I played at Oblò in June. The set was recorded by Francisco aka Phroq. I’ve never heard it actually! Three months later, I was in the city of Catania, in Sicily, when I received an email from him asking if I’d accept parts of the recording to be used for a compilation of live shows that happened at Oblò. I did accept of course!
So here it is, the first Oblò Sonic live compilation. I’m honored to be surrounded by such great musicians. I look forward to hearing it… And thanks to Francisco who had to listen to hours of recordings and edit tracks one by one. The cover he made is very nice too.
Here are short videos of my last show in Geneva. Thanks ludan dross for the recordings and pics.
I had good time at l’Ecurie. The venue is great with a very good sound system, and we had an excellent dinner. Thanks!
I played after a good set by Les Poissons Autistes. I thought I’d play for 40 minutes but my set lasted nearly one hour. The first part with guitar and glockenspiel was definitely too long. I still have some work to make that ambient piece better but I feel it’s going to the right direction. We’d got a pretty good audience. On the 2nd video at 1:39, you can hear someone making a sound with a bottle. Perfect timing Pippo! I like when such things happen.
Next show in Geneva on March 20th at Le Cabinet. Again it’s POL the organizer. Thanks man!
On October 10th I play with my friends Les Poissons Autistes at L’Ecurie in Geneva, 9 pm. Thanks to POL for inviting us.
I had proposed to call that show: “Laptops and horsepower”. POL has actually decided to simply call it: “Helvet Underground presents: tokoloten & Les Poissons Autistes”
When POL asked to provide a short description of tokoloten for making the flyer, I answered “Accidents sonores et rythmes rechapés à chaud” (literally: “Accidental sounds and retreated beats”). How do retreated beats sound?? I have to find out until next friday…
Address:
Rue de Monbrillant 14, 1201 Genève
or around…
I played last saturday at the festival Les Digitales in La Chaux-de-Fonds. It took place in the Parc des Crêtets. Nice weather, friendly people, great organization… thanks to everyone who made it happen.
There were a dozen of concerts from 3 to 10 pm. I played near the end, around 9 pm. I had prepared a 2-part set. The first part was ambient-like with a glockenspiel and live sampling of objects (balloon again). I had planned to layer guitar loops at the end but my looper pedal didn’t work (no more battery it seemed) so instead I kinda played chords on the guitar, which is pretty unsual for me. I ended this part a bit earlier. The second part was quite different; heavy beats with some percussive field recordings in the background.
You can see on the picture that the “kiosque à musique” where we played was really nice.
Some people remembered I’d used a Wii remote last year at Les Digitales in Lausanne and asked me if I’d have my Wii this time… well, I wanted to have it but it seems it’s not working anymore with my old Mac. This is a known issue, the Wii connects through Bluetooth and then a bunch of seconds later it disconnects. I’m afraid I’ll have to wait for a new laptop to reuse my Wii.
Herebelow two videos of my set. There are some more on YouTube.
Les Digitales took place last friday in Lausanne. Unfortunately that was a rainy day, so it couldn’t happen in the Parc de Mon Repos and moved to the Casino de Montbenon. I couldn’t go there, I was sick. I listened to the concerts on the radio though…
Anyway, it’s Digitales again this saturday in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
Here is the official schedule:
14h55 - 15h25 : 52e Avenue (NE)
15h30 - 16h00 : Baron Von Öctø Püss et le bruit qui court (NE)
16h05 - 16h35 : HS System (JU)
16h40 - 17h10 : Edwin + Hund (BE-SO)
17h15 - 17h45 : Softland (ZH)
17h50 - 18h20 : Dashûr (NE)
18h25 - 18h55 : ATOLL (GE)
19h00 - 19h30 : Self-sévice (NE)
19h35 - 20h05 : Feldermelder (FR)
20h10 - 20h40 : Stakanovistes (BE) 20h45 - 21h15 : Tokoloten (VD)
21h20 - 21h50 : HOME MADE (ZH)
As usual, I still have a lot to prepare and just a couple of days left. It’d be easier if I’d play the same set again and again but it doesn’t interest me, really. The theme of the festival is “Sphere” so I’ll bring some spherical stuff… I can’t say more.
