By the 1990s, the notion that computer software could be a means of delivering interactive digital art more personally was enjoying a Renaissance. This was the age of the Voyager CD-ROM, which catered to new multimedia PCs and Macs with titles from the likes of Laurie Anderson and Morton Subotnick, the decade in which Brian Eno released Generative Music as software and Monolake – before Ableton – included a Max/MSP patch with an album. But the reach of these experiments was doomed to be relatively limited.

Now, of course, things are different. First, we saw some widely-available audiovisual toys, coinciding in particular with the debut of the iTunes App Store. But now, those fairly one-dimensional experiments are beginning to blossom into something else. When these particular gadgets and app stores are forgotten, the question is whether those aesthetic adventures, the personalization of the digital art experience, will endure.

Joshue Ott, co-creator of Thicket for iOS, points to a review of that application on Apple’s App Store. “I always want to touch the masterpieces in museums,” a user says in that review. “I’ll use Thicket instead of getting arrested!”

“It’s the democratization of our own performance works,” muses Ott. “It’s a way people can play along with us,” he says. “We’re constantly creating processes to create sound and music; it’s what we’ve done for ten years or so,” chimes in Ott’s creative partner, Morgan Packard. “Now people can own the processes, not just the results.”

Ott and creative partner Packard have long each been visual and music performers, respectively. That meant what it has traditionally meant: the artist gets up in front of an audience, the real work hidden behind an onstage laptop. With Thicket, by contrast, the raw materials of that performance became embodied in the software itself, and thus in the hands of the audience, who can double as performer. At first, this software included only a simple mode or two, each with a specific sound, musical ambience, and visual look. Even in those versions, Thicket made some appearances in an occasional gallery show or performance – the app you download could also be the art.

As Thicket has added modes, though, it has evolved in a kind of platform of its own. Ott and Packard produce new works that can be distributed as in-app purchases (more on how they contend with that in a bit). The sum total of those modes has created a massive audiovisual playground, a compendium of ideas and aesthetic.

A new version released this week adds three new modes, seen in the video at top here, building atop modes added in late December. For the first time, you can use Thicket on an iPhone and not just an iPad; it’s a Universal app. Screenshot sharing is available, too. But the addition of all these modes, unveiled with a “reboot” of the app at the end of last year, represents a shift in thinking as these artists and developers reevaluated what it was they were doing.

“We found that the modes were becoming so different, so much deeper,” says Ott:

We were having such fun using it as a big sketchbook that we decided to ditch the ‘rotate to change modes’ system so that we could handle lots of modes, rather than just four or five. The modes in Thicket reboot are completely new, and each one is a lot more complex than the older modes. They’re all very different, and each have separate methodologies behind how you control them. We’re playing with different concepts in user interaction design, searching for the right intuitive feel to make a true audiovisual instrument (among quite a few other things).

In other words, if you haven’t played with Thicket lately, it’s a different animal. It’s a Long Play album to the first version’s single cut. The work is immersive, too; you can transmit video output via HDMI or VGA on the iPad, and get up to 1920×1200 HD output, with no menu intervening. (One of the many significant current drawbacks of Android for the moment for artists: the move to a soft menu on Android tablets means menu detritus that never goes away. Artists were intensely relieved this week when Apple’s new iPad kept its signature, dedicated hardware menu button.)

Morgan Packard says he has some strong feelings about why this kind of experience has value in his work:

I’d say where we both overlap is our shared interest in how abstract sound and picture, plus interactivity, all can work together. Thicket is a bit of a research sketchbook for us. There’s something very magical about just twiddling your fingers and having sound and visuals spring to life. Frankly, we don’t entirely understand this medium yet. But we like not knowing, trying to understand it in different ways.

The gestural thing is huge with us, and is at the core of what thicket is. It’s partly why I’m a bit resistant to the idea of layering features on to Thicket. Of all the different people who give us feedback, I get the most gratification from parents of special needs kids.The non-fiddly, large-motor interaction style is very accessible to a huge range of minds and hands. I want to explore this more, to give people new ways of feeling expressive and creative with movement and gesture. In my mind, that’s what’s really special about what we’re doing.

