De/Vision
It’s been some time since I listened to De/Vision, I still have some problems with their Depeche wanna-be style, but their latest album Noob has some qualities, at least as a background running a car home from a much fatter party….
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7440kGrPvk]
De/Vision have been among the leading representatives of the Electro / Synth-Pop genre for almost twenty years and their constant open-mindedness towards new influences and forms of expression is without doubt one of the fundamental factors for enduring success of this band. Last year’s “Best Of” album contained a wide range of exceptionally gifted pop anthems, including the exclusive “Love Will Find A Way”, recorded specifically for the compilation and Thomas and Steffen’s first real compositional collaboration with their production team Schumann & Bach. This new collaboration worked so well that “Noob” was recorded entirely by this tried and tested gang of four.
The pleasing result of this new working method is an album that sparkles with lightly shimmering Electro-Pop gems. Songs such as “Death Of Me”, “What You Deserve”, “Living Fast Dying Young”, the promo single “Flavour Of The Week’ or the new version of “Love Will Find A Way” flow with invigorating lightness, De/Vision immersing
themselves in melancholy dream worlds with “See What I See”, and above all this hovers a nostalgic retro feeling that brings to mind the band’s musical roots. “Noob” finds De/Vision embarking ( to some extent ) on a journey back to the 80’s, a time of busy experimentation in the resurrected Electro scene, meticulously merging pop, rock and ambient elements.
VFX Nostalgia – Remember "Dark Ware"
DarkWare products were produced from June’05 till December’05. The first public DarkWare release was El Fuego, the last public Darkware release was Glitch Jockey (arguably The Nightmare Machine could be considered the final release). DarkWare products were featured in a variety of electronic music software magazines (Computer Music, Future Music, DTMM, etc.), and quickly amassed a cult following. However, after nearly 30 DarkWare releases, Jack got tired of producing freeware VST. Thusly in January ’06, Jack ended DarkWare permanently so he could start selling commercial VST called NOVUZEIT.
Dark Ware is freeware, download as much as you want here >>
According to themseleves:
If you think DarkWare is good you will be blown away by NOVUZEIT.
Commodore 64 – VST – a little beauty
basic64 is inspired by the 8 bit sounds of the classic Commodore 64.
It’s not a straight emulation, but is based around the SID chip with some extras for that 8-bit retro game sound, lofi gritty noises or just plain oddness
features
– 16, 8 or 6 bit sound quality
– 3 oscs, each with their own ADSR envelope
– oscillators can be sync’d and ring modulated by each other
– pitch envelope modulation
– pitch wobble option, for subtle instability
– 2 tempo-sync LFO’s to modulate pitch, cut-off and pulse width
– LFO’s have attack/release curves
– tempo-sync arpegiator
– flexible routing to state variable filter (LP, HP & BP)
– envelopes can be reset or continuous at retrigger
– monophonic or polyphonic option
– midi learn / midi CC support
– 128 presets by sinkmusic & WhiskeyPriest
Commodore 64 Audio
Fancy some good old C64 look-a-likes, well be inspired at:
Became especially fond of this guy, OK not all of it, but some of it was really nice and blippy
C=iao
The Elegant Universe – pure electronics….
The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory is one of my all-time favorite books, published in 1999 which introduces string theory and provides a comprehensive though non-technical assessment of the theory and some of its shortcomings.
If you do not have time to read make sure to view the movies
Beginning with a brief consideration of classical physics, which concentrates on the major conflicts in physics, Greene establishes a historical context for string theory as a necessary means of integrating the probabilistic world of the standard model of particle physics and the deterministic Newtonian physics of the macroscopic world. Greene discusses the essential problem facing modern physics: unification of Albert Einstein’s theory of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Greene suggests that string theory is the solution to these two conflicting approaches. Greene frequently uses analogies and thought experiments to provide a means for the layman to come to terms with the theory which has the potential to create a unified theory of physics.
The Elegant Universe was adapted for a three hour program in three parts for television broadcast in late 2003 on the PBS series NOVA.
Watch them here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html
For once I feel lost in space – Kenji Siratori
I must admit to everyone that I had never heard of this dude before (until today), when I saw that Wreathy (a new swedish elctro act) had a quote from this guy in one of their new songs. Below you find a description of him taken from myspace:
Kenji Siratori: a Japanese cyberpunk writer who is currently bombarding the internet with wave upon wave of highly experimental, uncompromising, progressive, intense prose. His is a writing style that not only breaks with tradition, it severs all cords, and can only really be compared to the kind of experimental writing techniques employed by the Surrealists, William Burroughs and Antonin Artaud. Embracing the image mayhem of the digital age, his relentless prose is nonsensical and extreme, avant-garde and confused, with precedence given to twisted imagery, pace and experimentation over
linear narrative and character development. With unparalleled stylistic terrorism, he unleashes his literary attack. An unprovoked assault on the senses. Blood Electric (Creation Books) was acclaimed by David Bowie.
However, I do have some rumors about this guy – that it isn´t actually one guy, but a collective of people. Not sure if this is true, but it would certainly explain the quantity of “bullshit” 
eminating from this source
Find out more here:
http://www.myspace.com/kenjisiratori
ODW – Still can´t figure out how I came to like these guys back then
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX6qcmz9hYQ]
Glad to see that these guys hasn’t decided to do a come back tour, some old relics from the past deserves to stay as relics LOL, I believe I still have some tapes up on the attick with some of their earliest recordings – correct me if I am wrong but didn´t they also record songs where they ran the music backwards creating some fairly unique sounds – maybe that was why I thought they were entertaining
Ciao
Oberheim Matrix-12
Spent an hour in one of my fav synthshops this week and played around with an old favorite of mine the Oberheim Matrix-12 – had almost forgotten how nice it sounds – can´t remember right now which group it was that was using it the most, could have been OMD but I am not sure. Below is a video clip featuring an Oberheim OBX (couldn´t find a clip of the M-12) paired with an TR 606 and an SH 101, me like
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl8hKDM5FA0]
About the Matrix-12
The Matrix-12, truly one of the “Monsters” of programmable analog synthesizers. It is basically two complete Oberheim Xpanders hooked up to a velocity-sensitive (including release velocity), pressure-sensitive (there were some early Matrix-12s that did not have pressure-sensitivity), 5-octave, 61-note (C-C) keyboard. With 24 oscillators (two VCOs per voice) it can be set up as a 12-part monophonic or a 6-part polyphonic multi-timbral synth. The front panel is exactly like the Xpander, except for one button that switches between voices 1-6 and 7-12.
DATAMASKIN
