Here’s a full length preview player for Renegade Lights – Release One. I’ll post a breakdown of what went into the making of my Wolf Interval track soon, but you can get the entire slice of electronic wonderland now at http://music.renegadelights.net.

Renegade Lights #1 by Renegade Lights

So much has led up to this: shows in San Francisco and Chicago, sound systems that could propel starships, radio interviews, crazy crowds, fantastic dancers and always lights beneath our fingers. It’s been an incredible journey over the course of an incredible year, with more to explore on the horizon. 02012 is looking good for this crew.

For background on Renegade Lights, there’s a brand new interview on controllerism.com with the original renegade himself, owner/operator Raja The Resident Alien.

For all ears and eyes today, a compilation of sonic and visual deliciousness. 11 musical acts creating vibrations for you from bits and bytes, one visualist pair dropping high quality video from Mr. Sting of the ever-present ellipses himself (What up, Edison?) and one cross-disciplinary code mangler merging light waves with music (Ia Mediapathic!). All of us are performers at Renegade Lights shows in San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles (Hi Dolza!). Mastered by Shawn Hatfield at Oakland’s own Audible Oddities.

I’m thrilled and honored to be in the company of these creators on Raja The Resident Alien‘s very first Renegade Lights release.

Available now in download format of your choice and/or pre-order for 150 gram double vinyl:

http://music.renegadelights.net

Renegade Lights/LoveTech collaborative San Francisco release parties soon.

I have a Wolf Interval track on the coming Renegade Lights compilation release. It’s an 11 track double vinyl and download featuring songs from performers at Renegade Lights events in San Francisco and Chicago: Dolza, Nonagon, Raja The Resident Alien, Mend, Anon Day, Jeekoos, Searchl1te, Spacewülf, Edison, Ellul and myself.

Included in the download will be videos from Renegade Lights visualists: Mattbot, Mediapathic and Cstng-Shdws.

All tracks are now in the genius hands of Shawn Hatfield at Oakland’s Audible Oddities for analog mastering. Shawn has tricked out waveforms for Twerk (his own fantastic project), Amon Tobin, ESKMO, CEX, Modwheelmod, Proem, Noam Chomsky and Cullen Miller, to name just a few luminaries in his extensive client list. This compilation is going to sound amazing.

Raja, the alien behind Renegade Lights, has made a Kickstarter for the release. He’s blown through his funding goal already, but I know he’ll be ponying up the rest from his own pocket. If you’d like to support independent electronic artists doing it our own way, pre-ordering the compilation in vinyl or digital form is a good way to do so. At certain levels there are fancy images and extra tracks, too. Kickstarter pre-orders close Monday Aug 29, 20:27 PDT, so now is the time!

Our three date, southern mini-tour was fantastic, hilarious and non-stop. Amazing times with amazing friends, and so much good music I’m still creating mixes in my head. Many thanks to Rob Perez aka CheeseNoOnions for all his hard work on the Houston Interface event, to Dana Morrison aka Dsko Bmbr for his Live Alive efforts and to Mike Perry of Wisdom Studios for hosting us in his unbelievably swanky space for a night of live electronics in New Orleans, and for the delicious debauchery and pinball wizardry. Mad props to Wilson Limpo for sound wrangling the show at Dean’s, to The Hipporacle, Fox Marie, for her gorgeous Houston flyers and posters, and to Leisa Fearing of Gumbo Labs for the Wisdom hook-up and general hacker solidarity.

Ready to do it again, everyone?

CheeseNoOnions‘ flowing drone science at Wisdom Studios.

Active’s vortex of beats for girls (and boys) at Wisdom Studios. Image © Mike Perry.

Dsko Bmbr riding the smooth glitch at Live Alive.

Epul Roch weaving melodic strands into a tapestry of dreams at Interface Houston.

Pixel Ale’s ambient explosion at Wisdom Studios.

Insert Credits gets his game on at Interface Houston.

Trooth merging with the infinite at Interface Houston.

Entering hyperspace during my Wolf Interval set at Wisdom Studios. Image © Mike Perry.

Right on the heels of the 0721/22 shows in New Orleans, it’s a drive across the burning South of July to kick off inaugural Interface live sessions at the hallowed Dean’s Credit Clothing. I’ll be dropping a Wolf Interval set as part of an evening of music by CheeseNoOnions, Dsko Bmbr, Insert Credits and Epul Roch. I’m counting on my Texas comrades to pour me into a freezer if I melt.

While I’m working away on planned Wolf Interval releases, I’ve been participating in Monome Community Remix Projects as they roll in on the Monome forum. I’ve found it incredibly beneficial in a number of ways.

First, a point of the MCRP sessions is to work fast. When you participate in an MCRP, you must complete your track in a short amount of time, usually within two weeks. Given my existing projects, I’ve actually been forced to create this track and Beautiful, from the previous MCRP, in just about two days each. It was all the time I had to squeeze them in. The return on these investments of two creative days has been amazing. I now know I can create a track in a short amount of time. I’ve learned to make creative decisions work without many weeks of deliberation and assessment. I’m able to tell my internal editor to shut the hell up and wait until it is time for actual edits.

