Oleg Prodeus

Although the album sits in the alternative pop/rock genre, it goes far deeper than that. It oozes class and depth, and so it should as it took the multi-instrumentalist Oleg three intensive years to complete.

Listen to each of the thirteen tracks and you’ll be sure to hear a rich diversity of synthetic textures, arpeggiations and distortions, yet all fitting perfectly within the overall mix.

Every track is highly listenable, at times featuring unexpected arrangements and melodies. Personal favourites include the opening track “Savior”, “Can You Feel the Rain”, “Do You Know the Way”, and “Last Hero In This Universe”.

The 13 album cover

“The 13″ is diverse in richness, yet fits together perfectly. There are elements of good pop, of eighties and nineties influences, electronic and acoustic, and great vocal presence. This is definitely an album worth exploring. James Moore from Independent Music Productions” said that “The 13″ was “highly recommended for fans of Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, Ours, Muse, and Sneaker Pimps.”

Check out every track on Oleg Prodeus’s web site and buy on iTunes, Bandcamp or Amazon.

Previously to “The 13″, singer/songwriter, producer, multimedia artist and filmmaker/director Oleg composed two other solo albums — “To The Sky” and “Collective Farm”, as well as composing and producing five songs for the film soundtrack of Pepe Danquart’s motion picture “C(r)ook“.

Check out Oleg’s YouTube channel for more music videos.

Francis Bowie

Producing in the electronic/intelligent pop music style, his EP features a range of soaring synthesiser lines together with orchestral backing. The style is light and fresh without falling into the Pop Idol trap.

“IPM is an attempt to put some quality, dignity and honour back into popular music,” Bowie says.

His EP features four tracks. “Endlessly” is delightfully upbeat with plenty of synth evidence.

“Wasting My Time” has an almost sci-fi electronic feel with lots of deep synth action, orchestral strings and piano. Fantastic.

Finally, after “Sunny Day”, comes “Silly And Crazy”, featuring synth zings and altered electric pianos.

Those of you with creativity that extends beyond the music keyboard may also be interested to know that Francis is also a painter, sculptor, designer, writer and gallery owner.

Check out the official YouTube channel, web site and Facebook page. Buy the EP for $3 or more or check out Francis Bowie’s SoundCloud page.

Taking influence from a plethora of ’90s sounds including Duran Duran, New Order, The Cure and U2, it’s no surprise that – despite the fact that you hear a strong guitar influence in his music – there’s also a lot of synthesiser goodness oozing through the soundscape.

Alex Nackman

Not to mention acoustic piano. Take a look at a snap of the gorgeous studio Alex works in and you’ll see a grand piano as well as assorted xylophones/glockenspiels. There’s definitely an Alesis synth floating around too.

Alex Nackman studio

Alex Nackman studio

One reviewer described This Revolution as “paced exceptionally well. Moving from one song to the next seems like a natural progression… There are a fair number of songs that immediately pull you in with either a really great drum groove, an interesting repeated melody line, or a combination of both.”

Another described it as “sonically full” with “an edge” and a sounds that’s “incredibly durable”.

Get a taste of the album with the fourth track “Burn from the Rockets”:

This Revolution album cover

Download the album from iTunes

For those itching to know about some of the gear that Alex uses, here we go:

• Nord Electro 75
• Mooger Vintage Synth
• Summit Audio TLA-50 Compressor
• Universal Audio LA-610
• Neumann TLM67
• Electro Harmonix Memory-Man Delay
• Keeley OCD Pedal

Not only do we get a glimpse of some of his influences — including Kraftwerk, Wendy Carlos, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Bjork and Portishead — but an interesting look at how digital is used to take some of his beloved analog sounds on tour.

Rhodes must re-create those synthetic tones digitally, because it’s not practical to drag vintage analog machinery on the road. (Rhodes does bring one digitally controlled analog synthesizer on tour. It’s called the Andromeda.)

So to re-create the album on tour, Duran Duran digitally sampled all their synthesized tones and texture.

“Digital sampling now is amazing,” Rhodes says.

But digital still doesn’t have the same aural response as analog, he says.

“Analog can do things that digital will never be able to do. It’s got a heartbeat,” he says. “Analog instruments are all like wild animals you have to tame. You can get things out of those beasts that you’re never going to get out of digital synthesisers.”

According to Garson, The Bowie Variations was the perfect vehicle for the Disklavier. “There was no studio or hall involved initially and no need to force creativity all at once,” says Garson, noting that he was able to spread out the recording over the period of a month and work on it at home at his own pace. Once the creative process was complete, Yamaha provided a duplicate Disklavier piano at Oxnard Performing Arts Centre, where famed recording engineer Professor Johnson expertly mic’d the piano and it then played itself for the next several hours. The CD is now available on Reference Recordings, an audiophile label that records the best classical and jazz artists of our times.

The record and playback function likewise enabled him to layer multiple piano parts. “It’s like having six hands,” he relates. “The Disklavier has really allowed me to record track over track, and let me completely abandon myself to the creative process. It was fun. I wasn’t pressured in any way and wrote or improvised when I felt it.”

