news
Autumn ’24 update
Yet another oops-I-forgot-to-update-the-website-update.
Not that there are dependencies or stuff that broke the site – plain HTML is plain HTML – just that it looks like I haven’t done anything since last spring, which isn’t true.
I guess the reason for me not updating is ... “plain HTML is plain HTML”.
Writing in a text editor and uploading files with FTP and so on isn’t very 2024. I don’t care.
So, on to what I’ve been doing since then.
- made System Sound 2.0 with some small tweaks.
- went to Hear Me! festival in Olomouc in Czechia, which I also wrote about (in Swedish) for Nutida Musik.
- did a video performance (to be released) at Rello Il Torrefattore in Brno.
- did a PCBSNR campaign to collect money to buy demining equipment for Ukraine, collecting just over 5000kr (at the time of writing that's around €440 or $480).
- mixed, wrote about and released the recording of spring of ’23 gig at Rello.
- did a Qualuude session in Malmö using my nonlinear guitar, and played it at no+1 (also in Malmö) the day after, the second half was filmed.
- did a lot of electronics development and messing about and planning for things that are yet to be released
- wrote a fairly long article about how Soma is a russian company and that you shouldn't buy their products. Please read it, share it, and tell your friends and music shops that Soma gear is off limits until they leave russia completely.
Spring 2023
So, I was on tour in central Europe. Visiting Zagreb, Ljubljana, Brno and Prague I had a series of workshops, performances and artist talks. It was good fun. The main part for the tour was the System Sound, I did three eight hour workshops (two were split over two days, thankfully), and I created it for this tour (for the Modul@rnice workshop in particular – they initated it and helped make a tour out of it). I had the idea for an acoustic + electronic feedback device for a long time, but never got around to finishing it, mostly out of indecision – what to include, what amp to use, should it have an enclosure, etc. Lots of tiny stuff that gets my brain bogged down. I’m glad I got a reason to make some quick decisions, and that it turned into such a wonderful device! I also did some Simple and Radical workshops, including one with a stripboard version in Brno. Prague must be the most Radical Chip-saturated city in the world now, they must have at least 50 now. Good. And I had an artist talk and told some youths not to try to live off art. Fuck the system and so on. I enjoyed it.
Anyway, System Sound is out now, I’m very pleased with it, and you can order it at
noise.technology.
I have more ideas for things, both standalone and eurorack. And some drones I’m working on. We’ll see what happens.
Some updates
For various personal reasons I haven’t updated this space since April 2020. I hope I’ll have more things happening to report in the future.
I’ve made some music, which is collected in the
releases page where a lot of stuff is catalogued.
The
noise.technology site has also been updated, with a new shop page. The biggest news there is a eurorack module, released yesterday in collaboration with Dirty Electronics (John Richards). It is based on the Radical Chip, but with CV control over all parameters including which of the 32 programs is run. Lots of fun.
New release: some inputs 1 (misalign)
I released this today, the first of a number of upcoming releases on
bandcamp. I’m very pleased with this one, two rather good recordings which thanks to a happy accident when I put them in my DAW. I’m also satisfied with the album cover, which is a form I will keep using. It uses the
Tratex font, as seen on Swedish road signs, and features small larch trees. I had to fix the kerning around the Ws. :-)
Some inputs 1 (misalign) is the first of a series of feedback explorations, where the core sounds is formed by a feedback loop, into which external sounds are fed, to perturb and shape the oscillations. I call this technique “some input-mixing”.
In misalign, the feedback loops consists of a Mackie 1202 mixer and a Tascam field recorder, which has the possibility of delaying either channel in milliseconds. This, the first in the series, is perhaps closest to normal no input, the only external audio being the ambient sounds of the room (in which the sound of the no-input loop is also played back), which are recorded onto the field recorder and monitored in the desk, along with the line out of the desk itself. Feeding itself. The quiet ambient sounds may affect the loop, the acoustics of the space (my workshop) absolutely do.
Thus four channels are recorded, two variously delayed line inputs and two microphone inputs. Owing to a mistake, the tracks have then been mixed up, so that the line recording from one take was combined with the microphone of another. Since the takes are of different length, the recordings have then been played at slower or faster speeds to conform to each other (and further expand the frequency content of the pieces upwards and downwards respectively).
The two sharp and cutting drones, sometimes delving into pulsations and beating textures, are companion pieces which due to their manner of creating share many features and their larger form. Different aspects of the feedback loop are brought forth by the raw line sound and the reverberated microphone input, so the same take’s two recordings present dissimilar perspectives of a shared form. This leads to two different counterpoints, each consisting of a raw and reverberated recording, one having been either sped up or slowed down.
Occasionally, external sounds can be heard underneath the sound mass.
recorded on the 10th of April 2020.
