Max for LIVE

Just a word that the Max for LIVE public beta is now available for download:

http://www.cycling74.com/downloads/maxforlive

Have at it!

Fiery Redhead vs Pyro Punks

When I heard that Kathy Supove was going to be performing with Toy Killers at the Stone on Halloween, I thought, “Toy Killers? Hmm…might be before my time.” I think I was still playing with toys when these guys were in full swing during the late ’70s and early ’80s. So I set off to see if I could find out more about them.

Lo and behold – YouTube has everything you know? – there’s a video trailer for a CD of unreleased Toy Killer material that came out last year. The band was/is made up of madmen percussionists Mark E. Miller and Charles K. Noyes, who apparently liked to literally tear it up and burn it down during their downtown performances. Mayhem ensued!

The pyromaniac pair made some industrial punk, no-wave noise with a host of downtown musicians like Elliott Sharp, John Zorn, Nicky Skopelitis, Bill Laswell, Arto Lindsay and the Golden Palominos. Actually, you can listen to a bunch recent demos from Miller and Noyes on their MySpace page. They sound just as clangy, buzzy and aggressive, but I didn’t hear firecrackers or blowtorches going off. Fire codes are a bit different these days, but it will be perfect Halloween fun to see Kathy (ahem, Kathleen) Supove go head to head with this infamous duo.

- Jocelyn

Monome-Nucleosis

One of the most prominent new musical tools I saw in use during the MMiX performances and workshops last month was the Akai APC 40, a controller with buttons, knobs and sliders that was created specifically to work with Ableton LIVE.

The APC hasn’t been out that long, but already Ableton users have developed some far-out finger skills on the device, which almost remind me of keyboardists or guitarists with that kind of high speed dexterity on their own instruments. Some examples:

You could say the APC 40 is similar to the very popular monome, which made it’s first appearance on the electronic music scene as early as 2005. But the monome does not include knobs or faders, using just the minimal grid of backlit buttons on a square box, which is an open-ended interface that can be configured as toggles, groups, or sliders for pretty much any audio application. At this point, the active community of monome users and developers has started using the device for more sophisticated open source video, text and game applications.

Not to be left out in the cold, Novation releases their own Ableton controller this month. It’s called the Launchpad, designed to work with Ableton:

The Novation design seems to split the difference between the APC and the monome, but it probably won’t be as open as the monome. I haven’t found anything solid yet on whether it will work with anything other than Ableton, but I expect someone will figure how to hack it. But the basis for all these controllers are those backlit chicklets, like it’s the most natural musical act to press something and make sound, whether it’s keys, frets, pedals or silicone buttons.

- Jocelyn

Getting Scientific at the Stone

A tip of the hat to a friend of MMiX who’s got some special performances coming up…

Elan Vytal (a.k.a. DJ Scientific) will drop a set tonight, Thursday, Oct 29 at The Stone in NYC, busting out the turntables and laptop to perform as the group LB (Pound) with electric violinist, Matt Szemela (a.k.a. String Theory). Elan and Matt have been cooking up an eclectic mix of urban beat juggling and melodic string popping that blends all kinds of underground and concert hall sounds in one high energy performance. It’s a rockin’ house party turned high art and you won’t want to miss it.

Also, on NOVEMBER 8 at 3pm, Elan Vytal performs at the Flea Theater’s Music With a View series curated by the great Kathleen Supove. The event is called “Instruments of Your Dreams”, a showcase of various artists working with unusual musical instruments. It features performances by Phyllis Chen (toy piano), Judy Dunaway (balloon), Doug Van Nort (laptop ensemble), Elan Vytal (turntables) and guest moderator, Ralph Farris (composer/arranger/violist of experimental indie string quartet, Ethel).

You may know that Elan Vytal is a long-time collaborator of acclaimed violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) and a member of DBR & The Mission. Both artists recently performed together for a First Fridays event at WNYC’s Greene Space. Here’s a taste of that night’s jam which highlights Elan’s skills on the turntables:

- Jocelyn

Ben Neill’s “Inevitable Improvisations”

“The question for me has been what are the most important aesthetic tendencies to emerge out of the recent landscape of digital musics and media?” – Ben Neill

http://vagueterrain.net/journal15/ben-neill/01

Check out Ben Neill’s recent article in the new .microsound edition of the online journal Vague Terrain. In it, Neill discusses the importance of improvisation in the various approaches to creating live interactive digital music and art.

In Case You MMiXed Out the First Time Around

Wondering why in the world you missed some of the incredible performances at the MMiX Festival 2 weeks ago? Well, I’ll help you redeem yourself because there are several opportunities to see some of those composers and musicians who participated in MMiX at some deeply cool gigs this week:

***First off, composer, violinist and loop-meister, Todd Reynolds, performs with his string quartet and The Meredith Monk Ensemble TONIGHT at BAM’s Next Wave Festival. To quote Todd’s own description of this special performance:

“Songs of Ascension is Meredith Monk’s seminal work for her own vocal ensemble and string quartet.  It’s the first time Meredith has used string quartet as part of a larger work, and of course, as Meredith is one of my most-revered interdisciplinary and musical heroes, I am honored to be a part.  Early on, Meredith asked me to collaborate with her on this project and to put together the perfect string quartet team with great-spirited, flexible, excellent players, willing to seek virtuosity in the clear and simple, willing to memorize an hour’s worth of music and treat physical space as if it were the greatest musical score…”

Performance starts at 7:30pm and you can find out more about it at the BAM website or visit Todd Reynolds’ own blog, right here.

