“Digital Junkies in Strange Times” reviewed by Blow Up

La carriera di Slavin continua articulando lo stesso discorso che il titolo ben rappresenta, lasciandosi andare in un quello che in mano meno abili potrebbe diventare un ammaso di cianfrusaglie sonore (canzoni R&B, field recordings, ekettronica manipolata, qualche tocco jazzy…). La vena giocherellona che scova tra la spazzatura che il nostro mondo sta diventando va di pari passo con un pensiero analitico, tanto preciso quanto leggero. Pure la durate dei 4 pezzi è curiosamente bislacca: si va dal minuto e mezzo di un frammento acustico (“Acousmatis”) ai 41 minuti dell’ipnotico vagabondo finale “Moonlight Compilations” (7) Girolamo Del Maso

“Bittersweet Melodies” reviewed by Data.Wave

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The worlds created by Ran Slavin are all part of the nocturnal universe and this album is definitely one of them. All twelve Bittersweet Melodies is a collection of unique stories between sunrise and sunset. Each of the tracks is unlike the other, some bitter and some sweet, as the title of the album suggests. Each track is a piece of a jigsaw, fitting in the front picture of the album art – a blurry image of a night city and a tropical island postcard from the 80s.

Our trip starts with the first track Saturday’s Dress. As the track progresses we leave the real world for the imaginary one.Category: Murdered Entertainers – is the soundtrack of a crime story with a twisted plot, eerie loops and paths, atmosphere noire. In Disruptive Lounge we hear the sounds of a string ethnic instrument mixed with the sounds of tuning of a radio, which does not get tuned in the end and instead untunes the whole track.

In Fake Sunsets we take a walk in the darkest hours before sunrise, listening to the music from some old movie and get to the next track Dubai Dawn. Sinatra Was Here reminds of Frank Sinatra in a wonderful film Cast a Giant Shadow (1966), where he had a short, but remarkable role.

Listening this album over and over again, it feels like the album describes a point, where the night turns into sunrise and back into the night. Slavin’s music calls for adventurous associations with illusionary and surreal cinema. Trying to understand this album is the same like wandering the streets of the city, which never existed. Slavin’s music is highly intellectual and urbanistic, it matches the pulse of the modern life, and yet there is always a mystery there, like a street close that you heard so much about, but could never find, no matter how hard you tried.

via Data.Wave

“Nowhere: Exercises in Modular Synthesis and Field Recording” reviewed by RNE 3 Atmosfera


Durante su preparación, colocando el papel, mojando el pincel y moliendo la piedra de la tinta, el calígrafo está profundamente concentrado. Luego, cuando está listo, realiza el dibujo en unos cuantos movimientos rápidos.
Esta alegoría le sirve a Jos Smolders para afirmar que sus trabajos siempre han sido precisos, meticulosamente editados. En la última década aproximadamente, Smolders ha dejado la idea de una composición preconcebida / diseñada. Sólo hay una idea vaga antes de empezar a grabar. A través de su práctica Zen, Smolders se ha interesado en el enfoque descrito anteriormente. Tradujo el método del calígrafo a sus sesiones con el sintetizador modular. De ese modo, Smolders se concentra al conectar el parche y establecer los parámetros al inicio de una sesión. Entonces comienza los diversos movimientos sónicos, dejando que las cosas fluyan e interfieran sólo cuando sea necesario. Posteriormente deja los sonidos originales intactos tanto como sea posible, tratando de limitar los overdubs y la edición extensa. El flujo del ‘aquí’ y el ‘ahora’ le guía.

“Intuited Architectures” reviewed by Sigil of Brass


Graeme Truslove is a composer and performer based in Glasgow, Scotland. His output includes sonic and audio-visual compositions, and improvised music – playing guitar and/or laptop in various solo and collaborative projects. He holds both an M.Eng in Electronics with Music, and a Ph.D. in Music Composition from the University of Glasgow. He currently lectures in Composition and Music Technology at the University of the West of Scotland.

