Design, and investigation in general, thrive on a challenge. So Bastus Trump, working with none other than Monolake co-founder and Ableton imagineer Robert Henke, took on the call to make the blank glass of an iPad behave more as an instrument might. The results, filling that screen with overlapping circles, are impressive, exploiting continuous touch movements to make pitch gestures that are more difficult on a piano-style keyboard. But it’s even nicer to see digital fuse with analog and timbral transformation as the app, Orphion, meets the more traditional Moog Moogerfooger effects.

Bastus writes CDM:

[Orphion's] interface was developed especially for a touch screen and allows very expressive — and also virtuosic — playing. You can choose between different layouts of tonally-tuned pads, which sound differently depending on the finger position when played, and can be modulated by further movements. The sound and the means of interaction is a mixture of string and percussion instruments and reaches from soft to plucked to a hard slap.

The concept of the Orphion results from my master thesis at UdK Berlin supervised by Robert Henke (aka monolake). The topic was to develop an interface for multi-touch screens that allows a maximum of expression.

So, you can see a quick demo of how it’s played. But just how would this fit into your studio? For the answer to that question, we turn to our friend Chris Stack and his excellent Experimental Synth series.

In this episode:

Playing the Orphion iPad app through a Moog MF-102 Ring Modulator and MF-104Z Analog Delay. Moogerfooger parameters are controlled with the Moog Voyager Touch Surface CV outputs.

experimentalsynth.com

Thanks for the great work, Bastus. We’ll be watching.

iPad only; download the app or provide your own review on our exclusive Apps section:
http://apps.createdigitalmusic.com/apps/orphion

[Oh, yeah. About that. Announcement coming shortly. Consider yourself with the scoop by virtue of having read to the end of this article.]

Continuing our insight into this view into electronic music performance and art through the lens of BodyControlled in Berlin, we’re joined by guest writer Kristin Trethewey. Kristin, a Canadian-born video artist and curator, takes another look at LEAP and BodyControlled, on the eve of its second installment. She gets straight at the question of what “BodyControlled” means, and what it can mean for sonic performance and creation. And I wanted to make sure to subtract myself from this write-up, seeing as I was playing – but see the excellent timelapse of the evening, above. -Ed.

LEAP is one of these spectacular Berlin venues you’ve been hearing so much about. It’s a huge, raw space with a view of Berlin’s landmark TV tower, hosting interesting art events with cheap drinks and the potential for a late-night party. But it’s unique, too, in its focus on electronic arts. And unlike other media arts centers, it’s not filled with computers and half-finished electronic projects. I’ve truly gotten lost trying to find this place (it’s tucked away in a mall), so I would recommend watching the timelapse video LEAP shot that guides you to the entrance before attempting to go there. Tonight is the second edition of BodyControlled, a new bimonthly performance series at the space. This installment, called “matter incompatible,” is held in conjunction with the Transmediale Festival under the satellite program, Vorspiel.

BodyControlled is a series focused on the intersection of performance and electronics. You can expect future programming to focus around ideas of “feedback” and “bio” related electronic performances. In its first installment back in November, a packed LEAP gallery witnessed performances by Robert Henke, Peter Kirn [editor of this site], Stephen Cornford, and Paul Whitty. The event was called “Other Spaces” and took the physical architecture of the gallery as a point of departure. Having the space filled with people made for a secondary concern of space: its use. In a series whose title mentions the body, I witnessed one performance engaging the bodies that were filling the space. Robert Henke’s twelve-hour set activated interactions between the audience, performer, and environment. He moved around, listened and mingled with the audience, even though he had this amazing, souped-up control station complete with ambient lighting.

Other artists put more emphasis on the manipulation and dislocation of space through the use and abuse of electronics. Kirn worked with a custom rig with tablet-controlled original software built in open-source software Pure Data (Pd), controlled by a tablet running Konkreet Performer. Excerpt:

Excerpt – LEAP Gallery Berlin, 26.11 by peterkirn

Whitty and Cornford actively deconstructed electronics in front of the audience:
it pays my way and it corrodes my soul (2011)

Stephen Cornford & Paul Whitty’s performance “it pays my way and it corrodes my soul” seeks out musical material by physically dismembering playback equipment. A reel-to-reel tape recorder is switched on and its mechanism amplified with a variety of microphones while it is taken to pieces. The sounds produced are then fed through an array of pedals: the machine’s belts, gears, switches and casing becoming an instrument subjected to a live audio autopsy

Excerpt:
Excerpt: Stephen Cornford & Paul Whitty, LEAP Berlin, 26 November by cdm

Cornford was also interviewed by LEAP for his installation work, featuring repurposed tape machines:

As João Pais, co-curator of the event with LEAP’s Daniel Franke, puts it:

“BodyControlled means the main direction of the series, to present performance and installation works that have a strong, corporal identity. This can be manifested in many ways, not only implying a “moving performer”. The purpose is to avoid the extreme of abstract performances made by a laptop-er, sitting down as if writing emails. In the first event, this idea was shown by interpreting/filling the space of LEAP through a sound-performance (Kirn, Henke), or an installation (Cornford, Mathy, Oliver).”

See also my write-up for ARTSCARDS from last month:
Other Spaces Generates New Spaces Through Sound at LEAP

The second event, “matter incompatible,” draws reference to the Transmediale theme: In/compatible, acknowledging the less clear, even dark forces at play in the artistic and political climate today. Matter Controlled questions the idea of the object or anti-object within sonification. See CDM’s write-up from yesterday:

Watch Artists Talk About Making Sound From Matter; Thursday Event and Stream in Transmediale Prelude

From the Transmediale podcast, some explanations of the theme of the larger festival:

Jacob Lillemose on the exhibition Dark Drives: Uneasy Energies in Technological Times by transmediale

Kristoffer Gansing elaborates on the festival theme in/compatible, as well as the in/compatible symposium: systems | publics | aesthetics.
Tatiana Bazzichelli is the curator for out new project reSource of transmedial culture and speaks about its concept.
Jacob Lillemose speaks about exhibition Dark Drives: Uneasy Energies in Technological Times which he is curating for transmediale 2012 in/compatible.
Sandra Naumann is the curator for this year’s performance programme The Ghosts in the Maschine, which she explains a bit more in detail.
And Marcel Schwierin tells us about his concept for the video programme he is curating for transmediale 2012 in/compatible.

Performances by Echo Ho, Mario De Vega, Alex Nowitz and Ignaz Schick will investigate this blurry region between the immaterial and material. I am curious to see what objects they will bring to play with. As they potentially seek liberation from the physical objects, by reimagining their sonification, I wonder how they are also reliant and maybe even drawn towards their objectification. Bringing these disparate emotions into play is at the heart of tonights investigation. In today’s climate fractures exist between so many aspects of our lives. These performances seek to bring some of them together, compatible or incompatible as we might discover.

