For a while, I’m trying to make up my mind which kind of nugget I want to create, unfortunately, if you follow this blog you could feel my absence for a long time, and I can say it was only for good reasons – intensive work and creation. Last month I was busy with the recording of the new album of Keren Hecht as an arranger and music producer (I had the honor to compose some of the songs too). Last recording session we recorded a string section that includes the well-talented viola player Shir-Ran Yinon, the virtuoso violinist Ariav Buchris, Odelia Bar-Yehuda – successful architect and viola player that she and I know each other from elementary school, and Oded Uni which is a day working lawyer and a violinist in the night 😉
All this dealing with notes and transpositions and fitting the right scales to the players (I also wrote parts for a brass section that I’ll record next week) reminded me my big love for symphonic and classical music in general. Then I decided it would be the right moment to release this nugget – ‘Class.’ As you can see, I picked some different pieces that resemble my personal taste on this musical domain: I like mainly the Baroque and Renaissance eras that characterized with a lot of Modal motives that gradually disappeared through the Classic period (Which I’m less connected to). And then, of course, the end of the Romantic era and from there to the Modern which some define it that way until today – these are the colors that paint these presented tracks. I also picked some authentic performances like Rachmaninoff’s and Rubinstein’s, also some less known composers like Ibert and Kabalevsky (that I used to play one of his pieces). This is the tip of the iceberg, and I could fill hours of this musical domain, but I have some other ideas for other refreshing nuggets.
You can’t imagine how I’m excited to upload this post. More than ten years ago I found several magnetic reel-to-reel tapes in one of my trips to the flea market of Jaffa (the old city of Tel Aviv), I bought these used reels to use them as a recording media. Most of these reels usually contained classical music (in the better case) and in a lot of worst cases they included boring easy listening music (like Ray Conniff, James Last, etc.), surely not something that justifies keeping such reel as is. In rare occasions, this kind of reels contained good music that was beneficial for me and here there is an excellent example. This particular series of reels included different recordings from a German radio station(s) that broadcast sometimes in the early 1970s. Most of the tracks were unfamiliar to me. I must remind that in this time (I think it was 1998) the Internet was still new, the options to discover new music were quite limited through online environment, and I, like a good music digger, was frequently visiting the good music stores to find new Anonyme musical piece.
Each reel among these reels (I think they were four I found together) contained 12 (!) recording hours. Surely not in high-quality recording (with domestic reel to reel tape recorders you could record on the tapes with different options: speeds, and channel selection, mono or stereo – it’s like different digital bandwidth options). I couldn’t take such an advantage as granted before the unlimited digital storage that we have today. Remember that in those days the most popular format for playing music was still the cassette tape that usually contained only 90 mins of recording, and here with these old reel-to-reel tapes I had much more recorded hours and I could ‘fish’ the music that I wanted in that time.
During a long time, I couldn’t find details about most of these tracks. I think that later I burnt a CD with these tracks and brought to one of the experts at a music shop which was willing to help me discover these anonymous tracks. I don’t remember that there was any proceeding to this gesture. Some of the tracks I discovered accidentally. For example the fascinating track of Kraftwerk from their first album that released in 1970, and as much as I know it never released again formally, The Doors’ song that released one year after Jim Morrison’s tragic death (when Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist, is singing entertainingly) and more. Well, here there is a remarkable typical symbiosis between now and then. From some search after music files for an entirely different goal, I found this directory with the files that I converted from reels to digital. Then I recalled that there are still many tracks that I haven’t found what or who performed them. With the help of the current cellular apps ‘Shazam’ and ‘Sound Hound’ (except for one intractable track, that a great guy from one of the online musical forums for finding Anonyme music helped me to discover), I solved the old mystery.
This ‘nugget’ contains the tracks that I fished still in that era when I just found those reels. (I recorded them on a cassette tape that I used to carry with me in my walkman or in the car). Only now they are presented for you and me from an original source and not from a dull monophonic recording. I did add the original German radio host that talked between some tracks, and that’s for the authenticity of the story.
I chose the AsymmetricK name for the nugget because of the eclectic-progressive character of its music.
