Ming One’s dopamine-inspired Techno EP Addiction!

From 1990s teenage record store junkie to regular DJ at warehouse parties and clubs, Ming One has been a dedicated stalwart of Melbourne’s techno scene over the last two decades. After contributions to the recent Analogue Redux and Mobile Strategies compilations, Ming One has now produced his first artist release on the Clan Analogue label – the Addiction EP.

With six tracks and three remixes, Addiction celebrates all things techno – a musical style which has provided constant inspiration to artists throughout Clan Analogue’s history as Australia’s most legendary electronic music collective. Ming One unleashes his addictive personality on the styles heard pounding from Melbourne soundsystems over the years in a beat-driven journey across the techno soundscape.

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Addiction opens with the melodic and EDM-inspired “Out of CPU”, merging into a progressive techno remix by Ollie Lee, another illustrious presence in Melbourne’s techno scene. “Segment” gives us stripped-back minimal techno before Addiction moves into techno breakbeat with “Aesia Break”. “Transition” explores a tech-trance direction, then “The Bells” takes us into the terrain of IDM-influenced sound. Perth’s Times of the Sines provides an electro breakbeat remix while “Galaga” is an acid techno monster, upping the adrenaline as the EP moves to a climax and concludes with a frenetic glitch-inspired remix by Melbourne breakcore hacker Aday.

Addiction has been forged in the fires of Melbourne techno. Bring on the rave wherever and whenever you party. Enjoy the sounds of Addiction.

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Addiction is available from Clan Analogue in streaming, download and limited edition CD formats.

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Track Listing
1. Out of CPU
2. Out of CPU (Ollie Lee’s DSP UpMix)
3. Segment
4. Aesia Break
5. Transition
6. The Bells
7. The Bells (Times of the Sines Remix)
8. Galaga
9. Segment (Aday Remix)

Originally released in 2021

The expanse, the microcosm, consciousness, time…

Drones can represent those aspects of existence that seem too large or abstract to fully comprehend. Drone music gives a sense of both stasis and evolution. It provides a space for contemplation, enables a moment of oneness with the universe.

Over the last year Clan Analogue’s artists have looked within to find renewed sonic purpose. The result is Distance: Sounds for an Empty Space: ten drone compositions blending noise and meditation in equal measure.

Each artist provides their own unique sounds for an empty space. Sectoral’s epic modular synth perambulation is an inner journey through imagined empty streets in our cities.  iubar project explores empathy with harsh ambience; Jennifer Lea’s contribution is a sonic blanket in a field. Nicole Skeltys creates a soundscape to accompany a monologue for a dying financial system. Michael Mildren builds on the epic synth drones of early 70s German electronic pioneers.

The sounds explored on Distance range from field recordings, to analogue synthesizers, ipad digitisation to modded antique computer soundcards.

City Frequencies sample and rework the noises cluttering cities in frequency ranges beyond our hearing. Zogam experiments with time-stretched guitar drones while WiLL-i-ROMS rewires the soundcards from early 80s arcade games to improvise layers of digital noise. Kazumichi Grime allows unconstrained pure oscillator tones and white noise hisses to build up into a wall of distortion and conflicting harmonics.

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All the Clan Analogue artists contributing to Distance were encouraged to work free of any constraints of time or format. The result is the legendary Australian electronic music collective’s most abstract and expansive music yet.

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Distance will be available on all major music streaming platforms. A limited edition cassette set with drone-friendly tape hiss is available now from Bandcamp. 

Track list:

1. figital l welcome to the future (part 1)
2. iubar project l Empathy in Action
3. Jennifer Lea l 13
4. Sectoral l Spooksteeg Brug
5. WiLL-i-ROMS l Boot Carpet
6. City Frequencies l The Interests of Entities
7. Nicole Skeltys and Bill Garrett l Old School
8. Zogam l Artisanal Hand Sanitiser
9. Kazumichi Grime l Trinity
10. Michael Mildren l Process Four

Clan Analogue presents Mobile Strategies: Battery-Powered Sonics

Clan Analogue’s new compilation album Mobile Strategies: Battery-Powered Sonics is a survey of international mobile music making. Whether using cheap portable synths, boutique miniature noise-making gadgets or apps on the phone or tablet, making mobile electronic music is expanding the possibilities of music creation and performance, turning the train ride into a production session, turning the local park into a studio.

