Monday 30 December 2019

KP Plus

Here we are with the final offering of 2019. It has been a busy a highly creative year, with hopefully a lot more to come.

This time round, we have a series of recordings, based around use of Kaossilator Pro Plus by Korg - a mighty little beast that allows looping and multi-tracking and the use of real time effects and modulation in its massive bank of instruments and beats.

So here we go folks.

All the best to everyone for the new year and I hope 2020 is good for all of us!


Thursday 21 November 2019

November Calling

A new series of recordings, working with banks of edited samples and loops, triggered through Ableton Live with a Novation Launchpad to produce a series of live mixes. These were edited down and extra weirdness added to produce the wonder that is before you. Enjoy!


Monday 28 October 2019

Enter the Sylenth

A new series of recordings - this time round, the loosely connecting theme is the use of the VST synth, Sylenth - but this was soon ably supported by numerous additional devices and banks upon banks of loops and samples!

Thursday 17 October 2019

Conny Plankton on the Radio!

Hi folks:

Weirdest news of the moment is finding that there is a track by Conny Plankton is being played on BBC Radio 3 on October 18th as part of their Late Junction Show. Check it out here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009d6s

The track being played is Bulgaria, from the album Hive, which can be found here:

https://quaquaversity.blogspot.com/2018/05/hive.html

For those that missed the show, or would like a link for download, click on this link here:
https://mega.nz/#F!Wyo0hCSB!Bf8rJvtgN_S4xxPJ2mgoKA

Many thanks to Prawnshocker for recording the show and editing everything down into individual tracks!

Check it out folks!



Friday 4 October 2019

Obscuria

Here we go again, with a new album of sound arising from the ruined brain of Conny Plankton. You get mutant beats; drones and discord; harmony and the atonal; alien textures and soundscapes - and often in the same track! 

This time round, the loosely connecting theme is working with the mid generator and arpeggiator plug in, Obscuria from Sugar Bytes. However, as per usual, it wasn't long at all before lots of other VSTs, devices, samples, and general weirdness became involved as well.

Enjoy!

Wednesday 4 September 2019

Isle of Whithorn


Is it that time again already? Not long at all since the last album's worth of recordings were posted up, and here Conny Plankton goes for it again. No specific theme this round, other than all recordings were originated and produced in August 2019. Lots of Devices, Connections, Software, Hardware, Field Recordings and General Madness to be found here. The Creative Juices have indeed been flowing most extremely!




Tuesday 20 August 2019

Return of the Volca

Conny Plankton strikes again, with a new series of recordings - this time based with using two pieces of kit that has not ben used for a while - namely the Volca Beats and Volca Sample by Korg, and using them to work alongside new devices, hardware, software and VSTs. Enjoy!


I Don't Remember too good but I think John Wayne was in it

Here is a video mix based on my favourite tracks by Vivian Stanshall and the Bonzo Dog Band: 11 Moustachioed Daughters was, even by Bonzo Standards, one of the strangest tracks they ever recorded. And people couldn't decide if it was some sort of Black Sabbath Parody, a tale of bad acid or a touch of the Delerium Tremens. Some reviewers even left it off their review of the album, as they couldn't fit it in any kind of pigeonhole.

Personally, I thought it was amazing - years later I discovered that Viv Stanshall had a short lived outing with a group, Big Grunt, and although nothing was officially released in their short time together, they did record one Peel Session and one live appearance on a TV show for Marty Feldman, called Marty Amok. Both of these were great sessions (the Peel session being especially solid), and both of them covered 11 Moustachioed Daughters.

In true Plankton style, all three have been absorbed in to the remix, and a few other bits beside.

There is no way any of this would be allowed out on Youtube, especially with its increasingly repressive views on copyright at the moment, so it is now accessible by a link to a file storage site. Enjoy folks!





Tuesday 30 July 2019

Howl in the Typewriter Video Remix by Conny Plankton

Howl in the Typewriter is a solo music project from the warped genius of Stan Batcow over in Blackpool. I have known Stan for something like thirty years. One of his tracks in particular, Close, was always a firm favourite, and one of the first releases from his label, Pumf! Records, that I ever bought.

While going through a series of you tube videos that Stan sent me, over at:
https://www.youtube.com/user/PumfRecords

I found myself best by the Creative Muse and decided to make a video remix, based on Close. The version of Close here is is the 7" Unextended Treemix version, from the Pumf flexidisc, Bedrooms and Knobsticks released in 1987. Images are a collage of happy childhood memories and disturbing scenes from Stan's own stomping ground of Blackpool. Enjoy!


Tuesday 16 July 2019

Tales of Bad Acid



The original idea for Tales of Bad Acid, was to develop a long mix based on intensely edited samples. However, the lures of the Creative Muse soon fell upon the ruined Plankton Brain, and before long a series of four different  extended mixes, each one loosely based around a long core sample which was extensively edited and modulated and then mixed down with other choice audio goodness. All of these mixes are available on the Jonny Plankton Mixcloud site (over at https://www.mixcloud.com/JonnyPlankton ) as well as on this here blog. So here we go:

Tales of Bad Acid One: Mozart and Fingernails
A long mix based on carious samples ranging from distorted and timestretched synth sequences, woven together with meticulously edited samples from TV crime series, radio shows and field recordings. The whole thing was mixed and assembled into a complex multi-layered mix to take your mind somewhere else entirely. The title and cover artwork is based on an oblique reference from the final sample.





