For this particular box, inspiration came from the strangest of places – namely the showroom of the Brooklyn Ikea megacomplex sequestered into some sort of post-industrial nightmare brimming with bearded artist-types in their mid-thirties, children living the superfund dream of a post-urban childhood and the tattered remnants of the traditional Brooklynite forever immortalized through the mockery of late-’80’s Saturday Night Live. The night before I had attended The Stone for the first time, and, 10 hours after the fact, I was still blown away by the ultimate glass ceiling of the Downtown Scene. “Congratulations, you’ve made it – you’re one of us now. You are hereby invited to play our exclusive club with poor sound, bad ventilation, a snarky audience and another show right after yours, so remember to vacate immediately afterwards, because you’re not on the list for that one. Oh, by the way, did we forget to mention that the venue is smaller than your living room? Oh, whoops, sorry about that.”
…all said, there’s few things that I can say I truly hate, but among things that come close, the East Village in all it’s arrogant, ostentatious, yet horribly-deprived in terms of proper human living conditions splendor definitely comes close. Especially when coupled with the current repressive behavior of the NYPD and the whole NYC-mentality in which a murderous bloodbath could happen at any moment, triggered solely by a cascading reaction of a handful of locals deciding that enough was enough of their miserable, urban existence. Though, in that light, I guess that does kind of explain the police presence, albeit with very little actual connection to the instrument I’m trying to describe.
So yeah, morning after, Stone, bewilderment, Ikea, with the next logical step in this progression being meatballs. I have my weaknesses, one of note being the horrible, Sweden-inspired meat-products served at the snack bar portion of your flat-pack furniture safari. I chalk it up to some sort of survivalist thing – perhaps in an effort to save on overhead, big-box stores always seem to have less oxygen than required by the typical life-form who decides to consume products within – I mean, how else are you going to justify dropping $800 on the Köln mattress set with matching in-wall bookshelf and organizer, especially with a walnut finish? Lack of oxygen to the brain – exactly. So to prevent that, meatballs. With that strange berry sauce. And potatoes with tasteless gravy. And malt-flavored “celebration drink.” Regrettably, store management frowns upon you bringing your own bottle of porter to complement your meal. In this case, however, I was in no need of furniture, having put most of mine in storage at my folks’ place a year prior before zipping off to Central America, and, arriving 20 minutes prior to the lunch rush, I had to kill some time before diving into a certain lingonberry-tainted breakfast of champions without succumbing to consumer asphyxiation. That’s about when I saw it – a shining muse heaped in the corner of the clearance aisle; beckoning lovingly, caressing my neurons and saying in Siren-like clarity, “Purchase me and exploit this bargain for your own artistic gains!” What was it that I saw you ask? Uhm, yeah, that would have been a package of neon-twinged, black light responsive drawer-handles. Like I said, strangest of places. A hour later and stuffed to the gills with Scandinavian meat-paste, I was rocketing back north to begin wrenching on this creation.
So what is it? A return to form, if anything – after a year working exclusively on pedals and PCB’s, I grew a little nostalgic for point-to-point synth building, and following the fun I had applying a couple new techniques that I picked up along the way while working on Number 26, I decided to follow suit and build a couple more one-off boxes for old time’s sake. Who knows, I might even learn something new in the process. Circuitry-wise, this is an old chestnut, using modified Ciat-Lonbarde Rollz 5 oscillators and a modified resonant filter section. The result a wonky little critter capable of mouse marches and zombie gabba – not to mention some cool, glowing handles for the whole modern dream/steam punk aesthetic. I’m not so sure if I’d go as far as to call it cyberpunk, quite yet – not enough references to skateboards and rail-guns. Maybe with the proper decals, however. Not to say that is has to be punk at all, of course – all said, genres confuse me.
Revision (2015)
So I should probably mention that sometime in 2015 or so I swapped the machine screws out for 3.5 mm jacks to create a safer environment for growing children. Not to major of a modification, but if we’re trying to be all archival, it’s at least worth getting it on record.
Media
All sounds recorded live, directly to tape on 05.11.2012 in San José, Costa Rica.
Recordings
The genesis of these recordings began in Manchester. Or rather, with a trip I took to Manchester to deliver a paper on synthesis and instrument building. Keeping in mind that this is the Manchester in England, not New England. Looking to showcase my slightly-more-fragile-than-commercial-grade instruments in an academic setting and not have to worry about transit, patching, setup, missing cables, etc. I decided to use the proceeds from a workshop I conducted at Rhizome in DC towards the purchase of a flight case for my rig. In theory, this would have been a great idea, but seeing that this is me, I went for the cheap flight case and quickly realized I was at risk of snapping a latch over the Atlantic and arriving empty-handed. So I then had to buy the largest suitcase available to transport this box and when all was said and done, I probably could have simply purchased a decent flight case from the get go and have been done with it all in one fell swoop. Especially considering that upon arrival I discovered that one of my instruments, Number 27 to be exact, had been damaged by way of brittle plexiglass, gravity and a fairly tight cable run. Whoops. I was able to make due for the performance, but after returning to Baltimore, decided it was time to redesign certain aspects of the analog rig, as well as put this particular synth out to pasture. Or in this case, mounted on the wall with gallery hooks. Oddly enough, when I first started building, I imagined the walls of my studios adorned with various instruments I’ve built – granted this is only the first and the studio currently also doubles as the living room, but it’s a short step in the right direction.
That said, these recordings represent a farewell of sorts to the active life of this instrument. The sounds are pretty dark. But then again, it was a dark time. I recorded these tracks shortly after the deaths of my grandmother as well as one of my academic mentors, which was also shortly after the deadly Ghost Ship fire in Oakland, Ca. I’d just also totaled my car and was relying on bicycle in the winter for basic necessities and the was of course the pending inauguration of a certain mound of opulent corrupt filth and his freshly-assembled collection of geriatrics looking for one last score before the grave claims them, and hopefully the old-world imperialist lenses they color their worlds with as well. Tangent aside, yeah, dark. Which is strange, because I actually kept Number 27 as a synth because it was one of the brighter, more poppish builds I conjured. Hell, I even re-engineered it to function off CV and changed the original machine screw interface for a solid patch bay. But alas, for all good things, there is inevitably an ending. In the words of Walter Sobchak, “Goodnight Sweet Prince.” – you served me well from 2012-2017. May the rest of your days be peaceful and pleasant.
Hypermetacontextual 