Modular music making is a throwback to the early days of electronic music, in which a spaghetti of patch cords is the price of open-ended sound creation. Fairly or unfairly, it has often been viewed as the domain of the eccentric wealthy musician. You needed cash, endless patience, and lots of space – well, unless you happened to be lucky enough to pick up a vintage modular as people were getting rid of them.

But something has happened: modules have become more practical and accessible. Like any music technology, they can become a rabbit hole into which time and money fall and no music escapes. But also like any music technology, there are ways of bending these tools to your will, applying fiscal and creative discipline to make them musically productive.

Enter the “desktop modular” revolution. Modules are cheaper and more usable. It’s easier than ever to assemble a rig of modular that coexists with your digital gear, be it MIDI hardware or computers. That means just a select set of modules within your budget (and available physical space) could find a place. And modules are more innovative and fun than they’ve been in the past, too. They merge digital and analog tech – just as this site has loved doing (despite our name) over the years.

And just as suddenly, that spaghetti entree starts to look delicious.

I can’t say I’ve personally found room for this kind of gear, but I’ve enjoyed watching the evolution of new equipment. And over the past few months, I’ve witnessed a bumper crop of terrific new modules. It’s time to survey some of that fertile landscape, as 2011 winds to a close. Here are a few of my favorites, sure to inspire other nominees from readers. And I imagine this adds fresh cause to venture into the basement stalls of the Winter NAMM music manufacturer trade show in Anaheim next month, where these sorts of less-mainstream devices flourish.

Notably, these modules all work with the ‘small’ Eurorack (A100) format. German maker Doepfer Musikelektronik popularized this format, and it has since taken off. In fact, that puzzled quite a few readers when Moog’s re-entry in modular eschewed that format. (That may be their loss.) But Moog ladder filters aside, there has been plenty of action in the Eurorack space.

Utility: Kenton MIDI-to-CV and More

Kenton’s Modular Solo is about as nice a utility knife as you could add to a modular rig, for integrating lots of different gear. Plug it in via ribbon cable, and you get:

• MIDI in and out
• SYNC 24 (“DIN SYNC” – think 808 and 606 drum machine sync)
• CV analog and gate output
• Two clock outs, four aux outs (think assigning MIDI to filter cutoff, etc., says Kenton)
• And an LFO – triangle, saw up and down, square, S&H pulse width with several fixed widths

£195.00, though all the extras there easily could make it worth it.

Utility: Expert Sleepers ES-4 Modules

Expert Sleepers’ ES-4 is the latest of their modules, turning a standard S/PDIF signal into five channels of control voltage. Coupled with their Silent Way software, you can also use it for MIDI, only with sample-accurate timing. That makes it a sample-accurate MIDI interface, if you like. (See video at top for a MIDI demo.) You can turn three of those five outputs into any signal you like – gate, envelope, LFO, and so on.

Where do you get that S/PDIF output? Well, lots of audio interfaces have them, and many computers – including recent MacBooks – do, as well.

There’s also an ES-4 Gate Expander add-on for additional 8 on/off gates, triggers, clocks, and so on. The unit is £151, or £64 for the Gate Expander, not including VAT.

http://www.expert-sleepers.co.uk/es4.html

More demos:

Sound Sculpting: ADE-10 Reactive Shaper

Justin Owen of Abstract Data sends us this creation. It’s an all-analog waveshaper, wavefolder, feedback unit, with audio to LFO range. That means you can use it as an LFO or design sounds or manipulate synth pads or … any number of things. In fact, it’s nice enough that I could see using it alone, sort of Moogerfooger / stomp style. This is the same nice gentleman who created the Kicker, a synth focused on bass drums.

Loads of sound samples on SoundCloud, in addition to the video tutorial and demo above. It’s yours for £135.00, which I think is quite a bargain.

http://www.abstractdata.biz/ade10/

ADE-10 Reactive Shaper Eurorack Module (2011) by abstractjuz

Synthesis: Monotron in a Eurorack

A bit more left-field, but you can even get Korg’s simple-but-fun Monotron synth in a Eurorack module. Skip ahead in the video below to hear it in action. (Well, unless you prefer field recording crinkly wrapping sounds, in which case the unboxing portion of the video will be your favorite. Toddlers, dogs, and gear lovers agree: unboxing is the best part.)

US$249 puts the Monotron in a rack format. Of course, there, you can do quite a lot more with the Monotron than you can with the original, with both full CV and MIDI control and very, very nice knobs, in place of the awful-feeling (though stunningly inexpensive) controls on the original. All together, that makes a very playable, very fine synth.

http://erthenvar.com/store/monotrone, as seen on Synthtopia

Synthesis: Triangle Core Oscillators

Just when you think you can’t innovate in something as simple as an oscillator — you can.

Synthesist Danjel van Tijn sends news of the Dixie VCO, which, named for its creator, reimagines how to do a triangle oscillator:

It is a triangle core oscillator in Eurorack format that utilises a brand new method of implementing a triangle core oscillator using a design by professor David G. Dixon.

Side note: Trianglecore would make a great genre name.

Professor Dixon co-designed the module and collaborated on its construction. In the video at top, you can see what those waveforms look like. Below, you can see how this might work in a musical context:

Melodic demo of the Dixie VCO. Two Dixies are used (only one at first) along with a Z8000 for sequencing, a uScale for quantizing, uStep for step sequencing and everything is filtered through the new Dr. Octature VCF/VCO.

The uScale is used to help demonstrate the extremely wide and accurate range of tracking of both VCOs. The sequence spans many octaves but the intervals of the two Dixies stay in tune.

PWM, LIN FM and Sync are all played with along with different combinations of waveforms to explore just some of the timbre possibilities.

And here’s what happens when you reverse sync:

We seem to lack purchase info on this particular module for now, but there are loads of other great modules from this Vancouver, Canada-based builder – and yes, they work with Max/MSP and computers, too, not just modules:

http://www.intellijel.com/

Roundup of Other Great Picks

Knowing I could never keep up with all that’s happening on the Eurorack scene, I asked Danjel aka Intellijel to give us some of his picks for some of the coolest modules. He obliged with a drool-worthy – and I dare say genuinely musical – list. Here are his favorites:

There is so much stuff! Eurorack has obviously tried to update or recreate most of the classic synthesis blocks from various manufacturers (Buchla, Moog, Roland etc. etc.) but the past couple of years very interesting developments have been made incoporating brand new designs not found anywhere else. Some of these are completely DSP based, some are hybrids and some like the Dixie VCO are %100 analog.

Other stuff I have put out that is unique (and actually has decent video) would include:

uScale: CV quantizer but it also does intelligent interval generation

Corgasmatron:
This is a dual multimode filter with the same transfer function as classic Korg MS20 but it is a completely new circuit design (nothing related to the original at all) using all modern components.

