Feeds

In the narrow span of five years, dubstep has leapt from a sound that attracted a small circle of head-nodding audiophiles into anthems that command hands-in-the-air for a sea of club goers. One artist proving to be a leader in this metamorphosis is Josh Steele, who produces under the title Flux Pavillion, known for brutal, contorted basslines, and quickly becoming the go-to guy for remixes. Just as Flux Pavillion’s remix of the Freestylers' 'Cracks' was taking the number one position in dubstep downloads, Steele told us, "The brand 'electronic music' is so diverse, I think most modern music falls into that bracket. What I love is the ability to create massive energy with it and keep tweaking and refining tunes for months. Whereas with a band, there’s only so much you can really do… without resorting to using some electronics of course. For me dance music is fun and is better suited to a live environment, but with my tracks I like to put something in there that you can listen to at home as well. I think it’s really interesting how you can turn a dance track into something that actually has real emotion to it." I’m sure the fans would agree that each Flux production swirls with power and emotion. He’s found a way to tap into that element of music that is most visceral and uses it to harvest a reaction. Between his touring, producing, and his booked schedule, we pestered the Flux man just enough for him to take the time to answer our questions.

Read more on Beatportal

Renaissance Man are, in fact two former architects from Finland. Having dominated their native countries' house scene the Finnish duo turned their attentions to Greater Europe, winning hearts and warming dancefloors with their outlandish style of housemusic. Having garnered so much attention Jesse Rose was keen to snap them up to this Made to Play imprint earlier this year. With prestigious shows being lined up in venues such as Fabric and Panorama Bar, Beatportal thought it was the right time to catch up with the plurallistic confused producers and introduce them to our community.

Read more on Beatportal

If Day 1 of the 2010 edition of music conference Nokia Music Connects at the Taj Lands End hotel, Bandra (Mumbai) is anything to go by, the Indian music industry hasn’t learnt much in a year. The conference, that sees bigwigs from the *gasp* mainstream of the music industry gather to discuss such pressing issues as “Regional music and other genres”, opened its Day 1 on Wednesday, Sep 1.

Here are our impressions

1. Starting any new project post lunch is always a bad idea. Heck, we at Indiecision face a 54-69% drop in productivity after we eat our Thai noodles (and watch an episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks) at 1.30pm. If the organisers had intended that attendees got a good night’s rest after the pre-party the night before, the result was that post the excellent buffet at the Taj Lands End hotel, even some of the panelists speaking looked as though they could use a 30-120 minute power nap.
2. As with last year, most opening remarks featured unnecessary rhetoric and the wholesale use of dated buzzwords. The lack of more lively panelists (read Farhad Wadia) meant that most of the discussions ended in all the panelists agreeing with each other as if they were relieved they could finally get off stage and take a 30-120 minute power nap.
3. There were some panelists however who did manage to make specific sense in a way that was not only informational, but also interesting. The dean of music publishing Achille Forler once again layed the smackdown on how little people in the Indian music/entertainment industry know about music publishing taking on Yashraj films who he said “Would call me on Monday” to hear him out about their own music being used internationally, but never called.
4. Given that this was a Nokia event, there was plenty of pimping of the Nokia Ovi music store. But we’re definitely not yet convinced of the product, and DRM in 2010 is just #fail
5. The panel on international music in India saw panelists agree that the sector is “growing” and that people can search for plenty of international music on the Nokia Ovi store, till one representative from PRS UK asked the tough question – how are users going to search for international music, when they don’t know what to search for? The panel was stumped as the coverage of international music in television and radio is negligible. One panelist suggested it could grow via “social media”. Do check out this excellent indie pop trio from Spain called Boat Beam, on NH7.
6. Why is there always one person at all these conferences who believes that not enough is being done for classical music? D-I-Y. Start your own classical music blog. Coming soon on NH7.
7. The panel on live music was the highlight of the conference mainly due to someone who wasn’t on the panel. Dhruv Jagasia, manager of Indian Ocean and Midival Punditz, brought out how those artists are surviving in the Indian music scene purely by being performing musicians. He mentioned how Indian Ocean’s involvement in the soundtrack for the film Peepli Live had improved the band’s visibility therefore getting them potentially more offers, and thereby sparking a much needed Bollywood vs indie debate that, let’s just say, had to be taken offline.
8. Day 1 was closed by a rocking music performance.

Notes from Day 2 of the conference will be up tomorrow.

Oh, and did we mention we launched NH7 there?

Pics: Kunal Kakodkar

Pete Tong TV - Radio One Ibiza Weekend Special
This is one of the best episodes of Pete Tong TV to date! Pete recounts the entire Radio One ibiza weekend whilst standing just inches away from Underworld, playing live onstage at Privilege! With footage from Ibiza Rocks, Wonderland and Privilege. Another massive Ibiza weekend! http://www.petetong.com From: InventaProductions Views: 54 3 ratings Time: 03:44 More in Music

Mounqaliba (Arabic: منقلبة; English: In a State of Reversal), the new album from Natacha Atlas will be released 20 September 2010. Co-produced by Samy Bishai, it was inspired by the poems of Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore. In addition to original works, it also contains covers of songs by Françoise Hardy and Nick Drake . The album also features composers Zoe Rahman and Jocelyn Pook.
The album features audio clips from social theorists Peter Joseph and Jacque Fresco through multiple tracks, as well as references to Zeitgeist: Addendum and a resource-based economy.

