Let us compare some grooves

I derive my sounds from all manner of sources, but I have a particular taste for vinyl run out grooves. I did a spectral analysis (via Audacity) of five discs (3 vinyl/2 shellac) from different eras/formats. The results are interesting, especially for those after some analog glitch and dusty noise.

Wheatsheaf show video

I've uploaded a video of last Monday's performance at the Wheatsheaf. Thanks to my Lauren for the capture.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=-mXYDSjzIqY

Viva Mexicana!

My good cousin Ben gifted me some kitsch vinyl on Friday afternoon after work. Viva Mexicana! is a delightfully camp set of traditional Mexican tunes set to a Go-Go flavour - lots of horns and some nice marimba spots. I did a spontaneous bit of spinning on my turntable (with ipod synth) this afternoon and came up with this little tune: it's Mexicana A-Go Go! (1.7 MB)

Perfect for tequila binges, mild acid trips and commencing revolutions with bucksome chiquitas.

How ironic I should start working under my new stage name (redrobin) and come up with something completely inconsistent with my previous output.

Wheatsheaf

Last night I played a turntable/ipod set at COMA's Hipnote Spring Sessions. At nearly an hour, it was the longest set that I've played in this guise and I had been concerned whether I could sustain it for an extended period. It went reasonably well I think.

The selection of vinyl included the La Boheme 78, some 'Mantovani Ole!' (good for castanets), Trumpet A Go Go (more like marimba a go go), excerpts of Bowie's Low and Heroes as well as a dash of Blondie. The ipod touch featured for the first time, including some synth textures over vinyl crackles early on and the generative Eno/Chiver's Bloom application which got chopped and diced towards the end of the set.

Someone thought that the set worked really well, dividing it into two sections - First Half: foreboding, Second half: EROTIC. Nice to see I finished off on a good note.

Setlist (excluding segues):

The Drop
Farewell Mimi
Slow Light
Preceding Dust
Lounge Scare
Hansa
Musk
A Room For Departure

Sweeney and Louth-Robins play the EMU

Last night I performed at the EMU Space supporting Panoptique Electrical (Jason Sweeney) and the launch of his new release Let The Darkness At You. Performing once again with a combo of turntable and laptop, I was pleased with my performance aside from a couple of 'happy' accidents with vinyl slippage. Jason's set with projections was a testament to his outstanding reputation as a composer and performer. The fifty minute set was absolutely beautiful - by far the best electronic music performance I've seen this year. The EMU Space's perfect acoustics reinforced Jason's glacial and darkly atmospheric music, which coupled with slowly pulsating black and white images, gave the music a strong emotional weight. A very friendly receptive crowd made this one of my musical highlights for 08.

Thanks to Lauren for the lovely photos, there's more on my Flickr page here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7528804@N04/

I've posted some video excerpts from my performance here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUodUPAUJAs

Now for a break from performing until November, and soaking up Germany in the meantime.

The Arouser - video documentation

Yesterday in preparation for the show this Friday night I decided to create some documentation on my custom built Max/MSP patch - The Arouser.  It's the patch that I've been using in tandem with my foray into turntables and real-time vinyl manipulation, as evident on the mini-release mimi.

The Arouser - an overview

The Arouser - demonstration

Tape Abuse

A sequel of sorts to the post a month ago when I took cruel hand, knife and pliers to a vinyl record of Beethoven. The results were awful, but I have a little more hope for a blank cassette tape I've had sitting in the backyard since Saturday morning.



I've decided to bring it in from the cold wintery climate this evening, give it a cup of tea and have a listen to it on the old Tascam 424.

I've always liked the way that tape breaks down. The way that the sound quality dimishishes compared to vinyl is a lot more subtle and homogenous because its breakdown affects the overall picture (i.e a frequency band) rather than the infrequent clicks and pops that marr a well-loved (or well-hated) slab of vinyl.

FELT

Last night I played a set at the Felt Art Space alongside Panoptique Electrical (Jason Sweeney) and ii (Melbourne.) The art space was temporarily transformed into an ideal venue for some ambient musings on a freezing rainy evening in Adelaide.

I was very satisfied with my set which was my first public excursion in vinyl & laptop. I used my recent mini-release mimi as the template for the performance, splicing in some new material as well as some spare of the moment experiments which seemed to work and go down really well to a very receptive and friendly audience.

Jason's set under the droned guise of Panoptique was nice and consistent with layer upon layer of rich metallic textures overlaying each other and colouring the space nicely.

Unfortunately, Lauren and I had to head off after my set to attend the Helpmann Academy event so I missed the opportunity to see the guys from ii perform. However, we did see them play a lovely set the previous night at the Grace Emily providing support for Aviator Lane.

Thanks to Jon and Alex from ii and Jason as well the crew at Felt for a great and well organised evening. Jon and Alex, thanks for the invite! Looking forward to performing with you when I get over Melbourne again sometime soon!

Also, cheeers the Lauren's parents for taking my gear home, it would've been a bit cumbersome lugging around a turntable and precious vinyl for the rest of the night.

Some of the actual performance photos soon.

3 more videos

A few more videos have been uploaded to my YouTube channel.