On the analoghaven page there is a list of about 40 manufacturers each with many modules:
http://www.analoguehaven.com/what/

The Muffwiggler.com forum is extremely active with all things to do with modular synthesis (and synths in general).

Stuff worth noting form other manufacturers (there is so much more from each of these groups):

Cylonix Cyclebox:
FPGA based extremely deep triple VCO with through zero FM and massive amount of synthesis and waveshaping options
http://www.cylonix.com/cyclebox.html

TipTop Audio matrix sequencer:
http://www.tiptopaudio.com/z8k.php?goto=features

Tiptop Audio Z-DSP (user programmable DSP fx processor)
http://www.tiptopaudio.com/zdsp.php?goto=features

Expert Sleepers ES-3 (all their products really) control your analog gear via a plugin in Ableton/DAW and their lightpipe/spdif/db25 connector
http://www.expert-sleepers.co.uk/es3.html

Kilpatrick Audio K4815 Pattern Generator
http://www.kilpatrickaudio.com/?p=K4815

Makenoise Phonogene: digital tape recorder re-visioned
http://www.makenoisemusic.com/Phonogene.html

Makenoise Rene: cartesian sequencer
http://www.makenoisemusic.com/RENE.html

Synthesis Technology Morphing Terrarium: morphing wavetable synthesis
http://www.analoguehaven.com/synthesistechnology/e350/

Synthesis Technology Deflector Shield: thru-zero frequency shifter, phaser and ring mod
http://www.analoguehaven.com/synthesistechnology/e560/

The Harvestman Double Andore: dual a-d envelope generator and 2-channel vca with digital curve shaping and vca law selection
http://www.theharvestman.org/2017.php

The Harvestman Bionic Lester: dual 12db/oct switched capacitor multimode filter with mode selction and clock disruption.
http://www.theharvestman.org/1873.php

Toppobrillo Sport Modulator: Dual VC Lag and CV processor
http://www.analoguehaven.com/toppobrillo/sportmodulator/

Thanks, Danjel! This looks fantastic – plenty to consider as inspiration.

It all makes me wish for a holiday on which some supernatural being, against all rules of material consumption and the conservation of physics, flies around the Earth leaving, for free, the things you desire as gifts. If someone can make this happen, let me know. Also, I’ll need the contract to a flat in which I can house said materializing goods. Until then, I’ll have to hack something together for free in Pd and run it on a netbook.

Dream On: Modular, The Movie, and the Planner

Modular remains such a cultural phenomenon, it has inspired its own movie project, as seen on IndieGogo (trailer above):

I Dream of Wires: The Modular Synthesizer Documentary

If we’ve sold you on this whole idea, Danjel also points us to this:

There is a pretty cool online interactive virtual modular for planning out a system
It contains pretty much every module available.

http://www.modularplanner.co.uk/

More analog…

By the way, if you appreciate this sort of analog coverage and would like a domain at which you can see it, you should complain to Trash Audio. They cheekily registered the createanalogmusic.com domain and redirected it to their site, and they haven’t responded to offers to buy it from them them. I suggest you flood their inbox with complaints until they aquiesce. Alternatively, perhaps you can think of a word that means analog but begins with the letter ‘D,’ as that’d fit nicely with the ‘CDM’ acronym. Or we could come up with something in another language – German, for instance.

I’ve registered createanalogmusic.de for now; I’ll point it at something later this week. And as for how we can get back at TRASH_AUDIO — I’m open to suggestions. Can’t crash their NAMM party; I’ll be on a flight back to Berlin. (Seriously, that crew held a great synth meetup in LA in September I was lucky enough to catch – at least briefly.)

We’ll continue to happily bring you judgment-free electronic music making on a variety of platforms, from the Apple II to a discarded, broken cell phone to analog circuitry you wired up yourself, because that’s how we roll.

If you can find a spot in the rotation with your Mannheim Steamroller collection for something a bit different, CDM reader Leigh Walsh of Cork, Ireland sends in her work. She describes it as “punky gothy electronic … for Christmas,” with any proceeds benefiting Autism research. The single sounds crazy, but for me, things get good with the game world-like, shimmering “Secret Inside the Ice Level” and “Melody for the Sewn Princess” tracks.

I can find myself mentally wandering an 8-bit ice cave level right now…

Loving her work, hoping to here more, hoping not to get folks’ genders wrong next time… oops.

Heck, let’s take this playlist a little further out.

One darned trippy Christmas: HAPPY XMAS PEBBLES LAILA ROCKET YUSUF! By London-based artist Affie Yusuf, via SoundCloud:

HAPPY XMAS PEBBLES LAILA ROCKET YUSUF by AFFIE YUSUF

Thanks, Laila!

If that doesn’t cleanse your palette after hearing too many of the Christmas standards on repeat, I just can’t help you.

Now, go and use this to freak out your families and friends.

The first rule of giving is that you need to make sure that the entity to which you’re giving is actually asking for support. In the wake of a devastating fire started during London’s rioting that wiped out a Sony warehouse, indie labels are indeed asking for such support, says a representative of fundraising efforts. Sony’s facility housed, under contract, massive stocks belonging to UK distributor PIAS, representing in some cases the majority or entirety of inventory of dozens of independent record labels. For smaller organizations, insurance funds may not arrive in time to continue day-to-day operation, at a time when small labels are often on the brink of being able to operate from one day to the next.

That’s the picture painted by Dan Salter, who tells CDM about the effort Label Love, which in the immediate aftermath of the fire was already communicating with labels and beginning organizing efforts. Along with Hannah Morgan, Dan is leading efforts to help keep the lights on at labels, and to communicate with the rest of us about what’s going on.

Note that this is not organized by PIAS; you can read their official statements by following the distributor’s official site. (PIAS say they are also working on cleanup and efforts to benefit labels, but no official statement has yet requested funds; they’ve mainly thus far clarified what’s happened and how they’re responding but stopped short of asking for donations, beyond volunteers to help cleanup the site.)

Updated: An official PIAS-organized fund is detailed below. In addition to providing loans to labels, a statement by PIAS and the Association for Independent Music suggests that the effort will also help coordinate third-party drives like Label Love.

If you’re not up to speed with what’s happened, see yesterday’s post:
150 Indie Labels Lose Stock as London Warehouse Burns; Details Emerging, Reports, and Benefits

CDM: First, who are you? Whom do you represent?

Dan: We’re not actually affiliated to PIAS, we are a little group of bloggers & music fans that wanted to do something to help.

Have you communicated directly with any labels? What have they told you, if so?

We’ve been in touch with a number of the labels. We write & run a number of music blogs so we already knew quite a few people involved but many more have got in touch since Monday. Some of the stories are heart wrenching, people’s whole livelihoods have been put at risk by what’s happened.

Insurance will presumably be distributed through SONY. That said, do we know if stocks were covered by insurance? I know that Sony had told PIAS they’re working on keeping stocks flowing.

