The legend is back...

After a long hiatus, the unsurpassed synth legend that is Vangelis is back with a new studio album...

It is said to be released on 23 September, and it is a project inspired by, and dedicated to, ESA's Rosetta probe launched in 2004.

The tracks so far released on the internet show that the music, as many fans expressed on forums, thankfully is not a bombastic symphonic score in the vein of the rather controversial Mythodea.

Whilst Vangelis always excelled in orchestral and quasi-orchestral creations, one has to go back to the '70s and '80s to find real emotional punch and intricate musical ideas in the few albums he released in this vein... The more recent output, with the exception of the score for 1492 Conquest of Paradise and El Greco (the studio album, not the soundtrack), was marked by hugely overblown arrangements where the emotional impact and the musical inventiveness has suffered at the expense of wall-to-wall orchestrations.

The teaser tracks (so far a few short excerpts on Youtube) show that this is not a return to the vintage Albedo 0.39 and such space music albums from Vangelis. It sounds like a through-and-through contemporary affair, and the orchestral passages sound more like the epic and passionate sounds of El Greco.

Rosetta's Waltz also shows that, again unlike Mythodea, we shall be treated to incomparably more melodic content and passionate driving arrangements reminiscent of the Vangelis albums of yesteryear.

Let's see how the full album hangs together - alas, we have to wait a couple of months until then...

Deep Mind to the 12th power

Screengrab from Behringer teaser video No. 5

A slight detour into gearheads' territory, as such news don't come around very often.

In 2014, originally based on an interview in Amazona.de, rumours started about Behringer working on an analogue synth.

In 2015, there have been wonderings and wanderings on forums, whether the plans are still "on" or it's all been forgotten.

Well, mid-2016 it is all reality. Cue the to-be-released DeepMind12 analogue splendour...

Whopping 12 voices in an analogue synth, which seems also aided, even augmented according to first impressions (see 5th teaser video below), by digital effects.

So after many years of mixing desks and other audio gizmos of quite respectable caliber, now a whopping synth beast is in the making in their product portfolio.

It appears to have arpeggiator and undoubtedly some more digital control 'oomph', too - if they bolted onto it such a display and digital effects module... Step sequencing please? Pretty please? :)

It will be presented in October it seems, and judging from the videos, it is claimed to have a very "organic" feel when played.

So apart from gearhead enthusiasm, it is yet another "retro" synth beast and it will be interesting to see price point and features compared to e.g. Korg current offering.

The 5 teaser videos so far released by Behringer are below:

1.

2.

3.

4. 

5.

A new underground

WEATNU or "We Are The New Undergound" is a notable development in the rapidly diversifying independent and underground music scene. At its roots, it stands for the more avantgarde, less mainstream, electronic music - as difficult it is to sometimes draw a line between the two.

Emerging with its internet radio and social network presence, and its digital magazine, it has its roots in the avant-garde, and focuses on the art-form of the musician.

It is growing rapidly, as it is about helping the electronic artist through exposure., accepting diverse underground styles from Synthpop to EBM, DnB, IDM, Industrial, Leftfield and avant-garde, indie pop, dreamwave, shoegaze, Indierock, Ethereal, House, Deephouse, Synthwave, even mod music, tracker music, etc.

It is completely free to be part of, and in the landscape of ultra-commercial (and far from indie) music, it is an exciting development - just judging from the number of talents it acquired in its various forums over the past months, it is testament to the tireless work of Almark Thaolen, its founder and curator.

It has just released its first summer compilation CD, too, which alongside endeavours like the Ambient Online yearly compilation initiative curated in the US, give an insight into a rather non-mainstream electronic music scene.

Feeding digital vultures

After two busy summer months, finally returning with a topic that may be of some help to indie/unsigned musicians...

As the late Umberto Eco famously and astutely put it, the internet gives you everything - reliable material and crazy material. One would add, some crazy material is not only unreliable, but it actively seeks your money... for dubious services that contradict basic logic of (in this case) music industry and marketing.

In the case of budding musicians wishing to promote their creations, this far from positive take on the internet's wonders applies very much when it comes to the digital vultures that try to capitalize on musicians' aspirations.

The classic recipe is ubiquitous, unfortunately: myriad so-called "push promotion" websites, twitter accounts and the like try to make musicians believe that they shall make the musicians' creations known to N (N is usually a very eye-watering large number) individuals, organisations, forums etc.

No matter how much one wishes to promote one's beloved musical or other output, one has to ask the fundamental question before clicking on some payment button: even if it is true, what do the recipients of these so-called "promotional" services' messages, tweets etc. think? How do they act when they are bombarded indiscriminately by these myriad messages, all promoting myriad artists they never heard of?