Track list

1. Intro
2. Makkan
3. Matrah Interlude
4. Bada Al Fajir
5. Muwashah Ozkourini
6. River Man
7. Batkallim
8. Mounqaliba
9. Le Cor, Le Vent
10. Direct Solutions Interlude
11. Lahazat Nashwa
12. La Nuit Est Sur La Ville
13. Fresco’s Interlude
14. Ghoroub
15. Evening Interlude
16. Taalet
17. Egypt Interlude
18. Nafourat El Anwar

After attending Unconvention late last year, a few themes repeated themselves on the first day of the Nokia Music Connects conference. In no particular order, they were:

a) Bollywood is stifling all other genres of music in India.
b) A vast majority of artistes have a less-than-functional knowledge of copyright.
c) Firang delegates are invariably wowed by the general enthusiasm of the desi music industry. They tell half-truths about how the bands they represent are just itching to tour India, and they claim to be on the lookout for killer Indian acts to take to ‘the West’.

In line with the second half of c), some sort of showcase is traditionally part of the festivities. Presumably, this comprises a selection of acts intended to demonstrate the high quality of Indian talent to these international delegates.

Flash forward to a lanky dude in a corduroy blazer and matching scarf moaning, ‘This next song is about how to propose a woman.” I haven’t seen so much cringing since the Great Cringe Summit of 2003. Billed as ‘the first Hindi hard rock band’, Rios had the distinct disadvantage of playing to an entirely sober crowd by virtue of being first up. They didn’t do themselves any favors though. They were dressed for a Sindhi wedding reception. The guitarist (sporting a white blazer from the Jeetendra Collection) abused the Floyd Rose tremolo on his Ibanez with dive bombs straight from 1983. The vocalist was woefully off key, and spent the entire set making feeble attempts to hold a tune. To his credit though, I do believe he spent as much time singing sharp as he did flat – on average, I guess he was pretty okay. Apparently, they’re signed to EMI and have just recorded their second album which is slated for imminent release. I hope the auto-tune was set to maximum.

Unsurprisingly, most of the delegates chose to spend their evening outside the conference hall and by the bar/buffet after this debacle. The high point of the night was Sriram, this year’s Indian Idol, who was stellar in comparison as he belted out filmy numbers with the help of a backing track.

Based solely off this night, an otherwise clueless international booking/talent agent might come to the logical conclusion that non-Bollywood music in India deserves to be stifled because it is largely atrocious. Probably not the exact outcome that the organizers were hoping for when they programmed this ‘showcase’.

Singer-songwriter/Blue Frog co-owner Ashutosh Phatak launched his sophomore album The Petri Dish Project at the Blue Frog, Mumbai on Friday, Aug 27. We were there.

A crazy lights show, psychedelic visuals and an array of electronics – Ashutosh Phatak put on a show, good and proper. For the launch of The Petri Dish Project, Ashu employed every kind of tactic to ensure the crowd remained surprised and entertained, or just that they wouldn’t be bored. With screaming slides and pitch bends, the uptempo album kept the eventually-packed Blue Frog Friday night audience interested.

The Petri Dish Project is an album of collaborations with a host of indie scene ladies. For the first collaboration, cutesy singer-songwriter Ashima Aiyer performed the song ‘Miss Understood’. Small against the big lights and setup, she sang “I don’t wanna be misunderstood”, with voice breaks like strobe lights and looped vocal samples. Projected onto the screen behind her was a flickering black and white visual of a woman dancing, which we got to see live soon enough. POPKOMM contest winner Vasuda Sharma joined Phatak on a slow song, which was fairly uninteresting. The song ‘In Your Hands’ with Blue Frog cohort Dhruv Ghanekar upped the entertainment again, and Ashu informed the audience, “This was written four days ago because I needed two new songs for the album.” Not bad at all for a quickie. Dhruv’s guitarwork as he stood at the edge of the stage was masterful.

The next song had Pallavi Sharma doing an interpretative dance, and she bounced and whirled on and off stage. The song ‘Immaculate’ was the highlight of the set, with vocalist Saba Azad absorbed within a dress of white ruffles, a waiflike frosted ice princess robot zombie porcelain doll. Made up to look plastic, she moved like she was metallic, drawing attention away from the ordinary song and making it 10x better.

Monica Dogra of Shaa’ir + Func was on two songs – ‘Time Stretch’ and ‘Wasteland’, which had a ‘Baba O’Reilly’ spinoff riff with edgy vocals, and a collaboration with Dhruv Ghanekar again. The set ended with ‘Footdub’ with Anushka Manchanda singing “Can you fix me,” with the one prominent vein in Ashu’s forehead, with a bass solo by JD Thirumalai of Bliss Logic, and with a lot of energy, and as the album ended you realize you’d been dancing all the way through.

