Dusting the Marotte

Around the new year a radio station here in the U.K. has a programme featuring experts predicting what will happen in the year ahead. Generally their predictions seem entirely credible, yet so often are shown to be less than prescient a year down the line. In fact the significant events often seem to be something that came up out of the blue. Perhaps these events are so significant because no one saw them coming? 

So prediction – a mug’s game played by fools and quacks. 

As we start a new decade it is time to preen my feathers, dust down my marotte and step up to the crystal ball. Here are my predictions for electronic music production over the next decade.

Continue reading “Dusting the Marotte”

Memory Drift

Over 2013 I will be releasing tracks that make up the Memory Drift album. The album is loosely based around the theme of time and place. Each piece is associated with the time it was produced, either because it reflects how I felt at that time, or because it includes references to the sounds around. In the course of making the pieces I acquired a mobile sound recorder, and some of the these sounds make their way into some of the pieces too. There are twelve pieces in all, so I will be releasing one piece each month, with each piece most closely related to the release month.

So the first piece up is called January 2008. At the time this was produced I was going for an all synthesised approach. The tune is an upbeat take on the start of a new year and is available to listen to on the right.

A burning issue?

Pussy Riot“I would like you to think carefully about the following reflection by Montaigne from his Essays written in the 16th century. He wrote: “You are holding your opinions in too high a regard if you burn people alive for them.”” These are the words of Nadia Tolokonnikova who in August 2012 was jailed for two years alongside two fellow members of the group Pussy Riot. Her crime was performing a protest song in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. What does it say about the culture of a country when such people are put into jail? Read the closing statement made by Nadia at the conclusion of the trial and decide for yourself.
Update, October 2012 One of the members of Pussy Riot, Yekaterina Samutsevich was released this month with a suspended sentence following an appeal in which she claimed she didn’t fully take part in the performance. Her fellow band mates, Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova, both mothers to young children are likely to be sent to distant penal colonies.

Update

I must admit I’m finding it hard to get my head around using WordPress to design a site. All the same there has been a fair amount of activity on the site. The latest track to be featured is A Wolf in Cheap Clothing. I’ve also uploaded the album ‘Still’ to Last FM. The material on this album is ambient and beatless and generated algorithmically. I’ve written some articles on algorithmic composition. These were published in the on-line My Atari magazine. This magazine is no more, but if you are interested in this Tim’s Atari Midi World site is still up. I still use the STEEM Atari emulator to run Atari programmes on my laptop, and it occurs to me that with the price of laptops forever falling, and people regularly upgrading there is something to be said for running an older pc as an ATARI clone.

The future was yesterday.