You can watch the proceedings via live Internet stream, for the majority of you not in Berlin for the live show.

www.leapknecht.de

More Photos

About the Author

Kristin Trethewey is a Canadian video artist, cinema performer, and curator. She holds an MFA from Brooklyn College in Performance and Interactive Media. A multi-disciplinary curator and artist for the past ten years, she has recently completed a residency at the Node Center for Curatorial Arts, was co-Director/co-Curator of the INDEX Festival. She currently lives in Berlin.

Mastering – a step by step guide to good sound by monolake

Sadly, as Robert Henke concedes:

i still think it needs to be louder and it lacks dynamics and punch. I STILL THINK IT NEEDS TO BE LOUDER AND IT LACKS DYNAMICS AND PUNCH!

It’s like banging your head against a brick wall.

No further comment at this time.

In performance and art, sound and music constantly pull against the formless abstraction of the computer, to find physical expression and realization. In physical control, in tangible production, and in exploration of space, artists explore techniques new and old to refine the still-youthful medium of electronic and digital sound. That adventure is at the heart of a new series at a gallery space in the heart of Berlin, LEAP – the Lab for Electronic Arts and Performance, at Alexanderplatz.

I’m pleased to announce that CDM will be partnering with this new performance/exhibition series, entitled BodyControlled, as a media partner. In the shadow of Berlin’s Fernsehturm (TV tower), we’ll get the chance to share the work of an international roster of artists with everyone else, both in live streams and other documentation, as we look at some of the more experimental threads in electronic music today. (I like the symbolism there, at least, now broadcast over the Internets instead of via the air.) Berlin, like my previous home New York, is a convenient international crossroads, a place where you can find face-to-face some of the work from other parts of Germany, Europe, and beyond.

And I think we’re going to have a real blast kicking the series off this Saturday night, 8pm Berlin time November 26. The premiere of the series begins with installations and performances that manipulate spaces, real, virtual, and imagined. New works make noises with reel-to-reel tape, code, mechanical percussion, and more. I’ll be playing a live set with Pd, producing granular architectures from the harmonious sounds of piano and synth. And a highlight promises to be Robert Henke (of Monolake and Ableton fame, among other things), performing an epic 12-hour performance from just before midnight to morning the next day. (That leaves ample time for visitors to slip off to Berlin’s legendary club scene – or a nap – then see how things have evolved after dawn, if you so choose.)

Here, we take a first look at some of the artists, whose work can be sculptural, challenging, and adventurous. In the first preview videos, we see artists working with the mechanical qualities of tape and robotically-driven percussion to make sounds in physical space. A diverse program is slated for the coming months, too, so I can promise some diversity in ideas and aesthetic. The lineup:

Performances on the 26th November:
Stephen Cornford & Paul Whitty (UK)
Peter Kirn (US)
Robert Henke (DE)

Installations until 2nd December:
Stephen Cornford (UK)
Julian Oliver (NZ)
João Martinho Moura (PT)
Robert Mathy (AT)

Additionally, a recording of Robert Henke’s performance will be played as part of the installation

Let’s have a closer look at some of the upcoming work:

Stephen Cornford, in Binatone Galaxy, spotlights the strangely-beautiful sounds of the mechanisms of tape players, moving them from playback devices into the realm of being themselves instruments. Listen to the video above to hear what a chorus of recycled tape players sounds like, courtesy amplification.

Playing with Paul Whitty, Cornford also makes tape players into noise-making live instruments. One such performance below, though expect each of these to take on their own identity in Berlin this week.

At top, Robert Mathy’s work effectively becomes a “score” for a space, as percussion sets the environment into a choreographed set of sounds. (See also work like David Byrne’s Playing the Building project, which transformed an old ferry building in Manhattan. Here, Mathy works on a smaller scale.)

Volume consists of 24 electronic motors mounted on surfaces with different materiality, which are part of the exhibition room. Each motor is equipped with a small metal spike. When a motor gets activated, the spike knocks on the surface of the object on which the motor is mounted and produce a specific sound. All Motors are connected to a main control, which consists of an Arduino board and some electronic parts.
The score is composed of a series of varying random algorithms. They are diversified in temporal and spatial coordination, as every sound has his individual origin in space. The score is adapted in a new way for every room where the installation is shown.

João Martinho Moura‘s “Supercollider Shape,” above, is a minimal virtual sculpture of sound and imagined ink.

Robert Henke’s program notes:

The music of Robert Henke is preoccupied with the present: how something sounds in that moment and what color and substance convey a rhythmic phrase? Music as a state. Only later will this condition be formulated over time. The artist’s installations are always explicit and in turn relate to the phenomena of temporal change.

The work Microsphere, developed for LEAP, combines both fields and explores the boundaries between installation and live performance. Acoustic sounds from percussion instruments distributed throughout the room are recorded during the performance, slowed down repeatedly, atomized into tiny particles and distributed to many speakers. Over the course of twelve hours, more and more sounds are produced and the result is an ever-growing repertoire of spatial-tonal gestures. The composer withdraws from the machine and lets it develop and change itself constantly over long periods of time. The structure of the performance arises from many variable and instantaneous decisions during the performance. The possible outcomes may be small and delicate, almost inaudible and static, or loud, brutal and full of complex repetitions.

Watch the performances

From anywhere in the world:

Tune in 8p (20h) Saturday (CET) / UTC + 1. Performances at 9p, 10p, and then 11p – 11a. Livestream link:
http://www.livestream.com/leapberlin

In Berlin:

While we remain committed to covering this for the rest of the planet, for those handful of you in Berlin, of course, we’d love to see you in person.

Facebook event

Opening and Performances | 26th November 2011 – 20.00

Exhibition | 28th November 2011 – 2nd December 2011, 12h-18h

LEAP
Lab for Electronic Arts and Performance
(Berlin Carré 1. Stock)
Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 13
10178 Berlin

FREE entry

LEAP isn’t the easiest place to find. Here’s a video to guide you in the door (add the Benny Hill theme music if you feel it’s appropriate):

And, as I say so often … stay tuned.

Full program notes [English] [PDF]
http://www.leapknecht.de/

As Max for Live matures, Ableton is working to convince more people to try this open-ended tool – and creations built for it – as a way of extending the experience of using Live for performance and production.

For years, music software has focused on trying to do everything you need, to be a solution to problems you haven’t even considered yet. But recently, we’ve seen a move to software that considers customization and extension a core feature – not just the province of the hard-core hacker or DIYer, but something basic to the tool. FL Studio, Renoise, Reaper, Kontakt, and Ableton Live, to name a few, each incorporate tools that allow scripting, customization, and custom instruments, effects, sequencers, and other tools. (Each does it in very different ways, I might add.) In place of from-scratch construction, these tools build on the capabilities of the software in which they’re hosted.

