Unreleased Aphex Twin Tracks uploaded anonymously, Logic Pro X 10.1 update, Lil Louis loses hearing and the history of the rewind.
Checking out DEVO’s synth collection. Cool Hunting meet Mark Mothersbaugh, the founding member of DEVO turned award-winning Hollywood composer famous for his use of synthesisers, in his production company’s bright green building in LA. They check out a small part of his synth collection and discuss the future of music with the prolific artist. Watch above.
Unreleased Aphex Twin Tracks Uploaded Anonymously. Following last year’s Syro – the first Aphex Twin release in 13 years – and then this year’s Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2 comes nearly three and a half hours of unreleased music from user48736353001 on SoundCloud. The anonymous user initially tagged the music as “# like early apex” and wrote “like early aphex but I’d never heard of him when I wrote all these tracks im going to be uploading.” Fan site We Are the Music Makers have confirmed that Richard D James is in fact behind the uploads. Listen to the music here, find the full story here.
A Modular System in Ableton Live. Ableton & Max for Cats present OSCiLLOT – a Max for Live-based polyphonic modular system with more than 100 freely patchable modules and dozens of pre-patched instruments and audio effects. Users of Ableton Live can build their own synthesisers and audio effects generators simply by connecting together OSCiLLOT’s modules with virtual patch cords – no programming knowledge required. Watch it in action above.
Thomas Cox’s Musical Highlights of 2014. Attack columnist Thomas Cox offers a belated but extensive wrap-up of his musical highlights of 2014, expanding on his thoughts in his December Attack column and picking out more than 50 of his favourite house and techno tracks of last year. Find it on his blog Infinite State Machine here.
Lil Louis Loses Hearing After CO2 Cannon Incident. Best known for his 1989 hit ‘French Kiss’, Chicago house producer-DJ Lil Louis was absent from an advertised set in Manchester last Saturday. He explained that this was due to an incident involving a CO2 cannon being blasted near him at a soundcheck, resulting in permanent hearing loss in one of his ears and calling his future as an artist into question. Read the full story in his Facebook post.
Elijah Wood & Zach Cowie’s Wooden Wisdom Tour. Wooden Wisdom is the DJ duo consisting of Zach Cowie and A-list actor Elijah Wood. The pair establish their musical influences and discuss DJing as a musical conversation ahead of their forthcoming tour of Europe and North America, here.
What Actually is a Rewind? From its roots in the original sound system culture of Jamaica, to distinct strains of evolution through American and UK music scenes, Medium provides a hitherto unexplored history of one of music’s most rarely discussed gestures – the rewind – with analysis of its significance and proper practice here.
Logic Pro X 10.1 Updates. Apple’s Logic Pro X 10.1 update provides users with new and enhanced features including a Drum Machine Designer plugin with various drum machine sounds, Note Repeat and Spot Erase for MPC-style drum programming, Collapse Mode and a Brush tool in the Piano Roll Editor, as well as region-based automation and a smart quantiser. Read a full explanation here. A list of all changes is also available from Apple here.
Splice Solves Missing Plugin Problem. Splice introduce a new plugin store for their online collaboration platform. If a collaborator’s project makes use of a plugin that you don’t have, Splice now provides one-click purchasing and license backups of many instruments and effects from many developers, so you don’t have to worry about freezing tracks or bouncing audio stems. Check it out here.
Freemium Plan for Pro Tools First. Avid introduce a new, completely free version of their industry standard DAW Pro Tools, which has until now been prohibitively expensive for many bedroom producers. Pro Tools First has a limited feature set, but it will allow users to use the software without subscribing to any services or having to buy any hardware. It will be available within the next few months. Watch the introduction video above.
PRS Momentum music fund deadline announced. Launched in 2013 with £500,000 of investment from Arts Council England, the Momentum Music Fund offers grants of £5k-£15k for artists and bands to break through to the next level of their career by providing them with vital access to finance. Grants were awarded to 68 artists in the two-year pilot scheme, and additional funding is available to support a further 50-60 artists in 2015-16. If you fit the criteria, apply here before Tuesday 10th February, 2015.