Writing about the meeting place of technology and music, we cover potential: what’s possible, what might be in the future. So as he launches a new music column, our new contributor Kid Kameleon has coined a cheeky title: “created.” This isn’t just what you could create with digital music, but what has been made, as he discovers and reviews new sounds. And while words like “genre-defying” get overused, producer/DJ/journalist Kid Kameleon – aka Matt Earp – really is on a quest for music that pushes out from the boundaries drawn around it. Over this and future installments, Matt will help widen our own listening to the up-and-coming and unexpected. So let’s get started, by peering through the window of one label and one artist. -PK

TESTTOON & OUBYS

Testtoon and Oubys are separate but symbiotic (for now). Testtoon is a very new label run by Michael Severi from Antwerp, Belgium, in collaboration with his brother Rafael. Michael’s girlfriend Eva D’haenens creates the label’s art and graphics as part of Testbeeld, the label’s visual twin. Testtoon is only two releases into its existence so far, but according to Severi, its agenda is to “promote creative and original electronic music” with vinyl-only releases of ”only local or more unknown producers we like.” Severi’s current aesthetic for his own DJ sets as well as the label is “ambient, field recordings, and experimental,” and Testtoon couldn’t have found a better or more captivating artist for their launch releases than Oubys, from Brussels.

Oubys is the stage name for Wannes Kolf. From his succinct bio: “Kolf’s music is made with live improvisations, electronic treatment and field recordings. Influenced by early legends Faust, Heldon, Can and ambient guru Brian Eno, this music has a nice sense of subterranean depth and a pulsating progression.” Oubys has had two previous releases on the CDr label U-Cover (also out of Belgium), and his music has is perfect blend of textured soundscape, low thrumming bass and steady washes of atmospheric synths that combine in perfect proportion to yield richly immersing musical experiences. This world can be a space where it’s hard to sound original or interesting, but Kolf weaves just enough of a pulsing through many of his creations to give them the skeleton ambient music so often lacks. His first release for Testtoon was Terra Incognita in 2011, which falls somewhere between an EP and an album in length. It’s full of rich complexity reminiscent of Monolake and Chain Reaction, and it ends with the almost epic Blackland 2 (below). But it also takes in more collage-like sounds along the way, in tracks like “Hidden Base” and “Mitlt”.

The label’s second release is the Positronium EP, which heads in a slightly darker direction, more buzzing electricity than soothing sound beds. It contains an early version of the album track Positronium II, a remix by Oubys, and truly special restructuring by Substance of Hardwax, Berlin, a scion of German dub techno reaching back almost 20 years. A tantalizing snippet of it can be heard here:

That EP will be out by the end of February. For now Testtoon is doing the distribution themselves, so it can only be found in vinyl shops in Belgium and by mail order through a couple of internet outlets. But Severi is hoping to secure distribution soon, so untill then keep your ears on both Oubys and Testtoon’s SoundCloud pages for samples of new material. And give them both props for doing such small run and tangible releases in the age of digital music!

TEAL & BEASTIE RESPOND

Not terribly far from Testtoon’s sample-based ambience, a similar label/producer symbiotic relationship is going on, but for a different genre of music. The label is Teal Recordings, run by Simon Olsson, and the producer is Beastie Respond aka Tobias Pedersen. Both of them are in Copenhagen, Denmark, and both have associations with the Dunkle Bar there.

Teal is 4 releases deep so far, available both as 12″ records as well as digital, and much of its sound has been focus on that particular hybrid of house, dubstep, UK Funky and techno that doesn’t have a name yet but is currently saturating lots of clubs in London and beyond. Producers like Blawan, West Norwood Cassette Library, Hypno, and Kowton have all given some of their finest productions or remixes to the label – a favorite in this vein is the smokey jazz-club sampling shuffle-skip of Hypno’s Koko, a true gem.

But the label’s breakout sound has surely been the beguiling Syncope by Beastie Respond. A beautiful piece of uncanny music that draws equally from Drum and Bass, Dub, Dancehall and Chilled Out Hip-Hop, it’s one of the best examples of the current trend of DnB producers using increasingly tricky rhythms to give the illusion of both 85 bpm hip-hop (or in this case, with a 4×4 beat, almost slow disco) and the frenetic poly rhythms of Jungle. It is a sound that’s most closely associated with the producer dBridge, his label Exit Recordings, and what’s been termed the “Autonomic sound” of this particular strain of modern Drum and Bass – a sound hugely influenced by the “is it head nod or dance music?” slippery-ness that is Dubstep’s most impressive achievement to date. And frankly it’s an amazing breath of fresh air to the genre of Drum and Bass, reviving many veteran’s interest in a sound that’s accesible enough for a new generation of listeners who till now only knew DnB as classic ragga, harsh tear outs, or cheesy over-the-top atmospherics.

Now, not to pigeonhole Pedersen into only this one sound – he’s got musical skills that stand out on some darker and more straight-ahead productions, as well, geared to a more traditional DnB audience. But his syncopations are at their most impressive in this rhythmic netherland, so it’s not surprising that Teal is releasing a second single from him in March. This one, the label’s 5th, is 2 tracks, “Be Quiet” and “No More”, and once again, “No More” is just killer, full of crisp clean sounds that tumble over each other, constantly pinging back and forth between a head nod and a skank.

Beastie Respond says he has some other tracks and remixes coming soon. If both record labels and producers the world over can embrace this sort of tricky, intelligent music that works both on the dancefloor and in headphones, then the future of electronic dance music is bright indeed.

Kid Kameleon is a San Francisco-based DJ, promoter, writer, blogger, historian, archivist, and fan of electronic music.
http://kidkameleon.com

Don’t miss Matt’s write-up of selections from 2011′s musical landscape – complete with a couple of recent choices from his more than 100 mixes:
The Music of 2011: Kid Kameleon Picks, Om Unit Mix, Techno Mix

Make a New Year’s Resolution you can keep: listen to great music every day. After all, providing creative input to yourself is a big part of your role as an artist.

Now, as many of us return to the work grind, it’s a chance to give our ears some fresh inspiration.