We’re not totally clear on the insurance situation, as you say it might be a question for PIAS, but I do know that even if insurance is paid it may come too late for many of the smaller labels. These companies run on a day-to-day basis and this kind of break in their cash flow could be terminal.

What do we know at this point about losses that may be suffered by labels? How are they coping?

I’m not sure of the overall situation but we’ve been contacted by a number of labels who have lost pretty much everything & have said it’s very touch and go as to whether they can survive this.

Who made the decision to begin fundraising? Was this something that came up via fans of the labels, or that the labels asked for? What’s their response?

A lot of these people affected are people know personally and are friends with when we heard the news we responded by thinking about what we could offer as gig promoters and the idea of benefit shows was born.

How will funds be distributed once collected?

100% of money donated through PayPal will go to the labels affected. Money raised from the events less costs will also be distributed to the labels.

Ideally we want to distribute the money in relation to the percentage of stock lost by each label. If we can’t get the relevant information to do that then we will split it evenly between the PIAS clients.

If people want to help now, what are some ways they might do so? How can they give or volunteer?

They can either donate through our PayPal account, link is on http://cognitivedissonancerecords.com/labellove/ or if they want to offer their services they can mail us at labellovebenefit (at) gmail (dot) com

Some people were circulating the idea of buying downloads from their favorite labels who have been affected. Would you encourage that, as well?

It’s a great idea but we would encourage people to use independent sites like Rough Trade rather than iTunes or Amazon as they take a far smaller cut & the labels will benefit more.

And more broadly, can you tell us a bit about yourself and how everybody’s doing over there? Much appreciated!

To be frank, our minds are a little bit blown by the scale of the response to our suggestion. We initially envisaged doing a few small gigs around London, we never expected to be dealing with the sheer volume of offers & support that we have, it’s been amazing & humbling. Right now there’s only a couple of us at the core of this and we work full time as well but we’re hoping to have a team together soon to help us cope with what’s happened!

Updated: an official PIAS and Association of Independent Music (AIM) fund has been announced.

This morning, we are announcing the creation of a fund to help independents affected by the catastrophe. They will be able to draw upon the fund to help cover the interruption to their business and the cost of getting back onto their feet.

The fund is being provided by some of AIM’s larger member labels, other well wishers and from AIM’s reserves, and will be made available to affected smaller labels pro-rata to labels’ [PIAS] turnover this year, as required.



Funds will be made available as interest-free and security-free loans repayable within a year. 



Total initial funds available are £250,000.



[PIAS] are first and foremost focused on supporting their labels. AIM will be coordinating the fund, and also other offers of help in the form of promotions and benefit gigs.



Source: AIM, via their site musicindie.com.

The likes of Mute and Beggars Group also repeat what Label Love are arguing: that smaller and emerging labels may not yet be prepared to whether the immediate aftermath of these events without additional help. The fund would appear to help the cash flow problem.

As has been widely reported, the UK’s largest independent entertainment distributor, PIAS, suffered the complete loss of stock in an enormous warehouse in North London amidst rioting in the neighborhood. Impacted is stock not only in music, but independent film, too. The warehouse is owned by Sony DADC, but the impacted stock is owned by distributor PIAS and covers some 150 record labels (see list below), from big names to tiny – and more vulnerable – outlets.

While details on insurance coverage and timing are largely forthcoming, the more urgent problem is that – insurance payments or no – the loss of significant portions or even all stock for many smaller record labels impacts their ability to operate. Because producing something like a CD or vinyl requires manufacturing, lead time, and shipping logistics, the event could have a devastatingly constraining effect on the ability of these labels to sell physical music.

Some relevant coverage:

Independent music labels left ‘devastated’ by riot fire [BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat]

Sony/PIAS Warehouse Burnt Down in UK Riots [Pitchfork]

Sony: London warehouse fire may affect UK deliveries [Reuters]

Independent record labels fear ruinous stock loss in London riots fire [The Guardian]

On the film side: British film distributors left reeling by financial impact of Sony/PIAS warehouse fire [The Guardian]

Via Twitter, Rough Trade Shops are following events and encouraging volunteers to work on cleanup and fundraising efforts. The focus remains on the immediate safety of artists and staff, naturally, for all London’s arts institutions, and thankfully, while the loss of physical music was devastating, no injuries were reported.

Here’s the latest update from PIAS, as of Tuesday pm:

Latest update – Sony DADC have actioned their Business Continuity Plan and are back up and running from a new control room in Enfield. PIAS continue to work with them to minimise the impact on the business, a number one priority for all our labels and clients. Sony DADC have identified a temporary distribution partner and it is envisaged that they will be in a position to pick, pack and ship orders in the course of next week.

This follows an earlier statement regarding a fire last night at the SonyDADC warehouse, which services the physical distribution for PIAS in the UK and Ireland. PIAS’s UK offices in London and all other areas of our business are unaffected.

Further details will follow tomorrow morning, Wednesday.

We wish to thank everyone for the overwhelming messages of support.

Follow PIAS directly for the latest official statements:
http://www.pias.com/pias/

Benefit plans are thus far mostly at a placeholder status, but there’s reason to believe that the future of a number of the UK’s record labels could be endangered by events.

In addition to a direct fund, simply buying digital releases from these labels could help – and illustrates that having digital revenues can be a way to resist catastrophic problems elsewhere.
AIM urges fans to buy digital and help out indies affected by warehouse fire [MusicWeek]

Our friend TRICIL is already using the Topspin platform in order to give away his entire 47-track discography in exchange for a donation that will support the recovery of these labels.

http://tricil.net/

Some of those record labels:

