Sunday 27 February 2011

Word of the Week #6


Short Pause

I fancied a little break from the studio so I chucked the dog and a synth in the car and we headed off to the countryside for the day....




Saturday 26 February 2011

Independent Electrics

Jordan and Clare from Electric Independence came to the studio yesterday, to interview me and John Foxx. What nice people! They make a great series on electronic musicians and their studios. Check them out here. Can't wait to see us in action!

Look at this amazing episode about Mort:


UPDATE: So here is the finished film. Apart from the fact that the presenter describes my studio and all my equipment as belonging to John Foxx (Jordan, dude, - what happened there?), its pretty cool

Slow Falling Water

Here is a video I took last year when I went to america. Me and Hugo drove for 5 days straight across the middle, see this post for more. However we did make one detour on our trip to see this amazing Frank Lloyd Wright house near Pittsburg. The music is Slow Water by Eno

Glass Circles

Friday 25 February 2011

The Wall

Me and Alfie finished soundproofing the wall in the control room just in time for our TV shoot today. You can see the layers - first 3 plasterboards (with much mastic) and a wooden frame, then RW45 (encapsulated) stuck on spikes, then a fabric jigsaw puzzle. Finally the synths started to return, just as people started arriving - very rock and roll




Saturday 19 February 2011

Dusty

I think I'm going to need one of these after the builders leave....
(thanks Fabio!)

Word of the Week #5

Nono Yes

I have no idea what they are talking about, but it sounds really interesting:





Actually, the above film seems to have been directed and written by Giorgio Sancristoforo, the person in this very cool video:

Exercise for Buchla and Nagra from Giorgio Sancristoforo on Vimeo.

Postcards From Another World

In my previous post I posted about Unmann Wittering who also posts on the Found 0bjects blog, the world trade centre for all things Hauntological. There, I stumbled upon the fantastic and vividly-otherworldly-world of John Hinde, who documented the strange planet that the previous generation inhabited









Burnel, Laker and Zigo

Here is another video, which I saw on the excellent Unmann Wittering blog. I'm going to throw out all my keyboard stands and just play them on the floor from now on as well




UPDATE: Please check out JJB's album "Euroman Cometh" for some serious post punk synth / drum machine / look:

Friday 18 February 2011

Wednesday 16 February 2011

Hard Work

Theres still a lot to do here at the studio today. This is the hole I've got to fill with doors, then soundproof the stairs, then decorate everything, then mix my new album



State of the Art (in 1971)

Saw this over on the Synthtopia blog...

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Serge Sequence Stages

Here is a video I made of me messing around on the Serge Modular. I set up a sequence the other day for my new album, and today I adapted it so I could interact with the sequencer as it played. The sequencer has a switch for each stage that holds the voltage but if other switches are engaged it moves on to that one and so on, etc. I put the signal through the Ibanez AD80 analog delay too

Monday 14 February 2011

Sunday 13 February 2011

Word of the Week #4

Essex Village Modernism

We visited this house yesterday, a mostly original late 60s house right in the center of a quaint Essex village. It is a tempting prospect, if a bit small and overlooked. Afterwards we drove to the studio in Hoxton and it took just under 45 minutes. Very tempting indeed!



Friday 11 February 2011

Please Forgive Us

Here's my current favorite blog: Shit Churches. A web-log of shitty churches

Thursday 10 February 2011

Shoreditch Underpass

For some reason I have never posted this clip from the BBC program about synth-pop called Synth Britannia, featuring John Foxx. What makes this clip so great is that it was shot in my studio! That track he's playing along with is the first thing we ever did together - this is the day I first met him

Wednesday 9 February 2011

Entropical Paradise



Just discovered this over on the Root Blog, a triple album of pure Moog and Buchla modular sounds, now sadly long out of print. Its by Douglas Leedy, an experimental composer who helped set up the electronic music studio at Berkley University in LA in the late 60s. The album is extremely minimal and drawn out and in fact he doesn't describe this as music but as 'six sonic environments' that you hear, but don't necessarily listen to. The full album is over two hours long, and I highly recommend it, but for those in a bit of a rush, here is a little edit I made to get the flavor:




Read below the very interesting liner notes from the LP

Its Full of Builders

This is my studio today, the work has begun and everything is upside down

Saturday 5 February 2011

Friday 4 February 2011

Big Buchlas

Please allow me to wallow in some Buchla madness, found at various times on matrixsynth. First we have two of the best systems I have ever seen of the 70's era 200 series [picture 2 is my all time favorite looking synth, and is actually 100 series modules in a 200 case]. These are from Rick's flickr page, who is in charge of looking after the equipment at the Cantos Foundation in Calgary, lucky chap! He restored these two monsters a while ago. After that is a recent video by Cary Grace, an american musician living in Somerset, although the huge Buchla 200 she is tweaking is in the US. She does a cool radio show which you can listen to here





UPDATE: see the comms


UPDATE2: see the comms again, but here is the actual Cantos Buchla 100 in a 200 case:


OK here is another large system, this time from the background of this picture. I think I am obsessed with Buchlas



UPDATE AGAIN: Some better pictures of the Buchla 100 in a 200 case owned by Cantos:

More Covers and Designs

I found some more book covers and cool designs over on this blog called A Sound Awareness

First up are these ones by Rudolph De Harak







And these posters by Emil Ruder







UPDATE via gog in the comments, I've chosen some more Penguins / Pelicans designed by Germano Facetti