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Mobile Strategies includes contributions from music producers located on 3 continents and using a broad-range of mobile setups. The album’s 19 tracks include contributions from Tame Impala’s drummer Barbagallo, Germany’s prominent mobile music proponent Perplex On and the Melbourne-based KOshowKO who has pioneered venue-specific live audience sampling with the use of iPads.

A growing trend among the community of music producers is a return to the tactile experience of music creation tools and a focus on hardware that reduces the reliance on desktop systems. The different feel of mobile technologies impact upon the way producers choose to engage with particular formats. Portable technologies empower producers to redefine their methods of music creation in the contemporary digital space.

The mobile technologies used on the album range from the vintage TB 303, TR 606 and Casio SK-1 instruments used by Australian electronic act Rantzen & Spinoglio, through to a Gameboy Micro running custom software used by chr15m + Fenris to the latest invention by Teenage Engineering, their OP-Z sequencer, utilised by Perplex On in a nature-inspired, glitchy and bass heavy track produced during a hike in the Bavarian countryside.

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The album is available on all major music streaming platforms. There is also a special Bandcamp edition of the album, featuring a digital booklet detailing used equipment as well as the creative process behind each track. Customers who purchase the album on Bandcamp will also access a special folder with 6 bonus tracks not available elsewhere.

Mobile Strategies Executive Producer Martin Koszolko explains “Why a Mobile Music album?“

Track list:

1. Barbagallo l Trek6
2. KOshowKO l Neaty + Tidy
3. Starpause l Curious Crochet
4. Perplex On l First Warm Sunbeams
5. Decorate With Skulls l Tides
6. Ming One l Protégé Four
7. chr15m & fenris l Yeah
8. Damiano l London City
9. 477 l Shytcunstepator
10. Лучи Мечты l Oculist Conspiracy
11. Grey Nest l JVOIGT
12. maN Oeuvre l Her BastarD
13. Rantzen & Spinoglio l Sniffer Dogs
14. theultravisitor l Am That
15. BLEO l Full-Featured
16. Yoshima Petrosyan l Nonza
17. Planet Nowhere l Elevator Woman
18. Aday l Pressures Touch
19. Globotom l Es ist zu spät
20. Alex J Wise l Place of No Time [bonus track on Bandcamp only]
21. Mono Tono l Night in Sirolo (Personal Itaka) [bonus track on Bandcamp only]
22. Jeff Henry l Another Bedtime Story [bonus track on Bandcamp only]
23. Pantsofdeath l Ophendid [bonus track on Bandcamp only]
24. The Tuesday Night Machines l Butterbrot [bonus track on Bandcamp only]
25. Tristan Burfield l Pole Position [bonus track on Bandcamp only]

The legendary collective Clan Analogue collective celebrate 25 years of independent Australian electronic music-making in 2017 with the release of their 50th record, the new compilation album Coordinate: Collaboration Beyond the Algorithm (CA050).

Already hugely respected for their diverse and innovative compilation albums, Coordinate: Collaboration Beyond the Algorithm sees Clan Analogue take their most unusual approach yet towards putting together a release. Fifty electronic and experimental music artists from Australia and overseas registered to take part in the Coordinate project, each one paired up to collaborate with artists they had never met before. Their only instructions were to move outside stylistic comfort zones and to respond to the theme ‘beyond the algorithm’.

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Whether working with cloud-based collaborative DAW software or posting back and forth CD burns, each collaboration found its own method to bridge the geographic and stylistic divides they faced. The results are an exceptionally diverse yet thematically unified release, traversing much of the terrain of electronic music over the last 25 years yet moving forward with new evolutions of sound with each collaboration pursuing its own unique vision.

 

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The theme of ‘beyond the algorithm’ was chosen to reflect the ways in which we are increasingly herded to interact with those who think like us. Through the ubiquitousness of social media as the dominant communication platform of today we are driven more and more to interact with those who think like us, who share our values, who will confirm our attitudes. The result is an echo chamber that narrows our perspectives and standardises outcomes, including in the area of art. Collaborators were selected for each Coordinate artist specifically to undermine this tendency and to push each collaborator ‘beyond the algorithm’.