LABEL NAME
[PIAS] Recordings
[PIAS] Recordings Belgium
4AD
A Camp
Absynthe Minded
Accidental
AEI Music
Air Recordings
ALC Music
Alsation
Ambush Reality
Ancient & Modern
Angular Recording Corporation
Arcady Records
Ark Recordings
Asthmatic Kitty Records
Atlantic Jaxx Recordings
Bad Magic
Balling The Jack
Banquet Records
Battered Ornaments Records
Beggars Banquet
Best Before
Big Brother
Big Dada
Bird Records
blackmaps
Bloody Chamber
Blowout Music
Blue Chopsticks
Border Community
Borstal Beats
Boysnoize Records
BPM
Brainfeeder
Brassland
Bright Star Recordings
Brille
Broken Sound Music
Bronzerat
Brothers and Sisters
Brownswood Recordings
Buzzin’ Fly
Cache Cache
Cadenza Records
Celluloid Records
Chalkmark / IE
Chemikal Underground Records
Cocoon
Control Tower
Counter Records
Dance To The Radio
Dead Oceans
Deceptive
Defenders Ent UK
DESOLAT
Dessous
Different
Dirtee Stank
Divine Comedy Records
Domino Records
Double Six Records
Drag City
Dreambrother
Drive Thru Records
Drowned In Sound
Dummy Records
Duophonic
Eat Sleep Records
Fabric Worldwide
Fake Diamonds
FantasyTrashcan
Fatcat Records
Fence
Feraltone
Finders Keepers Records
Flock Music
Flying Circus
Freerange Records
Friends Vs Records
Full Pupp
Full Time Hobby
Gang Of Four Recordings
Geographic
Ghost Ship
Glaze Recordings
Groenland Records
G-Unit
Hardly Art
Hassle Records
Helpless
Hem Hem Records
HFN Music
Immune
Independiente
Infant
Infectious
Jagjaguwar
Kartel
Kitchenware
Kitsune
KMS Records / Fabric
Laughing Stock
Lex Records
Lipservice
Little Sister Recordings
LO-MAX Records
Loose Music
Lovepump United
Low Life Records
Lucky Number Music
Lucky Seven Records
Mantra
Matador
Memphis Industries
Merok
Metric Music International
Metroline Limited
Model Citizen
Moikai
Motion Audio
MyMajorLabel Ltd
Nation
Ninja Tune
No Quarter
NovaMute
Nusic Sounds
One Four Seven Records Ltd
One Little Indian
Organs
Outcaste
OVNI
P.I.L.
Peartree Records
PeMa
People In The Sky
People Tree
Pirates Blend Records Inc
Planet Function
Play It Again Sam
Playlouder
Poker Flat
Polyvinyl Records
Poseidon Records
Post Present
Pschent
Raw Canvas
Red Cord Records
REK’D
Rekids
Rekords Rekords
Renaissance
Reveal Records
Riverman Records
Rock Action Records
Roots Records
Rough Trade Records
Rubyworks
Sea Note
Search and Destroy
Secretly Canadian
Setanta
Shape
SideOneDummy Records
Silva Screen
Slam Dunk Records
Smekkleysa
Soma
Sonic Cathedral
Soul Jazz Records
South Paw
Southern Fried Records
Stereo Bang Media
Stolen Recordings
Stranger Records
Streamline
Sub Pop
Suicide Squeeze
Sunday Best
Thrill Jockey
Tirk
Too Pure
Torque Records
Touch & Go Records
Transmission Recordings
Tri Tone
Trouble Records
True Panther
Try Harder
Turnstile
Twisted Nerve Recordings
Universal Sound
Victory Records
Wagram
Wall of Sound
Warp
Watergate
We Love You
Wiiija
Willkommen Records Ltd
Wonderfulsound
XL
Xtra Mile Recordings
Yaala Yaala
Young Turks

PIAS also shares music on SoundCloud:

Latest tracks by PIAS Entertainment

Updated: Wednesday Statement from PIAS

Kenny Gates, PIAS’ Founder & CEO, posts an updated message today. He notes that all PIAS staff are okay, and reiterates that SONY DADC, not PIAS, actually owns the warehouse; PIAS contracts with SONY in order to house their product for distribution.

As you have noticed in our last note , Sony DADC have been remarkably quick and efficient to put together a contingency plan that should allow us to ship to stores sometime next week. We are impressed by their efficiency and that is good news.

These times are difficult for us, our artists, our labels and the whole indie sector which we vastly represent but we are determined to come out of this setback in the best way possible.

The PIAS team has been working around the clock to limit the damage . We know that the livelihood of many talented, passionate and hard working music people, artists and small and bigger labels is at stake and depend on our actions and those of Sony DADC.

We have been getting a lot of words of support and offers of help and that truly helps.

Thank you to everybody who cares and supports PIAS and the indie sector.

Read the full statement:
http://www.pias.com/pias/message-from-kenny-gates

CDM has gotten no further word on efforts to support the labels, so our view is that the best course of action is to wait on additional information.

Updated: Answers on Fundraising Efforts from Organizers

Representatives of Label Love have answered CDM questions and explained why labels are in need, how fundraising efforts are working, and what you might do to help:
In Wake of London Fire, Organizers Answers Questions About Supporting Indie Labels [CDM]

Against Detroit’s “industrial exoskeleton,” Resident Advisor has a new documentary short film examining Detroit’s musical revival, an electronic cultural phenomenon that brought healing and new life to a city whose economic livelihood had imploded.

The film is beautifully shot, and wisely starts with Motown and its connections to the auto industry, not simply with an out-of-context look at electronics alone. From those roots come the rich musicianship Detroit offers, a level of musicianship perhaps not generally associated with electronica. The film logically turns to the electronic revolution – and some reminders of just how fresh and modern the tracks sound, even if the, erm, fashions haven’t dated as well. This cultural invention against economic collapse seems about the most fitting picture of America in general one could find – at once cautionary tale and promising parable.

The dead husks of architecture and civic scene prove a silent, empty backdrop. And there’s a tragic side – the week in which England’s police and youths clash to destructive effect, there’s an ongoing inability to reconcile the warehouse music scene with police seeking to shut down raves, a pervasive sense of the city as failed even as the rest of the world might imagine its culture as vibrant. (Yes, I’m certain some Detroit residents are tired of being portrayed as some sort of wrecked quasi-war zone. Let me say this, instead: every major metro area in the US, and many smaller ones, has an area ravaged by economic change, just as America in general has serious challenges facing its poor and unemployed. The most dramatic images aren’t simply emblems of Detroit, but of those crises everywhere.)

But most hopeful, perhaps, is seeing a new young generation embrace accessible computer music technologies, the optimistic tick-tock of an Ableton metronome and a kid’s hands all over a Maschine drum pad controller. The early fathers of Detroit techno were able to produce a musical revolution because machines for the first time became affordable; who knows what musical imaginings these kids are cooking up in hours spent after school, or what greater focus and discipline that can give to their other work. (I can speak for myself: without music to calm me down, to give myself a center, to act as emotional and spiritual outlet, it’s hard to imagine how I ever would have done anything else.)

It’s wonderful documentary making, and a great editorial contribution on Resident Advisor’s part. Now the next question: can we find a way to make this kind of music vibrancy heal our cities and communities, at a time when economies are in freefall, Americans are out of work in absurd numbers, London is setting fire to warehouses of records, and a thousand other invisible crises worldwide threaten to pull neighborhoods apart? Detroit’s music to most might be some vague recollection of now-extinct Motown or music at parties; when music lovers start to tell a richer story, maybe that role for music will be more widely appreciated.

Some of the interviewees: Brendan Gillen (Ectomorph), RJ Watkins and Henry Tyler (The New Dance Show), Jon Dixon and DJ Skurge (Underground Resistance), Josh Glazer (Urb Magazine), Luke Hess and Brian Kage (Reference), and Mike Huckaby, among others. New sounds and new names are mixed in among the older sounds and veterans. (Kudos to the crew – John Fisher was DP; Patrick Nation and Daniel Higginson produced and directed.)

Oh, and Derek Mahone, age 11. Remember that name.

