Nice live performance, nice feelings!

Yesterday, I played my latest live performance at Théâtre National de la Criée in Marseille.
It was a very nice set and I think people appreciated it.

The official/unofficial Protofuse‘s manager was there: BIG thanks to Lucien de Baixo for his precious & infinite help !
He took some photos & I’ll post them asap here.

BIG Thanks to my other friends Denis, Ilaria, Jonathan & Guillaume I didn’t even talk with because of the busy mood of this evening !

Strange & new setup for my close next music live performances

Explorations HAVE to be made on a real exploration mode.
You can decide to explore this or that forrest, ok, but if you want to walk close of the tree #12, then the #14, then the 143 etc you aren’t exploring, you are .. like .. working and in any case, you’ll bore yourself in a very deterministic way.

I decided to explore as protofuse, and not to determine the path before as an a priori
And it comes with some dead end, and lost moments but never really lost.

These little sentences are just about analogies with my musical explorations.
Indeed, it is light, and I could probably write a whole book about that. Maybe it will come.

I have been invited to a festival named Les Musiques by the GMEM.
You can read this about this event.
The official Theater page is here

I decided to use a very new & fresh setup for this particular event.

The hardware
I’ll use my BCR2000, the best & solidest rotary encoders machine EVER.
I never found one lighter, solider, cheaper that the BCR2000.
All knobs job will be done with it. I need knobs under my fingers for volume, fx tweaking etc.

I’ll use my monome for all toggling control.
Probably, I’ll use it to control the clips grid in Ableton Live.
I’m using it with a Python script I made a long time ago specifically for this use.
With it, I can scroll, trigger anything.
It could also be replaced by Touchable  or LivKontrol on my iPad.

Why both mentionned ? Because I didn’t choose yet.
I need a light & efficient application ONLY for clip triggering and it seems that Touchable became a bit too big by making everything which, as a digital artist but a programmer too, makes me afraid a bit.

I could also come one day with my own Ableton Live iOS application which would be totally dedicated to clip triggering, clip looping etc.
Btw, it isn’t the point here.

The software
Ableton Live for all the live stuff.
As usual, I’m composing almost everytime a new liveset.
Today, in the afternoon, I found my new way.
The one which inspires me the most.

I have, in white, rhythmic stuff.
4 first tracks are routed to DRUMS one.
I like to tweak only rhythmic parts, letting the others not tweaking.
It provides a nice way to break, but to tweak slightly too, letting parts almost independant if it is required.

The track 5 isn’t really used but is often for the bass.
Orbital sounds is my title for anything related to pads, ambient & atmospheric soundscapes.
Orbital could be a reference to a group but it isn’t at all, here.
Micro sounds is my name for anything related to noise systems.

Those titles are very subjectives. They make me feeling well and I know what kind of sound is where.

The tOOL.
Used almost only in studio, I decided to manage complex structures using some Reaktor machines on a side, and to samples some parts for performances purpose.
The way HAS to be flawless & flexible.
I need to focus only on sound when I’m composing so, using that way, I’m fast to create, & integrate into my “real” tracks for stage in seconds!

This next live
I hope you like noises & clunks!
You won’t be disappointed if you do. Else, you’ll cry, which can be odd, but if you cry loud, it could add some strange textures (but please don’t do that)

I could modelize this next performance as

“a strange travel into electronic territories with atmospheric rotating sounds, unfiltered noises all over odd rhythmics”

It will yell from the sound system
You don’t have to be afraid but it will be loud.

If you like crunchy noises, you’ll have it.
If you love smooth ethered pads & atmospheric textures, you’ll be in trance (not related to trance goa, mates)

Intrigated? Then come!
Disappointed? Then, come too, there will be beer to drink, drunk mate!

Because I still didn’t finish even really began myUniverse, I won’t have a lot of visuals to show.
So, I asked to a couple of friends artists to provide me one of their creation.
I hope they will do that.
Else, I’ll plug something nice in the VGA bus.. don’t worry.

Music performance scheduled on May the 15th

In the great National Theater of La criée, I have been invited by GMEM to perform live.

