Blog category: Aphex Twin

Awesome Alberto Balsalm cover

Wow! I want to be a part of that band. I can imagine how fun they must have rehearsing. I hope they do some other Aphex Twin songs. But I guess the drummer would have a hard time keeping up the pace in some...

"Alberto Balsalm" by Aphex Twin

Arranged by Ben Wallace for the CCM (College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati) Steel Band directed by Rusty Burge June 2010

New live music from Aphex Twin

Aphex Twin made a live performance in Parc de la Seille in Metz, France (May 15). Pretty much what you'd expect from Aphex Twin, crazy beats, flashing lights and strange sounds. Unfortunately, no news about a possible new album from him though. Too, bad, the world really needs a new Aphex Twin album.

Great work from youtuber McGregor57, who recorded everything. :-)

 

 

Closing in on IamamIwhoamI

The hunt for Iamamiwhami goes on. Last friday, James Montgomerie at MTV recieved something interesting. A brown envelope containg a blonde knot of human hair, some splinters of balsa wood and a single strip of paper with the animal symbols from the ongoing Iamamiwhoami viral clips. Read more about this in MTV Newsroom.  So it seems by looking at the paper strip, the trick is to add the symbols together and then you get the answer or the next clue.

 

GOAT + OWL + WHALE + BEE + LLAMA + MONKEY =  ?????

 

Some people have decoded the message to mean all will be revealed at 11am on Monday - "Go tell all will be 11am monday". Any riddle experts out there?

 

There are a lot of bloggers etc claiming this production must be made in scandinavia and that could mean its a scandiavian artist. The nature and snowy forrests, the red little cabin with white frames, the strawberry birthday cake. All of it looks very swedish. Further to this, the twitter account of iamamiwhoami (linked to the youtube channel) goes by the name of Huldra Mandragora, a creature from Scandinavian folklore. Scandinavian artists mentioned are so far Lykke Li, The Knife, Jonna Lee, Röyksopp, Margaret Berger, Bjork, Sigur Ros

 

In a previous post I said that this is definately not the thing Aphex Twin would do. I still don't beleive it's his return, though it would be interesting if it was because I am a big fan of his. David Ritter beleives it is Aphex Twin, he presents why in this post. Other names being mentioned are: Goldfrapp, Trent Reznor, Little Boots, Massive Attack, MGMT, The Golden Filter and Lady Gaga.

 

Still Christina Aguilera remains the hottest guess with some really good clues indicating she is the one. Album coming called Bionic, The number codes on the clips can be read out to "Its me C" and "CH AG". The Chritina Aguilera evidences are presented in this clip.Though I have to say, the music is good electronica and far from the Christina Aguilera we've seen. I also don't think the girl in the IamamIwhoami clips looks like Christian Aguilera. And wouldn't it be the smartest thing to try to make it look like it was Christian Aguilera if you are a smaller artist trying to make a hype? I think it might be a case of piggy back riding.

 

For all the Iamwhoami clips check out my previous post about it. Today it's exactly one week since the last Iamamiwhoami clip was released. Hopefully we get another clue or even the answer soon.

No way that Aphex Twin is behind the iamamiwhoami clips

I had an argument with a friend who thought that Aphex Twin was behind the iamamiwhoami clips. My point was that they aren't strange enough to have come from the mind of Aphex Twin (and Chris Cunningham). But he didn't agree - he thought that a blonde chick painted black who is being born from a tree, gets a strawberry cake and yells at Labrador retrievers IS strange enough.

But honestly, compared to the Come to Daddy, Windowlicker and Rubber Johnny videos, the iamamiwhoami clips are about as strange and freaky as the sock that goes missing every time you do the laundry.

Rubber Johnny - it gets really good at 4.25

Come to Daddy - an old favourite

Windowlicker - gets good after 3.45

All Iamamiwhoami clips - brilliant mystery

The great hype around the Iamamiwhoami continues. Yesterday a new clip was released, you find it at the bottom of the post and its the 6th clip all in all. If you are not yet familliar with what - Iamamiwhoami - is read this quoted text from MTV news to catch up.

 

"It started in December, when a 55-second clip that featured plenty of trees, spindly, spooky appendages, and one particularly grisly live birth (or at least we think it's a live birth). Then, in early January, there was a second clip ... a dendrophiliac's wet dream, loaded with images of a mud-smeared woman licking a tree and some strangely sexualized sap. And owls, plenty of owls. And then, on Sunday, a third, this one a slo-mo underwater dream sequence, with a whole lot of confection, a murky fetus and exactly one singing whale shark.Then there are the numbers that accompany the videos — mysterious sequences of digits that may be spelling out some coded message, or revealing a release date (or may just be numbers) — and the music, a soundtrack of chiming, slightly ominous electronic bloops and bleeps. Confused? Intrigued? Welcome to the club.It's the ongoing saga of "Iamamiwhoami," the latest in a series of maddeningly compelling viral campaigns to seize the attention of Internet obsessives. Named for the YouTube user who began uploading the clips, the campaign has slowly become a full-blown frenzy, and the speculation has begun to run rampant about just who is behind it all." (MTV)

 

The Iamamiwhoami mystery is brilliant, and brilliant in so many ways. In short:

 

*Yes, its brilliant marketing. These mystery teasers are spreading in a way that makes the swine flu virus look like a joke. So the hype is there for the release of the album. Because that is what this must be a promotion for isn't it?