Tales of Bad Acid Two: A Spoonful of Sugar
A long mix based on songs and snippets from a film from my childhood - no clues here folks, other than you will probably recognise it if you look at the cover image long enough! Al of this audio then filtered and modulated in with masses of reverb and other weird and wonderful effects, and then mixed down with a series of drones and timestretched samples. A Mix to take you to places far beyond.





Tales of Bad Acid Three: Oddball Odd
The idea for this mix was to work with a series of decidedly different audio samples - being the entire "Never Mind the Testicles" album by those Nasty Gender Rifles types, mixed and modulated into its own backing track - pretty soon, however, the backing track being a live mix of eastern world music, gongs and flutes, coupled with my own modular electronics - took over, and all that was left of the Punk Types was a series timestretched drones woven into the mix. Still very intense stuff however!





Tales of Bad Acid Four: Never Mined
Working on the premise that any kind of audio source can be mixed and mutated into something else entirely, this one is based on the entire album from those awfully nice Punk Rock types, edited and modulated into a series of drones. This was then mixed into a strange - even for a Plankton - loop made from found ghostly voices picked up during a video found on YT of a flashlight display in a deserted gold mine in America. To top it off, extra samples of whispers and motion sickness inducing binaural beats were worked in to complete the mix. Altogether the mix evolved into something dark and uncomfortable, but compelling and beautiful.

Waiting for the Lamb

The Creative Juices are surely flowing from Conny Plankton at the moment. This time round, we have got a new audio track, based on a series of multilayered lopops , mixed into a video of images slected by the ruined Plankton Brain and guaranteed to sizzle what is left of your optic nerve!


Friday 21 June 2019

Neutron the Second

Once is not enough!


After working through the recent series of recordings using the semi modular desktop synth, Neutron,  from Behringer, it soon become obvious that there was a lot more to explore: And so, a further series of recordings emerged using the Neutron - this time focussing on using various patching possibilities, including patching up to other modular devices, and even using the neutron to play itself.


So this is what it all sounds like...






Friday 17 May 2019

Neutron

A new series of recordings, this time based around the common theme of working with a Behringer Neutron - a wonderful piece of kit which allows just about anything with a Midi, CV, or VCA and VCF output to be fed through it and to be tweaked and modulated into Infinity. Lots of different devices involved in this one. Here we go!




Friday 5 April 2019

I Am Me

A Conny Plankton Mega Mix here, loosely based around the core theme of the closing Mantra of "You Are I or I am Me" by the late lamented'n'demented Daevid Allen's Planet Gong;  looped and mixed into a series of previous Conny Plankton tracks; now stretched, chopped, mixed and generally transmogrified into taking you somewhere weirder and wonderfuller.

Friday 29 March 2019

WSG

Another series of new recordings erupts from the weird maelstrom that is the ruined brain of Conny Plankton. This time round we got drones 'n' tones 'n' moans made through the latest toy to be inserted into the Plankton Arsenal - namely a Weird Sound Generator. Originally a full on drone machine, this is a version that has been customised,  modified and extended in its capabilities as made available from:
https://reverb.com/item/12019327-mfos-wsg-synthetiser-drone-generator

Of course, the WSG just became the base theme for these recordings, and growing contributions from all sorts of other weird and wonderful devices and VSTs soon entered into the fray. Enjoy!


Death's Door

Death's Door is a new collaborative project shared on the insane genius from 
Dave Johnston
Dwoogie
Prawnshocker 
and 
Conny Plankton.

The idea was for each of the four people to send in tracks to be  remixed by the others in the collaboration. These tracks could be existing tracks, old archival snippets, leftovers or alternate take, or tracks specially made up for the occasion.


These tracks were then uploaded in to the Conny Plankton Bandcamp page as an album of recordings here:





The idea was then to have these tracks and various additional audio snippets therefrom to be remixed, mangled, modulated and mutilated by each of four Death's Door Members. There are Currently remixes made available from Dave Johnston, Prawnshocker and Conny Plankton.These remixes are also available on the Conny Plankton Bandcamp page, as a separate album of recordings here:





The mixes then formed part of a live streaming event available then and afterwards through youtube.



This youtube stream was supported by a new mind mangler of a video which is also put together by Conny Plankton. The results of the stream and video mix are available up on youtube from here:






Enjoy folks!

Sunday 6 January 2019

Dune and Elsewhere

Here we go again folks: The first post of 2019 sees a new album's worth of recordings - this time based around use of the mighty VST synth, Dune. However, as the recordings developed and evolved, it wasn't long at all before lots of other sounds, samples and devices came along to join in the fun!

Enjoy!