This time, your ears will hear my really really (nervous) IDM.
I hope you are not afraid and are opened to new sound experiences

It will happen on May the 15th around 9:30 PM
The Facebook event is here https://www.facebook.com/events/281294878624714/

myUniverse

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Because every makers/creators/artists have their own universe, it is obvious that, at a particular point of their lives, they want to make the big equation of everything in order to describe it.

Indeed, we (artists), are strange people.
We want to show you everything of us, sometimes nothing, oscillations being a huge part of our work, if we can consider we are working, because I’d prefer to write we are living, instead working.. our life being our work or vice versa.

Building an universe from nothing seems to be hard.
But there are already many parts we just have to stick, to agglomerate, to join.

In my case, I’m just multiple which doesn’t mean mentally ill!

The multiple parts of myself – working together

Art takes its sense with the word technic.
Indeed, even if some doesn’t agree with that, we know art is also relatic to skill.
Britannica Online says Art is “the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others.”

How to separate skill & imagination ?
Indeed, it seems hard, but education, societies, and globally jobs & bosses tend to make you using right & left parts of the brain absolutely not at the same time, which breaks absolutely our bunch of super-powers being inside of us.
My great friend Laurent (Boghossian) agrees 100% with that and it means a lot for me as he’s one of the most accurate to explain that kind of global human theory through his books about management, self-improvement.

Indeed, you have to notice that: each Continue reading »

Festival Les Musiques 2012 / Marseille

I have been invited by the structure named GMEM (Groupe de Musique Experimentale de Marseille) to play one music live performance at the festival named Festival Les Musiques 2012 in Marseille.

I’ll play a one hour music live performance w/ visuals probably.
I planned to provide both side from ambient to more rhythmed soundscapes.
I would probably use my iOS/iPad tool live.

This event will happen on May, the 15th at La Criée (Théâtre National)

I’m happy about that first collaboration with GMEM.
We were in touch since several months, and as usual, this is a particular event which makes us collaborating and concretizing something together.

Here is the Press Kit for that event:

Festival Les Musique 2012

My friend Cigùri plays live at HBC/Berlin

You are in Berlin on tomorrow (saturday night), you already know what to do then forget about it and GO to HBC in order to watch & listen Cigùri !

All informations are here

My video generator begins to live

Designing & testing my video generator with Max & Max for Live as written in some previous posts (especially this one where you can see the global architecture), here is a very light & short video.

Thanks to Synthtopia for the review.

The video generated (in the little black window on the left) has been made with a javascript + MGraphics code designed by Darwin Grosse and provided the 02 / 11 / 12 here)
I altered it a bit in order to follow the requirements of the video generator (framework, I could add)

I’d like to make the core available for you.
We’ll see this point later but not very late

As I wrote previously, the only important point shown here in that video is the concept, not the video generated or else.
Also, I can say I’ll use it as soon as it will be fully functional.
My couple of algorithms will generated strange minimalistic videos and, all along my music performance, these videos will be altered, changed by :
- me tweaked parameters not directly related to visuals (I push a button to mute, I accelerate the tempo, I tweak a panning on this track)
- audio part of music itself (volume, frequency too)

My M4_U feelings & report

I wrote “my” because I wanted to relate my feelings, my perception of this very great & unique event made in Leicester and at which I have been invite by Sean Carroll.
My M4_U started a bit late, because I was travelling.

Indeed, I caught my flight around 10h50, landing on Gatwick Airport, then took a train to St Pancras Intl, and then another one to Leicester.

Continue reading »

Preparing last stuff…

My 2 live performances are almost finished.
Almost because this kind of things are never finished ; but you have to decide, at some point, to say “ok, mates, it is finished”

It is more an internal struggle than a certainty but with practice, I can succeed to do that

Tools used are very interesting today because they offer ways to create copy, branch (in the case you are on a project and you want to explore a way knowing it won’t reach the final point but you want to explore) etc.

Tomorrow, flying to UK/London then train to UK/Leicester.
Cold places, afaik.

Trying to post from there