sing like buildings: April 2007

release :: toys we made cd-r

preparing for the bent festival was so much fun. cramming rehearsals and bending instruments to have a repertoire of bent gear was exhausting and inspiring. sadly though, i missed most of the workshops. we were the last band to play on the final night of the nyc leg of the coast to coast festival. the other acts that performed were so fun to watch. my favorite was probably the loud objects. for the bent festival we've prepped a cd-r of songs all derived from bent instruments called, "toys we made." we've also invited some of our musical friends to collaborate with us. the final product is a 13 track album all focused on bent instruments. appearances by twi the humble feather, julianna barwick, simon grimm, and dion dhrati.

:: listen to toys we made
:: listen to cubes

our performance was so much fun too. it was the best venue we've played at thus far and had a great supportive audience. videos are slowly getting uploaded. npr also did a little featurette on the nyc festival.

alias pail
toys we made
mookie/ap-1
$8.00 (free postage in usa)
CD-R

Labels: bent festival 2007

preparation :: bent festival 2007

sometimes things break. you can't go back, the excitement is replaced with only-if's, what could have beens, and why me's. as much fun as bending is, when you destroy a toy you treasured, it sucks. especially if it was a jem. i broke my vintage fisher price creative music maker, weeks before a performance. a real great showcase piece. finding another is rare, even by eBay standards. luckily, a friendly stranger by way of google, helped me replace my baby.

the new version is safer, and designed to not get wires crossed. remember that most old toys don't have protection circuits. i'm developing a habit of adding diodes to protect crossing the wires. i'm totally obsessed with using altoids cases now. the graphics make the pieces look like pop art.

Labels: bent festival 2007

preparation :: bent festival 2007

the older the instrument, the more room inside to place your circuit bends. the magical musical thing was just begging for some primitive bends. there's tons of room inside, so i didn't have to remove the speaker. there's lots of room on the other end too, i plan on adding a lfo circuit. a childish bend, but totally fun to play due to the nature, it almost holds like a battle axe guitar now.

Labels: bent festival 2007

performance :: pandatone, julianna barwick, praveen

musical pals pandatone, julianna barwick, and praveen performed at cake shop to host visiting kiiii. pandatone standing at a live performance?! yes, it's possible. he ran his guitar through his computer for added fx and played off recorded loop starters. julianna eased in her vocal loops on top, and praveen held light beats. it was an improv'd set, and kinda served as a kickoff to promote pandatone's new album, happy together, which comes out april 24th. advanced copies were available at the show. the album features a strong collaboration between pandatone and julianna barwick's vocals. unfortunately, i couldn't stay to see kiiii, but judging from their colorful hyper gold and silver dvd, i'm sure their set pumped the rainy day attenders into sugar high antics.

:: improv set ::

:: listen to first song
:: listen to second song
:: listen to third song
:: listen to fourth song
:: listen to fifth song
:: listen to sixth song

Labels: julianna barwick, performance

preparation :: bent festival 2007

completed stage one of a circuit bend for my tiny casio VL-5. i haven't found any bends online for this model, so i was left on my own to come up with something. soldering to the tiny motherboard contact points with a radio shack iron is extremely difficult, but i managed through persistance. the cool thing about this bend, is i was able to stay all 007 about it. the contact points are tiny socket pins glued through the speaker holes. the case is really tight and small, so i eased off going crazy with contact points, and just interfaced the ones i liked the most.

the coolest effect i could get was this random arpeggriator sound that is delicately triggered by changing the reistance between three points. you can get these really great philip glass type sounds from it. there's still alot more to do, but for now, it'll stay in this phase. the fun part was making an interface console from an altoids box. i was inspired by the multiple projects involving altoid boxes at makezine.com. however cutting in to metal boxes is difficult. we've been busy rehearsing and recording a cd-r for the bent festival. alias pail is performing in the evening of the last night of bent festival on the 28th of april.