Ashu has evolved, and the reason this album is an improvement from its predecessor is that he’s realized he’s much better off not left alone, and it would probably work better as a live act, because he managed to turn it into an electronic variety show. Not that all Ashu collaborations have been brilliant, *cough*Smoke*cough*.

Indiecision: B-

There are two ways to ruin a perfectly awesome Jay-Z song – featuring it on the soundtrack of torturous films like Sex and the City 2, and remixing it like this. Otherwise exceptional percussionist/producer Karsh Kale takes away the thick anthemic Alicia Keys “New York” chorus that defines the song, and adds it as an afterthought, drowned in a sea of machine-gun-like glitch. You’re expecting a song about the exhilarating city of the Empire State, and the contrast of light tribal drums brings an unnecessary downer to the hip hop giant’s hit.

Before launching into something that sounds like a techno-imitation-Linkin Park, it starts with an intro that sounds like the sun rising over Africa over a sea of smiling lion cubs gloriously jumping together in slow motion… which probably wasn’t ever Jay-Z’s intention at all. It’s an unofficial remix, so Jay-Z probably doesn’t need to know anyway.

Check it out here.

The Russian duo have a double-disc compilation in the pipeline.

Currently in-studio electro rock act Pentagram have been giving us an insight to their machinations courtesy a new web series called PentaTV (not Penta.TV or PENTA TV or otherwise). The series, produced by Babble Fish Productions, takes us behind-the-scenes as the Mumbai rock giants record their new album Bloodywood.

In the first episode, the band was recording now-gig regular ‘Mental Zero’. The band continues its back-t0-roots soundscapes on the song previewed in episode two ‘Let Go’. If the clips are anything to go by, this album sounds like a more bare-bonesed, funk-based rock record. Which suits us just fine.

Check out episode two of PentaTV.

Taking a good profile picture of your band is a pretty tough proposition. You have to all be together at the same place, look cool, and click. Oh, wait. Now picture this.

Band: One Night Stand

When I think of a certain popular rocking restaurant’s PR agency, I imagine a large room full of chimpanzees and typewriters. Input one legendary band photo, let the simians hash it out over some coffee and a little feces-flinging, spice it up with a bit of Thesaurus.com action and output some comedy gold:

One Night Stand formed in May 2003 comprising of professional rock musicians and an enthusiastic set of response of complete classic rock covers band that primarily covers rock bands across 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s from east going songs by Pink Floyd and Dire Straits to harder songs…The bands spontaneous composition relives the versatile performance only for rocking audiences of…

Truly inspirational stuff. The photo the band sent in clearly struck a chord with our furry friends at the PR agency. I took a good look, and made some notes:

• This looks like the cast photo from a low budget Final Destination sequel, where actors are serially bumped off in horrifically creative ways. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

• The second row seems to be paralyzed by fear, as if a jetliner packed with hand grenades was careening towards them. The first row is just too cool to give a damn. Mr Ibanez even goes so far as to mouth a defiant ‘Yo!’.

• If you look closely, the three guys at the back are also levitating. It would appear that One Night Stand…the band either has some mad yoga chops, or some not-so-mad Photoshop chops.

• If your band’s guitar-person ratio is 1:1 and you aren’t a one-man outfit, that’s a problem. How does this work? Does the drummer have one guitar mounted on a cymbal stand? Does one guy play blazing leads while holding down the bass line with his toes? A logistical cakewalk this is not.

• ‘Hey guys! This living room just isn’t cutting it as a background for our profile photo. What can we splice in place of it? I KNOW! A shitty wall with shit painted all over it. Brilliant!’

• The pièce de résistance, of course, is the scrawled-on band name (brought to you by MS Paint). The use of the airbrush tool shows the band’s attention to detail, it’s tremendously difficult to distinguish that from actual graffiti. The jaunty angle of the ellipsis documents their youthful irreverence, which brings me to…

• … the band. Well, it needed clarifying. When confronted with a picture of five guitar-wielding dudes and the caption of One Night Stand, the sexual deviants among us might immediately flash back to a particularly sordid night of post-gig partying at Razz. But fear not, for this isn’t an endorsement of casual sexual encounters at all! It’s One Night Stand…the band.

The San Francisco minimalist has a classically-tinged LP in the pipeline.

Recently India-launched muscle bike company Harley Davidson has launched a new series of gigs imaginatively titled the Harley Rock Riders tour. The tour will see Mumbai alternative act Split travel to five cities, starting this month, and performing with popular local acts at club gigs, leading up to a “grand concert” at the Hamsadhwani Theatre in New Delhi in December.

Acts supporting Split include New Delhi alternative act Them Clones, Bangalore anti-establishment rockers Thermal & A Quarter, recently reformed classic Indian rock giants Indus Creed, moody alt rockers menwhopause and Hyderabad newcomers Native Tongue.