Second, the limited set of material available to work with in MCRPs creates a smaller arena to romp in. Creative limitations drive results. Instead of auditioning endless snares to see how they sound, I must decide what kind of snare I want, then work to make the raw material fit the part. This also means I must either draw on existing skills in sound design and processing, or learn new skills quickly.

Third, creating these one-off tracks is liberating. They spring out of nowhere, unconnected to any other group of work. I’m not thinking about how to work them into live shows, or adjusting as I write to fit them in sequence with other recorded works. They stand alone as moments of pure creation, my goal only to make something I like with the tools at hand in the time permitted. This attitude spills into my approach to other works. It’s a good thing. The hanging together as a harmonious whole should happen later when songs are assembled into a coherent collection.

This particular Monome Community Remix Project was a new twist on the series. Instead of participants submitting short audio samples of their own to a common pool of raw material, we each pulled and submitted a 15 second sample from a track in any previous MCRP. This meta approach means we are creating with samples already composed of semi-random materials knitted together by artists in the past, including ourselves. I was struck more than once during the creation of of this track by a sense of building on history. I’ve been on an historic reading quest of late, absorbing 01930s-01940s pulp-era wonders like Doc Savage. The title of this track came to me when I was considering it as an amalgamation of amalgamations. A favored phrase swept in from a character in the Savage stories, William Harper Littlejohn: “I’ll be superamalgamated!”

Superamalgamated by Wolf Interval

You can hear all the fantastic tracks created as part of this Monome Community Remix Project at: http://mcrpmusic.bandcamp.com/album/mcrpv10-mcrp-rp

I’ll be playing a Wolf Interval set for Live Alive at Hard Racks Houma on July 21st, 02011, along with comrades CheeseNoOnions, Active, DSKO & Star and Pixel Ale.

There’s also a second, private show on the 22nd at Wisdom Studios in New Orleans. Giant thanks to the good people at Gumbo Labs for stepping in and hooking up what will be a terrific private party after our original NOLA venue blew it.

Renegade Lights: Chi-Town Edition was an immense success. Held at Transamoeba Studios in Chicago, our Rapture party came on with a slow build, then broke free of its mooring and ascended to the sky. Granted, we all descended to terra firma once again around dawn, but the space between lift-off and return was quite the rocket ride. As with all good moon shots, we came back changed.

Spacewülf started the liftoff sequence with hot, solar flared grooves created from deft finger work. The man also rocks a mean fedora.

Raja The Resident Alien brought his unique rhythmic propulsion machine to life and set the pace for the rest of the event. I love Raja’s winding, twisting beats.

Anon Day set up, turned on and ignited the place! Take Hendrix, get him drunk in a hot tub with Prince on the set of Sesame Street and you have some small idea of how hugely Anon Day rocks.

Mend released delicious soundscapes and aethereal beats from the otherworldly realm beyond the gravity well of our planet. A gorgeous spectacle of sound.

I had a stellar time cruising outer space in my Wolf Interval set. It went off perfectly and sounded fantastic on the giant system. All the star-shining dancers made me very happy.

Nonagon grabbed the hip-hop drive, wobbled it until it squealed, and then made for his own galaxy. I love it when we play back to back, no matter which order. We’re different stylistically, but dancers get hot, hit the floor and the juice carries over.

Jeekoos dubstepped all over the galactic plane with heavy, muscular beats and tightly integrated bass. The dancing continued. The stars gave way to day’s new edge.

Sadly, Implex Grace was not able to play at the night’s tail. I’ve long been an admirer of Michael Perry Goodman’s sonic river of dreams, and was thrilled at the prospect of experiencing the live journey. Next time, comrade. In the interim I’ll just have to keep listening.

Visual decadence was created by Mattbot and Nathan, and turned great performances by all musicians into truly compelling experiences. No Renegade Lights event is complete without masterful photon slingers such as these.

Edible Alchemy Foods Co-Op delivered incredible sustenance over the course of the evening, matched in their fervor only by the powerful slingers of spirits, Whiskey Alliance. Catalyst Sound strapped down one of the largest and best sounding systems I have ever had the joy of sending signal through.

Wonderfully open city, fantastic cultural events and nightlife, performing music for and with amazing new friends: I could easily still be in Chi-Town. In fact, while I am typing these words post-rocketship here in San Francisco, I’m honestly still back in Chicago.

On Thursday, 19 May, I performed a Wolf Interval teaser set for Renegade Lights on Chicago’s long-running experimental show, Part Time Sucker Radio’s Streetbeat 89.3 WNUR. San Francisco comrades Anon Day and Nonagon also slapped down the jams. We came close to missing the station in all the atypical SF-style fog shrouding Chicago, but ended up turning everything out silky smooth once we were on air. It was a great time. Big thanks to Searchl1te and Jason Araujo for masterminding our appearance. Jason also snapped the shot below.