Long live Modernism!
After a very busy month of creativity, I choose to begin this post with my last exciting experience that I had just this past week – An intimate solo performance of Laetitia Sadier which I just mentioned some few posts earlier. Who could believe? I wished so much to watch Laetitia live, and it happened much faster than I expected, and even so close to my home, in the Tel Avivian ‘Levontin’ venue. Only when I came to the place I figured this is a complete solo performance, an ultra-intimate – Laetitia and electric guitar only. If I knew it before I would probably not attend, because a large part of my interest in her creation is her unique production ways in a studio environment, of course, her individual voice, the music, and the arrangement as a whole piece – these are the things that excite me. And so, I must say that I stood with eyes and ears wide open through all the performance. I think this is such bold step to stand this way on the stage and serve the music in the most naked way, especially with an artist that was always screened through effects and sound manipulations (that I really admire and love). Well, I was genuinely impressed and excited to listen to her pleasant voice that has such wide range. I could hear some songs that I knew before and in that way to absorb their music in their most basic form. That thing causes me to appreciate Laetitia even more, and for the end, I bought myself a great gift for the holiday – Her current debut album on a vinyl record, and she signed me personally with dedication… such an honor 🙂
And now for something completely different – One of the most formative events that I had recently was my participation with a first and only exclusive gathering of the musical project ‘We are ghosts’, under the conducting of Benjamin Esterlis, AKA Morphlexis. As you can impress from the fantastic website that created for this project, we’re talking about gatherings that take place once in some several months, in a studio, stage, radio station or this time – a cave. Last August 18, the group met in Loozit cave that located in the lowland area of southern Israel. We came to the place in some late evening hour, while we unpacking our instruments and equipment there was a large group of young American ultra-orthodox Jewish men that entered the cave. This cave is constructed from several large spaces, and these young men started to walk between the areas, and they began to sing, and the natural reverb of the cave was coloring their voices in a mysterious atmosphere – that was a very significant forward for our session… After we spread our audio equipment and microphones, checked our gear, the location of the players and instruments, we had a short dining break with the legendary Hummus of Benjamin. The session started with spontaneous vocal experiments around the cave spaces without any kind of instruments, then slowly everyone gathered sitting on the floor in a semicircle near the microphones that surround David Peretz who was in charge on the recording but also played and made other sounds. It’s crucial to mention that the recording conditions were pretty challenging – the players didn’t have headphones, a major part of this session goal was to cope naturally with the unique acoustics of the cave. In general, all the sounds in this course were entirely acoustic. One of the principles of this project, maybe the most important is the spontaneous aspect. There is no kind of any planned musical materials to play, everything is done in the session through the playing and beyond of that principle of pure improv, the participants in this project are not meeting frequently at all (this was my first meeting without knowing anyone personally). I can sum it as an extraordinary experience, primal mutual intuitive creation at its best. I must say that the people, personally were amazing, it was a big pleasure to meet them and to cooperate in that kind of extraordinary experience. And this is not the end of the story… on the following weeks, Morphlexis edited and mixed the raw materials while he participates all of us with the procedure on every step that he does with every track, what would be on the front, what the length of the track, where a particular track would be located on the final album. I honestly never encountered with such a thing, a musician and an artist, resourceful with such leadership abilities, it is rare, and I tip my modest hat in front of him, I thoroughly proud to be a part of this project.
You are most welcome to click on this link, and then you can listen to the full album, freely download it and share with anyone, there is even an option for eminent listeners – you can donate as you wish for forward productions, and then you’ll get a link for a bonus album.
And now the last thing for this post – a modest gift from me in the shape of a musical nugget. Further to spontaneous creation, which actually made a great impression and inspiration for me, I decided to create an exciting psychedelic weave that has no relation to the cave but is reflecting another vital rib of my private musical building.