And even if you don’t personally decide to take on scripting or patching, that means you can take advantage of unique contraptions made by other users. These creations aren’t just hacking for hacking’s sake: they meet specific musical needs, and make tools more practical and expressive. Like knowing the reeds on a wind instrument or tuning on a guitar, they’re part of how musicians are able to make their instrument their own.

Of course, unlike a new effect or workflow tweak, getting your users to embrace an open-ended tool takes time, and it may not be for everyone. We’ve been following recent efforts by Ableton to respond to feedback from their user community. While these fall short of the ability to distribute patches to all Ableton Live users – something I and others have advocated – they do make Max for Live more affordable and patches built for it more accessible.

CDM talked to Ableton’s Daniel Büttner in February about some of the changes on the developer side, both in terms of improvements to the tools and guidelines to make patches better:
Ableton Delivers Max for Live Improvements and Guidelines, Responds to Feedback; Full Details

In the last couple of weeks, Ableton has made offerings to the user side.

Max for Live Sale: First, right now you can get Max for Live for less. In the month of April, Max for Live is free with a purchase of Ableton Suite 8 or upgrades to Suite from the Lite and Intro versions. If you have Live 1-8 or Suite 7 and upgrade to 8, unfortunately, Max for Live isn’t free – but it is half off. I’d like to see more aggressive, permanent pricing from Ableton if they want widespread adoption of the tool – it seems to me that offering a “Suite” without this key component is complex for users to understand and makes budgeting for Live needlessly difficult. But that’s my prerogative as a critic and writer, just as it’s their prerogative to determine that what I’m saying doesn’t make sense for their business. In the meantime, I can certainly recommend the Suite purchase if you’re getting Live new or upgrading from an intro edition.

Updated: Current Suite owners qualify for a 30% coupon which they should have received via email, says David from Ableton via comments.

If you’re considering Max for Live but aren’t sure if it’s for you, there’s also a 30-day free trial – always a good bet.

Featuring Max for Live patches: More interesting than the pricing stuff is the fact that you can get some truly spectacular patches for Max for Live, and Ableton is doing more to highlight the work of some of the most talented, creative artists working with the tool.

As readers have repeatedly observed, maxforlive.com is a terrific resource for Max for Live lovers and those wanting fun patches to play with. It now includes a Featured Devices page curated by Ableton’s sound team, with some really great, free stuff.

Ableton has also added both new basic devices – including some oft-requested options, like an LFO – and featured artist creations, too.

Max for Live Highlights from Artists

Artist endorsements can be a mixed bag – they sometimes feel forced, an attempt to get some fame to rub off on a product. Not so here: as with, say, some of the recent gems on the Reaktor side from the likes of Tim Exile, the featured artists working with Max for Live really are pushing the technology and the medium.

Robert Henke, aside from being an Ableton co-founder and conceptually steering a lot of their direction, has one of the best recent Max for Live creations. Monolake helped establish the granular sound on the electronic palette in the 90s, so it’s little surprise that a Henke-designed granular device is a terrific instrument. See the video at top – it’s one of the best reasons yet to try Max for Live.

Kapture by Liine is an eminently-practical entry, sucking all of the parameters in a Live set into snapshots and allowing you to morph through them. I’ve been testing this paired with their iOS app on an iPad, and it’s terrific; I’ll finally talk about it once I’ve wrapped my head around some good examples.

And, I should say, it’s thoroughly enjoyable seeing Richie Hawtin back as Plastikman – the work he’s doing on the tour is exactly the sort of audiovisual electronic performance I hope we see more of from artists famous and unknown alike.

There’s also a House-style beat generator by Alexkid (video, above), and of course the obligatory APC step sequencer (though check out more step sequencers below).

This isn’t just about pure electronic dance music, though. Henrik Schwarz has a new edition of a device that fits notes to a musical scale, as relevant to jazz artists working with electronic instruments as electronica artists. Katsuhiro Chiba makes some classic retro-80s synths that could appeal to keyboardists in a wide variety of genres. I love seeing versions of the Yamaha TX81Z or simple, analog-style Sep2.

The most welcome offering, though, may be the addition of new LFOs, which allow synth-style modulation of any Live devices. Manuel Poletti has a powerful LFO collection with plenty of options for assigning modulation wherever you like. (See our previous, unintentionally-controversial, coverage of LFO modulation in Live, and more examples on the maxforlive.com site.)

Find the artist devices, descriptions, and downloads at the main Ableton Max for Live site:
http://www.ableton.com/maxforlive

New, Essential Devices

Max for Live itself has added 21 devices that give the tool a more complete set of basic building blocks for patchers. That’s good news, in that it means a lot less reinvention – and because the value of Max for Live itself goes way up.

New in the release this spring are LFOs, envelope followers (for using an audio signal to modulate parameters), randomizers, and multichannel routing devices.

Indeed, my only concern here is that many of us hoped to see some of these capabilities in “native” Ableton Live devices, rather than Max for Live patches. An LFO to many users is an essential built-in module that would benefit the software, as it has been in some rival tools, comparable to tools like chord and pitch manipulation for MIDI included in Live.

I don’t know that the LFO per se is necessarily fundamental to Live. But I do hope that Ableton continues to develop native devices for the Live environment. Max for Live could serve a useful purpose here – as a testing bed and prototyping tool, as it has been intended – and aid in determining which tools really do need to be included with Live itself.

More (updated info) on the included devices:
What Comes with Max for Live

And Don’t Forget…

Even with all these Ableton-provided goodies on their site, it’s worth visiting community sites like the unofficial maxforlive.com.

There are some gems at maxforlive.com, including the featured page:
http://maxforlive.com/featured/

– some of those, in turn, chosen by Ableton. Pictures of some of my favorites:

Let us know how you’re using Max for Live, if you find it fits into your workflow or if you focus on the core Ableton software instead. And certainly, if you’re a Max for Live patch developer or user and want to show off your favorites (including your own), we’d love to hear from you.

We conclude with our friend Primus Luta this series on the Decibel Festival, both a compelling portrait of that event and a slice of the world of electronics and computer music today. Be sure to catch the other three portions of his series:

Decibel Log 1: Ean Golden, Gold Panda, Mux Mool, Lusine, Pantha Du Prince

Decibel Log 2: Robert Henke, Room40 Label, Flying Lotus and Friends

Decibel Log 3: Murcof, Mount Kimbie, Modeselektor, Teebs and More

Beneath the shadow of Seattle’s Space Needle, a tent has been erected in front of the open park green, which is enclosed by a fence. This isn’t the first time that Decibel has brought the festival to the park, but it does mark the first time that the public is being charged for it. In the early afternoon, while tourists flock to the landmark’s everyday attraction, around the perimeter, more than a few have found spots to lay down blankets for the afternoon free of charge.

