Aurelia | Kaitlyn's Easel Patch on the MakeNoise Shared System

video upload by Cinematic Laboratory

"Nine years ago (time flies) Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith posted one of the most inspiring Buchla patches ever created [links below], puzzling and inspiring the Buchla community from all over the world. Maybe this is the fist video that brings the recipe to Eurorack and the Shared System is a great system to try and cook it. While Kaitlyn's patch is haute cuisine, this is a bit closer to fast food thanks to Rene V2. It's not exactly an Easel keyboard, but a patch like this makes you realize how powerful it really is once you get your head around it. It can turn any CV source into an arpeggio. I am using Brains to sequence good ol' Pressure Points, but since Rene is doing all the heavy lifting, you'll have plenty of time to add some personal expression."

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith Buchla Music Easel

Kaitlyn's Elegant Patch by Todd Barton

Kaitlyn's Elegant Patch

video upload by Todd Barton

"Originally released on my Patreon earlier this year https://www.patreon.com/synthtodd

I've been approaching understanding and unfolding this elegant and expressive patch by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith for years now but just haven't sat down a looked and listened to it deeply until today. Here is a link to her patch/performance: [posted here] Though I'm not trying to copy the exact pitches or her performance, I think I have grokked the functions and relationships in her patch. As with any patch, the interactivity of the patch-programmed functions and their relationship to a particular performance can produce subtle or dramatically different outcomes. I hope you enjoy this unfolding of what I sense are the basic building blocks of this patch. All best wishes, Todd"

Patch Notes: Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

FACTmagazine

"Last month, West Coast composer, artist, and producer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith launched her latest album, The Mosaic of Transformation. With the world locked down due to the coronavirus pandemic, she experimented with live streaming as a way to launch the LP in lieu of being able to perform at venues.

In this episode of Patch Notes, we present an exclusive archive video of one of those live streams, which features an extended version of album highlight ‘Expanding Electricity’ performed with Buchla modules and touchplate controller alongside visuals by Sean Hellfritsch originally made for the tour.

The Mosaic of Transformation is available on now Ghostly International and can be purchased at Bandcamp. Smith also recently launched a multidisciplinary platform called Touchtheplants, which releases music and art, including a book and deck of cards called Listening. Touchtheplants is also raising money for Black Lives Matter LA with a limited edition T-shirt sale with all proceeds going to the organisation.

https://kaitlynaureliasmith.bandcamp....
https://ghostly.com/products/the-mosa...
https://www.touchtheplants.com"

Todd Barton on BBC Sounds + Multum in Parvo Release

Excerpts of Todd Barton's performance at the Unsound Festival in Krakow is up on BBC Sounds.

"A rebroadcast of excerpts from my performance of Music and Poetry of the Kesh at the Unsound Festival in Krakow last month with a wonderful ensemble of Polish musicians. Here's the link which will be active for a month.

And the first excerpt on the broadcast is from my new solo Buchla Music Easel album, Multum in Parvo with cover art by Ursula Barton! [embed below]

Much more to come in 2019! Gigs in Belgium, NYC and Santa Barbara. New Album releases too.

Happy Holidays!
Best wishes,
Todd"

"If you’re anything like me, then one of your favourite albums of 2018 was Music and Poetry of The Kesh, released on the Freedom To Spend label. Recorded over two years in the mid-1980s, Music and Poetry of The Kesh in truth was never really designed as an ‘album’ as such. It was a cassette bundled with early editions of the legendary author Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home novel.

The novel described the art, culture, language and ethnography of a fictional tribe of indigenous inhabitants of North California, 500 years from now. On the tape, Le Guin and her friend and collaborator, composer and sound artist Todd Barton, created a detailed, vivid musical identity for these people - the Kesh.

Listened to in 2018, the sounds of Music and Poetry of The Kesh feel simultaneously ancient and futuristic. Todd designed and built new instruments to realise the Kesh’s music, which were woven among synthesisers and field recordings from the Kesh’s native Napa Valley.

It’s a stunning, singular piece of work, but the story doesn’t end there. Anyone intrigued by Music and Poetry of the Kesh would be well advised to dig further into Todd Barton’s work, starting with Multum in Parvo - a brand new piece Todd composed using the Epoch Modular Benjolin and Buchla Music Easel.

