This lock became way too ironic. I really should have it properly cut...

(yes, indeed, it appears I could have an other minimal music ep project running aside my already teased “what you hear is what you deserve”)

"I'm a loner, Dottie, A rebel"

That’s sometimes how I feel when I consider all my years making music. I met a lot of guys but always focused on my stuff mostly. I’m such of an egocentric, most probably.

The main fun of making music back a decade ago was to join groups and crewed, collectives, thinking you’re not alone but now that most of them died it’s so weird not to be a part of something active again. Everytime I consider focusing on something else, like a new handle for releasing some music from some other cool hip scenes, I feel dishonest and kind of opportunist, which make me feel pretty bad about myself so I go back to some kaneel stuff.

But now where is it? Crews, collectives, lolnetlabelslol… are all segmented genres by genres, they don’t mix up with other genres and just try to gather before documentaries appear… because we all know documentaries start the beginning of the death of movements. Or is it just growing older eh? 2012 already, ring, time to take your pills! Inpuj could probably saves us all from boredom.

I wonder where I’ll go, everyday I do, really… because the more I keep on working on kaneel stuff, the more I feel it’s out of the loop, out of the discussion, out of this world and it has no real place to be.
But it’s kind of harder than myself (insert “that’s what she said” joke here)

Arp. Simple beats with cool hats. That’s where I’m going for sure. Let’s make some cool music for some years. Have to upload something new tonight, hope I will!

And well, I have to make something to celebrate a new job that is coming in two weeks and a new apartment in three weeks… the beginning of bourgeoisy, really.

ps: and no julez, I don’t dream of stardom, stop that, it’s far more complicated ;)

Been working on this WIP. I think you get the idea, buildbuildbuildbuild (julez gotta love that eheh) then break, die, cry alone. Hence, the emo touch. Still working on this setup, using the kawai k1m for amazing grainy-like detuned pads.
Comment and RT ;)

Won’t say more, just that I uploaded a WIP on soundcloud.

ps: don’t wait for the drop, the only drop you’ll hear is the drop of your valium falling down right into a glass of vodka.

ITS ALIVE!... AGAIN.

Grab it on its official page if you didn’t install the tool updater (but I guess you did, right?)

I make some music, try to have it well done, sometimes it works, I get people’s reaction, sometimes it does not but weirdly, I don’t really take in account feedbacks… well, there are feedbacks only when it’s good, pretty weird uh?

Lately, I’ve been pretty sad to notice a certain new label didn’t bother putting my remix of one of their bands on their blogs, I wasn’t begging for anything but that could have been “one thing to do” but hey, I’m a nobody right ?

So here, you already listened to it, you’re going to relisten to it:

So yes, it made me sad a bit but you know, every new tracks is about hours spent doing something cool and fun so I’m more of a winner everytime I get something done.

Also, I didn’t see much people sharing my liveset, but it’s ok… because I had a lot of fun playing it and it’s been a nice experience after all!

Indeed, you always have to put efforts in bunch of things in order to see one growing worth of the effort. And every mistakes definitely gives you more opportunity to requestion yourself in order to leave the comfort zone.

Yes, this post is really about about The comfort zone.
Many people look for it. They desperately need it, at work, at parties, at home even.

In music, you often see people being stuck in their habits, using the same drum kits for all the tracks of the same albums or use presets over and over again.
Of course, “to each his own” applies well here but I’m really tempted to think that one electronic musician can’t be represented by only a sound and if I push further this idea, I expect an electronic musician to be able to keep making his own music, using different tools, presets and sample collections.

Or it’s just me, trying to understand why I am such a loser (ironic face here).

Of course, there is a certain coolness in being a loser… at least, you know you are one and you don’t take yourself too seriously. Which mean you can be a very dangerous person for those who don’t expect much from you.

Ok, I admit, I’m pretty much harmless.

Following this idea (the one before I said I am harmless), I’ve been reorganizing my corner a bit and as my PC tower is acting quite randomly (you don’t expect a computer to act randomly, you expect it to allow you to do so), I’ve finally decided to work on my mac only. .. which makes me quite naked in term of habits as I won’t be able to use Oatmeal, the free VSTi by Fuzzpilz that I’ve been using for some years (and intensively for “Your average best friend”).

So what? I’m now thinking of a new setup.
Will tell you more when I’ll have made my mind about it.

Right now, it’s a mess on my desk because I put back the kawai k1m on tracks, at least this one can make more than one sound and is actually a beast for the price I paid for it (60 bucks man, 60 ridiculous bucks!)… you’ll never get better digital obscure pads, I’m telling you! It’s also responsible of some abnormally lovely pads like the one I programmed for “Allégresse“, this track I never reworked:

A new highway of possibilities is opening to myself and I already have some ideas for more minimal setups but first, I may have to consider a long walk into a deep arid desert.

ps: don’t advice me “synth1″ as a cool VSTi available on mac and looking like Oatmeal… this synth always produces the same sound… and don’t look at me like that, don’t tell me “you can make pads, leads, noises”, it mostly always has the same sound, true synthesizer connoisseurs will know what I’m talking about (don’t be hatin’).

It’s indeed true the liveset happened and yes indeed, it happened quite well. I actually intended to post a blog when I would have gathered all videos from the events but it seems the decrunching is taking a lot of more time than planned so well, posting this now and will see later for some updates ;)

TL;DR (aka, go to the liveset nao!)

