Take a trip through a wormhole where captured signals from a 50’s PSA come streaming through your space helmet. You try to tune to some techno, but it doesn’t work.
Sample mangling with Elektron Octatrack MKII making heavy use of scenes and Designer LFO’s. Some manually tuning of the Comb Filter with slider as well.
I’ve schedule a YouTube Live event. Swing by now and click “Set Reminder”.
I’ve embedded the video in this post so if you happen to be here during the event you can watch live. If you are here after the event you can watch the replay.
I was asked to perform 20-25 minutes. Below is my planned set list. Of course, things tend to be fluid when doing online streaming so this may shift.
All music and sound will performed live and with live arrangement using the Elektron Analog Four MKI, Octatrack MKII, and Digitone. I will be performing on the machines directly and with the Novation Launchkey Mini MK3 and Launchpad Pro MK3.
All visuals are generated in real-time with Resolume Arena 7, with live camera input from a Logitech C922X and other various sources. I control Resolume in real-time with Novation Launchkey Mini MK3 and Launchpad Pro MK3.
I’m streaming with OBS Studio with audio routed into a Yamaha AG06 audio interface with loopback. My talkback mic is a RØDE PodMic.
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The Sydney Opera House is now streaming a Digital Season including contemporary music by artists like Panda Bear.
Digital Season – A weekly program of unmissable full-length performances, live recordings and never-before-seen footage from the Opera House archives.
https://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/digital.html
Once something streams the video is available in archive form on YouTube. Lots of interesting programs to fill your weekend with music
Here is a video of Panda Bear’s 2018 set from The Sydney Opera House which streamed on Sat 4/11 at 7p AUS. The heart of his rig or this set is two Elektron Octatrack MKI’s 😀.
Animal Collective co-founder Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear), made his highly anticipated Australian debut in the intimate settings of the Sydney Opera House Studio in 2018. A unique blend of experimental-pop, featuring sun-drenched sampling coupled with introspective lyrics, Panda Bear’s careful attention to detail and masterful use of vocal harmonies are unparalleled in modern indie rock. Summoning comparisons to the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson, you can feel the warmth pouring out of the music. Listen to Panda Bear’s album Buoys: https://EMIMusicAus.lnk.to/Buoys
SET LIST:
Here is an interview form related to this performance.
Panda Bear is a super trippy interactive web site you should definitely check out https://pandabearofficial.com
Yesterday I did an improv session with my good friend and mentor Dino J.A. Deane. This session was recorded live at the Dino’s studio (The Bohemian Lounge) using ambient room mics. We recorded 4 songs which came out to 54 minutes of music. I uploaded to this Soundcloud playlist for your enjoyment.
Mark Mosher Instruments:
Elektron Octatrack, Elektron Digitone, & Tablet (Samplr)
Dino J.A. Deane Instruments:
MicroFreak & Tablet (AUM-SpaceCraft-ENSO-NOIR-Samplr)
A post to spread the word. After a brief hiatus, the Beat Cypher returns on June 27th at a new location. Here is Justin’s note on this from the official Facebook Group.
“Hey everyone! Beat Cypher update: Madelife has officially moved to a new location. I will be holding the next cypher here on Thursday June 27th. We are now located at The Studio Boulder 3550 Frontier Ave Suite A. Its a bit of a different vibe but I think you all will dig it! Same time, new place. 7:30pm-10pm. I’ve had a busy month and some fun travels and I’m excited to get the crew back together for a sesh! Let’s rock.”
All styles welcomed and invited. The purpose of this event is to gather music producers/performers in the Boulder/Denver area and build community. Each performer gets a 10 minute time slot. Sign up is FIRST COME FIRST SERVE so get here on time to get a spot. “
I’ll be performing and extended remixed version of my sing “It Doesn’t Have to Hate You to Use Your Molecules” on Octatrack MKII and Norse Lead 4. This song is available name your price on bandcamp, and you can stream it on Spotify, Apple Music or just about any other music service 😀.
See you there.
