Yoshio Machida + Constantin Papageorgiadis – Music from the SYNTHI 100

yoshio-machida-constantin-papageorgiadi

CD – Amorfon

Yoshio Machida is a prolific experimenter and a recognized artist in the free form enclave. Constantin Papageorgiadis is a Belgian musician and sound engineer in love with vintage analogue instruments. Together they present an interesting project made with the SYNTHI 100 owned by the Institute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music of Ghent University. The synthesizer is part of a series designed and made in the Electronic Music Studios Ltd. (EMS) from 1974, a production of just 30 units. These valuable consoles were employed by some giants of contemporary composition, as for example Karlheinz Stockhausen (in Sirius), Eduard Artemyev (he used this model in the soundtrack of Stalker, a visionary and dystopian movie by Andrej Tarkovskij), or for the BBC in different sci-fi shows (Doctor Who, Blake’s 7 and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), and by some postmodern technoheads, such as the Aphex Twin and Jack Dangers by Meat Beat Manifesto. So now it’s the two specialists’ time to experience the joy and the pain of such a massive piece of equipment (the modules are over two meters long). The album doesn’t have any further modification or editing. But the SYNTHI 100 permits infinite modulations, thanks to its many parameters, including 12 oscillators and 8 filters. Under the brief and conceptual forms performed by the duo, the synthesizer’s parameters release their full potential in synthetic, space and generative weaves. What we get is a hypnotic alien testing, full of the charm created by a meticulous application and by some sidereal iterations. But the work owns a very strong musical soul, enriched by an oblique poetical narration, that goes beyond extreme sound manipulation and excessive looping repetition. The sequences don’t work according to some abstract audio-abuse logics or to some retro-future exoticism trend. Here the focus is on a complete and independent use. Any track shines from its own single elements and intuitions, shocks and analysis. The work can be almost considered the work of a playwright, fragmented and elusive, but the principle of its own intelligibility can be found nowhere else but in itself.

 

Yoshio Machida + Constantin Papageorgiadis – Music from the SYNTHI 100