Was delighted to play a streaming set on Nick’s International Virtual Garage, a fantastic channel where electro-acoustic performers play in the diasporan space we’ve been working in throughout the pandemic (and thanks, Nick, for inviting me!).
I did an hour set of music and stories, with a top-down video showing my instruments as I improvised my set, after which I edited and mastered an album version of the set, which is available via Bandcamp:
Was inspired by the beautiful weather today and sat on the porch to edit some recent material into a collection on Bandcamp, appropriately titled I Skugga, which is Swedish for “in the shade,” since I’m revisiting my college Swedish lessons during the pandemic. It’s an abstract collection of recent ambient experiments and field recordings.
It’s priced from 0 to pay-what-you-will, but I’m content with zero.
It’s a pleasure to share.
Played another joyous live set with alternating.bit at the National Electronics Museum Electronica Fest 2018. Just simple rigs and plenty of well-practiced rapport.
Showed up with my increasingly stable rig (details below) for another run with the Baltimore SDIY Group‘s concerts at the Electric Maid Community Exchange in the Takoma neighborhood of DC (and MD). It’s always a bit of a mystery of what I’ll come up with in these experimental improvisational episodes, and I followed a nice melodic, relaxed modular set from Hovercraft, so I felt like I could delve into slightly glitchier, pulsing, wavelike territory as a counterpoint. I think it came out quite well.
—Joe Wall
[The rig for this set: Novation Bass Station II -> Electro Harmonix Superego+ -> Electro Harmonix Stereo Memory Man w/Hazarai -> Mackie MS-1202 mixer (and Zoom H2 digital recorder) to the PA.]
LISTEN:
© 2018 Joe Belknap Wall, aka Kantoendrato
Played a meditative set in a rainstorm at Electric Maid on Saturday. Simple rig, nothing prerecorded or prepared—just my monosynth and a few pedals, improvising in a great listening room.
Listen:
© 2017 Joe Belknap Wall, aka Kantoendrato
Played a very good set with alternating.bit last night at the National Electronics Museum’s Electronica-Fest 2017. Simple rigs, eschewing Rimas’s modular synths and my digital tablets, and we had a great time.
This set and a condensation of our jams and experiments while creating the set are available as a digital album on Bandcamp.
A condensation of last night’s live set at the Electric Maid. Improvisation for one instrument (Novation Bass Station 2), one effects processor (Electro-Harmonix Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai), recorded live with a digital recorder (trusty old Zoom H2) and sent to the house PA through a preamp (ART USB Dual Pre). Nothing was prerecorded or presequenced.
Listen:
©2017 Joe Belknap Wall, dba Kantoendrato
Played a nice ambient set last night at The Electric Maid Collective in the Tacoma neighborhood of DC (directly adjoining Tacoma Park) as a part of an ensemble show curated by the Baltimore SDIY Group (thanks, Logan!).
Instrumentation was as simple as I could get—an iPad Mini 2 running the amazing Shoom and Loopy HD apps, manipulated live with a Novation Launch Control knob controller, with an iPod Touch (6th gen) used to switch apps in Audiobus via Bluetooth.
I was using a five-tone equal temperament tuning, which is a tuning that, instead of dividing the octave into twelve equal steps, divides it into five steps. It’s a really lush harmonic landscape for drones and massed sounds, with a sort of exotic feel, but not necessarily one tied to any particular ethnic tradition. Amusingly, I got started with alternative tunings back in college, when I wanted to take some independent study sessions in the music department, but didn’t want my professors to know that I’m absolutely pig ignorant of traditional music theory. Work in 5-TET or 7-TET or another off-the-beaten-track tuning and you’re freed from the mass of conventional theory on how tonality is supposed to work. And yes, that is absolutely cheating, but key and chords and all that related stuff make my head spin.
Nothing prerecorded—everything was composed on the fly.
Listen, preferably with the volume lowish and speakers with some bass:
© 2016 Joe Belknap Wall, aka Kantoendrato