Full 12-Page magazine! Check out the full spreads and articles after the break!
Synthetik is an electronic music magazine to which I am the editor, designer, photographer, and co-ordinator. I laid out every page, designed every ad, and edited every article (written by close friends of mine).
I put a lot of heart into this, this is the prize of my portfolio!
The Manifesto of Electronic Music
What is electronic music and what makes it so unique? It is the spectre that haunts this world at a time where we are torn between nostalgia for the past and a curiosity for the future. There are those that criticize electronica for being artificial and impersonal, inhuman even. But what is artifice? Is it not human to be artificial? This was the fatal mistake of the hippy flower movement of the 70s. They rejected all that was artificial and sought to be more “natural”, playing their djembes and dancing round a fire with a head full of mescaline. Their naturalness was all too unnatural. Humans are part of the natural — never forget this. All that we create, all of our artifice is natural too. To reject this is to reject humanity.
Electronic music embraces the human potential for invention. We electronic musicians revel in our creations. Technology has opened up a whole new dimension of possibilities of sound. No longer do we paint our sonic canvases with only dynamics, tones, and timbres. Now, we can tap into the mystical realm of frequencies, resonance, and delay. Like the discovery of subatomic particles or quantum mechanics, technology shows us music is more than just the vibration of strings. We have before us music, as it has never been seen before. We have gazed into the void and realized it is full of potential. Electronic music is the new Zeitgeist, it is the new Spirit of the Times. It is a transcendence of expression that is only in its infancy. Who knows what strange new ecstasies it will uncover?
Music has always been the means for the abstract expression of what it means to be human. It has always struggled to answer the timeless questions of, “why are we here?” or “where are we going?” It only makes sense in this age of technology to answer them in the same language as the questions are asked. Listen to the crazed drum rushes of Aphex Twin and you will understand the madness of modern civilization. Let Daft Punk guide you through the existential joy of being that “qui n’est pas ce qu’il est et qui est ce qu’il n’est pas”.
Or relieve the forgotten highs and lows of adolescent melodrama in M83’s wailing walls of sound, where today is the tomorrow you were promised yesterday. Above all else, embrace electronic music, the love child of human technology and human”all too human” passions.
— Charley Wu
Digging Up the Dirt on Skeleton Boy
Sure, during my first time watching the video for Friendly Fire’s Skeleton Boy, I thought “wow this band is a lot like those friendly fire guys”. That’s because I was too busy watching the highly erotic dance motions to care for the name of the band or song for that matter. Clad entirely in solid black their heads are little bouncing electrons in the night. They will shear the fat off of your ears and arms and fingers, spine, toes, with the sound of their choir. The details in the harmonies will transcend you deep into the next verse. With a sudden reality check you learn the boys are really the living dead. You learn that they are the body behind the sound you hear. And here it comes, that chorus. You’ll find it’s a Cold and brilliant flurry.
Looking more like Blackbeard’s flag than a group of Hertfordshire poppers, Friendly fires directs you through the worst of the storm and into the highest form of ambiance with their latest single, scheduled to release March 24th 2009 on XL records. But before than, I encourage you, right now, to stop. Look, and listen to the track “You are not alone” from 1996, by British artist Olive. This song did go to number one, and the fact is that the timing and melody are quite identical. The pulses which make Friendly Fires’ so bewitching are too present, and dominant. As well there is a distinct break in both songs, maybe 3 quarters of the way through. It has not yet been confirmed by the band whether it’s on purpose or not. Audiences however, have already made clear how uneasy hearing their indie pop warriors copying Olive.
It’s not unusual for artists to borrow from one another. This is a well known fact for most of us. If it were not for the following of example, we would never achieve the refinement of the classics in this contemporary electro playground. Examine for yourself successes of many modern-day advertisements. The marketability of these campaigns comes in an entirety, from their ability to rejuvenate a past fad in the arts and relate it to a product; before it reaches the masses. The contributions to the growing creative commons archives is also apart of this new free for all territory. We are all working on filling up these everyday, portable and user friendly modern media players the average consumer owns. And we need fresh faces, and names, in the way we need to check our e-mail and update our blogs. It’s just better to start over and engage young artists rather than replay the secret hits of the past.
