live @ electundra

Here is the live recording of NGC1313 Spiral Galaxy from the recent performance at Electundra. More info soon.

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new modular rack

I took some more pics of the new rack unpatched so you can see the current module selection, there are about another 3ru plus a bit more of modules left over. Here’s the pics and a bit of behind the scenes:

The motivation behind making a new rack was wanting a combined studio/live rig as constantly after playing a gig the studio wouldn’t get set backup straight away. I have had the Roadready rackcase for over two years (a bargain of evilBay for $50) and had the mixer and rack effects bolted into it. If you go back and look at the previous case, the sexy thing it is, it held just under 9ru of modules and was pretty ergonomic when placed on the guitar stand, but being 6′4″ it was still a pain if I had to set up on a low bench or table and the rack case with it’s angled top seemed like it would be the suitable height for me . The next issue was with the Doepfer A-138d FX insert module, being that it was painful having to unplug all my pedals, power leads etc each time I went to a gig. Finally I needed a new audio interface as I wanted to run two seperate channels from it into Ableton Live for individual processing, and with only two inputs on the X-Station (see above previous case pic) one was taken with the mic and one taken with the modular. After a bunch of research I decided upon the TC Electronic Konnekt 24D due to its price, features (4 in 4 out plus built in efx that work as plugins) and a few good reviews from friends (thanx Boyd) and the intertubes. I did look at the MOTU Ultralite and had thoughts of Volta or Silentway, but it was about $200 outside of my budget. Maybe that will be the next upgrade…

So the last thing to find was a rack drawer for the pedals and interface. I first found a rack mounted keyboard drawer but it was too shallow for the highest pedal I have – the Frostwave Sonic Alienator – I could have done surgery on the rack with a cutoff blade but luckily I then found the SKB VS-1 velcro shelf which was perfect. No height restrictions, velcro to stop everything sliding around, a latch so it won’t roll out by itself and SKB quality. Unfortunately there were none in OZ, no one OS is contractually allowed to ship them retail, and the distributor wasn’t getting anymore until late Jan but after ringing them and getting a list of retailers that had recently taken delivery I called Factory Sound and happy happy joy joy they had one left! Plus I got to meet Ben who is another dark ambient/noise/experimental crazy!

The whole thing then had to be assembled, I bought a bunch of CGS euro distroboards from the wonderful Mr Stone, spent a day or two soldering, rigging up the power supply, drilling a 1ru utility strip which includes a Doepfer A-138b mixer, a Plan B Model 40 Headphone PreAmp & Leveler plus 4 X 4 multiples. The rack was built using 50mm X 20mm angle from Bunnings and six Schroff rails I have picked up along my modular journey.

In the assembly process I even worked out that I would be able to include my Korg AM8000R multi-efx in the rack and use Ableton’s external effect plugin! And here is the result. One gig last week and another today and all is well, easy to set up break down with one power plug, a stereo cable to the house mixer or DI, a firewire cable into the laptop and I’m away. It is a bit heavy to lug, and it won’t go on an airplane, but for around town or roadtrips its perfect. The next stage is to modify a laptop stand to sit above it.

Anyway enjoy the pics, drop me a line if you have any questions

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Sneak Peek

here is the set up for the gig at Electundra tomorrow with Zac. I have just gone thru moving the modular into the roadcase giving me a full (RU of eurorack modular plus room for a sliding drawer for pedals, audio interface hidden inside and my trusty Korg AM8000R effects unit which is set up as a send effect in Ableton Live.

And here is another sneak peek at some of the images for the performance. Again the visuals are all set up in Quartz Composer and are audio reactive.

See you there!

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Hillingar Remix Released!

With the live performance coming up at Loop it is now time to finally release the 3 tracks that were remixed.
All the details and downloads are on the release page: Hillingar – Zac Keiller vs Abre Ojos

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Nov Gigs

It has been too long since an update, but that doesn’t mean there has been nothing happening behind the scenes. There are a few collaborations going on plus a imminent release on Clinical Archives, but before all that there are three gigs coming up in November, two as part of the amazing A/V festival Electundra and an invite back to the Bene Gesserit Nursery, this time at the home of Melbourne experimental toe tapping Horse Bazaar.

So here’s the info:

1. Hillingar – Zac Keiller vs Abre Ojos
HILLINGAR / is the live entity that is Abre Ojos & Zac Keiller.

The shimmering ambient guitar work of the prolific Zac Keiller spans over 10 albums and one of these – Hillingar (nordic for mirage) was put into the hands of Abre Ojos to remix, reinterpret and add layers of sounds from his custom built eurorack modular synthesizer. Three tracks were chosen for treatment and the result is Hillingar – espejismo di yermo- the mirage wasteland (follow this link).