The duo did get a chance to try the app with people with different user needs. Ott explains:

Morgan and I actually toured a special needs school earlier this year and observed autistic kids using Thicket. A very special music teacher is using Thicket (among a couple of other technologies) to teach the kids music, and had found that it seemed to really empower them. He offered to let us visit and we happily agreed… really really amazing experience.

As Subotnick hoped years ago in “All My Hummingbirds Have Alibis” for Voyager, the distribution of art as software can create a new kind of “chamber” art, in which the work is personal, enjoyed by a few people. It can be a family or a couple of friends on a couch.

Of course, somewhere in all of this, these artists are looking for revenue in order to be able to devote the massive amounts of development and testing time the application demands. (Neither has quit day jobs, which means finding a way to devote resources to development.) Thicket easily climbed in download counts, but only after the application was made free. In-app purchases have been a tough mountain to climb, but have at least allowed some revenue to trickle in; the challenge was finding a way to make them appealing to users, says Ott:

I think in general people hate In-App Purchasing (IAP), because, in general, I think IAP is usually not handled so well. We have thought a lot about how to show people exactly what they are buying before they buy it, and I’m really pleased with what we’ve come up with. Every mode in the new Thicket has a pre-recorded “demo” of one of us playing the mode. Before you buy a mode you can watch this demo, learn what the mode can do, watch someone use it in an interesting way, and decide if that’s something you’re interested in or not. You can of course watch the demos even after you’ve purchased the mode (and the free Sinemorph mode also includes a demo as well). The demos are a great way for us to show users different tricks and techniques.

So the reboot is really about making Thicket a platform rather than just a single art piece. Something that we can keep adding to (with a financial structure that makes sense for us to keep adding to). Something that we can start collaborating with other artists on – we are talking to a couple of different people about releasing modes within the Thicket system. So yeah, that’s what the platform part is. We’re really excited about it, and what it will become in the future.

But these concerns aside, the developers aren’t just creating Thicket for users; they’re building something they use themselves. As Josh explains:

I’ve performed with Thicket now a couple of times, once at the excellent SONiC festival, and another at Issue Project Room in a program curated by Ryan Lott (AKA Son Lux), and have started to really feel like it has the potential to be a new form of audiovisual instrument. I want to see more stuff like it- things that generate graphics and audio intertwined, and I want to continue to explore these relationships in different ways. I’m actually pretty excited about performing with Thicket more, and I think doing so will push it even further in that direction.

“That’s really what an audiovisual instrument is to me,” says Ott. “It’s something that you can bang on and make something interesting, but you can touch it subtly, as well, to shape it, to express with it. That’s what I want to make. We’re right at the beginning of that exploration, and I think we have something that is a promising vehicle for it.”

You can try out the new Thicket now, as seen in CDM Apps:

Thicket @ CDM Apps
[Says iPad, is actually now Universal. PS - music and beauty flow from my fingers all the time - no app needed - but I'm glad now the rest of you get the chance.]

Texas-born, Detroit-raised, New York-based artist Matthew Dear has a new EP, to be followed by a full-length in 2012. It’s worth mentioning now for two reasons: one, the driving, “chugging” rhythms of the single, “Headcage,” will pop into your head and stay there, led by Dear’s vocal ability to croon and groove simultaneously. Second, the opening of this video may well make your mind go squish. The work of London-based director Morgan Beringer, seen previously milking monochrome textures out of another Matthew Dear collab, the film makes it look like some very colorful part of the Earth’s crust turned a film into magma. It settles down, but the opening frames are to me transcendent, especially when set to a similarly-morphing sonic backdrop.

