Moog me in the core
I think I’m over cars. None of the new stuff excites me. Paying a premium for what basically amounts to beta technology doesn’t excite me. I need a new technology to nerd out on. So what about synths?
Synths?! Yeah, that’s right, synths. Synthesizers. They synthesize music. Sine waves and shit. I don’t know why this popped up in my Youtube-Algo. Oh wait, probably because I have something planned later this year, concerning Tiktok and my digital art. Just you wait.
Anyway, synths. Did you know there are several different ways to synthesize sounds? Frequency modulation, wave subtraction, granular synthesis, wavetable synthesis, and so on. I think that’s all. But to make absolutely sure, check out Sounds Good’s Youtube channel. She does a good job of explaining the various concepts behind the various bleeps and bloops you find in modern electronic music. And that of the past.
Moogs. They look cool. If I had any money, I’d just buy one of those vertical modules, and put them in the living room. If people fail to synthesize something properly, they don’t get any food. But then there’s also the UDO Super Gemini (or something like that). Super clean, sleek, sounds cool. There’s so many synths out there nowadays, and that’s not even taking into account all the software synths. Reason is still around, I noticed. More like a digital audio workstation (DAW) than a synth, but it also comes with bleeps-bloops.
And Teenage Electronics. That’s some hipster company putting out nice hardware. They also hail from Sweden, like the Reason team. Someone called them “gentrifiers of music production” in a Youtube comment, but that’s not fair. Equipment was always expensive, and fancy schmancy pieces were always a thing. Did u know the Roland 808 didn’t take off until it started popping up in pawn shops, and broke artists could afford one? Well yeah. Or so I’ve heard.
Including Africa Bambaata, who recently died. He got some sexual assault- and pedophilia accusations, so I don’t know if he should be properly hyped here. But he was IIRC the first artist to sample music, specifically Kraftwerk. What Kraftwerk track, I do not know.
Did I get any new music? Yeah some new Death Metal, from the 90s, as well as Anton Webern, from the 1920s. And some new K-Pop comebacks. Kiss of Life’s Who is she. Sounds nice, but I’ve been listening mostly to XG’s The Core, released earlier this year. Their producer got caught with coke and weed in Japan, and now faces idk how many years in Japanese prison. That sounds like shit. I hope the group finds some way to persevere, but without their producer, eh.
Been getting into SuperCollider and Tidal Cycles lately, really interesting way to write and livecode music. That’s why all the synth stuff is more important now. Getting to the fundamentals.
Movies? I continue my Italian journey through tv shows and films. Basically I watch the Italian dub and read the English subtitles. Molto bene. Sadly shit shows still remain shit, even when you learn something.
Some more Romanticism from Isaiah Berlin, and Bible Analysis from Northrop Frye, both on Youtube. I’m getting ready to start the medieval chapter in History of Philosophy without any Gaps (a podcast), so that will be excting.
Arrivederci!
