The Aliasing of the SP-1200 I would like to take a closer listen to this clanking SP-1200 sound myself. In order to ensure a supposedly unbiased access to the sound characteristics of the machine, I first create a sine sweep in a common audio editing software – a simple sine tone that sweeps the frequency…
Ultramagnetic M.C.’s / Paul C – Give The Drummer Some »I still got a SP-1200 in my house today. We can go to my house right now, it’s an SP-1200, ’cause that’s what he [Paul C] taught me on. You know, that machine is classic within itself but […] it’s like, lettin’ my man know…
Jeff Mills – Exhibitionist Mix 3 TR-909 Workout Jeff Mills and his 909 in classic white cube setting. Artsy as artsy can get. I watch the »Mix 3 TR-909 Workout« from the DVD Exhibitionist 2. Nothing but Mills and machine in sight. In impossible elegance he is kneeling in front of the grayish cabinet. Pressing start quickly, only…
Mark Fisher’s Ghost Track The Ultramagnetic record has run through, only the crackling of the needle in the run-out groove can still be heard. Not just said motif, there are many reasons to crossfade Paul C.’s small-scale Sampladelia with Mark Fisher’s equally melancholically crackling concept of hauntological sound culture. In some of the more advanced…
Missy Elliott – Lose Control / Cybotron – Clear »Music make you lose control! Music make you lose control! Let’s go!« – Boom and Clap Boom and and Clap and! On top of it all, this ice-cold chromatic synthesizer arpeggio looping non-stop. Everything about this track is iconic. Fatman Scoop’s signature commando voice, the self-surpassing…
Model 500 – No UFOs Catalogue No. M-001. The first release on Juan Atkins’ own label, Metroplex, is called Model 500: the technification of the personal name as a cyborg strategy, the posthumanist gesture of the self-referential, heteronymous model identifier. The first track of this first release, »No UFOs«, presents a prototypical techno track as…
The Reaktor Rhythmicon In order to be able to listen to the Rhythmicon and thus start the first listening session of this work, I have to play tricks. The recordings made of the second machine by Joseph Schillinger in the 1940s are hard to get hold of at the Smithsonian. Videos of the third version…
Prince – Purple Music Tschack! Bumm! With the first snare, there’s no stopping it. This thing is running. One. Two. Three. Four. Kick. Snare. Kick. Snare. 140 BPM barely leave time to catch your breath. A stick sound keeps the off-beats moving and swirls one or two sixteenths around the one. After four bars of…
Little Sister – Somebody’s Watching You »The last three Stone Flower singles, released in November and December 1970, all featured the Rhythm King prominently and no doubt sounded completely alien on pop stations, let alone R&B radio. Yet the new version of ›Somebody’s Watching You‹ by Little Sister made the Top 40 and, as such, is…
Shuggie Otis – Pling! / Maestro Rhythm King »Just to find the kind / of another time /down the road a bit /I’ve been walking it« Shuggie Otis, »Happy House«, LP Inspiration Information, CBS Records 1974. The needle slowly slides into the groove. It clatters. The penultimate track of the B-side has been played many times.…