PULSAR is a revolutionary immersive AV installation that launches in 2024. The installation reacts in real-time to the life-signs of the audience. The sound system is a 7.1.22 Dolby Atmos array built by d&b audiotechnik. Framestore Labs in London are creating real-time rendered visuals. The music score and visuals are non-linear and generative and are modulated in real time by the life-signs of the audience. Each performance is unique.
Composers are Boris Blank, Bart Hendrickson and Dolph Taylor.
For more info https://blank.media/pulsar/
Jaki Liebezeit has always been in a world of his own as he balances technical brilliance with subtle restraint. Drum performances were fed through processors, samplers and sequencers to produce layers of rhythmic patterns. The sounds of other instruments were often melted into different textures so that only the harmonic content remains.
All of Jaki’s performances were complete takes and the backing tracks were recorded without key changes. Each song features one key held continuously while other instruments and effects are blended to it. The idea is essentially drone theory and was to move away from traditional song arrangements. Drums were tuned to the same key and were added last. As Jaki says, they’re overlooked as tuned instruments in their own right.
The finished results are a hypnotic blend of Industrial, Classical, Krautrock and Detroit electronica. As journalist Kris Needs drily observed “it’s like listening to a raga in an earthquake”.
Guest appearances :
Kumo – shaker and synths (ARP 2600) on Peitsche Lee Harris – djembe and chinese percussion on Fuck The Napkin Andy Baxter – bass on Dron in Köln Michael Pollitt – wash guitar on Kings of the Robot Rhythm Tim Hutton – trumpet on Long Way Back (first take) Danny Arno – piano, keyboards Joe Hollick – guitars on Nocturne
The brainchild of Ian Tregoning, Magnetik North started as an experiment in synthesising acoustic instruments and electronics, with sounds instantly fed back, processed into the headphones of musicians so that what they were hearing wasn’t necessarily what they were playing. It has now become something quite different, with Tregoning surrounded by a cluster of formidable musicians, including Lee Harris, formerly of Talk Talk, Kumo, aka Jono Podmore also of Metamono and ex-CAN drummer Jaki Liebezeit, who has continued to ply and refine his craft from his studio in Cologne.
The strong Can connection is evident on Evolver. It was CAN’s ingenious and eternal bequest to rock music to find a way of jamming, of playing, that was more about creating a space than filling it. By dint of sheer, premeditated discipline and restraint, by relinquishing the ego and abandoning the usual protocols of rock band hierarchy and configuration, they created a context in which energy could flow. This was more than a “style” – it was a built-in mechanism that allowed for infinite variety.
Any group in which Liebezeit was involved would not be able to depart from this philosophy, as he was always its most rigid practitioner. It is he who keeps the pulse regular on Evolver, so as to allow for myriad irregularities in the content: opener ‘Peitsche’, with its tangential radiation of fragmentsand laser emissions. Some of the titles reflect the good nature of these sessions, despite their dark ambience; a prize of a self-inflicted pat on the back is available to any Quietus reader who knows the provenance of the title ‘Fuck The Napkin’. ‘The Shining’, meanwhile, with its slowly intensifying blizzard culminating in a tinnitus frenzy, appears to recreate the conditions in which Jack Nicholson froze to death in the movie of the same name. ‘Dron In Köln’ is a glorious, slowly turned downpour of warm sulphur from the skies, ‘Kings Of The Robot Rhythm’ could easily have been issued by the Kompakt label in its more refined moments, with its geometrical interplay, ‘Nocturne’ allows for an extended solo from Joe Hollick, slithering and glowing alone across the nightscape. ‘Something In The Water’ is nine or so soberly unadultered minutes of loveliness, with its long, flat pools of desolate bliss, while ‘Long Way Back’ reminds of Arve Henriksen in its redeployment of lonely jazz trumpet to a Northern European context, courtesy of Tim Hutton. There are no airs or grandeur about Magnetik North, no striking of po-faced postures, but then the very self-effacement of Tregoning and co is their supreme virtue.
David Stubbs//THE QUIETUS/Sept 24 2012
JONO PODMORE
Theremin Ring Modulator Electronics
IAN TREGONING
ELECTRONICS
Amphibolite came in to being in response to the untimely death of our friend and colleague Jaki Liebezeit in 2017. A gig was planned at the Philharmonie in Cologne to commemorate the first anniversary of his passing away and we were asked to contribute. But what to do?
A few constellations were thrown into the ring and then we decided to nail our colours to the mast, write some music especially for the event and play a 20 min live set. With that decision we became a band. The writing process went by in a flash. We’d worked together as
producers, engineers, programmers and remixers since the 90s but never as composers on the same pieces, yet all the previous studio time paid off. Initially we concentrated on ideas Jaki had passed on to us: additive rhythms and rhythm being the basis of harmony, but soon branched out further. Before long we had a set. Cologne Philharmonie is a big venue with a capacity of 2000 and the event for Jaki was a sell out. We’d got all our gear out to Cologne and we rehearsed in the studio at the Conservatory where I work before setting up at the Philharmonie. We were among a stellar cast of some of the finest musicians who had worked with Jaki across the 6 decades of his career. Shortly before going on stage in front of 2000 eager souls, Ian nonchalantly remarked to me: “you know, this is my first gig since I played in a school orchestra”.
With the applause from our first gig still ringing in our ears we have continued to write and perform together and look forward too many more gigs to come, putting the school orchestra further behind us with every show.”
JONO PODMORE JULY 2022 to 2023
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