"The Sky Falling" Max/MSP documentation (NOTE: lo-fi)

here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3-Fzk0_AJE

mimi promotional video

here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0vJf6WttBM

"The Drop" - from mimi promotional video

here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eDkuEZYqsk

recording "cale" (aka mimi #2)

I'm currently recording another collection of turntable tracks working under the title of 'cale'. I envision that a 'silent' Tascam 424 might make an appearance.


The set-up.


The patch


The patch - unwrapped.

Mimi - six works for turntable and computer

I have uploaded Mimi for download. The bundle comes with 128 kps mp3s, artwork and liner notes.

A hard copy format will accompany my performance at Felt Space on the 8th of August.

Download here. (20.2 MB)

Tracklisting:

1. The Drop
2. Farewell Mimi
3. Ear To Air
4. Oceanic Lonliness
5. Radio Glory
6. A Room For Departure

Mimi - liner notes

Some thoughts on Mimi

Of the recordable mediums, there's something fascinating about vinyl. Aside from the nostalgic and aesthetic elements attached to vinyl, the physicality of the medium itself - its shape and size, fragility, and operation lend to its curiosity and mystique as a medium of sound reproduction. It is a compositional medium probably more commonly associated with commercial music, though was explored in an experimental fashion earlier in the 20th Century by artists such as John Cage (Imaginary Landscape #1) and Pierre Schaefer (see Musique Concrete.) The medium as art object was practically
exhausted over the course of the last century until there was nothing left but a hiss and a crackle in its last decade.

This is where my interest in the medium becomes apparent.

The hiss and crackle of vinyl is what defines it as a medium – they are the soundmarks of its fragility and apparent failure. Since 2005 I've been engaged in what Kim Cascone defines as the aesthetics of failure - the inherent glitches and faults of a given technology which establish its identity. As digital recording lossy took dominance over the analog format at the close of the last century, artists such as Cascone started using the latest
technologies on both a microscopic and manipulative level, exposing the apparent 'weaknesses' of the medium and utilising them as a compositional device. Whilst this trend has continued up to the present day, some artists went in the other direction, recalling superseded technologies as their instrument of choice. In terms of vinyl, this is no more apparent than in the work of Philip Jeck, whose focus on the hiss and crackle of vinyl has not only characterised Jeck's approach to composition, but has opened a new realm of possibilities in working with the medium of vinyl. In May 2008, I witnessed a live performance by Jeck as he built up layer upon layer of crackle fused with an occasional flutter of piano and chunk of guitar riffage, accumulating and expertly positioning sounds to form rich textures of sound which could be augmented and stripped away in a seamless fashion. Not your average DJ.

The tracks which make up Mimi are my first attempts at working with vinyl as a compositional medium, and are very obviously influenced by the work of Jeck. I recorded the tracks over a weekend in July 2008 using a Sound Research 1600
turntable and a custom built Max/MSP patch capable of processing the incoming signal from the turntable. A biquad filter and comb filter are used to shape and manipulate the original sounds of the vinyl record, a tap delay is used in consort with these filters to create layers and textures of sound. If there is an underlying theme to Mimi, it is associated with the beauty of small objects and their internal operation, their fragility and their breakdown and decay. Mimi is dedicated to Debra Carthie, a close friend who passed away in the week preceding these recordings.

Tristan Louth-Robins
July 2008

Upcoming live performance: 8th August 2008

I will be playing a set at the Felt Space on the 8th of August 2008. Jason Sweeney and Melbourne duo ii are also performing. The much vaunted turntable will make its first public appearance and I will be performing tracks from an upcoming mini-release Mimi.

More details to follow shortly.

The Vinyl Harp

For the lack of a better name, I have dubbed this simple little MSP app the Vinyl Harp. For awhile now I've been interested in the potential of using vinyl run-out grooves as a compositional device. Philip Jeck and Christian Marclay's investigations into this esoteric medium are pretty well known, so I've been trying to produce something original for the past week.

As the record player's stylus is stereo it reads both sides of the run out groove which are diffrent to each other on a micoscopic level, but can be articulated with the right kind of processing.

The Vinyl Harp is straightforward enough; it's a two-channel input into Max/MSP where the signals can be sonically tranformed using a biquad filter and comb filter. Each of these effects can be used individually or in consort with each other. I've found that the most interesting results have been acheived with the comb filter - applying a quarter to half second delay and using a strong feedback level. This articulates the vinyl's clicks, pops and crackles quite well and produces a nice sustained bell/plucked string sound. The biquad filter is also useful for scanning the resonant areas of the clicks and pops and can be very handy in conjunction with the comb filter.

I've also incorporated a sample playback option for pre-recorded run-out grooves.

I did some documentation last night, but I don't have time to upload it today. Check back here in a couple of days. There's plenty more to come over the next couple of weeks.

Vinyl abuse

Boy, was I in a bad mood last night.

Since I've had a turntable for over a month now I figured it was about time I administered the knife and pliers to some of the less-loved vinyl in my collection. Beethoven's Greatest Hits anyone?





I've personally never been that much of a fan, and since he made that appearance in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure I've regarded the deaf prick as a complete sell-out. 'Fur Elise' is nice, but the rest had to go.

The end result sounded terrible, but there's definitely some potential here. I've got another two of his Greatest Hits to abuse.

There's nothing more cathartic than butchering other people's idols.