the silent stars, sintéticos mixtape by nofi
A 20m mixtape, featuring excerpts from my recent collection of weird tales:
The Perfect Backup Strategy for Your Mac.
Stats of the Union tells health stories in America.
Sound Cells – Universal iOS App Creates Generative Music.
Aphonium – App Creates Generative Audio and Visuals.
SunVox – Multiplatform Modular Music Creation Studio.
Surprise Surveillance Theater: An Experimental Drama with Unwitting Stars.
Japanese artist Eiji Watanabe cuts butterflies out of printed field guides and sets them free, covering the walls and ceilings of installation spaces.
Hidden is an app that lets you spy on the person who may have stolen you laptop.
Unwind live session, 2011-07-22 (2h01m53s, 245.5 MB MP3): A recent live session of my improvised, original ambient, downtempo, dub and minimal electronic music; free to download or stream.
I have released an album of experimental ambient, freeform and microsound compositions:
The Silent Stars is my “side-project” for exploring (slightly) different directions in music. El libro principal is a “concept album” featuring granular synthesis, microsound tone colors and freeform arrangements. These pieces are my take on post-ambient space music using modern digital methods; an homage to the early electronic music pioneers, post-prog-rock instrumentalists, early New Wave synthesists and proto-New Age experimentalists of my youth.
Granular synthesis and microsound techniques were used for sound generation. Sources include: flute, harp; strings; toy instruments; vinyl records; elementary sound waveforms and more.
Density GS and Pulsaret instruments were the primary instruments. Arrangement, mixing and mastering was done with Ableton Suite. Processing effects were limited to resonant filters, grain delay, reverb and EQ.
I recently posted two articles for a forum I manage: a Granular Synthesis and Microsound Primer and a Euclidean Rhythms Primer. Both of these topics have been of interest to me and made their way into my work in the past year, so I wanted to collect some resources I’ve found helpful. Check them out and drop me a line to share techniques, clips, finished tracks or if you’re interested in more.