Straight Outta Dronesville

This was a long piece, originally inspired by a long ambient mix of various ethnic instruments, including duduk, shehnai and bagpipes the noo. This was then woven into a series of edited and modulated samples from two of my fave 70s German music pioneers - one named after Sleeping Oranges and the other being the opposite of Alt. And the result is hypnotic, mesmerising, but with a generous pinch of the Plankton Penchant for Unease thrown into the mix.

Aperture

Here we go again folks - round and round the merry go round of life, stopping off briefly once more with a new albums worth of  general derangement. This time it is a series of tracks and ideas based around the use of the Amazing Iris Soft Synth from Izotope - though of course, lots of plug-ins, toys, devices, samples and other audio chums came along for the ride. 

All photos for the tracks were taken during a recent break to the wild coast of Northumbria.

Enjoy!

 

Fade V Morph

A new mix here, based on big time use of the cross fade clips function in Audacity, as several published Conny Plankton tracks get the full treatment, evolving into something weird and wonderful. 

Should I add that it all came to me yet again in a dream?

Legacy of Summer

This Summer has been well active on the Conny Plankton front, with a whole series of themes and explorations based around using the rather excellent Korg Legacy Cell VST synth. 

The results became rather prolific with all sorts of ideas getting thrown around. 

Here we go again: Enjoy!

Touch

And now - another album's worth of sonic madness. A new series of tracks, loosely linked around the theme of being originated through different apps on an Ipad. Everything produced by hand - every sound generated by touch - with lost of help from lots of different devices of course!

Here we go again:

Another long ambient mix

Onward we go - now into a long ambient mix, being based on connecting three different sources of audio. What you have hear is an interconnecting mix of streams taken from sounds simulating a newborn baby from within the womb; sounds from within a church; a selection of didgeridoo sounds - all mixed and interwoven together into a totally new soundscape. Nothing else added or overdubbed.

Master of Lunacy

Hi folks:
Things have been well active on the creative front recently, with a bunch of new stuff now being unleashed. To get the ball a-rollin' here is a link to a new video - based around photographs taken by Conny Plankton, and with a track made specially for the video mix. Watch out folks - definitely not the kind of video you see every day. Don't forget to click on the video to see it full screen.

Enjoy!

Lost the Plot

Hi folks:

Here is a missing gem from the late Jak Sowerby.  Click on the link, to find more stuff about Jak!

Lost the Plot was a video made around 10 years ago, and is the video that everyone who knew Jak has been asking to see again. 

It was lost for many years after being taken down from youtube, so many thanks to the Rev Dhumpa Phatti for finding a copy and putting it up onto youtube.

So without any more, let us none the less as soon as possible and take you to...Lost the Plot.

Extra Rocket

...and here we go all over again, with further lavish helpings of tracks based around the loose theme of using the Waldorf Rocket Desktop Synthesiser - but this time on an emphasis of working with edited midi files converted from audio samples.




Plus! As an extra bonus, a mega remix off the Mixcloud site with a new track based on collating and a mashing together of three of the tracks from the Rocket Salad series:

Glimpses further than the Rocket Fathoms

Back into the creative swing of things big time here! On we go with the unveiling of a whole series of tracks and pieces loosely based around the collective theme of using the Rocket Desktop Synthesizer in tandem with a whole series of different add-ons and devices. 

Here we go: enjoy!

Alan Watts

...and now, the latest release from my old chum Dave J:
 This is a a piece based around use of Korg Virtual Synths. Watch out for the way it draws you in...

From Beyond

...and now, the major project that has been taking up most of the creative juices of Conny Plankton lo these last few months - a whole series of tracks, jams, edits and mixes, based around use of an Arturia Beatstep Pro and its manifesttion as midi controller, sequencer, drum machine, and kipper grill...

Trinity House

Hi folks:

It all seems many a moon since there were last any bloglike activities on the quaquaversity front - but it is actually been well busy.

To start things off, here is a mega mix of an old proggie favourite, transfused and mutated through the wierd and wonderful warp of the Plankton brain:



Once upon a time, there was an amazing prog band who made an amazing album. Recording was fraught with difficulties - especially the side long track which took up the entire second side of the album. Rumour had it, that there was originally a completely different version of this track, and all that had survived was 90 seconds or so that was mixed into the final released version. So - what if that original version somehow resurfaced - what could it actually sound like? Built around a loop of the mystery surviving sample, with other loops, timestretched segments and effects aplenty thrown in, is the final mega mix of the whole thing. No titles given here as to the original piece - them that know will figger it out already, or work out the clues from the cover and the title. And them that doesn't - well hope y'all enjoy it anyway!

New Album from Prawnshocker.

And now , presenting for your further delight and defecation, is the latest album from Prawnshocker. 

Excellent stuff!

Enjoy!!

More from Krakow

This time round it's a one off mix, based around samples recorded during the recent stay in Poland and mixed in with various bass loops and off kilter beats.

Live Music from Krakow!!

February 20th saw a weird and wonderful night in Krakow , Poland: Performing live at Baza in Krakow, was Dwoogie, with extra live sets from Prawnshocker and Pete Prescription.

Here is a link to the Facebook page of the event.

And Conny Plankton was there too, having made a special backing video for the night. The three live sets were filmed on a small flipcam by Conny Plankton, and later edits made to mix a version of just the live audio set against the video made for the night.

Having said that, our first video is the live set from Prawnshocker, playing with a backing video that was made and edited by Prawnshocker himself against  his own video:

The second version is Prawnshocker's own video mix, known as The Sepia Movie:

Next in the line up, we have the live set up from Pete Prescription, first playing live against a video backdrop...