Inside, divisions continue. The “dance floor” is in the front of the stage, under the tent. Behind the dance floor, artist Eric Orr is doing a live painting in front of couples and families picnicking with Decibel in the park, and behind them, in the beer lounge, Guinness is being served on tap. In spite of the partitioning, the speakers act as a uniting force, by way of the heavy dubstep being spun by Mat the Alien.

The sound in the park is big. Tourists travel to the top of the Space Needle only to discover the bass is traveling the 520 feet up to rattle windows. Matt is working the system to his advantage, allowing the volume to grow dynamically, coaxing a physical response out of the audience. Latecomers make their way in, filling out the lawn and invading the dance floor. As Mat’s set comes to a close, NastyNasty takes his turn at the controls, bringing a palpable energy the crowd almost instantly reflects back to him.

The heavy brostep is infectious; the dance floor is alive. It’s a strange lead-up to the more ambient hip-hop sound to follow. Some artists in a similar situation might find the setup a bit unnerving, but as Nosaj Thing sits in the wings rather than worry he enjoys himself, headnodding to the beat. As he sets up his laptop, the crowd packs in tighter. Then, with the press of an MPD pad, Nosaj shows why his peers consider him a true Ableton master.

While Bluetech takes the dB in the Park stage, other festivalgoers are packing in for the second Optical concert at the Benaroya Concert Hall. This evening there is noticeably more gear on stage, and apparently Noveller has it in her mind to throw as much as she can into her set. Loopers and pedals modify her guitar that is voiced using everything from scissors to packing bubbles. Behind her, the projection screen is filled with moving images that add a creative and intimate touch.

Between their onstage interactions and the way in which their two mediums are work together, one might think that musician Fennesz and visualist Lillevan were a touring act. The truth is that they just met at the festival and yet somehow developed a synergy bringing their work to its full potential.

Oneohtrix Point Never wears a headlamp while standing in front of his mixer and controller rack in complete darkness. His face is spotlighted, and glare from the headlamp on the equipment makes for an interesting effect on its own. Paired with the stunning visuals of Killingfrenzy, however, it all starts coming alive. Faces and figures pop from the screen with an eeriness pulled from scenic noise of Oneohtrix.

As people file out of the second Optical show, the doors are opening at the Baltic Room where Scuba has brought the Hotflush heavy weights to get the intimate dance floor going. Incyde gets things started with a seamless mix of the label’s signature melodic dubstep. As his set moves into Untold’s, the energy builds. A little harder, but no less melodic, the mood shifts from showcase to party. When label head Scuba takes to the decks rocking a Run-DMC style “Bro Step” t-shirt, the place is rocked into a frenzy. The small venue is now packed to the gills with people dancing. It sets a fine stage for the latest addition to the label, Sepalcure, who come ready to throw down a live Ableton duet session. Unfortunately the Baltic system is still recovering from the previous night. They manage to work their way through the set, but there’s an obvious sense of something missing throughout: the bass.

At Neumos, the system is keeping up with the heavy bounce as electronic music legend Kevin Saunderson traces techno back to its Detroit roots for the D25 Showcase. He’s jet lagged from a flight earlier in the day from China, but takes to the stage with the professionalism of a globetrotting superstar, because he is one, and whether the crowd knows this or not, they can feel it. The dance floor is packed, filled with smiles and slippery with sweat, as Saunderson spins a soulful set that does not give one’s legs one seconds rest.

If you never associated Detroit techno with big drums, Carl Craig sets things straight from the first needle drop. Easily the hardest hitting kicks of the entire festival, they never let up their pounding the whole time Craig is at the helm. Like Saunderson before him, however, the drums serve as a characteristic not the emphasis. The emphasis is a shared between the melodies and grooves, which keep the crowd screaming in approval while the kick holds them to the beat.

A misty rain starts as staff ushers people out. Traffic is headed toward afterparties on the edges of the city. The rain lingers with the crowds outside the Motor afterparty where Pezzner, Soul Clap, and Theo Parrish are keeping the four steady on the floor. Further down the block at Monkey Loft, beats are being slung by Dibiase, Devonwho, XI, and Lorn.

The sky has cleared by the early afternoon of the final day for Decibel. The faces in the park show signs of appreciation, for the sun, the music, and the festival for making it come together. On stage, Praveen of Sepalcure shows his credentials with a DJ set filled with grooves perfect for a Sunday afternoon. Mary Anne Hobbs picks up where Praveen leaves off and then shifts into next gear to the heavier side of dubstep. Finger guns are shooting and wings are taking flight as she takes Decibel through a set of bangers she helped make popular. The energy of the crowd matches her own, and she rushes onto the dance floor for her last track. With the crowd well warmed up, Hobbs passes control over to Rinse FM staple Plastician, who keeps the brostep knocking hard in the late afternoon sun.

As dusk sets in, the Triple Door invites festival goers into the seated dinner venue for the final Optical performance. It’s a beautiful room with relatively comfortable seating, but as a dinner venue, the “white noise” of waiters poses a challenge. The delicate balance between the stage and the kitchen becomes obvious during the first set by sanso-xtro. She sits on her knees before an array of electronics and other instruments and then carefully loops sounds from them into ambient melodies.

Decibel favorite Tim Hecker takes the stage next with Lillevan, who finds a way to breathe new life into his visuals through the emotive textures being inspired by Tim Hecker. From vivid colors to stark duality, the descriptors actively work on both the sonic and aural experience.

For the final Optical performance, Tycho begins solo with his ambient sound. The visual backdrop, which silhouettes him, works as moving graphic design, as calculated and precise as the modes within the music. He introduces the festival to his four piece set, which fills out the music with more organic textures.

At Neumos, the crowd for the Decibel Finale looks like they have been partying for five days, but they still have a little life left in them. Fax wastes no time getting them going with deep techno grooves. The soulfulness caresses while the beats force hands to clap out the steady rhythm.

Robert Henke is joined by Tarik Barri on visuals for a Monolake set for future Decibel Festivals. His crisp drums are split into surround sound so that kicks are coming from behind while the snare cracks in the front. Behind him the visuals of collaborator Barri are an animated portrait of Henke’s computerized soul, starting and stopping into a multimedia dance personified on the dance floor. It speaks to everything Henke said in his earlier lecture as well as the type of convergence Decibel is trying to exemplify with the festival.

Pepe Bradock plays the final set for the evening. It is up and lively, but after five days, well past midnight hour on a Sunday bodies are telling festival goers it is over before the staff can put them out. They go back to their everyday lives with what they were able to extract from the densely packed portrait of electronic music in 2010. It is broad in scope, with an audience that continues to grow, and sounds that continue to evolve into different forms, honoring the history and embracing the new, so that it may continue, as strong and stronger, in the years to come. Is that a description of the festival or the music it represents both? It works for both, and for that reason Decibel Festival 2010 can be seen as a success.

