Modulate This! - Electronic & Experimental Music Tech, Technique, & People

See You at The Pacific Northwest Synthfest March 16th in Seattle

I’ll be flying up from Boulder to Seattle next weekend for the Pacific Northwest Synthfest on March 16th. I’m playing my Dark SciFi Controllerism set with original songs from my albums along with some unreleased material. I’ll be debuting my new 2013 show with interactive visuals with live camera input (teaser photos here) and will perform a 45 minute set with Q&A at 11am. I’m really looking forward to hanging out with fellow synth enthusiasts in Seattle – woot!

The event is FREE and you can find more details on their Facebook page. Here is a summary of the event.

The MMTA Spring Synth Fest 2013 is scheduled for March 16, 2013 at Shoreline Community College just north of Seattle. It runs from 10:00am to 5:00pm. There will be four rooms this year:

The Petting Zoo: Show off your gear. See other people show off their gear. Touch it. Pet it. Love it.

The Performance / Telepresentation Room for performances and presentations that run throughout the day.

The Trade Show Room where manufacturers will be able to give demos on their gear. This is similar to The Petting Zoo but will likely be a quieter setting where you can go one on one with individual manufacturers.

Jam Session Room. This room will be one big day-long jam session that you can join and leave as you please. Everyone welcome!

October 2012 Synthesizer Related Events in Boulder and Denver

For those that live in the Boulder & Denver – or for those passing through this month – October is loaded with synthesizer related events. I’m hosting the monthly Boulder Synthesizer meetup which will have a Halloween Theremin theme with performances and talks by myself, Rick Reid, and Victoria Lundy who is the thereminist with the Inactivists.

• October 10 - New Order at the the 1st Bank Event Center
• October 13 - Sonic Blossom - Andreilien aka Heyoka, ill.Gates, An-ten-nae, Gladkill, Kaminanda, Adham Shaikh, Jimkata, Ableminds, Intergalactic Fantasy Safari and Moldover
• October 14 - Moldover Workshop
• October 16 - The Boulder Synthesizer Meetup
• October 23 - Thomas Dolby at the Bluebird

Mark Mosher
Electronic Musician, Boulder CO
www.ModulateThis.com
www.MarkMosherMusic.com

Thomas Dolby Wins 2012 Moog Innovation Award + Tours US + Releases New Video for "Mulu the Rainforest"

Moog Innovation Award

A big congrats to Thomas Dolby who won the Moog Innovation Award award this year. Past winners were DEVO in 2010 and Brian Eno in 2011.

Dolby is a self made man, synth pioneer, and mad scientist.  Like Bob Moog, Thomas Dolby’s quest for knowledge and desire to sculpt the world around him led him to the world of electronics, where he designed his own synths, founded his own software company, and charged head long through the world of pop music and into America’s consciousness.  To say he was blinded by science would be doing him a disservice, for science has been his guiding light, and technology his namesake.  For expanding the sonic boundaries of the new wave movement and for fearlessly embracing the future, Moog is proud to present Thomas Dolby with a custom Minimoog Voyager XL, in honor of being the 2012 Moog Innovation Award winner.

He’ll receive the award at Moogfest this year which is October 26th & 27th. I won’t be there so if you end up going take some photos :^).

US Tour – See You At the Denver Show
Thomas Dolby is also touring the US to support his new album “A Map of the Floating City”. He'll be playing Denver on October 23rd at 8:00 pm at the Bluebird Theater. I’ll be at the show so if you come down say hi. Below is a screen shot of his upcoming tour dates. Visit his tour page to get tickets.

New Video for Song “Mulu” With Cool Quadcopter Shots

Here is the brand new video for the 1983 song “Mulu the Rainforsest”. I’ve always loved this track so it’s great to see a video for it after all these years.

• The song "Mulu the Rainforest" from Thomas Dolby's classic album "The Flat Earth".
• Shot and Directed by Chad Johnson in August 2012
• © Lost Toy People / Chad Johnson 2012
• Shot with a GoPro attached to the XP2 quadcopter: ‪‪http://xproheli.com/affiliate/25/quadcopter/xp2-rc-aerial-video-quadcopter‬‬
• This video was shot in the Rockefeller Forest in the Giant Redwoods of Northern California.

