Noisy Toys

North of the border, they loves their noise, and they loves their toys. Brissy kats bringing both South for Easter are powertool lovers Kunt, alongside Defecktro from Japan, Kiki iLL ( ex- nam shub of enki ) and Peeled Hearts Paste. Pix, Mp3s & More Tour Info at: www.kunt.zap.to

KunT:
A rolling history of Kunt ‘s musical / performance inspirations in 45 words?
We are inspired by very different scorces musically, so when we come together the sound is like a porridge and wasabi mix. LuLu Delux performed solo at clubs and other events before bringing the grinder into Kunt in 97. She loves the likes of Survival Research Labs.

Your perspective of the Japanese noise music scene?
Totaly diverse and alive with old and new solo acts and units. I was very impressed to see live sound and performance out numbering laptops and glowing faces. The collaboration between old and new acts produces a definate hybrid sound. Japan is heaven for noise
lovers!!

Favourite powertool moment at a gig ?
So many!!!We can never forget the Homeboy standing in front of the stage at a 2001 gig in Brisbane with Agit8 and Kiki_ill. He just stood there like a statue of Vanilla Ice while I showered him in sparks for at least 15 minutes. NICE! Japan was also a treat! When I started the grinder at the last gig in Tokyo (before returning to Australia), all the boys scrambeled away from the stage with huge grins!!!Ahhhh women and power tools!!

Ideal Kunt Kollaborators would be?
We love Sydney’s Toy Death. They have a very tight live show and great sound. There is also a unit in Argentina called The Reynols who we would love to sit on a keyboard with for 2 hours and release the live recording.
XXXXXXLuLu Delux

Defektro:
What inspired the ‘mechanical noise machine’ you’re building for the East Coast tour?
I am feeling the presence of Australia in my first week here. From that I will get my inspiration. There is so much great scrap and junk metal in Australia! The blonde women will inspire me (joke).

Differences between the Japanese & Oz noise scenes?
I am about to find out! From the recording I have heard from Kunt and Peeled Hearts Paste the sounds produced seem to run a lot wilder than the conceptual sounds that come from Europe.

Favourite gig moments when things have clicked?
When Defektro was performing live with Japanese unit Erehwon and Lulu from Kunt in Japan. It was the first time I had used fire in the live set. With the grinder sparks, fire and sound it was a moment not to forget.

What would be your dream machine? And dream performance location?
Dream machine would have to be a huge fire belching monster. And I would have to perform in a wide open space, like outside the Sydney Opera House!!
regards Hirofumi Uchino DEFEKTRO

Kiki ill :
Why the name change from Nam Shub of Enki?
namshubofenki has no relation to the musik i’m makin now other than its the same person making it. I have quite a few different pseudonyms – spaztech, key phresch, dj100hoesanhour. I am constantly writin different stuff and could never find a definitive single name to tag it with.

When are folk south of the border gonna get Kiki releases?
One day, I’m alwaze gettin hassled for musik and I’m a slack kunt. So when I get my shit together and sort some release it’ll happen, until then it all sits in a hard drive waiting to be crashed:o)

How’s a typical kiki track being made these days?
Totally in side a laptop, with extra help sumtimes from my arsenal of analogue machines of mass distortion.

What pisses you off about live electronic music ?
I generally like live stuff better than dj’s. Tho I find it very hard to do something live myself, as my trax are very tightly structured, and I find tweekin sum parameters on a sequence very unsatisfying. I enjoy collaborating with kunt doin performance stuff, and have a mic and fx for extra chaos. I guess I don’t like boring characterless dross (and wally box warriors). Trance annoys the shit outta me – live or dj.

Catch Kunt (sparks), Defektro, Kiki Ill & Peeled Heart’s Paste with their latest CD-burnz at:

SYD: Sat 19 April @ Lanfranchis’s Discotheque, 144 Cleveland st. Chippendale
+ Fraughman, Shipwrecked Pussy Splatter & 7u?
MELB: Sun 20 April @ Rob Roy Hotel, Fitzroy
+ Antideluvian Rockinghorse, Barrage, the Go’s, Future Eater, Sol, SelfHelp, Spoole (live AV set) & Casionova

by Sean Healy, April 3, 2003 0 comments

More Shiny Discs ( audiovisual DVD reviews )

So far this year, the planet has gained 16 million people, 7 million new cars, and with what may give hope: 22 million new bicycles. Another number on the up, is the humble audiovisual DVD. Here’s four of the finer beasties inter-tweaking image & sound.