It is a rhetoric question. Please, please, do not feed these vultures... If you find them on forums and blogs, mentioning how many "genuine" cases they made famous, most of those are made up usually or... they represent an infinitesimal proportion of artists that via other channels usually "landed" some sought-after objective for themselves.

Look at the case of licensing services, too - the fundamental rule is that if they promise you licensing deals, placements in adverts, films etc., they must not ask you upfront fees. Any, any, reputable and real agency will make their money by representing that artist - yes, yes, it sounds simple and very basic, but it is astonishing how many budding artists end up feeding these vultures.

Let's just name GoDIY Records here as it is something highly representative of the very professional-looking and -sounding carrot dangling outfits. Because I had the dubious honor of being contacted by them very recently, the email exchanges are highly representative and are a perfect summary of how these outfits' business model runs - and would share the classic steps in shutting their attempts down:

Step 1: Highly professional-looking email, with links to websites and social media profiles. Offering the Moon on a very pleasantly shaped stick, but, beware: setup fees and monthly fees.

Step 2: If the artist asks about these fees' justification, further emails, even very touchingly personal phone calls may follow (!). One feels utterly flattered by such attention. They waive the hefty setup fee, offering to only take monthly membership...

Step 3: If the artist asks: have they even listened to my music and can they describe how it fits their clients' needs?... The answer is usually vague: "we found your tracks on xy (e.g. ReverbNation and the like) sites", and "your sound" is perfect...

Step 4: Artist ask them: how come they have not googled or looked in myriad other places where the music is reachable, why do they build a vague and sweeping opinion based on one or two tracks on an anyway dubious "artist promotion" website? Reaction: usually silence and communication ends.

Step 5 may follow sometimes: Ask them how do they differentiate themselves from other "services" that need upfront fees for the honor of being "represented" and are simply praying on budding artists? Result: usually silence and all communication ends. At least with the mentioned outfit, this, instead of a reply detailing their business model and "success stories", resulted in the (very much expected) silence.

Budding musicians, please, no matter how enticing some vultures sound, please, do ask the pertinent questions.

Corner them.

Use their own rhetoric and probe, probe, probe.

What have you got to lose?

A genuine service (never mind that it would never want money upfront) would be able to answer the basic, but surprisingly effective, probing questions.

You do not offend them. If they are in the business and if they are professional, they a) fully appreciate your objective queries, and their motivations, b) they are after your music and they do not just drop you because of some justified probing questions. If they do, it is already a sign that you should stay well away from them!

The internet has brought countless such digital vultures and, alas, judging by their number, they are making a living because indie/unsigned musicians are feeding them...

Of two poles

Photo: Karma-Lab.com

Vangelis, in one of his '80s interviews, stated quite aptly that a lot of development has gone into electronic instruments, but what he really lacked in synth producers' output was the effort put into making the instruments, well, really musical instruments for musicians...

A lot has changed since, and by not only going for the usual "endorsements" from keyboardists but also involving them in the creative process, synth makers have been releasing gear that could increasingly be seen as intuitive instruments. With the exponentially increasing complexity of the synth engines, this was obviously not an easy achievement...

Apart from this obvious evolution that we now take for granted whenever we approach a new synth beast, there has been an intriguing polarisation of the gear landscape.

One one extreme, we have what one may call the "total" syndrome (as in some toothpastes). Forgive the analogy for a tiny moment... and let us think of e.g. Korg's Kronos workstation. A mighty beast by any measure, and a major evolutionary step after the already unprecedented M3's achievements.

However, it is philosophically belonging to this "total" approach: let us cram as many as possible synth engines into it, integrate them nicely, make a revolutionary change of direction toward expandable/upgradeable software rather than focusing on mainly hardware updates.

Musicians in certain genres may never use the myriad Hammond organs, nor the myriad piano or physical modelling capabilities, hence ignoring some if not most of the packed-together synth engines.

Something like Kronos wants to do everything, albeit in an integrated way, but without major customisation possibilities in the sense that e.g. some musicians in certain genres may wish to only pay for some of the synth engines, whilst enjoying what the user interface and the operating system offers. As long as this "total" approach does not take one away from the focus on what musicians really need as users, then fine...

On the other extreme, we have the small, focused, sometimes tiny and bordering on the irresistibly cute, synths... Think of Roland's Boutique series, Korg's analogue (and analogue modelling) gear released in the past few months, or the interesting comeback of hardware sequencers and, generally speaking, the revival of the "oldies and goldies"... Even Minimoog Model D has seen a re-release few weeks ago...

Therefore, personally, it will be very interesting to see where the next evolutionary step comes from and just what the next strategic step will be. Also, personally, one hopes it will not be the direction of the, again forgive the closest analogy, "total" toothpastes with added endless series of comma-separated words that were not in the after-all-not-so-total previous products...