Real Scenes: Detroit [Resident Advisor]

From the other side of the pond, and poignant given ongoing unrest in the UK, here’s Real Scenes: Bristol. It makes a worthy companion to the Detroit piece. As RA puts it:

The eyes of the world have turned to the UK in recent years and have found some of the most exciting, genre-defying young artists to emerge from electronic music. But while London’s scene can be fractious and hard to pin down, there seems to be something in the air in Bristol that unites its participants. Whether they’re creating dubstep, house, techno or something else entirely, the cross-pollination in Bristol is unique. In RA’s first official entry into video, we journey to Bristol to explore how the city has flourished in recent years, discovering why this small metropolis is one of the most influential electronic music outposts in the world today.

(Apologies to Bristol; I should probably wax just as poetic about your town, but happened to miss the release of the earlier film when it came out!)

Real Scenes: Bristol [Resident Advisor, July 5]

Any one of us, myself included, may break at any moment into armchair analysis of the music scene. But it’s worth asking an expert. Taste-setting, deeply influential DJs Pete Tong and Gilles Peterson of BBC Radio 1 recently stopped by National Public Radio’s thoughtful music program, All Songs Considered. Joining the American hosts, the BBC stars play favorite tracks and weigh in on the connections in electronica and club music in the US and the UK. The timing was appropriate: with DEMF taking over Detroit, that same world scene was returning to the cradle of the techno genre. But the message might surprise you: according to Tong and Peterson, the US is in a full-blown dance resurgence. It’s about time.

This isn’t the first time England has exported back to America tastes America helped define. Just ask the Beatles, who were able to market folk and country traditions, Everly Brothers harmonies and practicing guitar licks, more successfully than American artists had been in their own country.

Imagine what is possible now. Today, you can almost certainly have an easier time tuning into BBC Radio 1 from anywhere on Earth than you can a terrestrial radio station just a few miles away. Electronic dance music, while it may draw its roots from the likes of Juan Atkins and Frankie Knuckles in Detroit and Chicago, is arguably a hybrid, global and transnational by definition, and both American continents alongside Europe, Africa, and Asia, continue to forge its style.

All of this makes it more noteworthy that Tong and Peterson are finding the US increasingly fertile ground. Outside the over-saturated UK, BBC Radio 1 DJs are doubly superstars. These Radio 1 legends report that the act of gigging in the US – fueled by demand in the unfairly-dubbed “flyover states” – is better than ever, and even better than anywhere else. (Where but the US, they say, can you do a 7-day-a-week tour?)

In just those places, people are rediscovering classics like Lil’ Louis’ “French Kiss.” And in turn, those records may come to mean something new and refreshed, transported into new contexts.

In making their argument, and tracing some exemplary records, these two also make a case for a dance music more informed by tradition than flavor-of-the-month trend. It’s fitting that older records are finding new audiences, or that new styles are more conscious of their antecedents. The program also offers some perspective on English club culture, and without hopping on a soapbox, suggest the US may have paid a cultural cost for societal squeamishness about difference and homosexuality. Beyond what gets gigs or prompts dancing in the club, that suggests a grander societal significance to all these great records.

But Americans looking for some hope, I think the message of this recording is as clear as the title of the last song: “Coming Home.”

Let’s turn it over to Flying Lotus…

It’d be unfair to allow the UK side to monopolize this conversation, so let’s look at one of the US artists who has helped lead the US dance resurgence. Flying Lotus, himself popularized by BBC Radio 1, has been a tremendous force in supporting the blossoming scene around Los Angeles.

I think he can say as much musically as any other way, so take a listen to his recent podcast for Stones Throw records. Pulling some surprising cuts into the mix, he spins a dreamy, future-retro, soulful-spectacular world. As out of a parallel analog reality, warm and fuzzy vinyl crackles through a gauze-covered lens, but paints a futuristic landscape.

Perhaps Steve Ellison was assembling this deliciously-curated wonderland in a trance, because there’s absolutely no track list. (I’m holding out hope that maybe he’ll reveal their provenance; we’ll see.)

But a future portal opened by the past, steeped in soul and jazz, seems just the kind of universe that could give electronic dance music a second renaissance. So, I’ll best shut up at this point and let you listen.

Good listening

Hear the whole NPR program, and find additional commentary and track selections:

Pete Tong And Gilles Peterson On Dance Music, UK And American Style [NPR Music: All Songs Considered]

This Week On All Songs Considered: America In The Grips Of Dance Fever [All Songs Considered Blog]

And be sure to subscribe to Stones Throw’s podcast, picking up episode 66 for Flying Lotus:

More FlyLo — a full live set, also via NPR Music:
Sasquatch 2011: Flying Lotus, Live In Concert

Pour some port, find a comfy spot on the couch, and fire up the YouTubes. A surprisingly-rich raft of terrific documentary video for synth and electronic music enthusiasts has been making the rounds.

In our queue: Analog Suicide interviews a legendary vintage synth spot in Berlin, an hourlong documentary features not only Richie Hawtin but a range of techno pioneers, as well as other shorts from T-Mobile (yes, the phone company), and the BBC scores more history of the British side of the synth revolution in music. Sit down and get ready, because here we go.

From Detroit to Berlin and Back: In-depth Interviews with Pioneering Artists

At top: an hour-plus documentary produced for T-Mobile’s Electronic Beats series follows the rise of techno legend Richie Hawtin, including some terrific Detroit footage with artists like Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, and of course Magda. Love him or hate him, Richie’s impact on electronic music is formidable, and it’s great to see coverage finally return to a tale of his roots. It seems the perfect way to get ready for Detroit’s Movement Festival, starting May 28. Via the astute music coverage on the XLR8R blog, here by Ken Taylor.

There’s quite a lot more Electronic Beats TV on the YouTube page:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ElectronicBeatsVideo

Here are a few of my favorites. Kangding Ray of Raster-Noton is framed by signature, hypnotic minimal visuals. He has some wonderful things to say about the beauty of materials in sampling. Then there’s some beautiful footage of TESSEL, a morphing architectural form which really deserves some separate coverage here. Have a look:

Thomas Heckmann looks at machines, vintage and circuit bent, and talks about working with their idiosyncrasies in musical production.

From the role of machines to the role of humans, Moderat talk about collaboration as therapy, and what it does for them … and then go parachute jumping. I think people falling from a plane makes the perfect soundtrack.

Conversations for Synth Lovers, via AnalogSuicide

AnalogSuicide’s Tara Busch is one of our favorite journalists covering synthesis, and a great artist to boot. This week, she visits the legendary vintage synth destination Schneiders Beuro in Berlin. Via Synthtopia, who, like MatrixSynth, I think has an alarm that goes off when videos hit YouTube with certain keywords – incredible.

On the producer side, massively-accomplished producer Gareth Jones (Depeche Mode, Wire, Erasure) makes an appearance, too:

Lots more where that came from:
http://www.youtube.com/user/tarabusch

Synth Brittania

Via our friend and Chicago producer/nerd fashionista/writer Liz McLean Knight comes a BBC Four documentary that covers British synth artists in the late 70s and early 80s, including Joy Division, Human League, Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire, and Gary Numan.

