devblog / friday 270821 (Patreon)

Another week of Wreckage. The V2 test stream has not crashed even once. The slow stumble toward a public release continues. And here we all are again for another Friday devblog. Thanks for sticking around.

THIS WEEK

- We have been conducting a number of The Midi Thief experiments. This is an idea that has been kicking around for a while, before we actually even firmed up the concept of Wreckage Systems. It draws upon algorithms, our laissez-faire attitude to copyright, our fondness of sampling, and an ongoing scepticism of ‘artificial intelligence’ as it generally gets talked about these days. We have made some pretty interesting music with it, but as it stands the output it tends to produce generally needs a bit more curation. It is currently hard to tell if it is suitable to let loose on an unedited live stream to do its thing. Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, it is going to make for an interesting blog post at a later date, almost certainly along with some musical output separate from the proper release series, so we won’t get into the details of it right now. In summary though, imagine Oceans Thirteen, but good, and instead of overpaid actors phoning it in, it’s algorithms, and instead of casino vaults, it’s the digitised archives of long-dead composers. And instead of money laundering gangsters, it’s us, your favourite fictional-musical-utopian-world-builders, 65LABS. Hope that clears things up.

- 4 x New Systems have been added to the test stream:

• Thief Cuts is using audio generated by The Midi Thief, but not using the actual Midi Thief algorithm. Instead this is more similar to the Idle Cuts System, but using different source material.
• Mumble Prime. This is using the relatively new Cycle Three technique which is pretty good for standard, techno-ish or skronky outputs. This system is more to the techno end of that spectrum. But techno made by scruffy punks rather than cool cyberpunk club kids. Mumble Prime itself was made, much like the other Mumble V2 system that has been knocking about for a while, using the Mumble Live Rig, which is some kind of ancillary, very-much-abandoned, algorithmic improvisation set-up in Ableton Live/MaxForLive. It came about when we were looking into more performance-based live streams, and is probably worth a short blog post explainer at some point.
• VoxRelic. Let’s face it, the chances of choral samples getting anywhere near the next 65daysofstatic record are low, and we had to put them somewhere. So they’re going here, stacked up with some tasty marimbas.
• Lastly, we have the revitalised/more distressed return of Evaporated from the V1 stream. Tougher and more haunted than ever, this one.

- These systems are all in a new build, V2.0.0.5. This build does not also feature an experimental fix of the AUTOCODE systems, because once again, we put that off, because it's gonna be really hard. V2.0.0.5 came online earlier today AT THIS LINK. And remember, there's a .txt log to be found, if you know where to look (see last week's update).

- Five Waves Annotated. The 65LABS Franchising Wing continues its shadow-marketing campaign, making the idea of becoming an official 65daysofstatic franchisee ever more seductive. For just several large down payments, you'd receive at least a couple more instructional guides like this one, and then you too could be your very own branch of a wildly confusing experimental pop band! If you missed it, this post features an annotated version of some software we used to write the song Five Waves from replicr, 2019. You can read/see/download it HERE and is hopefully worth a look even if you have zero interest in trying to follow in our heroic, commercially-unsuccessful, avant-garde footsteps.

- The mixes for Release #4 are sounding TOUGH. This e.p is gonna be called Mimik. We need to sort out the artwork, but it won’t be long now until it is in your ears. Imagine a utilitarian, brutalist, utopian, Escher-like city the size and shape of an asteroid, all concrete and severe angles. Now look closer, that’s not concrete those buildings are made of… it’s INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH KICK DRUMS. This release is definitely gonna anger that one particular reply guy on Instagram who keeps complaining we don’t use guitars any more. (N.B - Mimik, and in fact pretty much everything we write, does still actually feature quite a lot of guitar).

- The ‘glow’ effect on the TEST STREAM has been reluctantly switched off. It looks really nice in the real world. YouTube’s compression does not treat it kindly. (Not making much progress on that march to a 65LABS hostile takeover, are we? The compression algorithm will be first against the wall when the time comes. Full resolution for all! Hyper bandwidth everywhere!)

- Some of the 65Kids over on the Discord (not sure exactly who to credit - WesGibsonL5 brought it to our attention) have the beginnings of a completely unauthorised 65daysofstatic wiki/wreckipedia that anybody can contribute to and help build. Check it out if you want to spread wild misinformation about us.

NEXT WEEK

- Don’t get too excited about Mimik dropping just yet, there’s a few loose ends we still need to tie up. But that’s probably what we’ll be doing.

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Finally, a little note on extra-65LABS activities. We have, for obvious reasons, not been shouting particularly loudly about the postponed/forthcoming handful of 65daysofstatic live shows. Because really, who could say for sure whether they’d be happening or not. But, at this point, it does appear (subject to those doom graphs you see on the news) that the UK ones will be going ahead as advertised i.e - in November. London, Manchester & Edinburgh. And they are apparently all very close to selling out. So if you are vaccinated and venturing out, and being in small, indoor spaces with other people doesn’t feel like it is going to do you major psychic damage, consider this an insider tip to not wait too much longer before GRABBING TICKETS.

As for the October Russia shows - there is going to be an announcement about these very soon. Lots of back and forth behind the scenes regards that right now.

That’s it. Good luck out there, friends. Until next time...