Riding the modular wave

I've noticed I have to make a conscious effort to not have every recommendation be music-related. Thanks to discovering the world of modular synthesis I've fallen in love with music and music making all over again, and this is reflected in the podcasts I'm listening to. Is that a bad thing? My hobbies often come and go in waves, so we'll probably swing back to another topic in a few weeks.

Three great episodes to listen to this week:

Mahler Symphony No. 6, Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast (42mins, 2020-07-02)

In this three-part series of Sticky Notes, we hear Mahler's 6th dissected and examined. I'm of the school of thought that believes knowing more about how a piece was made deepens the enjoyment of it, and that holds doubly true for the classical greats. Structure and technique are such fundamental parts of Mahler's music, and nowhere is that more apparent than in his 6th Symphony. Find it here.

Face Off: LIVE!, How Did This Get Made? (94mins, YYYY-MM-DD)

There's a manic energy to all HDTGM episodes which can be "too much" way too easily. But when that mania is mirrored in the subject of the episode, the format really works and the energy becomes infectious. The tagline for this show is "Have you ever seen a movie so bad that it’s amazing?", and 1990's action blockbuster Face:Off absolutely fits that bill. Find it here.

WeWork: Miguel McKelvey, How I Built This (48mins, 2018-09-02)

With all the madness and hype surrounding WeWork's founder (and all-round bad-egg) Adam Neumann, it's easy to overlook that he was actually the co-founder. The actual seeds of the idea, and the domain expertise to make it happen, came from architect Miguel McKelvey. Whereas Neumann is more likely to appear in an episode of Behind the Bastards (we'll cover that show here soon, I'm sure), McKelvey's story is far more wholesome: it's a tale of a good idea executed well at the right time. WeWork has become, well, "controversial" of late, but the origin story is genuinely interesting. Find it here.

Not a podcast, but...

Those of you following along with my modular-synth adventure (which has it's seeds in the early issues of this very newsletter) would be forgiven for thinking it's all bleeps and bloops and GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). But at its core is the fact that modular makes making music fun again (for me, at least). Nowhere is that better articulated in this video from Red Means Recording. There are bleeps, for sure, but the driving force behind this video is the music. It's really well put together and I've watched it at least twenty times already. Watch it here.

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Thanks again, Tom.