With the above written on the press statement accompanying the album – I was expecting a work of dry academia; all knickers and no fur coat (to turn a phrase on it’s head). However, this album is bursting with organic textures.

Graeme Truslove’s musical output so far has been divided between the opposing spheres of fixed-medium electroacoustic composition and improvised performance. All of the works presented in Intuited Architectures focus on integrating these conflicting extremes in various ways. Throughout their development, the creative processes employed shifted from the sculptural to the performative – from the creation of sonic mosaics, constructed from the careful placement of individual sonic impulses, to the recording and manipulation of performances on self-devised digital instruments.

This shift arose initially through attempts to analyse and automate laborious micro-level techniques, however as the possibility to interact with these techniques in real-time emerged, so too did a number of unforeseen expressive possibilities. Montages became performances, which in turn became montages again.

Central to all of the compositions is a preoccupation with musical time scales, ranging from the fabrication of synthetic timbres, via these performative-algorithmic approaches, through to their integration within larger-scale temporal strategies.

Quite what Truslove was trying to achieve is beyond my humble scope – but, I love this album. Like a thousand ants walking over the microphone the sounds that are coming from my stereo are rare, electronic/biological hybrids.

The juxtaposition of composed, static piece and live improv is achieved here in spades – I really dig this album.

via Sigil of Brass

“Intuited Architectures” reviewed by Chain DLK


Graeme Truslove’s sonic mosaics use glitchy, electronic sounds to create gently disquieting ethereal soundscapes full of synthetic bubbles, clicks and pitter-patters. Exploring automation techniques, Truslove generates music that seems to be disassembling and reassembling itself.

The opening “Suite II”, in three parts, is generally quite frantic. Tones and layers shift impatiently, never settling into one arrangement for more than a few seconds. It’s a sometimes unpleasant bath to wallow in, often abrasive, yet at other times pretty.

“Elements” is somewhat simpler and darker, with some John Carpenter-esque elements as low impossibly-sustained piano notes underlie ghostly noises.

“Concrètisations X” is mellower in tone and puts the emphasis back in the micro-cut noises, complex, mechanical and challenging the distinction where one person’s ‘deconstructed’ is another person’s ‘broken’. At the beginning and end there are crunching, biting notes, but the second half certainly returns to the underwater feeling, with waves of slow breathing and muddy, deep rumbles.

Longest piece “Strata” is more audibly dominated by strained and rapid sounds sourced from a guitar- objects being dragged up the strings, guitar bodies being tapped and pulled and so on. The energy of this appears to run out after five minutes so we move to an environment of light industrial drone, one that makes you realise the importance of the space inbetween which is sometimes a little bit overlooked in these arrangements. The manner in which the guitar, and other new elements slowly reintroduce themselves is the most beautifully controlled section of the album, before another drop after fifteen minutes with guitar tones bringing us full circle to a close.

The self-devised digital instruments and processing give “Intuited Architectures” a character that’s unique, yet not a country mile from the well-trodden paths of sonic experimentation of this kind. It’s a little too manic too often for my tastes but it does exude quality and care. Stuart Bruce

via Chain DLK

Futurónica 192


Episode 192 of Futurónica, a broadcast in Rádio Manobras (91.5 MHz in Porto, 18h30) and Rádio Zero (21h GMT, repeating on Tuesday at 01h) airs tomorrow, May 12th.

The playlist of Futurónica 192 is:

  1. Mika Vainio, Kelvin (1997, Onko, Touch)
  2. Mika Vainio, Jos [If?] (1997, Onko, Touch)
  3. Mika Vainio, Onko Parts 1-11 [Is It?] (1997, Onko, Touch)
  4. Mika Vainio, Viher [Green/Cellular] (1997, Onko, Touch)

You can follow Rádio Zero’s broadcasts at radiozero.pt/ouvir and Rádio Manobras at radiomanobras.pt.