The risk is that workstation landscape will shift toward this latter nightmare-ish scenario that will take us backward, focusing away from what was becoming more and more instrument-like despite its inner complexities... One hopes that with the trend seen so far, the big names shifting the big workstations will not be seduced by such marketing race, i.e. cramming more and more into same or updated hardware.

If the success of "total" workstations will be seductive and make strategists take this latter path of bloating the beasts without really thinking of the musicians' needs, hence inevitably, as seen many times in the past, sacrificing usability, spontaneity and playability in favour of feature lists... then that would definitely be a huge step back.

As Klaus Schulze said few decades ago, when digital gear was seemingly taking over the world and there was seemingly no return, one does not want to stop for minutes, or, one may add, tens of minutes, for poking around menu systems in order to set something up. Hopefully neither "total" magnificent workstation beasts, nor the specialised little beasts will take that route again...

Resurrection of an Analogue

Photo: Engadget

Klaus Schulze (in)famously entitled one of his 1980s tracks Death of an Analogue... whilst entirely switched to digital gear, for a while at least... before reversed the admittedly overdone hasty switch-over...

In recent years we have seen a series of analogue revivals, after a long analogue modelling era... Most big names, just to think of Korg and Roland, have released "true" analogue synths and/or revived classics.

Now Moog, as also presented at the recent Moogfest, have revived the legendary Minimoog Model D. Well, actually the first ever Minimoog model that has seen the light of day as far as the public is concerned (previous models were prototypes).

Whilst it retains the original circuitry, it has a few additions like dedicated LFO and, of course, MIDI.

Aside from the news of the most recent resurrection of a true classic, on the surface one may feel that the rapid and increasing analogue revival trend is somehow the opposite of an expected continuous innovation in the field of electronic instruments...

As someone commented on a MusicRadar article, it is the pinnacle of irony how some artists and producers rave about their love for the vintage analogue sound, whilst they compress the life out of the music material...

However, this clash of worlds is not new by any means. There will be nostalgic adventures in what represents the past for many, there will be excesses and mistaken philosophies in using the vintage classics or the brand new 'true' analogue beasts.

As long as the market does not drive the manufacturers to a point where they scale back investment in innovation, while chasing the trend-guaranteed quick buck with their resurrected classics, nor do we increasingly define (as annoyingly certain camps do) the most here-and-now sound as the one based on the use of retro gear, it's fine...

Let's not forget that there have also been hundreds, if not thousands, of man-years of effort invested into the digital modelling of the vintage classics, whether in the form of HW or SW products - so in that sense, perhaps with different affordability in some cases, the resurrection of the 'real' things seems to make more sense... and one hopes that the research & development efforts can then go into the new innovative gear rather...

Surely, some riding the trend hastily and opportunistically get close to the point of heralding the Death of a Digital in a (misconceived) world where just using the vintage classics is automatically chic... but once the initial overshoots of the system settle, even in the case of this new-by-revival movement, we shall get the real gems, as always...

2016 Moog Innovation Award goes to Gary Numan

Photo: LaRoache Brothers (Woolhouse Studios)

Moog Music has just named Gary Numan as the recipient of the 2016 Moog Innovation Award.

The British synth music pioneer, whose seminal debut albums in the late 1970s have set a novel tone within the emerging electronic music genre, has been a consistently unique voice in what has rapidly become a vast landscape of imaginative records.

His darker, yet instantly accessible and recognisable, influential sound was not the result of some superficial stylistical choice. For me, Numan has always been the Philip K. Dick of electronic music - a dark, to some perhaps on the surface 'cold' sounding electronica, yet actually deeply human and, above all, deeply concerned with the human condition. As in the case of Dick's seminal science fiction, in Numan's works we find complex meditations on the (increasingly) difficult relationship between humans and the technological environment they created around them.

It is a quite special achievement, as it is the the case of Dick's works, too, that Numan's meditations, some dating back almost four decades, are currently more relevant and poignant than ever.

It so happens, that Gary Numan has actually began his experimentations with an early Moog synth he found in a studio - and it triggered in him, as he described in recent interviews, too, an instant realisation of its potentials and creative possibilities.

"Replacing guitars with heavily effected synthesizers, Numan’s early work is almost single handedly responsible for introducing post-punk electronica into the popular consciousness, while propelling synth music beyond Prog Rock to inspire the wave of 80s synth pop that soon followed. His impact on the three generations of music since can’t be understated.", writes Moog Music, "Gary Numan is a manifestation of electronic culture’s progressive nature to explore the limits of traditional sound and develop new mechanisms for expression."

The Award will be presented on 22 May at this year's Moogfest.