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Coordinate spans 12 diverse collaborative visions. Opening track ‘Let the Robots’ by German classical musician Sunitram and Bowral-based techno artist Wasters of Time asks what we are prepared to give over to algorithmic control. Electro-pop artist John von Ahlen collaborates with psychedelic aficionado Shane Osterfield to create the stomping rockno excursion ‘Millonario’. Modular synth devotee SFBM joins with experimental sonic practitioner David Prescott-Steed on ‘Heuristic’, a techno journey into the extremes of sound. These are just some of the sonic avenues explored in the album’s 12 tracks.

The artists’s perspectives on how the collaborations happened.

Track list:

1. Wasters of Time and Sunitram l Let the Robots
2. Jani Ho and Justin Mullins l Melberra
3. Eighth Arrow and Pradip Sarkar with Damian Tangram l Deep State
4. Kitty Xiao and Campbell Drummond l Dialogue
5. Simon Mann meets ZAZIZ l Memories of Attar
6. Auto_Horatio and Tony Tralongo’s Cocoon l Choonosaurus
7. John von Ahlen and Shane Osterfield l Millonario
8. iubar project vs Modus Op l Untold
9. EchoZilla and Nat Grant l Three Part Ratio
10. JOR and PantsOfDeath l Remote Access
11. David Prescott-Steed and SFBM l Heuristic
12. dyLAB and lightwell l Two Minds

When Random Acts of Elevator Music first appeared a decade ago, striding the streets in business attire with their portable studio hidden in briefcases, they struck terror into the hearts of security guards and HR departments throughout the CBD. What would happen to their performance bonuses if Random Acts of Elevator Music successfully infiltrated their office buildings and enlightened the consciousness of their workers with live muzaktronica?

Now appreciators of ambient tones and soothing melodies will be simultaneously delighted and challenged with the Random Acts of Elevator Music album. The surface sheen of new age synths and major key melodies is overlaid with glitch aesthetics, low-fi production, improv attitude and a Situationist philosophy drawn from the elevator jam sessions where this music began.

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Virtual modular bleeps mix with early-80s digital technology, conveying the social and psychological landscape of the modern metropolitan work environment. Tracks such as ‘Lunchtime Meditation Session’, ‘Power Walk’ and ‘Spreadsheet Dreams’ convey scenarios familiar to all office workers, where the demands of corporate productivity often seem impervious to the humanist spirit.

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If this album doesn’t help to raise your personal productivity we won’t be giving you a refund, unless you complete our 3-stage application form. But we guarantee that if you load it up on your phone your lift journey to the 39th floor will be a lot more stimulating. For proof we recommend you check out our website for the personal endorsements of lift-travelers captured on video when stumbling into a lift where Random Acts of Elevator Music had appeared.

Random Acts of Elevator Music is the latest project from City Frequencies, a collaboration between Matt Adair and Nick Wilson, who work together on sound projects within the metropolitan environment. For more on Random Acts of Elevator Music and related projects visit www.cityfreqs.com.au

Tracklist:
1. Waiting in the Foyer
2. Their Eyes Met Across the Partition
3. Up and Down
4. Power Walk
5. Message
6. Spreadsheet Dreams
7. Lunchtime Meditation Session
8. Transmission of Statistical Data
9. Lunchtime Meditation Session (live version)

Following on from 2016’s “plastic ambient” album The Month Machine, Melbourne’s microsynth virtuoso Kable54 has turned his hand to creating an album of acid-tinted krautrock jams with electric circuitry and voltage, the superb Volca Galaxies.

Volca Galaxies evolved over 12 months of live performances and improvisational jams around Melbourne using a minimal setup of small portable analogue Korg Volca synths. Kable54 took those jams, polished them up and fed them a diet of East German steroids and West German psychedelics before piecing the whole thing back together again. The record sounds like an energetic, emotional journey through the hypercolour enormity of the Milky Way galaxy. For once we elected to keep the hyperbole to a minimum and let the artist tell his only story….

