Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away… Yes, listening to the Beatles (imagine…) at the Vooruit backstage, setting up stage for day 2, and closing day, of the Resonance Ghent festival, edition 2010. Steven Ford, nom d’artiste Bruno Pronsato has entered the building, and Marcel Fengler has yet to catch a flight, outbound from Stockholm, where he delivered an amazing (so we heard) dj-set yesterday at the Skyddsrummet night. Things look promising! Tickets still available at a Fnac store near you, and many more addresses…

Opening up for them & sharing a common love for Cluster’s Grosses Wasser LP, Tobias Freund & Max Loderbauer (nsi.) delivered an amazing, fully improvised set of tension-full electronics, reminissing the best of German 70’s avant-garde (think minimalist Cluster, Harmonia, Roedelius…) combined with contemporary minimalistic techno. Fully recorded, let’s hope this live-set will see it’s way on the internet in any form…

Followed by SND, who brought the best in abstract cut-ups, largely based on their most recent release ‘Atavism‘ (Raster Noton - 2009), 100 % digital warmth washing over an intrigued audience in waves. It’s funk and 2-step combined, but not as a general audience knows it.

In the meantime, downstairs at the Concerthall, deejays Mate & Fudge of Ghent’s very own After12 collective, took opening hours for an exclusive night of bass-heavy music, that we can hardly call ‘dubstep’ anymore, entitled SUBSTANCE. The dubstep form has incredibly evolved over the course of the last year, constantly shifting, creating new hybrid forms, proven by absolute highlight of the night Slugabed, bringing an inspired Serato set (even with an incredible hangover - get well soon, Craig!), right after Paul Spymania, who luckily took along some ragga 7-inches along with him from home. Good choice, surprising, and most excellent. Designated by BBC Radio 1 bassqueen Mary Anne Hobbs ‘one to keep an eye on’, Untold hit the audience with subtle, compact basslines and clean percussion, his trademark sound, while Paul Rose, a.k.a. Scuba brought the 500+ attendees what they came for, streamlined quality, in the very same line as his just-released Substance mix album, released only a few weeks ago on Ostgut Ton. 4:30 am, and time for 2562. His far-from-typical sound, drenched in atmospherics, with lots of attention for the use of time and space, combined with classic Detroit-ish, influenced techno kept the audience shouting for more… Sadly, 6 am, and time to close the venue down, getting ready for the following day, here and now.

This night’s line-up…

Sat 6.03 ballroom Vooruit
doors 22.00

<house & techno>

22.00 Special K
01.00 Bruno Pronsato LIVE
02.00-05.00 Marcel Fengler

See you there !

Best,

RG Team

Friday March 5th, Saturday March 6th, Sunday March 7th : Resonance Ghent 2010. More info, later.

Pictures from Day 2 (Efdemin, Stott, Move D & Brunn) uploaded to our Flickr-account, thanks to Peter Hermans.Enjoy!

05:00 am : woke up

07:09 am : arrival at Brussels National airport

09:00 am : arrival of Rod Modell, big friendly talk-happy 6′5″ giant in the company of lovely Jenny

01:00 pm : arrival at Vooruit, set-up & welcoming the live-coders

04:00 pm : soundcheck Alva Noto & more

08:00 pm : doors open..

Three-day line-up

Hope to see you

All the best,

RG

Dear all,

Presale for the Deepchord presents Echospace show, Sunday March 1st 2009 at Bar Limonada, is going fast. If planned, we advice to get your tickets quickly at the presale addresses. A final batch of 50 Sunday evening tickets has been released for the Fnac stores, you can also still buy them from the Democrazy website.

All the best,

ResonanceGhent

After last year’s edition taking place at Concerthall Bijloke, amongst other locations, where attention and focus was drawn towards the visually intriguing virtual synthesizer ReacTable (developed at the MTG Institute of Technology, Barcelona), the second edition of the ResonanceGhent Festival goes further on the paved path, combining and showcasing innovative electronic artists & collectives - both national as international, specializing in the auditive, as visual characteristics of electronic art.

