simonsound

I’ve been doing a bit of synth programming for UNKLE over the last few months (some of which features on their upcoming album) and in return I’ve been lucky enough to borrow a bunch of really nice synthesisers. The best of these has to be the Synthi VCS3 which was created by London based EMS (Electronic Music Studio) in the 60’s. The first commercial synthesiser to be used by the highly influential BBC Radiophonic Workshop, it went on to be used by bands such as Pink Floyd, Hawkwind and The Who.  But it is the work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop that really made the most of this experimental electronic FX machine. Used by composers such as Delia Derbyshire and John Baker who coaxed other worldly rhythms and textures out of the little box of magic, its sounds turned up in many television programmes from the late 60’s onwards, the best known of these being Dr.Who.

Futuristic doors sliding open and closed, sonic screwdrivers, Dalek ray guns and many more futuristic sounds were created by this machine and its perfectly suited for such things. The Battleship style pin matrix system allows any of the VCS3’s different sound generation, modulation, control or treatment elements to be routed in a multitude of different ways which make for an almost unlimited number of sounds.

I have created a pack of EMS Synthi VCS3 ring-tones that will be launched around the release date of The Simonsound album in May. Everytime your phone rings you can imagine its The Doctor calling or that you’ve just been exterminated by a Dalek or that rather than your mum calling to see what you want for tea its an interplanetary message of goodwill from an unknown galaxy.

For more on EMS listen to the special EMS Tone Generation show

My music project with Matt Ford is moving along very nicely towards our first album release in May on First Word Records. Our first two self released singles have been met with much praise and support in the form of DJ’s such as Cut Chemist, DJ Muro, Edan and Florian Keller, and our cover of ‘It’s Just Begun’ was even reportedly cut up by legendary Bronx DJ Rockin’ Rob at a B-Boy event in NYC last year prompting Grandmaster Caz to run to the turntables and excitedly demand to know the identity of the mystery version.

Most recently we’ve had support from Strictly Kev/DJ Food and DJ Spinna, the latter hooking up Gilles Peterson with a copy of our forthcoming album, ‘Reverse Engineering’. This has led to BBC Radio 1 play and an invitation to do a Maida Vale session which should hopefully be broadcast around the release of the album.

Other exciting things to look out for around the album release are a series of EMS Synthi VCS3 ringtones, a bank of 127 MiniMoog Voyager sounds, a Solid Steel radio mix and video and hopefully some prints and t-shirts featuring the amazing artwork created by Emily Macaulay for our album cover.

I’ll keep you posted!

This just in from Ken Hollings -

Welcome to the Virtual Battlefield…
My feature on the ‘military-entertainment complex’ goes out on BBC Radio 3 this Sunday, February 21, at 9.30 pm.

From Gameboy to Armageddon features some amazing contributions from Tim Lenoir, Ed Halter and Tom Chatfield on the relationship of games and simulations to Past and Future War; P W Singer of the Brookings Institute on current deployments of UAVs and robots; some vintage archive material from RAND’s Tom Schelling on the Cuban Missile Crisis as a game; plus Michael Macedonia and Jim Korris on the founding of STRICOM and the Institute of Creative Technologies, the amazing Jim Dunnigan on Clausewitz and Kriegspiel, Skip Rizzo on ‘Virtual Iraq’ and a rare interview with the legendary Jack Thorpe –  responsible while seconded to DARPA from the USAF for devising SIMNET, the first real-time, practical version of cyberspace. Acronyms totally rule on this one.

I just finished sound design and post production on the 4th episode of Lance Dann’s mysterious radio drama The Flickerman.

Praised by The Guardian as “new and amazing”, “fashionable compulsiveness”  and ” a strange and exhilarating project”, The Flickerman tells the story of Cornelius Zane-Grey as he tries to unravel the strange events that have seen his girlfriend go missing and moments in his life captured and uploaded to photo sharing website Flickr.

Episode 4 is an exhilarating ride with new characters, further plot twists and turns and lots of intricate (and some over the top) sound design that I’m very happy with.

The first transmission is on the 12th January 2010 on Australia’s ABC radio network. I’m pretty sure it will be available at the Flickerman website shortly after. Episodes 1, 2 and 3 are available now, also at The Flickerman website.

The latest Tone Generation explores electronic compositions created using the British based EMS range of electronic synthesisers. As always Ian Helliwell has picked out some excellent recordings including some great archive material - of particular note is Tristram Cary introducing the EMS range on a promotional flexi disc.

THE TONE GENERATION
Programme 17: EMS
Selecting tracks as usual from his record and cd collection, Ian Helliwell explores electronic music generated with EMS equipment, including the Synthi A, VCS3 and Synthi 100. Featuring pieces by Tristram Cary, Pink Floyd, Andrzej Dobrowolski, White Noise, Harrison Birtwistle and Priscilla McLean.

Listen

Ian Helliwell

I’ve just been lent this fantastic semi-modular synth (thanks Pablo). The Macbeth M5N was designed by Ken Macbeth and  came out in limited numbers a few years ago. Ken is currently building a new keyboard synth and some modules for the eurorack format of modular synthesiser.

Thanks to Emily @I am Stanley for a great label. Buy the single here.

DJ Food took my original video for Tour de Mars and has added some extra clips and given it an overhaul. The Single is out on 7″ vinyl/digital on Monday (Nov 2nd) and you can get it at lots of different retailers. Go here to find a list.

Very excited about this release and so far feedback has been really good. I won’t say any more as I prefer to let the music speak for itself. Here is a very simple video I made so I could put the track up on youtube. It is out on vinyl and digital download from the 2nd of November. More info here.

This week I start production of an audio tour for 2009’s White Night in Brighton & Hove. More info will follow soon.

Note - I’ll also be performing live at White Night with Ian Helliwell using his multiplayer Helisizer. Venue to be confirmed.