With the tracks resulting in such a perfect marriage of styles, the two musicians have taken it one step further and will be re-creating their ambient drone compositions with a live performance of sound and visuals at the opening day of Electundra ’09.

Hillingar perform on Saturday November 14th @ 3pm sharp. Tickets $12.00.

Be sure to arrive early and catch live performances by Pip Ryan, Jonathon Hutchinson, Benjamin Schmidt and Seb Guzman Ramirez, Nervous Doll Dancing, Max & Isnod, Winduptoys, The Surly Mermaids, AND/OR, Duotone and Psuche.

Details on the festival can be found here:
http:// www.electundra.com
http://www.myspace.com/electundrafestival

2. NGC1313 Spiral Galaxy in Reticulum – Abre Ojos
The latest project is based around the amazing astronomy photographs of Marek Dobiecki, artist, teacher and astronomer. Dobiecki has built himself an observatory in his backyard in the Dandenong ranges where he tracks the night sky with his computer controlled f4.5 x 30cm Newtonian Telescope capturing galaxies, nebulae and star fields. The photographs are wonderfully fragile, textured, grayscale images of up to 2 hours exposure time revealing things we can barely see with the naked eye.

These photos have been taken and built into a series of audio reactive animations and match to sounds that have been created drawing on inspiration from space recordings and low frequency atmospheric sounds of the earth.

NGC1313 is on Saturday November 21st @ 3pm sharp. Tickets $12.00.

Electundra is on at Loop Project Art Space & Bar
23 Meyers Place Melbourne CBD
Tickets: $12 day night pass
Festival Pass: $25 (a bargain for 3 days of cutting edge A/V goodness!)

3. Bene Gesserit Nursery – As said above its on at Horse Bazaar on Thursday 26th Nov starting at 8pm. More details to come

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elements DVD

The third abre ojos DVD featuring the four tracks, Earth, Air, Water, Fire, released on Darkwinter plus an extra bonus track, Spirit which will only be available on this DVD. The DVD also features mp3 versions of all five tracks that you can download on to your favourite device. This is a hand numbered limited edition [...]

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Upcoming gigs

A bunch of new gigs are in the pipeline, a couple with some more details still to come through but here are the definites: Outpost is the open A/V laptop jam and performance night held the last wednesday of every month @ Bar Open 317 Brunswick Street Fitzroy Melbourne hosted and organised by the busy busy Dan [...]

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Upcoming gigs

A bunch of new gigs are in the pipeline, a couple with some more details still to come through but here are the definites: Outpost is the open A/V laptop jam and performance night held the last wednesday of every month @ Bar Open 317 Brunswick Street Fitzroy Melbourne hosted and organised by the busy busy Dan [...]

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Upcoming gigs

A bunch of new gigs are in the pipeline, a couple with some more details still to come through but here are the definites:

Outpost is the open A/V laptop jam and performance night held the
last wednesday of every month @ Bar Open 317 Brunswick Street
Fitzroy Melbourne hosted and organised by the busy busy Dan West (click that link to see his amazing DIY container studio). Dan has invited me to play the solo spot there but I’ll def be jamming out with everyone else before and after. Bring yr gear and come on down it kicks off at 8.30pm and best of all its free!

VICMOD just keeps going from strength to strength, besides starting a record label, one of its members – Simon Bird, has organised a night at Glitch Bar for the VICMOD Ensemble to play to some wonderfully obscure silent films. Cleaning Lady, Cray and Abre Ojos have been called in for support.

Its on 23rd August from 7.30pm. Glitch is at
318 St Georges Rd Nth Fitzroy

Finally Zac Keiller is curating a A/V night also at Glitch on Sat 5th Sep called Low Level Listening featuring The Wintership Quartet and Ensemble Of Shades with other acts to be confirmed. No flyer yet but more details when they come thru.

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elements reviews

A new review from Caleb Deupree on furthernoise.org, it can be found here: http://www.furthernoise.org/page.php?ID=296 Not a review as such but I’ve been featured on the excellent TrashAudio blog in their Workspace and Environment series: http://trashaudio.blogspot.com/2009/07/workspace-and-environment-abre-ojos.html Some reviews of the elements release have started coming through, the first one is from Gothic Reviews: http://ikecht.web-log.nl/ikecht/2009/06/abre-ojos—ele.html which isn’t so good, although I [...]

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