glique

reinvention

lost.sync@gmail.com (lost.sync) — Mon, 6 Mar 2006 07:41:00 -0800

i think glique is a great idea. i had high hopes for this blog when i was doing my first podcast, and they soared for a while, until crashing into the brick wall of time constraint. glique fell steadily in my list of priorities until winding up at the bottom of a list that never gets read more than halfway through.

this isn't really acceptable.

i've decided that glique should be more than a one man show, and should be ressurected and realized in a new manner. i'm presently in the process of defining a team of people to help bring glique to the point it should have started at. i would like for this incarnation to provide readers with the following things:

the podcast

interviews

netlabel release news

tour dates for artists we cover

idm-relevant software news and reviews

it's all about exposing the things we like to as many people as we can. if you would like to volunteer for this project, please drop an email to lost.sync at gmail.com describing what you feel you can contribute and why you'd like to do so.

i think that covers it. stay tuned for the second coming.

podcast [episode 2]

lost.sync@gmail.com (lost.sync) — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 13:58:00 -0700

second podcast is up (thanks to gracious hosting by andrew velker)
[episode 2]

winterstrand – regenbogenba,bies (for lena)
oh shit, versteh ich nicht!, kikapu
winterstrand.parknet.at

tlon – subways
va, many things worth living for, autoplate
www.autoplate.org

komsomol – lay down the cigarettes
words and pictures, kikapu
www.kikapu.com

off the sky – her soft circumference
caustic light ep, autoplate
www.offthesky.com

xhale – earlier today
slugabed, misimah
xhale.planet-d.net

berestez - korimba
polkcity, kahvi
www.kahvi.org

downtime

lost.sync@gmail.com (lost.sync) — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 22:56:00 -0700

well, i have a podcast all ready to go, but archive.org is apparently having some troubles at the moment and i am unable to put the podcast up for hosting.

on the off chance that someone reading this would like to offer temporary hosting for the file (~30mb), feel free to contact me and offer. in the meantime, i'll try again tomorrow, and onward until i finally get it up. i'm really sorry for the delay.

software: glitch vst

lost.sync@gmail.com (lost.sync) — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 05:02:00 -0700

while to some it may seem a bit sacreligous to use a plugin aimed at automating the process of creating glitch and idm (and to others it may seem second nature), this beta vst plugin by dblue could come in quite handy to music makers in these genres if for no other reason than that it rolls all of the commonly used glitch effects together in one nicely done vst plugin.

glitch features 8 individual effects triggered randomly or via built-in sequencer. the effects are modulator, retrigger, shuffler, reverser, crusher, gater, flanger, and stretcher. each effect comes with it's own resonant filter [lp/hp/bp/bs].

yes, it could be abused (heavily) but i think that the possibilities here are pretty interesting. glitch and idm producers have been doing this type of thing for a long time, but this approach doesn't require that you get neck-deep in high-level application programming. purists might now be gearing up for flame wars, much like they did with the inclusion of the so-called glitch kits in reason 3.0, but i for one am in full support of having our niche needs met by plugin developers.

my only gripes are that the interface could be a little more intuitive and the knob action feels a little weird. oh and that sadly, while there is a demo download of the beta version, it silences 5 seconds out of every 2 minutes of processing unless you pay 20 euros to its creator. while i wouldn't mind paying for this software, i'm not sure that paying for a beta is exactly my kind of thing. still, it's enough of a plugin to give you plenty of loops to throw into ableton and is fun to play with no matter what.

review: planet boelex - never change (ep) [od079]

lost.sync@gmail.com (lost.sync) — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 07:18:00 -0700

planet boelex is one of the few netlabel artists i'd actually heard of before starting this podcast. i have very little experience with netlabel artists and thus this project has a two-pronged purpose for me:

1) expose myself to music by people like me
2) expose everyone else to it, too.

