2017 update

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Just Let Things Go

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).

Free 256kbps mp3 download under Creative Commons licence:
box.com/s/8wjqvyszsl3jx3wejqqv

Lebdi & Koneyn LIVE

Originally based around the idea of me being an instrumental backup to Lebdi's vocals, my friend Sanja Ivkov and I had three performances this summer in Belgrade basically within one week (of which two were in the same venue). Having just one mic plugged into a Korg Electribe SX groovebox was again a surprise to some but the combination worked just fine and at least in my humble opinion we've managed to deliver quite decent performances, combining somewhat tribal percussion-based sound with energetic vocals.


Thanks to Ves for the video (again)!

It worked especially well on the main event at 6th of September, since the venue (club Fest in Zemun, across the river from downtown Belgrade) had a massive soundsystem considering the size of the place - and also a big support from the numerous crowd who came to see the show that also featured amazing Tearpalm with Crocodile Tears and foreign guests Hippy Death Suite (Belgium) and E.U.E.R.P.I. from Bulgaria, with whom Sanja and I did one impro track on the spot. Visual support was provided by Marina Rajić who also does pretty much all the VJ-ing for frequent Tearpalm performances. The two other events that were centered around the one I've mentioned before were held in Panicroom Žica, where we got this nice spontaneous shot from:

Left to right: Marina Rajić, Sanja Ivkov (Lebdi), Yours truly (Koneyn), Marko Dabetić (Tearpalm) - photo by Scila Haribdić

For a few more videos from the last performance, make sure to visit Scila's YouTube channel.

Rhodesia [video]

Video edited from an original entitled "Rhodesian Safari".

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.

Free 320kbps mp3 download under Creative Commons licence:
box.com/s/cc4f89d22ea9c650fe9e

Koneyn live at AUX, Arma17, Moscow

On March 17th I flew all the way to Moscow to perform at AUX event, in Russia's leading underground techno club Arma17. I've been invited a month prior to the evening by Nikita and Sergey from do/nothing - a small but very active organization with general taste in music not too much unlike that of our own Asino Elettronico label. Before going into anything else, I really need to address the way they handled the whole thing - with perfect professionalism and sincere hospitality.

Due to flight schedule I couldn't see much of the city, which is a big shame since it's absolutely fascinating in many ways, but the whole experience at Arma17, which is amazing in it's own right, was so overwhelmingly positive that I simply couldn't ask for anything more. The audience and all the people there also seemed really friendly and in good mood, simply there wasn't a way anything could go wrong.



I've also had the privilege of being in company of Andrés Marcos Revellado and Patrick Walker (Forward Strategy Group), who are not only great performers but really friendly and fun people to spend time with. Speaking of time, it has probably been the only possible negative factor to the whole experience. As I've mentioned earlier, we didn't have much of it to explore the city, but then again we also had to be awake and fully concentrated until our performances, which were due at very early hours of the next day (me starting at 4:30, Andrés at 5:30 and Patrick at around 5:00 in another room).

When it comes to the technical side of things, I went on a plane carrying nothing but a slightly bigger laptop bag with my recently bought Korg ESX inside. That came as a surprise to most of the people, whose setup was based always around a laptop.

The performance itself went quite well, I believe, almost without a glitch. Having only one groovebox might seem like a quite minimal choice, but I think it works out in a club pretty good. Still there are more possibilities to explore with it alone, I don't think I'll be needing anything else for a while.

Unfortunately I don't have many pictures from the evening, but you can find quite a few here:

- msk.nightparty.ru
- promodj.com
- timeout.ru
- vk.com

You won't see much of me (and half of other performers for that matter), but it's sufficient to get an idea of the great atmosphere over there.

The good news is that I have a pretty decent recording of the performance, straight from the mixer. That means I will quite probably release it as a live album - something what I have really wanted to do since I had started doing live shows. Stay tuned for that one.

Àsino Elettronico LIVE - CK13, Novi Sad

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.

Yamaha DX7 IID

Recently I got myself an old but still decently functional Yamaha DX7 IID. Out of the whole Yamaha DX lineup of synthesizers that changed and defined the sound of the '80s, DX7 was by far the most popular and accepted. Vintagesynth.com calls it "one of the most popular digital synths ever". It introduced FM synthesis to the widest possible audience, yet it got the reputation of being extremely hard to program (mostly because of it's unfriendly interface), so pretty much everyone stuck with presets that plagued great majority of records released at the time.

