THIS IS HOW WE DEFORM: Flame FX-6 Multi Effect Module

If you're looking for a compact (4 HP) on-board effects module for your Eurorack system,  this may indeed be the perfect choice.  Its six (flanger,  chorus,  pitch echo,  pitch shift,  tremolo,  and reverb) effects and three parameter knobs make for some unique effect shadings.  Its two switches choose whatever combinations you'd like to hear.  All in all,  this is a simple and cost effective approach to making your stomp-box collection a thing of the past. 

A FOREIGN PLACE

This brief ditty was created with my half-filled new Monorocket case that  the includes Make Noise Brains/Pressure Points combo,  an Intellijel Rubicon VCO,  the Blue Lantern  Asteroid Operator VCF, and a Doepfer A-149-1 RCV among the usual utilities. Oh,  let's not forget the Flame FX-6 Multi Effect Module.  Enjoy!

OPTIK: KISS ME DEADLY (1955)

This "atomic" noir from director Robert Aldrich is considered by many a masterpiece, and by some an amoral bit of violent sleaze.  Both descriptions seem apt to me,  given  the source material (Mickey Spillane's wildly popular novel of the same name)  and Aldrich's  (with screenwriter A. I. Bezzerides)  treatment of a story darkened by the political and nuclear paranoia of the time.  As I watched this,  memories of much later films by David Lynch (BLUE VELVET)  and  Jean-Luc Godard (ALPHAVILLE),  as well as the original OUTER LIMITS series,  replayed in my head. Did anyone mention German Expressionism?  Ralph Meeker as detective Mike Hammer gives his role just the right amount of cynical rage that you nearly forgive his amazingly crass sexism and sadistic ability to inflict pain.  While censors had Aldrich alter parts of the film,  especially those concerning drugs,  brutality,  and sex,  he found ways to circumvent outright titillation through carefully composed scenes and sound.  Consider the first few minutes of the film where a mental facility escapee (a very young Cloris Leachman)  throws herself in front of Hammer's sports car in an act of extreme hitch-hiking.  She struggles to breathe through her exhaustion,  moaning as if in the throes of a powerful orgasm,  and this is the sound that accompanies the ingenious roll of credits,  read in moving perspective.  I can only imagine how uncomfortable moviegoers were with this sequence,  and it only gets worse. Christina (Leachman) and Mike are then summarily captured by  a nameless "they" who torture and kill her in an attempt to find the location of the "Great Whatsit".  This harrowing scene is made all the more effective by showing none of the actual torture methods,  only Christina's dangling legs and the shoes of her captors in the extreme foreground.  And yes,   Christina's screams provide us with a powerful incentive to wince. This is the last time we see Christina,  except as a body in the coroner's office,   but this scene resonates through the rest of the film.  Fear and paranoia echo throughout,  be its source femme fatale,  drugs,  potential for brutality,  "they",  or the mysterious "Whatsit" (a particularly potent box of radio activity).  This is a film to watch again and again,  grabbing only further questions  from its shadows,  nervous laughter from its dialogue,  and no solace at all from from Nat King Cole's lyrics:  "I'd rather have the blues than what I've got..."

REHEARSAL FOR RETIREMENT?

As the last few months of my "official career" trial off into oblivion and I start to imagine living outside of time,  there is little of the trepidation others seem to place on my "loss".  Invariably the question "what are you going to do?"  is uttered by those who know little of my interests,  talents,  and passions, and asking this ad nauseam,  suggest their insecurities rather than mine.  I have no special plan for the world,  nor bird houses to build. I merely want to retain my marginality with a knowing smile on my face.  Is that so bad? Tomorrow I'll be up for work (day 46 or so).

THIS IS HOW WE DEFORM: Blue Lantern Asteroid Operator VCF

This is the latest bit of Euro-modular bling from our friend at Blue Lantern Modules,  and it's sure to get tongues wagging on Muffwiggler for one accusatory reason or another.  It is certainly the most advanced and expensive ($285) filter from a company that has made its name with quality modules (I quite like the Spacemoth VCF) at very reasonable prices.  There is a dizzying array of toggles,  inputs/outputs,  and knobs here,  and some may be put off by its garish purple face-plate,  quirky oversized knobs,  and general air of playfulness of the design.  I really like the readily identifiable design ethic and its eight (how great is that?) outputs.  It is also the first BL module to use the Blue Lantern Modules Header Converter Power Adaptor (Doepfer compatible) that apparently makes for less module to module bleed-through.  Besides the usual VCF features (plus),  a VCA section  is also included,  making this bit of machinery quite the monster.  All I need is my new Monorocket powered case to begin disturbing the neighbors in new and exciting ways.