Thomas Dolby Links:

• Official Web Site
• Twitter
• YouTube Channel
• Facebook Page
• Flick Stream
• Thomas’s Page on Moogfest Site

More Modulate This! Articles on Thomas Dolby Here

Mark Mosher
Electronic Musician, Boulder CO
www.ModulateThis.com
www.MarkMosherMusic.com

Electro-Music 2012 Festival in NY Sept. 7-9

Electro-Music 2012 Festival Is Almost Here

The fantastic lineup for Electro-Music 2012 Festival has been announced. This wonderful event is held at the Greenkill Retreat Center in Huguenot, New York so if you live nearby I recommend you check it out. If you’ve never been, read my show report from my first trip here.

If you can’t make the event, make sure you mark your calendar and tune into the live stream a http://radio.electro-music.com.

More info and tickets at http://event.electro-music.com/.

See You At the Festival

I’m excited to announce I’ll be returning to Electro-Music 2012 Festival in NY for the third year running. Here is a blurb for my events that will appear in the program.

Friday Sept. 7, 10:30 PM - Expressive Visual Controllerism Concert
In his third year at Electro-Music, Mark will continue to explore the boundaries of controllerism with Ableton Live coaxing even more expressive real-time performances out of his various virtual synthesizers. It’s all about original sci-fi techno songs and experimental improvs filled with classic and signature synth ear candy performed on keys, grids (Launchpad/Tenori-On), Theremin, AudioCubes, and Lemur.  Visual feedback FTW!

Saturday Sept. 8, 4:00-5:00pm - Creating and Controlling Signature Sounds
with Camel Audio Alchemy
Alchemy offers a great blend of performance features combined with deep synthesis, sample manipulation, resynthesis, granular synthesis, and built-in FX. There is also a mobile app that can act as a wireless multi-touch controller for Alchemy on your computer.  The goal of this talk is to shorten your learning curve so you can start creating your own expressive signature sounds for production and performance. Topics will include: Anatomy and signal flow, programming walk-throughs, tips on incorporating field recordings into patches, overview of modulation mapping, overview of FX, and performance mapping.

A Look Back at EM 2011

 

The photo above is of from my 2011 performance and was taken by Hong Waltzer. Checkout out more photos from 2011 here. Below is a live recording of last year’s concert (downoad mp3 here).

I hope to see  you at the show.

Electronic Musician, Boulder CO
www.ModulateThis.com
www.MarkMosherMusic.com

Video Highlights from Mountain Skies Electro-Music Festival 2012 in Asheville by Hong Waltzer

Last weekend I had the honor of participating at the Mountain Skies Electro-Music Festival 2012 in Asheville, NC. It was my first time in Asheville and the first time for this particular event. Greg and Hong Waltzer and the rest of the Mountain Skies crew curated a wonderful lineup of artists who turned in some incredible performances. Hong shot and edited these video highlights (and shot the photo above) which give you a good sense of the diversity of acts and what it was like to be there.

I also want to give a shout out to Michael O’Bannon who was created visuals for my performance.

Watch part 1  of embedded video in HD.

1. Paul Harriman eigenharp ephemera
2. Klimchak electro-acoustic multi-instrumentalist
3. mindSpiral twisted matter
4. Mahoney and Peck progressive dark ambient
5. dRachEmUsiK glitch-groove ambient beats
6. Aligning Minds dubby soundscapes
7. Moog Guitar Inventor Paul Vo
8. Elizabeth Langa aka Auracene

Watch part 2 of embedded videon in HD.

• Kevin Spears kalimba and electronics
• Waveformation organic electronic (Linda Go, Greg Walzter, Chris Stack, Geary Yelton)
• Mark Moshery playing “Dark Signals” on keys, Theremin, and Tenori-ON
• Machine Eat Man Egyptronica
• Kevin Kissinger theremin
• Gerber and Vnuk tribal ambient
• Loop B Brazilian junk percussion

I took a lot of photos of the event including photos of the Moog factory tour and will include them in an upcoming post.

Mark Mosher
Electronic Musician, Boulder CO
www.ModulateThis.com
www.MarkMosherMusic.com

Beaming Into the Pacific Northwest Synth Fest in Seattle October 29th

The Pacific Northwest Synth Fest 2011 is this Saturday October 29th from 10-5 PST. Click the poster to see the mega size version or visit http://www.mostlymodular.com/ or the event page on Facebook.

I’ll be telepresently performing and doing a talk on AudioCubes on 1:00-1:30PST. I’ll also be generally floating around Max Headroom style on a laptop throughout the event so he can virtually mingle.

