When he's not analyzing industrial and metal albums for the Music Genome Project, Will Redmond is often out on tour as BlipVert, performing his twisted and hyper-intense take on IDM. This is electronic music at its most challenging, where samples and microsamples are arranged like chips in a mosaic or dots in a pointillistic painting. Standard beats are thrown out entirely, discarded in favor of fractured chunks, bits of signal, and electronically damaged sound. IDM can be exquisitely beautiful, disturbingly jarring, or beautiful and jarring at once. Here is the website featuring Will's work as BlipVert, called Synapse Compound; he dubs this site "a nice place for noise." (9 mins.)MUSICAL TERMS INCLUDED IN THIS PODCAST
| Ambient music | IDM (intelligent dance music) | Sample | Broken rhythms |
| Sampler | Theremin | Chaos pad | Analog noise |
| Synthesizer | Sequencing | Electronic music | Sourcing |
| Musique concrete | Tape splicing | Pitch wheel | CDJ |
| Sample banks | Track switching | Mixer | Vocoder |
| Air FX | Looping |
INDUSTRIAL MUSIC: MIXING METAL, PUNK, AND ELECTRONIC EXPERIMENTATION
by Throbbing Gristle |
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by Skinny Puppy |
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by Ministry |
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by Nine Inch Nails |
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by Merzbow |
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From top to bottom on the near table: a four-channel mixer, an Air FX unit, and a sampler. That long strip to the right is a vocoder, which is a vocal effects processor. BlipVert's live sound-mangling relies heavily on these four pieces of equipment. |
AMBIENT MUSIC PIONEERS
by Brian Eno |
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by Harold Budd |
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by Tangerine Dream |
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by the Orb |
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Yes, his hand is a blur because he's moving so quickly. Here is BlipVert manipulating a piece of CDJ (compact disc jockey) hardware. Much like an analog record player, the CDJ is set up so that the speed and direction of the turntable's motion alters the audio playback. |
1990s EXPONENTS OF IDM (all of whom are still producing great work in the 2000s)
by Aphex Twin |
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by Squarepusher |
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by Orbital |
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by Underworld |
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by Autechre |
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Those two microphones are each going into separate signal processing units that warp the sound of Will's voice. |
OTHER CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS DEALING WITH GLITCHES, BLEEPS, AND ELECTRONIC ABSTRACTIONS
by Venetian Snares |
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by Boards Of Canada |
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by Odd Nosdam |
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by the Books |
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by Matmos |
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by BlipVert |
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Similar to a theremin, the Air FX unit monitors the movement of air near the instrument. As Will's hands move near the pad, the sound changes. Depending on what parameters he has set to have the Air FX control, those rapid-fire hand sweeps could change pitch, resonance, or any number of other sonic variables. |
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Comments
this is awesome
Posted by: che at March 4, 2009 06:16 PM
Love it. THANKS!
Posted by: Austin at August 2, 2009 04:36 PM
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