This is Church of Space, and they were here to introduce us to HYPNOTIQUE SCÉANCE. An old friend from Germany, upon hearing that I was going to MoogFest, told me to catch these guys. glad I did, as magic, the occult, and absurdity nearly always make for some interesting entertainment. After this, I headed over to part two of the IBM Watson talk about cognitive technology for developers while Caroline was signed up for a masterclass with Daniel Lanois and The Orb.
After lunch, it was time for our first keynote on the subject of “The Future of Creativity,” given by Martine Rothblatt, founder of Sirius XM and author of Virtually Human. Just before walking in and taking our seats while outside chatting with someone, Suzanne Ciani walked up and joined the conversation, as the person Caroline was talking to was a friend of Suzanne’s. At the time, Caroline had no idea who had joined them, but after Suzanne walked away, the person shared with Caroline that it was, in fact, one of the true musical greats of synthesizers. Martine’s talk astonished me with how much I resonated with her and promised myself I would reach out to her after the conference; she gave me her business card to do just that, but somewhere along the way, it was lost. Her talk, though, will never be lost on me. Watch the talk by clicking here.
Antenes makes her own synths from old telephone switchboards! Watch this video to learn more about her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM44D_2w8cA
Grimes is another badass of the music world like Antenes above. I’d first become aware of Grimes maybe two or three years ago and was enamored with her producing her work by herself, as far as I could tell. This place was packed, and as much as I would have rushed to the front 20 years ago, today, I’ll leave that to the 20-somethings.
Max Ravitz, a.k.a. Patricia, was at the Pinhook tonight and made me fall in love with music made with modular synths. I heard a sonic quality and timing I’d not heard in other live music tied to a groove that made me want to dance for the first time in over 20 years. Take a listen to one of his tracks here: Around Town. Missed Odesza at another venue as Patricia’s performance and theirs overlapped, but I’m not complaining.
Robert Hood of Underground Resistance was at The Armory and put on a great set. It was during Robert’s performance that Caroline learned that you could quickly rack up a few thousand steps on the Fitbit by dancing. Halfway into MoogFest 2016, and both of us are thoroughly enjoying everything from the workshops to the live performances and the people we’ve been meeting along the way.