It’s oddly apropos that bits are coming together, here on the eve of the (calendar) new year. Bits of technological, musical, and epistemological* flotsam and jetsam seem to be accumulating into useful shapes in my immediate vicinity.

To wit - this person has posted a handful of schematics and sound clips regarding the construction of circuits exhibiting chaotic behaviour, and using said circuits to control synthesizers. In other words, a chaos-driven instrument is within reach of my handy laser screwdriver soldering iron.

I’m very excited.

*more on this later - I’m still working on putting it into words.

Found a couple of interesting-looking pieces of ambient music/sound generation software:

• sounder
• ambient grains

Anyone know of anything else cool? I’m looking for ways to capture the song of the ghost in the machine…

Hurray! Finally an understandable (leastwise to me) explanation of how to string & tune a saz.

the squarewave parade

I’m a bit late to the party, but I just discovered the solo works of former Rasputina cellist Zoe Keating. Lovely, evocative stuff – all solo cello, sampled and looped to create amazing textures.

James and etc. (recommendations from Dan L-K)

Lessee – Stutter is essential. Strip-Mine is all kinds of good, as is Seven. Laid also pretty damn good. There’s a Best Of album that covers a lot of good stuff.

Also check out Booth and the Bad Angel, the collaboration between Tim Booth and Angelo Badalamenti

Wah Wah is James + Brian Eno

Coupla artists that probably bear further investigation:
Kate Havnevik

Imogen Heap

Texhnolyze just might be the kind of anime I’d like.