Author: catsynth

CD Review: br'er Of Shemales and Kissaboos

Readers might remember the band br'er and lead Benjamin Schurr from the infamous CatSynth Tatoo. Well, br'er is out with their first album, Of Shemales and Kissaboos.

br'er not surprisingly includes a lot of synthesizer work, combined with songwriting, “art rock”, and an interesting collection of instruments. Schurr and Christian Mirande together provide an assortment of synthesizers, noise sources, toy instruments, and such on top of a more traditional “band” of voice, guitar, keyboard, bass and drums.

The music ranges from very soft ballads to something akin to techno-industrial. Perhaps most iconic for me is the track “I'm sorry mom”, which I believe used to be featured on br'er's myspace. It opens with simple 3/4 strumming and voice, and quickly grows to include dissonant piano strings and more. A lot of pieces follow a similar idea, moving between art-rock song and experimental electronic work. The next track “Rory snake handler” also features a lot of splicing between disparate elements (e.g., song and dissonant piano), I'm guessing it is not indended to be played live. Most of the tracks, however, do sound quite doable live, which should make for some interesting shows as they tour.

The tracks following “I'm sorry mom”, continue to build up more and more electronic and noise elements, while returning for stretches to the “song” format. Ultimately, it is a collection of real songs, as sung by Schurr. But I find myself focusing on the piano and the electronics most. There is a lot of what I would consider “traditional avant-guard piano”, as well as sound-synthesis exploration, of the sorts I might use in my own performances or recordings. This is especially true in the later tracks from “Lapin” onward. It almost feels like they arranged in increasing order of electronic noise and beat/pattern content, which is as good an organizing principle as any. But to their credit, they provide a more chaotic or absurdist, and somewhat quiet, turn at the end.

Of Shemales And Kissaboos is available now from Beat is Murder Records. You can hear audio samples from from the album at Beat Is Murder's myspace as well as br'er.

Discuss on the CatSynth music forum.

Code 46 / "With All Her Heart"

Our friend jellypizza posted this wonderful video of Taboo from 1997, peeking out from inside a drawer.


I haven't embedded the video, but I do encourage readers to go see it (you can click on the photo or the “related link” below). In a way, it is also a posthumous “CatSynth Video” for Taboo, featuring the very ambiet/electronic/synthetic track “Mother” from the soundtrack of the award-winning film Code 46. (The soundtrack is also available at iTunes .) I really thought it added something to the video, giving what was already a very sweet moment a unique quality. Of course, one would expect music from a soundtrack to work well with video, but it's still interesting how well it worked given the stark contrast to the actual film.

I had not heard of Code 46 before JellyPizza's recommendation, but did get a chance to see it last week. The ambient music is a backdrop to a tale in the near future where technology is more advanced but still very recognizeable. In the film, the world seems to be separated into a very high-tech “inside” world that includes major developed cities (e.g., in Asia, Europe, North America, etc.) and “outside.” People carry genetic IDs and bio-tech permits to travel. Additionally, the goverment or governments of the “inside” have genetically driven limits on who can and cannot have children together. This is all meant to sound very sinister, I'm sure, but I think the folks in this near-future world might have a point on the reproduction/population issue. And the world painted by the visuals and the music seems very inviting, both futuristic and very familiar at the same time. There is also an interesting take on fusion among “inside” languages (e.g., English, Chinese, Spanish).

Check out the soundtrack or the movie if you have a chance, and then re-watch Taboo's video.

New Podcast: Turandot (Puccini), Tribute to Luciano Pavarotti (1935-2007)

Click here to subscribe. You can also visit the CatSynth Channel page for more info or to listen live.

Tonight's podcast is a tribute to Luciano Pavarotti, who passed away on September 6, 2007. We feature selections from Act 1 and Act 3 of Puccini's Turandot. The selection from Act 3 is the aria “Nessun dorma,” which was one of Pavarotti's signature pieces. You have probably heard it before. Below is one of his last performances of this piece, at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin:

We will have another related video treat for our readers and listeners this Wednesday.

These recordings were released on the Internet Archive, as part of a Creative Commons release.

A technical note: classical recordings tend to suffer more from the artifacts of MP3 encoding, and these recordings have been through the MP3 machine at least twice if not more. Those who want to hear a cleaner version are encouraged to check out the source version, or an original recording on CD.

Although the “Nessun dorma” might be more famous, I am fond of the selection from Act 1. It has a dark sound (in keeping with the rather morbid story line), and a very “modal” sound. In particular, there is the minor pattern that concludes this section:

This pattern, and indeed the generally “modal” nature of the music in this act, is presumably to give the music an “eastern” flavor, in keeping with the story of Turandot. However, it fits perfectly in with my own interests in more mainstream music, including my current fascination with old R&B and rock-and-roll from the 1950s and 1960s. One could see the above pattern, performed by the low strings of the orchestra, done by a string bass in an old jazz or R&B recording .