2011 Albums

Shigeto – Full Circle Remixes (Ghostly)
Stellar remixes from the best of the best of the beats.

They Live – Cancel Standard (Exit)
Spooky abstract drumstep from Consequence and Joe Seven. Best DnB album in years.

LV feat. Joshua Idehen – Routes (Keysound)
The master thinkers of dubstep with the voice of the streets of London.

Long Arm – The Branches (Project: Mooncircle)
DJ Cam for 2011 – Russian prodigy blending jazz and beats.

Africa HiTech – 93 Million Miles (Warp)
Juke from Outaspace – Mark Pritchard and Steve Spacek shine together.

fLako – Mesektet (Project: Mooncircle)
Best beat tape of the year – Germany’s soul producer hits just right.

Com Truise – Galactic Melt (Ghostly)
Melting VHS tapes, 80s fuzz and big snares from Ghostly’s other prodigy.

Baobinga – Joint Venture (Build)
Best dance album of the year in the UK funky vein – each track is a collab with the best of the best in the UK Funky world.

Alva Noto – Univrs (Raster Noton)
The master raster blaster.

Bytone – Symeta (Raster Noton)
The other master raster blaster.

Surreal Estate Compilation (Frite Nite)
Best comp of the year — Paul Salva collects 17 stellar tracks from the West Coast and beyond. Proud this came out of California.

EPs

Indigo – Zero Point (On The Edge)
Pure liquid bliss at all tempos from Manchester’s genius.

Easy & Center of the Universe – Pythagoras Falafel Calamity (Harmonia)
Squeee gets lost in Turkey. Ed.: My album title of the year, easy.

Moa Pillar – The Moon and Thunder Dance (G5)
Over-the-top beats from Russia.

Eloq – Galactic Neckbreaks (Hobby Industries)
Rubbery, silly and crackin’, from Denmark.

Sines – Hater Blockas (B.Yrslf Division)
Sines is the most creative dance music producer in dubstep/footwork at the moment.

Walton – Aggy EP (Hyperdub)
Marrying UK Funky with 90′s Sheffield Bleep techno.

Christopher Bissonnette – The Banal and the Profound (Chat Blanc)
Pure ambient bliss. His best release yet.

Hatti Vatti – You (New Moon)
Like Indigo, but Polish – pure genius. Soul-touching.

Rain Dog – See Hear (Cut)
Best release from DFRNT’s Cut label. Lush beats for the ears.

Randomer – Obstuse (Super)
Best of many superb EPs from the man with a golden ear for drums.

Nguzunguzu – Timesup (Fade To Mind)
The weirdos at their best and most minimal and synthy – first release on Kingdom’s label.

Fedbymachines – Undertow (Broken Bubble)
Beautiful release from a stellar dutch musician – one to watch.

Kuhn – Slime Beach (Civil)
A madman prankster from NYC taking both sidechaining and beats to a new level.

1000names – Machine City (Svetlana Industries)
Svetlana’s AND 1000names’ best release yet – complex, thoughtful beats.

Abjo – Sankofa (Self-Released)
West Coast soul soldier at his most creative.

Kouta – Orinda (Self-Released)
Bay Area local who I know little about, but sounds as close to Agraph as anyone I’ve heard.

El Kid – Hypnonis (Left Blank)
Complex and beguiling, an artist very much on his own tip.

DJ Rum – Mountains (2nd Drop)
Mysterious artist with a super solid grasp of dub for 2011.

Baconhead – Astrosludge (eat Concrete)
More pranksters with four stellar beat/dance tracks. The world will know their name.

Wheez-ie – Keep Yer Chin Up (Embassy)
Stellar year for Wheezie – non-chicago-ians taking Footwork in all sorts of awesome directions

Singles

Orphan101 – Propa / Dissemble
(Decarhythm)
Superb cross of techno and dubstep on one of the year’s best labels.

Brokenchord – A Girl of 13 Summers / Orion (Team Acre)
Lithuanian beat wonderkid who caught Radiohead’s ears.

Objekt – The Goose That got Away / Tinderbox (White)
The mysterious king of the techno/dubstep crossover’s debut.

Appleblim & October – Ny Fizzzzzz / Fountains of Paradise (Schmorgasboard)
New label debut for Bristol stalwarts – dubby dance-y goodness.

Addison Groove – This is It / Make Um Bounce (Tectonic)
808s and electro kicks from Headhunter’s alterego.

Presk – And Cut / Mold (Punch Drunk)
Another great debut crossing UK Funky and dubstep – solid and inexorable.

Om Unit vs. Kromestar – Solar Cycle /
Merkabah (Cosmic Bridge)
Favorite Om Unit release of the year, ranks with his best.

Kahn – Illy / Tehran (Punch Drunk)
Mysterious, rich, thick dance music — both tracks awesome.

Dub Phizix & Skeptical – Marka / Rags (Exit)
The drumstep anthem of the end of the year.

Arkist – Fill Your Coffee / Rendezvous (Applepips)
Impossible not to love these tracks for their gorgeous switch-ups.

Instra:Mental / dBridge – From The Start / Detuned Heart (Autonomic)
Set the tone for the best of the year in drumstep – floating, haunting, unique.

Bonus: Om Unit Mix

Matt also includes a special mix, exclusively composed of the work of Om Unit, whom he describes as “one of my favorite producers of 2011.” That makes this the perfect addition to the selections above. -Ed.

Om Unit 2011 Mix by kidkameleon

Om Unit’s been one of my favorite producers for the last couple years running. I thought I’d take a bunch of his tracks from this year and string them together as a sort of end of year thing. Hope you enjoy the result! Much respect to the master – let’s get him to the US in 2012!