The Batofar is a great place. First, it’s in Paris and then, it’s on the Seine… as it’s a boat!
Yes, a boat. With a lighthouse on its top. Hence it’s name “Bateau-phare”, “Boat-lighthouse”.

boat + lighthouse = boatlighthouse

The place is splitted in three parts, the terrasse (where I played), the restaurant (where I could have eaten but I didn’t as I was discussing with friends and drinking some beers) , the club / gig room (where Tycho played the same night I did).

Indeed, it’s a nice place. Alcohol isn’t too expensive on happy hours, girls are cute (paris cute), people are smiling and at last but not least: you can chill there in winter as well as the terrasse is heated and not only because of all of the other reasons I gave you right before this last point.

Now, about the party.

Grandpa djam/moonove. The kind of guy who say things like "I've got my first Atari in 1984-1985".

Karlton of  the Popsy Team demogroup already organised two “demo In Paris” events and took his time before organising the third event. We discussed about it many times during our not-so-regular parisian demoscene apero sessions and finally, he was told the opportunity to organise such an event around the musician of the demoscene, organising a big demoscene gig instead of just holding some kind of conference-like meeting.

No need to say it was a good idea. The demoscene has a lot of good musicians, when they didn’t leave the scene because of the average demoscener taste (just saying :D), and they often suffer from a lack of motivation, as well as a lack of support, when it’s about showing theirselves outside of the scene.

I arrived around 6pm, plugged everything, ran to the bar, got two pints and started chilling around, discussing with good old demoscene pals (props to my #traxfr guys, hiphopface yo!) pretending I wasn’t stressed at all, hoping the three last training sessions were enough.

It’s always great to meet good old scener friends. Back in the golden days, we were all younger and most of the time, at least all nights, we were chatting on IRC about new demos and softwares, samples, how to make this and that sound, you get the idea, we were having some quite nerdy fun. But now that we are grownups (ahah), opportunities and occassions become rarer and rarer. A shame I’m telling you.

my lovely bcr2000.

Finally, everything went better than expected so it quite went well. People seemed to enjoy, at least nobody’s been complaining and when I stopped playing, I noticed there were more people on the terrasse than when I started… which mean most people didn’t leave, which is always a personal fear I admit.
I even got someone coming to interview myself for a free radio, some guy and his girlfriend to come and discuss, two girls at the bar who wanted to let me know they appreciated the set (noshit) and some 50 years old guy who wanted to understand if there were a meaning behind all my moves, if most of the music was really meant to be “offbeat” (richie is offbeat!) and that even if he didn’t understand anything, he actually enjoyed watching me jumping from one place to an other (from the microKorg to the bcr2000 but also, just jumpin’ in front of one knob)

BADASS!

A special maddddprooooooooop to my man knos for veejaying on my set, it probably kept some people around because nobody can resist some NES game videos with 3D heart shapes.

Anyway, no more blabla, I recorded the set, here is why I’m posting this blog post.

And because I’m a nice guy. Here are the sets of alkama and moonove.

The whole gallery (updated 20120306)

Pictures #1 to #9  taken by Christophe “Torone” CB! Get more of them now!
B&W pictures by Calamity Cécile!

Well, as you know, some people do livesets, some try to mashup their tracks together, some draw ducks on mspaint and others forget to plug their midi gears.
Right, I’ll try to stick in the middle of that big mess and open for the “demo in paris third edition” gigs.

The party is held on the very well-known terrasse of the Batofar.
First part of the event starts at 6pm, they’ll play some demos. Then, I’ll open around 8pm, for a fabulous moment, a set that should be around 30 and 40 minutes, a mashup of my own tracks. Playing next, my good friend Alkama who will spin some nice house and next, Moonove (yep, “le papy”) will play some of his own tracks. Let’s thank again Reynald for letting us know and feature both alkama and I on the party. Then, chiptuners will throw gameboys (spintronic) and ataris (ultrasyd)

I actually didn’t have any livesets ready, I didn’t even think I would do one ever… some friends may know I played live some years ago but never retried, prefering focusing on the (lazy|composition) side.

So here I am, rendering some tracks, remixing, exporting again, editing a bit here and there and well, I must say some (few) of my tracks are interesting when separated from the whole story, just being looped the easiest ways.
Of course, everything is taking a lot more time than planned and don’t go as well as expected but sometimes, I get what I want.

Of course, I’m also reworking some (few) tracks that were made using schismtracker.

And what do we have here?

A new version of “Majestueux” , a module I’ve composed for the revision 2011 demoparty? XMAS AGAIN!
No need to say I’m going to spend the night throwing some more rendering, but… tracks by tracks, sequences by sequences :)

(yes, +5bpm, what else… and don’t ask for a timestretched version mixed with Bieber samples)

So if you can make it, come and meet me and also, buy me a pint.

Believe me, it’s going to happen like this:

teh fonz!

ps: if you can’t make it, you can at least expect a well deserved record of the liveset, will of course post about it.

A remix I did for Two Left Ears.

Had to go with this one, the zelda theme you know. Not that I knew I would turn it into a chillwave anthem, I just felt it would be some kind of challenge I would have to accept.

Plus, they are friends, good friends, it’s always better this way.

Support them!

ps: book them, the liveact includes live veejaying, double bass, fingersnaps and I even heard there are some patterns of kaneel displayed on the screen (a little bird told me so) !