Here it is:
It’s been a while since my last post; it is quite a hard month. This is the right time to refresh with something light. One of my greatest dreams as a musician is to produce a well crafted Disco album. Some may lift their eyebrow for this idea that joins to some of my other archaic loves. I was born in the pick year of the Disco – 1978. In our home, the music wasn’t important issue, and actually, until I was 13 I didn’t have a stereo system. I had a portable suitcase record player from the early 1960s (my father probably got it for his Bar Mitzva). It was located in my room since I remember myself – I’ll tell about it later in another chance. Anyway, most of my records were Pop and Rock music from the 1960s that my father bought as a teenager, and maybe some children music that my parents bought for us as kids. My parents never listen to music initially from their will, and therefore they never thought they should acquire a stereo system. But we had a radio of course, and it worked most of the day hours. In the morning we woke up to the mythologic radio program of some famous Israeli actor and presenter, and in the rest of the day, the radio tuned to The Voice of Peace station. About ten years ago when I worked as a clerk in the long gone Tower Records store, there was a new album release of a collection of songs and jingles that used to be played in The Voice of Peace station. When I first listened to these old jingles, I had such chills, and I went over the age of 5… I think then the notion came – The reason that I have such a great affection to Disco even though it has that bad reputation of a cheap entertaining genre. I think that at least half of the broadcast time of The Voice of Peace dedicated to Disco and the Funk of the 1970s. The basic groove that always accompanied this time is the first beat of the bass drum and the second of the snare and the handclaps.
In Discomat nugget I focused on this notorious genre, I collected some of my favorite tracks and thought that some of them could give you the proper example for a decent Disco. I think the most of them are not very familiar or maybe less familiar as hits. I included some interesting versions of the more familiar songs, and I guess that some of you will recognize some sounds that sampled through the last two decades in many newer tracks. I don’t know if it is the right place to mention, but many ‘serious’ musicians that are not considered as mainstream necessarily, using pure Disco motives in their current music.
Personally I especially enthusiastic about the full orchestral arrangements that sometimes could be even symphonic like. There is a common playing character, especially with the strings sections that designed in that era, I guess it is related to the way producers and sound engineers chose to execute the recording methods. Another thing that is so delectable for the ears is the quality of the players, and even the songs, even though they are very light and sometimes shallow from the textual point of view, musically they are just excellent.
Hit the PLAY:
In an entirely spontaneous whim, I decided that I want to upload some old recorded materials of mine from the past. When I was in high school, and a little bit later, I had the great honor to have a band that played my own materials. One of the names of this group was ‘Karbaney ha mada’ which I can try to translate to English as The Science Coollerstandables. These were very talented musicians at a very young age they ventured with their musical abilities. I’m talking about Nadav Kats (who played on the bass, guitars and also done the audio mix on a 4-track cassette recorder!) and Sh’lomee Lavee (drums). Later Ory Gabay came to play on bass.
We played for hours each time in a space we’ve been given to in a factory in Haifa bay area. You can even hear it – the recordings been made live to the tracks, and I think some of them been recorded directly to a ¼” stereo reel to reel recorder and only later we added more tracks on Nadav’s 4-track machine. Anyway, these recordings are remarkably improvised, without any real professional equipment and without any digital based editing. I’m so excited to hear those recordings each time, what kind of boldness and dedication. Soon I’ll upload some more nostalgic pieces. Meanwhile, you’re welcome to click on this link:
‘Shir Teesh’rey’ is one of my favorite Israeli songs, and this was our instrumental version of it.
Colossal enjoyment for everybody! This is me in 2002 in the pic…
This post was about my personal experience from the ‘White Nights’ celebrations in Tel Aviv. In this English section, I rather summarize my words from this experience – I’ve listened to some concerts of both current artists and some very respectable Israeli musicians from the past. This experience reminds me how I love this music and led me to create a new nugget mixtape that dedicated for these giant musicians from the great era of the 1970s and early 1980s in Israel. It’s important for me to mention that this music is not an Israeli folklore music, but a more artistic type of music which we can relate to Psychedelic Rock, Progressive Rock, Folk, Ethnic and even Jazz.
