release date: 08 June 2021
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electronic explorations
This episode is a sail along some of the backwaters of lo-fi electronic and digital sound I’ve been experimenting with and exploring over the past few years.
My first forays into electromagnetic and digital sonic synthesis were in the late 1970s early 80s on my Fender Rodes 88 piano, a first generation Casio VL-Tone bought by my old friend and fellow sonic explorer adam wolter aka philip toydog – he particulalrly enjoyed the cheesy drum machine presets of that little novelty keyboard calculator – now a collectors item -, followed by various Commodore Amiga computers, a Korg MS-10, numerous tape recorders and then until now the long march of macintosh computers and devices.
The sounds in this episode’s multi-tracked composition were generated using combinations of a handful of small independent devices, some out of kickstarter projects I’ve backed, some home-made, some from the many small scale labs springing up everywhere and some using iOS apps.
I connect or bring devices together and work with them to try and find soundscape registers that interest me – usually slow, meandering musicalities incorporating stochastic and random generative elements, and unusual sonic combinations. I don’t categorise or classify this as music – its more a form of sonic sculpture shaped outside the formal constraints of BPM, tunings, instrument skills or conventional instruments.
These are soundscapes for those, like me, with incurable sonic curiosity…
devices & apps
Koma Field Kit FX
Bastl Instruments Kastle
littleBits KORG Synth Kit
teenage engineering Pocket Operator K.O!
Artiphon Orba
Gauss
iDensity
DubFilter
SoundBow