digging through netlabel 'back issues' for content turned out to be a much more difficult task than i'd previously assumed. my happiness when i found the planet boelex track featured in episode 1 of glique was unmeasurable. i honestly searched for 12 total hours looking for thirty minutes of music that i felt worthy of my first episode and comfortable stamping my personal seal of approval on. pb was a great find.

as such, it brings me great pleasure to have the opportunity to feature planet boelex in the first text-only installment of glique by means of a review of his latest effort, never change, newly released on ogredung's [don't ask, don't tell] netlabel.

planet boelex has found a delicate balance with this release. the beats are chill, easy going, structured while still fresh and mildly unpredictable. like many idm fans, for me the percussion is really what makes or breaks a track in so many cases, and this 3-track ep is full of clicky goodness in that regard. but much to planet boelex's credit, that's not the highlight of this release. while so many idm artists seem to concentrate almost exclusively on the drum work (thus creating the expectation for incredibly intricate drum work noted above), pb has put a serious amount of effort into the chromatic side of things.

the overall sound is rather atmospheric in nature, but not quite in the same theatrical fashion as other things along the same lines that i've been hearing lately. the title track, never change, opens the ep with heavily effected vocal samples layered over and under noisy synths drenched in a pristine reverb, panning slowly from one speaker to the next. a dark bassline creeps in, staticy without the noise (somehow?). you kind of get lost in the intro...by the time the drums kick in you hardly notice because the song's already taken you away somewhere. it's superbly dark, the whole production. layers of strategicly placed sounds adorn the entire track, which manages to remain largely the same throughout it's 6:38 duration but somehow never seems to loop. fans of the more chaotic side of idm will find solace in the dissonance offered by the occassional accidental in the lead sequence. it's really quite well done.

track two, beaver tactics, picks up in a similar fashion, clicky percussion punctuating lush, panning pads which breathe a certain tension. on a side note, i learned long ago never to try and understand the names of songs in this and related genres, but this one really has me wondering. this song keeps it a little more ambient (but by definition only) than the one before it, shying away from things like bass drums for most of the duration. the pads are really what carry this track all the way to the six minute mark when the beat starts trying to steal the thunder with help from the bassline. the pads fight back, knocking the drums back into whatver depths from which they surfaced, but they eventually succumb and the track swells into something more concrete. after all the buildup to get to this point, the ending seems a bit abrubt, but that's not really much of a criticism.

and now it's time for a change with planet bee, the third and final track of this 23ish minute ep. this is the most structured of the songs, sporting a dark but groovy bass line with very defined and almost upbeat drums to help carry it along. it soon breaks down into a more melodic and serious sounding piece, minor keying it's way to your heart, but not for long, as it picks back up into it's happy-memory-of-something-you-lost sort of sound. the contrast in this track is nice, as is the use of negative space in the lead.

this is a good, solid release. my single consistent complaint is that the drums could stand to be louder. all of the meldoies are great...they evoke a lot of feeling in a relatively short amount of time, but i do think that that punctuation that the drums could provide could be enhanced by a little boost on the drum channel. some might say the use of reverb was a little over the top. i could go either way on that, personally. i like it how it is. it'd be nice with less, too.

all in all, well done. i look forward to hearing more from this artist in the future.

[ never change ep - downloads and streams ]

podcast [episode 1]

lost.sync@gmail.com (lost.sync) — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 08:57:00 -0700

first podcast is up.
[episode 1]

seven tracks from various netlabels.

planet boelex – windbreak
second thoughts ep, monotonik
www.boelex.org

evan valentine – lone beep
fish food ep, lifeform project
www.evanvalentine.com

genetic – friendshiplovelife
leighf ep, lifeform project
www.snapcrafty.com/~citeneg

monoculture – don’t know mind (externalities mix)
real anarchists cross with the light, kikapu
www.urbansprawlrecords.com/news

the open directory project – dyed in the eyes
dried lip ep, camomille
camomille.genshimedia.com

paperball – relax your fax
pegaton mytheye, hippocamp
www.ballofpaper.com

jamma walla – red
concept ep #4, acedia
www.acediamusic.org

enjoy.