Some of you might be surprised to learn that people don’t just read this blog, they also make music. Digital music.
In fact, the Create Digital Noise forums have a whole active community of musicmakers, encompassing a broad range of styles, sensibilities, and production techniques. Let’s sift through some recent works by the CDM community, shall we?
Leading the pack in can-do professionalism is UK’s Creature and his new album Distant Horizon:
Creature Audio
Creature is the project of Stephen Haunts, who some of you may recognize from last year’s Circuit-Bending Challenge. Stephen is the proprietor of Haunted House records, and his album is available directly from Haunted House, or via download from iTunes, CDBaby, and a whole slew of others.
A name you may recognize in pairing with the phrase “Buchla Modular Synthesizer” or “Haaken Continuum controller” is that of Richard Lainhart.
lainheart
This track, “The Orchestra Of The Damned” is a track from Richard’s new MusicZeit release “The Beautiful Blue Sky“, a collection of electronic landscapes for the Buchla 200e and Haken Continuum. It was performed and recorded live without post-processing or editing.
Richard’s studies in modular synthesis, sequencing, and improvisation are blow-your-mind good and totally worth checking out. He also creates work in video and animation. Richard’s a very experienced electronic composer and it shows in the depth and breadth of his work. He will occasionally impart valuable nuggets of wisdom to n00bs on the forums, and for that he is truly a saint.
A great example of the other end of the CDM spectrum is forum member Adambomb and his group Born Again Abortion, taking a completely different approach.
born again abortion
Their myspace page contains some hilarious and also NSFW photoshopped images that very effectively communicate their irreverent punk rock aesthetic. This is exactly why freedom was invented. Also, Adambomb is a super nice guy with good advice, especially regarding live performance with electronics.
From Toronto, Canada hails Shamann and his group SIGHUP.
sighup track
They’ve got a free digital single called “Face” up on their website, which is just the sort of thing you’d expect from socialist-leaning, progressive Canada.
Jatun is a project from forum member Dead_Red_Eyes.
jatun audio
These guys apparently have a Norweigan connection- their music has been featured on HHTV and will be in an upcoming ski/snowboarding video by the Helly Hansen co. Way to be, gentlemen.
Relatively new forum member Slew has been up to something, and it’s good.
Slew audio
MZW!! hails from Spain and it looks like he’s been working with light-sensitive resistors.
mzw audio
Devin Kerr is a man whose tastes run parallel to my own when it comes to MIDI footcontrollers and joystick audio modulation.
devin kerr audio
Forum member te2rx is working on a Japan-themed album under the name Renzu.
renzu audio
And that’s just a small sample of the wonders to be found within the CDM forums, where most questions are answered with a minimum of snark, and everybody loves sandwiches. Stop on by, why dontcha?