At the research gallery Espace Ladda an open 3-day symposium is held, curated by Freesound founder Bram de Jong, bringing the most talented in the audio-visual area of ‘live coding‘. Also known as ‘on-the-fly programming’ or ‘interactive programming’, the name ‘live coding’ is given to the creative process of writing - and visualizing - software in real-time as part of the performance. Until recently a musician/composer rarely had the capability of altering software code in real-time, which is somewhat erased by the rise of coding programs such as ChucK and SuperCollider.

With roots in UK electronica and technologic culture the British duo Slub (Dave Griffiths & Alex McLean) build their own virtual environments in real-time through the self-developed Fluxus software. They’re joined by Gabor Papp, co-founder of the Hungarian live coding collective No Copy Paste, and renowned scientific examiner Graham Coleman (MTG Institute of Barcelona) . From The Netherlands Fokke de Jong and Jan-Kees Van Kampen, founders of the programming language PulseCode, will create live audio through complex coding via SuperCollider and other assorted ‘instruments’, as Finnish artist Antti Jadertpolm, otherwise known as FTHRproductions, creating digital eye-candy in real-time through the use of Photoshop.

Last-minute confirmation : based in London, UK, Pixelpusher “generates video out of a controlled chaos of photographic images, simple shapes, animations, sounds, and live video feeds. All software is homemade, all imagery are created live; things may go wrong in beautiful ways, and no performance is ever the same…”

Espace Ladda

- -

“Real DJs code live” - WIRED article on live coding

The good people over at Resident Advisor wrote a nice article on the upcoming Resonance Ghent Festival 2009… And we had nothing to do with it. Imagine that.

‘Belgium feels the resonance‘

Looking back at 2008 we notice that this was a year of constant development in random arts, resulting in a creativity, exciting as innovative, which we’ll - hopefully, and rather undoubtly - see further evolving past the borderline of 2008 to 2009. On a personal level, ResonanceGhent saw it’s birth, for many people a welcome new gush of fresh air in the Belgian music-scene; meeting lots and lots of people local and abroad that will stick close to my heart and mind for a long long time, in their amicability and pleasure to work, talk and hang out with; welcoming joyful, new life to this world, and so much more…

Let’s make 2009 another year to remember. To everyone close to our hearts : a very happy new year (ten days late, i know, but i’ve never been the most punctual in the family) to all of you.

Only 47 days until ‘action!‘, an urgency to update this blog rather soon was bugging me the last couple of weeks, but not before one last lazy, sunny sunday in the company of friends, coffee, and Joaquin Phoenix, self-proclaimed, self-conscious star on the fall in James Gray’s tender ‘Two Lovers‘.. now in a theatre near you!

Late February, early March sees the second edition of the ResonanceGhent Festival 2009. Here’s what to expect..

Friday 27th of February ::: Ballroom Artscentre Vooruit

Machinefabriek live
(Lampse / Dekorder)
Yves De Mey / Eavesdropper live :: album presentation ‘Lichtung‘
(Line)
Alva Noto live :: ‘UNITXT‘ audio-visual performance
(Raster Noton)

+ Live Coding workshop at Espace Ladda, curated by Bram De Jong

Saturday 28th of February ::: Ballroom Artscentre Vooruit - in coöperation with Meakusma

Move D & Benjamin Brunn live
(Smallville / Bine Music)
Claro Intelecto & Andy Stott live
(Modern Love)
Peter Van Hoesen live
(Time To Express)
+ Live Coding workshop at Espace Ladda, curated by Bram De Jong

Sunday 1st of March ::: Bar Limonada, Ghent

Mokira / Andreas Tilliander live :: album presentation ‘Persona‘
(Type / Repeatle)
Deepchord presents Echospace live :: first-ever Belgian concert of the rightful heirs of the Basic Channel legacy
(EchospaceDetroit / Modern Love)

That’s it for now. More news and all info very soon!

