Live Takes: Rhythm Stick

The work is number 244 in my Live Takes series. It opens with some testing electric drum sounds to set the scene. Very soon, one of the repetitive more melodic tom sounds is introduced. From there, repetitive layers are brought in an out, while certain timbres are played manually by the artist. 

Using my Korg and Arturia synthesisers to only make short rhythmic timbres, was a fun experiment. The DrumBrute does a lot of the heavy lifting with the variety of sounds at play. Some of the sounds are more experimental noises with short volume envelopes. I played with some delay, reverb and eq mixing on my desk to give a little variety to some sounds.

A lot of the rhythmic ideas are brought in and out through the Squarp Pyramid. The breaks between these repetitious moments are moments of intrigue. The use of less and more of these repeating tones create different grooves. Some of these (especially towards the end), are very uneasy. 

It was fun having some timbres only controlled manually. Having a live performance tool gives some extra considerations. Having a studio full of synths means that I need a heart to control many layers, as it would be impractical to have all the loops brought in and out through live play. But keeping some tones only played deliberately give new meaning to them. We usually only hear these sounds in patterns and grooves, that give queues to our brain and body. It seeks rhythm and pattern to not only dance, but to make rhythmic sense of what we are listening to. In this context, the work plays with these sounds coming in and out of deliberate use, to hear them more singularly.