In this talk I’ll present an overview of the Percussa AudioCubes hardware, discuss mapping the AudioCubes to control Ableton Live and Virtual Synthesizers in real-time. I’ll also perform with the cubes, deconstruct a Live song, and discuss his free template for “9 Box Method for performance, improvisation, and spontaneous tribal jams with music, sound, and light” based on AudioCubes. Lastly, I will take questions via interactive video chat.

So if your in Seattle, come find the box I’ll be hosted out and say hi :^).

 

Mark Mosher
Electronic/Experimental Music Artist, Boulder, CO
Synthesist | Composer | Keyboardist | Performer

Synth Geek Blog: http://modulatethis.com/
Artist Site: www.MarkMosherMusic.com

Back from Electro-Music 2011 Festival: Audio Recording and Photos from Live Performance + Highlight Photos

Photo by Hong Waltzer

I’m back from New York and I’ve had a few days to decompress and pull together some media from an epic weekend of electronic music at Electro-Music 2011 Festival in NY. This was my second year and it was really great seeing friends I met last year plus meeting new ones.

Rather than do a show report like I did last year, I’m going to trickle out some posts on the experience, do some posts on artists I met while there, and also follow up on some technology I came across.  In this first post I’ll focus on my performance and some highlight pictures.

I had such a blast playing my set. Here is the set list.

1. “Dark Signals” from I Hear Your Signals
2. “I Can See Them” from I Hear Your Signals
3. “Activate” from my forthcoming album
4. “New Heart Beating” from my forthcoming album
5. "Control Zone” from I Hear Your Signals
6. “Sleeper Agent” from my forthcoming album
7. “Resolute” from I Hear Your Signals
8. “First Orbit” from I Hear Your Signals

All concerts were broadcast as real-time audio feeds worldwide via http://www.electro-music.com/radio including mine. Below is an audio recording of my entire set unedited as it was broadcast. The set is about 28 minutes long so if your short on time, grab the MP3 and listen later.

Mark Mosher Live at Electro-Music 2011 Festival, NY 9/9/2011 by MarkMosher

Thanks to Damon Mar (live mix), Adam Holquist (live stream mix), Project Rouri (Visuals) and Special thanks to Paul Harriman for making the stream and http://www.electro-music.com/radio possible and giving me a copy of this file!

John Morley was kind enough to shoot these awesome photos while I was playing. View the embedded slide show on Flickr.

Here is a Flickr set with some general highlight photos from the festival.

I’d like to close by thanking the festival organizers and all those who came to the set and listened on the live stream.

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
Synthesist | Composer | Keyboardist | Performer

http://modulatethis.com/
Official Web Site: www.MarkMosherMusic.com

Live Updates from Electro-Music 2011 NY

I'll be offering live updates from the festival this weekend. I've synced my Twitter and Flickr accouts via Mobypicture so I can post photos, audio, and video. http://www.twitter.com/markmosher http://www.Flickr.com/markmosher

Electro-Music 2011 Festival in NY is a Week Away. Press Release, Ticket Info + Watch for Twitter Updates

One week to go before I head off to the Electro-Music festival. It’s remote location at Greenkill Retreat Center in Huguenot NY has limited cell signal (it is a retreat center after all), but I’ll try and offer some live tweet coverage on http://twitter.com/markmosher.

If you are in the NY area you should try and come. Press release is below and my show report from last year is here.

-----------------------------

The electro-music festival, known as the "Woodstock of electronic music," is the world's premiere event for experimental electronic music. Now in it's seventh year, this year's gathering features three mind-bending days of innovative electronic music concerts, seminars, workshops, demonstrations, jam sessions, video art, a laptop battle, and a swap-meet. Action starts at 1pm on Friday, September 9 and runs until after midnight on September 11. Musical activities will be running continuously throughout the three days of the festival.

electro-music 2011 takes place at the Greenkill Retreat Center in Huguenot, New York. On-site lodging and meals are available. Tickets range from $35 for a single day to $360 for a 3-day pass including meals and lodging.

More information, including a complete schedule of events can be found on the web site at:
http://event.electro-music.com/
You may also contact us at event [at] electro-music.com

A wide variety of instruments and musical styles will be represented, ranging from theremin to analog modular synthesizers to home made devices, from classic space music to abstract electronica to world beats.