THE LURE OF ELECTRICITY

I know that this was produced by one of my Eurorack systems (and me,  but mostly by the unpredictable whims of electricity),  but I have no ideas what modules dominate here.  I do know that an unpleasant blast greets you at the end.

FIGS ARE COMING

No longer perpendicular to their branches,  plump ripe figs are finally making an appearance on our biggest and sweetest fruit tree.  Somehow, the multitude of bees that have recently attacked the figs'  sugar content have disappeared into the ether.  Harvesting is daily and accompanied by a caloric intake that does little to change our clothing sizes.  The heat of the summer has its rewards,  and this is one of them.

THIS IS HOW WE DEFORM: Malekko Wiard Anti-Oscillator

This rare Malekko module (no longer in production?) seems like the usual triangle-core oscillator until one starts to fiddle with the "mayhem" output and its various attenuators.  The Anti-Oscillator is all about FMing a waveshape beyond recognition,  and with the help of the right  filter one can achieve clangorously brittle organic sounds with just the right amount of dirt.  For me,  it readily formed an unholy alliance with my Make Noise Wogglebug,  and effortlessly performed aural atrocities.  I guess it's not anti-everything.  

OSCILLATIONS: 'TIL THE BAND COMES IN by Scott Walker

This 1970 release by a twenty seven year old Scott Walker is sometimes known as SCOTT 5,  as it followed a numbered string of artistically and commercially successful (SCOTT 4 was the former,  but not the latter) albums released after the initial demise of the Walker Brothers.  It is often held in low regard mainly because of the MOR covers that make up its second side and nearly derail the Walker (and Ady Semel,  his manager at that time) originals that precede them. What Semel had to do with the songwriting is a mystery to me and others,  but royalties certainly fit into the scheme here.  And one original,  "Long About Now" is sung,  albeit beautifully by Esther Ofarim,  another of Semel's clients. More question marks.  It could have easily been sung by Scott himself,  a singer who exhibits a kind of neutral gender bias in his approach to singing,  while at the same time projecting a gentle male eroticism (auto-eroticism in "Time Operator",  included here).  All of which makes his version of MOR more European and dangerous (try standing in the middle of the road in any European capital!) than anything else.  There are missteps here, like the near racism in "Rueben James" coupled with its hokey American idiomatic instrumentation.  I'm not a big fan of the barber shop back up singers and comedic spy narrative of "Jean The Machine" either.  The songs that do work do so without a trace of MOR's cheap  sentiment,  compromise,  or artist in absentia.  So much of Scott's favorite subtext is here:  time and its loss.  That's why I have little patience with the idea that the originals and their performance are apathetically phoned in by an alcohol-dimmed Scott.  I particularly like the title track with its suggestions of "otherness" ("Here on the outskirts of life",  "Still alive with my subhuman sound to the ground") and salvation through song.  The previously mentioned "Time Operator" is a portrait of a man so desperately alone that he chats up a recorded voice and insists that his curtains' dust indicate a viable life force.  "Little Things (That Keep Us Together)"  presents a list of banal and extreme existential moments that suggest the inner wars we all fight (keep in mind that this is during the Vietnam War).  The final original here is the beautifully rendered,  and highly delusional "The War is Over",  which now seems like something of a requiem for Scott the songwriter, and the beginning of contractual obligations that brought few manifestations of Scott's artistic sensibility until the second and final Walker Brothers reunion birthed NIGHT FLIGHTS in 1978.

The above design is not the original TIL THE BAND COMES IN  cover,  but may be from a single released somewhere in the word.  I must admit that I prefer the drastically cropped image of Scott presented here,  as it certainly suggests something of his fragmentation at this time (with a smile in his eye).

THIS IS HOW WE DEFORM: Cyndustries Four Transients

I guess one can always use an envelope if you do any sort of subtractive synthesis,  and in this case Cynthia Webster and Todd Barton have come up with a winner. Its four envelopes can produce all kinds of aural trickery,  including audio and filter uses.  Whether you like your transients straight , confused (my approach), or even inter-mingled,   this could be the module for you.