How nice is it! The summer is here, even though, as everyone knows, the summers in Tel Aviv are not always that kind of a blessing. I, anyway, will be glad if they give them to me to enjoy as long as I can. 🙂
As I promised earlier, the pleasant series “Sunshine Voice” is here again for another refreshing nugget. Go out to the balcony, to the garden or the park with headphones on your head with this nugget playing; a glass of lemonade with ice cubes and mint leaf biting your palate. The summer is smiling for you.
And here we arrive at another festive stage in my general mixtape nuggets celebration, the Folklorella series, that resembles another course of my deep-loving musical inspiration. Now you can discover the best authentic musical phenomena from around our globe. This mixtape contains folklore music that sometimes can’t be really called 100% authentic, but it definitely doesn’t leak to the ‘world music’ genre; that unfortunately doesn’t always contribute honor to the roots.
Again, my general theme for assembling this jigsaw is my love for interesting melodies, harmonies and, of course, uncommon rhythms and grooves. It is very interesting to find some similar musical characteristics between distant cultures and times. The first track, for example, is from Japan and could be very confusing. There is a clarinet there with a mounding melody that could easily remind you of eastern European Polka, even slightly Jewish. The Japanese insanity increases with the track. In a track from Kyrgyzstan, we can listen to an interesting mix that can accidently mislead you to think that we hear a South-American melody. I also included some traditional classics from Rumania, a piece that is very familiar to the Jewish east European culture (this musical piece was usually played with a violin as the lead instrument, and here I chose to put the version of Zamfir, the pan flute player). This nugget is closed with a Yemen-Jewish representation with an honorable presence I can’t miss.
It seems that I’m more of an astronaut than I think I am. A few days ago I met with my friend Alon Brayer, an artist through and through. He updated me about two albums that came out during the last year. One of them is Stereolab’s ‘‘Not Music’’, and the other is ‘’The Trip’’ by Laetitia Sadier, who is Stereolab’s leader. So, thanks to Alon for the tip.
In the last decade, one of my greatest musical influences has been Stereolab. In my opinion, they include all the best raw materials for modern music creation: authentic integration of acoustic elements (every acoustic instrument, human voice or natural sound source) with electro-acoustic (electric guitars, electric basses etc.) and pure electronic (analog and digital) in one music piece.
I think their music outstandingly resembles the musical artistic trends of the last two decades – playing, sampling or manipulating existing materials and reorganizing them in a manual, sometimes primitive way. And that’s even though they have all of the current computerized luxury that make this kind of work much easier and neater. Obviously, Stereolab is far from being pioneers in these kinds of matters of sampling and sound editing. These techniques started way back in the 1950s over magnetic tapes; the page is too short to hold the story of recorded sound design. The special thing about Stereolab, in my opinion, that sets them apart from many contemporary electronic music artists is their massive live playing, and that’s even if sometimes they leave the marks of imperfection in the final recording I think this is part of their magic. You can hear the ‘dirty’ playing performance in ‘‘Silver Sands.’’
For those of you with a sensitive ear, it will be easy to detect the human character of the synthesizer that begins the track. Most musicians these days prefer to create this kind of musical part with computer software, even if the instrument sounds like a vintage one. This way they can fit the part of the playing in the rhythm grid (“quantize’’ in the professional jargon) and then the playing would sound tight and sterile. Here we can listen to a very brave choice. On the border of Sisyphean(tedious) in the way that they choose to perform – the result is live and human, even though this track has a completely electronic approach.
This track originates from their previous album, ‘‘Chemical chords’’, and actually it is very hard to find any resemblance between the original and the current version. For my own opinion (and many other addicted fans of the Lab), “Chemical Chords’ was a true disappointment compared to the other albums they issued since 1996. Stereolab started in 1991, but only in 1996 when their album “Emperor Tomato Ketchup” debuted did they make an interesting shift from a band that played monotonous Drone Rock to one that created melodic and very richly arranged and produced songs and pieces. They joined John McEntire from Tortoise as a music producer and additional player – this way you can distinguish his marimba and vibraphone typical playing and arrangements for strings and brass, which were absent in their pre-1996 albums.