01. Om Unit – Naiad
02. Om Unit vs. Kromestar – Merkabah
03. Krampfhaft – I Needed You (Om Unit Remix)
04. Om Unit – Fibonnaci 10
05. Comma – Mezcal Hologram (Om Unit Remix)
06. Om Unit – An Eternal Way
07. Silent Dust – The Giant (Om Unit Remix)
08. Ital Tek – War of the Ants (Om Unit Remix)
09. Arp 101 And Om Unit – Dr Funkenstein
10. Om Unit – Cold World
11. Starkey – Lost in Space (feat. Charli XCX) (Om Unit Remix)
12. Take – Juniper (Om Unit Remix)
13. Pixelord – Cybernator (Om Unit Remix)
14. Om Unit – Prawn Cocktail
15. Om Unit – The Timps (Alternative Version)
16. Om Unit x Lorn – Obsidian

Bonus! Bonus! Decarhythm Mix

Kid Kameleon this week released a terrific playlist on the Decarhythm Podcast series. It’s not strictly about 2011, but it’s good listening, so let’s keep the playlists going right through the weekend. -Ed.

Decarhythm Podcast 7 = Me! [kidkameleon.com]

In Case You Missed It:

As part of our exclusive coverage of 2011′s music exclusively by guys who are named Matt, CDM’s Matt Ganucheau also offered up a mix of music for CDM looking back at last year.

2011 Mix by ganucheau

Rediscovering 2011′s Music: Ganucheau’s 2011 CDM Mix, SoundCloud-able, from the California Coast

About the Author

Kid Kameleon is a San Francisco-based DJ, promoter, writer, blogger, historian, archivist, and fan of electronic music who has over 100 mixes floating around the net. His love of beats basically knows no bounds.
http://www.kidkameleon.com

How do you hear? What do you hear?

Coming to agreement about something rooted in perception is by definition a doomed exercise. But that means the best thing to do is not so much to agree as to talk about the music – about what you hear – and not just the labels.

Amidst glib online comments and the micro-fragmentation of genre, it’s hard to get anyone to give you a straight answer about just what’s going on in electronic dance music. That’s ironic – because, at its essence, it’s pretty straightforward. The situation has gotten worse: as “dubstep,” the relatively underground and fairly specific genre, has influenced mainstream artists and big acts, fans and journalists alike have tended to “mislabel” music that doesn’t fit the original meaning.

Enter into this discussion a video from artist Bassnectar, produced from an impromptu interview in a van. The California-based artist is a well-respected musician who does make work that can be safely classified dubstep. And he cuts straight through the distractions and describes, in clear and precise terms, just what’s going on in how he hears the music – not only with dubstep, but with the beat structure of electronic music more generally, at least in the way it tends to be classified. The visualization, added by an unknown YouTuber and produced in Prezi.com, a presentation tool, is a bit like looking into one artist’s mind, as thought processes become visual.

Several readers disagree with the notion of genre here more generally – which I can actually get behind as an artist – but I think what’s nice here is that the modes of hearing that motivate those genre labels are well-described here. You may hear differently, and you may not find the classification useful, but this demystifies where those categories originate.

You don’t need an advanced degree in music theory to understand this. (Believe me: I’ve got one, finishing another, and “you don’t need one” barely begins to cover it.) Nor do you need a lot of background even in dance music. You – and perhaps less-musically-educated friends and family – have undoubtedly heard these rhythms. Seeing them explained and hearing them in clear, simple terms can help you to understand what you’ve already got in your ears. It’s lovely. (Some of it is debatable, yes – “dub” gets a thrown-aside mention there that doesn’t really make any sense – but hearing him beatbox his way through what he hears for me at least gets to the essence of how one producer’s listening habits work.)

Wheat Williams, who sends this in, observes:

Bassnectar must be an extraordinarily organized thinker! His off-the-cuff explanation created a perfectly coherent outline which the video artist rendered from his word-for-word delivery.

Remarkable on several levels.

Like you, I’ve interviewed a lot of musicians in my journalist days, and rarely do you come across anybody who’s so clear and straightforward in his thinking and his ability to describe his music.

For the original interview – and proof this was all off-the-cuff:

More from that site:
http://www.moboogie.com/

Best comment on YouTube:

dubstep is my favorite artist, yay deadmouse!!

(Don’t worry, they are kidding.)

Side note:

I’ll, uh, defend the four-on-the-floor regularity of techno by pointing out that those kinds of regular duple meanings have a long, long history in European and European-influenced music. That, in turn, may explain why European audiences stomach them more easily – not because of the maligned image of the polka band in a German square, but because of a broad and varied tradition of folk and Classical music based on similar on-the-beat regularity. And the mechanical repetitiveness of some techno, too, has roots in the 20th Century love affair with machines, and a worldwide sense of trance states brought about by loops that may even have biological connections. Your brain, after all, reaches certain states of regular oscillation. At the same time, I understand why Bassnectar goes a different definition, one influenced by jazz and hip-hop and soul – and American, English, and other dubstep producers all share a deep generational fascination with those rhythms that crosses all kinds of backgrounds. (PS: I also like polka. Don’t knock it.)

But understanding dance music categorization as lying between the broken and regular beat makes absolute sense. And as in many musical evolutions, the tension between ideas can be enormously artistically inspiring.

Updated: The interesting question is whether that general categorization – which has become common, indeed, in the USA in conversations I hear – is really fair. It may have to do with the self-conception of producers. But while the bass drum is regular in many of these genres, they, too, often rely on polyrhythms and syncopation influenced by genealogical lines of music like jazz. Our friend Primus Luta (@primusluta) wonders via Twitter if this dichotomy is really the best way to understand things. But at least, for the purposes of the argument Bassnectar is making, he does a good job of beatboxing his way through the way in which many people hear these genres, the perception of how they work. In other words, it’s a useful illustration of how Bassnectar hears them. Because it’s music, and intrinsically about perception, it’s that question of how things are perceived rather than some objective, universal fact that matters – and can by definition be heard radically differently by someone else.

What he omits is the mention of certain timbres or samples, for instance (thanks to John Alfred Tyson for raising this on Facebook; I agree). But I think that omission also says something about how people hear or what they find important as they self-indentify with what they’re making.

Now, if someone can just do some infographics illustrating brostep… (there is, at least, a hilarious definition)

Speaking of dubstep, for the record: America did not ruin music. America ruined the global economy. Look it up; get it straight. Then again, the night is young: my New Year’s Resolution for 2012 is definitely to butcher music, or anything else I can get my hands on. U.S.A.!

http://www.bassnectar.net/

As Christmas revelers head out for last-minute shopping in the last surge of pre-holiday capitalism, they might catch over piped music the ouvre of one Mannheim Steamroller. For all the electronic artists we might imagine as representing the genre, this guy has sold one heck of a lot of Christmas records, in a strange brew of hyper-active electrified timbres and New Age. How many records? Well, enough that he is able to, from his Omaha home, raise wolves.

