A piece I've kind of always wanted to do - completely based on synthesized sounds, yet openly soulful and more importantly, intimate.
After resolving some past issues through a dream (as it happens with me once in a while), this is exactly what came out of it literally as I got out of bed that very morning. The original recording date was 6th of August and I thought I would continue in the same vein soon enough to produce an album in a couple of months but obviously that didn't happen, so I felt it would be a pity to leave it behind.
Those Rhodes chords and a few other predominantly "retro" keys came straight from the faithful old Yamaha DX7 IID, played by hand, whilst the other had been delivered by a combination of VSTs in Ableton Live.
The video is obviously there just to keep something spinning on YouTube, not much to see (though I did think before choosing what to put).
The track itself was almost entirely finished back in December of 2011 as a test for using Yamaha DX7 IID for the Rhodes electric piano and bass sounds, played by hand and then sequenced alongside everything else in Ableton Live 7. Dug it out many months later, added just a few more bits here and there, found some interesting footage to fit the theme and here it is now, hope you'll enjoy.
Disclaimer: I am NOT a fan of hunting, much less safaris. Same goes for colonialism.
A few weeks ago I went to Novi Sad, some 80km north of Belgrade, to play live with Associative (ex Xiqhhyiecryn), Andrei Korre (Nemanja Lazic) and Abadroza, all together under our Àsino Elettronico LIVE label. We've been developing this concept for almost a year now and the basic idea is to present people with something that seems simple and obvious but is apparently lacking nowadays - completely live club performance. No DJ-ing of any sort, just "you, us and the machines", as the poster for the event had already declared.
Each of us would perform separately with his own set of equipment, 50 minutes to one hour on average. If you can read Serbian, I strongly recommend you visit a blog entry by our friend Ves, if you can't read it, at least enjoy her video takes which are (despite all the sound distortion) far more faithful to the energy felt there than our "official" sterile recordings by the club, which are by the way in mono (don't ask me why, I am as puzzled as you might be).
To be honest, by the end of the evening I had thought I screwed up the performance a bit too much and had the feeling my friends were far better in every way. Actually I still feel much of it is true, but according to others it wasn't really like that at all and mistakes weren't as obvious to others as they were to me at the time. Still, performances like that of Associative really gave me the insight of how proper live electronic music in a club should sound and feel:
Which is why I decided to literally scrap everything I did and prepare future performances from ground zero. I've learned that making things sound good in a room only unnecessary complicates the live situation. Many small details are lost anyway and it's really important to keep it simple and straight to the point, lively and intense.
In case you are wondering, I've used the following equipment:
- Korg Kaoss Pad 3 for loop sets
- Korg X3R synth module with Behringer UMX25 for a bit of a keyboard action
- Behringer Xenyx 802 to mix it all together
There was one thing that, apart from musical style itself, separated me from others is the way I had to bridge annoyingly long gaps between tracks. The gaps are due to the loading time on Kaoss Pad, which takes one minute on average - quite too much to leave it in silence. So the only plausible solution was to playback prepared ambiental passages from an mp3 player. It did fit well but in effect it would cool down any excitement in crowd each and every time.
This shouldn't be a problem anymore since a new concept is on it's way (and one crucial new piece of equipment is already here ;). Quite possibly a new name also, for a sound that should be quite different.
Earlier this year I have been invited to perform live by Borjan Grujić, a young designer behind Porub. Porub is an event that serves as a platform for local experimental/alternative artists involved in audio and visual media and it's commonly organized several times during one year. I've been there in the audience several times myself and that's how we got in contact in the first place. We've discussed getting together for one of the Porub evenings long time ago, yet I wasn't prepared in terms of technical issues and more important available material that could be done live. Luckily my dear friend Abadroza from our Asino Elettronico label stepped in without hesitation so we could make something together especially for this night.
Edited version of video showing the second half of the performance
The idea for us was also to finally break the ice and go out public, since none of us have had any experience in playing music live up until that moment. Abadroza threw aside his PC long time ago before I did even consider such a thing, so him being the beat master on his Korg EMX-1 was a no fail situation. I, on the other hand, challenged myself by acting out as a keyboardist with my new pet machine - old Korg X3R synth module controlled by a compact Behringer 25-key MIDI keyboard. I also filled up my Kaoss Pad 3 with a few vocal samples just to spice up what would have been an overly instrumental set.
Some were curious about "that VCR look-a-like black box" (Korg X3R)
You can catch a glimpse of the atmosphere from the video posted here - it was really a great evening altogether, both for us and I'd daringly say for the audience as well. The giveaway CDs we've prepared and left in front of us were gone in matter of seconds right after we had finished, which leads me to think we did a good job on promoting the label as well. I may have made a few ugly sounding mistakes while playing keys and we've lost focus a bit here and there, but in the end it was really a live performance that is rarely seen (at least here) in electronic music and it got praise by virtually everyone who talked to us afterwards. What was the most important aspect of it for me personally is the fact the whole experience gave me a lot of motivation and confidence to push this "live performance" thing further with my own project. Surely I will miss head-nodding and knob-twiddling shoulder to shoulder with Abadroza, but there are some serious plans for all of us on the label to tour locally together so the fun sharing moments will always be there.
Special thanks to Ves for being there to support us and taking care to record the video.
August update:
Complete and unedited recording of the performance by Ves, as well as a report in Serbian and extracted mp3 file, here on her blog entry.
My first music video, made by yours truly alone.
T.A.Z. stands for Temporary Autonomous Zone and it was insipred by the same titled book by Hakim Bey, Tarkovsky's Stalker and most of all - my childhood.
