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.

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.

More information about the festival on lesdigitales.ch.

Photo by achrntatrps

To see more of them : http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/ecology/30-most-incredible…

Mayn River, Siberia, Russia [large size]

Lena River, Russia [large size]

July 15th, 2008 / 9:30 pm
La Cave 12 @ KAB
KIKURI: Merzbow + Keiji Haino

More details on cave12.org

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)

Exposition sous le kiosque à musique : Emeline & Silvio - travail photographique

After à Bikini-Test (22h00-04h00)
(CHF 10.-)

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.

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.

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.

The Love Arms Series is nice too.

Website: http://the-rotators.com

There’s an interesting interview of Muneteru on pingmag.jp.

“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.”

More videos on http://www.youtube.com/rotators

Such trucks can be seen from time to time on the highway but seldom in the city. Actually “dekotora” need to pass an inspection prior to burn the road. I guess it’s better not being involved in a car accident with one of those artsy monsters!

Taken from this page.

Dekotora became popular among truckers in the mid 70’s when the movie “Trucker” (トラック野郎) was released. Below, an excerpt. I love the song at the end.

One might think only japanese can invent such crazy things but there are some countries where “trucks decoration” is big too. Pakistan for instance.

Taken from this page.