Spaced Out
addictiveThis compilation from Addictive TV practically jumps off the web-shelf, boasting the likes of Cold Cut and EBN amongst 26 tracks of NASA space footage remixing. All the music producers and visual artists were given access to the same pool of archive footage, and it’s the diverse ways this earth & space imagery and sound have been milked, that give this DVD it’s kind of ethereal charm. EBN’s Brian Kane provides one of the best tracks, with his seasoned av-interplay providing a bit more of a hook than most of the other pieces. Overall though, the DVD is aimed as a chill-out and background style viewing experience, and for this it works really well, with endless compelling images and drifty music.

Mixmasters Series ( Episode 1 )
addictiveAlso from the Addictive TV stable, is the Mixmasters Series which was compiled from the Uk’s ITV1 series, and to be screened on SBS soon. While up to Episode 5 now, part one kicked it off with a range of DJ & VJ mixes which again, are aimed at chill-out and background style viewing. Something to put on at home at the end of the night. With six audiovisual mixes featuring twentysomething tracks, we veer through drum n’ bass, house and ambient tones combined with visual delights in good moments and screensavery wallpaper at its lowpoints. Also includes a range of artist interviews.

See also : Addictive TV interview

Reline, a Video Artist DVD Compilation
reline San Francisco based Reline, have compiled a diverse and edgy exploration of contemporary video-bleed. Mapping out a wild range of glitchy yet compelling video-art pieces, some clips celebrate abstraction, some include narration, and others ride the pop-clip angle – usually with a twist. Threading the pieces together though, is a certain mark of quality, of originality, innovation. Artist bios and a synopsis accompanies each piece on the DVD and gives an intriguing insight into the processes and technologies each artist explores. Given the experimental nature of this project and the data capacity of DVDs though, one might’ve expected this DVD to showcase some interactive pieces which stretched the capacity of DVD. As it stands, an excellent compilation though.

See also : Reline 2 Review

Lost Leader, by The Light Surgeons
Electrofringe 2002 with their stunningly crafted audiovisual set. Their multi-layered cinematics were more akin to graphic design mag pages writ large on the warehouse walls, milked to the beats when the on-screen action itself wasn’t the source of music. This DVD compiles many of the pieces they used, as well as documenting their various installations, short films, music, photographs, motion graphics and includes a live performance to show what they can do when the whole crew attacks the screens and p.a., not just the two visitors to Oz last year. A glorious shiny disc, this one – and released through http://www.gasweb.jp who now have a backcatalogue of twenny-summit designery DVDs.

See also : Light Surgeons Interview

by Sean Healy, March 21, 2003 1 Comment

Viridians Vs. Vurt-Boy

While beastieboys.com does indeed, currently offer a free anti-war song download (In A World Gone Mad ), twas the take on the times, by another bunch of Americans who tickled me this week. The Viridians are out to culturally re-engineer the future we’d prefer, through clever, lateral design – and imagination. Founded by sci-fi provocateur Bruce Sterling, they recently called out for ‘contemplation of pretty things in this sad and ugly historical period’, offering a long list of wondrous examples. Got me thinking.

www.viridiandesign.org
Homebase for the V-cats proclaims they be “Creating irresistible demand for a global atmosphere upgrade”, fuelled by our #need# to address the now indisputably serious issue of global warming. Their strategy for countering the threat of a oil driven war with prettiness might sound ‘pretty pissweak’ to some, but it’s meant to supplement rather than replace anti-war organising efforts, and importantly reminds us to reward and encourage seeds of beauty and ethics as we encounter them. Like Jeff Noon‘s gorgeous new book, ‘Falling Out of Cars‘.

Vurt-Boy Returns
Fans of yellow feathers, or frequent visitors to www.jeffnoon.com will be no doubt aware of his new novel, and I encourage you to seek it out at your local library. The beauty of libraries themselves are to be celebrated – most of them now have online browsing, ordering and notification ( too easy). Jeff’s an author whose playful language mutations and conceptual tweaks make all of his work worthy of a read on at least one level.

After Falling Out of Cars – order in his older books – the classic Vurt and it’s worthy clones Nymphomation & Pollen, the Pixel Juice short stories featuring people with human off-switches, sexuality externalised as a creature, his more recent Needle in the Groove with it’s overt feeding off electronic music processes and his book of text experiments Cobralingus – designed to provide an imaginary toolkit of ‘filters and effects’ for the writer.

