Analog Abstract by Beckstrom
80 minutes of improvised techno and electro, played live on my modular synthesizer in one take, recorded straight to the computer.
-- Also here: https://chrisbeckstrom.com/music/albums/analog-abstract --
full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmvDimEW6Ew
As much as I love to create synthesizer patches where my modular synth plays itself, my background in musical performance and my own sensibilities often lead me to really play the synth. After all, it's a musical instrument, albeit quite different than a saxophone or a keyboard.
Every since I started building this machine I've been trying to find what sorts of sounds it makes naturally; what sort of music would my synthesizer play if left to its own devices? Of course it's an inanimate object, but due to the particular combination of modules I've built and the way I like to patch them, this machine really does lend itself to certain types of sounds. Indeed, perhaps the native language of analog modular synthesizers is techno. If one randomly patches with a standard issue selection of sequencers, oscillators, and envelopes, there's a good chance something rhythmic and harmonically interesting will come out of the machine.
The word "techno" is not a placeholder for all types of "electronic music;" techno is a specific style of music that originated in Detroit, Michigan. It was not created by white Europeans, its innovators were young, black, and suburban. When I first learned this I was very surprised, but listening to early Detroit techno, it's not difficult to hear the influence of Motown, P-Funk, and a variety of other American musics.
Like all great musical styles, there are innumerable forms and variations, but the core of techno as a genre retains some key attributes: repetition, funk, and timbral variation. As techno originator Derrick May famously said, techno was “like George Clinton and Kraftwerk are stuck on an elevator with only a sequencer to keep them company.”
This music "like Chris Beckstrom wants to make funky, rhythmic music with only his homemade modular synthesizer to keep him company."
About the song titles
I used part of my cbcompose script to generate random song names. I did it seven times and used the first seven results for these tracks.
Credits
Chris Beckstrom – homemade modular synthesizer, mixer, delay pedal, iPad running Patterning drum machine
Recorded live on January 2, 2018
Cover art: "Climt style nanofilm" by Moiseenko_E_T (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Climt_style_nanofilm.jpg)
