More tracks from the September Berlin jam

Just got my hands into the jam recording, listened to it, and made 2 cuts. Tracks 111 – 117 from the STE 000 2 file, starting around 34 min, and going to the end.

111

112

 

113

114

115

116

117

 

 

B-Side [2019 album – Berlin Jam session]

Yesterday we recorded the second jam session for the 2019 elektrodomestika album. We crossed paths again and met for making music. This time in Mitte. At the heart of Berlin and near the Spree river.

In contrast to the Bogota jam session we had a different arrangement of instruments and recorded the session with microphones. One musical analogue – circuit bended instrument had its own speaker configuration and required to be outside the mixer. Besides that we had granular synthesizers, samplers, and an optical synth toy.

We played with a variety of samples. Many of them are from the Berlin and Germany historical archival. Other ones are from some historical tapes recently discovered at the Raymond Scott archive. Still others are from field recordings from Boston, Cambridge, Oslo. For this session we left outside deliberately any recording and sample from Colombia.

After more than 140 minutes of music making we had to interrupt the jam. A neighbor requested that we stop making “Gruselige Musik” (“scary music”) in the building. We could probably continue to play but decided to leave the jam session there. The neighbor seemed to be seriously concerned and afraid of the sounds he was listening from the apartment above the little home studio where we were jamming. This is Berlin and we are not in 1990s anymore. Moreover, this was just an evening of a sunny and warm early autumn Tuesday.

 

Next Hour Tracks – Jump-cut to hour 2 : 71-80

As we cut the three hour Chapinero jam I decided to jump to the second hour and start cutting from there. Below are the links to the first 4 cuts from that hour. I started counting on 70, perhaps making a wrong estimate of how many tracks per hour we would cut.

[cut 71]

 

[cut 72]

 

[cut 73]

 

[cut 74]

 

(added 17.8.2019)

[cut 75]

[cut 76]

[cut 77]

 

[cut 78]

 

[cut 79]

[cut 80]

 

Chapinero Sunday Jam – Elektrodomestika 2019

This is Chapinero neighborhood in Bogota, Colombia. Calle 70A, next to the cerros orientales (eastern hills). More than a decade ago elektrodomestika played its first concert down the street at the Teatro R-101. Today we are playing music again on this neighborhood. Crossing paths and sounds again in Bogota city, RO + VvvA.

For this special jam we are bringing back a mixed bag of sounds, including field recordings from different Colombian birds, cars, and winds, Bogota radio sounds, a bunch of synths including both analog and digital, and also some granular synthesis applications running on tablets, and 2 computers. We are also adding the sound of vintage Colombian vinyl records that for the first time in the history of elektrodomestika jams would be played live and scratched.

Our plan is to use the live music we recorded during this Chapinero jam for a special album we are producing this year. In between Bogota and Berlin, back and forth, as part of a new cycle of elektrodomestika.

Jamming Again

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Improvising with multiple devices is always useful for creating dynamic and complex atmospheres. After many months without playing with music devices this year I have started to jam again, playing with a mix of digital and analogue devices. Making music is an essential part of my creative life and I was distancing from it due to the other projects I have to handle at work and other pressures from professional life.

Fortunately I have been able to reconnect with the music practice. I created a mobile set-up at my home studio that I can arrange and disassemble pretty easy in a couple of minutes. I have been also recording the different sessions, and with less regularity, listening to them and finding excerpts and interesting pieces. I am uploading them to Soundcloud so they are easy to reproduce and stream online but I could also upload them to a server so they can be downloaded. It would be interesting to reactivate the sound of elektrodomestika and experiment with some collaborations across the Atlantic. I wonder what would be the best way to do that kind of creative exchange between music recorded in Boston and Berlin.

Below is a piece tentatively called Janus. It has already many layers of sound but perhaps can also be remixed again.