My introduction to powerful and extremely flexible FM synthesis was through Ableton Live's Operator which got me instantly hooked. To be honest, apart from FM (and my Korg X3R's own unique algorithm), I haven't got that much clue about more usual synthesis methods. Which is a bit strange considering how many people are in exactly the opposite situation. That's why DX7 seemed like the most natural choice for me, and is supposed to replace X3R in time. And I admit - it's also a bit of a fetish thing :)

The model I purchased is the second generation DX7 (tagged DX7 IID) with few considerable advantages, such as keyboard split and dual modes and pan control (the original was entirely mono).

All in all this is just one short post obviously meant for bragging. But I intend to seriously devote my time to this classic machine and for that purpose I opened up a separate page (see the link near the bottom of the right side menu) to stock up all the useful resources for like minded DX7 enthusiasts.

Abadroza & Koneyn - Live at Porub #6 (Rex, Belgrade)

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.

T.A.Z. [video]

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.

T.A.Z by Koneyn

Free mp3 download under Creative Commons licence:
box.net/shared/7hsc1yepyi

SHARE Conference - sound logo

SHARE Conference is a new kind of festival created by the State of Exit Foundation. For the first time in the region, a host of internationally acclaimed internet and social activism experts, new media artists and renowned musicians will be present in one place at the same time. The festival has two main program units: the innovatie SHARE by Day education platform and intensive SHARE by Night with Tuborg parties. Belgrade will thus become the hot spot for sharing knowledge, ideas and fun at performances, lectures, workshops and exhibitions featuring representatives from Google, Harvard, MIT, Obama's marketing team and the likes. Dom Omladine with its 3 halls is the festival's main venue, and another 8 clubs will host around 700 regional opinion-makers, as well as 15,000 local and international visitors. A single wristband will grant access to more than 100 events of the festival.

Just as we found out there will be no Dis-Patch festival in Belgrade from this year on, which is quite sad news, we got ourselves some kind of substitute in form of SHARE Conference. While it may not be as revolutionary and new as their advertising team suggests, it certainly bring quite a few big names into the game - Carl Craig, Murcof, Alex Smoke, Tricky, Josh Wink and MJ Cole, to name a few. It's just something that small independent festival like Dis-Patch wouldn't be able to handle, possibly due to lack of financial support that otherwise stands behind EXIT team, who runs this show.

Everything is on a whole different level now. So are the entry fees. Which is quite understandable, but still not easily affordable.

I got myself a lucky way in, though. There was a small competition that required from producers and sound designers to create an under-10-seconds "sound logo" for the conference. One of mine got into the selected few, so I will receive the wristband which allows me to be there day and night.

Here is the entry that has been selected:

Dive in Share by Koneyn

Kaoss Pad 3

I've been saving for this one for long time now, and I must say it was definitely worth it. Truth to be told, at first I've had some other options in mind when it comes to solving my lack of equipment for live performance, namely KP3's younger brother, Kaossilator Pro, but after many reconsiderations and a few budget cuts, I went for this little widely underestimated box.

Kaoss Pad may be quite a popular toy actually, but it seems that the vast majority of users don't go beyond it's most immediate and obvious functions (at least judging by countless YouTube clips I've seen), simply playing around with effects, or in more interesting case, using it to make beatboxing more crazy than it already is (and I mean in a good way). It's not so surprising, considering how relatively poor manual seems to be when it comes to more detailed informations.

Yet, coupled with a separately purchased SD memory card, KP turns into a self-sufficient loop&effect box, capable of delivering enough options for inspirational and varied (albeit still inevitably repetitive by nature) live performance. For example, you get four banks with loops of up to 4 bars of length, which is what everyone knows, but you can also make more variations by simply chopping up that 4 bar loop into 8 equal parts that can be turned on or off, which creates much more room for creativity than simply pressing ABCD pads on and off. It also means that, having this in mind, you can create and load really interesting combination of sounds/rhythm packed into each of those 4 bar loop banks and go crazy with the thing.





Solvent by Koneyn

Maybe not really a prime example of creativity with Kaoss Pad, but this is the first thing I've done with it, after only several hours of actual use (got it two days ago), and if you listen more or less carefully you can notice it doesn't quite seem like just four loops going on and off. I'm already satisfied with this test and frankly can't wait to try out more.


