A cat enjoying a snooze on a Realistic (Moog) MG-1 synthesizer. From brerruinseverything on Instagram.
analog
Wordless Wednesday: Luna, Moog Theremini, and Minimoog
CatSynth video: Making beats w the classic Serge Modular
Another from our friend Dmitri SFC of Coa Modular and Slope 114. The cat seems quite at home with the Serge Modular 🙂
CatSynth pic: Serge Cat! (Church of the Super Serge)
From my friend Elise Gargalikis, half of Slope114 and one of the organizers of the Church of the Super Serge at ROBOTPEAk. I am excited to be playing a show them tomorrow at ROBOTSPEAk’s 2014 Bay Area Synth Meet! Drop by tomorrow afternoon, 589 1/2 Haight Street here in San Francisco! I play at 3:30, but a lot of other great artists and synth makers to check out all day.
CatSynth pic: Cat and Minimoog in space
This cat seems to really enjoy the Minimoog, even in low earth orbit. From the Facebook group Cats on Synthesizers in Space.
CatSynth pic: Lissette and Micromoog
Another picture courtesy of Regina Cherene via our Facebook page. This one features Lissette the cat near a Micromoog and sundry items.
CatSynth pic: Rico with Rhodes, Minimoog, Putney and modular
Via matrixsynth. This one is a true blast from the past, posted there only a week after CatSynth was founded 🙂
This one in via Michael. “Attached photo: Rico the cat playing a solo lead line while accompanying self on Rhodes. He hasn’t yet got the hang of the (unfinished) modular, but my other cat has opposable thumbs and is a fast learner. Putney and Minimoog on loan from Reed.”
Outsound New Music Summit: PoetryFreqs
The concert series of the Pitta of the Mind, my duo with Maw Shein Win got things going with a set of poetry and electronic music on the themes of abstract art and cinematic distance. Our color theme for the evening was red and black.
[Photo by Annabelle Port.]
It was our longest set to date, but also our best so far, with a variety of sounds to match the words and tight transitions between poems. It was also the most complex technically, with the Prophet 12, analog modular, Moog Theremini, iPad, and Nord Stage EX all running at once.
[Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
[Photo by Annabelle Port.]
We performed confidently and playfully and we got a great audience response. And the color theme went well with the blue set and lighting courtesy Travin McKain.
We were followed by first-ever performance by Ruth Weiss, one of the original Beat poets, with master analog synthesizer artist Doug Lynner as well as Hal Davis on log.
[Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
Log may seem like an odd instrumentation, but Davis made it work well with Ruth Weiss’ recitations, and Lynner managed to create sounds on the Mystery Serge modular that sometimes mimicked the percussive resonance of the log and at other times complimented it with more lush tones. He was also able to hit loud or noisy moments in between the words. Ruth Weiss was sharp and witty in her readings, moving from her work in the 1950s and 1960s to more recent compositions. Although the trio had only met once before, they seemed very comfortable performing together and it made for a fun and exciting set. This was something that will likely never be repeated, so we were privileged to have witnessed it.
The final set brought together Zachary James Watkins on electronics and Marshall Trammell on percussion with poet and voice artist Amber McZeal.
[Photos: PeterBKaars.com.]
The music began slowly, with calm but textured percussion and electronic sounds combined with McZeal on didgeridoo. The drone built up to more intense textures, with noise and thick electronics, Trammell’s intense drumming, and McZeal’s voice, which was at times beautiful and melodic singing, and other times dramatic and confident speech. The text for this set was very sparse compared to the previous sets, more like a third instrument than poetry set to music.
Overall, this was a great start to the Summit concerts with three strong performances (I admit I am biased about the first one). We had a great turnout as well, filling all the seats in the concert hall at the Community Music Center. It set a high bar for the next nights.
Outsound Music Summit: Touch the Gear
The 2014 Outsound Music Summit in underway. And as usual, we began with our popular community event Touch the Gear. We had a large crowd of all ages, and delightful cacophony of unusual musical sounds.
This year, I brought the analog modular (specifically, about two-thirds of the current module collection) and the new Moog Theremini:
[Photo by Frank Lin]
There were several first-time participants this year, including Elise Gargalikis and Dmitri SFC of coa-modular.comwith their “wall of Serge”. It was fun to get to try this out myself.
[Photo by Elise Gargalikis‎]
There was more Serge modular to be found, courtesy of Lx Rudis.
Aaron Oppenheim brought classic circuit-bent toys, including a Speak&Math and the Talking Computron.
It was a bit of inspiration to get of my tuchus and circuit-bend the Speak&Spell sitting in my studio!
There was a Minimoog sighting, of course.
Long-time participants Matt Davignon and CJ Borosque demonstrated their recent work with effects pedals. Davignon processed drum machines and samplers while Borosque’s pedals were in a closed loop circuit generating their own sound.
There were acoustic instruments as well. David Samas brought his very impressive contrabass ehru. This beast was huge. And it had bells in addition to the strings and resonant chamber (made out of a trunk).
Bryan Day presented his mechanical/electrical/acoustic inventions.
Jaroba shared a variety of wind and percussion instruments with a bit of electronics.
[Photo by Frank Lin]
There were several more presenters, and as usual I don’t have room for everyone in this post. But it was a great event as always, and we at Outsound appreciated everyone’s contributions. Now it is on to the concerts including tomorrow night’s Poetry Freqs show. Please click here for the full schedule!
