Recorded while commuting on buses & trains, Herv‘s Portable Music Vol.1 EP will be launched on April 1st. Herv explained the genesis of the project:
Over the past number of months I’ve been working on a series of e.ps which are being slowly released over the course of 2011 on Boyscoutaudio, a new Dublin label. Early last year I returned to full time 9-5 type employment after approximately 18 months doing music full-time. My new job is rewarding but the distances I have to travel and the time spent in transit were initially prohibitive to making tracks. I subsequently decided to try making stuff on the move and the fruits of the first few months will be laid bare on April 1st with Portable Music Volume 1.
Portable 1 features 8 tracks composed on a Nintendo Ds using Korgs Ds-10 software and will be available to buy on limited edition cassette from www.boyscoutaudio.com on April 1st. There will be additional Portable Musics over the coming months, Portable 2 moves to the iPad and Korg’s iMS-20 software and portable 3 will return to the DS with Korg’s M01 programme.
Portable Music 1.5 by boyscoutaudio
Portable Music Vol. 1: a record that was composed on buses, train platforms, and in friends’ houses; concocted while commuting and on the go; a record that beats the clock and dodges your boss’s CCTV. This is Portable Music, released on April 1st by Boy Scout Audio, on limited edition CASSETTE tape for your personal stereo walkman, with digital release to follow on April 14th.
HERV
Herv has always been one of Ireland’s premier and pioneering exponents of chiptune, with tracks such as ‘Party Gaff’ (from the album ‘Customer’, Go Away/Reconfiguration Records, 2006) standing out as one of the scene’s most loved floor-filling choons. ‘Portable Music Vol. 1′, sees him return to the world of hand-held gaming devices and to a new generation of gear uniquely suited to the adept knob-twiddling he has demonstrated on previous releases. With the user restricted to a mere 16 notes per pattern and 16 patterns per track, Herv squeezes the last drops of musical juice from a Nintendo DS, battering the synthesised daylights out of the bare-bones Korg DS-10 software that is the sole sound source of this series of square-shaped vignettes.
Herv had another reason for switching to portable methods: giving away music for free is all well and good, but a man’s gotta eat. Returning to full-time day-job hours away from his studio, he soon realised that increased restrictions on his time would mean drastic changes were needed if his musical output was to endure. Adapting his methodologies to this end, he traded studio gear for portable devices.
BITWISE OPERATOR
Bitwise Operator’s been described as sounding like “50 Sega Megadrives attacking you at once!” – expect pre-modern synths, break beats, DS tomfoolery and weird harmonies.
CATSCARS
With electronic pop delights on debut “Construction” tinged with gothic spookiness and longing, she’ll be rocking the DS-10 on the night too.
GLOTCHBOT
Gamepak’s Xyme dons his Glotchbot hat to jam out some generative sample-based 8-bit goodness, armed with a couple of Nintendo DS’s.
SU7A7S
Founder of triphop massive Siam Collective, ‘SU7A7S’ bends your ears with warped NES and gameboy tones, and some of the oddest circuit bent goodies for good measure.
PR!
Dublin based instrumental musician ‘PR!’ uses a laptop, a gameboy and some sampled toys and video games to make distorted hip-hop songs.
WUFFAH
The enigmatic and otherworldly WuffaH will be laying down some deep and dubby 8-bit tinged vibes in the Bar area with a special vinyl DJ set.
A production alias of one of Irelands bass ambassadors, watch this space with more to follow…
HERV, BITWISE OPERATOR, CATSCARS, GLOTCHBOT, SU7A7S, PR!
Visuals by BLUEFOOD; Vinyl DJ set in Bar area by WUFFAH
O’Byrnes Beverage House, Capel Street (Map)
8pm Friday 1st April €5/€8 incl cassette