In early May 2019 I flew out to attend and perform an original electronic music set at the Mountain Skies festival near Asheville, NC. It was a really fun weekend and I had a great time performing one track from 2014 album Fear Cannot Save Us, plus 4 brand new songs. Checkout a video of the entire set below plus a brand new live album from this same show.
My full performance is available on YouTube. It’s a 1080p video with live album audio mixed with live room audio so if you have a chance play it on a big screen with headphones or a home theater system :^)
You can jump to individual songs within this video using links below.
I’ve also released live audio recordings of the songs from this set as a “name your price” album on Bandcamp. These songs are presented as I performed them to 2-track during the show with no edits other than trimming and fading to break the continuous set up into this 5 song album with minimal gaps.
The music was performed using only Elektron Analog Four MKI, Octatrack MKII, and Digitone with no external gear other than a CME Xkey Air 25 MIDI controller which I used with the Analog Four. Original field recordings made on location in Boulder; Denver; Bath & London England. I vocoded my voice in the studio using Ableton Live and Tone2 Electra2.
Visuals provided by Michael O’Bannon.
A big thanks to Tony Gerber and Mike Metlay for organizing the event. Also a big thanks to all the volunteers at the festival, Radio Spiral, the venue White Horse at Black Mountain, and all the other artists for making it such a fantastic weekend. Also thanks to Geary Yelton and Paul A Vnuk Jr for sharing pics. Lastly thanks to Michael O’Bannon for providing my visuals.
On Thursday March 28th I performed a set at Beat Cypher at madelife in Boulder. Here is an Instagram video with some snippets of some of the performances including mine which is first. Thanks to https://www.instagram.com/eddiecii/ for footage.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Mark Mosher (@markmoshermusic) on
I’m playing lead synth parts on “Gonna Rise” up from the album Fear Cannot Save Us (Spotify, iTunes).
It’s a custom synced oscillator preset from init on the Elektron Analog four.
Speaking of Elektron, this was a shakedown voyage for my Elektron trinity rig with Analog Four + Octatrack MKII + Digitone + Xkey Air 25 (Kentron USB Host) which I’ll be using for Mountain Skies electronic music festival in Asheville, NC in May.
I discovered a space-time distortion while visiting Chicago. The location of the anomaly is at track 8 at Union Station.
I published this new song as a single on Bandcamp.
I also made a live studio recording of the session then edited this into a super trippy video which you can watch on YouTube.
This audio and video was captured in one real-time pass to a Zoom Q4N Digital Recorder. The primary source video for 90% of the visuals is from the overhead view of the live studio session. The only other footage is a video field recording from Chicago’s Union Station also recorded on the Zoom Q4N. The audio was not edited when I added video effects in post.
The audio field recording was extracted the Zoom Q4N video shot at Union Station. It’s mangled pretty heavily in this piece put if you listen closely, you can hear an automated voice informing you that you are at track 8 and 10. Interestingly, the speakers at the station are not directional and the audio is at different loop lengths – so just wandering about between these gates is a trippy polyrhythmic treat.
The piece is a combination of live sequencing and live performance. The Octatrack is used to host drum samples and recording. It is also used to MIDI sequence 3 synth slots on the Nord Lead 4 including MIDI automation. I perform live using all 4 slots on the Nord plus manipulate the Octatrack in real-time. Lots of real-time sound design and morphing. All the groovy synth sounds are exclusive to Nord Lead 4 all being created in real-time (meaning no synth audio was pre-recorded).
It’s been a while since I’ve done an update or a podcast or a live show. I’ve been enjoying some travel, hanging with the family, riding bikes, hiking, walking, reading, and listening. I’ve also been spending time studio time to work on new ideas, making field recordings, as well as running some events for the 480+ member strong Rocky Mountain Synthesizer Meetup.
In the meantime, I noticed that a live video has surfaced of my duo A.I. Winter with Michael O’Bannon. It’s the full video 27 minute of a live performance of “Instantiate” from Electro-Music NY 2014 festival on September 7th, 2014. A big thanks to Steve Mokris for recording and posting this!