Dates
Sep 09 – Split + Them Clones, Hard Rock Cafe (New Delhi)
Sep 23 – Split + Them Clones, Score (Chandigarh)
Oct 07 – Split + Indus Creed, Hard Rock Cafe (Mumbai)
Oct 28 – Split + Native Tongue, Hard Rock Cafe (Hyderabad)
Nov 11 – Split + Thermal & A Quarter, Hard Rock Cafe (Bangalore)
Dec 04 – Split + menwhopause + Indus Creed, Hamsadhwani Theatre (New Delhi)

Jon Hopkins performs live at the ICA. Photo (CC-BY-SA) Matt Biddulph.

Classically trained as a pianist, musician and producer Jon Hopkins has one of the richest resumes in electronic music. He’s a frequent collaborator with Brian Eno, wand has worked with artists like Coldplay (who featured his music on their last album), Tunng, David Holmes, and Imogen Heap. He worked with director Peter Jackson, and has a sci-fi score on the way. He also has a rich set of solo releases. And we’ve seen him here recently with remix swaps with Four Tet and contributions to Eno’s upcoming Warp record.

Coming to the Electric Zoo Festival, the blowout Randall’s Island Labor Day weekend electronic party here in New York, he’s set to perform a straight-up, genuinely live set, complete with a small squadron of KAOSS Pads. You can catch him Sunday at 1pm if you’re at the event.

I got a chance to speak to Mr. Hopkins by phone from the UK, before he departed for New York and Electric Zoo. He shares here how he works live onstage and in the studio, talks about how Brian Eno got him hooked on the Kaoss Pad, and reveals his addiction to the tools he first used as a keyboard and resistance to software and hardware upgrades. I’m especially able to resonate with what he has to say about working with sound, and transitioning from a piano background to working as a producer – and I’m listening to his work from a fresh perspective after the combination.

(Don’t miss the spectacularly lo-fi film of “Insides” from Live at the ICA, London, below.)

CDM: Not having seen your live show, knowing only your studio work, I’m looking forward to seeing you at Electric Zoo. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do for live sets?

Hopkins: It’s an Ableton [Live] system at the core of it. I ran off all the separate sounds from my own studio, and kind of loaded everything up into Ableton, so I’ve got total flexibility over all the songs. Then I have separate outputs through the interface, so I can have four or five [Korg] Kaoss Pads running in sync with Ableton, where I can do sampling and looping and all kinds of crazy sounds. And then I go into a mixing desk, and I’ve got a lot of control over what’s going on. I’ve got a little MIDI keyboard up there to play stuff on and to keep things triggering. That’s kind of it, really. It’s not enormously complex, because I have to be able to travel around with it on my own.

How do you use the multiple Kaoss effects in tandem?

The card I use has 16 outputs, so I can separate sounds into different ones and have different effects running on each pad. And sometimes I put one at the end to control the master. It depends. It’s a very flexible setup that way.

In order to assemble your clips, are you simply loading stems from the tracks into Live?

Loops, stem loops, and a little bit of everything. One-shot things, longer things. It’s kind of really just about having a variety, so you can take it any way you feel. I found out recently I’m playing for an hour and half rather than an hour [at Electric Zoo], and I normally do an hour, so there may be some slightly longer pieces. I’ve got some time to prepare, so I’ll go and revisit some other songs and try to bring some new things over, as well. So it should be interesting.

Otherwise, it sounds like the live set is mostly dry; you’re doing most of the processing on the KAOSS Pads.

Yeah. Those things – the Kaoss Pad [KP3], specifically — I was working with Brian Eno over the years and he showed me the original one when it first came out, and I’ve kind of followed them as they go. And seeing from him, some of the crazy things he can do with them — I’ve just gotten really addicted to them. You can kind of make them do things they’re not supposed to do. If you record things into the delay settings, particularly the loop settings, and then speed up the tempo, the craziest effects come out. If you got that going into another one, you end up with a sound onstage that you’d never get out of a computer. It’s cool.

Hopkins at MUTEK earlier this year. Photo (CC-BY-SA) basic_sounds.

Let’s talk about the new single, and the work with Kieran [Hebden / Four Tet]. How did that come about?

Well, we met about three years ago, I think. We had quite a lot of mutual friends. I had been a bit of remixing for an artist on Domino called James Yorkston, who he’d worked with, as well. A year or two later, I signed to Domino.

We did a show together at the Natural History Museum in New York, and it was our first show together – a year and a half ago or something. And the mix of styles went quite well, I think. And we did a few more, and we did a remix swap recently. I did one for his last single, “Angel Echoes,” with the Caribou remix on the other side. And he did one for my new single, which is “Vessel.” And now we have this tour together in October, which I look forward to very much.

Angel Echoes (Jon Hopkins remix) by Four Tet

How do you approach working with his sound, or approach the remix as opposed to your solo work?

It was great, actually, because I love the original. I loved his last album [There Is Love in You] — it was fantastic. The first time I heard it, a guy from Domino played me some of the tracks in the car, way before it was out. And I heard that song, and I just had this idea for it, which was to take that vocal out of the chords he had it in, and write a completely new chord sequence on the piano — have a very natural piano sound, and then have those vocals and those beats flow back in on top of that, and really just try to rewrite the whole chord structure. And he had a live drum loop in there, and I found that if I really squashed it with a limiter … you heard every tiny detail of it. I added an extra few snares here and there, and turned it into a real 3/4 kind of thing, a dance track. And then the main sound — the track was called “Angel Echoes.” I’ve got an old Eventide DSP 4000, which has got a setting called Angel Echoes — which is a complete coincidence; he had never heard of it. I tried putting all the vocals through this Angel Echoes patch and then sent the pitches up an octave and down an octave, as you can with the Eventide in a quite interesting way. There’s this sort of enormous, floating delay. And I had that filtering up in the background while the dry vocals play over top. So you can hear a lot of that effect in the song, particularly in the end. So that was that track.

