There were also contrasting sections with percussive short notes on all the instruments (trumpet, electronics, sax, voice, turntable, percussion) in rapid succession. There was a very soft section with saxophone multiphonics (we have commented on Greenlief’s expertise with multiphonics in the past), vocal whispers, low-level electrical sounds, and a resonant tube; and very loud moments, screeching, high-pitched. One very rhythmic section featured Gino running fan against cymbals and Tom Dill running a similar fan against his trumpet. Greenlief joined in running keys against his sax. The piece ended with loud notes that came to a sudden stop.

    This was followed by a much shorter “encore” improvisation, whose memorable moments were the variety of sounds from the turntable, which included an excerpt from a bebop recording and a toilet flushing.

  • Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt: Electric

    This weekend we at CatSynth sing the body electric (with apologies to Walt Whitman) and present another combined Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt.

    Electricity and electronics are a central part of our existence:

    Luna poses with an electric guitar, cables and our Mr. Echo delay pedal. Below we see Luna posing with another of our electronic devices, a Korg Kaos Pad:

    Electricity permeates not only our music but art as well. Here we see a piece entitled Reflective by artist Roy Forest. It contains a red neon light running the length of bamboo tube.

    For WCB, note the Suzhou cat and maneki neko on the shelf about the sculpture.

    It’s interesting how there is a black and red theme throughout the images in this post. I only noticed that after completing it. It has a suggestion of fire to it, and fire and electricity have a strong connection.

    More electricity. This morning, we were awakened by a large electrical storm with loud thunder and flashes of lightening. It’s a remarkable coincidence, as thunderstorms are quite rare in San Francisco. They lasted most of the morning, and some neighborhoods lost electricity. Our area was not affected by the outages, and in the end things just got a little damp.

    Weekend Cat Blogging is hosted by our friends LB and Breadchick at The Sour Dough. We know they will appreciate the audio and music gear featured in this article.

    Photo Hunt #178 at tnchick features the theme of electric, with the prototype image being an electric guitar.

    Kashim, Othello and Salome are hosting the Carnival of the Cats this Sunday.

    And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.