“Not Music’’ completely deviates for the last formal Lab release in 2008, “Chemical Chords.’’ After this release, the band announced they were disbanding. “Not Music’’ is actually a collection of leftovers from the “Chemical Chords” recording sessions, and it is really fun to discover that these leftovers are much more interesting than the materials chosen for the actual album. In general, it really thrills me to discover each time how this band is so fruitful. Along with their musical activities, they used to do several collaborations with other artists. For instance, Laetitia collaborated with Blur in one of my favorite songs of theirs, “To the End.’’ And if I mentioned Laetitia, she owns a big credit too for her first solo album, “The Trip.” Laetitia had some unpleasant reasons to begin working on this album – her sister’s suicide. Apart of the very personal and touching lyrics, I think this is the first time that I can pay attention to her singing as a writer rather than another musical layer as she used to appear on previous works. Until this album, Laetitia’s voice was screened with a lot of sound effects and manipulations, usually her vocal part in the sound mix was quite low, and for me it was like another musical instrument, not mention that her French accent made the lyrical comprehension harder for me. I think the texts were in weaker priority in previous works, and Stereolab naturally preferred to put the emphasis on the music.
Here in this album, her voice is very present, and so the diction and the accent were much more taken care for in a way we can understand the lyics better. Pay attention to the song “Statues Can Bend.’’
I was so amazed when I heard it the first time. Laetita always sounded so happy and positive to me in her previous works, like a shiny smiley sun, and here suddenly you can hear a completely different side of her, dark and fragile. This song is a type of sorrowful Trip-hop, outstandingly exciting.
I hope that I achieved my teasinggoal for the matter. Anyway, I’m going to order these albums on vinyl the first chance I get. 🙂
So I thought it would be an easy task for me to make an electronic mixtape…so I thought. Apparently, it’s a really hard job to find appropriate tracks. I really love electronic devices and instruments, but from the other side, I like the combination of electronic sounds with the intervention of the human hand, the acoustics, and the solid physical sense in the way they are easily distinguished.
I went over several tracks and songs from different times and musical genres and chose these that really move something inside my body. Every time I’m surprised at how the music affects me. I can be very impressed by sophisticated production tricks, electronic or not, but in the end, if the music, harmony, and groove don’t integrate into one complete exciting and fascinating music piece, then the sound doesn’t leave me with a deep impression – such impression that will lead me to include it in that kind of a mixtape. Electronovox collects inside some tracks that we can’t tag them as Electronic par excellence, they don’t have any historical or artistic importance. Some of them have nostalgic scent (Yes…. I love sometimes kitsch) some performed by known artists, some less. The continuity of this mixtape was important to me and I think I made it well done
With little preamble, now is the opportune moment to unveil one of the most captivating mixtapes I’ve longed to share. It’s evident that the working musicians of late 1960s Israel were remarkably attuned to sounds from overseas, particularly music from England and the USA. This time, my focus is on a specific music genre: Funk. It’s remarkable to consider that over 40 years ago, in an era devoid of televisions (which weren’t prevalent in Israel until 1968), let alone the internet or even telephones. As far as I’m aware, there were only 2 or 3 Israeli radio stations where non-Israeli Pop music occupied roughly 10% of broadcast time. Yet, despite the scarcity, musicians hungry for fresh sounds managed to procure updated records from abroad, subsequently incorporating new musical instruments and sound effects into their creations.
Take note of the exceptional musicianship, arrangements, and orchestrations. While the antiquated singing style may occasionally grate or, in more favorable instances, evoke amusement, the groove endures. Don’t anticipate hearing authentic James Brown-style Funk, but the influences are unmistakable.
Here, you’ll discover some hidden gems I unearthed later, some of which are quite rare. I hope you’ll overlook the occasional audio imperfections; at least half of the tracks were digitized from my collection of aging vinyl records and reel-to-reel tapes, some of which didn’t weather the passage of time under optimal conditions. Additionally, two songs were recorded from AM radio programms. Nevertheless, I’ve endeavored to clean and restore them to seamlessly coalesce into one delectable musical compilation.
A year ago I had a guest post on my good friend’s fascinating blog: the multi-artist, polymath Benjamin Esterlis, AKA Morphlexis. This post represents one of my greatest loves for the analog mediums in the world of sound.
