At some point during the recent hype cycle surrounding the Hard Quartet’s debut LP, Matt Sweeney popped up on our feed singing the praises of Terry Stamp’s Blue Redondo. Stamp, formerly of the English hard rock group Third World War, recorded Blue Redondo after he relocated to El Segundo, CA, in the late 1970s. Each of its 12 tracks are rough gems, hard-bitten but sweetly rendered loner folk bolstered by Stamp’s blues-soaked guitar and vocals, not to mention the occasionally eccentric production touch.
Kristen Roos :: Universal Synthesizer Interface, Volumes I, II, III
In 2019, Vancouver composer and sound designer Kristen Roos acquired a floppy disc of pioneering computer musician Laurie Spiegel’s 1986 algorithmic composition program Music Mouse for a few bucks on eBay. The purchase sent him tumbling down a rabbit hole of vintage music software interfaces. Over the three volumes of Universal Synthesizer Interface, Roos has captured the fruits of his research and experimentation. Composed of pulses and patches, primitive drum machines and bass squelches, Universal Synthesizer Interface emerges as one of the most slyly delightful, engaging and weirdly beautiful musical projects going.