Herebelow is the programme of the festival Les Digitales that takes place at la Chaux-de-Fonds on August 30th.
LES DIGITALES DE LA CHAUX-DE-FONDS
Samedi 30 août 2008
Festival itinérant de musiques électroniques, les Digitales feront halte pour la 3ème année consecutive au kiosque à musique du Parc des Crêtets. C’est au coeur de la ville, allongé sur un transat, que vous pourrez savourer de tous vos sens une programmation à la fois éclectique et pointue, entre concerts électroniques, performances et installation surpenantes, rafraichissements et petite restauration.
Concerts au Parc des Crêtets (15h00-22h00)
(entrée libre)
Softland
Feldermelder
Edwin + Hund
HOME MADE Tokoloten (← me!)
ATOLL
Stakanovistes
HS system
52e Avenue
Dashûr
Self-Sévice
Baron von Öctø Püss et le bruit qui court
Exposition sous le kiosque à musique : Emeline & Silvio - travail photographique
After à Bikini-Test (22h00-04h00)
(CHF 10.-)
Digital Natives (live)
Mobilehome DJ set
Carsika
Scott Sloane
I started working on a max/msp patch that’d do what the Boss Loop Station pedals do: layering loops in real-time. I don’t have much experience with max so it was a good project to get better skills. Version 5 of max has really brought some great improvements, like the dynamic documentation and help. Max has become much more intuitive. I also like the new presentation mode which allows to design much cleaner interfaces.
So I started juggle with loadbang, record~, buffer~ objects. Actually timing is a bit tricky… But today I found an AudioUnit plug-in which seems to do what I want: SooperLooper. The good point is that I can run SooperLooper directly into Ableton Live as a plug-in. I’m gonna test it first and then I might be using it instead of developing my very own patch. Anyway I’m still interested in doing my own interface so I’ll definitely go back to max soon.
I thought it’d be a good following to the post about Rotators; John Cage performing his brilliant “Water Walk” composition on NBC in 1960.
From johncage.info: “The materials required are all related to water. Some examples: Bath tub, toy fish, grand piano, pressure cooker where steam is being released, ice cubes and an electric mixer to crush them, rubber duck, goose whistle, 5 radios, etc.
The score consists of a list of properties, a floorplan showing the the placements of instruments and objects, thrre pages with a timeline (one minute each) with descriptions and pictographic notations of occurence of events and a list of notes “regarding some of the actions to be made in the order of occurence” (from score). Timings are not accurate: “Start watch and then time actions as closely as possible to their appearance in the score” (from score).”
Well, I don’t really see how a grand piano can be related to water, but that’s fine with me.
And I can’t resist posting this video of Frank Zappa showing Steve Allen how to play bicycle. It was in 1963, Zappa was 22 years old. Search “Frank Zappa bicycle” on YouTube for seeing the whole show.
Following my post about Dekotora, I thought I’d talk about japanese artist Ujino Muneteru who could have been a Dekotora driver from an aesthetics standpoint.
Since 2004, he’s been building instruments called “Rotators” which are a well crafted mix of sundry household appliances. When I discovered “Rotators” I was amazed how carefully assembled they were. It wouldn’t make sound yet it’d be still beautiful pieces of art. But it’s actually designed for making sounds. Muneteru controls “Rotators” through a kind of mixer which turns on/off the instruments. Beat patterns are made by sticking small cubes on vinyl discs and using custom turntables.
“I set up everything on the table and control everything from the Rotatorhead, so it ends up looking like a cooking show on TV. As for the instruments, the permanent members of the Rotators are: the blender, for its heavy, low frequency sounds - like a punchy kick drum; the drill, set up too for its snappy, tight snare drum sound; and the hair dryer, which is always involved with my performances because it resembles a fuzzy bass but sometimes takes the role of vocals. Then, I control the Rotatorhead and program it to play in a variety of ways.”
