New Orleans Synth Cult live score horror supercut at 'Tales of the Synth' on Oct. 30 at Broadside
Seven members of the collective will live score a supercut of horror movie clips, from obscure flicks to genre classics. The New Orleans Synth Cult, a collective of around 40 musicians, synthesizer enthusiasts and sound designers, has a monthly open mics and synthesizer jams. The group's founder and organizer, Jason Vowell, started the group last year after attending a New York Modular Society meet-up. The collective has grown into a loose collective with over 750 members and a Facebook group. The first live score performance on Oct. 30 will be performed at The Broadside, with seven members of the collective performing horror movie clips from obscure flicks to genre classics. Vowell also plans to open for a project in the Netherlands on October 23.
发表 : 2年前 经过 JAKE CLAPP 在 Entertainment
There aren’t a lot of rules to joining the New Orleans Synth Cult. Anyone interested in synthesizers, regardless of experience or the genre they play, is welcome to check out one of the collective’s monthly open mics. Just bring the gear you need, give them a heads up that you’d like to perform and, of course, play a synthesizer. Although, the term “synthesizer” can be a little wide-ranging, says founder and organizer Jason Vowell.
“What you think of as like a keyboard with some knobs on it, there’s plenty of that,” Vowell says. “But there’s groove boxes, too, that are more drum machine-based or sample-based … and then we have the modular synthesizers, which are these giant patch-based things. You have to play some variation of a hardware synthesizer. A physical piece of gear.”
A little over a year since the first New Orleans Synth Cult meet-up, the group has grown into a loose collective of around 40 musicians, synthesizer enthusiasts and sound designers. There’s also a Facebook group with more than 750 members.
Synth Cult hosts monthly open mics and synthesizer jams, featuring a range of genres, from house music, downtempo lo-fi and ’80s-inspired synthwave to experimental soundscapes. And Vowell helps put the collective’s musicians on to local bills.
On Monday, Oct. 30, Synth Cult will present “Tales from the Synth,” at 6 p.m. at The Broadside. Seven members of the collective will live score a supercut of horror movie clips, from obscure flicks to genre classics. This will be the first time Synth Cult has done a live score performance.
“We never really get to be spooky and weird, even though the instruments sort of lend themselves to that a lot of the time,” Vowell says. “This is just a cool opportunity to go the sound design way, get spooky, get weird, have some fun.”
A week earlier, two Synth Cult members will collaborate to open for Netherlands-based meditative, “esoteric electronica” project Bhajan Bhoy on Monday, Oct. 23, at Gasa Gasa. South Louisiana experimental musicians Hal Lambert and Mitchell Mobley also will perform. The collective hosts its next open mic on Thursday, Oct. 26, at Emporium Arcade. And there's a live synth jam on Nov. 1 at Zony Mash.
Vowell started New Orleans Synth Cult last year after checking out a New York Modular Society meet-up during a trip to New York. Vowell had been into modular synthesizers and sound design for a long time — he also records under the name unknownparts — but felt a bit alone in the New Orleans music landscape. He would see musicians like Cliff Hines and Daniel Meinecke perform with modular synths but didn’t know of many other local musicians.
Organizers at the New York Modular Society encouraged Vowell to organize a local meet-up, so he tossed the idea onto Facebook. He got some good responses, found a spot to meet in Algiers and had a synth jam.
“That was total chaos, totally weird, but we were all so happy to see other people with synthesizers in town,” he says.
Word-of-mouth and regular meet-ups has helped New Orleans Synth Cult grow “faster than I thought it would,” Vowell says. “We were kind of shocked by that — [particularly] the outside interest from people that don’t necessarily play the synthesizers themselves.”
There’s a variety of styles and set-ups in the New Orleans Synth Cult, from new musicians using introductory $100 synths to guys hauling $30,000 worth of equipment to a showcase. But customizing the instrument is part of the satisfaction, Vowell says.
“You find the synthesizers you like. Everybody has a different rig, especially with modular synths,” he says. “You piecemeal all the things you want to make the sound that you want. So it’s very personal, and it’s unique to the person. A lot of friendships and a lot of creative ventures have come together because of it, which is just as satisfying as making the music.”
Follow New Orleans Synth Cult on Instagram, @nolasynthcult, and on Facebook. Recordings of past showcases also can be found at nolasynthcult.bandcamp.com.
话题: Louisiana, New Orleans, Music