The Cyndustries List

Does it get any better than this ??
http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2007/11/analog-live-photo-set.html

Slideshow photos of the event:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21030884@N04/
Can't wait to hear first hand reports of this !!

Great show Friday night!
A professional job done by by everyone in a perfect venue.

I was sitting with fellow synthesist Ben Covington in the
center in about the fourth row from the front and could see
and hear everything quite well.
Earlier that day my allergies started acting-up and I was
beginning to panic that I'd be sneezing my head off through
the whole show - so I took several antihistamine pills and
after a an hour our two they didn't seem to be working, so
then I took some Nyquil which works great but can make
you really drowsy...

Of course I had to try Redcat's house drink called a Catatonic
but they would not let them in to the theater so I only had a
couple of gulps, tasty, yes!

 That said, I was in a rather perfect frame of mind to surrender
 myself to the music and enjoy the show :) no sneezing either.

Each performer had an arsenal of equipment that was easily
seen by the audience, and rather than having a typical large
projection screen, there was live video of the performers beamed
onto large strips of hanging scrim material so as to render the
video somewhat more ghostly than usual.  This was my first trip
to Redcat and apparently from looking at the lighting diagrams,
a great depth of the stage was used for rear projection so the
theater is even bigger than experienced.  My recollection of the
videos were that they were competent but rather simple
so as to be integrate into an calming overall ambiance
created by Paul Tzanetopoulos.

Sanctuaries: Faith (2007)

I had been reading of Gary Chang's recent tour of Europe
where he had been performing live electronic music in
surround sound in a variety of interesting acoustic spaces
with Neil Leonard and although only in stereo this time, it
was a real pleasure to listen to some of these same beautiful
and slowly changing ambient chord structures from his tour. 
His Wiard system was of course stunning to behold with
long dual horizontal rows full of blinking LEDs.

The Ghosts on the Windows (2007)

It was interesting to see which of his many sculptural
instruments Chas Smith would bring to the show.  We we
not disappointed by his piece for welded titanium Towers
where long vertical tubes welded to thin horizontal plates
were hammered in quick succession to form lasting resonances.
My moving from tower to tower chords were formed and I
found myself nodding in and out of a pleasant sort of sonic
trance at this point of the show. This reminds me to go buy
some of his CDs!

The Secret Life of Semiconductors (2003)

Peter Grenader was sitting in a glowing chrome cockpit of
his wonderful Euroformat modules and had one of those nifty
new hexagonal keyboards that debuted recently at NAMM.
Peter performed part of his Secret Life of Semiconductors
in what was apparently a mixture of previously recorded
material with live electronics on top?  His piece ended in a
wild accelerando of sequencing with a surprise layer of
even wilder vicious cobra like sequencing on top! 

Paris 1 (2007)

After a brief intermission the show resumed with Alexander
Cortinini playing a combination of Plan B and Buchla modules
doing a really faithful re-creation of the legendary Buchla type
of banjo plucked sequencing...  sort of Low Pass Gates
meets Nine Inch Nails although Alexander was clearly enjoying
a break from rock n roll and acting more as composer
this time.  I found his piece more musical sounding than
Subotnick type Buchla, while paying homage to it.
reading in the program I learned that the piece was actually
writtenin a hotel room in Paris during the NIN european
rock n' roll tour.  That must have been a fun evening!

The aborted Ascension of Angel Assassins (2007)

Thighpaulsandra had more vinatge equipment than anyone
including an EMS Synthi AKS, some Serge panels, and
even an Aries Modular, (so cool to see these still gigging).
He had other gear too including a Moog Voyager.
I felt connected to this piece more than the others
perhaps because it was similar to the type of music that
I hear in my own head? In any event Thighpaulsandra's
extensive experience in live collaborations was clearly evident
as his compositional skills and communication with other
players was excellent.  Traveling to the USA for this show
with so much equipment must have been a real challenge
and I felt that he had succeeded in making it well worth
the trip.

Captract (2004)

Richard Devine was the one Laptop soloist at the show and
frankly his output seemed every bit as fluid and responsive
as the others, in fact he created some pretty diabolically evil
and overwhelmingly powerful sounds.  I'd call his, "IDM
meets heavy metal laptop".  I think his was an important
musical compliment both in style and in timber to rounding
out the whole show.

Was it a great evening?  Hell Yes!
Was it all over way too soon?  Double Hell Yes!

A great thanks to all of the participants and both Peter
Grenader and Barry Schrader for organizing the event.
Loren Nerell and JaNelle Weatherford provided excellent
sound engineering too.  This was a rare gathering of the tribes
and we as a community should do this sort of thing much,
much more often,  (perhaps this group will consider taking
this show out on the road for a few more performances in
the future?)

In the evening's introduction by Barry Schrader he
stated that he has been producing local electronic music
concerts since his shows at Theater Vanguard starting in 1973...
Then I realized that I attended a lot of those shows back then
and was reminded that this evening's performance has come a
long way from the days when a new electronic music premier
involved sitting politely in the audience while watching
nothing more than a reel to reel tape deck turning on stage
under a lone spotlight.

Cynthia


 




 



ramechling_108 wrote:

>
> Does it get any better than this ??
> http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2007/11/analog-live-photo-set.html 
> <http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2007/11/analog-live-photo-set.html>
>
> Slideshow photos of the event:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/21030884@N04/ 
> <http://www.flickr.com/photos/21030884@N04/>
> Can't wait to hear first hand reports of this !!
>
>