I am still committed to a reliable weekly Wednesday cadence for these reviews even if sometimes they are late. This one is so late that it's almost time for the next one. I was sick! I had some kind of stomach thing and was glued to the sofa and/or bed for days and days. I'm feeling mostly back to normal now, so don't even worry about it.
Let's talk about Graham Dunning. I watched hours and hours of Graham's musical performances while I was sick. If you're not familiar with his work, his most recent video (published six hours ago as I write this!) is a great introduction:
Mechanical Techno Live - Iklectik Peckham Levels - 7 March 2026
Graham makes what he calls "mechanical techno," playing vinyl records that have been physically altered to play fragments of sound that loop through constrained tone arms, but also using the rotation of the turntable to trigger physical switches and create synchronized musical sequences on the fly. It's hard to imagine something that is more my shit.
One week ago today he posted this video that is a more clinical exploration of some of the techniques he's developed:
Mechanical Techno 6.1 Technical Developments (PhD documentation)
I was absolutely geeked the entire time I watched this. Every new idea he introduces is a surprise in some way, a creative departure from the work it's building upon. Every once in a while I realize I'm observing something that could only exist because someone focused and thought really hard about one thing for a really long time. I'm envious of the discipline. (Makes me want to pursue a degree.)
Speaking of me, this has all got me thinking a whole lot about my still-very-unknown live show idea. In that document I actually link to one of Graham's very very early videos. I think at the time I had no clue how far he had come. My theoretical show is quite different from Graham's work, but it feels really closely related.
This blog post from Brian inspired me to order a Tulip Creative Computer while I was bopping around New York. It arrived a couple days after we got home and I've been messing with it. It's fussy but it's fun! Physically it's a pretty generously-sized touch screen with USB and MIDI ports; inside it's an ESP32 with a MicroPython REPL and a really powerful synth engine. It feels like exactly the right vehicle for a piece of music gear I've wanted to make for a long time, a novel sort of MIDI sequencer with some unusual controls and interaction schemes. Having this big touch screen means I can build in a lot of visual feedback and experiment with different control layouts, and the MIDI ports mean I can quickly add some more tactile controls too. (Also it's all standalone. I could even install a battery in this thing.) The coolest part to me is that if I come up with something compelling that I think other people might enjoy, I can direct them to pick up one of these cheap pre-made kits rather than having to instruct them on how to manufacture something from lower-level components or (gasp) make something myself. More on this pretty soon, I think.
That's all for now. Weird little organic looping sequences. That's last week's theme. The jasmine is in bloom so I'm going to go smell it. See you in a couple days!