It is inspiring to find these sorts of connections between often disparate forms of music, and perhaps that is in itself a small tribute. Listening to, and paying respect to, one of the great modern opera talents, and having that lead to inspiration elsewhere…

Chaos Festival: "Aquatic" Luna

We couldn't let this week's theme for the Bad Kitty Cat Chaos Festival (hosted by Kashim and Othello) go unanswered. The theme is “water or rain.” Did somebody say “Aquatic”?

Indeed, the CD does have an underlying water theme, and can be very relaxing to listen to, according to many who have either purchased or downloaded it. Although several of the order pieces had an aquatic sound to them (e.g., “Proportional Fish”), the idea to use it as a unifying element was largely inspired by living here by the ocean…

Of course, all this talk about water makes us at CatSynth quite thirsty:






Weekend Cat Blogging #118 and more: Luna in Late Summer, Strays and Project Purr

We begin our Weekend Cat Blogging with Luna, in a photo taken last weekend:

Late summer (August and September) has a particularly quality of light I have always enjoyed, both clear and melancholy. I am particularly fond of this photo of Luna, not only does the light work great on her, but also the texture/geometry of the shadows from the blinds adds a stark, modernist touch.

Plus, the way Luna's expression complements the fish? Priceless.

I continue to see cats quite often in this one triangular vacant lot, not too far CatSynth HQ. Here is a grey cat I saw the other day :

I often see them stalking and hunting in the grass in this lot, which is bounded by a shopping center, a residential street and train tracks. The tracks have a nice walking path alongside, which I often use.

We previously featured a stray cat spending time in this lot in June.

In that same article from June, we mentioned the semi-annual rummage sale held by Project Purr, a local “cat rescue organization dedicated to FERAL cats and kittens.” The end-of-summer edition of their sale is this weekend. This time, we at CatSynth were prepared and donated some useless junk “quality household goods” for the sale. And bought some books. While I am primarily looking to reduce the amount of stuff here at CatSynth HQ, there is always room for more books.

Don't forget to check out all the other cats, domestic and outdoor, at What Did you Eat, where our friends Sher and Upsie are hosting.

The Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos is being hosted by the “catboys” Kashim and Othello. Seems like they have been busy of late.

Carnival of the Cats is at Mind of Mog, and of course Friday Ark #155 is hosted by the modulator.





CT 11, unfinished projects

Highway 11 in Connecticut is a north-south freeway connecting a major route from Hartford to, well, nowhere. So one moment, you’re happily traveling south on a nice country highway, and then the next moment, you better exit before it turns into a large dirt track and ditch. Or at least that’s the impression I get, having never been there.

It’s quite dramatic, as can be seen in these aerial photos from Greg Amy (we saw a few of his photos before when visiting Yale and New Haven, CT).

It kinda looks like someone just stopped building the highway one day, and forgot to come back and finish. The story, as described on Kurumi’s website and other sources, is that the project simply ran out of funding, and then ran into opposition, though it sounds like plans are now in the works to complete highway 11 to the New London area.

However, the details of CT 11 aren’t really the focus of this article, but rather it serves as a metaphor for the many unfinished projects here at CatSynth. These include:

Finishing my album 2 1/2. There are a few tracks left from this project last Februrary that need to be replaced before releasing the album. I still think I’d doable by late November, but so far I haven’t been able to work much on it during this period of “free time.” Technical problem with my “studio PC laptop” provide at least one excuse.

Although I have been doing work all along on Open Sound World, mostly to support my own music, it’s been quite a while since I have done a full-blown release of the software. It’s hard to feel motivated when most of the feedback reads like this. However, the core software (minus the old user interface) is really solid and musically useful, and I do plan to announce a new direction for the project “real soon.”

I need to do some revisions to my professional/artistic website. At the very least I need to get the performance schedule updated – fortunately, it is already up at MySpace. The goal is to bring it more in harmony with CatSynth and rest of my websites.

I purchased one of the last Kittenettik Fyrall kits from Ciat Lonbarde, but have yet to assemble it. I guess I’ve been waiting to find the right “space”, both literally and figuratively, to do this. If I get on it soon, I might have it done in time for Woodstockhausen.

And of course there are several large articles waiting to be completed and published here at CatSynth, particularly CD reviews, film discussions, and travelogues.

But then again, maybe it’s not so bad that I’m spending time looking for employment.