It seems like the combination really works naturally, that there’s some common aesthetic between the two of you.

There’s some common ground in there, yes. Also… my early albums are completely different than his. I think we’ve grown closer over the years. I think it’s a nice combination, because we have some areas in which we’re similar, and some in which we’re completely different.

What’s your studio setup look like, aside from obviously the aforementioned Eventide?

I’ve got quite a strange combination of things. The core of it is now a Logic system. But I’ve only had it for about a couple of months. Everything I’ve actually released so far was done on Cubase VST from about — I don’t know, 2001 edition; I can’t remember what number it was. And all the sounds I’ve made over the years have been on SoundForge, which is a program I’ve just always loved. I’ve been using it since I was 19; I just got so used to it. I guess it’s whatever program you know best is the best one there is, really. I don’t think there’s huge amounts of difference between one sound editor and another. I’m sure they all can do similar things. But I’ve loved the way SoundForge just has the one massive waveform on the screen, and you can just have infinite levels of undo on every spearate sound. And I have that going into Cubase, so you can have these sounds kind of open live, and be changing them all the way through the process of the song. Just recently, I worked on a film soundtrack, and I found that system finally couldn’t quite handle having any video, so it started crashing a lot. So I’ve got this new Logic system, but I just can’t make any of the more complex sounds on that, because it takes so long. So what I’ve done is hook them up together with an Ethernet cable so now I can drop certain sounds in a folder and have them open in SoundForge and then drop them back in Logic. So I’m using them both, really.

And that’s great. I didn’t want to just completely lose all that, because I think that is what has defined the sounds I’ve been making over the years. I don’t want to change everything in one go. It just seemed like a step backwards in some way.

There’s something psychological about it too, right, when you’ve done a lot of work to have it look familiar? It seems you feel differently about that tool.

You do, I think so, yeah. And particularly when I started on Logic and hooked the two up, I just felt quite bewildered as to how I would ever reach the complexity of editing levels that I was used to. I just operate directly on the waveform. And I love that what you see there on the screen is what you’re hearing, rather than it going through a bunch of live plug-ins. It’s just what I’m used to, really.

So, what don’t you do on the level of the waveform? At what point do you decide, okay, I’m done with that level of granularity with the waveforms and now I’m ready to work with effects and mixing?

I think initially, you go by instinct. In SoundForge, I’d have three or four variations of a loop, and then they would be open in Cubase, or now Logic. And you’d be able to operate on little micro-edits. And then at some point, you feel the drum track is ready, and it doesn’t need any more tweaks — it would be overworked. And I don’t like over-programmed electronic music; I think it had its time, really. Now I really think a solid groove is the way.

And it’s great, at that point you can stick it in Logic. I invested in some crazy plugins, so I’ve got quite a lot of fun things going on in there. Hopefully it will evolve to be the best of both worlds.

Image courtesy The Windish Agency.

And you work a lot with the keyboard, coming at this as a pianist, as well?

Yeah. I didn’t mention that the only keyboard I’ve ever used is a Korg Trinity. I’m sure there aren’t many around these days, but again, like with SoundForge I don’t think it’s about what you use, it’s about how well you know it and how long you’ve been using it. And I know that machine ridiculously well. I’ve had it again since my first setup, when I was 18. And I’ve got a few hundred sounds that I’ve made over the years. Every synth sound on all three of my albums comes from that, with the exception of a couple of bass sounds from a Nord Lead that I’ve got as well.

But it just gets enormously processed. I don’t use them as they are; I stick them into SoundForge and just mess them up, and go through a lot of processes.On the new album, a lot more of the sounds that sound like synths are actually real instruments that have been mangled. A lot of the things that sound like synth pads are actually where I was playing piano through a series of pitch things into quite a deep reverb, and I was using that with a kind of gate to make a lot of the pads and the rhythmic sounds.

You do have a piano in your studio, as well, I would imagine.

It’s, like, behind me when I’m sitting at the computer, so I can swivel around on the chair I can play it. It’s hooked up to a couple of mics, [which] goes into a nice old TL Audio valve pre-amp thing, which then goes into either SoundForge or into Logic, depending on what I’m working on.

It’s the same piano I’ve had since I was a kid, so it’s nice for me, it’s in good condition.

Do you find that piano practice or piano technique are still sort of part of your musical life?

No, unfortunately not; it’s gone. (laughs) I can only play what I need for myself. I used to be a clasically-trained pianist when I was a teenager. I guess it stopped when I was 17; I realize I wasn’t interested in pursuing that, because as a career, I wanted to make my own things.