Benjamin wrote an intro for my post:
Some months ago I got an email from Amir in which he told me how he takes my mixtapes and records them over magnetic tape reels in a way that he can experience them at their full potential. Wait a minute. I read this line over and over again to be certain that those were the words. “Reels” and “magnetic?” Is there somebody out there who listens to these mixtapes exactly as I imagined how this type of mixtape would be played in a perfect world?! It took me a few minutes to wipe the excitement and sweat off and to come to my senses to write reply with a little quest: Tell, demonstrate, take photos!
The positive reply from Amir would soon come, and he even told me that his photographer friend Maya Kapel got into the plot and they were going to document the process soon. A few days ago, just for my birthday, (Amir, you don’t have a clue how happy you made me) I got the full demonstration: “How to convert digital mixtape and get it out to the open analog space”
From digital slavery to analog freedom
Over a one year ago I discovered this sacred wonderful blog. I found that Morphlexis was dealing a lot with issues I could relate to as a musical creator. I decided to sample from the presented mixtapes. First, I was so impressed with the delicate work of art created from the interesting overlaps between the tracks. The fact that the mixtape streams through continuous line without any silent breaks, and the incredible creativity and well-chosen selection of pieces – all surprised me. I was immediately completely captivated with the rest of the mixtapes on his blog. People who are familiar with me know how difficult it can be to please me with music… and Morphlexis does it for big!
Now, we’ll examine one of my deepest ’scratches’ – my compulsive love for analog audio equipment. I guess most of you confirmed music lovers, know the general notions about analog recording formats. Now, I’ll present you my method for taking these digital mixtapes and making an improvement to the analog world.
Since I’ve become familiar with them, it was clear to me that they must receive their appropriate musical honour. Let’s say that I have spare time to sit and listen to music at home (unfortunately it doesn’t happen much). I’m really upset with the thought that I’ll listen to music on my computer, even though mp3 file conversion satisfies me these days. Still, the notion that I’ll sit and listen to music that breaks out from digital decoders really decreases the musical value for me. I believe that when music plays as a complete product from digital format it loses it’s life and the resolution quality doesn’t matter. It’ll be better to have the maximum resolution possible, since digital ‘out of tune’ is not audible. When we play music through analog format, it will always have a chaotic influence from the environment – temperature, gravitation, friction, etc. The advantage of analog format usage is inaccuracy. In the 1980s and 1990s, when there was a digital alternative for analog recording, the general perception was that this analog inaccuracy was a disadvantage. No one bothered to mention that this analog inaccuracy is chaotic. What turns it to be unmeasurable, it can change from any external cause. I compare it to playing on an acoustic instrument. Any hit, pluck or blow never repeat its previous one, no matter how we try to do it accurately. It will always have a different physical effect on the performance. Therefore, live playing is much more hypnotic and appealing to the ears than listening to sterile digital synthesised programming. Like acoustic musical instruments, the analog audio equipment restores the audio documentation each time from scratch. It will always add a slightly different change, an unpredictable, chaotic characteristic. This is what gives the music an added value when live. (I guess not every person will agree with me, but there are plenty of others who will prefer the frozen sterility of digital audio devices, and this is a matter of taste of course). So I decided to convert these mixtapes into analog format since I have the equipment and a lot of appropriate medias (I refer to reel-to-reel audio tapes and tape recorder)
I started the job immediately:
You can watch the video above. I downloaded the files of a mixtape, then opened my media player on the comp when it was connected to my stereo system constructed from decent parts: an analog receiver from the 1970s, a special model of Technics turntable from the 1970s, Akai reel-to-reel tape deck and ancient Wharfedale loudspeakers from the 1960s.
