Played a very good set with alternating.bit last night at the National Electronics Museum’s Electronica-Fest 2017. Simple rigs, eschewing Rimas’s modular synths and my digital tablets, and we had a great time.
This set and a condensation of our jams and experiments while creating the set are available as a digital album on Bandcamp.
A condensation of last night’s live set at the Electric Maid. Improvisation for one instrument (Novation Bass Station 2), one effects processor (Electro-Harmonix Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai), recorded live with a digital recorder (trusty old Zoom H2) and sent to the house PA through a preamp (ART USB Dual Pre). Nothing was prerecorded or presequenced.
Listen:
©2017 Joe Belknap Wall, dba Kantoendrato
Played a nice ambient set last night at The Electric Maid Collective in the Tacoma neighborhood of DC (directly adjoining Tacoma Park) as a part of an ensemble show curated by the Baltimore SDIY Group (thanks, Logan!).
Instrumentation was as simple as I could get—an iPad Mini 2 running the amazing Shoom and Loopy HD apps, manipulated live with a Novation Launch Control knob controller, with an iPod Touch (6th gen) used to switch apps in Audiobus via Bluetooth.
I was using a five-tone equal temperament tuning, which is a tuning that, instead of dividing the octave into twelve equal steps, divides it into five steps. It’s a really lush harmonic landscape for drones and massed sounds, with a sort of exotic feel, but not necessarily one tied to any particular ethnic tradition. Amusingly, I got started with alternative tunings back in college, when I wanted to take some independent study sessions in the music department, but didn’t want my professors to know that I’m absolutely pig ignorant of traditional music theory. Work in 5-TET or 7-TET or another off-the-beaten-track tuning and you’re freed from the mass of conventional theory on how tonality is supposed to work. And yes, that is absolutely cheating, but key and chords and all that related stuff make my head spin.
Nothing prerecorded—everything was composed on the fly.
Listen, preferably with the volume lowish and speakers with some bass:
© 2016 Joe Belknap Wall, aka Kantoendrato
Kantoendrato – 3 Moving Parts from Joe Belknap Wall on Vimeo.
Ambient playtime with three moving parts, more or less:
1. Kantoendrato
2. Roland Juno-6
3. Electro-Harmonix Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai and w/mod for footpedal control of left button
© 2015 Joe Belknap Wall, aka Kantoendrato
A little play with one of my Nord Micro Modular boxes to calm the nerves.
Highlights from the KEVSAB set at the National Electronics Museum 2016 Electronica Fest.
KEVSAB is a collaboration between alternating.bit and Kantoendrato.
Music from KEVSAB is available on Bandcamp.
With apologies to Eno, who made music for airports, I’m making music IN laundromats. Recorded this morning at the Sunshine Laundry in Laurel, Maryland, while I washed and dried two weeks worth of laundry. All sounds programmed or sampled on the spot, and the piece was composed and recorded on-site.
Music From Laundromats – 01 by Kantoendrato is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
I’m playing Pyramid Atlantic, Silver Spring, Maryland on 2 May 2015. It’s a great bill of amazing musicians in a fun, relaxing format, and everything starts at 8PM.
$10 and well worth it.
Kantoendrato: improvisation studies for a Sunday:
• study for a project, “A Red Yes,” 2015-03-15.
• improvisations, “Shoots From Snow,” 2015-03-15.