...and then with live audio mixed into the Conny Plankton video mix.

And now, for the star turn of the night, with Dwoogie playing an amazing live set: 

...and then as a video mix with live audio mixed into the Conny Plankton video.

Further mention should be made of the reaction to this video, which has now been banned in ten countries!

We are working on getting this dispute sorted out - but apologies if any of these videos show up as being blocked from wherever you are watching it from!

Finally, an extra big thank you for Marcin Barski, who organised the gig for our three performers at Baza at Krakow and made it such an amazing night.

Thanks to to everyone who turned up - it really was a great night!

And of course, Baza is well worth checking out when you're in Krakow:

Baza, Floriańska 15, Kraków
Run by: Wojtek Kozielski
(an excellent bloke and great beer!)

Great people and excellent beer!

Northern Lights Mix

A Mix based on three separate takes using  series of samples and loops from "Northern Song" by the four Kings of EMI - mutilated, rearranged and generally modulated; then converted to an audio file and looped through the Gemini VST soft synth; double tracking added from the same midi file played through the Waldorf Rocket Desktop synth. And then the whole thing, multi-tracked and overdubbed with extra samples to bring you the epic chunk of audio madness I now present before your very ears.

R.I.P. Jak

Jak Sowerby: 1954-2017

One of my oldest friends, Jak Sowerby, passed away on the 3rd March 2017 after a short battle with cancer.

Jak was one of those highly creative people who wove in and out of people's lives: he was always buzzing with thousands of amazing ideas, from comix, to music, to video. He left behind pages and pages and pages of comix, untold lo fi tapes and a whole series of video projects. He had an infectious enthusiasm that would get people joining in the most unlikely of projects and ideas - dressing up as robots in cardboard boxes, singing into an old pair of headphones as a microphone while playing a three string guitar..

Lots of us got swept up in the mad ride that was Jak - without him there would be no Conny Plankton, and this blog would not exist. This post in the blog is a small showcase sent in by various friends and collaborators as a memory of Jak.

He will be sorely missed.

First is a tribute remix piece from Conny Plankton:





Next we have a series of Photographs from Dave Johnston - he and Jak went on many weird and wonderful adventures together:

 ..Jack chillin' at the Cannabis March in Brixton...

 An artistic rendering of our Jack by Dave...

Jack and Dave as Trekkies!

A Movie made with Jak and his brother Anth...

Next we have some comments and a contribution from Prawnshocker:




"Just heard that Jak died on Friday. Very sad news.
I improvised a lead vocal on this track of his, apart from the final rap, which was delivered by Jak.

Jak once told  me that he had a plan for the perfect crime. Then he added, "But it's only a two-man job, so one of you already knows too much"." 

Very sad news indeed."

From Michael Gilham we first have Bullshit Detector Van...

...and then, Atomic Bliss...

...and New! Just in - with production from the Reverend Dhumpa Phatti (to get all tracks converted to digital format and arranged in order) and new artwork cover from Conny Plankton, is the full length album from Jak Sowerby and Friends - Sanity Vampires is one of Jak's many musical projects, and the first full one to surface here on the pages of the blog (although some tracks from the album can be checked elsewhere in this post)...

...and there is more to come: watch this space!

No Fussy Put in

Another mix that came up in the form of a dream - a classic track from two master musicians who unfortunately have to remain nameless - that came up all stretched and distorted like...re creating the same sound took various settings on an Alesis Akira effects rack, extra effects and stretching through Audacity, and a general sense of little bit a this, little bit a that.

The original was great - now its waiting to take you off to another part of your head!

New Recordings from Dave Johnston!

...and continuing with the evolving theme of featuring guest recordings in this here blog, here are two pieces from Dave Johnston, the other half of AcidF*ck, our infamous electronic lo fi sampling outfit  from many moons ago! There's a possibility of some future collaborations coming up too, so watch this space!

In Dave's Words:

My Mind Turned Inside Out was recorded first, It started off being put together on a mixer but then went on to recording into a mac and laptop and assembling tracks on that. 




Also, in Dave's words:
This second track, I See Demons, was recorded completely digitally and I was a lot happier with the result. The vocals are from an interview with a schizophrenic I found on YouTube!

Prawnshocker Fairy Cups delight

Arriving by email just the other days was news of my old chum, the Rev. Dhumpa Phatti from the House of Flange, putting out a new Prawnshocker album release. So here it is: Gorgeous Aural Madness through made through Grooveboxes and multiple layers of mixes, samples and Digital Effects. Enjoy!

Out of me Head

The origins of this series of recordings started …um... some 40 or years or so, when as a teenager at school I was packing books away at the end of a Physics class, and two students came and started setting up different bits of kit at the back of the class. Based around an oscilloscope and a function generator, they were setting up a series of electronic tones to record on cassette tape. Since I first heard those sounds – the way that they sounded like nothing else I had heard, and the way their tones could be altered and modulated  - I was completely hooked. I went back to that Science room several times afterwards, trying to recreate those sounds, but without any success. 

Eventually I got hold of a Function Generator – but it took a long time after that, hooking it up to various mixers, EQs and effects to try and get those electronic sounds again. And then, with the recent acquisition of an Alesis Akira digital delay processor – which is an amazing piece of kit – and rerouting signal paths into various effects pedals, it started falling into place. Finally, those sounds started coming back to match what was already in my Head...

So that’s what we have here – abstract tones, space noises, multi layered aural madness, all out aural attack, rhythmic beats and pulses – and sometimes, all of these in the same track. Enjoy!