Thomas Brett
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On African And Electronic Music Influences In Dawn Of Midi’s “Dysnomia”
“Dysnomia is an album about time; it is an expression of the fractal unfolding of the present, demonstrated through rhythm.” – Aakaash Israni, bassist There’s a part near the end of John Collins’ excellent documentary on West African rhythm, Listening To The Silence: African Cross-Rhythms, where Collins makes a striking observation. African music, he says, is… Continue reading
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Music Distillation: On Dawn Of Midi’s “Algol”
Stasis as tension, stable fragments as timeline, offbeat becomes on. Read more about music distillations here. Continue reading
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Music Distillation: On AlunaGeorge’s “Your Drums, Your Love”
Triple pitch drumming, saccharine auto-tuned voice, synthetic joy-noise. Continue reading
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On Musical Time And Running Speed
One night I was playing my part, listening to the part of another musician. All systems were running smoothly, and we were in sync. Then, suddenly, I had a sense that the other musician was pushing the time, just a hair. My ears perk up: Oh, this is interesting. I was sure of my sense that… Continue reading
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Borrowed Thoughts: Notes On Four Words
curiosity ~ desire to know intuition ~ the faculty of attaining direct knowledge or cognition without rational thought and inference kind ~ of a sympathetic or helpful nature wonder ~ rapt attention at something awesomely mysterious or new to one’s experience Continue reading
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Music Distillation: On James Blake’s “Digital Lion”
Chromatic voices, chords and oscillating bass, halftime pulse, steady. Read more about music distillations here. Continue reading
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General Notes On Practice
Practice is the pudding’s proof. Practice tests the theory. Practice is physical, experiential, and embodied knowledge. Practice can’t lie. Practice is the best you can do at this moment. Practice reveals how much you know (and didn’t even know you knew). Practice is a level playing field. Practice is tradition’s transportation. Practice problematizes tradition, highlighting… Continue reading
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On Small Joys Of Making Electronic Music
One small joy for me with electronic music is the sounds. Oh the crazy interesting sounds! It’s easy to find sounds that excite me in ways that acoustic sounds don’t always do. Electronic sounds seem infinitely open and malleable, responsive to my limitations and even my (brief) moments of control. Electronic sounds are also mysterious… Continue reading
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On Small Frustrations With Making Electronic Music
One stumbling block for me with electronic music is the sounds. It’s hard to find sounds that excite me the way certain acoustic sounds do. Acoustic sounds seem infinitely open and malleable, responsive to my limitations and even my (brief) moments of control. Acoustic sounds are also mysterious and always slightly beyond my comprehension. (Think… Continue reading
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Roger Linn On Drum Machine Groove And J Dilla’s Off-Beat Sound
Music is fortunate to have inventors like Roger Linn. Linn has designed or co-designed a number of drum machines–such as the LM-1, the LinnDrum, the Akai MPC series of sampling workstations, and Tempest, a recent venture with Dave Smith. Linn is skilled in making instruments that musicians can, and do, use with ease in musical… Continue reading
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