Scratch Film
“After many morning walks…an idea hit me that seemed like a complete revelation. It was to compose motion, just as musicians compose sound.”
With this in mind, Len Lye (1901-1980) created an extraordinary body of works including paintings, drawings, writings, kinetic sculptures and what he is most famous for – a series of gorgeous films made by scratching and painting directly onto the film itself. Seeing these on the big screen is to have your eyes washed by a waterfall of overwhelming colour, shape and rhythm. Seek this boy out~! (www.govettbrewster.com/NR/lenlye )

Ed Kuepper & Len Lye
Fittingly the Australian Centre of Moving Image (melb) recently hosted a live soundtrack to a projected collection of Len Lye‘s films. Len’s playful yet meticulous edits of his films to music, make them truly astonishing to behold. However with the edits already in place, Ed Kuepper’s live soundtrack was always going to be an interpretation that only sometimes hit the mark. Impressively though, with guitar, heavily milked FX processors, drummer & electronic pads they managed to inject life and feeling into several moments of the pieces, only at times retreating to a kind of lazily effected stoner garage jam. These walls of sounds were luscious and to be celebrated, but sometimes grated against the often minimal and more percussively edited visual delights. Do yourself a favour and see these films.

“We felt it was important to comment on where the US appears to be heading now. A war in Iraq will not resolve our problems. It can only result in the deaths of many innocent civilians and US troops. If we are truly striving for safety, we need to build friendships, not try to bully the rest of the world.”
– Adam Yauch on the beastie boys frontpage.

by Sean Healy, February 22, 2003 0 comments

DIY Bicycle Mutation

While Albert Einstein might’ve championed the bicycle as the ideal transport, the trusty two wheeled formula is sometimes lacking in the narrow lanes of today’s concrete jungles. No doubt the boy’d be proud of the various ways city-peeps are using their intellects to remix the deadly treadly.

The 3-Day Wheelie
If you’ve ever seen a cyclist balance on their back wheel and ride an entire block, then turn a corner, you already understand how the bicycle transcends mere ‘transportation’, how two wheels can have more style than four ( skateboards excepted ), and just how delicious biking can be in da urban terrain. A few quick mods later and it just gets better.

Chopper Lust
Undisputed Lords of the extended bicycle fork ( that’s the bit holding your front wheel to the frame ), C.H.U.N.K 666 take the chopper to crazy new lengths and include instructions for modifying your own. Nothing like an extended pair of chops for your street cred. And while you’re at it, may as well throw on an extended set of handlebars to round out a perfect Easy Rider profile.

Cruise Control
You don’t have to be a stairs leaping courier to enjoy the satisfaction of good shox. Even just the addition of front suspension will do much for your riding-pleasure. Add a bouncy rear and you’ll be cycling everyday. On the other hand ( or cheek) a banana seat won’t provide the cushy ride of a dual suspensioned beastie, but what’s a little pain in the face of such effortless chic?

Getting Down
If you wanna get really comfy, recumbent (sit-down ) bikes are truly the bomb for the cosy-assed commuter. More ergonomic for your legs and back too. Greenspeed (www.greenspeed.com.au) in Melbourne are renowned for their 3 wheeled recumbents, and Sydney folk can test ride the comfort of a recumbent at Flying Furniture (www.flyingfurniture.com.au).

Getting Loaded
The simple addition of bicycle racks, and/or a stylish lightweight trailer behind your bike, can further do away with your need for a car. Make your own, or try the range at Cheeky Monkey (www.cheekymonkey.com.au) in Syd or downstairs with the infamous Space Station kids (www.spacestation.org.au) in Melbourne.

Demon Speed
Greenspeed also sell a range of solar-assisted bikes, which with a little solar powered engine, give you extra power up hills. A range of fuel-based bike engines are also available, but if you’re bothering to use a bike you’d probably appreciate the lack of emissions anyway. Lighter frames help you get around faster, and word on the street is that ye olde recumbents are ultimately the fastest type of bicycle. Partially due to their closeness to the ground and partially the different ways it utilises your leg muscles (remember them?).