 

*The music is great, the sounds are amazing. Nice electronica, qualitu work indeed. Considering all these superlatives its hard for me to think that the two artists getting most of the guesses, Christina Aguilera and Lady Gaga, really can be the artists behind this stuff. The blonde girl in the clips might be a decoy though. Other names thrown around includes Lykke Li, Goldfrapp, Trent Reznor, MGMT, Madonna, Bjork and Aphex Twin. Christian Aguilera remains the top bet though. Especially when you see some work on the mysterious codes that comes with every clip.

 

From Popjustice:

The first video: Prelude 699130082.451322

6+9+9+1+3+0+0+8+2 = 38

 

4+5+1+3+2+2 = 17

decode using: A – 1, B – 2, C – 3, D – 4, etc…

38: CH (3 – C, 8 – H)

17: AG (1 – A, 7 – G)

CHristina AGuilera?

Another :

9.20.19.13.5.723378

I.T.S.M.E.(7+2+3+3+7+8=30 [3=C])

‘Its Me C’

 

 

Telling...

 

 

*The production and video is very high quality and ooozes high budget. Beautiful artistic videos all over.

 

All clips so far are gathered for you here below. Maf Lewis and Tara Busch has some great posts on this on one of my favourite blogs analogsuicide.com.

 

I'd love to hear you views on this. Who do you think is the artist behind these teaser clips and why do you think so?

 

Enjoy!

 

This post might be me making the perfect alibi and decoy...

The Yamaha GX-1 - Galactic Emperor of Synthesizers

The Yamaha GX-1 was Yamahas first polyphonic synthesizer and what a beast they made! It has a triple tiered keyboard, pedal board, ribbon controller, pedestals in chrome and eight polyphonic voices. At 250 kilos it's not designed for the average home studio musician to put it mildly. The $50 000+ price tag indicates this aswell. Less than 10 where made and they have all been owned by legendary musicians like John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), ABBA, Keith Emerson, George Fleury, Stevie Wonder and my own favourite  Richard James (Aphex Twin).

 

I've gathered some clips of the GX-1. the last one is a favourite coming back. Mattias or Roth Händle studios giving us a closer look.

 

 

 

Benny Andersson of ABBA plays a majestic Yamaha GX-1 intro to "Summer Night City"

Videoclip recorded in 1979 at Wembley. The song's "Summer night city"; one version very strong and awesome!

 

More Benny and ABBA - Me and I

Abba performing "me and i" in the show Dick cavett mets ABBA in april 1981

 

 

Stevie Wonder - Pastime Paradise with the GX-1 strings all over it.

Stevie Wonder released this soul classic in the year 1976 from the album "songs in the key of life"

 

GX-1 solo by Aphex Twin

This is GX1 Solo by The Tuss (aphex twin), from Confederation Trough. Random aphex pics in video.

 

Fanfare for the common man - GX-1's amazing trumpet sound.

Promotional video of ELP doing "Fanfare for the Common Man," Olympic Stadium, Montreal.

 

A closer look on the Yamaha GX-1 by Mattias Olsson of Roth Händle studios in Stockholm.

 

 

 

The giant Yamaha GX-1 is considered the predecessor of the Yamaha CS-80 which was made for a bigger market. OK, the CS-80 is clearly a smaller synthesizer than the GX-1 but still at 100 kilos it was eventually hard to find its audience. The CS80 dominated the keyboard world for almost two years. When, in 1978, the Prophet 5 and Oberheim OBX took over the analogue scene, due to their lighter weight and their cheaper price. Soundwise I'd say the CS-80 is definately the winner there. Never forget that the GX-1 is the ruler of them all though...

Adorable girl loves Aphex Twin

Found this little clip on Youtube, geat job by IDMWEIGHTSIDM. It shows Aphex Twin can appeal to all ages. Extremely cute little girl! A bit scary to...

What happened to the new Aphex Twin record?

This March, I got my hopes up, when I read reports that said Aphex Twin was going to release a new record. Warp Records founder Steve beckett said "“We’re definitely going to be putting out a new album by him. Hopefully it will be this year, if I can prise it out of his hands. It’s definitely on its way.

But I haven't heard anything more about it. "This year" is almost over! Does anyone know anything about it? A new Aphex Twin record would be the best Christmas present ever. Apart from the Amiga 600 I got when I was 14.

 

Edit sound as images

It's great when you combine the joy of making sounds, with the joy of editing images. It sort of like a DOUBLE joy that way. A favourite sound editing program of mine is Har-Bal, which combines graphics and sound, and is the "worlds first visual mastering equalizer" according to the makers. And it's really cool. Check it out for your self, since it's a bit hard to explain it.

And another cool looking program is Photosounder, but I haven't tried it yet. In it, you can turn sounds into images and vice versa. Editing sounds as an image gives you new possibilities, but it is the possibility to turn images into sounds that really fascinate me. Just think about it, you can go out in the forest, take a photo of a squirrel, and turn that image into techno!

But image-sound manipulation isn't new, but Photosounder sure looks like it takes it to a new level. Some of you might have heard about Apex Twin's hidden face in his song "Equation" (or what's it called?). If you view the song in a spectrogram viewer, you see this:

Youtube via TheGh0st81

Where did all the strange guys go?

Is there anyone doing something strange in the world of electronica nowadays? Or is it only slick soulless softsynth-techno that's being made now? I miss Aphex Twin.

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Author: 

I Have Synth

Biography: 

Been into synthesizers for 15 years, but never a technical geek. I'm a member of the band Velours Perfect, and have had electronic music as a hobby since I stopped playing with G.I Joe Figures. I buy and sell synths all the time, sometimes manically, and my favourite synth varies, right now it is the Alesis Ion. On this blog you can read about whatever comes out of my mind, mostly synthesizer-related stuff though. Bzzt!

 

I'm also on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and off course Ihavesynth.

 

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