Andreas Tilliander

Tonight, for the first time live in Brussels

Café Belga

Place Eugène Flagey Plein
Bruxelles/Brussel

8pm - 1am

Supported by dj Sensu (Manna Bxl/Plain.be) & the Resonance Ghent Soundsystem.

Still not convinced ? Here’s what Sensu wrote about Tilliander…

“Continually crossing boundaries and seemingly creating new and exciting genres on the fly, Andreas Tilliander is a legend in his own right. Recording under his own name as well as under the Lowfour, Mokira and Rechord monikers, he was a seminal part of the ‘clicks ‘n cuts’ movement and has had an enormous influence on minimal techno and house as we know them today. A live set by Andreas Tilliander is always a rumbling experience, upsetting stereotypes and forging new and undiscovered musical structures…“

… in the fields of the good Lord himself ? It’s one of many ways to look at the term ‘creationism’, but let’s not talk anything near religion here. There’s a time and place for everything, even on Last.fm…

Saturday the 22nd of November sees a dream come true for the ever-increasing, unignorable many young dj’s & electronic music producers, who’ve been replacing their guitar- & drumkit by Technics SL1200’s and/or Native Instruments software, in the form of a large-scale event entitled : PLAY & PRODUCE.  Taking place at every conceivable, existing space in Artscentre Vooruit, there’s just too much (in the most positive sense) going on, and you’d wish the technology would exist to split yourself in half, being able to catch up with as much as possible.

Workshops, feedback sessions, lectures, panel discussions, master classes, the works. And we’ve had a hand in all of this too - cue : shameless self-promotion. Resonance Ghent was asked to host a few showcases by daring & innovative musicians who keep looking towards the horizon, and beyond, regarding composing and performing electronic music.

First off we have the duo of Kristof Lauwers & Laura Maes, bringing a premiere of a composition for electronics, instruments & objects. Lauwers & Maes got wide acclaim in 2004 for their audiovisual performance ‘Kitch ‘N Glitch‘, where recorded sounds from the surroundings of  Maes’ kitchen were re-defined and transposed into a electro-acoustic composition. As Frans De Waard (of Staalplaat/Kapotte Muziek fame) commented on the Kitch ‘N Glitch album, released on Maes’ sadly-defunct Cling Film Records : “One of the most interesting phenomena for me is the way Maes and Lauwers move with their sound from sheer electronic to acoustic and back again. From raw material to its manipulation or vice versa…”

Followed by Brussels-based soundcrafter Eavesdropper, who teams up with Simon Lenski (of Die Anarchistische Abend Unterhaltung fame). Yves De Mey & Simon Lenski first teamed up during a Meg Stuart performance for Time Festival 2007 in Ghent, and have since never lost track of each other. Using cello, guitar & electronics they create an immense, ever-evolving wall of sound, sometimes frightening, sometimes blissful. Not to be missed.

Talented Swedish producer Andreas Tilliander (a man of many aliases such as Komp, Rechord, Mokira to name a few…) honours us once again with his presence in Ghent. Having released groundbreaking albums on labels as diverse as Mille Plateaux, Type Records, Ideal Recordings, Raster Noton & CubicFabric, he’s a man who works on the boundaries of electronic music, and seemingly creates new, exciting genres by a snap of the fingers, leaving fellow producers miles and miles behind. There’s a word for that : visionary.