On The Road
Once your bike has been successfully remixed – time to join the monthly rides at Critical Mass (www.criticalmass.org.au), or catch some of the truly freaky vehicled action organised through the OZ-Human Powered Vehicle crew
( http://sunsite.anu.edu.au/community/ozhpv ). And for the vid-inclined, try capturing some of your new-found pedalling delight for New York�s Bicycle Film Festival www.bicyclefilmfestival.com ( May 8-11).

by Sean Healy, February 19, 2003 0 comments

Traktor 2.0 Review

Samurai mythology is riddled with serpentine goddesses, encounters with the spirit world, and tales of profound transformation. Take the Tokyo Tea for example. With shots of vodka, white rum, triple sec, half a gin, one and a half Midori and sweet and sours, this momma transforms even the most disciplined soul into a right little beastie. Transformation of your MP3 collection however, is better achieved with the likes of Native Instrument’s quite fantastic MP3 mixer and loopfarmer, the trusty Traktor 2.0.

What It Is, What It Is
Traktor 2 emulates the features of a traditional hardware audio mixer, allowing you to apply a complex array of mixing techniques to that MP3 collection threatening to swallow your hard drive. Line up your tracks on either side of the screen, load them onto your ‘decks’, loop sections, shift pitch or tempo, apply filtering, equalisation, ‘scratch’ the files back and forwards, and crossfade or mix your tracks together. Cueing tracks works by sending a mono signal out thereby freeing the left or right channel for pre-listening to tracks being lined up, or can work in stereo if you have a soundcard that can handle this. ( The Traktor site has extensive info about how best to set this up ). Software mixers have their limitations, but this one integrates easily with traditional hardware mixers, so you can connect a standard mixer to your computer and use most of it’s functions on your MP3 files. Software also offers a whole smorgasbord of possibilities that hardware can’t touch, and Traktor explores some of these solidly.

Feature List
Waveform Displays – soundwave displays of each track allow anticipation of upcoming sound changes. Loops and cue points can also be seen easily and adapted to suit. Something simple, but it really makes your job easier.

Tempo Detection – Traktor can accurately analyse and detect the BPM of each song, allowing for easy synching.

Looping – This is my favourite aspect of Traktor, and the most immediately fun – up to ten tempo-precise loops can be set on the fly, and these can be stretched or shrunk, or shifted along the timeline backwards and forwards, allowing endless ways to stretch breaks for as long as you want them to be. Fluid.

Cue Points – Save up to 10 cue points for each track and jump to these whenever you want.

Equalizer – A 3-band DJ (-24db/+12db) with kill switches (to -80db), punch-in and mute buttons, +/-12 db input gain and auto-gain, a crossfader and a cue mix section with separate headphone mix.

High-end filters – easy control of cutoff, width, and resonance.

Database functions – manage and archive tens of thousands of tracks with powerful naming, sorting and searching tools that allow you to access and load tracks lightning fast.

Keyboard triggering – assign over 400 functions to whatever keyboard shortcuts u want.

Mix recording – either as an audio file, or as a small file which records your knob movements etc and can be easily sent to friends or collaborators.

Mix Audio CDs – ( including visual waveforms of your CD track ) along with MP3s on the PC & Mac OS X versions.

Missing Links
If Traktors already playin with digital files, why shouldn’t it include a range of simple FX such as delay or reverb, distortion, and access other ways of processing the sounds as well as mixing them?

Starting A Traktor
You’re gonna need US$199 ( see www.native-instruments.com ). And you’re gonna need a computer.

Mac Minimum: OS 9.2 and higher or OS X (incl. 10.1, 10.2), G3 500 MHz, 128 MB RAM
Mac Recommended: OS X (incl. 10.1, 10.2), G4 733 MHz, 512 MB RAM, multi-channel soundcard (minimum 4 mono or 2 stereo outputs)

PC Minimum: Windows 98/2000/ME/XP, Pentium III 500 MHz, 128 MB RAM
PC Recommended: Windows XP, Pentium III 700 MHz, 256 MB RAM, multi-channel soundcard (minimum 4 mono or 2 stereo outputs)

Verdict
Traktor feels like it’s trying to very much emulate a traditional mixer, and only beginning to expand the possibilities of mixing to take advantage of the totally crazy and flexible audio manipulation processes available to modern computers. If you’re going to use a computer to mix music, you may as well enjoy what the computer s capable of rather than pretend it has to be something else. That said, Traktor is rock solid at what it does, has all the smoothness and quality you’d expect from Native Instruments, is getting plenty of rave reviews from professional Djs over the globe, and I’ve yet to see an article claiming there’s a better MP3 mixer out there.

by Sean Healy, February 19, 2003 0 comments