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“Last year, I was sick of making music by sitting in front of the computer, alone. I wanted to play live performances to real people. I wanted to move away from the computer” said Kable54 about his initial motivation. “Then I found out about Korg’s Volca synths when I stumbled on a random youtube clip. Realising this would be a way more intuitive and performative way to make music, I worked some extra shifts to raise some cash and soon had a great little setup sitting on my kitchen table. Then it was goodbye laptop!”

“The development of the album is more like a 70’s rock album than modern EDM thing… songs were written, then tested out by performing in a bar that night. They developed and changed as I roadtested them from gig to gig. The weaker ones were kicked out of the set, new ones composed and ideas honed for maximum impact”.

“I was performing once a fortnight or so, at pubs, bars, cafes, festivals, wherever. Melbourne’s a great live electronic music scene if you know where to look. After six months or so, it really came together. Instead of individual songs, they started merging, becoming one hour-long piece”.

When Kable committed his sounds to tape he focused on capturing the live improv spirit. “Recording the album, it was really important to stay true to the live performance… the limitations that live performance has, as well as the limitations of the Volca synths. I wanted to take my live set in its entirety, disassemble all the pieces, polish them up, feed them performance-enhancing drugs, then re-assemble the whole thing”.

Volca Galaxies, the new album from Kable54, will be launched at Bar 303, 303 High St, Northcote on Saturday 16th of September at Analogue Coordinates, part of Clan Analogue’s 25 Anniversary Electronic Weekend in the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Tickets are available from www.melbournefringe.com.au

Tracklist:
1. Viper Live
2. Ballet Statique Redux
3. TR Sparks
4. Quick Jam
5. Empire Files
6. Ubermensch When I Can
7. Son of a Snakeoil Salesman

Michael Mildren launches his Process EP series with Studies In Kraft
CA049A

Melbourne-based electronic music virtuoso Michael Mildren launches his Process series, a collection of four mini-albums, each exploring a different facet of electronic music technique and artistic significance. Clan Analogue will release each installment in the Process series monthly between now and the end of 2017, beginning with Process 1: Studies In Kraft, an exploration of the seminal work of German electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk.

Read more about Michael Mildren’s Journey Into Kraftwerk, including details on the equipment he used and techniques he explored.

Michael Mildren has made his mark with several acclaimed performances in the Melbourne Fringe Festival. These include his 2015 Men/Machine performance, where he reworked classic Kraftwerk tracks with vintage gear and period performance techniques, and more recently with Music Non-Stop, a stunning 12-hour improv set in 2016, where an array of guest performers augmented his layered atmospheres and propulsive rhythms throughout the sonic marathon.

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Studies in Kraft is the product of Michael’s intense study of the classic 1970s work of German electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk. Given their huge influence in electronic music, Michael aimed to develop his craftsmanship by exploring in infinitesimal detail the composition and production techniques used to produce Kraftwerk’s greatest work. To this end Michael scoured eBay to source the right vintage synths, drum machines and vocoders from all over the world, from Stylophones to Texas Instruments Language Tutors to Mattel Synsonics electronic drums. He analysed every bass note, synth tone and rhythmic pattern of his selected Kraftwerk tracks, spending hundreds of hours on sonic experimentation, programming and playing, until he achieved the perfect Kraftwerk mind-meld.

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The results of Michael’s work on Process 1 are eleven tracks which trace Kraftwerk’s most influential work backwards from 1980’s Computer World album through to their 1975 breakthrough Autobahn. Although there have been many Kraftwerk covers released over the years, this is a rare occasion where their material has been explored with the level of detail and intensity applied by classical musicians to the interpretation of composers such as Mozart or Beethoven. This is not however a slavish re-enactment, but an interpretation of Kraftwerk as they themselves may have played the tracks in an alternative reality – less a re-enactment and more an inhabitation of the Kraftwerk sonic headspace. The results will be of interest to anyone interested in classic electronic music and its influence in our musical landscape today.

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Process 1: Studies In Kraft from Michael Mildren is available now from Clan Analogue. Process 2: Post-Kraft follows on from Process 1, where Michael explores the techniques of Kraftwerk in his own original music.

Tracklist:

1. Computer World
2. Pocket Calculator
3. Computer Love
4. The Robots
5. The Model
6. Neon Lights
7. The Man Machine
8. Europe Endless
9. Radioactivity
10. Antenna
11. Autobahn