The Friendly Fires version we, the people of 2009, have come to embrace, has the potential to take this melody further than the predecessor. We looked at the two, we stopped and listened, and we heard. If the similarity is as great as some have speculated, than we ask you to consider the following: The poetic depth, listener friendly beats, and lasting effect, of this skeletal tune. Maybe you will see what we have taken from Olive’s basic form. Maybe you will love that we surrounded her in the toilet paper wedding dress of her lonely theme’s dream. It’s time to accept the change, and embrace them bones.
— Elkling
Slagsmålsklubben: Meet the Swedish Fight Club
If you know a single swedish synthpop band, you’re already a few decades ahead of everyone else. Slagsmalsklubben (English: Fight Club), a troupe of Swedish keyboard players are the future. Making Justice and Simian look like last weeks garbage, they use strictly keyboards; from big expensive moogs, to thrift store hand me down toy keyboards. Having recently toured the UK with English bands like Late of the Pier and Video Nasties, promise lies in the near future, blog posts from the band have hinted at the crossing of lady Atlantic in the next year. Maybe then North Americans can behold the future that is nintechno synth from beyond the stars.
Slagsmålsklubben is Björn, Frej, Hannes, Joni, Kim and Beebop. Early last year they released their most acclaimed album
“Boss For Leader”, being their third full length and follow up to the 2004 album “Sagan om konungens årsinkomst”. This album delivers them to the world out of constraints of their homeland, in which they’ve been touring exclusively for the past eight years with songs from their earlier albums: “Den Svenske Disco”, or the single “Hit Me Hard”. It has been nine whole years since the band started out in 2000, with a prog rock history (The Solbrillers). Beebop, Björn and Joni were so tired of their vocalist never showing up for band practice they were inspired to try something new: plugging Joni’s old synth into a guitar amp and muckin’ about with something called“synthpop”! A year later they met Hannes Stenström and invited him to join the band strictly because he had a nice collection of keyboards. Finally in 2003
Frej joined and made the troupe complete.
Big plans for SMK, they plan to be the first band to play a concert underwater. They like crabs and starfish, a lot of their music is influenced by the sea, though you’d never know it from listening. They sound like Mario running through the jungle getting colour and emotion thrown at him by the natives. Surprisingly, they don’t play video games. Except
Beebop; he plays enough World of Warcraft for the group combined.
I used to DJ parties a lot a couple years ago, mostly just gatherings of friends. My favorite thing to play at these parties was Slagsmålsklubben, it was crazy, it was loud, it made people want to dance, and no one ever knew what the hell they were listening to. Of course people would run up to me and ask me what I was playing, and I remember one specific party I noticed at the end of the night about 8 girls with “SLAGSMALSKLUBbbenn” written in awkward drunk scribbles up their arms. I suppose they planned to go home and download everything they could find. This article is my way of writing drunk scribbles on your arm. Go home and listen to this, you won’t be disappointed.
— The Christopher Bruce
Bromst
Every Dan Deacon album sounds really, really big — like Godzilla big; if that’s even an effective way to describe music. They’ve made a sound that takes progressive up a plateau and keeps raising it higher and higher till it towers above every possible level of noise. Their latest album, “Bromst” came out this month and has proved to Deacon’s fans that they perfected big music! Cute xylophonery and complex layered vocals, notably on the track “Snookered”, deliver exactly what fans want on this release. Not to mention audio loops and feedback resonance perfected enough to earn it it’s mention in this publication. If you weren’t keen on 2007’s “Spiderman of the Rings” I would suggest giving Dan Deacon another shot because I’ll admit, they were doing something a bit dizzy and irritating on that album, still trying to find their groove, I guess. For those of you who don’t know, they had a song called “Woody Woodpecker” which used almost exclusively the sound of Woody’s chattering laughter throughout! It was unbearable! Nothing like that this time guys, seriously, don’t worry. So if you want to hear something with a sweet progressive sound, lots of loops and resonance and layered complex vocals, pick this album up. Or download it illegally, whatever.