Not yet fully grown, they require a full-time trainer (they now respond to commands in German), walks up to three hours long, acres of space to roam and a professional meat grinder to create their diet of sushi-grade raw salmon and whole chickens ground up with their bones.

And thus begins the tale of how Mr. Steamroller – erm, Mr. Chip Davis, in fact – lives on the fortune of his musical output, one that might be described, fairly, as a bit eccentric. Hence, the Egyptian artefacts and replica sarcophagus, and crystal balls and cape (yes, he’s worn it while producing, at least on occasion), and apparently flown-in female companionship. Even the wolves get their own iPod speaker and framed pork chop artwork. (Come to think of it, actually, I could go for a picture of some pork in my living space, so maybe I’m not so unlike the wolves. I’m, meanwhile, learning to respond to words in German.)

A must-read article in The Wall Street Journal Real Estate section. (This will be the first and last time you ever hear me say that.)

A Wild Holiday Home: The eclectic Omaha property created by the founder of Christmas-music group Mannheim Steamroller

Eat your heart out, Skrillex. Here’s what a real crossover electronic artist looks like.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m suddenly craving salmon.

I had the pleasure this year of working on a book that draws from over 30 years of coverage of Electronic Dance Music’s evolution. Collecting pages primarily from Keyboard, with additional content from Remix, we retrace the relationship of machines and music, technology and movement, in producing the sounds to which people dance.

It’s impossible to be encyclopedic in such an endeavor, but part of what I enjoyed about working on the project was getting to see through the eyes of the artists. You hear them talk in astounding detail about how they actual craft what they make. They curse their gear and long for more usable tools. They lament challenges in the scene that echo today. And they talk, musician to musician, about why they do what they do, what most personally they’re trying to express. (One advantage of being a magazine like Keyboard is that you’re not talking to a music journalist, but a fellow practitioner; you don’t have to shy away from technical details or explain to an outsider, and that comes across.)

I hope to run an excerpt here on CDM, so if there’s something you’d like to see, let us know.

I do very much want to get this out in the world and read – otherwise, I’d go get a real job — but I’m constrained by the slow trickle of print books into the channel. Stock in some places is still three weeks out; B&N as I write this says they’re in stock for immediate shipping.

The Evolution of Electronic Dance Music @ Amazon

Barnes & Noble [in stock?]

Hal Leonard book page

See the Table of Contents below, plus more pictures to give you a taste.

I also have to say, I’m hugely indebted to the folks at Hal Leonard (of which Backbeat is an imprint) for allowing me free reign on this project, and making it look terrific, and to Steve Fortner and especially Lori Kennedy at Keyboard for an archival effort that was nothing short of heroic. You may imagine we’re sitting on some massive electronic collection of articles from Keyboard’s decades of publishing. We’re not. We pulled a whole bunch of this from paper, which is how I wound up sitting in a coffee shop in Toronto in the hours (literally) up to the manuscript deadline removing errant carriage returns.

Table of Contents: I imagine your first question would likely be, why [x] and not [y]? Believe me, this was my own first question. In the end, as I said, the book is not so much a timeline of EDM, or an encyclopedia. It’s a series of snapshots, chosen from my perspective to be partially representative, but also to build a story between pieces, and to find some of the richest writing in the magazine. The magazine has its own biases, but that itself tells a story; between the pages, between the lines, there’s a tale of the music and technology that I think does emerge.

And for me, finding that connection point between human and machine was especially important, so you’ll see that thread, unsurprisingly, woven into the text. Do let me know what you think if you pick up a copy.

Preface

1. Kraftwerk
“Electronic Minstrels of the Global Village”
By Jim Aikin, March 1982

2. Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, The Units, Wall of Voodoo, Japan, Our Daughters Wedding
“New Synthesizer Rock”
By Robert Doerschuk, June 1982

3. The Ethnomusicology of Dance Music
“Denise Dalphond Goes Inside EDM Culture’s Roots”
By Peter Kirn, June 2011

4. Frankie Knuckles, Jesse Saunders, Farley “Jackmaster” Funk
“The Fathers of Chicago House”
By Greg Rule, August 1997

5. Juan Atkins
“Juan Atkins: Techno Starts Here”
By Robert Doerschuk, July 1995

6. Electronic Body Music
“Front 242: The Aggressive Edge of Rhythm and the Power of Recycled Culture”
By Robert L. Doerschuk, September 1989

“The Art of Extreme Noise”
By Francis Preve, September 2003

7. Rise of the Machines
“Roland CR-78, TR-808 and TR-909: Classic Beat Boxes”
By Mark Vail, May 1994

“Akai MPC60”
By Freff, November 1988

“Propellerhead: Propelling Changes”
By Mark Vail, April 1999

8. Charlie Clouser on Techno
“Techno How To”
By Charlie Clouser, September 1993

9. The Orb
“Inside the Ambient Techno Ultraworld”
By Robert Doerschuk, June 1995

10. Orbital, Meat Beat Manifesto, Underworld
“Plugged!”
By Greg Rule and Caspar Melville, October 1996

11. Aphex Twin
“Still Hacking After All These Years”
By Greg Rule, April 1997

12. Chemical Brothers
“Water into Acid: The Chemical Brothers Blow Up”
By Greg Rule, June 1997

13. Daft Punk
“Robopop: Part Man, Part Machine, All Daft Punk.”
By Chris Gill, May 2001

14. Richie Hawtin and John Acquaviva
“The Sounds of Science: Richie Hawtin Puts the Tech in Techno”
By Chris Gill, December 2001

“Technical Itch: John Acquaviva gets his FinalScratch”
By Stacia Monteith, December 2001