“Don Buchla created a musical instrument that he said had no ‘preconceived ideas,’” Todd recently told the Listen to This website. “He wanted people to figure out how they wanted to interface with it. You see that with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Alessandro Cortini—they’re bringing their own voice to the palette. For my part, I’m obsessed with sound, with the ‘Buchla Paradigm.’

“His approach to synthesis, which was so different from Moog on the East coast, is immediately evident to anyone who has ever touched a Buchla instrument. If you listen to a Buchla, it will start rewiring your synapses.”

Todd honed his craft composing for acoustic instruments - string quartets, small ensembles and orchestras. In the 1970s he was drawn to emergent synthesiser technologies because of their abilities to access tones ‘between’ the standard 12 notes of the Western musical scale, and to have the power to craft music out of glitches and unique sonic gestures that are unplayable on acoustic instruments.

Multum in Parvo is reflective of this approach - it has a definite and logical flow as a composition, but its content is abstract sound sculpted out of pure energy, something only analogue synthesis can offer.

Sometimes sparse, sometimes bristling and jumping with detail, Multum... provides a genuinely multidimensional experience. Listen to it in the dark on your best headphones, you experience your brain moving slowly through a black space where an orchestra of strange, electro-microorganisms seem to swarm, murmurate and disperse, adding their distinct flutters, whispers and calls to an immersive electronic symphony.

Like the classic Forbidden Planet soundtrack, which Todd was inspired by, or indeed Music and Poetry of the Kesh - Multum in Parvo seems to function as part of some unique sonic ecology, according to its own rules, in its own universe and somewhere just beyond time.

Multum in Parvo is available on CD with artwork by the artist Ursula Barton - Todd’s daughter, named after his great friend and collaborator. It is also available on cassette with Blue Tapes artwork as ‘blue twenty-eight’.

Praise for Todd Barton:

"Multum In Parvo creates a very real imaginary place, and then it weaves that imaginary place into exactly where you are right now. I’ve listened to Multum In Parvo a dozen times or more and I’ve never heard the same album twice, because I change and my mood changes but also because incidental noises in my body and my surroundings – from sighs to car horns to distant giggles – all seem to be on very friendly terms with Todd Barton and his Buchla." - The Quietus

“Listen outdoors and the creek water you hear in Le Guin and Barton’s songs may sync up to the muddy river you’re passing; listen during a city’s winter and the percussive rhythm and bell-like tones will commune with your apartment radiator. These are sounds that seek to speak from then and beyond, to right now.” - Pitchfork
credits
released October 5, 2018

Improvised soundscapes by Todd Barton
on the Buchla Music Easel and Epoch Hordijk Benjolin

Cover art by Ursula Barton (ursulabarton.com)"

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith Tides: Music For Meditation And Yoga on the Buchla Music Easel

Published on Nov 9, 2018 Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

Pre-Order Now http://www.touchtheplants.com
LP Shipping late December
Worldwide Digital January 11th

///

Recorded in 2013,Tides is a glimpse into the early phase of what has become Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s signature approach to electronic music. Composed and played on a Buchla Music Easel––the modular synthesizer that gives Smith’s music its organic feel––this collection of instrumentals is at once uplifting, transportive and meditational. It comes as no surprise that it was commissioned by Smith's mother to accompany her yoga practice.

Tides pulsates and swells like the ocean itself. Field recordings of wind chimes and forest sounds are interspersed throughout much of the album, accentuating the pastoral aspirations of their electronic counterparts. The chirp of a bird might be confused for the elongated intervals of a muted siren, a steam valve opening and closing for the sound of the surf, or a drone for a live organ. The actuality is elusive and secondary to the alchemy at work. Natural and synthetic components become indistinguishable from one another and cohere seamlessly into a unified paean to bliss. Though the ambient nature of these recordings is inextricable, it is belied by an undercurrent of heart-like beats that hint at the visceral force of Smith’s current work.
~

A conversation with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith on her 'EARS' Tour

Published on Oct 1, 2018 DivKidVideo

"This is from June of 2017 but recovering some data from an SD card has brought back footage I had from that event so I thought I'd still share it with you all. It was great to chat to Kaitlyn while on her 2017 tour to support her album EARS. Her live set included Ableton, custom vocal harmonisation, MIDI controllers and a Buchla Easel. So we discussed set up, approach and just had a quick chat. Hope you like it."