— The Christopher Bruce
Merriweather Post-Pavillion
The most exciting anticipation usually comes from waiting for the weekend, or going on that much needed vacation, but for indie music lovers, Its the long awaited release of Animal Collective’s new full-length Merriweather Post-Pavilion. Starting off powerful from start to end, this indie pop band leaves your head still getting lost in it even after its stopped. The combination of clever singer/songwriters Avey Tare (David Portner) and Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) are unstoppable in this album, as well as contagious beats made from the ambient noise of synthesizers. “My Girls” ,“Sportsbrothers” and “Summer Clothes” keep that typical early AC sound repeated on previous album Feels from late 2005. Animal Collective managed to keep that chaotic style, but as well build on that and mature overall as a band. With simple memorable lyrics as My Girls’ “I don’t care for fancy things”, Summer Clothes’ “And I want to walk around with you” as well as In The Flowers’ “If I could just leave my body for the night.” This album from start to end really combines everything needed for a great sounding album. Every track can easily be chosen as a favorite. Overall the dance track on this album is “Sportsbrothers” with its repeated screaming and overall chanting. This has to be one of the most hyped albums of the year so far. This just what 2009 needed.
— Cassandra Surina
Ableton Live: User Report
I have been mixing, sampling and recording my own music for years now, and have found Ableton Live 7 to be a great sound and music editing application. It works great for mixing and recording when teamed up with MIDI instruments or controllers. I can use my MIDI controller to access every facet of the program. By programming knobs or sliders on the controller, I can easily control the functions that I use the most, such as the overall tempo and the volume of interacting tracks. I can even cue a sound sample just by pressing a key!
Ableton Live cooperates very well with other applications on my computer, the transition to other recording applications is seamless. I use “rewire” to open foreign files from Reason, Logic, or Pro Tools directly in Live. Another great feature allows me to access my iTunes music library from within the program, then set it to automatically match the tempo or use key changes to sync with the playing track, giving me full control over the mix. Adding whole songs, or segments from other recordings to my current project is as easy as dragging and dropping them in!
There are two versions of Ableton Live 7, the full version, and the light version, the latter of which I opted for in the interest of saving money. However, the full version includes new enviable features such as the ability to play movies, and the “complex” warping tool which automatically syncs audio based on its tone, pitch, temp and key shifts. You can warp spoken word so it remains in time with a given tempo. I think this would be helpful for remixing or experimenting with wide noise. Even the light version packs in exciting new features, such as the intensified zoom which brings us 10 times closer to our tracks than ever before, so cueing a warped sample is infinitely easier. Ableton also has new features designed specifically to improve MIDI controller interaction. The new rack system allows me to drag and drop knobs I want to use into a master mixing block (or Rack), helping me customize what I want to interact with straight from my MIDI controller.
If this seems a bit complicated for you, don’t worry! I learned all the basics of the program with the built-in tutorials, which make everything simple to figure out. The interface is easy to work around and useful tool tips can be found along the bottom of the screen. Traces and audio are easy to find, and customizable
by color-coding. Even menial tasks like troubleshooting is made easy with access
to driver information in the preference panel. If you
own a previous version of Ableton, you won’t have to worry about re-learning everything, they kept the basic layout the same.
If your laptop doesn’t have a lot of computing power, like mine, you will be happy to hear that Ableton Live’s MIDI interface takes up a lot less RAM than other similar software such as Propellerhead Reason. It can also automatically compensate your sample rate based on your computer’s abilities which will save your CPU from being flogged. All in all , Ableton Live has proven themselves to be one of the best music editing programs I have used, and I would highly recommend it to everyone else looking to toy around with some sounds and make their own noise.
— Andrew Dunn Clarke (Revisions by Megan Stiver)
This Magazine’s editor discusses it’s conception
Synthetik is a magazine full of innovation, I wanted to put a huge focus on large, dynamic imagery. I wanted to use bright, hip neon colours. I wanted hipness to be a universal theme page by page. Electronic music is about playing with sound, creating beats cut and pasted from old jazz LPs or new wave 80s cassettes, or just smashing violently on your synth while modulating tones to suit the voice you’re looking for. This magazine wants to exploit that feeling, to say just what you’re feeling with a genuine rhythm you can feel in the front of your underpants. Plugging in, and plugging you into hip coolness! You want to know what’s hot? What new album is exploding off the shelf? Synthetik is electronic music — the future. Whether you are just a fan who needs to read the latest Soulwaxinterview or a musician who wants to read about a synthesizer or a piece of software Synthetik is the best of both worlds.
This magazine wouldn’t be possible without the amazing writers who took time out of their busy lives to write me articles. Friends of mine from all walks of life, who just had something to say. Whether they provided me with a review, or a detailed manifest about electronic music as the zeitgeist of the modern era, or point-form ramblings about software I’m grateful for their help and support.
— The Christopher Bruce