15. BT
“The Mind of BT”
By Stephen Fortner, December 2005

16. Amon Tobin
“The Big Score”
By Bill Murphy, April 2007

17. Flying Lotus
“Flying Lotus: Darkness & Light”
By Noah Levine, August 2008

“Flying Lotus: On Splicing Bebop and Hip-Hop DNA”
By Drew Hinshaw, July 2010

18. Autechre
“Autechre: Easy to Be Hard”
By Ken Micallef, April 2008

“5 Questions with Rob Brown of Autechre”
By Greg Rule, June 1996

19. Crystal Method
“Crystal Method: United by Synths, Divided by Night”
By Peter Kirn, November 2009

20. Robert Henke (Monolake)
“The Composer, Artist, and Ableton Live Imagineer Looks to the Future”
By Peter Kirn, June 2011

Keyboard Presents the Evolution of Electronic Dance Music
Ed. Peter Kirn
2011

Previously:
Across Time and Space, Tracing the Evolution of Western Dance Music: Data Visualization

And, incidentally, if you recommend a reading list to go with this, I’d love to read it! For the Northern Hemisphere, we’ll have some good material to help inspire us through the winter…

For very occasional updates on the book (like when it’s actually in stock in places like Amazon, and a possible party early in 2012), sign up for the book’s mailing list:

The duo Sepalcure – Praveen Sharma (aka Braille and PRAVEEN) and Travis Stewart (aka Machinedrum) – have already, as solo artists and as a duo, been a big part of the vibrations of so-called Bass Music. Originating from New York, the duo now champion their taste in sounds on two sides of the globe. Travis spends a lot of time in Berlin while Praveen anchors a scene that spans Brooklyn and the Internet in the form of Percussion Lab, with that group’s events, Web downloads, and Monday night live streams. (In fact, if you’re up against some deadlines or feeling blue on some Monday evening slash early morning European time slash Tuesday morning over in Asia and Australia, I highly recommend tuning in. Or go and grab one of the downloads, which cover Bass Music but also ambient, experimental, techno, and other sounds.)

Crisply soulful, “I’m Alright” is a perfect single to introduce you to the upcoming full-length. It represents the comfortable, relaxed collaboration between Travis and Praveen, from its lush production quality to heartwarmingly-grooving rhythms. It speaks to a hunger for danceable music that tracks closer to its history in House and Chicago sounds, to me, a sound that is as much about the roots and tradition of the music as any one place or time.

But I don’t have to really tell you anything; you can grab the single for free and exclaim, yeah, “I’m alright.” And I’m sure we’ve all had days where we were ready for a song to make us feel that way. In fact, I’m fairly surprised this is a b-side; having heard the album, though, the self-titled “Sepalcure” will deliver more of this manner of goodness.

Have a listen, grab the download, via CDM and Hotflush:
02 AA. I’m Alright – Sepalcure (promo) by cdm

Sepalcure promise “extensive touring,” but if you’re around New York, you can watch it all get rolling. After appearances at Unsound Festival Krakow and, this week, MUTEK Mexico City, the duo’s new live AV show will debut November 10th at Le Poisson Rouge. I believe visuals will come by way of another Friend of CDM, the awesomely-talented artist and designer Sougwen Chung. See her design from a previous release below, just because it’s too pretty not to include here. We’ll be due for another catch-up with Sougwen, but read our previous Create Digital Motion profile of her work for US label and tastemaker Ghostly International:

Visuals for Shigeto Full Circle, and Reflections on Drawing by Hand [Create Digital Motion]

Release details:
“I’m Alright” is the B Side for the single “Pencil Pimp,” November 7, Hotflush Recordings
Self-titled full-length, Sepalcure will be released November 22, Hotflush

And let’s give you some more visuals via Sougwen, inspired by the duo’s debut EP, Fleur:

I normally wouldn’t do this, but I know Gamail from Backspin Promotion, and his analysis – clearly written here with the duo – tends to be right on point, so I really like his track-by-track description:

Opening with ‘Me,’ a clear statement of intent that brings to mind early Metalheadz-era Alex Reese and Waxdoctor tunes within a fresh 2011 beat dynamic, the album continues its rhythmic and soulful attack on ‘Pencil Pimp’ which drops abandoned melancholic soul into a burnt out etheral city that isn’t Detroit. The Bronx? Brooklyn? Queens? New York while we waited for Hurricane Irene? No surprise then that this is slated to be the first single from the album. Tribalisms on ‘The One’ echo Zanzibar-era New Jersey Black House before it came over to Madhattan and stormed the world. On ‘See Me Feel Me’ you can hear Sharma’s IDM roots but Stewart has clearly helped him take a trip down to Philly for a bit of what can only be dubbed as an East Coast urban love fest. With Hip Hop mutating towards electronic music it wouldn’t be a surprise to hear a big league rapper biting this soon. ‘Eternally Yrs’ continues what is surely a romantic core in this album – it’s a burbling update of the ravehouse sound, with processed vocals rubbing up against woodblock beats and a relentlessly bouncing bassline. ‘Yuh Nuh See’ takes a bite out of juke’s trademark staccato bass and looping vocals, washing the tension away with lush melodies and dubbed out atmospherics. ‘Breezin’ indicates an ease but is in fact one of the more bass-heavy tunes on the album, bringing to mind a crowded beach in the Bronx where everyone is playing something different on their boombox – it’s Nigeria, Harlem and other undisclosed sources of wonder trapped in summer heat. ‘Hold On’ gets even more Jamaican – did we just enter a Soundclash? if so, this one is especially blissful. ‘Carrot Man’ lets us know Model 500, UR and Carl Craig’s dystopian landscapes still continue to inspire. while the finale ‘Outside’ sounds like the duo captured the elation of finishing the album and walking outside after weeks in a dark and sweaty studio. Sophisticated, yes, but accessible too. Emotional, yes, but fun as well. Simply titled ‘Sepalcure’ this album is a bold statement from two artists rising to the top of their game.

I’ll be interviewing Travis and Praveen, so if you’ve got anything you’d like to know about them, music they like, process, etc., let us know.

http://www.sepalcure.com/
http://percussionlab.com/
http://www.hotflushrecordings.com/

It barely seems as though it’s been that long, but synthesis pioneer Robert Moog died six years ago this week. That has brought a whole new wave of remembrances, including a great new EP you can remix. And if you still don’t know what the fuss is about, or want to refer a friend somewhere other than Wikipedia, a guest essay popped into our inbox here at CDM HQ, so I’ll add that, too.

