Diving back into the heady world of semi random sequencing, here’s a ‘brief’ 10 minute experiment in Glitch Sequencer.

I’m still getting my head round the workings and possibilities of Glitch with Ableton Live so there’s a long way to go before I take this show on the road.

Apologies for the awful humm during the quiet parts – Warrior needs external soundcard interface…

Glitch test 12.08.10 by The Curious Machine

Considering my recent ambient/drone output, I thought i’d upload this ancient piece of music I did for my degree show (in 1999!), collaborating with Graham Blackwell, who kindly played guitar while I mashed it with an assortment of effects units and pedals.

This is 9 minutes of pleasant drone morphing into a wall of noise and back out again – play it loud. Unless you’re sat on a bus.

Moonbase (Alphaville) by The Curious Machine

Here’s another new track, started on Saturday afternoon. Another ambient treat, continuing in the flavour of Gost, written under a new moniker.

This is by The last man on Mars.

To the downs we burrow by The last man on Mars

Gost is a rough cut, cooked up over a late night/early morning session of music making, diverging wildly from the usual sequenced electronics I indulge in. There’s not an 8-bit sound in sight for starters. This is a new direction for me musically, which I may continue with. We shall see…

Gost by The Curious Machine

After a 5 month absence, Glitch Sequencer is finally up and running on my Mac. As of yesterday i’m back controlling Ableton Live with it – this is a recording of me getting the hang of it all again.

Random drum samples used, in conjunction with a broken up Philip Glass track I originally remixed with Glitch Seq and Plogue Bidule a year ago.

Glitch Seq/Live test by The Curious Machine

This is my first toe dip into the world of coding, created in a Lovebytes workshop by hacking an Open Frameworks example, which uses audio to affect the visuals on screen. The end goal is to create a visual accompaniment to my live gigs, using MIDI, audio and possibly even a webcam, to generate and affect the visuals.

Small word of warning – I used feedback from laptop’s microphone as a sound source so turn your speakers down before hitting play.

Thursday 25th March saw me performing live & improvised electronica sets on a Nintendo DS at GameCityNights, using the homebrew Glitch DS software.

I played twice over the night, first with new and original material, testing out ideas and styles during a 16 minute noodle. This was followed by a remix of Philip Glass’ ‘Brazil’, taken from Chime (a musical puzzle game being talked about on the night).

Recordings of the gig lie below.

Curious City by The Curious Machine

Glass City by The Curious Machine

I’ve been invited to perform at Nottingham’s second CameCityNights event next week, supporting Ste Curran (One Life Left / Zoe Mode) and a bevvy of indie developers. Ste’s talking about the music game Chime, while the indie devs are showing off what they’ve been up to. I’ll be providing music, performed live and improvised on a Nintendo DS, using Glitch DS.
Seeing as Glitch Sequencer is broken at the moment (thanks to a Mac OS update that included changes to Java and midi, apparently), this is a good opportunity for me to dust off some cobwebs and chase that Eden State.

GameCityNights is at Antenna on Thursday 25th March – http://gamecity.org/blog/nights_march

I recently completed a remix of Crystal Teet Heart’s ‘Benny Hill’ for the [Re]Mixed in Sheffield project. Took 3 days thanks to a tight deadline, and was done using traditional sequencing in Logic and LSDJ (im currently working on setting Glitch Sequencer up with Ableton Live – i’d have loved to use it on the remix but time said no).

The fruits of my work and others can be heard at Mixed in Sheffield once it has emerged from the daily drip feed of remixes (starting today). Get yourself there, register, download, and praise Liam for all his hard work.

Test two and general fumbling with Bidule and Glitch arose from a many splintered audio file of a beautiful Philip Glass vocal/piano duet (the name of which i’m unaware).

A live improvised recording lies below.

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