I used to play a lot of technical stuff which is unfortunately gone. But I couldn’t really justify sitting there and practicing for two hours a day, which is what I used to do. Once you work on musica all the time, music in your spare time isn’t really something you want to do.

Having faced this very issue myself, it doesn’t sound like you feel in any way limited by that. From what I hear in your music, you have far more than enough facility to allow the keyboard to be part of what you do, even if it isn’t central. (And I enjoy that playing.)

Oh yeah. It’s very much limited to the exact thing that I need, but I can still do exactly what I want to hear on what I’m recording. The thing that hasn’t gone is the dynamic range, so I can still play very quietly if I need to, or generally stay in time. It’s just anything fast — but I would never have anything like that anyway, because it’s not really what I’m into playing-wise or writing-wise.

Do you find you draw on the Classical background that you have?

Yes it is, although in a very subliminal way. I haven’t played a Classical piece on the piano since 1998, so whatever’s left — I think I’m more influenced by film scores and what appeals in them, which in turn I guess are influenced classically. But there’s certainly no conscious reference between what I used to listen to and what I used to perform and what I write now.

Next up: a remix 12″ from Domino, with Nathan Fake and Four Tet.

So what are you listening to these days?

(pauses) My mind always goes blank when that question comes up.

Me, too — or I could say, in the last 72 hours?

(laughs) Actually I think I’ve got my iPod right here. I’ve been listening to a friend of mine, Nathan Fake of Border Communities, who did the other remix of my single. Been listening to his stuff, his album Hard Islands. I do tend to listen to stuff that people I work with or who are friends of mine. I listen to a lot of Brian Eno, very specifically the ambient series. I love all of that stuff. You kind of never get bored of that, really.

But I’m also into a lot of songs and more traditional singer stuff like Arthur Russell or Jim Martin, people like that. Proper lyrics I love, as well, almost listen to more of that than electronic stuff.

Take a listen to Nathan Fake’s remix yourself…

jon hopkins – wire (nathan fake remix) by nathan fake •official•

And then you had the experience of Monsters, the sci-fi film.

That was an amazing experience. I don’t know when it comes out in the US, but it comes out in the UK 12th of November. It was the first film I’ve worked on just on my own. Ed.: Hopkins is no stranger to film scoring by way of collaboration, having scored Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones with Brian Eno. And we’re in luck here in the US – the movie arrives October 29, on demand even sooner on September 24.

And there should be a soundtrack album that comes with that. It’s very much more cinematic style, no beats, much more pure melody and atmosphere and tension. So it doesn’t sound like any of my albums, really. It’s interesting to be pushed in different directions by whatever you’re working on.

Had you had the experience of thinking about visual ideas when you worked on music before? I know it’s very different when you have someone else’s image there in front of you.

No, that was a whole new thing, because I actually don’t tend to think particularly visually. I always wanted videos to get made – but you don’t really get those kind of budgets any more. So I don’t tend to think of anything in particular when I’m writing. I just follow the instinct of the melody and where it goes. So it’s almost like having a film in there takes an enormous part of the pressure and responsibility off, because you’re not the main focus.

How slavish were you in terms of how you lined things up?

Pretty specific. I mean, it was my first time on my own, as I said, doing it. So I pretty much was feeling my way; even simple things like how to arrange the sessions on the computer for each queue — it would have been useful to know that you should have a different session for every queue, because I was trying to do it in one and thinking, wow… (laughs) Just simple organization was quite difficult.

I guess the learning curve is administrative as well as creative!

And it went really well in the end. I was working very strange working hours of 2pm to 4am every single day, and sleeping very strange hours, and not doing anything else. It was the middle of winter, and I barely saw daylight. Life is very simple when that’s all you’re doing. You just feel like for that period of time, you’re not thinking of anything else. I manage to take care of everything else that comes up and come in every day and fight through to the end, really. It was an amazing experience.

It’s starting to pick up some great momentum, so we’re really excited about it coming out.

More Information

http://www.madeevent.com/ElectricZoo/

Official site: Jon Hopkins

Monsters Film

And one more Jon Hopkins remix…

Wild Beasts – Two Dancers (Jon Hopkins Remix) by Jon Hopkins

The limited edition package will be available exclusively at Dan Snaith's upcoming fall shows.

Pocket Piano from Critter and Guitari on Vimeo.

Apologies to the immense powers of lumbering studio gear, but a new lifestyle may be forming around unique, mobile, small, simple synths. The latest entry comes from none other than Critter and Gitari, some of our favorite electronics designers, based in Philadelphia. This time, they’re touting a pocket synth. No MIDI, no control voltage – just wooden keys, some knobs, an audio out jack, and a speaker. But the killer feature is, it runs on batteries. That allows you to take it anywhere, including – as evidenced by the video – on the Staten Island Ferry.

The sounds are decidedly lo-fi, but varied in synthesis methods:

• Vibrato Synth
• Harmonic Sweeper
• Two-Octave Arpeggiator
• Octave Cascade
• Mono FM Synth
• FM Arpeggiator

Twist the knobs to select mode and waveform, with a colored light to give you feedback. Then play on the wooden keys, though they require a bit of what the creators describe as “a refined touch.”