The best news, from where I sit: Tara Busch has donated a three-track EP entitled The Rocket Wife to the cause of bettering the Bob Moog Foundation’s work in history, archiving, and education. You may know Tara as the writer behind AnalogSuicide, or from her synthesist/vocalist career. Regardless, give this EP a listen. It’s a fanciful, dreamily optimistic album, recalling grand pop songwriting traditions. “Motor Crash” channels another Bush (Kate) in a very good way over its all-too-brief yet oddly satisfying minute and a half amuse-bouche. (Amuse-Busch?) “Calendura” is a gliding waltz set to angular, sparse percussion. But “Rocket Wife” is my favorite, a wonderland soundscape that sounds like some sunlight of the two afternoon suns on your foreign planet streamed right into a rack of Moogs in the studio of your dreams.

And, anyway, if you think you can do better with these raw materials, you can try to prove it. 17 tracks of stems are available for purchase, too, also as a benefit. Grab them, give them a remix, and winners will receive prizes like Bob Moog merch and a collaboration with Tara. You’ve got until October 15 to make it happen.

The Rocket Wife EP

The Stems and Contest

SoundCloud-based Contest Submissions [great idea!]

About Tara Busch

What else is new in the world of Bob Moog’s legacy?

Michelle Moog-Koussa (Bob Moog’s daughter) has her own blog, Moogstress. (Does that make us dudes Moogsters? Maestroogs?) See also a great new limited poster for donors.

Here’s a beautifully-shot video about what’s now called Dr. Bob’s Sound School. It’s just this kind of engineering-rich effort I think we need now in the US and worldwide to restart the economy, though that’s perhaps a story for another post.

Finally, writer Jennifer Helfrich sent us an unsolicited bio essay on Bob Moog. I was delighted to see it show up in my inbox, and it has the Bob Moog Foundation’s technical editing applied to it, so here it is – a great introduction to Bob Moog’s life.

Side editorial: I think it’s notable that Dr. Moog was a product of New York public education, beginning his educational journey at Bronx High School of Science and receiving his first BA – in physics, initially, not electrical engineering until later – at Queens College of The City University of New York. (Disclosure: I’m a PhD Candidate at CUNY’s Graduate Center.) It shows the power of public education to help support the people who innovate — just at a time when, in many places int he world, public education can be targeted for cuts.

Here’s Jennifer’s nicely-compact story:

Robert Moog is the godfather of modern electronic music, the man whose genius and passion made synthesizers accessible and put electronic sound generation on the musical map. This past Sunday, the 21st, was the six year anniversary of Bob Moog’s passing. Let us take a moment to remember his life and his legacy.

A New York native, he was born in 1934 to a mother who taught him piano and a father who puttered with house-hold electronics. Moog showed exceptional intelligence from an early age. He built a simple Theremin on his own at 14, and the experience made music his focus. At the tender age of 19 Moog founded R.A. Moog Co. to manufacture and sell Theremin kits. The business, begun at such an early age, exemplifies Moog’s incredible productive capacity and perhaps even a desire to share the joy he found in building his own.

During his bachelor and Ph.D. studies Moog began to develop his version of the synthesizer. Electronic synthesizers commercially available at the time were made of vacuum tubes and magnetic tape – they were huge, difficult to set-up, and often had to be custom made. With the 1964 presentation of his synthesizer Moog ushered in a new era of electronic music. Smaller and easier to use, with multiple modules for modifying voltage controlled oscillations and an organ-keyboard interface, the Moog synthesizer was ready for the music studio. Moog synthesizers hit the big-time with the success of the 1967 Wendy Carlos album Switched-On Bach. It was among the first classical albums to sell half-million copies, it hit the Top 10 and stayed in the Top 40 for 17 weeks.

As Moog synthesizers improved throughout the 60s and 70s they were featured in numerous albums by a wide variety of artists. Moog’s synthesizer helped shape disco; it showed up in the Beatles, the Doors, and the Monkees; both Stevie Wonder and Tangerine Dream loved the Moog synthesizer; it made appearances in genres from country to rock to jazz.

R.A. Moog Co. began to produce the Minimoog (Model D) in 1970 – an extremely popular smaller version of the synthesizer that was better suited to live performances. But the 60s had bankrupt Moog as other producers with larger factories outstripped his namesake firm. Moog sold the company and rights to the Moog name in 1972. Five years later Moog left the company, now Moog Music, frustrated with weak marketing and bad management. For the next 30 years he continued to develop and produce analog and digital tools for synthesizers, but during the time he could not produce under his own name Moog made no new instruments. Until, in 2002, he won back the rights to produce under his own name and returned to Moog Music. He designed and improved instruments at Moog Music until his death three years later in 2005.

The Moog legacy is a powerful inspiration for innovation in electronic music. His life was dedicated to the creation of quality analog and digital sounds composed in beautiful, interesting, and instructive ways. His understanding and appreciation of sound manipulation and the joys it can bring are carried on by the Bob Moog Foundation. His daughter, Michelle Moog-Koussa, as the Director, remembers her father as a quiet, introspective, cool, quirky, funny guy with a rambunctious laugh who loved to teach. The Foundation teaches science through music, has a Grammy recognized archive of the Moog legacy, and plans to build a museum. They recently released Mooged Out Asheville, Volume 2, an album exemplifying the many ways Moog changed music with songs spanning far-flung genres from hip-hop to avant electronica, from dub-step to rock. To learn more about Bob Moog and how his life still touches ours, visit http://www.moogfoundation.org/.

By the way, since this tends to come up – CDM welcomes suggestions for innovators you’d like us to cover. The Bob Moog Foundation archives alone cover lots of early designers, inventors, composers, and musicians, not only Dr. Moog himself. If you’ve got an idea, let us know.

Watch for, at long last, a series remembering the history of Max Mathews shortly — I’ve been editing it. It’s great the assemblage of people who helped build the tools we use.

