ETHER^RA STUDIO::SERGE CREATURE/SEQ A

THIS SECOND SLEEP STUDIO

NOT ACID

The Acidlab provides the structural underpinning against which a number of looped and live sounds rise and descend into the murky mix; an Alesis Ineko adds elongated delay and the potential for sonic mayhem. In the last few seconds, the Acidlab drops out leaving unadorned noise. Enjoy.

SUB ROSA

Yet another sub rosa gem, HOX it-ness by Wire's E.G. Lewis & A. Karperyd, was produced in 1999 and subsequently lost to all but the most curiously devoted Wire arcana fans. Reflecting a marriage of the most abrasive Dome pieces and the less noise centered rythmic Duet Emmo tracks, the pieces on this album feature E.G. Lewis in horror-show speak-song mode surrounded by a synth/bass/percussion machine structure negotiating itself through a floating abbatoir of fitful noise stabs and punches. While the music on it-ness is a cold unforgiving churn, Lewis' vocal styling, even in its assertive monotone, suggest a potential humanity.

SHORT STATEMENT

GARBLED GAMELAN

REDISCOVERED / POW WOW PLUS CD

Stephen Mallinder's 1986 solo album/cd "Pow Wow Plus"

is a forgotten gem that shows off Mal's skills as a bass player

and sound organizer. The cuts exhibit a distinct ability to

limit his sonic choices, creating music that is compellingly

"minimal," but also dynamic and quite beautiful. There are

few vocals with little of the abrasive qualities the Cabs were

known for early in their career. As the sleeve's designer

Neville Brody stated "the sleeve is about human ritual and

human slaughter." Utterly imbued with the usual taste of

paranoia the Cabs embraced as their "idea fixe," the last

track ends with the words "Lee Harvey Oswald...Lee

Harvey Oswald...Lee Harvey Oswald..." Wow, INDEED!

FREEZE/BREATH

Guided by a nervous sense of intuitive creative flow, this improv, that employs both live and looped material utilizes a number of analogue devices(::VTOL::, Serge, Korg MS20...). and FX. Juggling devices and mixers in real time, and pulling sonic material in and out of the mix, I'm quite pleased with the resulting noises.

LIVE & LOOPED

If you listen closely to this improv you can discern some melodic fragments produced by the looped Critter and Guitari Pocket Piano married to a number of fx units. This is punctuated by ::VTOL:: Cramola slices of arppegiated noise. Enjoy!

IMMENSE SLABS OF SOUND...HULA

Hula, formed about 1980 in Sheffield, UK remain underappreciated in the world of dystopian industrial noise/funk. While they inhabited the same orbit as their comrades, Cabaret Voltaire, and did produce an indie hit "Fever Car," this thinking man's noise never had the same popularity as the Cabs, who produced some of their early work. Pounding rhythms. industrial strength slabs of paranoid dread, and cut-ups negotiate Ron Wright's fevered vocal intensity producing music imbued with what might be termed "negative beauty." (Joan Demmers, Listening Through the Noise, 2010) Someone please re-master their catalogue now!

THE QUAY BROTHERS SHORT FILMS

The Quay Brothers are twins; as a twin I understand the need to create a shared language, a personal vision of the world infused with a distinctive singular meaning. The Quay Brothers create a world populated with the organic and the inanimate, all hauntedly alive. This is magic cinema, artfully created, uncanny and odd. Their work suggests an obsessive concern with detail infused with ghostly eastern european angst and antique longings. The liquid movement they create with stop-action animation straddles the divide between a wet-eyed evocation of the "alive" and phantom mummification. Their hermetic twin-ness dressed in meticulous personal architecture and iconography allows us a glimpse into the uncomfortable "reality" of a buried dream. Stills are from "Street of Crocodiles"(1986, 21 minutes).

CRITTER AND GUITARI POCKET PIANO MINI SYNTH

NEW to the ether^ra studio!

BROTHER BLOG UPDATE

Take a serious look at this new blog. Prepare
to be amazed by the breathe of arcana and
the scope, as well as depth of the entries. The
design is quite beautiful, the content well-
written with a sense of the poetic, and the
sounds/video content are compelling...
http://thissecondsleep.blogspot.com/

QUISCALUS QUISCULA

The Common Grackle whose coloration suggests the color of my Korg MS20 is a somewhat spectral presence. The name of this bird, a frequent backyard visitor, is derived from the latin word graculus "to cough." Large with an iridescent blue/black head, the grackle's contrasting yellow eyes are a bit unnerving.

SPECTRAL

Antique dolls, especially those distressed and showing their age, display a spectral uncanniness not unlike images used by David Lynch or the Quay Brothers, who I recommend you investigate.

SHORT ETHER^RA STUDIO TOUR

::VTOL:: CRAMOLA VS SERGE

CURRENT / RECENT LISTENING

:: Autechre / Movement of Ten
:: Tactile / Recurrence & Intervention
:: Severed Heads / City Slab Horror
:: Rene Hell / Porcelain Opera
:: Moon Wiring Club / Shoes Off and Chairs Away
:: Dome / Yclept

::VTOL:: CRAMOLA VIDEO

SERGE CREATURE/SEQ A

I'm just scratching the surface of the Serge Creature/Seq A combo; the tangle of banana cables suggests my confused exploration in search of a modulated morass of joyful noise...and I'm enjoying the process!