***Tomorrow night, Thursday, head downtown to The Stone for MMiX Festival curator, Patrick Grant, who will perform at 8:00pm. After rocking it out ensemble-style at MMiX, Patrick takes it down a notch for this appearance. Here’s the plan, according to Patrick’s Facebook event:

“PATRICK GRANT: IN BOCCA AL LOOPER – Armed with a keyboard, guitar and a laptop, I’ll be performing a solo set of music that grooves to the looping and layering of angular interlocking riffs, mash ups of both urban and world beats, and pop timbres used in the service of avant tonality. A sonic soup for the mind, body AND spirit. I hope you can make it. More info at http://www.patrickgrant.com.”

The Stone is located at the corner of Ave. C and East 2nd St., NYC (F train to 2nd Ave.), $10 at the door. The Stone is curated in the 2nd half of October by Kathleen Supové and its artistic director is John Zorn. If you stick around for the 10:00pm show, you can also catch Bora Yoon performing in HUMAYUN KHAN & GUESTS: Humayun Khan (Indian classical vocal improvisation, Afghan sufi) Said Tinat, Shahin Shahida (guitar), Bora Yoon (vocals, tanpura), Haroon Alam (tabla, percussion) Douglas J. Cuomo (guitar, electronica).

***Finally, get the weekend started right with Joshua Fried/Radio Wonderland performing at free103point9’s annual fall festival of radio art and experimentation at St. Mark’s Ontological Theater:

“Radio Wonderland: Joshua Fried turns the very bits and bytes of commercial culture into the driving backbeat to our dance of independence. In this developing solo, Fried abstracts live FM radio with laptop, electrified shoes hit with sticks, and a computer-hacked steering wheel (from a Buick 6).”

That’s Friday at 8:00pm, $7-$10 on a sliding scale. Shake a leg in the aisles people!

So that’s it, what a wealth of performances to expand your mind and entertain your senses! Don’t say I never tipped you off to any of the cool stuff.

More MMiXers to come…

- Jocelyn

MMiX 4.1

Just a few more photos of MMiX closing performances by Chronotronic Wonder Transducer and Ben Neill with Bill Jones. Special thanks to Tyler Isaacson, who snapped this set of pics, and to Anna Li and Amanda Katz for lending a helping hand – my students are the BEST!:

- Jocelyn

MMiX Festival Part Four

OK. The thing is done. Long exhales, a good long nap and heart-felt thanks to everyone. Your support, artistry and friendship (not to mention your cables and power strips) have meant the world to us.

More pics to follow in the days ahead:

There’ll be plenty of content (video too) coming out as we get it together after a well deserved rest.

In the meantime, there’s many a point to ponder. We all learned so much about HOW music is being made in its current state that now the question shifts to WHAT is being made, let alone WHY.

Ben Neill made a great point, as far as “interactive” music goes, that being: It connects best with an audience when there is some level, structured as it may be, of improvisation. That made a lot of sense to hear that put so clearly. Without it, where is the risk, where is the edge-of-our-seat excitement which has always made for great music/performance no matter the decade, epoch or technology (?). With that in mind, nothing worthwhile is truly new. It’s simply this year’s extension of what humans have been doing since time immemorial.

Which means, for us here: more to come.

Thank you everybody!

-The MMiX Team

MMiX Festival Part Three

Last night at the MMiX Festival, the lights were low, but the energy was high.  The creators of Ableton LIVE and Cycling ’74’s Max/MSP/Jitter, Gerhard Behles and David Z, were in the house and showed us the future of music software with Todd Reynolds‘ and Luke DuBois‘ Max for LIVE workshop. And in a nod to the past, Steven Litt allowed us to appreciate our old vinyl records in a new way by hooking up his CrudBox to 8 vintage turntables. The performances by Patrick Grant Group, Kathleen Supove and Elliott Sharp/Janene Higgins merged technology with humor, theater, science, incredible visual art and highly skilled musicianship.

TONIGHT: Put on your dancing shoes for the last night of the MMiX Festival – first up at 6:30, the artists of Chronotronic Wonder Transducer present their group performance; Ben Neill and Bill Jones merge mutantrumpet with video artistry; and DJ Rekha brings her deep bhangra beats to MMiX. Come on up and get down at our closing night party…your Monday morning will thank us for it!

MMiX Festival Part Two

We haven’t dumped all of our video chips yet ( and when we do, I expect we’ll discover moving evidence of actual “dancing”!), but here are the snapshots from last night’s MMiX performances at Theaterlab (again, many thanks to Erick Gonzales for playing shutterbug):

TONIGHT at MMiX Festival: Patrick Grant Group, Kathleen Supove, Elliot Sharp/Janene Higgins, plus more from Chronotronic Wonder Transducer and free Cycling ‘74 Max for LIVE workshop with Luke DuBois and Todd Reynolds at 6:30pm. Be there, or be…um…ah yeah I’m out.