A hive mind mentality is quickly infected with a meme, engaging partly consciously, partly unconsciously in a shared hallucination, projecting a common fantasy, as the planet’s population is wrapped up in a single idea. I’m speaking, of course, of myself and the Internet, as I and friends skittered across the Web’s social networking tools giggling over the common joke that May 21 was to be the end of the world, inside joke gone viral. In fact, I’m not sure which was the commentary on religion and faith: the handful of people who believed the world would end, or the far-larger media and Web commentary, “worshiping” at Foursquare check-ins. Thanks be to Facebook. The lesson: it’s fun to play along.

Music can respond to these imagined scenarios in moving ways. (Scientists and atheists are pretty good at conceiving the apocalypse, too, so this doesn’t cease to be topical, at least until the end.) Here are just two examples that, even though the occasion has passed, I know I’ll be listening to this week — an Eigenharp jam and a Loscil mix.

Via Synthtopia’s Sunday Synth Jam, our friend bar|none has a gorgeous live jam on the alternative instrument Eigenharp. (Recently, I pointed to Philip Glass covers and GPL software for the instrument; see also extended commentary from the players.)

The otherworldly sounds come from KYMA, the inconceivably-deep digital synthesis environment. bar|none explains:

This is a bit of noodling with a KYMA sound designed by Edmund Eagan for the Continuum that I adapted for the Eigenharp.

As you can hear, it has a lot of per note expression. Each key controls, velocity, pitch, timbre (reresonation of the strings), volume. phase, pick sound mix using roll, yaw, pressure, velocity of the keys, each key sending all this information INDEPENDENTLY!

There is a bit of bowed cello added which comes in only when I use the strip controller, everything else is one KYMA sound.

I’d like to extend my appreciation to Geert Bevin who designed the new MIDI configuration options for EigenD and made this connection possible. And of course to Edmund Eagan for this amazing sound, and to Symbolic Sound for KYMA.

For more of bar|none’s music, visit the blog of this Washington state-based “software developer by day, music enthusiast by night.”
http://bar0.blogspot.com

In other news, CDM favorite and ambient maestro Loscil contributes an entire mix of end-of-the-world music. It’s streaming on the terrific Web streaming service Mixcloud, with music by the likes of Ben Frost, Tim Hecker, and Max Richter, but also Nick Cave, Estonian composer Arvo Part, and film composers Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, among others.

I believe I owe a Facebook friend the original pleasure of listening, but when I couldn’t find that, I found this on a wonderful music blog. This one post alone could give you great listening for the rest of the day.

Passing by: Dauwd, sgnl_fltr, Adam X, Loscil & Matthias Rock [astrangelyisolatedplace]

There’s an insanely rich set of ambient and electronic mixes, and links to appropriate blogs. Whoever you are, sir, thinks for the great work, described as:

Biosphere’s Norwegian Winter.
Eno’s inspirational airports.
The Orb’s psychedelic London.
Aphex Twin’s Cornish isolation.
The KLF’s American road-trip.
Harold Budd’s Mojave desert humming telephone wires

To me, the power of music remains that it can make you feel better when it seems as though your world is apocalyptic. And if we do ever find ourselves in the midst of an apocalypse and have the strength to make a sound, I imagine the band will play on.

From an Australian curator comes a diverse compilation of “experimental electronica” spanning artists from down under, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. Selected by artist / Enig-matik founder SUN IN AQUARIUS, it’s some finely-produced, “glitch-tinged” music covering a gamut of personalities, a nice sampling of some of the kind of quality work getting made. The compilation is streamable free or can be purchased for AUD$15.

Honestly, I think the biggest challenge with all this music isn’t listening to it or finding it, but deciding what to call it. Electronica? Leftfield? Ambient — no, not really. Glitch? Please. Even the “experimental” moniker seems not entirely descriptive to me. Thoughts?

Of course, acquiring it is very easy – it’s another Bandcamp release:

http://enigmatiksounds.bandcamp.com/: V.A-Painting Pictures on Silence V1

Mitchell Nordine (Mind Tree), who sent this news, contributes two of my favorite tracks, cut one, “The Caravan,” and as half of the collaboration MindBuffer, “Ghost in the Shell.”

Mitchell shares some of the making of “The Caravan”:

All of the percussive samples were recorded with my little Zoom H2 on a camping trip our group went on when I was 18 (last year) Easter time It makes the track feel particularly close to home for me, and I’m just wrapped in general at the quality of how the end product turned out using custom samples from the little recorder.

Mitchell also passes along some additional notes on his act, some of the geekier details of their creation process behind the scenes (generative melodies, audiovisual granular synthesis), and more:

MINDBUFFER BIO

MindBuffer is the collaborative bi-product between Joshua Batty and Mitchell Nordine after years of submergence deep within the oceans of C++ coding and Max/MSP/Jitter patches… This combined with a fetish for sensory overload, years of collective experience within popular DAW’s such as Logic and Live, and a history of professional performance in jazz trumpet and violin.

MindBuffer thrives on intricacy and innovation, integrating self-generative and prerecorded audio, 3D reactive visuals and crowd interactivity; all grown from the ground up on self developed software. Their custom software is capable of realtime audiovisual granular synthesis by allowing the access and manipulation of single frames of video at 60fps as well being capable of melodic and rhythmical generative compositional processes. <(Ghost in the shell 2.20-3.48, Bell melody is entirely generative)

REVIEW BY INTERVAL

"Deep, thoughtful, and experimental, ‘Ghost in The Shell’ from Mindbuffer explodes an IDM vibe like non-other. A heart wrenchingly soulful expedition, it grooves deep into a carefully created chaos, with hiccups of noise and distortion thrown across the listener, much like a fresh splattering of multicoloured paint over a canvas. Confronting expectation mindbuffer still delivers a poignant narrative that is sure to send goosebumps crawling up your spine."
Review by Interval.

ENIG’MATIK RECORDS

Enig'matik Records sole goal is to blur genre lines, push the envelope and generally bring together like minded artists who are in it for the music, for the emotion it can convey and the unification it can achieve. This release was only possible by the extraordinary efforts of label owner Sun in Aquarius. Our personal favorites include Circuit Bent, Vaetxh and Sun in Aquarius.

