While moving forward on a new body of work in 2023 for Lightspace Modulator — my continuing intermedia art endeavor — I’ve also been taking some time for a look back at the history of the project and a review of some of the conceptual underpinnings of the process.
Music and sound design, words and narrative, a growing set of visual assets, and ultimately a live performance: these are the components of the “postmodern rock opera” The Continual Return of Dr. Ordinaire.
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With the release of the new album by the legendary German rhythmic noise act Synapscape (Ant-Zen) comes the official video for “Dirty Deal”:
This piece — built around aggressive, dynamic 3D typography — was composed of footage generated entirely (and live, in real time) by the VSx visual synthesizer, making use of the UDP connection to Ableton Live — with some simple compositing and editing after the fact.
If you’re curious, some “making of” notes can be found at the Coredark Laboratories blog:
See more at lightspacemodulator.com.
“Way back in 2014 Los Angeles’ LabXIV released a really pleasant 12″ of lush but minimal and understated electronics. The strength of the material was in the melancholy melodies and the way each song made the most of the small handful of synth and drum parts, splitting the difference deftly between synthpop, minimal and some post-industrial sounds. New EP The Betrayal continues from that template, although some of the sparseness of LabXIV’s previous material has been replaced by a more full-bodied set of synths and drum sounds …”
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Over the last few months we’ve been working on building out our new studio: a hybrid playground where we can work with old-school synthesizers, effects, and mixers as well as all the latest digital tools. It’s been a pretty epic project, so far, as we not only had to rebuild a bunch of equipment, but we also had to get a number of the essential (and large) items from the east coast to Los Angeles.
From the pubs of Boston, through Nashville and Marfa, Texas, to long late-night hours with test equipment and soldering irons in our shop in downtown LA, it’s been a lot of work but also a lot of fun … and we’ve been documenting the process in the Coredark blog:
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