New release: Graeme Truslove’s “Intuited Architectures”


Graeme Truslove’s musical output so far has been divided between the opposing spheres of fixed-medium electroacoustic composition and improvised performance. All of the works presented in Intuited Architectures focus on integrating these conflicting extremes in various ways. Throughout their development, the creative processes employed shifted from the sculptural to the performative – from the creation of sonic mosaics, constructed from the careful placement of individual sonic impulses, to the recording and manipulation of performances on self-devised digital instruments. This shift arose initially through attempts to analyse and automate laborious micro-level techniques, however as the possibility to interact with these techniques in real-time emerged, so too did a number of unforeseen expressive possibilities. Montages became performances, which in turn became montages again. Central to all of the compositions is a preoccupation with musical time scales, ranging from the fabrication of synthetic timbres, via these performative-algorithmic approaches, through to their integration within larger-scale temporal strategies.

Graeme Truslove is a composer and performer based in Glasgow, Scotland. His output includes sonic and audio-visual compositions, and improvised music – playing guitar and/or laptop in various solo and collaborative projects. He holds both an M.Eng in Electronics with Music, and a Ph.D. in Music Composition from the University of Glasgow. He currently lectures in Composition and Music Technology at the University of the West of Scotland.

Truslove has performed and exhibited his work internationally, and has attracted awards and nominations from: Métamorphoses (Belgium, 1st prize), The Salford Sonic Research Commission (UK), Creative Scotland, The British Council, The Performing Rights Society Foundation PRSF (UK), The Dewar Arts Award (Scotland), Sociedad General de Autores y Editores SGAE (Spain), The Prince’s Trust (UK), The Phonos Foundation (Spain), The Lumen Prize (UK), The International Computer Music Association (USA).

Portals won 1st prize in the Métamorphoses 2010, 6th Biennial Acousmatic Composition Competition, and was released previously by Musiques & Recherches (MR2010). Suite II was created with support from the Dewar Arts Awards, Scotland. Elements was funded by a bursary from the Performing Rights Society Foundation, UK.

  1. Suite II, Portals (07:36)
  2. Suite II, Convergence (08:26)
  3. Suite II, Divergent Dialogues (08:19)
  4. Elements (08:22)
  5. Concrètisations X (14:45)
  6. Strata (20:24)

All pieces created 2004 to 2010 by Graeme Truslove.
Double Bass on Strata performed by George Lyle.
Photo by Alison Clifford.
Produced with support from The University of the West of Scotland.

Intuited Architectures is available as a limited-release CD and a digital download.

“Digital Junkies in Strange Times” reviewed by Rockerilla

Ran Slavin è un virtuoso del laptop, che si è ormai imposto nella cultura musicale contemporanea come uno strumento a sé a tutti gli e etti. E etti che nel caso della musica di Slavin si palesano in una manciata di pezzi techno dove a farla da padrone è un’ambient “sporca” e spuria nella quale si innestano spunti r’n’b a presa rapida. A farla da padrone nel suo nuovo disco sono ovviamente i 41 mastodontici minuti di Moonlight Compilations, che ricalca certi cerimoniali electro-minimal a base di musica cosmica, industrial, ambient e new age di Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point Never. Massimo Padalino

“Hiku Komuro, Hikikomori” reviewed by Rockerilla

La Cronica non delude mai con le sue pubblicazioni e anche questa volta fa centro con la cassetta dell’artista spagnolo Durán Vázquez, autore di tracce sperimentali reperibili ovviamente anche in digitale. Il galiziano utilizza software di Windows, vecchi plug-ins degli anni 90, campionamenti da vecchi videogame anni 80 e varia strumentazione per un lavoro la cui ricerca sonora si muove tra isolazionismo ambient, musica concreta
e citazioni da un passato ludico (vedi i suoni dei videogiochi inseriti su un drone nel brano conclusivo di oltre 26 minuti). Gianluca Polverari