All Kaoss, All the Time: In a world of endless choices, what happens to the creative power of limitations? Back in November, we saw Norman Fairbanks make an album entirely on Tenori-On, Yamaha’s interactive blinking-lights button pad.

“Ah,” you said. “But that sounds suspiciously like the music of Toshio Iwai, the Tenori-On’s composer-inventor. And it costs a lot of dough. And I have to live in the UK to buy it.”

Enter our friend Gary Kibler. He’s also a huge fan of the Tenori-On — he did cover the UK launch event for us, and then lauded its innovative design. But his creation uses a decidedly more accessible instrument: the Korg Kaossilator, which can be yours for a mere US$200 street — about US$1000 less than the Tenori-On.

Here’s the surprise: the sound-packed Kaossilator can do just as much as the Tenori-On, arguably more. And Gary really didn’t need anything else. The Yellow Album is –

Produced and performed exclusively on the Korg Kaossilator. No other effects, EQ or sounds were added other than those incorporated in the original device. Audio was recorded directly off the unit and the only edits performed externally were simple volume balancing.

The Yellow Album (free MP3 album from Gary Kibler) Updated: New link from ReverbNation, to save Gary’s bandwidth!

There you go. All you need is a Kaossilator. You can now cease lusting after anything else.

Okay, that wore off fast.

All Monome, All The Time With Something Else: Meanwhile, while I got distracted by turkey and stuffing and neglected to post this back at Thanksgiving, the Monome got an album of its own. Matthew Davidson, aka Stretta, did an “all-Monome album” called Grids, and made it fully free and Creative Commons-licensed. Like Kibler, Davidson has some significant credits as a composer (Davidson did the only-ever live performance of Switched-On Bach with Wendy Carlos — that being the original and greatest “entirely made on xx” synth album.)

So, what is the sound of one Monome playing?

You got it: silence. Yes, unlike the Korg and Yamaha instruments, the Monome has no sound generation facility of its own, meaning Matthew “limited” himself to a Doepfer modular, Prophet 5, and MOTU’s MachFive 2. In other words, it’s not really an all-Monome album. But it is quite good, and the Max patches used to make it are available free. (Wait, that’s yet another thing that’s not a Monome used on this album, if you’re still bothering to count.) Matthew, to his credit, admits “the notion of an all Monome album is somewhat of a misnomer.” But he does put forward the idea of a Monomist quite effectively.

Grids - The All-Monome Album (also on Audio News Room, LadyC]

I’m waiting for someone to hack some internal sounds into the Monome. Get back to us if you have. In the meantime, yes, the whole appeal of the Monome over something like a Kaossilator is that it’s just a controller, ready to be connected to whatever you desire — even visuals, or robots, or a giant space laser that blasts pretty patterns into the moon.

Monome, Unplugged — Erm, Live: Part of the cult popularity of the Monome phenomenon can be chalked up to the fact that the talented electronic artist Daedalus was playing out with an early prototype before anyone had even heard of a Monome. Daedalus has an album of his own — live at the Low End Theory event in LA. His live show is simply fantastic, so an album version sounds great to me — and it helps bolster the cause of genuine live electronic performance. I’m very much looking forward to this one. It won’t be free, but I like paying for music. On January 22, you can pay for his music, too.

Daedelus Readies Live Album [XLR8R]

Alpha Pup Records

Beatrix Jar is Bianca Pettis (Beatrix) and Jacob Aaron Roske (JAR). The duo teaches workshops on Circuit Bending and performs live with an eclectic set of gear including an AM radio, bent Speak ‘n Spells, drum machines and samplers.

I met up with them in Minneapolis last week to discuss their new album Golden Fuzz and their approach to musicmaking. They’re an enthusiastic twosome, finishing each other’s sentences and eager to illustrate their ideas by firing up a piece of gear and making some excellent sounds.

Golden Fuzz may be the most accurate album title I’ve seen all year. It’s a shimmering mosaic of beats and samples layered with a smattering of live vocals, samples, circuit-bent toys and AM interference. The tracks flow and build organically with a distinctly human element. A jazz-like approach and bent electronics interact with crisp beats and found samples in a way that tells a dreamlike story, impressionistic and a little funky. It’s a bold and refreshing approach to digital musicmaking, taking chances and letting elements of unpredictability and in-the-moment decisions guide the process along. This is a fun, lush album that draws from a wide and rich palette of sounds, and I recommend that you check it out.

They’ve got a great live/work space in a building populated entirely by artists, writers, dancers and the like. It happened to be Jacob’s birthday while I was in town and they invited me over to discuss art and music, and have some food, drink and an impromptu jam session.

The sounds are lush and silky smooth, like a cello making love to an angel. The new, enhanced graphics are … breathtaking, in their spectacular range of colors and pixels. Yes, folks, it’s time for another multimedia extravaganza, as released on NES cartridge. This stuff is what we like to call “high fidelity.” It’s the medium of the future, man. Keep your new-fangled laserdiscs and enhanced multimedia CDs, and behold!

Alex Mauer tips us off with inside information on the work of … Alex Mauer.