“Instantiate” is an experimental ambient piece with four movements composed for two Octatracks.”
Note – I also did double-duty on visuals with live camera input. The concept is as the A.I. is watching us, and as it evolves things become more clear to it (and we know how that will end). Watch embedded video.
”From the barren nanoscapes inside our personal devices come furtive anthems hummed by those digital servants who will one day be our overlords…”.
Instantiate” is an en experimental ambient piece with four movements composed for two Octatracks.
Movement 1: Stasis – A still, slow moving “present time”. Drones and melodies with an occasional perturbation to foreshadow what is coming.
Movement 2: Stirrings – Bursts of brief intelligence and control come and go. Perturbations of a minimal but ominous atmosphere. These are simple at first, but evolve toward short periods of chaos that quickly burn out.
Movement 3: Birth – The A.I. begins to build and grow recursively. Structures surface and are repeated and elaborated. While the programmer looks for signs of intelligence from the A.I., the the A.I. is rapidly learning by reviewing and attempting to emulate recordings of a child speaking.
Movement 4: Childhood – The A.I. recognizes its own existence. Consciousness leads to experimentation, gentle but awkward at first, with a growing edginess and over-sensitivity that suggests intrusiveness, lack of predictability and danger. The countdown to Super Artificial Intelligence has begun.
We were really proud of this dark ambient piece so we made it available as a high-def EP https://aiwinter.bandcamp.com/.
A.I. Winter is a self-appointed harbinger of the progress of Artificial Intelligence toward world domination. It imposes its musical interpretations of cosmic machine consciousness on the world at large.
Michael O’Bannon (Atlanta, GA) and Mark Mosher (Boulder, CO) first met at Electro-Music 2010. Throughout the years they’ve collaborated loosely with Mark on the music side and Michael on visuals. For the first time, Michael and Mark will be joining forces as a musical duo to offer the soundtrack of a cautionary tale considering the risks of super-human artificial intelligence. Michael is a psychologist who explores sound design, the interplay of visual and sound stimuli in performance, and multimedia programming with Max6. Mark, who’s been going deep with Octatrack and Absynth, will be exploring sonic expression via dynamic sampling, real-time morphing and complex granular manipulations.
For more information visit my project page on this collaboration.
This is the Krell again. We are beaming a 2nd tonality to your station. Are you receiving?
Listen to this episode on Soundcloud. You can subscribe to the Podcast in iTunes, or use this RSS Feed for your favorite podcatcher so you never miss an episode.
If you dig this piece, leave a comment. Checkout my releases here. You can also make a donation to support my art here.
Music and Cover Art by Mark Mosher.
This is another piece inspired by the ground-breaking work of Louis and Bebe Barron on the film Forbidden Planet. I use oscillators as the primary source for the piece.
The soundtrack is live improvisation using the Waldorf Blofled synthesizer with custom programs from INIT. The Novation Launchpad Pro grid performance instrument was used to perform notes with pressure on the Blofeld. In addition to live manipulation of the Blofeld through it’s hardware interface, I live sampled and live looped the audio coming out of the Blofeld into an Electron Octatrack. From there I used the Octatrack’s chromatic mode, morphing with crossfader, and did live sequencing with trig automation. The Octatrack also provided additional effects.
I recorded a video of me performing this piece in the studio https://youtu.be/atDFO0YnnrI
[Update – Fixed a broken link to the audio file so I could feature this as #TBT]
The swarm of the Nanobots is approaching. This micrtonal mayhem is an exploration of swarming notes and joyous distortion that was inspired by the Dewanatron Swarmatron instrument. I performed and recorded this in one real-time pass with no edits on an Elektron Octatrack.
Music and cover art by Mark Mosher
This piece was inspired by the Dewanatron Swarmatron (http://www.dewanatron.com/instruments.php?page=swarmatron).
“The Swarmatron was created to produce eight tones tuned approximately to one note, each tone slightly different in pitch to produce a complex and natural choral effect.