Matthew Bourne live with Memorymoog & Minimoog Model D // Headrow House Leeds 2017 Modular Meets

Published on Sep 28, 2018 DivKidVideo

"Here's a live performance from Matthew Bourne captured at Headrow House in Leeds at an event held in association with Modular Meets and Super Friends with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith headline (I don't have that performance to share).

Matthew was performing with a Moog Memorymoog and Minimoog Model D as well as a Roland Space Echo under his mixer. Stripped back and simple with both synths "played" like a piano/keyboard as opposed to sequenced and sampled in a studio.

Grab Matthew's fantastic 'moogmemory' album here - https://matthewbourne.bandcamp.com/al..."

Moogfest 2018 (live edit) - Modular on the Spot, Moogfest | Eurorack Modular Synthesizer

Published on May 26, 2018 Lightbath

Moogfest 2018 (live edit)
Modular on the Spot
Durham, NC
May 19, 2018

Patch notes archive available through Patreon rewards: https://patreon.com/lightbath

All hardware performance/improvisation recorded straight to 2-track and mastered Premiere with compression and eq. This performance is an edit of the full 36-minute set available exclusively on Patreon.

I'm so grateful to have been a part of Moogfest 2018. It was great to hang a bit with lightbeams Emily Sprague, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Sean Hellfritsch and to see some cats—like Waajeed and Jamire Williams—from my 'past life' as a guitarist in NYC. Thank you to Yoga After Dark and Modular on the Spot for having me.

It was an honor to play another MotS event, this time alongside Rodent, Peter Speer, Sarah Belle Reid, Jake Pugh, Jerry Kaba, and Lee Coleman. As with my first MotS experience, the vibe was one of immense support. It was so much fun to lead the audience through some air guitar moves. Truthfully, I don't know how that happened, but I'm glad it did. Thanks to all who participated!

And lastly, it was great to meet some of you IRL after my set. I also finally got to meet Richard Devine and talk shop (thanks to his wife and family for giving us some time to do so). Many thanks to Iain Smith for helping to cart my gear up the hill to the car.

Perfect Circuit Systems: West Coast Series

Published on Apr 12, 2018 Perfect Circuit Audio

"Perfect Circuit's West Coast series is a family of Eurorack systems curated to embrace the colorful and quirky methods of West Coast synthesis originally pioneered by Don Buchla and Serge Tcherepnin.

Featuring five systems at a variety of price points, the West Coast Series is our gesture toward any musician drawn to modular synthesizers by the marimba-like sweeps of Morton Subtonick, the dense textures of Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, the sweeping gestures of Bob Ostertag, and beyond.

Check out the link below for more information, and keep your eyes peeled for more from Perfect Circuit Systems next week:
https://www.perfectcircuitaudio.com/s..."

---
Supporters of MATRIXSYNTH get %10 off at Perfect Circuit Audio!

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith — 'Existence in the Unfurling,' Live on Soundcheck WNYC

"Producer and composer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith joined us in the studio to perform some of her psychedelic synthesizer and vocals-based electronica live in studio.

Soundcheck is hosted by John Schaefer.

Video: Kim Nowacki
Audio Engineer: Irene Trudel"

via WNYC where you'll find a write-up.

Le Comte - Kaitlyn

Published on Nov 24, 2016 LeCCComte

"Directed by Jean-Sylvain Le Gouic

"Chaleur et Mouvement" available on iTunes :
https://itunes.apple.com/fr/album/cha...

Twitter : https://twitter.com/LeCCComte

12" soon available on Les Disques Anonymes

Patrice and Louis Decourrèges thank you so much for letting us film in this wonderful place.
Shot by Gilles Pensart & Jean Sylvain Le Gouic
Grip Hugo Beaumanoir

Thanks for watching.