Alex Mauer, creator of the first Nintendo cart music album, has already come out with his second cart. The new album features more songs (10) and larger graphics (full screen stills). Songs on the new album were composed by Alex Mauer and Phlogiston (a norweigan composer). The cost is $25 including shipping, and it can be ordered from his website - headlessbarbie.com. For a preview check out the youtube videoclips at his site.

ps - vegavox (first nintendo cartridge) is currently sold out! over 125 copies sold

Prediction: the music of Phlogiston will soon be heard in an upcoming Timbaland production of the newly washed-up Britney Spears. Samples, and “video” (okay, 8-bit stills):

headlessbarbie.com

Look out: it’s the return of the cartridge!

We’ve seen loads of chiptune and Nintendo-based music before, but Alex Mauer has gone so far as to release an entire album on NES cartridge (and emulator, if you must). Some of you wondered what the preferred setup was for the chiptune virtuoso; for Alex, it’s evidently everything, from Yamaha sound modules to SoundBlasters, Sega, TurboGrafix, and, yes, Nintendo.

Alex Mauer Artist Page (Via Music thing.)

Ah, imagine the hours we’ll spend, thumbing through shelves of cartridges for an obscure Finnish death-punk artist who plays only Atari 2600s. I can see it now:

But it’s not just albums popping up on carts. If you’d rather have a more active experience, look to Pixelh8 for Game Boy. Whereas many previous Game Boy cartridges have focused on tracker/sequencer functions for arranging tunes, this new software emphasizes hands-on playability — mash the buttons, play a tune. If you’re savvy enough to make your own cart, or want to play in an emulator (bah), you can get the ROM file itself for £15; a ready-made cartridge is shipping soon worldwide for £20 + £5 p&p.

Pixelh8 Project Page, via Matrixsynth and GameMusic4All

Here’s the intro:

And the creator has been furiously adding new features:

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to eat some delicious fireworks or watch some barbecue exploding like a real American.

Fathers have played a big part in a lot of our lives — well, at the very least, they’re an irreplaceable 50% of the fact that you exist at all. My Dad inspired a love of music, letting me experience the musical power of a college basketball pep band (still the greatest orchestration ever), playing rock and roll riffs on a sax, helping support my often-irrational love of musical technological projects, and still voicing support for whatever crazy endeavor I’ve come up with most recently. He bought me my first computer, my first studio (hello, Casio!), and my first computer music studio (hello, Roland and Cakewalk!).

Finding a way to put this into musical form is not always easy. So what better way than a chorus of beeping, blipping, glitching 8-bit chiptune instruments, singing in sweet harmony. Yes, following up last month’s Mother’s Day edition, here’s an MP3 EP release for Dear Old Dad. (Dear Old Dad probably knows what “EP” stands for and where it came from, as opposed to us crazy kids today with our Zunes and our Last.fm groups.)

2A03 DAD EP [Free music downloads]

Send it to your father and let us know what he thinks. And if you’ve got some other music you’d like to dedicate to your Dad or Dads everywhere, say so in comments.

8-bit musicians appreciate their moms, too. (I hear nearly all of them have mothers. One or two were forged out of spare C64 parts, which is pretty cool, as well.) That’s M0M with a zero in it. (M0th3r’s D4y?)

A group of chiptune musicians decided they wanted to honor their mothers this holiday with a full, free album of chippy music. Included: Lawrence Power, nonfinite, Eightecs, Agenflit, Peter Swimm, captainmarmalade, Baron Knoxburry, dotdUmmy, and Otto tsr. (Hope I spelled those right.)

The track titles are excellent: “Mothership” … “Gird of Your Loins” … “Super Diaper Rash.”

If anyone plays this for their mother, let us know what she thinks! It’s free, so I suggest making a nice case for it yourself.

2A03 M0M EP

Two of many CDMer’s biggest musical heroes have new music out. Yes, you probably know about it, and yes, we will try to cover some wild, obscure stuff or relate this to technology or something soon. But I’d feel kinda funny not mentioning this. And I personally love both acts; I’ve just started processing their latest:

Radiohead Will Release Com-Lag (2+2=5) EP In The U.S., via Northwest Noise
Björk - Volta, fully reviewed by Suite 303

Let us know what you think of the new albums in comments.

8-bit music has definitely caught the attention of the mainstream. GameSpy has a good five-way interview with part of the group behind the new album of Kraftwerk covers, 8-bit Operators: The Music of Kraftwerk.

8-Bit Operators: It’s More Fun to Console

They miss my friend Kim Haeyoung (Bubblyfish), who made one of my favorite tracks on the album. (Hey, mainstream press, boys and girls can both play electronic music, 8-bit or 64-bit.) But it is a good read, and if you haven’t heard the album yet, it’s a lot of fun — partly for the broad range of interpretations on the album:

8-bit Operators

Kraftwerk goes nicely with Commodore 64’s, Game Boys, and NES systems, though it’s a tiny instrumental step rather than the leap that was Switched on Bach. Dig the shot of C64 homebrew music console Prophet64 in the Gamespy image.

In a week when we were pondering a new version of Logic Pro, it’s nice to know the Commodore 64 still lives. I mean, come on, which platform is the coolest here (stick it out for the end):