Published
Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 18:14
- Dubbed "a statement against MPEG culture," the limited-edition box comes with a compilation featuring members of Throbbing Gristle and Factory Floor.
The record label Mute is releasing a synthesizer.
A collaboration with Dirty Electronics and the designer and writer Adrian Shaughnessy, the battery-powered Mute Synth II, as the name implies, is actually a follow-up to a synth created for the Short Circuit Presents Mute festival in 2011. The front panel features a small patchbay and number of touch electrodes that allow for "a labyrinth of possible connections and resulting behaviors." You play sounds by creating rhythmic sequences created with "hybrid 4-bit binary coding, feedback loops and bit bashing." In addition to the main guts—an oscillator, wave-shaping (from triangle to square), noise generator, sequencer, etc.—there are a number of expansion possibilities, including a dot-matrix display.
In terms of the philosophy behind the MSII, the creators call it "a statement against MPEG culture and places emphasis on an active participant rather than passive consumer. It is born out of Dirty Electronics’ ongoing commitment to DIY approaches and noise aesthetics, and serves as a catalyst for experimenting with electronic sound."
Accompanying the synth will be a CD sampler featuring music made with the synth, a number of whom are Mute heavy-hitters. Chris Carter (of Throbbing Gristle and Carter Tutti Void) and Dominic Butler (from Factory Floor) are among the inclusions. You can hear some of it now via Mute's SoundCloud, and you can see the synth in action in the video below. The MSII will make its debut at a Bloc-affiliated event in London on November 15th headlined by Nathan Fake.
Mute and Dirty Electronics will release the MSII on November 15th, 2014 for a retail price of £89.99.