Thursday, May 25, 2006

Gnostic Rocket Live
The Ambient Ping
May 30th, Toronto

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Roger Sader

I will be performing at The Ambient Ping this coming Tuesday, May 30th.

The Ambient Ping
held at The Hacienda Night Club
794 Bathurst St.
Toronto, Canada

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Sean Beresford

I will be joined by special guests Sean Beresford and Roger Sader on guitars and Ses Dunya on vocals.

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Ses Dunya

We will be opening for Morgan Doctor.

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Morgan Doctor

Hope to see you there.

Monday, May 15, 2006

From the Archives: Syntonics
- Live at "Fire in the Sky"

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A blast from the past

MP3: Syntonics - Fire in the Sky live

This is a live set by one of my previous bands, Syntonics. This band featured me (synths, drum machines, theremin, samples), DJ Barbi (vocals, synths, drum machines, effects), Cryogenetic (turntables, vocorder, effects) and Blackout Theory (808 & 303). Like the Botba stuff I have previously posted (post 1, post 2), this was all improvised although it is stylistically very different from Botba.

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The old Syntonics

I have since left the band to pursue Gnostic Rocket as a more full time pursuit (check out lots of Gnostic Rocket MP3s here). Syntonics is now composed of DJ Barbi and Cryogenetic, you can check out their new stuff here.

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The new Syntonics

This was the second of two live sets we played in 2005 at a fantastic alien-abduction themed party put on by Burn On, Ontario's Burning Man community.

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The Solid Silver Dancers

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I guess someone had to go there

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Recommended Online Experimental Music:
Volume Two

Some more online experimental music links for you.

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Video: Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers
by Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjärne Nilsson

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Someone posted a link to this on the SynthSights yahoo news group. Worth the 10 minutes of your time.

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Artist: react[ivat]ion

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Toronto-based art project involving mallets and public art (how can you not like it already). Strikingly haunting to listen to.

"For the post-modern viewer, the whole lure of the concept of "public art" was it's freedom from galleries. Much of the strength of the work came from the fact that it could stand on its own as art beyond the modern concept of curation. But does placing modern abstract forms in public settings really make the work more powerful and give it greater validity as "art"? And what do these works really mean to the public that encounters them everyday? The purpose of this project is to give these "forms" (the sculptures) a "use" (percussive performance incited by the intended audience), or rather to give function to the inanimate forms, in an attempt to give the sculptures more "meaning" as works of "public art". It is an attempt to put the "public" back into the term "public art", not only as an audience, but as a participant."

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Label: The Umbrella Noize Collective

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Interesting Oklahoma City based experimental drone/found sound/noise label. I particularly liked ctephin's The Limitation ov Tone Vol.2 - The Oklahoma Sky.

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I am going to be releasing an exclusive recording on the Umbrella Noize Collective site sometime over the next few weeks. Plus I am in discussions with ctephin to do a collaborative release on the Roil noise label. Stay tuned.

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Label: [seedsound]

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"there is no specific genre to classify seedsound, just good tunes from good people, all around the world."

Loved the the banjo consorsium, an interesting mix of contemporary production techniques and organic instruments. Reminds me of The Books, creators of my favourite album last year, Lost and Safe.

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Label: telescope

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"Telescope is a new Polish netlabel focused on electronic ambient, abstract, experimental, click music, dub-tech, idm, minimal... "

I enjoyed the vitalis popoff release, Die albanische Musik, great drum and bass influenced ambient dub.

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The safrolle release Magnet EP is excellent minimal glitch dub.

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Label: Paris Dub Activitys

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This is a great collection of odd synthy French dub music.

Monday, May 08, 2006

New Track: Mr. Brown please don't leave here

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Korg x911 Guitar Synth

This one is a bit different than the usual, more dronal than dub. I'm in a strange mood today.

MP3: Mr. Brown please don't leave here

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Gibson Hawk tube amp

This is comprised of two layers. The first layer is my Magnatone Lap Steel Guitar, run through my Danelectro Reel Echo. The dry signal from the Reel Echo is sent through the Springboard Dub. The Reel Echo delay signal is sent through my Korg X911 Guitar Synth. Both the Springboard Dub and X911 outputs were fed into my Gibson Hawk tube amp with a some tremolo and spring reverb.

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Springboard Dub

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Magnatone lap steel with matching amp

The second layer is comprised of some spoken-word samples from my Boss SP303 sampler run through the same combo of effects.

Enjoy.

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Boss SP303 Sampler

Monday, May 01, 2006

Gnostic Rocket Live in Toronto - May 2nd

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The rhythm section of doom - Jason and I at an Evil Doers show in London

Tomorrow night I will be performing at The Supermarket (268 Augusta Ave.) as part of Something's Fishy. This is going to be a fantastic night featuring 25 bands of wildly varying genre, including Gnostic Rocket, Doctor, Evil Doers, The Hoa Hoa's, County Works Department and more.

I'll be taking the stage as Gnostic Rocket at about 12:45 am, but come early and catch me playing bass for Evil Doers and Doctor too.

Hope to see you there.

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