Acxel Resynthesizer and Rhodes Chroma

From Kevin Kelly of The Audio Playground Synthesizer Museum, via matrixsynth:

The Technos Acxel is an interesting synthesizer, based on manipulation of spectra in the frequency domain. This is something several of us have been doing in software for quite a while.

In addition to the Acxel and the Rhodes Chroma, I see an E-MU EMAX in the background.

CatSynth pic: Button and a Dotcom Modular Bed

From James Price, via matrixsynth:

“This is my mostly empty dotcom with my kitten, Button, inside.”

“dotcom” of course refers to the Synthesizers.com rack, which apparently doubles as a comfortable napping spot.

We would like to remind everyone that you can submit your own cat-and-music pictures via our online form, via facebook, or @catsynth on twitter.

Weekend Cat Blogging: Desaturation

Our first Weekend Cat Blogging of 2010 begins in grayscale:

Luna is on her favorite beanbag chair in a relatively clean studio. Nearby is a crate full of old audio interfaces – it seems we have quite a few E-MU, M-Audio and Digidesign interfaces, some in various states of disrepair or obsolescence.  We rely on one or another of these portable interfaces for live shows.

Meanwhile, Luna drifts off to sleep…

Weekend Cat Blogging will be hosted by Pam at Sidewalk Shoes.

The Carnival of the Cats will be up this Sunday at Mind of Mog.

The monthly Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos will be hosted on Sunday by Samantha and The Orange Kitty at Life from a Cat’s Perspective.

And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Farewell to 2009

So this is the time when we choose to look back on the year that has just ended.  Or in some cases, not look back.  It seems that this past year was a difficult one for a lot of people, an annus horribilis or a “year to forget.” For me, that particular title could be better applied to another year that was far more tragic and difficult.

So I feel a little at odds looking back at 2009 and seeing a really rich year, one filled with visual and personal experiences.  I actually learned a lot, about other people around the world, about myself, about what is important to me, and I think that is actually reflected on these pages in a strange way.

I expect this coming year to be more of a transitional one, though I am not exactly sure yet where that will lead.  But in the meantime, we at CatSynth will continue to do what we do…

no editions – live video series 2009

A little inspiration for things to come in 2010:

no editions – live video series 2009 August 17 New York from no editions on Vimeo.

I saw this via an article on PLANET magazine. Primarily a fashion article reviewing Christian Niessen and Nicole Lachelle’s No Editions label, but tt seems to intersect with various ideas of my own at this particular time, the combination of electronic music with visual experiments. The clothing becomes a canvas for the video, which in turn records people wearing the clothing.

Rain and Resurface

I usually try not to be intimidated by the rain here. But it was coming down pretty hard as I wondered the familiar streets of SOMA and South Beach looking for a particular gallery not far from the former Fremont Street overpass that I photographed on a sunnier day. I was trying to catch an exhibit before it closed on Sunday, only to find the gallery itself was closed for the extended holiday weekend.

So now I had not only the pouring rain around me, but also a large caption reading “FAIL”. Not a big deal per se, but we did need to get out of the rain. We headed down 2nd Street, looking for someplace that would be at least dry and somewhat comforting, a cafe or a bar that had not opted to close for the holidays. I was surprised to find that 111 Minna was open, and in fact quite well populated. They were having some sort of fundraising event with work from several artists. However, I found myself more interested in the permanent exhibit, Resurface, a solo exhibit by local artist Micah LeBrun. LeBrun had taken a hiatus from his work, which primarily focused on painting, for a year in late 2008 and early 2009 to travel through Central America, Asia, Australia, Africa and Europe. During this time, he focused on photography, and only returned to painting after returning home. The exhibit included examples of his photographs (partially obscured by the art being displayed for the fundraiser). I was more drawn to the stark landscape images, which reminded me of my own adventures in the desert and sparsely populated areas, than to the portraits. Among the paintings, I was also drawn to the non-portrait pieces, such as the large red canvas with the words “the New Yorker”, and another piece featuring an algebraic equation (the solution to which was of course 0.5). Both pieces are visible in this promotional image, featuring the artist in his studio:

[Click to enlarge.]

Afterwards, I did visit LeBrun’s website, and found myself more interested in some of his earlier work, such as the combination of figurative and abstract paintings from 2005 and 2006. There were several works that focused on black and shades of pink. It was interesting to view one of his figurative pieces, such as “high maintenance” next to an abstract work like “take it easy”, as if one is a distillation of the other (small versions of both works are displayed to the right). You can see other works from this series at his online gallery.

CatSynth pic: Happy Times

From Retribution Body on flickr, via matrixsynth:

“I’m very happy with the new rig. It’s very West Coast Serge / Buchla compared to the ARP, it’s a very different beast. I’m looking forward to doing some serious recording with it.”

“Once again, Ernie is very helpful.”

You can see more on the associated flickr set.