You can stream and download the single via SoundCloud:

Matthew Dear – Headcage by ghostly

More on the upcoming release from Ghostly:
Matthew Dear: Headcage

The music writing echoes a bit for me Eno and Byrne on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts; perhaps channeling that, the album art by Michael Cina for Dear has washes of indistinct color, like a kaleidoscope set into motion, then blurred. Ghostly reports Dear co-produced the single with Van Rivers and The Subliminal Kid, vets of the acclaimed self-titled Fever Ray. The rest of the album is full of other vocal and producer collaborations. More on this when it arrives.

Okay, I’m not sure the computers can break a sweat (at least not without some serious consequences). But all the people projection-mapping generatively sequencing live audiovisualism electronic thingamabops sure are working hard in the above teaser video for Amon Tobin’s live ‘ISAM’ show. Not a lot of cities get to see the results, but those that do are promised a fully-immersive experience of this sound design extravaganza, complete with new sensory happenings for your eyeballs.

It’s live. It’s audiovisual. It’s not, says Ninja Tune, “DJ-centric.” Amen, brother.

The dates:

1st June – MUTEK, Montreal
9th June – Astra, Berlin
10th June – AB, Brussels
15th June – Melkweg, Amsterdam
17th June – Roundhouse, London

The collaborators:
Blasthaus, San Francisco-based live collective
VSquared Labs, virtuoso visual lab in LA founded by Vello E Virkhaus
Vita Motus Design, another event design shop (not sure about their specific contribution here)
Leviathan and “others” are involved, too.

Another preview, below, features the arresting photography of Tessa Farma’s organic sculptures, though you’ll have to guess at how this work – featured in a touring gallery show – will be interwoven with the motion materials. But whatever’s happening, the ambitions here are compelling.

http://www.amontobinisam.com/

Previously: Listen to Amon Tobin’s Sound Design Magnum Opus ISAM; Commentary, Behind-the-Scenes Details

Packed tightly with interlaced rhythms, set against crisp cool intoned lyrics, the first cut of Brian Eno’s forthcoming “Drums Between the Bells” from Warp can give us all reason to look forward to the summer.

Mr. Eno has been on something of a roll lately. We’ve certainly gone through periods when he wasn’s necessarily in command of electronic headlines in music, even as he contributed in other ways – the 90s brought pioneering work in generative music software and the infamous sound set for Windows, for instance. Now, he’s had back-to-back major releases in recent years.

2008: Spore (the videogame, the soundtrack for which may have overshadowed the actual game title), Everything That Happens Will Happen Today with David Byrne

2009: New live work, score for Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones

2010: Small Craft on a Milk Sea with Jon Hopkins and Leo Abrahams

And now we know what’s coming for summer 2011: Warp Records, July 5, a full-length with Rick Holland entitled “Drums Between the Bells”

The stunning cover image, as much alien patchwork quilt as glitch, is Eno’s own creation. You can preorder vinyl with high-resolution digital for just $21, but $39 gets you the hardback two-CD set with instrumental versions of the tracks (perfect for a late-night painting session when you don’t want to be distracted with poetry), plus a forty-four page book. Typically, such books are superfluous to the musical experience, but here, with Eno himself as accomplished in visual media as musical, they’re almost a no-brainer.

Bleep has your pre-order options.

Give the first track released a listen:

Brian Eno – glitch (taken from Drums Between The Bells) by Warp Records

More details:
http://brian-eno.net
http://warp.net/brian-eno

The Guardian’s take

The poetry

So, who’s this Rick Holland, anyway?

It’s perhaps best answered with his words, which to me sound unaccompanied as though they already have Eno music behind them – the forward-moving staccato cadence, the interwoven reflections of a modern electronic age, the unassuming zen echoes, the amiable ambience of the thing. Here’s his Orange Notebook Philosophy, from his blog:

flutter eyelids against the pillow
flashes behind the eyes

the sounds are computer processors

the mind reflects on itself

on what it can simulate

and it becomes that thing

the imagining becomes event

and event leads to event

so the imagining becomes

in retrospect

equally an event. The computer processor

flutters and electric outbursts

merge data with data

and en route

creates florettes of accidental light

enough to capture the path of animated thought

and divert to a place at once utterly surprising and real within us.