© Paradis Records 2016"

Suzanne Ciani Lecture (Montréal 2016) | Red Bull Music Academy

Uploaded on Oct 4, 2016 Red Bull Music Academy

"A true synthesizer pioneer, Suzanne Ciani’s love of electronic music began in 1968 during a field trip to MIT, but it was her decade-long adventure mastering the Buchla 200 that would define her career. She worked in commercials and in the late 80’s and 90’s redefined herself again as a five-time Grammy-nominated new age artist. In her 2016 Red Bull Music Academy lecture, she talked about her history as well as her recent collaborative effort with fellow Buchla player Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith.

The Red Bull Music Academy is a global music institution committed to fostering creativity in music. We celebrate music, its culture, and the transformative minds behind it. Begun in 1998, the Academy has taken the core principles that underlie its annual workshop for selected participants and applied this curatorial approach to events, lectures, and city-wide festivals throughout the year."

Adventures in Synthesis: Backyard Fall Afternoon Modular

Published on Sep 27, 2016 Chris Beckstrom

"I'm on a mission to challenge some ideas about modular synthesis:

That is has to be expensive, or that you can't build it yourself, or that it has to look pretty, that it's too complicated, that you need an electrical engineering degree to play it, or that you can't take it outside.

After all, it's a musical instrument not totally unlike a guitar. Now that I've reconfigured it a bit, why not bring it out to the back yard and play a bit?

This simple patch was inspired by the work of Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. If you haven't heard her magnificent music, check it out!

Patch Notes

There are 4 voices in this patch: The bassline, a 3-note repeated figure by saw waves, the delay of that figure, and another saw oscillator.

CLICK FOR MORE »

Sunergy [Documentary] - Featuring Suzanne Ciani & Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

Published on Sep 15, 2016

Follow-up to this post.

Be sure to see the write-up on NPR.

"Sunergy
A film by Sean Hellfritsch
Music by Suzanne Ciani & Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

Learn more at RVNG: http://smarturl.it/frkwys13-rvng
Add to your collection at Bandcamp: http://smarturl.it/frkwys13-bcamp

Special thanks to Don Buchla
Thank you Paul Helzer, Melinda Stone, Jeff Warren

From FRKWYS Vol 13: Sunergy. Out everywhere September 16, 2016.

℗ and © 2016 RVNG Intl. / www.igetrvng.com"

8 Modular Artists Featured on Soundfly

You'll find the full feature on Soundfly here.

"Today, we’re going to take a look at modular synthesis as it’s used in the modern electronic landscape, and highlight its flexibility in studying the way that a wide variety of artists use it in an equally wide variety of genres. While this isn’t really a piece to encourage you to buy a modular… be warned: By the end, you may have accidentally caught the synth bug!"

Featured:
Alessandro Cortini
Floating Points
Surgeon
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith
John Chantler
Lichens (pictured left)
Scanner
Richard Devine

Photo credit: Rodent

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Suzanne Ciani - Closed Circuit

Published on Jun 28, 2016 RVNG Intl.

"Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Suzanne Ciani - Closed Circuit

Order from RVNG: http://smarturl.it/frkwys13-rvng
Order from Bandcamp: http://smarturl.it/frkwys13-bcamp

From FRKWYS Vol. 13: Sunergy. Out everywhere September 16, 2016. Visuals from Sunergy, the forthcoming documentary by Sean Hellfritsch. http://seanhellfritsch.com/

℗ and © 2016 RVNG Intl. / www.igetrvng.com"

via residentadvisor.net:

"Both artists, who are close friends, share a deep passion for the Buchla modular synth. Ciani's interest in the instrument stretches back decades—it's a newer obsession for Smith, who used it prominently on her recent album, EARS.

The Buchla instrument features prominently on Sunergy, with Smith performing on the Buchla 200e and Ciani using a Buchla Music Easel. The album was recorded in Ciani's home in Bolinas, California, which overlooks the Pacific Coast. According to RVNG, the record is "shaped by slow, pulsing forms and sinuous, melodic sequences that conjure both an oceanic world and the unlimited sound made possible by modular processing." An accompanying documentary on the album by Sean Hellfritsch will also come out when Sunergy sees release on September 16th."

Watch Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith bring her modular orchestra to life

Published on Mar 30, 2016 FACTmagazine

See this post for Kaitlyn's upcoming release on April 1st. Click here and scroll down for more posts featuring Kaitlyn's work.

"The electronic composer invites us to her LA home for an intimate performance.