RADICAL CHIP PARTY UK TOUR 2019
UK tour RADICAL CHIP PARTY with Dirty Electronics (John Richards). Info, links, times etc. here:
Here’s a video of our set in Newcastle (actually Gateshead). Another lo-fi video filmed by
N-Aut is available
here.
NOISE.TECHNOLOGY, 57mm TOURS
The 57mm synth has had its run. After Hamburg, I brought it to China & Hong Kong, John did workshops at Soho Radio, and we did a tour with performances and workshops through Denmark and Sweden together to finish things off.
Fylkingen
Chengdu workshop
Hong Kong workshop (more pictures
here)
I also wrote a longish article about the the China+Hong Kong tour (in Swedish) which is published in in
Nutida Musik s issue 271 :
The few leftover synths are for sale, from John Richards (sold out) and at
www.noise.technology. This is my new shop for instruments and things, expect more things popping up there.
IN HOUSE PRESS AND 57mm SYNTH
I ve been working on >>in-house press>> a synth-and-workshop idea with John Richards (Dirty Electronics) for a while, involving storing 1024 byte political manifestos in EEPROM of a synth, live 57mm paper roll printing and building the the 57mm synth, a digital wavetable noise synth with microphone, touch and analog feedback (below).
57mm video
The first event is at Noisexistance festival in Hamburg
(kampnagel.de/noisexistance/) this weekend, then one more in London at Soho Radio on the 23rd of March
(dirtyelectronics.org/docs/DIY_sohoradio.pdf). Great lineups at both events!
Similar events in the middle of May in Copenhagen+Gothenburg+TBD are in the works.
ETER FESTIVAL 2018
This Saturday I will be performing with Marcela Lucatelli (
link) at the Eter Festival in Lund.
UPDATE: there is a video of the performance
SORGENFRI GIG
I’m playing in Copenhagen at Sorgenfri 12 at 5E in the Slagtehuse-area on the 12th of October. Unsure what I’ll do. Probably something with my lab strobe, it’s been a while. Bring sunglasses?
Here’s a link to the event:
https://www.facebook.com/events/319658618444082
NOSTRILS AND EARS AND WET PLASTIC BAGS
An upcoming gig:
Näktergal 11, in Malmö, Sat. September 16th at Skånes Konstförening, 19:00. Näktergal
website, Facebook
event.
I’ve been planning a bit. The sounds will be based on the setup I used for my
drone installation, with microphones, and plastic bags used in a different way. Loud and wet.
DRONE INSTALLATION
A few weeks ago I made a drone installation with plastic bags, a test oscillator and mixer feedback, at Yllefabriken in Marieholm north of Malmö. It ran 22-29th. Some video footage here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe5GvqnyW2I
CAFE OTO GIG
With John Richards (Dirty Electronics) at Cafe Oto. (27th May 2017)
_
_
About and contacting Max Wainwright.
Contact and socials
*
Email: the first letter of my first name, @ this domain (maxwainwright.com). I’m trying to avoid spam, apologies for any inconvenience. Use this if you want to get in touch. I reply.
*
Mastodon: @maxwainwright@toot.community. Mixed stuff, normal social media, art, music, random.
*
Youtube (me):@maxwainwright. Performances and such.
*
Youtube (noise.technology): @noise.technology. Noise machines and so on.
*
Instagram: @mainwright. Reluctant instagrammer. I just put things up as advertisement for myself. Like everyone else, but I’m open with it. I reply to messages, but not very fast and I often miss that people have requested for weeks. Email if you want to talk.
Inactive socials
*
Twitter: @mainwright. I deleted my account, any account on that handle (@mainwright) is fake. Not me. Fuck Elon Musk with a rusty spoon.
*
Vimeo:maxwainwright. Vimeo UI turned just dreadful and buggy, also I have hardly any views. I paid for many years, but it’s just not good enough. I’m leaving it up, but have migrated to (shudders) Youtube.
*
Soundcloud: maxwainwright. Old and not updated for several years.
*
Facebook:I don’t have a facebook account and neither should you.
Bio:
Max Wainwright makes experimental electronic and acoustic music, involving free improvisation, adapting to complex systems, and making & using terrible instruments. He does solo and collaborative performances, installations, sculpture, radio pieces, chamber composition, video work and more. As an artist, he is concerned with states of flux and how useless or broken objects can be sounded. He likes to engage audiences and things in conversation, creating instruments, trading, donating or receiving things, and performing on these. Using these, he explores human-technology interaction, deconstructing live performance, futility and effort, and performing through inactivity.
PRESS PHOTOS HERE
_
_
so much empty space!
very fy’d mass to do’n
Mastodon
_
_
_smol.jpg "Live at Bajkazyl in Olomouc. Photo by Martin-Šenkypl")