There’s just too much goodness here. I want to sit down with the past and present staff of Keyboard and watch this one. Watch it while the Beeb lets you.

I’m personally gratified in that I believe technically and artistically, we’re entering another of these sorts of ages. Who knows what the cultural impact may be, but at least for those passionate artists and technologists who are involved, something’s happening. And these videos are a great place to begin for inspiration.

So, now that you have those to watch, I guess I really need not write until Monday! See you then! (joke … sort of.)

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

Perhaps it’s something of an irony, here on a site that heralds shiny technology, but there is a longing among many musicians to return to something raw and unvarnished in music. There’s discontentment in the ranks of the techno-futurists, enough to sow the seeds of rebellions. If that feeling could be given a voice, Anika would be a good candidate. A political journalist who found herself, entirely unexpected, at a session with Portishead producer Geoff Barrow, she is a vinyl-loving, politically-minded throwback, an antidote to everything that commercially-calibrated in music.

http://www.stonesthrow.com/anika

The first thing you should know about Anika’s self-titled debut is that some people immediately hate it. Others just as quickly fall in love with its tendency to sound as though it were made 30 years ago. It’s not retro as pastiche: the music is unrehearsed, largely unproduced, fed through cavernous spring reverbs and played on abused instruments and machines. It sounds like another decade because it was made in the way those records were produced. But it’s also divisive, something unprocessed enough that people can form strong opinions about how it tastes.

And, of course, there’s the question I knew I’d have to broach – the fact that the results sound rather a lot like Nico (of Velvet Underground fame). (The New York Times’ Ben Ratliff described the effect neatly as “healthily irritating.”) Barrow must have been pleased; the guy’s festival here in New York is “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” so you do the math. But it works, because the similarity is entirely organic. Anika, too, is German-born, here German by way of England with a hint of Welsh inflection, and intentionally over-pronouncing the lyrics she intones. She doesn’t sound like an imitator, but like a successor. (She also sounds a great deal more English and Welsh, for the record.)

When Anika was to do the photo shoot, she tells me, Geoff instructed the photographer to “make her look as rough as possible.” That might be the best way to sum up the musical performance and production here, too, a punk rock, just fell-out-of-bed approach to music. And like Nico, like Anika herself, no matter how rough the styling, the results are somehow oddly irresistible. (Anika, on the cover of the album, seems to channel Warhol.)

Producer Geoff Barrow, who gave us Portishead, BEAK>, and Invada Records, might be a surprising pairing on first blush. But his own sense of the importance of song-writing, of the album as a vessel for expression and not just mass-production, and taste-defying, upstream-swimming aesthetic here is perfect.

And I wouldn’t mention this here if I didn’t find this album relevant to the other techniques of production in a digital age. If it makes people angry, actually, that’d even serve its purpose.

I spoke to Anika in New York, where she was doing a series of DJ gigs. The night before, I saw her at Gallery Bar; she struck me as almost delicate with her collection of all-vinyl, no computer in sight. (She told me that she’s doubly careful because she’s actually clumsy, which I can appreciate as something of a klutz myself.) But for all the practiced carelessness of this record, Anika herself is careful and thoughtful. And I think, whether you’re in the love it or hate it camp as far as the music, what she has to say about musical expression and the industry will be very, very familiar to readers here.

CDM: Tell us a little about your background – before you got into promoting this record, you were really a journalist, right?

Anika: I was a political journalist. I had to give it up officially. It’s the Berlin-based news network – ESNA, it specializes in education and science policy, and I was the UK correspondent. We’re a news network, newspapers and policy makers buy our service. It’s on a very specialist scale.

I studied politics in University. I’m officially more of a political journalist. Music has always been there, but it was more of a hobby. I’ve been doing all sorts over the years. I did a bit of work for BBC Wales News, a lot of news stuff, worked for newspapers.

And this is something to which you intend to return.

It’s definitely something I’m going to back to. I was doing that full-time in Berlin up until October when I said, okay, I have to go back to England to rehearse, because the album’s actually doing alright. I recorded it not necessarily with the hope of releasing it. We did it as an experiment, more of a mini-rebellion for me against what I disliked about the industry at the time.

I can think of a pretty long list myself, but what was it specifically that you disliked?

I worked as a promoter. In Cardiff, I used to book bands for four bands in Cardiff and one in Bristol. I used to deal with entertainment for the venues, do all their graphic design, all their marketing, set up a label for them, release local bands in Cardiff. There were just a lot of things I really disliked about the scene, and about the way it works.

In England, people weren’t going to gigs. In my venues, the bands would always be secondary. One of the venues that I worked for, they got a sound restriction the minute I got there, which meant they couldn’t have live acts before twelve. They weren’t aloud to have any live music before midnight.

For the venues, music was always secondary. It wasn’t their biggest income, really. They knew it would only ever make ten pounds a night. Since people aren’t willing to pay for gigs, the most I could charge for a gig was four pounds – like, six dollars. People wouldn’t pay more, and they’d normally expect it to be free. And the way they run it, they never took the bar into account. I usually just break even. I don’t think I ever made money from gigs, ever. I don’t think anyone does.

I worked directly for the venue, so I was on salary. It was four venues. I had to make sure there was a band on every night in two of the venues. For the commercial nights, I had to come up with the concept, the graphic design, book the DJs. I had to do all the graphic design for the bars, the cocktail menus, the food menus, worked with the food and cocktail people to come up with good stuff. It was a lot of work for one person. I had to rep the gigs at night, as well. I’d come in at ten in the morning and I’d be working until about four or five in the morning. I’d go home, sleep for an hour, and come back to work. I’d normally work six, seven days a week. It was a bit much. I had to rep the gigs, so I had to cycle from one venue to the next to sort out the bands, give them their beer, cycle back, buy some more beer, give it to the bands, and maybe DJ at three in the morning and go home. And they’d always say, oh, well, you’re not structuring your time well enough.

So I quit, because I hated it. I was being absolutely taken advantage of. So now I know I only want music as a hobby and not as a career. And then a week later, I got a call from my friend saying, oh, yeah, my friend’s band are looking for a singer. Do you fancy having a go? I tried a few bands in Cardiff, not because I want to be in a band, but because I had a load of lyrics, and I wanted to see how it worked with music. I recorded stuff that directly rejected all the kind of stuff that most bands thought that they have to fit in. So on purpose, we rejected the whole imaging of it. The way I sang it, at first it was political.

How would you say it’s political?

In two ways. The songs I write are [often] directly political. It was also political in the fact that it was a statement for me. It was directly rejecting everything that pissed me off about the industry at the time. It didn’t fit. It wasn’t pleasant to listen to. For ages, in England, all the bands that were doing well were so pleasant and so nice, and they’d go on [BBC] Radio 1 and they’d have interviews and they’d be, like, oh, yeah, it was so nice, I love the record… It was great, and I think music like that is really important to have, but there was no alternative.