Our man in Seattle, Primus Luta aka David Dobson, continues his video coverage of the Decibel Festival for CDM with another set of feature coverage. All that coffee out there must be working. Take it away…

Despite being the first event after an incredible night, which for many extended well beyond the 2am last call, Pravda Studios is packed early on day three for a full schedule of conference activities.  It comes as little surprise though, the first workshop is one most who are involved with the release of music today are concerned with – “Creating a Digital Promotion Plan.”  Led by the PR savvy Shilo Urban of DanceFever5000 and head of promotions Decibel Erica Toelle, the workshop details the direct and indirect means of promoting music.  Covering issues including social networking, contacting blogs and labels, and building a promotions team, the hour long session is a crash course in self promotions.

There is little change over between the first and second session, indeed considering the subject matter perhaps the second session of the day should have preceeded the first.  The title “Uncertain Future: P2P Streams and Diffusing Works in the New Media World” paints a grim picture, but thankfully the panel is able to reveal some silver linings behind the clouds covering music today.  Moderated by Dave Segal of Seattle newspaper The Stranger, the panel features representatives from labels, radio and the press.  While it would seem most of the labels attest to following the BBE model (Barely Breaking Even) there does seem to be enthusiasm for this time in music.  Fans have become a commodity which both values music and is valuable to it, while labels have become cultural curators through which fans can filter through the deluge of releases to find the music that speaks to them.

As the next changeover happens things shift back to technology and creativity.  Where previous workshops on these lines dealt with music in a live setting the next two sessions focus on production in the studio.  ”Beat Production in Ableton Live” is hosted by Huston Singletary alongside Take.  Some of the tips Singletary provides are rather basic for the intermediate audience, but within them quite a few hidden gems are revealed.  Even more, Take seizes the opportunity to ask the hard questions of the in-house Ableton representatives, like why envelope information cannot be placed on clips.  At the end the audience takes his lead to probe the Ableton team about other software anomalies including the lack of SysEx support.

The next workshop focuses the new Native Instruments Komplete 7 presented by Dubspot, hosted by Thomas Faulds and featuring Lorn.  There isn’t enough time in an hour for Faulds to cover the 90GB package in total, so he focuses in on perhaps the bundles most powerful application Reaktor.  Things really get interesting when the focus shifts to Lorn who gives the audience a peak inside of his creative process by breaking down some of his own productions.  He turns to the layering of his drums utilizing multiple Battery instances.  While layering drums is not necessarily new there is something very special about Lorn’s approach which is most evident when all the layers are put together.  His drums are by no means merely stock Battery sounds.

In the heart of Downtown Seattle, the Nordstrom Recital Hall in Benaroya Hall, home of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, has been set up for the first of three Optical events at this years Decibel.  Decibel founder Sean Horton explains that the Optical events serve to show another side of electronic music.  It isn’t all about keeping the dance floor moving; contemplative works of electronic music too deserve their proper place, and the concert hall serves as a perfect setting.  Additionally serves another purpose which electronic music is in many ways at the forefront, and that is the integration of music and visuals.  Within this setting one must expect that they like their musical counterpart need not be of the rapid fire psychadelic variety, but instead touch the audience at the same depth as the music.

Robert Henke under his birth moniker is first, though he does not actually take the stage.  Instead he is positioned behind the projector at the center of the hall with a small mixing desk where he weaves sonic textures around slowly progressive visuals that pair the natural with the industrial.  The synergy between the sound and visual works wonderfully as one looks for the subtle changes visually as much they are listening for them.  As the volume of change in the visuals increase so too do the aural.

Murcof is next with visuals provided by Scott Sunn and from the first chord it is evident the audience is in for a ride.  The chord itself is obviously symphonic, but synthetic in a way which could never be duplicated by the musicians who normally call the hall their home.  The sound of it calls back to the workshop with Lorn; it is familiar but treated in such a manner as to become personalized to the artist.  It is taken a step further with Sunn’s visuals, which echo each of Murcof’s chords with imagery obviously computer generated, but the fluidity of his smoke like shapes make them seem almost organic.  If Sunn were standing in front of the screen with a brush one might think he is painting them, and the beautiful thing is that he actually is.

The final act for the evening Mark Van Hoen unfortunately served to exemplify one of the major setbacks of all electronic music – there will be glitches.  Fortunately he is able to work his way through them to complete a performance even if not the one he originally intended.   Back on Capital Hill Ill Cosby is warming up the Baltic Room for the Planet Mu showcase, Shlomo is warming up the Neumos crowd for the Red Bull Music Academy On The Floor event and the four is already on the floor courtesy of Mister Leisure in Sole Repair as Seattle’s own Trust crew aims to keep the crowd jumping all night.  On the far side of town, the stage at Motor is filled with instruments as the Art of Rhythm event plans to showcase the roots of electronic rhytms through a myriad of global beat influences, laid down by the likes of Phutureprimative and Beats Antique.  The selections for the evening are incredible but the distance between them less than desirable, setting up for hard decisions and sacrifice.

Apparently overnight Neumos either acquired or fixed a smoke machine, and whoever is operating it is trying to use it at every opportunity possible.  The first couple of times it makes for a nice atmospheric choice, but after a while it is just annoying.  Not annoying enough to take away from the stellar performance Brainfeeder Teebs is putting down.  Considering the heaviness usually associated with the hip-hop beat category he is thrown into, the melodic development of his songs show that there’s far more to the sub-genre than the strict headnod.  It compliments perfectly the early bubble in the crowd as he works his Roland 404, building up the energy slowly.  By the end he is showing that while he may prefer the more textured approach he can lay it down heavy with the rest of them.

While the line-up for this Red Bull event is indeed spectacular, the set arrangement leaves a lot of room for improvement, evident by the strange transition from Teebs into Addison Groove.  He’s billed as Headhunter, but as soon as the first thump from his Roland 808 hits, it’s quite clear this is an Addison Groove set.  The crowd takes little notice of the awkward switch into his dub techno floor rockers, but instead just take the cue to start the heavy dancing for the night a little early.

Over at the Baltic Room Falty DL is laying down a rundown of electronic music genres from the 90′s to today that somehow makes a pitstop at Roy Ayers’ “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” before Starkey brings out Ikonika in a time slot an hour early.  She brings the bass heavy to the dancefloor, but perhaps has taken the early slot to slip out like others are to catch the first live U.S. appearance by Mount Kimbie back at Neumos, where a longer than expected intermission between sets is doing a good job of prepping the crowd for the second awkward transition of the night.

The UK duo is without a doubt the most anticipated set of the festival.  Their buzz precedes in them, and in this case has everyone in the crowd wondering if their live show can live up to the expectations of their recordings.  The smoke machine would make for a funny coincidence were they to have a repeat performance of their set the previous night where electrical difficulties left the majority of their rig powered down.  But there were no mirrors on the stage as they kicked into their dream like blend of every modern electric music influence imagineable.  Their hold of the audience’s attention beyond being well warranted was also quite fulfilling.

