Yes there’s a big difference. With the way he uses tape in that performance he is constrained to adjusting a handful of parameters - faders, eq, master pitch, change cassette tape, and effects parameters. He doesn’t have access to notes, gates, envelopes etc. Because he’s using stems on tape he’s very limited to what he can do. To put it more bluntly, hes playing a DJ set with a tape recorder, instead of decks. He is doing no more than what a DJ is doiing by fading in / out tracks adjusting the eq and remixing his own material.
The fundamental difference is he doesn’t have access to the individual parameters / individual components of the music because they are sitting in his studio and are not on stage. He has made a studio album then tried to work out how to perform that studio album live based on his NIN experience.
With Ciani, what she has done is the complete opposite. She hasn’t made the album first. She made the material specifically to play live. This is something that resonates with me personally, because that is exactly what I did, with my last album. She is also willing to take the actual gear she made the music with and play it live. She hasn’t made an album first and tried to work out afterwords how to perform it live.
One thing to point out is she uses very few sequences and she rearranges them dozens of ways, on the fly, live. So the sequence data is used as a starting point for improvisation. She also playing with a huge amount of parameters >70+ individual components, note, gate, envelope shape, timbre for variation. If you watch her play, it’s like watching someone spinning plates. She reacts to changes and anticipates things sliding in the wrong direction and jumps in. That’s what makes it enjoyable to me, it’s the unpredictability, you know it’s a true live performance and that it is going to be unique each time. She does’t use any prerecorded material - there is no safety net.
If you watch the first 10 minutes of this you’ll realise she is doing a whole lot more than playing preset sequences. One thing not mentioned is she also does play the lead synth sections of the gig on her iPad. To me this a real electronic live performance…and it’s in quad so the sounds are spinning around the room. Very few artists play in quad and she is a pioneer in that field also.
Btw I do agree with @jnoble regarding Ciani’s studio output, which is very patchy. I think I may also have the rare vinyl of one of her concerts and it was terrible. I have yet to hear a studio album that does justice to her live work. Her 1974 concerts is very good, but the recordings aren’t the best. However, the liner notes alone are worth the buy as it’s contains all her original patch notes and is practically a manual for the MARF sequencer she uses. Cortini’s studio stuff is the opposite. His output is solid and consistent.