As stated above, there’s more than this on this particular day. Please do browse the Play & Produce site for plenty more goodness such as a Native Instruments workshop by Brian Smith (who’s being assisted by Tilliander himself), a analogue vs. digital discussion, …

Eavesdropper & Simon Lenski - Live footage (Ancienne Belgique - Brussels)

Andreas Tilliander - Studio footage (Repeatle Homestudio - Stockholm Sweden)

“Wow, so this is the future…” Calvin & Hobbes ponder when they end up in an arbouretum in their self-built cardboard-box time-machine in Bill Watterson’s classic and highly humorous comic… Unlike in the comic book universe, it seems harder and harder to pinpoint where electronic music, in all of it’s diversity, is heading to…

For instance, in the highly popular genre that is dubstep nowadays, which was stated to be the latest trend and in a matter of time would lose all of it’s character, something peculiar happened along the way. After it broke free from it’s roots in London, it has taken on the world and thrusted a whole new range of young, new producers into the spotlight like Martyn, 2562, Pinch, Peverelist, Appleblim, Shackleton and many more. These producers shift, morph and adapt to their environment, combining it with other genres such as techno, dub & reggea.

In a recent interview 29-year old, Bristol-based producer Robert Ellis, aka Pinch, who deservingly got global acclaim for his ‘Underwater Dancehall‘ album (released last year on his label Tectonic Recordings), states that the Basic Channel catalogue played a huge influence on him. Instead of imitating the cavernous trademark Basic Channel sound, he rather saw it as an inspiration, and created his own musical identity. Another fine example of adaptation is Appleblim’s recent effort for Tempa’s Dubstep Allstars mix-series. On volume 6 he offers the listener a more rigorous and experimental approach on dubstep, drawing a wide range of producers offering versions of the genre that are more palatable to outside influences. Again, the early Berlin sound, including Basic Channel, has a major influence.

Due to adopting genres such as techno, and blending in inspiration & influences, prospects are hugely exciting. One of the recent highlights in this new take on the dubstep genre is Shackleton’s signature-percussive remix for Ricardo Villalobos’ Minimoonstar (released on Perlon’s ‘Vasco EP’),  retaining his own style, yet moving deeper into Berlin techno territory, his current city of residence. Another worthy mention goes out to Berlin resident Shed, who by releasing his first full-album ‘Shedding The Past‘ has delivered one of thé highlight cross-genre albums of 2008. Released on Ostgut Ton, label of the already-legendary Berlin club Berghain (you have to experience it to believe it…), it has an elegant style of it’s own, presenting the listener with something (post)modern & physical, not leaving clear oldschool rave influences aside - which is then again typical for the Ostgut Ton label, and the Berghain club in general. Also check out these soon-to be released remixes for Scuba (aka Paul Rose, owner of Hotflush Recordings, and as many others these days Berlin resident) by the likes of Marcel Dettmann, Substance, Surgeon, Martyn & Vex’d. As Ricardo Villalobos stated himself in a recent feature in the WIRE magazine : “the crossover makes sense : at its most intricate, dubstep plays with many of the same elements as (minimal) techno… texture, polyrhythm, a profound respect for the full spectrum afforded by sound recording at its most refined…“

Friday 7th of November : 2562 - Cactus Club Brugge - with Benga & others (info)

Thursday 20th of November : Pinch - Balzaal Vooruit Gent - with Mala (Digital Mystikz) & others (info)

Saturday 13th of December : Shed - Recyclart Brussels - with T++, Aardvarck, Will O’Brien & others (info)

What else to do on a cold sundaynight at start of fall, besides dealing with a splitting headache and thus cancelling eager plans getting served one of the most delicious Flemish dishes known to humankind, being meatballs in tomato sauce ‘a la Phil’, than browsing the net.

And then i stumbled across this : The Streaming Festival. An audio-visual festival like any other you might think… but not this one. The idea implies you don’t even need to leave your house, but rather stay in your living-room or where-ever your computer may reside. Taking place on the internet, films are broadcasted full-screen on streaming servers in high-quality resolution. Selected in several film programs, anyone with an internet connection can plug in into any festival stream from any location, at any given time and can switch back and forth easily watching carefully selected contemporary art & film.

The 3rd edition of The Streaming Festival starts October the 23rd.