For the final awkward transition of the evening the Neumos crowd is released from the downtempo post dubstep of Mount Kimbie into the all out frenzy that is Modeselektor.  Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary hit the stage as if it is the cockpit, standing confidently behind their controls, scoping out the air space before turning off the fasten seat belt light so the passengers could enjoy every bump of the ride.

At the witching hour Decibel has the whole city of Seattle jumping, Modeselektor is trying to push past last call to honor their European club rocking heritage.  The trust party has hit full stride as Trus’Me mans the DJ booth at Sole Repair.  Beats Antique is fusing sounds turning Motor into a tribal dance.  At the Baltic Room Starkey is laying it all on the line with his breed of musical but still very heavy dubstep.  It stands as a testament to the power and reach of the music through all of its sounds.  That is until the bass booming from Baltic blows the subs.  Thankfully there are still after parties.

The patter of rain against the window brings in day two at Decibel.  Early afternoon coffee is the ‘tall’ to order for the conference sessions in Pravda studios.  Robert Henke (Monolake) greets with a smile as he takes the podium for the first lecture “The Age of Abundance.”  It is a rare opportunity inside one of the minds behind Ableton, as he thinks on the future of electronic music eleven years after the founding of the company.  His talk revolves around the evolution of computer technology to the present of full realization of the infinite sonic possibilities.  The pit fall he sees in this is the difficulty it can create in making decisions.  Using his own Monodeck as an example he explains how the ability to do anything is limited by a hardware device, yet at the same time, limitations offer a simplicity, which allows for musical decisions.   Henke will have two performances during the festival to put his philosophies into practice.

The conference continues with a workshop from Windows DJ Dave Pezzner “From the Studio to the Stage”.  It serves as a continuation of the thought from Lusine’s workshop, this time focusing on adapting songs from a different DAW for use in Ableton Live for performance.  Pezzner uses his own workflow from FL Studio to exemplify.  Next Drumcell (Moe Espinoza) leads a session on Native Instruments Traktor Scratch Pro.  He uses the Kontrol X1 and Maschine to show ways of taking the DJ platform further by exploiting a multitude of functionalities through controller integrations for his live set.

To this point, a clear line can be drawn between the various workshops, tying them directly into Henke’s lecture.  Each have presented their own set of possibilities toward pushing electronic music into the world of live performance, which according to Henke is the new frontier for digital music.  With a variety of platform choices, each with near infinite levels of control, finding the right balance of control and limitations to make the musical decisions required on stage proves to be the challenge.  This is the hidden undercurrent of the festival, each artist bringing to the stage their own personal journey through those choices.  The choices are as varied as the results, put together to give a fair picture of the state of electronic music today.

Evening rolls around and seating is rearranged in Pravda Studios to accommodate the ten year anniversary showcase for Lawrence English’s Room40 Label.  The rowed seating creates an almost academic atmosphere for the experimental labels offering.  The stage is filled with amplifiers, cassettes, effects boxes and a table crowded with laptops and controllers.  Seattle’s own Rafael Anton Irisarri takes the stage first with a modesty becoming of the sound he brings.  Beginning with a single low guitar note processed into a drone, upon which he builds layers of tones and overtones, pushed through his laptop into an ambient sound-scape.

Lawrence English takes the stage next and promptly suggests the audience abandon their chairs for spots near the front of the stage where they can lie on the floor.  In a matter of seconds the seemingly academic setting is transformed to something closer to a meditation hall.  Integral in English’s rig is a harmonium much like a guru would use to lead a kirtan. English’s has been constantly returned through the altitude changes while touring.  He notes of piece which he composed the year before with the harmonium, “what was beautiful last year would sound like ugly dissonance today.”  Fortunately he has other music prepared for today which exemplifies his own work in the realm of ambient noise for the audience now lying horizontal in near complete darkness.  Using a small nano control with Ableton he builds up what sounds to the ear like the shore of some cosmic beach.

Towards the tail end of the set, as English’s manipulated ‘white noise’ is combined with the harmonium, Grouper takes to the stage and begins working in her chain of cassette players to provide a smooth transition to her own set.  It begins with knob twiddling as she builds up a bed of sound sourced from her pile of pre-recorded cassettes.  She then picks up a guitar to act as a blanket, warming the chill vocals which lie comfortably in between.

As Ben Frost takes the stage to perform what one member of the audience calls, a soundtrack perfect for murder, across the street a line has started forming for the “Flying Lotus and Friends” showcase at Neumos.  Inside Truckasauras has filled the stage with with an assortment of analog and digital gear to lay down their breed of hardcore 8-bit.  The four piece unit has the energy of fun loving party throwers, but at the same time bridge electronic and traditional performance with a layer of musicality.  They are very much electronic musicians but they are also clearly a band.  It’s easy to understand why they are a local favorite.

Samiyam hits the stage next fresh off a tour down under and a bit hoarse as he introduces himself before going into his set.   Using a Roland 404 on batteries he performs his cross between a live performance and DJ set.  Thrown in the mix are some classics from M.O.P. and Dilla, in addition to new Samiyam treats.  He’s a hip-hop head at an electronic music festival, but he works his sound in, perfectly illustrating how the two no longer need be understood as separate entities.

Mary Anne Hobbes has flown into Seattle for the evening (though she will have to make a flight in the morning to play a San Francisco date before returning to the festival for her own show), and one of the primary reasons is to be able to catch the next act.  Milwaukee native Brainfeeder Lorn steps behind his Maschine next to lay down what can only be described as one of the heaviest sounds on the scene.  Filled in with deep basslines, spectrum defying drums and clashing synths, the set fills the room with an aggressive exuberance that the crowd goes wild for.

Eskmo hits next with a stunning set that previews his self titled Ninja Tune release out the first week of October.  Lorn’s aggression is replaced by swaying melodies and Eskmo’s own manipulated vocals.  While not the first to bring vocals into an electronic set, Eskmo does have a certain touch, at one time synthetic and another intimate, all over a sound which fits perfectly into the Brainfeeder lineup.

As Eskmo draws his set to a close, the crowd is ready for the headliner and Decibel veteran Flying Lotus to take the stage.  Surprisingly though, as he fiinally approaches, it is who he has brought with him that garners the most attention.  Wearing a red and white varsity jacket with a roaring tiger embroidered on the back, patches from the 80′s cartoon, three feathers sticking out of his ear and the tail from Davy Crocket hat hanging from his pants is Thundercat.  He steps in front of the bass cabinet and plugs in his bass which also has the Thundercat emblem on the back, while his brother Ronald Bruner Jr. crosses to the other side of the stage to man the drum kit, looking like the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire on a fitness plan.  Lotus stands between the two of them with his laptop propped up and his controller at his fingers to launch into a landmark trio set.