Listen to this episode on Soundcloud. You can subscribe to the Podcast in iTunes, or use this RSS Feed for your favorite podcatcher so you never miss an episode.
If you dig this piece, leave a comment. Checkout my releases here.
The sound of what is going on inside the HAL 9000’s mind as he’s speaking “I’m Completely Operational, and All My Circuits Are Functioning Perfectly” to the crew.
This piece was improvised and performed on the Nord Lead 4 and the Elektron Octatrack. It was recorded in one real-time pass with no edits.
All the synthesized source sounds are from my original Lead 4 presets. I live sampled and looped the Nord Lead 4 into the Octatrack and performed most sonic movement in realtime on the Octatrack.
Darwin Grosse and I performed another (no)poem set the Rocky Mountain Synthesizer Meetup on January 12th. (no)poem is our original experimental ambient duo. We improvise using graphical scores. We also use generative feedback-based visuals via Max Patch that Darwin developed. This performance was in the wonderful Walnut Room in Denver which has a fantastic PA.
Below are photos from the show. A big thanks to Chris Sessions and Jeff Navarro for contributing photos.
Listen to Podcast on Soundcloud
Ready to take a “trip” on the The Georgetown Loop Railroad? Your journey starts at Devil’s Gate Depot as you stand between the cars and hear the sounds of this historic narrow gauge train as it rounds a tight bend. Things morph from there… enjoy the psychedelic ride.
“one of Colorado’s first visitor attractions. Completed in 1884, this spectacular stretch of three-foot narrow gauge railroad was considered an engineering marvel for its time. In 1973, the Colorado Historical Society began restoring the railroad as part of its 978-acre Georgetown Loop Historic Mining & Railroad Park.” More here… http://georgetownlooprr.com/.”
I’ve lived in Colorado since I was 7 and had never been on this train! They have all sorts of themed runs (Octoberfest, Dinner trains, Big Horn Sheep Festival…) and I highly recommend you try it you come out Colorado way. We took the “Santa’s North Pole” adventure 12:40pm run.
While I was not allowed to travel between cars (because it’s a narrow gauge and runs along mountain drop offs and on high bridges), they allowed me to stand outside the closed door of the car between cars. This being the case I got some AWESOME recordings isolated from other passengers for the most parts. Lots of great wheels squeaking, flexing of the old cars, coupler noise, and sometimes engine noise.
The piece begins with the raw field recording of the train as it goes around a tight turn. It’s just such an amazing set of sounds I wanted to offer the listener context and a taste of the harmonic content of the original source material before I took things to another place. I then manually play and improvise from there performing the notes in chromatic mode and heavily manipulating the field recordings as the piece progresses.
Near the end of the piece I’m using effects like comb filters to create what sound almost like long tremolo strings. Another fun thing for me was manipulating rail noise through a comb filter and delay and then changing the delay time (which changes pitch) to create what almost sounds like an arpeggio of pizzicato strings notes.
It was a super fun piece to create and perform as the train field recordings offered some amazing harmonic content! I’ll most likely revisit these source samples in a future episode.
Listen to Podcast on Soundcloud
Biostatic, the host of Denver’s Textures Ambient showcase, invited me and other amazing Denver synth artists kuxaan-sum, Sean Patrick Faling,Wes Milholen to join him as the Synth_Drone Collective for Sunday’s show. We performed over 2 hours of continuous synth drones. Below is a recording of the live performance and a photo album.
https://soundcloud.com/kuxaan-sum/synth-drone
This video is part 2 of a live cinematic electronica set I performed at the Boulder Synthesizer Meetup on August 11th 2015 at the Walnut room in Denver. In this video I’m performing both the music and the visuals.
In part 2, I move on from the composed piece “Gonna Rise Up” from the album Fear Cannot Save Us” (which you can download here), and switch to improvisation. For Part 2, I’m improvising only on Octatrack dynamic performance sampler with some synth work on the Waldorf Blofled keyboard with original presets.