He is mindful of the world around him, but he’s no elitist: he pits the Marquis de Sade against Sasha Fierce.

Read his posterous blog – evidently a new outlet for poetry. Follow him on Twitter (of course).

Rick is musician as well as poet, just as Eno is artist as well as musician, and has various collaborations around London, it seems. Like many of Eno’s collaborations, this one is long-standing, dating to 2002.

http://www.rjholland.com/

And as with Eno’s other recent releases, Eno has a talent for finding other resonant minds to present.

Hypnotic and daringly simple, full of the tinkly jangle of toy instruments, Lullatone’s music will just make you feel good. It’s unafraid to be innocent and childlike.

Now, following in the footsteps of Brian Eno’s Music for Airports, they’ve concocted “Elevator Music” in a pay-what-you-wish Bandcamp album. (That’s part of the beauty of Bandcamp.) The duo of Shawn James and Yoshimi Seymour is joined by guest vocalist Tateishi Souta and the Sakuragaoka Junior High School Choir. If it sounds a bit like music for tots, see the looping lullabies album after the break. (With all the electronic artists I know having babies, this may be just the thing.) But it’s also more than that, they say:

We propose a new kind of elevator music – one that makes you want to snap and clap, and talk to the stranger next to you.

We’d like to feel like going up and down vertically in a box held up by wires is a magical adventure.

But, we’d also like elevator music that sometimes makes you want to get out of the elevator and take a walk outside.

Lately most of the elevators in our city don’t play music, so we imagine songs like these when we ride them.

http://lullatone.bandcamp.com/album/elevator-music

Speaking of simple ideas that can make the world better, Shawn sends CDM a quick video of their DIY rolling keyboard stand. Making the music keyboard coexist with a computer setup has long been a challenge, with some sometimes-odd solutions. (If you haven’t seen the infamous Creative Labs Prodikeys demo, take a moment.) This rig is essential for making the clean, tidy setup they need to make this sort of music – but might also work for the same reason for you, too. (Or, if you need to make something more grungy, then I suggest instead heaping your keyboard atop a mound of dirty laundry instead.)

Updated: Those aren’t IKEA desks. The smaller one with casters they built themselves; the larger one is store-bought, but from a Japanese maker, not a Swedish one. Shawn writes:

All of the wood is pine from our local hardware store. It is only a 3 minute walk from our house, so I am always in that place.
The base is 3cmx3cm pieces and the top 35cm x 90cm.
The bottom are the smallest plastic wheels we could find.

At first I tried to build it all without any screws, only using pegs and glue. But after it was all together, I realized that my less than expert handyman skills left me with a wobbly mess.
So I went back and re-inforced it with stainless L brackets hidden on the backside. After that, smooth rolling!

I had a nice sketch, but my little helper drew trains and scribbles all over half through, so I had to wing it from there.

[The larger desk] is from a Japanese company called Nitori. But, it is really similar to Ikea.

More Lullatone goodness:

A good album to start with, I think, in terms of its range, is their 2006 “Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous.” For all its dreamlike minimalism, it’s got real songs on it.

The latest lullabies release is “Looping Lullabies” from September, and perhaps as welcome for insomniacs or fans of daydreams as it is for babies and parents.

From a pure sound design perspective, their 2003, all-sine-wave “Computer Recital” put the duo on the map. It’s the sort of self-imposed restriction that’d terrify most of us, and they pulled it off.

I love their aesthetic sensibilities, visually and musically; they’ve really created this dreamy, saturated, sparse childhood wonderland. And they’re doing terrific things with electronic sounds and vocals (solo and young persons’ choirs) at a time when each of the two can fall into familiar ruts. I can think of no better time for it, either; their terrific blog and albums are like having instant access to the musical/visual equivalent of a Seasonal Affective Disorder lamp.