When the music plays through the receiver, I prepare my recorder and put a reel tape on. The audio reel tapes are exactly like the more familiar cassette tapes in their way of usage, the reels are just bigger and like cassettes you can record and erase over and over again. Then I put the recorder to ‘record’ mode but paused it. I watch the recording level meter and pay attention as it swings across the ‘0 dB’ mark. This is another advantage with analog recording: it can absorb ‘peak’ level sparks that digital format can’t deal with. When you have peaks on digital recordings they’ll play as distorted clips. I set the reel to a place I want the recording to begin (again changing the mode to ‘record’ and pause the machine), go back to the computer, set the mixtape to the beginning, release ‘pause’ on the reel deck and press ‘play’ over the computer. This is how the conversion is done. It is important to say that dealing with such equipment takes time and regular maintenance, but the final pleasure is more than worth it.
Here I present some other process pics from and another cute device that I collected recently, the Philips N4416. It is more sophisticated than the featured Akai and works with an electronic mechanism while the Akai is completely mechanical. Still, I prefer the Akai sound because it works with vacuum-tubes, which only for themselves gives another chaotic colour for the complete sound experience. In general, I’ll add and explain more, and I make the recordings in the lowest recording speed over these recorders. Usually there are 3 speeds for recording on the domestic reel-to-reel recorders that were in production from the 1950s to the 1970s. As you lower the speed, the sound quality decreases. You lose the higher frequencies, but you gain more playing time and the analog side effects are bolder, which increases the analog experience for me.
Long live analog!!!
Who could believe? I wished so much to watch Laetitia live, and it happened much faster than I expected, and even so close to my home, in the Tel Avivian ‘Levontin’ venue. Only when I came to the place I figured this is a complete solo performance, an ultra-intimate – Laetitia and electric guitar only. If I knew it before I would probably not attend, because a large part of my interest in her creation is her unique production ways in a studio environment, of course, her individual voice, the music, and the arrangement as a whole piece – these are the things that excite me. And so, I must say that I stood with eyes and ears wide open through all the performance. I think 
this is such bold step to stand this way on the stage and serve the music in the most naked way, especially with an artist that was always screened through effects and sound manipulations (that I really admire and love). Well, I was genuinely impressed and excited to listen to her pleasant voice that has such wide range. I could hear some songs that I knew before and in that way to absorb their music in their most basic form. That thing causes me to appreciate Laetitia even more, and for the end, I bought myself a great gift for the holiday – Her current debut album on a vinyl record, and she signed me personally with dedication… such an honor 🙂
I can sum it as an extraordinary experience, primal mutual intuitive creation at its best. I must say that the people, personally were amazing, it was a big pleasure to meet them and to cooperate in that kind of extraordinary experience. And this is not the end of the story… on the following weeks, Morphlexis edited and mixed the raw materials while he participates all of us with the procedure on every step that he does with every track, what would be on the front, what the length of the track, where a particular track would be located on the final album. I honestly never encountered with such a thing, a musician and an artist, resourceful with such leadership abilities, it is rare, and I tip my modest hat in front of him, I thoroughly proud to be a part of this project. 
Still, the notion that I’ll sit and listen to music that breaks out from digital decoders really decreases the musical value for me. I believe that when music plays as a complete product from digital format it loses it’s life and the resolution quality doesn’t matter. It’ll be better to have the maximum resolution possible, since digital ‘out of tune’ is not audible. When we play music through analog format, it will always have a chaotic influence from the environment – temperature, gravitation, friction, etc. The advantage of analog format usage is inaccuracy. In the 1980s and 1990s, when there was a digital alternative for analog recording, the general perception was that this analog inaccuracy was a disadvantage. No one bothered to mention that this analog inaccuracy is chaotic. What turns it to be unmeasurable, it can change from any external cause. I compare it to playing on an acoustic instrument. Any hit, pluck or blow never repeat its previous one, no matter how we try to do it accurately. It will always have a different physical effect on the performance. Therefore, live playing is much more hypnotic and appealing to the ears than listening to sterile digital synthesised programming. Like acoustic musical instruments, the analog audio equipment restores the audio documentation each time from scratch. It will always add a slightly different change, an unpredictable, chaotic characteristic. This is what gives the music an added value when live. (I guess not every person will agree with me, but there are plenty of others who will prefer the frozen sterility of digital audio devices, and this is a matter of taste of course). So I decided to convert these mixtapes into analog format since I have the equipment and a lot of appropriate medias (I refer to r
