Leopallooza Festival 2023.

After listening to weeks of the radio building up to/looking back at Glastonbury festival (of which I am not a fan), it occurred to me that I hadn’t been to a music festival for a decade or more and I really fancied returning to that happy place after such a long hiatus. So I began searching for cheap, local festivals and came upon one only an hour and a half away in Cornwall, called Leopallooza.

There were several bands I liked or wanted to see, along with a good selection of unknown musical pleasures to enjoy, so I booked a ticket and collected some simple camping gear, because the weather had been glorious for weeks…

Of course, the day after I purchased my basic survival shelter and accessories, the rain started and pretty much didn’t stop for the intervening month until I left for the festival last Friday (July 21st), which was at least sunny.

Saturday, or rather late Friday night, the sky opened and it rained.

And rained.

Then it rained some more and kept raining.

Then, behold, the mud arrived.

But did we care?

No, frankly. I didn’t notice any dampening of spirits whatsoever for the entire good natured, family friendly, all inclusive three days I was in The Wyldes, mud and all.

As for my personal roundup of the music at the festival.

Top bands in no particular order-
Hot Lava, Mystery Jets, Willie and the Bandits, Bad Nerves, BILLY NOMATES, The Scribes, N’Famady Kouyaté, Orbital, Dutty Moonshine Big Band, Another Sky, Sprints, Smokey’s King Shufflers.

I thought Bloc Party were a little disappointing compared to the previous time I saw them, but the crowd clearly loved them, so maybe it’s just me.
Aurora was ok, she’s got a good voice, but not really my cup of tea.

And Leopallooza has *the* best festival bar I’ve seen anywhere; it’s right on the arena with a great view of the stage, it’s under cover, has sofas, armchairs and a pizzeria next door, it really doesn’t get much better than that.

A really fantastic weekend with a great atmosphere from start to finish, rain or shine, it’s a real shame it was the last one.

Anyway, here is my photo journey through The Wyldes, come and explore Leopallooza with me…

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A brief snippet of some acts from this year’s festivities.

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New album number 2: Back to the beats.

Hello again, I’m back with yet more new tunes, with my second new album release in less than a week!

No, I haven’t been on a manic two day recording spree, these are tracks which I’ve worked on over the last few months, alongside my crash course in rack synths, patch cables, ring modulators, sonic envelopes, audio generators and all manner of musical geekery.

This collection has more of an eclectic EDM vibe to it, featuring my own peculiar mashup of styles and genres. From techno and glitch-hop to electro and house, with a pinch of drum and bass and a soupçon of Twin Peaks, it’s a tasty mix of sonic tomfoolery for your ears to devour.

Listen for free via the player below and don’t hesitate to purchase the album in its entirety, or any individual tracks which take your fancy, from my Bandcamp page for a ludicrously low price. (Also don’t forget to check out the dalecooper57 YouTube channel, to see videos for some of the tracks featured on the album)

Thank you for your attention, now without further ado let’s enjoy some Sounds from the shed.

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Album launch. M0DUL8R: Expanding my musical universe.

I have finally found the time to lovingly compile ten of my most recent modular synth compositions onto their very own album, which is released today on Bandcamp.

I’ve spent most of today tweaking, uploading, rearranging track listings and creating artwork for the project I’m calling M0DUL8R, so I hope you like it.

You can view and listen to the album in its entirety via the embedded player below and you can purchase it and/or browse my whole back catalogue on my Bandcamp page.

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New music special – Part two: Sampling Twin Peaks.

In case anyone missed it, I’m a massive fan of David Lynch in general and the unique soap noir which is Twin Peaks in particular.

By extension, I’m also a big fan of the late musician, composer and multi-instrumentalist, Angelo Badalamenti.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before one or other of them featured in my musical endeavours and at the weekend I embarked on a project which involves them both.

I began by extracting just the vocal tracks from two Lynch/Badalamenti collaborations, “A Real Indication“ and “The Black Dog Runs At Night” and fed them into my sampler. I applied layers of effects to the vocals before adding a lot of industrial electronica and even more effects, then started on the video.

The raw materials were just a few clips from Twin Peaks and its prequel, Fire Walk With Me, which I chopped and blended and sprinkled with electronic fairy dust, before adding the newly recorded soundtrack to produce An Unreal Indication

{Contains flashing and potentially disturbing images}

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New music special – Part one: Modulators and psychedelia.

Welcome to part one of this, my latest roundup of an increasingly prolific musical output.

First up, here’s another new tune composed on my modular synth; a burbling ambient soundscape, with some added sample sequences for a bit of structure, this is Thrumm.

Next it’s an epic techno odyssey called Conduit To Sector 17, made using the same technique, with another bespoke synth framework.

Followed by a big orchestral production number made from samples and sequences, with a video editing spectacular to match.

Stay tuned for part two, a Twin Peaks inspired multimedia masterpiece…

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Picture this: Historic Sussex.

I visited my hometown of Crowborough for a couple of days last week, primarily to see my mum, but I managed to fit in a bit of exploring while I was there.