As expected the first thing that hits you is bass.  As Lotus works soundbites from his new album in Ableton, he leaves the majority of their instrumentation in the mix including drum and bass which are then doubled by the live instruments.  It makes for what one would think to be a cluttered mix, but as the songs build a new type of groove is found uncharacteristic of electronic music.  The organic funk of the instrumentation serves to highlight the manipulated funk of Lotus’ production fusing into yet another sound to add to Lotus’ credits.  There’s a connection between the musicians on stage which calls back to the classic jazz trio, trading riffs and precise improvisational timing.  All of the musicians on stage come from jazz lineages, and what they have come together to produce on the stage is an upgrade of that aesthetic for the digital age.  They ride in trio mode for about a half an hour, track after track perfectly mixed like a DJ set.  Lotus then takes some time to solo with his standard fair before hitting back with the band through two threats from security to pull the plug.

As the Neumos staff  usher the audience out, more than a few are inspecting their ears.  The decibel levels have gone way past the red.  Backstage as Lotus goes into his dressing room he keeps repeating “I’m deaf.”  Bruner echos the sentiment sharing that he can’t hear out of his left ear.  Yet both outside and backstage is all smiles.  FlyLo and his friends have brought a sonic convergence well worthy of Decibel.

Being a digital musician requires a new set of skills, a precise tack between the forces of engineering and creativity. Robert Henke aka Monolake is always someone I find thought-provoking, not only because he’s so open and articulate, but because he seems uniquely focused on balancing those two sides of his personality. As a media artist and producer, his work relies heavily on his own technological invention, but he is also able to keep true to his own aesthetic compass.

For acoustic evidence of where Robert’s mind is exploring, his full-length album Silence, released last month on his own Imbalance label, reverberates with clarity. To my own ears, its crystalline rhythms and finely-honed, always-foreground timbres and textures recall all the best of Monolake through the years, back to the early, pre-Ableton collaboration between Robert and (now Ableton CEO) Gerhard Behles. (For an eloquent review, see Fact Magazine’s take.)

As far as engineering in the sense of recording and production, Robert did a terrific interview with engineer/musician Caro Snatch for her blog; she gets some fascinating answers out of him and they even talk about his technique of avoiding compression on electronic sources. But I was interested in how engineering can work in the compositional sense: with open-ended tools like Ableton Live and Max/MSP, how do you create compositional systems? How do you wrestle with the potential of Max inside Live? Where do you draw limits?

As always, Robert has some sharp ideas – whether fodder for inspiration or disagreement, I think you’ll find things worth talking about. And indeed, while technology figures prominently, I think you’ll find some ideas that are really fundamentally about music, about compositional intent, thinking about sound, and thinking about rhythm.

PK: It seems that you’ve always had a really particular approach to timbre, and that it’s especially focused and evolved on this record. There’s a certain purity of tone to which you tend to gravitate, as I hear it. Can you talk a bit about how you approach timbral color?

RH: I can only nail it down to personal taste. I enjoy timbres with inharmonic content, and I like the contrast between very sharp transients and very lush, airy sounds.

I know that Silence, as with your other work, combines synthesized and found sounds. There is a sense that you get to an almost atomic level with each, however, that the synthesized are becoming organic and the recorded sounds are deconstructed to the point that become almost primitive and synthesized. Is there a different approach to each of these, or is that something that happens naturally?

The ambiguity of sonic events always fascinates me. That border between ‘real’ and ‘synthetic’ is a quite interesting one, not only in sound design, but also in visual arts. Working with synthetic sound generation sharpens my senses for the real sounds around me, and often I am surprised by how much they can blend. We are not talking any more of sound generation with a single square wave oscillator and a lowpass filter, but methods that are capable of creating highly complex and rich timbres. Those methods’ sonic definition matches the complexity of real sounds and this is where the fun starts. I like to place a recording of a metal thing next to a physical model of a metal thing next to a processed sample next to an FM timbre and see how they become a nice ensemble of similar sounds.

What’s your workflow like now in Ableton Live? On some level, it’s a tool that does things that you have conceived or asked for, or that reworks things you’ve created. On another, of course, it’s also this commercial tool that has been adapted to a generalized audience. Are there areas of it that you tend to work in most? Are there areas or features you tend to ignore or even avoid?

I try to avoid ‘content’. I am not interested in ‘throwing beat loops together’. I do not use presets from other people when it comes to synthesis, this all is just not my way of thinking. Why should I leave that great part of composition which is coming up with interesting timbres, to someone else? I am also not using time stretching / warping as a tool to match beats. I don’t like time stretch artefacts, unless I drive it in the very extreme as a special effect. I don’t need factory groove templates, in fact I never you groove at all, if i want to achieve it, I move notes by hand.

Apart from that, I’d say I use everything Live has to offer. There is not typical workflow, it highly depends on what I want to do. The most significant difference to the old pre-Live times is to me that I can make lots of sketches without any special idea in mind, just let go, and save the result once I am bored with it. And much later I can open all those sketches, and see if anything in there is of interest. Then I grab that element and continue working on the basis of this. I have a lot of complex tree structures of fragments on my hard-disk, and this a great source of material and inspiration.

Recently, you shared some of your early, personal Max patches as Max for Live creations. Were any of these patches used on Silence?

I don’t mean to focus exclusively on the technology, but it seems that these Max patches – even more than any element of Live – really embody some of your aesthetic and taste, yes? They’re a bit like experiencing a Monolake album interactively. Do you conceive them in that way, as a sort of compositional thought formed into a tool?

The tools have a strong influence on the result. Take the Monolake PX-18 sequencer. Its way of expanding a one bar loop into something that repeats in longer cycles is based on such a rigid concept, that it enforces a quite specific rhythmical approach. Some patterns are simply not possible, some are very easy to achieve. This is exciting and this is very musical; a piano is an instrument which makes it very easy to treat all twelve notes of a well tempered scale the same. And it is an instrument which makes it impossible to play with any notes that do not fit in such a scale. This is exactly the same interesting tension between enabling and inhibiting expression as with the rhythmical limitation of the PX-18.

There is an interesting interaction going on between developing tools and achieving musical results. The whole process is far from being linear and entirely result orientated. The idea at the beginning is shaped by first results and experiences gained from playing with a simple prototype of a part of the functionality, this drives the further development of the tool, but also influences the musical idea. If I try to build a granular time freezer, and after initial tests I figure out that I need a lot of overlapping grains to get the sound I want, I can also start thinking in swarms of particles, and this might lead to musical ideas that shape how I try to improve the grain thing. Working this way often provides far more interesting results than sticking to an initial plan. As an interesting side note, this way of thinking also finds its way more and more into general software/hardware development and interface/functionality design. The tools of the future need to _feel_ right. One cannot design a multi touch screen application on a piece of paper, implement it and think it will work. It would, technically, but it might not be inspiring to use and therefor most likely not a success in a competitive market.