Now I can go back to them and be a good kid and clean up my workspace now and then…

http://www.lullatone.com/
http://lullatone.bandcamp.com/

All photos courtesy/(C) Lullatone.

Operating systems aside, the most important “platform” for your music may be the work environment you create for yourself to produce. Seeing that physical environment for someone else can be an inspiration, and certainly a window into their personality. So, as I look through the workspaces submitted by readers, I asked the terrific blog TRASH_AUDIO to select a few of the favorites from their series, “Workspace and Environment.” Rather than ask the usual, bland music journalistic questions of artists, they explore those artists’ creation spaces, and discuss process through that context. (Eat your heart out, MTV Cribs.)

TRASH_AUDIO also has a new site address, so go enjoy:
http://trashaudio.com/

It’s worth checking out the whole site, but here are their top five favorite workspaces and environments, in no particular order. Some are the tangles of wires you might expect, others more unusual, clean digital environments like the images I chose here (if only because I’m more used to seeing the tangles of wires).

1. Finnish-born Sasu Ripatti of Vladislav Delay and Luomo has found an acoustically-wonderful, isolated environment on an island, an environment surrounded by trees and far from people. On the road, it’s just one laptop, one Korg nanoKEY, and an audio interface, to which he adds Faderfox MIDI controllers, small KAOSS pads, and effects pedals for live gigs.

2. Alec Empire stays true to his Berlin roots with an all-white minimal studio. It’s distraction-free – and having a big, dedicated studio space means no neighbors. Think loud. “Actually you wouldn’t really find much colour in there,” he tells TRASH-AUDIO. “And what surprises visitors is that we have no paintings or posters or anything visual up on the walls. I really find this distracting. Somehow my mind would get off path. The great thing is that we can record whenever we want.” On the road, it’s a Mac and Digidesign gear, but most importantly, a big mobile hard drive, so sounds can come along with him for constant revision. Add to that an iPhone as a musical notebook for sketching ideas.

3. Alessandro Cortini, an Italian-born artist living in the US, focuses on Buchla modular gear as the center of his workspace, with the monome and MLR as the software accompaniment. Corners of the space, he says, are dedicated to different working styles – modular, drum machine, computer – but everything is within reach, which to me is also the epitome of the brilliant Buchla design itself. If you can’t afford a modular (and certainly most of us can’t afford a Buchla 200), perhaps the ergonomics is the single most important lesson to learn here.

4. Mavis Concave, Robert Inhuman and Vankmen of Realicide adapt to a variety of environments – the corner of someone’s room, different homes. As Mavis says, the people in your surroundings often matter more than the architecture: “I need to have enough physical space for my gear and be surrounded by people who encourage the work that I am doing. I can’t be surrounded by people who write off my music production as a nuisance to have in the household. That is probably the biggest creativity/productivity block there is for me.” And for fans of hardware (you’re heard in the poll, don’t worry), that means favorite gear that can go in a car trunk, like the Korg ElecTribe ES-1 (called out by both Mavis and Robert).

5. Atom TM. I just love this, because seeing look-alike studios is boring, because I feel strongly that aesthetics around you can provide visual stimulation for your sonic creativity centers, and because it defies conventional wisdom. So I have to just run the whole quote – decoration instead of gear. (Next – perhaps decorated gear?) Take that, blank white walls of Berlin!

“Decoration instead of gear” became the motto. All my workspaces had to have big windows and if possible a nice view (even though I tend to close the curtains in summer during daytime). I don’t like “studio” atmosphere. I don’t like cables, gear and the entire tech-look. Environments that make me feel well and relaxed are usually of a different type. I like old furniture, warm colours, ornaments and in general everything that does not look contemporary. The contemporary look usually is contaminated with bad taste and pretentious design. Further, the decoration itself helps to absorb reflections and creates a dryer sound. I can say that the decoration itself, that is, obtaining/installing as well as creating amongst it, gives me more satisfaction than obtaining/installing equipment. I can see why “studios” have to look “tech”, that is because the studio owner needs to impress the entirely clueless cast of customers. There is no reason whatever to follow that look, just because it is somewhat implied in the equipment itself. In general I’m very sensible when it comes to “making music”. I find it hard to focus in other studios that don’t fit my aesthetics and sound. I think that my workspace is a perfect combination of the technical-, creative- and aethetic aspects of my work and it has become what it is through a long development of those three components.