It’s great to have that, if you want to do the washing up or you want to do the Hoovering, fine. But there was no music that was any different.

When indie became music, rock music became mainstream, between 2000 and now,, for England, it is commercial rock, isn’t it? In England in the 90s, at least people did stuff that was more rebellious. It wasn’t so nicey-nicey all the time. What if you’ve got something to say? And people were too scared to make any statement, in case someone didn’t like it. There were scared to take a risk. And that’s the thing about this record. It wasn’t designed to be liked. It was designed to make people think.

It’s like “No one’s there.” Now it seems cliche, but when I first wrote it, it was when the English media was writing all these headlines … personifying the recession as if it was some wolf that was going to eat your children. It was just the politicians’ mistakes, and the fact that we spent beyond our means. It was scaring people so much that they weren’t spending any more, so it actually makes things worse.

It was just interesting reading people’s opinions on matters and how they’d been framed. I remember my housemates at the time making all these throw-away comments about religions that they didn’t really know anything about. It’s the same with the Recession. A lot of people didn’t know much about it and didn’t look into it and understand why. That’s the thing about “No one’s there.” It’s just saying you need to question what you’re told.

And I imagine there’s also the politics of the music itself – you had said that music itself had suffered.

The reason music was suffering was because the people going to gigs weren’t taking risks. Firstly, people stopped buying music, which was pretty shit. Gig goers in England weren’t taking risks. So I’d put on a really good band, but they hadn’t had that much press coverage that week. People follow too much what they’ve been told. So this year, at the moment, the BBC released their top ten bands of the coming year. So all the music media has been writing about these bands and no one else. They’re just so lazy. And now they will be the top years this bands because they’ve been told. It’s like the chicken and the egg – which came first?

All those people on that list have the whole package, they’ve got the photos, they’ve got the MySpace friends. It’s just so predictable.

So, really, it’s not only the press, but the listeners, as well?

It’s the chicken and the egg. What comes first, the apathetic listener, or the [press]?

Just thinking about the production here, too, do you think you can record rebelliously, as well?

You can record it rebelliously by not over-producing it. That’s exactly what we did. To try and get that, we had to go to extremes. We didn’t plan any of the songs before we turned up that day. We’d walk in – we’d go the night before and spend the night on YouTube finding things that we could twist into a completely different form, and then we’d go in the next day and say, look what I found? And then I’d go print out the lyrics, Billy would figure out the bass, and then Jeff do that and Matt would walk in, and then we’d try it out, and then the third take was the one that we used. And that’s why it’s not perfect, and that’s why it’s funny when people say oh, yeah, what is this? It’s not perfect singing or whatever. It’s like, oh yeah, it’s not. It was never meant to be.

Okay, I have to ask – obviously, the comparison is going to get made to the Velvet Underground. Was that a conscious influence?

It was really weird with the singing thing. A lot of people said oh it’s Nico and rubbish — like a rubbish, rip-off version of Nico. But firstly, I’d like to point out I’m actually half German. I learned German before I learned English.

When I was doing it, because I had a lot of political lyrics, and because some of the stuff we were doing was Bob Dylan, if anything, I tried not to sound American. So I over-pronounced everything, because I didn’t want it to sound American. And I happened to be living in Wales at the time, for the last five years. It actually sounds a little bit Welsh, but people don’t know that. And so that’s where it ended up where it was. It was me trying consciously not to sound American and then trying to sound Mockney. Mockney is like the London accent. And I didn’t want to have that, either.

I personally didn’t realize we were going to release it. I did it just for a bit of fun. I didn’t realize it was Geoff Barrow at first.

Wait – really? When did you find out that’s who it was?

[laughs] I thought it was just some guys that wanted to record stuff. And when I turned up, no one had borrowed to tell me that it was Geoff and people. I only found out after a few sessions.

My friend kept telling me, oh, they’re called, like Beep or something. I typed in Beep onto Myspace and I couldn’t find them. I think eventually it’s because Geoff gave me a CD in the studio. I was like, oh yeah, do you have one of those Beep CDs, and he said, oh, you mean Beak? And he gave me the CD. And so I went on their MySpace and I was like, oh, right, so that’s Geoff Barrow then… [laughs]

It was good, because I think we all just wanted to do something different. At first, they were just looking for a singer, I think, to do Beak stuff. But then, I just did stuff slightly differently and it ended up being a solo project.

Geoff just kept saying don’t practice. That was his only input, he said don’t practice. At first, it was just to get that kind of rawness, where we weren’t trying to fit it into anything. If I’d had more time, I probably would have had singing lessons, and it would have lost all of its vulnerability and everything. And it is vulnerable, because people can dislike it. It’s easy to go off and make stuff perfect, and then if people don’t like it…. At this sort of point, it is … [pauses] very vulnerable. It’s vulnerable to attack. Because it’s me, not necessarily feeling particularly one hundred percent when I was doing it, it makes it even more vulnerable. But at the same time, it makes it more genuine and more sincere.

It’s a rebellion against what we were told to be. We were told the right way, how best to produce a perfect record. I could have probably got singing lessons, gone to the gym a bit, got a haircut. And that would’ve been alright. And I could have fit it in.

I didn’t actually want to be a musician. I wanted to be a politician. I did it for kind of almost the right reasons. I wanted to do it for sincere reasons. There’s this hyped-up image of this amazing pop-star lifestyle. And because of these reality shows where the emphasis is only on the person’s voice, and then probably what they look like, and then nothing else matters. Nothing about what they want to say, the individuality. People often want to be famous, or they want to be musicians for completely the wrong reasons. And I think that’s why so many people have reacted strangely to the record. I know a lot of my friends at home who are used to mainstream records say, oh, this isn’t really my thing. And it’s fine. I know a few people have commented on my singing ability. And that was never really the point.

How did it come to be that you wound up going this route, then? You had been writing for some time?

I’d been writing loads in that year. It was in the years when I only had two hours at home a day to sleep, and I could never sleep. I was so shut down after work. So I ended up buying a rubbish guitar and trying to put structure to my words. I’d written for years, but never put much structure to them. Still can’t play particularly well, but it helps structure it. I used to just sit there for two hours in the time when I should have been sleeping. I think my housemates thought I was nuts at the time. But it was my way to unwind. So I wrote loads in that year.

I tried out with a few bands in Cardiff, just some jamming sessions with my friends. And it didn’t work because they had big electric guitars and would just drown out my lyrics.

I think it was because my Geoff said to my friend, oh yeah, we’re looking for a weird singer with a bit of a weird voice. And my friend was like, oh, I’ve got exactly the person.

When you did hear yourself on the album, did you say to yourself, oh yes, that’s really my voice, personally?

