Last weekend May 18 2013 I performed a set with two great vocalists: Phil Minton and Audrey Chen. Listen to an excerpt below. This makes me once again realize I should work harder to get ABATTOIR back on stage again!

On May 12 2013 Money For Your Whale performed at the Hilvaria Studio's. Below two excerpts from that concert. (If for some reason you can't get them to play below, go directly to Soundcloud.)

Anne La Berge and myself visited Istanbul to teach our Converging Objects workshop and perform a Shackle concert. Below two excerpts of that concert. (If for some reason you can't get them to play below, go directly to Soundcloud.)

In September Shackle was on tour in New Zealand, Australia and Brazil. Below two recently unearthed video's. The first one recorded during out concert in Centro Cultural São Paulo, the second one a compilation of our performance for OIRADIO.

VPRO's Cafe Sonore has sent in Shackle's track Zipper to Palma Ars Acustica. Zipper was also broadcasted on April 27 2013 during Cafe Sonore. This post is too late for that broadcast, and we weren't selected for the price, so I guess this post's only purpose is documentary. Still you're reading this, so if you're curious: Zipper can be be found on the Shackle Stick.

Shackle has been invited for a concert and artist talk at KISS2013. No, this has nothing to do with the glamrock band (although it could, with my history). It is the yearly Kyma Symposium, held in Brussels this time, from 12-15 September. Should be a lot of nerding out. Great!

Gonzo (circus) has collected 8 soundwalks for download. Like Harry, the soundwalk I made in collaboration with Simone de Jong, is one of them. I'm very glad with this opportunity to make the music available to a wider audience!

Money For Your Whale, my new band with Albert van Veenendaal, has released its first album named Twelve-Twelve-Twelve. Consisting of 12 tracks and recorded on December 12 2012, we're releasing the album in 3 installments of 4 tracks. The first installment consists of a preparation object(*) and a download code and is available as of NOW. You can buy it through PayPal for €5 or by bank transfer for only €4 (email me for details). GET YOUR COPY NOW!

(*) a preparation object is one of those neat little objects Albert uses to prepare the piano

We've also built a new website west28.nl/mfyw/ and have teamed up with visual artist Monique Besten for the imagery.

Shackle has been rehearsing again. Fixing a bug, forgood, and preparing for our Converging Objects workshop at Bilgi University Istanbul in two weeks. O, and play of course! Listen below. We're discovering new territories, again.

(If for some reason you can't get them to play below, go directly to Soundcloud.)

Another project I've been working on the last year or so, intermittently. GeluidsjesFabriek or LittleSoundsFactory. Dedicated to a good friend of mine, who passed away two years ago and always used this term to describe my work. It will be what in academic terms would be called an algorithmic composition: "Algorithmic composition is the technique of using algorithms to create music. Algorithms (or, at the very least, formal sets of rules) have been used to compose music for centuries; the procedures used to plot voice-leading in Western counterpoint, for example, can often be reduced to algorithmic determinacy. The term is usually reserved, however, for the use of formal procedures to make music without human intervention, either through the introduction of chance procedures or the use of computers." (Wikipedia)

In this case I will create a structure in time of sample processing, specifying things like 'play 2 seconds of this sample looped while in 5 seconds change a certain filter from 200 to 10000, repeat this, then start the playback of another sample, letting the samplehead jump around in a certain pattern while increasing the jumping speed in 10 seconds from 1 to 10'. I will add some randomness in timing as well as in processing. The best thing however is that the samples to be used can be specified for each run by just pointing to a folder on the computer's harddisk. Samples will be chosen randomly, so the idea being that there will be radically different versions possibly of the piece, but structurally they will be very similar.

The processing is chosen in such a way that resembles factory processes: repeating sounds, focus on mechanic movements, juxtaposition of very different sounds and rhythms.

During the process of building this thing I'll regularly post 'products' of this 'factory' on a Soundcloud page. Update: still have to work on it to make presentable 'products', there's too much dynamic range and painful peaks.