Editorial note: In a blinding error of reading on my part, I read the words “Analog Live” as a misprint of “Ableton Live,” as referenced in the original draft of this story. I’ve been looking at software too long. To be clear, this was my inability to read, not a typo on the part of TRASH_AUDIO. I still like the idea of a parody of Ableton’s site redone in analog gear. I will from now on keep that fantasy to myself and stop applying it to the rest of the world.

Whether or not any of these approaches is meaningful to you may vary. But to me, just hearing people make decisions to reorganize their space is refreshing. I find sometimes even an arbitrary change of scenery can help unstop creative juices. Let us know if the same is true for you.

Out today in the US is the new release from The Chemical Brothers, ‘Further.’ From what I’ve heard so far, expect a full-bodied, raucous record of sounds, neither particularly retro nor modern. I’m withholding judgment on how successful the direction is until I spend some quality time with it. I find it interesting that the press materials suggest the result should sound a bit like a live set – and I likewise look forward to seeing the act live when they come to New York in early September.

What’s also interesting about this release is that it’s an audiovisual album. Each track comes accompanied by a film, as previewed above. It’s not a new idea, but it’s one that main gain more traction now than ever before, thanks to mobile players capable of playing both kinds of content. I’m a little disappointed that a lot of the language of the visuals is familiar, from textured dancing silhouettes to flocks of birds. But given the range, it seems likely at least one or two gems might emerge, and I love the fact that they’re giving audiovisual records a go. The visual work is by director Adam Smith, aka Flat Nose George, whose credits include visuals for this season’s Doctor Who, Chemical Brothers’ own “Galvanize,” and Lady Sovereign.

iTunes buyers in North America get a “pass” of content that includes the audiovisual download and some extra tracks. But physical media buyers aren’t left out: the deluxe edition appears to have the most content, including a ‘making of’ video. Full details:

http://www.thechemicalbrothers.com/further/

The art of music is as expressive an art as you can find, so why shouldn’t the objects we use to make music be equally personal and creative? That’s the question we ask regularly on CDM, so we’re pleased to be sponsoring a contest with our friends at Instructables, along with the good people of Bleep Labs and custom speaker maker Zalytron.

Instructables, of course, are a site that let you share step-by-step instructions for making stuff. Far from keeping you art secret, they let you claim bragging rights for brilliant creations by letting you share how you’ve made them — and how other folks can do the same. It says that making things doesn’t have to be about something you’ve got that no one else does, but on the contrary, that value can actually come from other people doing the same thing. I got to meet the co-founders on the panel we gave at the OFFF Festival in Lisbon – really terrific folks.

For the Art of Sound Contest, anything’s game – homemade and modded instruments, electronics, circuit bending, speakers, controllers, the lot – even visuals. At the risk of influencing the voting, there’s already a musical light show, on the visual end, a sequencer (seen at top), an Arduino trumpet, and, yes, Spock lovers, even a Vulcan Lyre.

By the way, if you document stuff on Instructables, you can now embed the steps, as seen below. So that means you can make your own page on our in-alpha-testing noisepages community site and add additional details in blog form.

Check out the latest and most popular entries on the contest page:
http://www.instructables.com/contest/artofsound

And, of course, even if you don’t enter, you’ll have lots of things to try making. If you do want to enter, you have until July 26. Stay tuned to CDM as we keep track of the contest and the projects – even if you can’t enter, I promise we’ll have some goodies to share. And, of course, there’s an instructables for how to enter:

How To Enter the Art of Sound Contest – More DIY How To Projects

I’m especially fond of these speaker creatures. Mustache? Monocle? Check. And, hey, even if you lose, there’s an Instructables to teach you to make your own.

