Cylob music system live @ Acid On Sea

Stanley Pain

accomplished, chic and technically astounding. a couple of issues though. not sure how much sleep i've had since friday morning, so will post proper review when a little more capable.

Stanley Pain · Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 4:45 pm Post subject:

really slickly programmed. it was an updated version of the Cylob music system that he was using... i.e. it was a supercollider set, i think.

it was certainly different to his DJ set. there was certainly something special about him playing on a boat to 300 people. slighlty surreal watching the london skyline at night drifting by you whilst dancing to a loud PA.

my favourite of his tracks is one where the timbres are all "tuned" or pitched instruments. no kick, no snare, no hi-hat, yet the rhythms that you would expect those instruments to contribute where carefully replaced in the polyphonic arrangement. really want to get hold of that track, i'll probably have a look for it to see if it's had a release.

cylob is an artist that really does it for me at the moment. the range of timbres in his music (from metal, to wooden, to 303 style squelch to noise) is only really bettered by his use of texture and harmony.

he isn't as rhythmically adventurous as, say, autechre in some of their later releases. however, he does push the boundaries of live arrangement.

the Cylob music system lends itself to going through many different pieces of music, some of which share similar parts. for example, one bassline would be held through what could concievably called 3 separate and distinct tracks, if one were to compare his live set to that of a DJ. however, many tracks seemed to be very short.

Cylob has a wealth of material, and the impression i got is that if he were to follow convention, most 2 minute chunks of his live set could be spun out to 6 minutes. a friend i went with thought he should spin out his tracks longer, another friend thought it was fine the way it was. i agreed with the latter. i just like the fact that it's different. it was like channel hopping on digital television, with each channel playing a different tune.