March 2011 update:

First try at recording video while improvising with Korg Kaoss Pad 3, with a little bit clumsy intro and a few (I hope) minor mistakes here and there. Sounds were prepared in Ableton Live 7, exported as loops and imported onto four sample banks on KP3.


Recorded directly from the Kaoss Pad's LineOuts into E-MU 0404 PCI, no extra sounds added or editing performed, except for the slight compression on the final recording to increase loudness.
Sorry for such a poor video quality, my cheap camera isn't quite fond of dim indoor light.

The Slave Ship [unreleased]

Just something that has been left lying under the carpet for a while.



"The Slave Ship" or "Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhoon coming on" by J. M. W. Turner


The Slave Ship by Koneyn



In memory of James Stinson.
Recorded in Spring of 2010.


Free download under Creative Commons licence:
box.net/shared/joh35tqmhu

Sonic postcards - Somewhere from Southeastern Europe

Somewhere around this time (late May) last year, after one of the most difficult creative struggles, I had submitted one four and a half minute ambient piece for a contest organized by Goethe Institut Belgrad (aka German cultural center in Belgrade), Radio Belgrade - Channel Three, Deutchlandradio Kultur (Berlin) and Chinch initiative for contemporary music (Belgrade) entitled Klangpostkarten - Von irgendwo in Südosteuropa (Sonic postcards - Somewhere from Southeastern Europe). We were supposed to sonically depict a certain place in this region to German audience, as the title suggests, basically in a form of "sound postcard" that would give them a taste of local atmosphere.

Apparently, one of the initiators of this project was none other than Thomas Köner, whom I personally admire to a great extent, both for his extremely deep and minimal ambient work as well as his legendary Porter Ricks dub techno project on no less legendary Chain Reaction label. As a form of an announcement, he did his own sonic postcard from Frankfurt, so that we could later create an appropriate response from Serbia in similar style. Talking about encouragement - there couldn't have been better for me.



CD package for the contest submission

Slankamen (on Newcomer Werkstatt radio show) by Koneyn

My piece was dedicated to a now quiet small village in north of the country, Slankamen, where I had spent so many summers as a kid. It's unique geographic and strategic position provided quite a turbulent history, dating back to Celtic migration to Balkans, over Roman exploitation of well known local healing water spring, to Ottoman Turkish battles with neighboring Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Eventually, among 47 works submitted, mine got into final top seven presented at the Goethe Institute premises here in Belgrade in September 2009. I won the fourth place, missing a nice cache prize by an inch, though later in all of the public reports they properly sorted only the top three, while constantly shuffling the order when mentioning rest of us. Nevertheless, it was such a great honor and privilege, it didn't matter to me that much.

If you can read either German or Serbian, here are the reports on the Goethe Inst. website. You'll also find a podcast streaming player there, with all the finalist tracks being played:
- German version
- Serbian version

All seven of us finalists also got additional exposure on a radio show entitled Newcomer Werkstatt on Deutchlandradio Kultur and later the tracks have been released on a CD by Goethe Institut:




Another few months later, in April 2010, the whole thing was picked up by Hannoversche Gesellschaft für Neue Musik that again included all of these pieces in their sound installations and exhibitions project in Hannover entitled Briefe aus der Heimat (Letters from homeland).

Transitional [AE003 / 2009]

And now for something completely different.

If I could only explain how did I get to this. Most of the year up to that point, late October 2009 to be precise, seemed to be a collection of futile attempts, unnecessary worries and days lost. In fact, right now I can't recall how did I actually spend most of my time then.

I do remember though how I found myself not knowing even how to start making new music numerous times, or when I would eventually start - it would lead nowhere. Then I tried to immerse myself in any topic that has no obvious relation to music, so that I could maybe draw some inspiration or even a whole concept from it. Eventually I got stuck with architecture, which in fact was quite interesting. Among many really fascinating examples of human imagination and skill, you also get to learn how Le Corbusier planned to demolish central part of Paris north of Seine and build this:




La Ville radieuse

Needless to say, the project wasn't approved. Paris hasn't had such "visionary" officials like Belgrade did in mid 20th century, who encouraged quite similar projects again north of city's main river. I consider myself lucky not to have had grown up there. Still, the gloominess of a large, dirty and chaotic city that is sometimes Belgrade doesn't end in the neighborhood shown in the example. "Alienation in urban environment" isn't really that much of a cliché, as it may sound, when you have to actually deal with it.