Lots of additional sound samples, including some that sound like they escaped from a vintage arcade cabinet (or a really cheap alien spacecraft):
Pocket Piano

Bonus: Here’s a wonderful recorder called the Kaleidoloop from the same builders, costing $299. They’ve been documenting its many powers over the past months. It’s insanely simple – to the point that somewhere, KAOSS Pad engineers are scratching their heads — but also insanely delicious.

Kaleidoloop: Effecting a Voice Recording from Critter and Guitari on Vimeo.

The My My member's first commercial mix is slated for release next month.

The BOSS Pedal Sketch application, a free download today for iPhone and iPod touch, probably isn’t what you think it is – but it is a novel concept in mobile apps, and a sign of some of the new ideas to be explored.

If your first thought was that this is a handheld set of virtual stompboxes, as we’ve seen recently from the likes of IK Multimedia, you’d be wrong. (That’s okay, that’s what I thought at first glance, too.) Of course, as I’ve observed before, while these apps are cool for practice sessions, they’re no replacement for hardware – not until we have phones you can stomp on comfortably.

What BOSS Pedal Sketch actually is is a handheld, digital notebook for remembering your stomp setups. Find a routing and settings you like, and then record them on your mobile, down to where the knobs were. Use a mic (built-in on iPhone, or external on iPhone/iPod) to record audio and remember later what a rig sounds like. Take photos with the camera.

The result is – uh, how shall we say, this charitably – a bit specific. I can’t imagine a guitar player who exclusively owns BOSS pedals. Whoever you are – you, with BOSS sales posters you stole at NAMM pasted above your bed so you can stare at them – you’re welcome. Go enjoy. But I thought it was worth posting as a separate story because it is a unique idea. (I’m also assuming that’s why this wasn’t emphasized by Roland US in today’s announcements.)

That said, of course, I’d probably just make some quick notes in a mobile app like (my own personal favorite) Evernote. Many of those work on alternative platforms, too, in case you don’t have an iPhone. (Memo to mobile app developers: native is cool, but looking at the features here, this could also be a Web app.)

And it does raise some interesting questions, too, like the best way to provide handheld access to settings via MIDI or (ideally, for more futuristic devices) even wirelessly with Bluetooth. So, at least it’s free, and someone will use it, I’m sure, but I’m going to mostly take it as an indication of more useful things to come.

http://www.bosscorp.co.jp/en/sketch/
Via iTunes

Roland dropped a slew of news announcements today, from new keyboards to software. There’s a new JUNO-Gi, which takes Roland’s economical synth workstation and adds multitrack recording and BOSS effects. The virtual piano lineup has all been remade in the image of the V-Piano, with more realistic sampling tech. And there’s a set of offerings as broad as what we’re accustomed to seeing at trade shows, including one nice-looking harmonic stompbox.

Here are the highlights, focusing on what you need to know.

The JUNO that Records

A keyboard workstation, multitrack recording, and BOSS effects, mobile at just over a grand

The JUNO-Gi is the biggest headline here. Built on the JUNO-G, already a slimmed-down rendition of the Fantom in a much cheaper, more compact package, the Gi is a mobile, multi-function workstation at the recession-friendly price of US$1199. It’s a pretty complete all-in-one offering that manages to be cheap and mobile while still cramming in a lot of functionality:

• Battery-powered option.
• Built-in 8-track digital recorder (64 virtual tracks.
• Dedicated mix faders, rhythm machine track, and recording onto a standard SD card (up to 32 GB cards.
• Built-in USB audio and MIDI interface when you’re connected to a computer; SONAR LE bundled.
• Rear-panel XLR mic (thank you, Roland!), guitar, and line inputs.
• Built-in BOSS-GT guitar effects, vocal processing.

To me, the JUNO-Gi looks like a big winner for those who want an all-in-one keyboard workstation rather than a computer when they’re on the go, especially with the addition of real ports, faders, and guitar and vocal effects. And there’s definitely something to be said for that kind of distraction-free workflow.

For background, you can read my 2007 review of the JUNO-Gi’s “-G” predecessor for Keyboard Magazine; I lamented the fact that the “JUNO” name doesn’t really apply in terms of the sound generation, but otherwise found an affordable, balanced keyboard with a friendly front panel. In fact, I really prefer these designs to some of the bigger flagships; to me, it’s like driving a sporty hatchback instead of a lumbering SUV.
Roland Juno-G [Keyboard]

I said at the time – really doubly true now with the addition of BOSS effects and multitrack interface and recording capability:

Despite its price and retro styling, the Juno-G really is a “Fantom-Xpress.” It’s got the processor and sound engine from the pricier Fantom-X line, minus some of the extra bells and whistles. You still get Fantom-class sounds, a multisampled grand piano, compatibility with Roland’s SRX expansion boards, onboard audio and MIDI recording and editing, lots of effects, and a powerful arpeggiator. That makes the Juno-G an unusually feature-packed workstation relative to other budget keyboards.