Additional links:
soundcloud.com/mindbuffer

soundcloud.com/mindtree

And lots of other good artists there, as well. Let us know what you think.

Enig-matik Records @ Facebook

We hear plenty of hype about the Web’s power for artists, but what happens in the real world? That question is doubly interesting now that Topspin, already influential in its early test run, is available to everyone. Atlanta-based artist Tricil joins us for a special guest post to answer just that. It’s a chance to peer in the head of a Topspin power user. (If anyone wants to rebut this with the Bandcamp perspective, go for it.)

Tricil, aka Johnny Jacobus, answers all this for us. His answers are glowing; he even worried that this might seem a little too Topspin “fanboyish” to post. But no worries here: if people are loving a tool, I want to hear about it. Johnny, take it away. (And readers, have a listen to his music, too – another reason to involve him in this question!)

To compare Topspin to Bandcamp seems a little unfair to me, for the former has a multitude of tools that go beyond streaming and commerce. Both are used by musicians like you and I to “get our stuff out there.” Tim O’Reilly said that “Piracy is not the enemy [of the artist], obscurity is” and I think that’s true. Ed.: Actually, it seems that Seth Godin said that, and Tim O’Reilly didn’t. But Tricil just said it, and someone else might, too. -PK

Be it Topspin, Bandcamp, or even SoundCloud, there are a plethora of ways to get your music out to your fans ears in much more intelligent ways than having a myspace with some tracks or hosting downloads on your own site.

Bandcamp’s charm when they came out in the post myspace-era was an embeddable, music-centric streaming site that had built in social-sharing, almost like SoundCloud with a commerce function. With Bandcamp, you can set up “In Rainbows”-style pricing of pay what you want and even do a free in exchange for an email much like Topspin. The downsides to Bandcamp are a sandboxed site with little to no css customization, so it’s harder to create a more “branded” presence going the all Bandcamp route.

Topspin is different. They seem to be the pioneers of the “email for download” thing, which to me is your first price point. You could host them on SoundCloud, Last.fm or your own site and get 1000s of downloads, but wouldn’t it be nice to tell those 1000 people about your new album with an exclusive offer to download another new track? Anonymous hot-linking downloading is great, but having permission to go Direct to Fan is even better. This is the strength of Topspin’s email platform. Additionally, you can segment your fans so I can holler at my three fans in Peoria, IL about my next show there (TBA). Geo-tagging is done by clicking on a link in a confirmation email, COPPA-compliant. No spam here.

Bandcamp’s real appeal came from the universally embeddable streaming players that work via HTML5 and within Facebook as well. As you can see from a recent Topspin blog post that bizarrely features me, these are coming to the Topspin world as well.

Bandcamp has added email for download functionality as well, but I don’t think its email backend is as robust as Topspin’s. I believe it’s through FanBridge and that’s on a separate site, whereas in Topspin, it’s all self-contained in the same app, along with stats on plays, emails, geodata, and NextBigSound integration. (NBS is amazing, it’s like Google Analytics for musicians). Ed.: Finding the exact answer to this question on the Bandcamp side is difficult, and I think best left to a story that covers Bandcamp specifically. Bandcamp added this functionality in 2008, according to a site blog post, and continues to evolve, too.

Real case scenario: I put up One Day Soon for free download as part of an upcoming Atlanta show promotion on my site. [Ed.: See link above.] I emailed the Atlanta people on my list (about 15%) a link to download the sampler from all three bands and told them where to buy tickets and asked them to share the show info with their friends. I didn’t want to tell the other 85% about a show in Atlanta they can’t go to, so for them I gave them a link to my new song and made up a contest to make the cover art for One Day Soon (right now, the cover art is the flyer for the aforementioned show, and from May 15th on, that’s a little silly). The contest is cool, I think: you post your art on my Facebook wall, and whichever one has the most “Likes” and “TRICIL-ness” wins. One email campaign for one new song, split across the country in two presentable formats.

Speaking of Facebook, Topspin has an upcoming Facebook store that’s going to look a lot like their “spinshops” (which is something they offer for every artist, self-serve or not that works like a splash page for downloaded media, a sort of “while you’re here, maybe buy a T-Shirt?”). Commerce on Facebook, without leaving Facebook. Additionally, you have the option of sharing media for a Facebook Like or a Tweet. You can connect with your fans and grow your networks too, not just via email.

Speaking of T-Shirts, one thing that Topspin does in spades is physical media and merchandise. I know Bandcamp has that BCWax thing, which seems cool. [Ed.: It's a vinyl label, though with only two releases so far, it looks pretty tightly curated!]

Topspin lets you bundle, say, a T-Shirt with an artist’s entire discography in any format from MP3 to 24-bit wav and lifetime VIP access and iPhone ringtones, if you wanted to. This is exactly what I have setup, and it’s my highest selling item, outselling $2-$4 digital downloads. People still like tangibility and the music experience really is being re-bundled. VIP access is cool, you connect with a network like Google, OpenID, FB, Twitter, AOL, and you’re given access to download specific packages. A way to cater to superfans.

Finally, one last thing that Topspin has in the tangible realm is Ticketing. You print (or save the PDF on your iPhone) and bring out your ticket to a show, and you can use the Topspin iPhone scanner (no love for the Droid or BB folk, sorry) to check in your fans. Sell a bundle with a CD, an instant download, and some tickets and you just bypassed both Ticketmaster and a record label.

So, there you have it. Here’s a bit more reading on the latest from Topspin, and a nice live release to grab. I expect this will cause us to hear from Bandcamp (and others), and hopefully even better, real-world users of those services.

I’d like to hear what you think of the alternatives out there, what’s available and what’s missing, and even if you’ve found ways of working across sites. And I hope in the process, we get to discover some new music, too. Let us know. -PK

Topspin blog:
Major Updates to Streaming Player Coming Soon, Embeddable Store Offers

The Unbundling (and Re-Bundling) of Music – interesting business analysis, including some discussion of SONOIO, the artist who recently won recognition from Topspin and whose DIY synthesizer presents a very different vision of the technology of music distribution! (More on SONOIO soon!)

http://tricil.net/ – Tricil’s own Topspin-powered site