News Round Up 10/4/15

Inside the mind of Ron Morelli, Elijah on vinyl, Scuba goes shopping, and do musicians really die young?

Parva Polyphonic Analog Synthesiser. Futuresonus introduce their “revolutionary” new polyphonic synthesiser, which combines the classic warmth of an all-analogue signal chain with the convenience of digital control in an elegantly designed tabletop package at an affordable price. Check it out above and at their Kickstarter.

What’s In Scuba’s Bag? The man behind Hotflush Recordings, Paul Rose (aka Scuba) goes shopping at indie record store Amoeba Music in Hollywood, and talks about his purchases of seminal tracks by Dave Clarke, a UK garage classic by Sunship, and his favourite album by The Smiths. Watch above.

Inside the mind of Ron Morelli. In the latest episode of RA‘s Exchange series of conversations with the artists, labels and promoters behind electronic music, Ron Morelli talks about his label L.I.E.S., which he purports to specialise in “music for shut-ins” and to have started simply to release great music by his friends since 2010. Stream above.

Sample Magic release Afterhours House. 400MB of loops, hits and MIDI inspired by the deep, groove-focused sound emanating from the French underground – think Apollonia, Real Tone and Catwash Records. Check it out here.

The Synth Cave Of Alessandro Cortini. An interview with one of the few mainstream experimental synthesists, who tours and works in the studio with Nine Inch Nails. SonicState talk with Alessandro Cortini about the equipment he uses with NIN and in his solo work: a massive Buchla system, Roland MC-202, Elektron Oktatrack, the EMS VCS3 and Synthi AKS – in the video above.

Let’s Bring Elka Back. For their 125th anniversary, Generalmusic launch a new website detailing their efforts to bring back the Elka Synthex, whose unique Italian sound was used and loved by some of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, as part of the keyboard and pro audio products manufacturer’s larger plans to bring to market legendary reissue models and brand new technology. Find out more and sign up to be a part of it here.

Roland’s Previous Modular: System-100. Following recent reports about Roland‘s forthcoming modular synth, shown above, CreateDigitalMusic remembers that Roland has done modular before – in the form of products including the System 100 of the late 70s, and the Synthesizer-101. The idea was to put a full-featured mono synth with a keyboard at the centre, and for additional modules to be patched in for more creative sound design options. Read more about it here.

A Love Letter to French Touch. Rewinding the disco-driven filter house that linked Phoenix, St Germain, Fred Falke, Alan Braxe, DJ Falcon, Bob Sinclar and more in a history of the French scene that, with Daft Punk‘s breakthrough surfing its crest, birthed a wave of funky and sophisticated French house acts in the mid 1990s, and came to be known as french touch. Read all about it in Medium‘s feature article.

Elijah On Vinyl. The grime DJ and co-owner of seminal label Butterz reflects on things to consider when thinking about releasing records in 2015, five years after the first Butterz release. “Most of the questions I get asked about via email and on my travels is how to start a label. I’m not necessarily a good example of how to do it now, especially five years on, but I’ll share my experience, failures and successes across this piece and hopefully it can give you an insight into how we got off the ground.” Read in full here.

Sankeys Publicly Fires Darius Syrossian. Resident of Tribal Sessions, Darius Syrossian was publicly sacked by the club via a Facebook post, which said that he was terminated for “bringing the club and the brand into disrepute”. The DJ immediately took to Twitter defending himself, with plenty of fans joining in to support him. Find the full story here.

Do Musicians Really Die Young? Dianna Theodora Kenny – professor of psychology and music – at the University of Sydney, publishes a series of articles studying musicians’ causes of death, having studied the deaths of 12,665 musicians between 1950 and 2014. Kenny examines musicians’ longevity and the proportion of deaths caused by suicide, murder and injury or accident. Find out all the grizzly details in the Guardian‘s summary.