NEW ::VTOL:: CRAMOLA

Finally my ::VTOL:: CRAMOLA has arrived from Moscow! In russian CRAMOLA appropriately means sedition, anti-religion, or just plain sinful, and given this, the Cramola does not let you down. The Cramola is a powerful FX-processor/sound generator that as Dimitriy states "is one of the most powerful and ANGRY machines I've ever made." While I'm just learning to manipulate it, it has, not surprisingly, produced a wonderful cacophony and then some! I'm looking forward to interfacing it with my other ::VTOL:: modules (Corvax, Volfram); the potential of these combinations seem endless, and, no doubt will produce some compelling sound/music. Thanks Dima for all you do.

THIS SECOND SLEEP

BROTHER PROJECTS BLOG

An Inaudible Hum:Noise & the Tyranny of Form...Check out this new blog that focuses on a number of brother projects. Here's the link: http://wwwsecondsleep.blogspot.com/2010/08/welcome.html

POUNDING TUNNEL

DEL DETMARRS / VCS3

Check out these EMS VCS3 sounds, Kegel!

::VTOL:: SUPPLICATION

FROM THE HALLWAY

A view of my small studio from the hallway. Things are getting a little cramped for my creative flow so watch out for some gear going up for sale sometime soon.

GRAND ILLUSION FINISHED

With added "plus" and "minus" signs, "Grande Illusion" is finally complete except for the black frame I construct for every painting in the "White Series" of paintings. Next to it is the beginning stage of a painting tentatively titled "Falling Man."

::VTOL:: CRAMOLA

Soon to arrive from Moscow, the ::VTOL:: Cramola Sound Generator will, no doubt add to my sonic options. The Cramola is not only a sound generator, but also is capable of an array of powerful FX choices, fuzz, ring modulation, distortion, etc. It is also capable of interfacing with other ::VTOL:: sounds modules (Volfram, Corvax and others). The first page of the manual pictured will give you some idea of tha Cramola's POWER! Thanks Dima!

BANANAS!!!

For holding banana cables, this wall holder from Pomona cannot be beat! Tangle avoided!...at least until the cables are actually used on my ::VTOL:: synths or my Serge Creature/Seq A combo!

OHM / Mika Vainio

Pronounced "ohm," this Mika Vainio side-project "Oleva" cd (2008) is quite interesting, being sonically exploratory, from sledgehammer beats to ambient textures (or both!), and the inclusion on Pink Floyd's "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun," here titled "Set the Controls TO the Heart of the Sun."

KOSMISCHE

Just a short improv using some looped material from my Oberheim OB-1 and the usual suspects takings its inspiration from some early Tangerine Dream material. The ::VTOL:: Corvax is producing the subtle percussive sound while the Serge Creature/Seq A is playing a faintly "sci-fi" sequence crawl. The Doepfer Dark Energy spits white noise bile. KOSMISCHE!

WORK IN PROGRESS?

This piece started life conceptually with the title of Jean Renoir's film "Grande Illusion" rattling around in the back of my mind. If I remember correctly that film's idea fixe was anti-war...so topical in today's environment of American wars raging on two fronts arguably the result of hubris guided by over-riding GREED. Furthermore, knee-jerk materialism, so at the heart of the American "Dream," supplies an endless motivation for topical contemporary creation/art-making.

The dreams of EMPIRE that possessed the previous administration have a historical precedent in the Roman Empire. While that outward expansion left behind an incredible array of art and architecture, perhaps when we have met a similar fate our primary artefact will be MacDonalds. Rejoice and spread american monoculture bereft of cultural/culinary nourishment!

ESPLENDOR GEOMETRICO BOX SETS

Esplendor Geometrico, early purveyors of pounding industrial music, have been reissued AND REMASTERED by Captain Trips Records in Japan. These three box sets contain much of their best work in a genre often overlooked and often denigrated by those with more conventional tastes in (experimental) music. They can be purchased at either the Captain Trips site or, from Spain, via Geometrik Records. Esplendor Geometrico deserve to be heard!

CAGEIAN GIFT

STUDIO VIEW / KEYBOARDS

My keyboards, a mixture of classic analogue monosynths(Oberheim OB-1, Arp Odyssey,and a Korg MS-20) and the digital polyphonic(Nord Lead 20th Anniversary Model), all add many sonic options to my arsenal. ALL of them have a signature sonic fingerprint, from the MS-20's raspy filter to the wonderful analogue warmth of the Oberheim OB-1. Also pictured, albeit somewhat hidden, is a Korg KP3, an Alesis Bitrman, an Electro-Harmonix Looper, an OTO Biscuit(INCREDIBLE device!!!), a Jomox T-Resonator, and the MFB-503 DrumComputer.