after 3 years of exploration with monome, modular, organelle/pure data, etc., i am excited to release my first recording in this format — a duo with vocalist theo bleckmann on my newly formed greyfade label.
the album is available as a vinyl edition of 150, as well as standard and high-resolution* editions.
process:
the album was recorded over two days at my studio in brooklyn, while theo and i were preparing for a concert with ryucihi sakamoto last year. we decided to get together and explore some new sounds, trying to push ourselves outside of our musical comfort zone. theo’s voice has an unusually broad range of textures, and he doesn’t need very much in the way of gear to get a lot of variety — i believe he was only using two ehx 45000 loopers, plus delay and reverb, in addition to a handful of small found objects. my setup was a bit more elaborate: fender rhodes, makenoise 0-coast, moog subphatty, contact mics, and cassette tape loops, all feeding a mixer with a small eurorack processing setup on one aux send and a critter and guitari organelle on the other aux. the organelle ran a pure data patch i wrote last year that’s a cross between @tehn’s mlr and a 4-track asynchronous looper. more info on the development process of that is in this thread.
i recorded pre- and post-effect stereo inputs into pro tools, for flexibility in mixing, as well as multing a few individual sound sources so i had individual processing control (e.g. theo’s dry mic signal). i then spent the better part of last fall editing through all of the material, assigning catalogue numbers to each improvisation and its subsections (which became the final track titles), and trying to distill the album down into what i felt was its most essential form. i also did a couple of small overdubs, like some piston honda wavetable parts, and some additional digital processing on voice throughout, but the final album is still about 85% live improvised material.
with the greyfade label, i wanted to place an emphasis on audio quality, so everything was recorded, mixed, and mastered at 96/24. the release will not be available on streaming services. you can read more on that decision here.
thank you to everyone in the lines community all the help along the way. this forum was an essential part of my education as regards both modular and monome, and has provided me with hours of essential reading and musical inspiration. thank you.
hope you enjoy the record.
JB
*96k/24b, available through the greyfade shop.
