NEW ADDITION: Verbos 262v Harmonic Oscillator

Given the small amount of Buchla-format modules outside of Buchla & Associates production/design facilities,  this interesting module is a welcome gift to owners of 200e powered cabinets.  Produced by Mark Verbos in Brooklyn,  the general design is based on Don Buchla's 148 Harmonic Generator from way back in 1969. That the earlier Verbos 258v Dual Oscillator turned out to be such a marvelous bit of machinery only makes my expectations that much higher.  Time to plug in,  turn on,  and enjoy!

EARS & PINS

I recently came across a box containing the above objects,  a souvenir of a Parisian summer many years ago.  They seemed oddly prescient considering the "noise" I now unleash on the ears of a very small world. I remember being intrigued by odd items in a medical shop near the Sorbonne,  and had to go in and explore the strange paraphernalia hinted at by the window display.  It seems that the numbered acupuncture points (way more plentiful on the left ear) could help relieve certain ailments throughout the patient's body (large intestine,  genitals, etc.).  The box also included two marbles,  a small red one and a larger blue one,  whose uses are entirely a mystery to me.  The enclosed booklet (mostly in Chinese) states the "Auriculotherapy (using the ears' acupuncture points to affect other junctures of the body) is part of acupuncture and a valuable heredity of Traditional Chinese Medicine".  To me,  this set of model ears is less about clinical use and more about a compelling visual phenomenon.

GETTING TO THE ESSENCE

Well,  I think I've finally gotten to the point where I feel my studio has physically overloaded  and I must simplify that environment in order to fully explore the "instruments" I now favor.  Those particular pieces of machinery are all keyboard-free (there are touchpads) and tend toward the creation of non-pitched (aka noise) "music".  I've also started to sell off most of my external effects boxes,  as they seem redundant in the face of possibilities inherent in the modular systems I now prefer (Buchla,  Serge).  Several vintage (EML 200,  EML 400,  EMS Synthi AKS,  EDP Wasp) and contemporary (Genoqs Nemo, Doepfer Dark Energy,  etc) instruments remain for the moment.  The studio seems to have at least reached the state of "proto-essence".  Stay tuned.

NEW ADDITIONS: Verbos 243v Programmable Pulser & Kilpatrick Audio K4816 Pattern Generator

The above modules arrived during the last few weeks and should prove to be valuable additions to my Buchla 200e system.  Both provide more rhythmic possibilities for my work with those instruments. I think that the Verbos module will be really special,  and I look foward to receiving his latest creation,  the Harmonic Oscillator with the next week or two.



OSCILLATIONS: SONGS OF LOVE AND HATE by Leonard Cohen

She said "I'm tired of the war,

I want the kind of work I had before,

a wedding dress or something white

to wear upon my swollen appetite."

The above lyrics come from "Joan of Arc",  the last song on Leonard Cohen's third and possibly darkest album,  SONGS OF LOVE AND HATE (1971). The album can be seen as  a mood piece of sorts, dealing fearlessly with the title's contradictory themes in a maze of allusions that  both repel and attract.  Cohen visits religion, sex,  and sickness in these songs,  couching them in wonderfully spare acoustic settings,  allowing only brief string arrangements, a lone horn,  and women's and children's voices to intrude upon his expressively abrasive voice. The album would have been better served by omitting the rocking duo of "Diamonds in the Mine" and the live track,  "Sing Another Song, Boys"  as they serve as rollicking interruptions more than anything else.  On the subject of those twins,  love and hate,  Cohen vacillates between the polar opposites of self-exaltation and ceasing to exist,  often crumbling into an abyss of resignation.

                         Yes,  and thanks for the trouble you took from her eyes

                              I thought it was there for good,  so I never tried 

"Avalanche" begins the album with the picked momentum of an arpeggiated hive,  its guitar pushing the singer's disgust and incoherence to the fore.  We hear Cohen's words calmly spell out a relationship's demise,  an end born out of a suffocating confusion. "Dress Rehearsal Rag" may be the most intense suicide note ever written, his voice filled with aggression and ridicule,  and often aimed squarely at himself.  "Joan of Arc" finds finality filled with consummations and contradictions, both spiritual and of the flesh. Here is where he admits his appetites and his capacity to willingly enter love and hate's glaring  maze,  a heart's longing in all of us.

                                           Myself,  I long for love and light

                                      But must it come so cruel and so bright?

These songs enter a realm known primarily to European artists,  whose world-weary utterances would be more familiar to fans of Nick Cave,  Scott Walker and especially Jacques Brel. Even the settings here owe less to an American folk sensibility than to French chanson and art songs.  The la, la la la, la la la ending of "Joan of Arc"  suggests a loss of language as words atrophy and fall away. Like the album cover,  it's all about the blackest black and whitest white ever and the contradictory emotions inherent in any relationship.

                                 Happy Valentine's Day anyway!

I DREAM OF WIRES

IDOW & MATRIXSYNTH Modular Pic of the Week - Week 15 Contest Winner!

"Our fifteenth winner of the Modular Pic of the Week contest goes to Arthur P for his 'Serge M-Class Synth.'

Arthur is an artist/musician/blogger who generally works under the name This Second Sleep. He mostly works with both Serge and Buchla modular systems, & recently released his second CDr called DELPHINE & CAGE.

More can be seen/heard/read at:thissecondsleep.blogspot.com

We'd like to give a big thanks and congratulations to Arthur P for his submission! This is the 15th week of a 30-week contest, and we are looking forward to many more modular photo submissions, so please keep 'em coming! For details on how to submit and what you can win, see this post.

For more info on the upcoming 'I Dream of Wires' documentary, be sure to see the trailer and IndieGoGo fund raising campaign here.