In a way, my feelings towards this topic eventually formed pieces of sound that slowly (and I mean slooooowly) grew and grew to finally become a part of this release. Strangely enough, as it usually goes in life, so many things came to a rapid climax in that short period around the time the CD was due - and all with a happy end.



Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan (CD inlay photo by Kanae Sato)

This change of mood from the beginning to the end, I believe, seems quite obvious on the CD. While the first track is by some people described as "too depressive to play often", the ending one offers hope and positive excitement - something I have to admit not accomplishing often enough in music.

Transitional was my first (solo) release for the Àsino Elettronico label - which I co-created with my friend Xiqhhyiecryn the year before - and it managed to get some slightly wider than usual attention through several contacts. It got a really nice review, a place in the middle of a regional "top 100" album chart for 2009 and the first ever radio play on a major radio station in Serbia (B92).

Rather strange for such an "alienated" record, I guess.


Silent street by Koneyn


Here is the direct connection to the otherwise framed page on label's website, where you can find more informations, tracklist, and of course the download link for the release (artwork included):

www.asino-elettronico.com/ae003/transitional.html

January 2011 update:
Another nice review, on Connexion Bizzare online magazine, courtesy of Paul Lloyd.

Stormfields [2008]

It was late Spring of 2008, I was being quite lazy as far as life goes at the time, then there was this unexpected change of living space conditions (for the better) and also some major investments of what you'd call "entry level professional equipment" - seems that things had just clicked together so that I could make another release, 5 months after the first one.

Initially it was supposed to be a split CD with Youth A.D., where each of us would spit out some noise or whatnot, but as usual, I drifted far into my not-that-noisy world - I've already done three tracks when I realized that this is not "it".

So what was it, then?

Just a slightly lenghtier record than the first one, Stormfields goes a little bit further in semi-improvised sonic exploration, bringing together noisy and bass-heavy humming with what appears to be a more "natural" sound. Melodies are also more prominent than before, and so are the ambiental soundscapes that wander around most of the time.


Again, it comes both as a free, limited, do-it-yourself CD-R package and mp3 files for download.

Apparently, people liked it more than the first one. At least it attracted more listeners, and still does surprisingly.





Thistle by Koneyn


STORMFIELDS

01 Intro
02 Yıldırım
03 Thistle
04 Leyl
05 Farewell


Free download under Creative Commons licence:
box.net/shared/v6cjtzk59q

Enclosed EP [2008]

Often people say that to an artist his creation is like a child. I wonder then if parents, after having two or more, secretly always love their first kid the most? Because that's how I still feel about this first attempt at publishing (in a vague sense of the word!) my conception of music.

This is where it began for me, after spending days and weeks practically isolated in my room, while now and then visiting performances that made me think "hey, I can do better than this". I know it may sound quite pompous, but the truth is, it was last year that I found out in a casual chat with a friend (who has been around in regional scene quite actively before me) that she got "inspired" in exactly the same way while watching exactly the same band. Who says it's only the best that get us going?

Still quite shy and generally lacking any real ambition, this is what I wrote in early 2008 when this cheap CD-R was released:

Self-released promotional CD, burned in small quantity for friends and labels and packed in a slim plastic case with 4-page inlay. It presents three tracks of different nature, a kind of an exercise in approaching the target from different angles. Knowing where I want to get in the end, this also helped me to learn which direction to take in the future.


I've been playing around with music software since '99 (with a few long breaks, though), and during whole that time, altogether less than ten people knew about this, of which only four of them have heard some small part of what I'd done. I actually never faced any negative response, but I haven't felt myself that it's good or mature enough, not even for a demo.


Enclosed EP was to change this, resulting in something I finaly felt comfortable with as a starting point, from which I hope to progress significantly as I get a tighter grip on production skills and the process of bringing ideas into reality.


Getting some proper equipment would definitely help, too :)

Enclosed by Koneyn

A fresh start

Spam. Bugs. Image and link censorship. Slow loading. "Unexpected errors". Ads. More spam. And even more bugs.

Got sick of all that on MySpace, and went for this good old, more practical option. Not much of a blogging person myself, I still owe a lot to this medium and with all of the mixed media work (music, design, and of recently a bit of video) that is slowly starting to pile up, I can't think of more flexible solution which would hold all of this in one organized whole, while still allowing me to easily get feedback from friends and any possibly interested people.

My first blogging adventure, some four and a half years ago finished quite soon, after only two posts. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again - for a start by putting up all the stuff that may not be quite fresh but still I hope you'll find checking them out worthwhile.

Welcome! :)