Too cute…

Updated: It seems Instructables has gone to a new pricing model. I’m still getting all the details as this is a recent announcement. I realize this may be cause for concern for some of our readers. Suffice to say, I understand that bandwidth-consuming sites aren’t free to run as a publisher myself, but I also understand creators being concerned about specific restrictions – particularly in regards to content they’ve created. It does appear that the “free” accounts are functional; I’m just unclear, for instance, on the “secondary images” – what sizes you have access to, etc. Stay tuned.

Following on from our previous Game On Set. Sam will be kitted out with Serato’s Video-SL (review on CDMo), and I’ll be bringing a brace of live camera feeds with the Vixid VJX16-4 video mixer (minisite | on CDMo).

Last time it went down something like this:

Sampology at Game On – AV Turntablist Set (Part 1) and (Part 2) from Herovision on Vimeo.

Video-SL is fantastic fun, and as a visualist it’s somewhat humbling to discover what a turntable worrier can do when their spinning plastic discs suddenly have power over vision as well as sound. Tune in tomorrow to see.

To sweeten the deal, we’ll be preceeded on stage by Yahtzee (of Zero Punctuation) and Matt and Yug (of Australian Gamer), who will have a screening of their show Game Damage, and then talk about games rather a lot.

Using web production studio Mogulus, the stream will be viewable on the CDMedia channel, and there’s a countdown and embedded player at Herovision.

"Atomic" cover by Glomag f. stealthopera @ Blip Festival 2008 in NYC from 2 Player Productions on Vimeo.

Glomag, here’s an idea for your next set: I stand nonchalantly at your side, edging ever closer until you punch me in the face with one of your air fists. Slapstick gold.

And here’s our friend / CDM drinking buddy Joel Johnson interviewing our other friend 8-bit artist Bubblyfish, for Boing Boing and Offworld.

For more video goodness, Peter Swimm has a whole Blip album up on Vimeo:

Blip Festival 08

Assuming you happen to hate chip music (it’s been known to happen), there’s still plenty to learn from this crew. Sure, you could argue they came up with a gimmick – although I think the essence of marketing is figuring out if there’s a sellable hook in something you already love. But having watched Blip and 8-bit music take off, there are a lot of other, underrated factors:

• They worked together. The 8-bit community in general has done a fantastic job of cross-promotion, supporting each other as fans, going out to get gigs, and advocating the work they do, even before you look at collectives like the awesome 8-bit collective. (That, incidentally, is a great place to start looking at this scene.)
• They have fun. People can bring friends to a Blip gig and be sure their friends will have a good time, whether they’re hard-core fans or not. Now, maybe your music is less “accessible,” but part of what makes this work is that the 8-bit folks do throw good parties, and they share infectious positive energy in what they’re doing, which could be applicable to anything.
• They’re on-message. The 8-bit folks really do have something to say about how technology is used musically, and they say it, via all sorts of different press outlets and the lie. That’s helped add to their longevity, because people believe it’s worth following this music over time. Replace those sentences with something you care about, find some other people who feel the same way, and this is something that can be replicated.
• They’re global. I love New York, which has been a epicenter for this kind of music, but New York can’t begin to sustain these artists on its own. A whole lot of this crew tours, and there’s strong coordination worldwide. Even in New York, it’s a niche genre, which means it needs that international reach to thrive.
• They found parallel fields to connect. Cross the streams! Art, gaming, tech – it turned out that the stuff from the 8-bit crowd mattered to people outside the music world. Result: get out of your own personal bubble.

All of these points sound like a recipe to help unusual music genres do better around the world. I have no doubt that we could have more screaming crowds of people in laptop music, for instance, and that even the world’s hot spots (hello, London, New York, Berlin, Melbourne, and company) would like their scenes to improve. Obviously, the 8-bit scene benefits from timing and their unique field. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from them and fight for your own Indietronica Augmented Microtonal Banjo movement.