music
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In a weird state for creative projects given an impending move (I’ve packed up nearly all of my physical music gear, for instance), but it’s given me the opportunity to start messing around with VCV Rack. Treating this as an exercise in constraint rather than frustration.
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Instagram Live stream using a live-coded sample looper in Sonic Pi and the Paracosm Lumen software video synthesizer.
Still from the video stream created by video synthesizer.
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Optimizing friction
Over and in response to the last few months, I’ve been reflecting about intentionality, and how I spend my time creating things. I have tried to improve the indiewebbiness of my site, and understanding what it means to “scratch my own itch”. This resonates particularly lately because it’s leading me to mull over which parts should be hard and easy. Unsurprisingly, much of that is personal preference, and figuring out how I want to optimize from the perspective of user experience. Friction in UX can be a powerful tool, part of what I’m trying to find is where I want to retain friction as it helps me remain intentional.
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My new album is out. Eight tracks of disquieting drone/ambient/shoegaze, inspired by anxiety, climate grief, crustaceans, the coast, and nuclear power. Initial run of 200 pro-duplicated cassettes with letterpress printed covers. Massive thanks to folks who had a role in this release: @acid_lich for illustrations, James Plotkin for mastering, and Ben Owen at Middle Press for printing. Additional thanks to @TheGnarrator, @withoutdoom, and @adamfligsten for getting me to commit to using REAPER.
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August 7, 2020: Drone Folder/Music for Archives
I'm hosting Drone Folder/Music for Archives on Friday, August 7, 2020 at 9:30 PM Eastern/8:30 PM Central/6:30 PM Pacific. Join your archives colleagues for live ambient, drone, and electroacoustic music. While we mourn not seeing each other in person for the Society of American Archivists Annual Meeting, we offer the opportunity to gather online and imagine the sounds of our future reading rooms. Register for the Zoom meeting. Feel free to connect your gear and join the clamor. You’ll be muted on entry, but feel free to unmute if you’re performing. This will be recorded. -
Myra and I started writing songs together and one night we were at Tastee Diner with Nation of Ulysses, who were playing a show the next day. Steve Gamboa dared us to play the show, but we didn’t have a drummer. He said he’d play drums for us if we opened. So we practiced with him all the next day before the show. Then we played our three songs, and it was a total mess.
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2018: a year in gratitude
This year was largely complicated and often felt like a massive garbage fire to myself and my crew. I didn’t accomplish a number of my goals and was inconsistent about others, so recapping awesome things I did doesn’t feel appropriate and also happens to be a soft reminder of either failure or things not going as planned. I also tend to hate “best of the year” lists but I find them helpful to remember about where I found joy or the ability to connect to something outside of myself. I suppose this is an attempt to reconcile those things, or perhaps more in line with the end of year spirit, a way to articulate gratitude to the people and things around me that impacted me.
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SocketsCDR Audio Zine 3 out soon!
I'm going to be on the latest installment of the SocketsCDR audio zine, curated this time around by Rebecca Mills of The Caution Curves. Sean, the SocketsCDR label honcho, just posted the cover artwork for it and it looks like a great line-up, including friends like The Plums and Stamen & Pistils. This will be my first release in a while (other than the collab CD with myself, Cotton Museum, and Actual Birds on Casanova Temptations). More details will follow, naturally.
Mark A. Matienzo