Nigel Sifantus » Solo Music

Progtronica presents: “Twisted Digits”

Nigel — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 23:13:41 +0000

I’ve never liked the modern emergence of “sub-genres”, the incessant need these days to boil down each kind of music into dozens of sub-categories. I have found that, although it provides a decent description of the sound of the music, rarely can music be so pigeonholed as to be put into a place that is so pre-defined. It also leads music fans to gravitate towards more music similar to what they already have heard rather than expanding their sonic horizons. I would never be the player I am today if I had this kind of mentality towards music “I like hard house but not deep house”. My approach through Progtronica is to take all of my influences and boil them into one succinct concept. Other than the basic forms of “electronic dance music” I have always has a secret love of progressive “math rock” and have played some form of that kind of music in many of my bands over the years. I had been looking for a way to do a tribute to this affinity in a Progtronica performance (mainly for my own self pleasure) since the beginning of the project. I can play a little guitar but mostly for making weird sonic feedback textures but then I found a secret weapon: the iPhone pocket guitar combined with Ableton Live 8’s new “Amp” and “Cabinet” effects. So I made this little ditty, switching from 7/8 to 6/8 with interweaving Don Caballero/King Crimson guitar lines all remixed live while playing the drums. This is a little bit different then my other recent videos but I like how it turned out and I’m sure you won’t find anyone using Ableton quite this way anywhere else.

Leaving Huntington Beach (a live Ableton Arrangement)

Nigel — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 04:22:34 +0000

A polyrhythmic farewell to my place of residence of the last 12 months. Huntington Beach is a city of amazing contrasts. A beautiful shoreline with the best surfing in the country littered with aging offshore oil wells. Cookie cutter housing developments side by side with rusty oil drills. Opulent wealth next to abject poverty. Almost as though you mixed Ohio, Texas, and Hawaii into one city. I love California but Orange County, it turns out, is not the place for me. It was good while it lasted….Off to Long Beach!
All the music was recorded with live performed v-drums, cut up, and edited using Ableton Live 8, then mapped to my MPC style controller and triggered in real time along with loops.

30 Minutes or Less

Nigel — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 07:00:20 +0000

A few nights ago I found myself in a full fledged battle with me on one side, and my miscommunicating computer and new audio interface on the other. I had a simple project in mind for the evening: record few drum clips into Ableton Live from my v-drums so that I could cut them up and begin making a new piece out of them. However, nothing was working. As soon as I plugged my new m-audio interface into the computer there was devastating digital chaos and, as the night wore on it became clear it was not my destiny to accomplish this little project that night (I have since figured out the problem) and was filled with anxiety at not being able to do what I had set out to do. Sitting in a chair twitching, I decided I needed to get up and do something creative quick to get my mind off of the failure. I then decided I’d attempt to program a sequence on my Roland MC-909, set up the video camera, perform a piece live and fully cut and edit the video in the quickest time possible. In the end it was about 28 minutes thus the title “30 minutes or less”.

The beginnings of my new project (solo on V-Drums)

Nigel — Sat, 09 May 2009 04:30:19 +0000

This is my first video experimenting with the V-drums. I’m basically just exploring the sounds, no samples or sequences here. This is raw and meant to be just a peek into the world that is to come.