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has become one of the most fascinating champions of modular synthesis in recent memory — but she didn’t start out that way.

Raised on Orcas Island in northwest Washington state and classically trained in guitar and piano, Smith spent a curiosity-fueled year teaching herself synthesis after a serendipitous encounter with the Buchla Music Easel, an instrument that’s come to define her as much as she has defined it.

Her explorations in synthesis reach an apex on her stunning new album EARS, out April 1 on Western Vinyl, blending woodwind and her own vocals with the primordial sounds of the Buchla to make her most definitive statement yet.

After recently relocating to Los Angeles, Smith invited FACT to her home studio where she showed us the different synthesizer voices used to create her modular symphonies before churning them together in a spontaneous improvisation.

The intimate home performance serves as a taster for her show on April 1 at Rewire Festival in the Hague, Netherlands, where she’ll play the city’s Lutheran Church with Chris Watson and Kara-Lis Coverdale + MFO."

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - MakeNoise Tempi & 4ms Spectral Multiband Resonator

Published on Mar 7, 2016 Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

"For best sonic quality, please listen on headphones or through nice speakers. My favorite speakers are Genelecs. :) For patch details - Read on...

This patch demonstrates how the MakeNoise Tempi can be used as the foundation for complex timing variations in a very predefined way, which is incredibly useful for intentional composition.

In this patch I have Tempi Channel 1 pulsing the 'Odd' input of the 4ms Spectral Multiband Resonator. Tempi Channel 2 is pulsing the "Even" input of the SMR. These are the only 2 that remain consistent in their time - although they are phasing. Channels 3-6 of the Tempi are set to divisions and multiplications of Channels 1 and 2 by factors of 2 and 4. Additionally, Channel 6 is patched to the Tempi MOD Input. During the performance I intermittently activate MOD Mode on Channels 3-6, causing them to rotate.

Tempi Channels 3-5 are sent to the CV Bus of the MakeNoise to trigger Maths, Function, direction and clock of Pressure Points and X-Clock of Rene.

The Quantized CV Out of Rene is sent to the CV Bus and then to 4 voices, all tuned to different harmonies, that I bring in and out with the RxMx and the other mixers. I used Maths and Function as an analog shift register to take these sequenced voices out of parallel motion.

The DPO's Mod Osc is in LFO Mode, and is modulating the waveshape of the STOs, the frequency of the MMG, and Telharmonic Flux.

The 4ms SMR plays the main harmonic structure and foundational rhythmic voice of the piece ( being pulsed by the Tempi ). I am recalling 6 preprogrammed presets, each with different chord voicings as well as EQ settings. I am also unlocking a bass frequency to change the bass line note.

www.kaitlynaureliasmith.com
https://twitter.com/kaitlynaurelia
Video shot by Sean Hellfritsch - https://twitter.com/shellfritsch"

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - EARS - Album Teaser

Published on Jan 26, 2016 Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

https://soundcloud.com/western_vinyl/kaitlyn-aurelia-smith

"Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith will release EARS, her newest album of vibrant synthesizer explorations mixed with orchestral instruments and vocals, April 1st on Western Vinyl.

'In recording Ears, my intention is to take listeners on a sonic motion ride through a futuristic jungle. I am inspired by the works of Moebius and Miyazaki - in particular the film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind – and I wanted to play with visceral sounds that pull one between feelings of beauty and dissonance, chaos and order. My hope is that, on a straight through listen, in a darkened room, on a loud stereo, Ears will inspire a rich visual narrative in listeners' minds.'

Pre - Order:
on iTunes
Western Vinyl
Bandcamp


www.kaitlynaureliasmith.com

Video by : Eran Hilleli http://eranhill.tumblr.com/"

You might remember Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith from previous posts here on MATRIXSYNTH. According to Kaitlyn, "My primary instrument is the buchla music easel, I also used on that track - an arp 2600, synthi, OSCar."

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith Tom Oberheim Two Voice Pro & Studio Electronics Sensei Hybrid System

Published on Jan 3, 2016 Kaitlyn Smith

www.kaitlynaureliasmith.com https://twitter.com/kaitlynaurelia
Video shot by Sean Hellfritsch - https://twitter.com/shellfritsch