Since 2007, the allround venue Worm in Rotterdam has housed CEM – a studio that dates back to 1956. Last week, I had the opportunity to spend 4 days there, amounting in around 20 (sketches for) new songs. These will be released over time, but for now you can listen to three tiny teasers at wormstudio.

I used the Arp 2500 and a Commodore 64. I sequenced, played the keyboards and tried different ways of synchronizing them. Eventhough the studio has so many machines to use, I deliberately focused on one in order to gradually improve my trial and error methods (being somewhat inexperienced with modular monsters).

The C64 has analogue filters and is not as deterministic as other computers – something I always appreciated. I saw this residency as an opportunity to amplify and recontextualize these characteristics, in order to take the C64 into a new ultra dimension.

Neither of these machines are optimum for setting exact tempos. Unlike today’s standards they are influenced or even determined by electric currents. On the 10-step sequencer of the Arp, you have a knob to set the tempo, and every millimeter counts. To me it also seemed to fluctuate a bit in the tempo, possibly caused by other signals leaking into the clock signal. (This can be solved, but I like to encourage these things)

On the C64, you normally have predetermined tempo-settings to choose from. If you hear a C64-song, it will likely be in either 125.31 or 150.37 BPM. In European PAL-country that is, because the tempos are derived from the electric current.

However, with my dear Defmon software I can set the tempo with maximum precision – down to a tick of the processor. Going out of the inherent tempos however, has consequences for the sound. You can no longer be sure that envelopes and loops sound the same. To avoid this, I usually have the C64 as master, but this time I adjusted the tempo after the Arp.

The process was this: output the clock signal of the Arp as audio, sample 2 minutes of it, analyze the BPM, convert the BPM into hex-values according to the other speed settings of Defmon, and you got it synchronized. Sort of.

I can hear all you tech-geeks sighing over this lamer solution. But it was wonderful to leave the machines running, hearing them mutate by themselves since they were slightly out of sync, or due to electrical leakages in the Arp and uncontrolled bugs in the C64. From a technical point of view, this might be possible to do with a laptop, but this was sometihng profoundly different from working with über-data-control.

All this amounted to several hours of recordings. Some of these 30 minute improvisations can be cut up in parts, and overdubbed with more C64, to create songs that also relate to eachother quite specifically. But we will see what happens. I already miss that studio with tropical heat and sparkling beats!

Frantic and me have previously shown our C64 glitch game HT Gold and in June it will be shown at A MAZE as part of Berlin Design Festival.

Ye times of one song per day is over, behold art and theory! (yawn) .. Well, check a little selection of mini-data things that I compiled for Cimatics here

Following up the previous post, here is a remix of the videostream from Jacob Sikker Remin’s exhibition by Rosa Menkman with another song of mine.

we live in the spaces built by our discussions [remix] from rosa menkman on Vimeo.

Jacob Sikker Remin has an exhibition called Standing On The Shoulders of Giants in Århus, Denmark. I contributed some bits of text for it, and also made the music for the video here. It is just a raw videostream from one screen of the exhibition, it includes some quotes from me. (Is 8 pixels enough to be copyrightable?) Expect more stuff soon, and if you are in the area you should check this out! I’d say that the two main themes are pixels and “remixing” (which of course, the title refers to).

Oh, and the song is an unedited version of something I will release in the future. I guess it can also be seen as an example of what can be done with Defmon. What you hear is a live dub-session with C64+effects, manipulating this song for 22 minutes. Ah, and some other bits pasted in the beginning an end, to fill up the 24 minutes. Ow bwoy boom boom!

we live in the spaces built by our discussions from jacob sikker remin on Vimeo.

Living in times where a filter/plugin is considered sellout after 1 week, this is of course terribly outdated. But it’s my dear Defmon C64-tracker getting datamoshed by the click of a button. I am so cool that I don’t even need to use the plugin that everybody else uses! Surf’s up! Warning for extreme clicking!

Galerie Duplex in Toulouse (France) is running an exhibition with Julien Ducourthial aka Otro. I made the music for an animated Amiga piece called Black Noises. On display until 7th of March.

Hey. Things are a bit slow. Sorry for cancelling my show in Falun, I think it’s the first show I’ve ever cancelled. I had my reasons… Anyway. Just found a nice review of my gig at En Festival i 8 Bitar a while ago: “The seventh artist, GoTo80, the biggest artist of the evening, was probably the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. The only attention I could give him was an irritating look and hands over my ears. The guy was only screaming a lot and gave me a headache. The fact that his name was so big mostly just made me upset. I definitely wanted to go home when he started playing. Luckily, he was the last artist of the evening. Score: 0 of 10″ / Jenny

photo: rosa menkman

Photo of HT Gold exhibited at the central square of Copenhagen as part of re:new. It’s mega-modified game, running straight from C64. Sorry for disturbing your otherwise standard sunny afternoon of coffee, pölse, and “true indian music” – but the datatrash cannot be stopped! More photos here and here. And by the way, there is some pretty square theoretical chip-art stuff over at chipflip nowadays. Don’t miss out!

If you are in Copenhagen on Saturday, you’ll have the chance to see a hardcore piece of c64 datatrash in 4 by 8 metres, made by Autoboy+me. It’s a game with improved functionality and less competition. It’s not yer usual random-glitch, but the game is still very playable although physics, graphics, sound effects, music, steering, scores, etc, are constantly changed. I am not sure where it will be shown in megasize, but there’ll probably be information over at mikrogalleriet where it will be for 1,5 week more.

Busy bikini!

Friday: En Festival i 8 Bitar – a two-day festival in Västerås (SE) with artists such as Paza Rahm, Dubmood, Psilodump, VJ C-men, Cornbeast, Maskinoperatör, me, and many more!

Saturday: “49 CM” @ mikrogalleriet, Copenhagen. An exhibition with good data stuff! Exhibiting: autoboy+goto80, 8bit klubben, tanja stasia schlander, hannes hoelzl (de), mikkel meyer, casper øbro, graffiti robotten hector (lab), humdinger (can), tony light (it), :ö: (se), otolab (it), raquel meyers (es), elmer.o (fr), johnny rogers (us), el monstro (col), miruki (bel), hanniballade, sekitani (jp), tobi twang. Don’t miss out! Superdöner plays live at the afterparty @ apparratet, nørrebrogade 184.

Sunday: Superdöner live @ Elvaerket, Helsingör, DK