I'm very sad to tell you that Michel Waisvisz, director of STEIM, died yesterday, peacefully at home. Joel Ryan was performing with Sakata Akira at that exact moment - in front of a packed house during a big event to show the world what it is STEIM does. How's that for timing.

I will always remember Michel as playful, friendly, and determined. Being happy as a little kid playing with electronic instruments, tiny little gadgets and virtual toys, keeping the weird bunch of people at STEIM motivated and feeling good, and being determined about what direction to go with STEIM.

Coming days will be strange, stressfull, and soothing at the same time with all positive messages from all over the world coming in.

My thoughts are with Kristina and Rosa.

You can leave your condolances at www.steim.org/michel/.

The electroacoustic trio SKIF++ consist of Jeff Carey and Robert van Heumen, both of whom work on laptops, with Bas van Koolwijk adding a visual component. Van Koolwijk's stated intention is to use video to expose its essential falseness, to reveal the cold machinery behind the "placating curtain" of the visuals it generates. This is a facet of the music also, which has a certain feral, vicious quality to it - as if using machinery as some sort of vengeance upon itself. Using devices such as joysticks to exacerbate the chance, improvised nature of this music, this is musique concrete that has torn away from its formal, academic origins. The openingtrack "SK01" uses conspicuous samples of kitchen implements, battered and smashed into near uselessness, alongside coruscating bursts of voracious noise. "SK02" meanwhile starts out as nothing but the random movement of tiny particles, pinging and colliding, before accruing into a larger, more malevolent shape. Deconstruction and reassembly in nasty extremis.

David Stubbs - The Wire magazine

I'm currently at CultureLab in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, working on the Vreemdeling composition. I'm keeping a dedicated blog at http://hardhatarea.com/vreemdeling/. Still not sure of the title by the way.

Tomorrow I'll be leaving for CultureLab, Newcastle-upon-tyne. That's where I'll stay for two weeks, working on Vreemdeling. I'll talk about it to the students, discuss electronic composition techniques, work on finalizing the stereo version, and preparing a multi channel version. There will be a concert at the end, at which I will probably perform the multi channel version, using joysticks and such for diffusion. Sending OSC to the Resound system. This might be combined with my usual live setup. Or I might also perform Fury. Will see.

Currently I'm still thrown off balance quite a bit with all the events from the last couple of weeks. STEIM threatened to be shut down and other personal stuff around the workplace. Thinking of STEIM, it's not so much that I fear losing my job. I'm just very angry that people would risk losing such a valuable place. It's injustice. But well, lots of people said that much better and in prettier words than I can... all the letters that came in.

In these times I can find solace with music. Not only my own, but just beautiful music. Like Martha Wainwright's 'I know you're married but I've got feelings too' (great title!), Portishead's Third, or just straightforward Linkin park's Hybrid Theory.