The following artists will be performing:

Acoustic Interloper	Hunter and Harrison	Norton Antivirus
Adamon	Hylantown	Michael O'Bannon
aether generator	Kevin Kissinger	Joo Won Park
ArtCrime	Andrew Koenig	PYXL8R
Audio Mace	Richard Lainhart	PAS
Azimuth Visuals	Loop B	redgreenblue
Brainstatik	Lost in the Funhouse	RoDo Jede
coloringpad	Machine Eat Man	Project Ruori
Delicate Monster	Mayakara	Slippage
Jeremy dePrisco	Mirador	Symmetry
DES	Modulator ESP	The Table
Robert Dorschel	Mosc	Technicolor Travel Agency
dRachEmUsiK	Mark Mosher	Thin Air
DrumLab	Music From The Film	Transistor Club
Fringe Element	MusicMan11712	Twyndyllyngs
Paul Harriman	MyOwnYoko	Woodswalker / Genetique
Jack Hertz	Northern Valentine	xeroid entity

Seminars and Workshops:
Darren Bergstein - The Notoriety Unit
Jez Creek - Nord Modular Performance Patches
Jeremy dePrisco - Reason/Record
Robert Dorschel - Going Virtual
Paul Harriman - Eigenharp demonstration
Shane King - Logic on Stage
Kevin Kissinger - Etching Printed Circuit Boards
Damon Mar - Current Controlled Modular System
Howard Moscovitz - Ambiophonic Sound
Mark Mosher - Ableton Live Real-Time Performance Tips
Michael O'Bannon - Sound and Music from Brainwaves
Mohamed Ragab - Experimental Music in Egypt
Charles Shriner - Concepts in Free Form Improvisation: Creative Conversations or Tower of Babel?
Rick Scott and Robert Kulik - Thwarting Time's Arrow
Greg Waltzer - Structured Improvisation Workshop
(informal) - Circuit Bending and DIY Workshop

I'm Returning to Electro-Music 2011 Festival to Play, Talk, and Jam with the 9 Box

I’ve been officially accepted to play a set and do a talk at Electro-Music 2011 in NY. The festival takes place from September 9-11. More links at the bottom of the post.

Looking Back at Electro-Music 2010

I had a great time at the festival last year and I’m really looking forward to returning so I thought I’d share some photos and video from last year, and offer some info on the festival in case you were considering going.

Here is a photo and video and from my show last year taken by Jeremy DePrisco.

Watch embedded video

Here is a shot of the groovy shirt from the festival which also shows a list of artist who performed last year.

 

Quick Overview

Once again the festival will be at the remote and beautiful Greenkill Retreat Center in Huguenot, New York.Checkout my detailed review of the 2010 Festival here.

Just to give you a feel I’ll share an excerpt from my review:

Vibe
Because the festival was in a more remote location than in past years there was little opportunity for walk-in spectators. The upside of this is that most of the attendees were experts. By expert, I mean seasoned artists with over 10,000 hours of experience and in some cases decades of energy put into their craft. As a result the vibe was amazing. Have you ever seen the SciFi channel show Eureka? It was like that for electronic music. It didn’t seem intimidating for newer artists either, as everyone was also very open and willing to share ideas and talk in depth about their work. There was a huge diversity in styles, performance, and approach and a whole lot of passion!

More Themed Jams in 2011

I’ve been checking in ever few weeks to see how the schedule is shaping up. I noticed on a recent update that they will have many themed jams this year. So far they have: space jam, open jam, noise jam, technicolor jam, DIY jam (following the DIY and circuit bending workshop), and AudioCube jam.

9 Box at Electro-Music 2011

I’ll be bringing along a 9 Box System for performance, improvisation, and spontaneous tribal jams with music, sound, and light and I know at least one other artist is bringing his AudioCubes along for the AudioCube jam.

Hope to See Your There

I met a lot of great people last year and saw some amazing performances and I’m looking forward to meeting more Modulate This readers face-to-face this year.

Links

• Electro-Music 2011 Official Site
• Official Photos from Electro-Music 2010 by Hong Waltzer: 9/10/2010 | 9/11/2010 |9/12/2010.
• Show Report: Electro-Music 2010 Festival in Huguenot NY

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
Synthesist | Composer | Keyboardist | Performer

www.ModualteThis.com
Official Web Site: www.MarkMosherMusic.com
Listen/Download Albums: www.MarkMosherMusic.com/music.html