Techno for Luddites

Some of the music I've been listening to lately:

posted by deprogram @ 3:13 PM

RAGE

The music video for 'What's the Story?' aired again on ABC TV's RAGE last night, Friday 26 May. Hats off to video artist, J D Young, who produced the clip. I wonder who was out there watching it at around 2.30am - teenagers stuck at home, insomniacs, or partyheads in-between clubs?

RAGE is such an Australian institution. As a teenager I was glued to the program, which goes from late-night till dawn. One video after another - no presenters, scrolling text, nothing. Just wall-to-wall music videos. You never know what's coming up next. Sometimes it'll be a classic clip, then maybe something slightly disturbing, like an Aphex Twin video. Towards morning it goes into top 40 mode, and all the gyrating songstresses and pop idols come up.

I don't have a TV at the moment. So unfortunately I didn't get to check out the broadcast. Other than that, I'm not missing out on much. I seem to get more done without TV. I used to have cable and it was filled with sub-standard music programming like American content-driven MTV. Every now and then there was a good documentary, like a Phil Spector special on the Biography channel, which I was lucky enough to catch at a friend's house. Now my past TV obsession has been replaced with the internet.

posted by deprogram @ 7:44 PM

Ardour.. again.

Cool to see some big names are taking an interest in Ardour at last.
Harrison consoles for example.
I had a look at version 2 today... looks cool.
Thanks for the nice emails people have been sending me about the music.. if you're in Australia.. please help out by requesting 'What's the story?' at your local radio station.
Thanks again for your support.

posted by deprogram @ 2:18 AM

Yesterday we went to a presentation by New York-based mastering studios, Sterling-Sound at Trackdown in Sydney. In a bid to expand their international market, Sterling-Sound have created a nifty piece of software that allows audio files to be verified as they are transferred via FTP, preventing undetected errors during the transfer process. Theoretically that means a fast turnaround for international projects. The prices seemed quite competitive compared to Australia, almost justifying the impulse to send our hard-earned money out of the country and not spend it on our local music industry.

The other tempting factor was their impressive list of credits - from the Beastie Boys to Missy Elliot. I spoke to senior mastering engineer, Chris Gehringer, whose passion for good quality audio was obvious, making me think I'd better start saving up for the mastering of this album...

Speaking of albums, I'd better get back to work. As much as I'd rather cruise around Myspace aimlessly, downloading cool music and videos, I have some surgical precision drum editing to do. Time to match the feel in my head to the actual sound. Robbie's laid down some great grooves to pull loops from. His capacity for improvisation and finding complementary rhythms to match a vocal phrase gives me lots of room to experiment.

I think true improvisers can think ahead and guess what's going to happen musically, then align their playing to it. This is probably why I enjoy playing with Robbie - he can feel out the changes - even with all the curve balls I throw at him. He's constantly poised for something unpredictable to happen, and senses when a particular track needs a build or breakdown. Not to mention, his drum fills are pretty stylish!

posted by deprogram @ 9:18 PM