All info : The Streaming Festival

Sort of .. Yesterday saw the last performance-weekend of the annual Happy New Ears Festival, taking place in my city of birth Kortrijk, which was once a rather dull place if it wasn’t for Woody Allen, Hal Hartley, Emir Kusturica & Roman Polanski retrospectives taking place at cultural centre Limelight where i spent lots & lots of schoolnights in the dark, watching the flickering lights… No popcorn or chips, no annoying cellphones, just good movies, for the love of good movies. And all that - positively - changed when the people behind this centre decided to take some steps further and launched Artscentre Buda, with it’s own independent 3-room movie theatre, which are easily rebuilt to performance/concert-spaces in the blink of an eye.

But, back to where i started off.

First on the bill was a duo performance by French composer Pierre Bastien & British jazz drummer Steve Arguelles. Bastien, who in the eighties begun to make mechanical-based instruments compromised of Meccano machines which play various ‘traditional’ instruments such as a Morrocan bendir, a Javanese saron, koto & violin, has a reputation of bringing ever-unique performances with a twist & dash of surrealism & dadaism. Which brings along the fact that sometimes it’s hard to keep focus, and quite frankly, after 15min. you’ve about seen it. But not this time. Steve Arguelles (who i frankly never heard of before) definately brought extra value to Bastien’s trademark sound by gentle & then again frantic use of  his drumset, accompanied by very subtle effects, courtesy of his vintage delay/echo box & the legendary Sherman Filterbank. Hard to pinpoint who did what exactly at what time, but sometimes you need to let go of the eyes and let your ears feast. And that’s exactly what this duo did to mine. Thank you very much, & please come again.

After a short pause, it was time for ErikM, regular performer at this festival & one of the world’s most notorious turntablists next to people like Otomo Yoshihide and/or Philip Jeck. Since last time i’ve seen him perform, when he gave me an immediate headache with his constant use of high-pitched noises & tones, i’ve decided to leave him aside for now and go for a short walk into town, since next up was - for many an already legendary musician - William Basinski.

William Basinski, a notorious NYC underground figure who first got widely noticed in the late nineties with his release ‘Shortwavemusic’ on the Raster Noton label creates vast works using tape loops & delay systems, shortwave radio static (hence the title…) & found sounds. In 2001 he got to work on what would become his most ‘recognizable’ composition ‘The Disentigration Loops‘, based on old tapeloops (heavily influenced by Brian Eno & Steve Reich amongst others) which had degraded in quality. The rather beautiful and melancholic essence of this composition, released in four series on his own label 2062 Recordings, is that Basinski digitized these loops in real-time, while the tapes slowly crumbled during it’s salvage process, leaving a timestamp history of their demise. For Happy New Ears, he brought a brand new, yet-untitled composition, premiered for the first time… It’s very hard to explain what happened exactly during his performance but the auditive atmospherics in the concerthall where breathtaking. One could hear a needle drop, whilst the people where listening deeply to an ever-continious, yet ever-changing (through it’s demise) loop which will never be heard ever again. And this is precisely what makes his performances so unique & emotional, for the audience as for himself.  As one audience member said: “Thank you William”.

And thank you Happy New Ears. See/hear you next year !

Happy New Ears blog (including video footage & reports)

In the vecenity of Ghent today, and like to repeat what we did last February during the Resonance Ghent festival, edition 1, then we’ve got some last-minute news for you!

Bram Dejong, Freesound’s main man, was asked by the organisers of the annual OdeGand festival (taking place on the - literarely - watery city centre of Ghent) to capture what it would sound like if an audience between 4,000 & 6,000 (yes, you read it correctly) was asked to make random sounds, all of this in the professional hands by an appointed master of ceremony and lots and lots of microphones… And so, he gladly accepted.

Be part of it, tonight (Saturday the 13th of September 2008),  9.15 pm, Gras- & Korenlei Ghent.

More info : OdeGand (scroll down)

Freesound.org

Freesound blog