There’s no reason synthesizers have to always appear in dingy industrial spaces – love those spaces as we do. Musician Andrea Chichecki has just completed the release of a three-part outdoor series of live performances on modular, and you can expect the same feeling of calm you might get from going along yourself.
This isn’t just finding a pretty spot for a video. For one, they’re recorded with sensitivity to the locations: “We’ve filmed this video with the uttermost care, on main paths, no nature was harmed, no animals were disturbed and people could walk around us at all times. No artificial lights were used, no sound played out, everything was recorded silently using headphones.”
There’s also an effort to support tree planting and ecological initiatives, including the reforestation being undertaken by Liquid Sky Artist Collective in southern Portugal. I was just on location there (with Andrea) – more on that soon. But the need for trees is real, as Portugal faces advanced desertification and fire, since choosing the right tree has the potential to stabilize the soil and slow some of these advancing catastrophes. (So yes, while you may see trees burning in the recent forest fires, that’s partly been due to planting of trees that are less resistant to fire – which can start the entire ecosystem into a death spiral of fire, rising temperatures, and collapsing landscapes.)
Those initiatives:
https://theoceancleanup.com/donate/
Watch in any order; there’s no particular chronology. Here are the other two. (Gear notes tagged in the videos, but I’ll let you trainspot yourself – aren’t you supposed to be looking at the mountains or sky or something, anyway?)
If you’re ready to work on your own chops, Andrea has a ton of video tutorials and reviews on her channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@AndreaCichecki/
And you’ll find all her work on her nicely organized personal site:
https://www.andreacichecki.com/
For one place to start, she did a guest spot for BoBeats with an introduction to making modular ambient music – just the thing to counter anyone who says modular is only about discordant noodling. (And I say that as a fan of some discordant noodling every now and then.)
Now go outside. CDM works on mobile.