I’d seen photos of Saxonbury Tower before, but never in real life, so I thought I’d take a drive out into the country and see it for myself, along with two smaller follies, Eridge Park Towers; both of which were originally part of the Neville family country estate.

The larger tower now houses a mobile phone mast, which is hidden inside the shaft of the building and you’d never know it was there…Apart from the loudly humming cooling unit bolted to the front door!

Anyway, now you can only make out that particular eyesore in one of the longer shots, I’ve edited it rather neatly out of the rest. ;~}

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Sunday night rave: New music and video showcase.

Time for another burst of sonic shock and awe, one from each of my modular synth setups; starting with this beefed up remix of my Puls8 track, with added loops, beats and samples and an FX laden visual accompaniment.

And then there’s a completely new tune, a complex, glitchy electronica piece created using Hexen, mixed with a percussion track made on my sampler. The videos took me the best part of a day each and they are both definitely best enjoyed in full HD.

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Music project: The Next Generation.

The time has come for me to move on up to the next level of music production, using programmable modular synthesizers.

Now, having no idea how any of these things work (as usual), I once again embarked on the experimental stage of a steep learning curve.

The first synth app I treated myself to is called HEAT; featuring a bewildering array of switches, sliders and knobs with nothing in the way of instructions…

…however, with a lot of fiddling and twiddling and many hours of making unlistenable noises, I started to get to grips with the huge number of variable sonic parameters and worked out how to control and manipulate the sounds it produces.

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If possible, the second virtual synth I bought is even more complicated and goes by the name HEXEN. It is described as a “eurorack modular synth” and allows me to build an unlimited combination of modules (sequencers, samplers, oscilloscopes, tape units, effects generators, etc) on the rack’s six shelves, using an endless supply of patch cables.

Having eventually discovered how to add modules and record the resulting output with a tape unit, I’m now learning to incorporate the infinite possibilities of Hexen into fully mixed tracks, but for now here’s a video of it running my first attempt at a programmed sequence.

And finally, here’s my first completely original production using the HEAT synth, also featuring drum patterns and samples which were added at the mixing stage; ladies and gentlemen, I give you the decidedly colourful video for Puls8.

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Nonstop Music Roundup, Part Three: The Collaboration.

Hi there, welcome back to the third and final part of my musical update of 2022, specifically; a series of collaborations with my Russian friend, Alexey, aka MakeUp.

Alexey is a talented photographer, filmmaker and musician from Russia, who I originally got to know as part of the global resurgence in Twin Peaks fandom a few years ago and who shares my interest in peculiar electronica soundscapes.

We were chatting on Facebook a few weeks ago and he sent me some of his back catalogue to listen to and I couldn’t resist trying a quick remix.

I wanted to create a whole new tune to combine with Alexey’s “Sexy Acid Track” and for no reason at all I chose one with a Zouk Bass kind of feel (a sub-genre of bass-heavy electronic dance music with its roots in African and Caribbean percussion) and you can sample the resulting, glitchy aural collage below.

This is the only video I’ve made so far but there is at least one more collaborative track completed, so I imagine that will also see the light of day before too long.

Sexy Acid Track – MakeUp vs dalecooper57
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Nonstop Music Roundup, Part Two: Originals.

Hello, Happy New Year and welcome to part two of this roundup of recent audio visual output, this time focusing on music I made entirely by myself, as opposed to adding to/remixing existing material.

I created each of these compositions using dozens of samples, which I patiently assembled from the hundreds I’ve found by trawling the internet, then added extra layers of sound by mixing two or more of these initial sequences together.

The videos are made with a variety of pattern generating and editing apps, often using several different versions superimposed on top of each other, then multiple layers of effects are added (because I never did know when to stop) to achieve the sometimes retina-bothering results you see below.

I’m aware my sonic noodlings are sometimes rather long, which is a result of my preferred method of a “live jamming” recording process. I really only make the accompanying videos because YouTube links are the easiest to share, so if prolonged exposure is a bit much for you, I quite understand.   ;~}

There is a whole load more music which is yet to be released into the wild, so my next project will be to compile some of that into my third Bandcamp album of original material. Watch this space for details.

Anyway, to the music.

This first one started out as a silent experiment in overlaying animations and I thought it needed a soundtrack, so I repurposed an old track of mine with some effects, just for fun.

Eklektik Headz

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After which, there’s this, the first result of the aforementioned experimentation. I started making the video one weekend and didn’t get round to finishing it, so it sat there in my editing app all week and every now and again I’d have an idea like; “Ooh, what this needs is loads of dancing robots…”

Then I’d think of another layer of effects to apply, then another, and another.

After the slightly creepy, pumpkin headed dancing men arrived, I figured it was time to stop

Oogle Plex

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Here’s a slice of psychedelic disco for you, the video is a bit like being sucked into a funky wormhole.

Malfunkshun

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Trance and techno more your sort of thing? Try this great big wall of sound production, it’s pretty damn anthemic, even if I do say so myself. (You could even check out the Extended Breakbeat Remix, should you so wish)

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And finally there’s this, well, I’m not sure what you’d call it, but it certainly builds to a very satisfactory crescendo of interesting noises.

Harmonix

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Stay tuned for part three, coming soon…

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