See also our CDM Q&A on the 2.0 update to the JUNO-G

Digital Pianos Go SuperNATURAL

The other story Roland is pushing is the switch of its digital pianos to a new set of sampling technologies it calls SuperNATURAL. It appears to be a big leap forward for Roland’s pianos, and given the success of the V-Piano, for digital pianos in general.

Roland boils down the technology to three techniques:

1. It’s 88 keys of stereo multi-sampling – no zones.
2. Via tech borrowed from Roland’s V-Piano, it promises smoother transitions between dynamic levels.
3. The decaying tone isn’t looped.

You can watch a video explaining the techniques. (Does anyone else find Roland’s promo videos seem like they fell through a time warp from the 80s? No matter – it’s how the piano plays that counts.)

Now, some of the comparisons Roland makes relative to software piano instruments aren’t quite as fair – a couple of instruments, through clever sampling and/or modeling, do get this right in software. But it is more unique in hardware.

There are four new digital piano products with SuperNATURAL sounds in them. Two of them you probably don’t care about; they’re geared for the home/education market and have notation views built into the music stand:
HPi-6F
HPi-7F

– I’m guessing CDM readers would rather get a keyboard they like and then prop an iPad on the music stand. (Or use this magical technology called paper.)

There’s also the FP series, with built-in speakers:
FP-7f couples the new sound tech with a redesigned keybed. It also adds looping and mic input and harmony effects as new features. US$2190, unless you want it in white, in which case it’s US$2299. Don’t ask.

The keyboard with the new tech most likely to appeal to readers of this site is this:
RD-700NX, the upgrade to Roland’s previous flagship stage piano. As with the FP, this model adds a looper, a vocal mic input with harmony effects, and a new “PHA III Ivory Feel-S Keyboard with Escapement” keybed. There’s also a new, larger LCD screen. US$2999.

The RD-700NX works nicely as a MIDI control keyboard as well as a standalone stage keyboard, so it could be one to watch. I’ll be honest: the Roland action on these keyboards, while solid, was never my favorite. I’m curious to see how the new action feels. And you really have to play simulated pianos to know if they’ve gotten the sampling tech right.

GAIA Editing Software

Part of the whole appeal of the GAIA SH-01 synth is that you work on the front panel and not in software. But I like what Roland is doing with the GAIA Synth Sound Designer – if, for no other reason, because it has an oscilloscope view so you can see the waveform. You can record and play back sound creations in Action Lists, a clever new way of working. And you can use it as an editor/librarian app for backing, organization, and storage – a category that made hardware synths more useful and has been sorely lacking.

d news: instead of providing the app for free, the software, released in October, will list for US$99 (in-store street should be lower). Given the GAIA’s mission of reaching out to new synth lovers, I’d rather see this bundled in box. (Note that this is hardly unprecedented — Moog charges US$79 for their Minimoog Voyager Editor, and a Minimoog owner has shelled out a heck of a lot more cash than a GAIA customer.)

I’m finishing off an SH-01 review, complete with sound design tips, soon, so if you have any last-minute questions, fire away.

A new, multi-effect BOSS pitch stompbox

The BOSS PS-6 “Harmonist” pedal looks delicious. Effects include three-voice harmony, plus four pitch shift modes:

• Harmony
• Pitch Shifter
• Detune
• “Super Bend,” a brand-new mode with “shift,” “rise time,” and “fall time” (so, in other words, it’s a time-based pitch shifter)

US$241.50 in September.

More New Products

In other Roland news:
The AX-Synth is available in black, though at US$1449 list, you’d have to consider the more affordable Lucina AX-09 if you really need a shoulder keyboard. I’m finishing a review of the latter now.

The C-380 is a luxurious-looking, 2-manual modeled pipe organ. I want one, and an underground lair to go with it. (Yeah, sure, it’s the cliche, but I’ve always appreciated the lifestyle choice.)

Roland also has new CUBE-XL guitar amps, though I’ll try to examine those next to a similar announcement from Vox – it’s a good time to be in the market for inexpensive, busk-ready amps.

The Octa-Capture is a new high-res, USB 2.0 10-in, 10-out computer audio interface. Roland is going toward calling these “Roland” interfaces, instead of “Edirol,” and appears to be pushing the quality of these devices. US$699. Unfortunately, this illustrates that we need an updated USB class spec to support interfaces like this without drivers, at least from what I know; you do need the drivers to run this box, so no driver-free operation and no Linux support initially.

The BOSS ST-2 “Power Stack” is a compact pedal that simulates stack-style tube amps. US$162.

If any of this stuff strikes your fancy, let us know, and we can get questions answered for you.

http://www.rolandconnect.com/

Whatever you call Mount Kimbie's music—post-dubstep, folky future garage, warm-fuzzy-wave—they're bringing it to North America this month on a tour hitting nine major cities, coast-to-coast. In keeping with their unorthodox aesthetic, the duo's live show isn't your average exercise in tapping at the space bar. They incorporate guitars, live percussion, on-the-fly sampling, and even vocals, lending a welcome dose of spontaneity to their immersive, hazily psychedelic tunes. Check out their acclaimed debut album, 'Crooks & Lovers', and see the full tour schedule after the jump.

Watch this video on Beatportal