RoAT Games by Leander Reininghaus

"...and now for something completely different."
(as in: no STARSCAPES)

'RoAT Games' is a little 'just for fun' release which documents an experimental live impro recording session, playing exclusively on the SomaSynths 'Rumble of Ancient Times' (RoAT) Mini Synthesizer and two effects pedals.

The instrument:
RoAT was designed and programmed by Kakos Nonos, a young, creative instrument builder with a love for medieval acoustic instruments such as gusli, hurdy-gurdy and bagpipes. In the making of the synthesizer he went for the 'old school' early PC era approach of getting the most out of a very limited resource. He (re-)used a simple 8-bit microcontroller chip, similar to the ones formerly incorporated in the "brains" of old refridgerators and made it into a musical instrument by clever coding. In times, where the simplest tasks like editors use enormous amounts of computational power inside bloated systems, this reminds us how energy could be saved and how materials considered obsolete by the industry could be reused and upcycled.
This fits of course perfectly into the philosophy of Soma Laboratory, the producers of RoAT, and their idea of 'romantic engineering',
which I love very much.
More info here: https://somasynths.com/roat

The music:
Due to extensive use and live manipulation of RoATs sequencer, the music of the sessions turned out quite repetitive. On the other hand, it's always changing in timbre and in the use of effects. To me, it's travel music, both in a real world sense and in a spiritual way.
The repetitions of the second track remind me somehow of those revolving shamen drums (hence the name). The first track is a 'tongue in cheek' nod to Terry Riley's music (the title has puns intended...)
I also have to say: especially listening to those first two tracks, I'm having a hard time keeping my feet still. So, you may want to dance to those tunes...if you're willing to dance to music without beats, that is. ;-)
'The Monk' 1/2 came through somewhat "freewheelin' experimental..."
Spoiler: The "TARDIS sound" was a lucky accident.
Don't ask me how...

Anyway, I sincerely hope you will enjoy 'RoAT Games'!
If I will make it into a release series will depend largely on the reception of this album. So, please let me know how you feel about it!

I reckon listening loudly with a good sound system would be FUN!!!

One final note:
although 'livelooping' is listed in the tags, I didn't use looping techniques on this album. But regarding the repetitiveness of the music, I kept the term in.
However, if you're interested: experimental livelooping with RoAT is what we recently did in SONUS EORUM...

Leander Reininghaus is a composer, producer and multiinstrumentalist, who studied communication and music education at universities in Essen and Frankfurt. His musical spectrum reaches from more familiar areas such as Rock, Psychedelic, Worldmusic and
Singer/Songwriter into the 'unknown', as in handmade improvised Electronica, Experimental, Noise and Performance.

SONUS EORUM
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