I didn’t listen to it. I just did it and didn’t listen. We just recorded and that was it. I just walked out of the room, went in the kitchen and made some tea, and didn’t even want to know what happened to it.

And then sometimes I’d say, oh, well that sounds really bad. I’d say, can I do it again, and we’d do it again, and we never used that one, because it just sounded, too …

I think the record can be quite enjoyable. But people seem to be one extreme or another – they’ll fall in love with it, or absolutely hate it. That to me is rather interesting.

I don’t mind. I quite like asking people why do you dislike it – because some people really do to an extreme. It’s always nice to hear why. It’s always good, because it’s made them think. It’s made them question why they don’t like it. That’s good. That’s an achievement.

I couldn’t listen to it for ages after. I just forgot about it, took up that job in Germany with the intention of staying, moving to Brussels to work in policy development.

That’s why I let [Geoff] do it. It was rejected all the pre-cut roles, how it should be. That’s why it worked so well. Geoff’s a bit of a rebel, as well. He doesn’t like fitting to what he’s told.

That’s why it’s good for me to do these DJ tours and only use vinyl. It’s really difficult for musicians at the moment … if you sell your soul and make knocking music and get endorsed by some big company, it pays for you to do that. But if you don’t, it’s really hard to try and afford to [be a] musician. I was fortunate that I moved to Berlin and managed to live. It’s really difficult how people don’t buy music any more. I know it’s really cliche to say, but it’s true. Especially with vinyl, that’s why it’s really important to endorse vinyl stores. It’s really important to buy.

So, to you playing vinyl isn’t so much about nostalgia or authenticity, it’s the economics around that physical object.

Yeah. That’s why I bought vinyl today. Even though I could probably pick up the phone and say could I have some vinyl, please. I think you need to put something back, because otherwise it’s not fair.

So many [shops] have shut down in the last years. And they do help underground music survive. They have in-stores, and they help promote records. And that’s why I was in Other Music. They helped with my record a lot.

That’s the problem with the whole downloading culture. It’s just a reflection of consumerism, how we want everything now.

What’s in Anika’s Vinyl Shopping Bag?

Anika and I met for the interview at Manhattan’s terrific independent music store, Other Music. (If you do prefer digital downloads, or happen not to be in New York, they also have a digital store – so, in fact, you can have it both ways after all.)

In fact, the very first thing she did was to show off her acquisitions. Here’s what she bought, with some commentary, via her Tumblr blog:

The Soft Moon Parallels 7” (This band played before me at Part time Punks in LA and i really liked them! I hadn’t heard of them before)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwGEG10WIY

Nite Jewel – Am i real? six song ep (I like nite jewel)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9A_2AN39X8&feature=related

Kleenex/Lilliput 4 vinyl box set (This just excited me so much that i closed my eyes and handed over the cash..)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY2nXUUvwg4

Circuit 7 video boys album 12” on MW (I love the MW label and wanted these tracks for a while)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_hV-uqNZ5c

Oppenheimer Analysis album on MW (I always play radiance because i have the single, so was desperate for more!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6faunFcrT0

Anika – I Go To Sleep by stonesthrow

Could busking – street music performance – be a tool for social change? It’s an idea I’ve heard artists mull before. Here’s one opportunity to do just that next month, in April, in support of building badly-needed school facilities in southern Zambia. And yes, digital musicians can participate, thanks to terrific, affordable, battery-powered amplification.

I do hope this could launch a discussion, though, on how to organize this kind of action, and how to make busking work for good.

Ben Matthews, founder of the charity, writes:

LearnAsOne,a UK-based charity dedicated to funding schools in Africa, announces the launch of its first annual BuskAsOne, a week of busking events around the world from 19-25 April 2010. The charity is hoping to raise £22,800 to help build schools in rural Zambia.

The busk is open to any musician, singer or instrumentalist, so if any readers of Creative Digital Music would be interested in joining in with BuskAsOne, they should register at www.learnasone.org/busk where they will find all the tips and guidance they need for a safe, hassle-free busk.

In July, the LearnAsOne team will return to Zambia and share stories, photos and videos from the schools to show it supporters exactly how the funds they raised are spent.

The communities that LearnAsOne work with are extremely dedicated. They are happy to make tens of thousands of bricks by hand and contribute labour for free to give their children the opportunity to go to school. But they can’t afford raw materials such as cement, roofing sheets and windows. This is where the busking money comes in. £22,800 will allow LearnAsOne to fund four new buildings – two new classrooms and two teacher’s houses. This will secure the education of 60 children every year.

The video at top features an orphaned eight-year old young woman who must walk 14 km every day to attend her school.

I had some follow-up questions for Ben:

Why the connection with music specifically?
At LearnAsOne we try to come up with fundraising ideas that allow people to take part in things they enjoy and also raise money to fund schools at the same time. There’s WalkAsOne, a series of sponsored walks for people who are active. BakeAsOne, a month of cakes sales, for those who like their baking. And BuskAsOne, for musicians.

What do you think the role of musicians can be in this case?
The main role is to help raise funds to build new classrooms and teachers’ houses at Simakakata in southern Zambia. But there is also another way musicians can help. We believe that everyone who donates has the right to see their money in action, so we use our website to share stories, photos and videos from every community we work. By displaying a poster while they are busking, or mentioning our website on their blog, MySpace or twitter feed musicians can ensure donors see the difference their spare change will make in Zambia.

Is there some sense that this kind of support for schools can eventually lead to self-sufficient school construction funding in places like Zambia?
Self-sufficient school construction is unfortunately just a dream at the moment. The Zambian government simply doesn’t have enough budget to construct all the schools the country needs, which is why many communities rely on the support of NGOs such as LearnAsOne.

Our aim is to fund schools in a sustainable way. We only work with resourceful communities who can prove they really want a school. At Simakakata they had made 60,000 bricks by hand before we first met them, and the community are happy to provide labour for free. But they simply cannot afford the raw materials such as cement, windows and roofing sheets. That’s where the busking money comes in.

After the construction is completed the school will become self-sufficient in many ways. If there are proper classrooms and teachers’ houses the government will provide trained teachers for free. And as the teachers arrive the government is more likely to provide the school with text books they need. Our goal is simply to provide the infrastructure the school requires and then move on to help another community. And then another.

More on Busking?

I discussed some of this project with our friend and artist Onyx Ashanti, who has himself reflected on ideas for how busking could work as aid. He noted that you may need to do some more research here, like working out how to get charity status or get around noise ordinances. (Here in NYC, for instance, you can’t just go out on the street right away, though it’d be interesting to combine this with established outdoor performance events.)

There are also questions of how to establish financial accountability.

This is a great start, though; I hope it inspires some conversations about the role of busking, ways in which street performance can be de-marginalized throughout the world, and ways in which that art can better support artists and other causes. And if you do decide to participate in this event, let us know. Electronic music has deep ties to street performance, from the roots of many or our musical idioms to the one man band tradition. It’s about time to re-forge that connection.