In the 1980s, Garson became the first musician to ever use the Yamaha Disklavier, a traditional acoustic piano equipped with an integrated digital electronics system that enables the recording, playback and creation of complex multi-track arrangements. An early adopter of the instrument, Garson procured the first one on the market and still treasures it to this day. “The piano is so good that I never wanted to change it,” said Garson. “There really aren’t too many pianos out there that sound better than this one.”

Ever since he obtained the instrument, it quickly became Garson’s main compositional and improvisational tool. “Prior to that, all my music was written by hand,” he recalled. Since he began using the Disklavier in the late 1980s, Garson saw his productivity – as well as the complexity of his work – skyrocket. “Because of the Disklavier, I can play pieces that are much more involved now. Before, it was mostly pop and jazz tunes, which are less dense by nature, but now I can play sonatas, nocturnes and etudes, which are far more intricate and elaborate.” Garson even coined a label for the music he makes with his Disklavier. He calls it “now music” because it allows him to orchestrate what he feels “in the moment.”

Over the next few months, Garson plans on performing some of the music from his latest work live in concert, with some dates already set for Washington State and Indiana. He is also weighing the possibility of a Bowie Variations Volume 2. For piano enthusiasts, Garson’s sheet music from the CD is also available. “It’s rather difficult,” he warns, “but pianists can really have a ball. Just listen to the recording for the feel and then check out the notes.”

An acclaimed jazz pianist who began playing at the age of 12, Yamaha Artist Mike Garson now boasts nearly 4,000 original compositions to his name and an illustrious career spanning over 40 decades with David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails and the Smashing Pumpkins. Although his background is in classical jazz, he learned a great deal early on at the hands of music icons like Lennie Tristano, Hal Overton and Herbie Hancock, and developed the creative flair and improvisation skills that propelled him to stardom.

A signed copy of The Bowie Variations is available at www.mikegarson.com.

In 2009, after enduring years of pounding from one of modern music’s most innovative composers and performers, the keyboard became too fragile to take on the road. Before being shipped into storage, however, Corea and his tech team painstakingly sampled every note at Mad Hatter Studios in Los Angeles. After months of searching for the right technology platform, Corea took the massive amount of data to industry-leading sound designers, who developed Chick’s Mark V Sample Library for the Motif XF and worked with Keyfax NewMedia to bring it to the Motif community.

The library is being used by Corea in his Motif XF8 on the current Return to Forever reunion tour and is available for purchase by end users exclusively at www.motifator.com for $129.

“If you want to own a piece of musical history, or just be able to access a landmark Mark V that speaks with clarity, character and punch, this sample library is unparalleled,” said Athan Billias, Director of Marketing at the Pro Audio & Combo Division at Yamaha Corporation of America.

Corea’s direct involvement in the process makes this sampling session unique. A specially developed vorsetzer player piano mechanism helped capture pristinely balanced velocities across the entire keyboard scale. The library contains all of the original samples recorded in the meticulously engineered sampling sessions and consists of 12 unlooped velocity layers and note offs. The full, natural sustain of each note is meticulously maintained. Corea even provided several songs demos recorded on the Motif XF using the sounds that are included with the Motif XF library file.

Part of what makes this collection unique is the custom hammer and pre-amp configuration of Chick’s original electronic piano instrument. At F# above Middle C, Corea and his team modified the hammers from the standard neoprene to wood and sent the signal from those keys to a completely separate pre-amp with a specially designed EQ. This creates an almost split keyboard effect that lets notes in the treble register ring with a clarity and punch that is unavailable on a standard Mark V. The sound designers used proprietary Yamaha tools for sound compression so that this amazing collection fits easily onto a FL- 512M flashboard module for the XF.

Take the tour and see his Yamaha CS-80, Roland TR-909, ARP Solina String Ensemble, Korg Trident, Univox Minikorg, Moog Polymoog, plus the all-important rack of effects et al, The Yamaha NS10 speakers, Ableton Live, and his beloved bass guitar.

Mesmerism was commissioned from Oxton-born composer, Emily Howard, by the Liverpool Mozart Orchestra (LMO), to celebrate the orchestra’s 60th anniversary year.

Mark Heron, the LMO Musical Director, will conduct the orchestra for the première, in a concert which will also feature well-loved classics performed by the orchestra in its first season in 1951.

The commission was made possible by generous support from the PRS for Music Foundation.

Tickets can be pre-ordered from www.pacificroad.co.uk.

(Via)

Closed since the 1970s, Eric’s once saw the likes of The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Blondie and Joy Division as well as OMD.

Long before the Wirral band found fame and fortune, McCluskey’s dad worked at Stanlow, and in April this year, 50 OMD fans from across Europe travelled to the refinery to pay homage to the place that inspired their heroes.

The original recording even used ambient sounds recorded in the refinery in 1980.

Andy McCluskey said: “If Eric’s had not existed then neither would OMD. Even though you cannot recreate what Eric’s meant to our generation over 30 years ago, it will be fun to play on the same stage again remembering the past whilst hopefully celebrating a new and different future.

From the beginning, OMD’s Paul Humphreys and Andy McCluskey launched their own unique style of electronic melodies and thoughtful lyrics to carve out a reputation for intelligent pop.

Read more at the Chester Chronicle.

Watch videos of Jeff Boynton, Daniel Baum and Dr Moonstien as they do some serious mods to a CX-500, Fujitone II and a ‘guitar sequencer thingumajig’.

Read more