Flatland Frequencies
Behold the enchanting Buchla symphonies, woven by the mystical hands of Egil Kalman, a maestro of otherworldly melodies. In this magical opus, Kalman guides us through realms where traditional harmonies intertwine with the ethereal. The mystical additive wave folding timbres, originating from the enchanting ELECTRIC MUSIC BOX, Series 200, resonate throughout the very fabric of these compositions.
Bandcamp for the vinyl (only a handful left!) and digital.
Another fine year for music here in the flatlands.
Here are our ten most frequented frequencies of the past 12 months. Go check them out and support the artists!
1. Tape Loop Orchestra – Onde Sinusoïdale Et Bande Magnétique
2. S. Costa – The Radiant Point
3. Cate Brooks – Easel Studies
4. T.Jervell & ChromaDots – Faksfjord / Fragsfjord
5. Field Lines Cartographer – Tone Maps
6. Elia Piana – Sotto l’Albero Tutto Si Copre
7. Anagrams – Blue Voices
8. Night Gestalt – The Staring Night
9. VirusMoto – ◯
10. Sundheim – Glades of Flowering Stone
Synth East: Electronic Sound X NAC present
Subotnick film screening
Followed by Adam Buxton in conversation with Steve Davis
+ performance by Luke Sanger (BAR)
23/2/24
The all new Friday evening Synth East event is curated by Electronic Sound Magazine and the Norwich Arts Centre and kicks off with (possibly) the UK premiere of a documentary on musician Morton Subotnick, who at 90 years old, is known affectionately as the Father of Techno. It’s called Subotnick, Portrait of an Electronic Music Pioneer by Waveshaper Media who brought us the intoxicating 2014 documentary, I Dream of Wires.
Following the film we have writer, broadcaster, comedian and musician Adam Buxton chatting with Synth East alumni Steve Davis about music, life and modular synths. Finishing off the evening we have an ambient set from modular musician Luke Sanger as we relax into some beers in preparation for what’s to come for the rest of the weekend.
Tickets available now from NAC
Cate Brooks is back with her seventh release for Clay Pipe Music. Never one to stand still, ‘Easel Studies’ finds her pushing the boundaries of sound synthesis and experimentation on the Buchla Music Easel while still sounding beautifully beguiling and hypnotically melodic.
All songs composed & recorded live by roya on a Buchla Music Easel.
Mastered by Andreas Tilliander.
Design and artwork Tzenko Stoyanov.
| Name | Artist | Album | Year |
| Flowstate | Cate Brooks | Easel Studies | 2023 |
| Warm Currents | Polypores | Azure | 2020 |
| Jamestown (Accra) | Luke Sanger | Field Recordings | |
| Amulet | IE | Pome LP | 2018 |
| Tchaikovsky, Valse Sentimentale | Clara Rockmore | Ohm – The Early Gurus of Electronic Music 1948-1980 | 2000 |
| Curig | Cate Brooks | Easel Studies | 2023 |
| Delphic (Extended Mix) | Yeon | In The Flow | 2023 |
| thai_mountain_amb | Luke Sanger | Field Recordings | |
| Clockworks | Laurie Spiegel | The Expanding Universe | 2012 |
| Outline of Nature | Twilight Sequence | Outline of Nature | 2023 |
| False Azure | Night Gestalt | Staring Light | 2023 |
| learning the door | dan derks | phylum | 2019 |
| Soft Meadow | Green-House | Six Songs for Invisible Gardens | 2020 |
| A Fresh Dawn For North Cheshire | Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan | Building a New Town | 2023 |
| all the way to kang | roya | bound | 2020 |
| A Sonic Womb Part III | Suzanne Ciani | A Sonic Womb: Live Buchla Performance at Lapsus | 2020 |
| uume 24 extended mix | Claude & Ola | uume | 2023 |
| Unfamiliar Wind (Leeks Hills) | Brian Eno | Ohm – The Early Gurus of Electronic Music 1948-1980 | 2000 |
| Telepath | Boards of Canada | Tomorrow’s Harvest | 2013 |
| Sacred Transparency I | Night Gestalt | Staring Light | 2023 |
| An Act Of Surrender – Part 1 | Thomas Stone | An Act Of Surrender | 2022 |
| Lichwake Familiars | Food People | Mirrors & Vegetables | 2020 |
| Before this Body is Forsaken | Aeons | Into Eternity’s Embrace | 2023 |
| crumple your crypto | roya | bound | 2020 |
| hiroshima_frogs | Luke Sanger | Field Recordings |
Lovely selection of 7 works centred around the Yamaha TG33, Buchla Easel Command and OP-1 for sequencing. There’s a positivity and familiarity in the harmonic content throughout these tunes, while still still sounding very much it’s own.
Some tracks feature Laurie Spiegel-esque Buchla arpeggiations floating in and out of the stereo field, balanced with some more shiny FM-centric pieces.
Recommended.
After Benge’s quite fantastic Loop Series One reviewed last November, we didn’t expect to get sent any more music made on an original Buchla 100 system, simply because there is only a handful of them left in the world. How wrong we were!
The particular system used in this new release, sent in by Nicoletta Favari & Christopher Salvito, aka Passepartout Duo, was built by Don in 1967 for composer Ernst Krenek, who used the synth alongside piano.
Flash forward to 2021 and the (still operational) system resides in Krems an der Donau, a small town near Vienna. Lucky for local musicians Passepartout Duo (and by proxy, all of us), who have used the 100 system alongside piano in five considered pieces, inspired by the original works of Krenek, to great effect.
An intriguing audio diary of sketches, taken on the Buchla Music Easel and recorded over a year. Lampeo really highlights the character and range of the instrument here, deftly using looping and spacial effects to layer the sounds, which range from the percussive to the melodic.
The instrument itself has a unique tone, due to the additive nature of the primary oscillator and an analogue signal path that differs significantly from traditional subtractive synthesisers. There’s so much info out there already on the Easel, that I wont bore you with the same old stories. However, it’s worth noting that a large proportion of the online demonstrations using the Easel really do not represent the capabilities of the instrument, which takes time and dedication to master. Something Lampeo is highlighting in this release and firmly stamping their compositional mark.