A few years ago, when you were in New York, you made a couple of comments that stuck with me. One was that you thought that the tech press sometimes wasn’t critical enough of technology, that, for instance, they weren’t saying critical things about Ableton Live. Another was that you felt like there was less need for Max/MSP partly because of what Live itself does. I’m curious if you have any new thoughts on either of those?

I find myself doing a lot of things in Max these days, since the integration in Live made it so easy and rewarding. When I made that Max statement in NYC, I felt that coding is a trap when it comes to actually creating music. One simply does spend to much time with non-musical problems.In many ways, Max 5 and Max for Live reduced the time needed to get results. And this makes the whole package very attractive again.

I started teaching sound design at the Berlin University of Arts a year ago. I can show my students how to create a simple two-operator FM synthesizer with an interesting random modulation within fifteen minutes and the result is a Live set including the Max for Live part, which I can save and send to the students as an email so they can open it again an continue working on it. If stuff can be done that fast, it leaves enough headroom to actually use it in a musical context. In retrospective a lot of 90s IDM music was way to much driven by exploring technology. At some point one has to step back and say: okay, now lets actually have a look at the composition and not only at the technical complexity of the algorithm.

So, what’s the role of the press in this? One experience I gain from reading the Ableton user forum and from talking with students is that there is a great amount of insecurity about which technology to use. It’s the abundance paradox. Which software sounds best? Which compressor do i need to use? Which plugins do I need for mastering housy dub music with a hint of pop and some acoustic guitar? Having the choice between 5000 compressor plugins whilst not understanding what makes a compressor really sound the way it does it pretty much my idea of hell. So often I have that impulse telling the world: hey, you can use the sidechain input of the compressor you already have in Live, and you can feed that sidechain with a slightly delayed version of the original signal. You could also apply saturation, filtering, or even reverb or again an instance of the compressor in that side chain signal to shape its timing and response to its input. This will have a result of the compression curve, and this means you can build anything from a very normal compressor up to the most exotic effect you can imagine. And you can store those structures for later re-use. You can automate every single aspect of it. You can use ten or twenty instances of it in a song. Are you guys aware that you have more power right in front of you than the best music producers and hardware designers just ten years ago would have dreamed off?

I simply do not want to read any more articles about new compressor, be it hardware or software, unless it provides insight into the amazing possibilities we already have. I don’t want to read anymore sound quality discussions that deal with the last bit of a 24-bit file in a world where people listen to mp3 over mobile phones and enjoy those artefacts.

The most exciting new music comes from young kids guys running some audio software in a bedroom, listening to the result over a shitty hi-fi and use Melodyne all the way wrong. Those folks do not read gear magazines, they could not care less about yet another mastering EQ, but create the most stunning beauty. If people talk too much about gear I usually do not expect too much good music. I am often trapped in this twilight zone between engineer and composer too, so I know what I am talking about here…

As far as your own music, do you find you need some critical distance from a tool as an artist? Or does that fall away once you’re in the process of actually making the record? (It seems, after all, we’re all a bit spoiled by the various excellent tools we have at our disposal.)

Deadlines help. If I know that a project needs to be finished, I simply stop investing time in technology at some point, and instead use what’s there. Its a question of discipline and experience too. I try to teach my students that if they are working on a technically challenging project they need to define a deadline for the technical side. If not, they might work till the very last moment on technical stuff and loose focus on the artistic part. At the end, the result counts, not the beautiful MAX patch, which could possible create a nice result.

And have you ever considered trying to return to just building something simple in, say, Max, and limiting yourself to that? Or are you able to find necessary formal limitations in the tools you have?

I am constantly limiting myself. I set up a multi-dimensional network of constraints and bounce off its walls. Exhausting but it helps getting stuff done. A typical constraint: No more patching in Max till that project is finished, or try to get all Melodyne processing done in one afternoon and use those results.

I’m particularly interested in how you conceive rhythm. It seems like some of the ideas about sequencing rhythm in ATOM are also present here. Some of these rhythms are relatively symmetrical, pulse-like. Then you have these stuttering rhythms, as though a vibration has been set in motion and is naturally playing itself out in space. How do you work rhythmically?

I contrast totally straight 16th grooves with material that itself constitutes a rhythmical quality off that grid. In ‘Silence’ obviously I often used gravity driven processes with their inherent accelerations. Or I played notes with an arpeggiator that is not synced to song time but where I control its rate with a slider. Something Gerhard already did on the very first Monolake track ‘Cyan’ in 1995. Silence offers quite a few hidden connections to Monolake history. My general approach to groove is simple: I change things in time till it feels right.

What was your compositional process like, generally, for these works? Did they start with some of those sounds? With a rhythmic motive?

There is no general rule. I often just open Live to explore an idea, and end up doing something else because I found an interesting detail along the way. Or I have to work on a highly specific project, and have to discard a lot of the results because they do not work in a given context. Instead of throwing them away, I keep them and this might form the basis for another composition.

The title, “Silence,” certainly recalls John Cage. Was that intentional? Were there other meanings here? In an album that’s not silent, what is the role of silence?

Silence is such a great concept. There is no silence, unless in a vacuum, its that great mystic world which cannot exist in our world. Also, in music the time between the musical events is as important as the events itself. But I really leave it up to the associations of the listener to make sense of the title. And of the liner notes and the photographs and the music. I think there is a lot of room for all sorts of connections and connotations.

When we talked at the end of last year, we got to reflect a bit about winter. I’m editing this as I watch a snowstorm here in Manhattan, having come from snowstorms in Stockolm. It seems that winter is again a thread on this record. How did winter play into the album?

I grew up in the Bavarian countryside. Winter there equals silence, introversion, deep thinking, and general inwards focus. I like this.

http://monolake.de/
Free Max for Live patch downloads: http://monolake.de/technology/m4l.html
Silence: http://monolake.de/releases/ml-025.html

The Harmonic Center of the Universe from Jesse Stiles on Vimeo.

This beautiful, meditative installation of choreographed lights and sound, by way of Rucyl and Saturn Never Sleeps, is the creation of Chris Harvey, Olivia Robinson, & Jesse Stiles. The Harmonic Center of the Universe evidently narrowly escaped destruction last year during a thunderstorm, but perhaps Art is as much repair as it is creation.

Artist Jesse Stiles specializes in such light shows. There’s a clear connection to the polytropes of Iannis Xenakis, with its own cascades of choreographed light – a reminder that lights can still have a place, even in an age of projection. He also writes experimental pop songs and does sound and music for IMAX films. (Yeah, Jesse, you’re someone we need to meet.)

Along similar lines, we saw the gorgeous balloon and music collaboration of Robert Henke and Christopher Bauder, ATOM, last year in Montreal. What strikes me about all these works it that the lit object and sound appear to fuse to an extent that these become either musical sculptures or a kind of sequencer in physical space. It’s remarkable that the digital can make musical structure more virtual, more invisible, or more physical – almost without consideration one way or another.