Somewhere at the boundaries of “ambient” and “experimental,” there’s a great deal of wonderful music being made these days. Even with great labels behind them, it’s the sonic signature that stands out.

With densely-layered, trance-like loops, “Hearts in Stasis” is a perfect example of this hard-to-categorize immersion for your ears, worth repeated listens for its tightly-packed details. Direwires, aka Adam Young, has been on Moodgadget since the beginning, included on their first compilation. The Ontario-based artist talks to CDM about his approach to music making, and I think it’ll resonate with a lot of artists of a similar mindset. With minimal, software-conceived production and drawing heavily on memory and the sounds around him, Adam says he crafted this record as though manipulating a dream.

You can have a listen to the full release on SoundCloud. Digital downloads on iTunes. There’s also a free MP3:

Bayfield

Direwires – Hearts In Stasis by Moodgadget

Peter: Above all others, there’s a sense of a hypnotic quality to the piece, in these repetitions. What’s the compositional idea behind these? Do you put yourself in a sort of meditative state when working?

Adam: I’ve always loved repetition in music. Repetition gives things weight, and meaning and draws you in, and makes you ask questions rather than taking a recorded idea for granted… sort of forcing you to “live” in it for a short bit. I’d say for this material in particular, it is more about intro/retrospection than meditation or some kind of self-hypnosis. There were many moments in the album where I drew pretty directly from fond and bittersweet memories of my teen years and because they meant so much to me, I wanted to stay there for as long as possible without creating something people couldn’t listen to. It was a pleasant process and it felt a bit like manipulating a dream you were trying really hard to not wake up from.

What’s your technique for working with loops?

There are exceptions to my methods all the time, but typically I’ve either heard naturally-occurring repetition that I really liked or something that I think would be fun to get my hands dirty with and edit into something loopy. I’ve used telephones and telephone messages, portable tape recorders, computers — all sorts of things to capture these things or pull from personal sources. But ultimately I feel most at home doing all of the reconstruction in software. I like the control I have over things on a computer, and it’s how I learned many years ago. Most things you hear have gone through software samplers or received some sort of digital manipulation.

It was a pleasant process and it felt a bit like manipulating a dream you were trying really hard to not wake up from.

There’s a real sense of dense dynamics to the layering here. You talk as well about “lo-fi” sounds here. Can you describe what that meant, how you approached the sound of this record?

I used a lot of analog and digital methods to capture audio from life around me. I did a lot of disregarding of source quality with the mindset that it would only add to the texture of whatever piece I was working on if I treated all things equally in the production process. A poor quality voicemail message was just as valuable to me as a perfect recording of a grand piano. This really helped bring things into perspective without a lot of effort and I was able to focus on the more conscious creative decisions I wanted to be making.

What are the sound sources we’re hearing? It sounds like you’re sampling all kinds of different things and working iteratively with those materials.

Anything that makes a sound is fair game, typically. There are a lot of human voices, but this time around I’ve tried to stick to tangible objects from my life and surroundings, and some synth parts here and there. It’s very personal music and it was important to me and context was crucial, even if the listener can’t hear all of it in a recording. There’s a LOT of different things in there though. You’ll hear everything from traffic and construction sounds to human speech and garage sale guitars. There’s even a couple seconds of a beat up read-along record in there.

Even I think without be influenced by the lovely album art, there is a sense of being underwater in this piece, perhaps because of the ebb and flow of the rhythms and dense layers. There were some natural inspirations, yes?

I’m very fond of aquatic themes and water in general, but it was mostly coincidental in this particular case. Most of the album was inspired by fond memories that just happened to take place in and around water and beaches and the like. I am always inspired by natural surroundings though and it just so happens that I’ve spent most of my life in and around fairly beautiful areas of Canada. The lovely cover art was put together by Alex Koplin at Moodgadget, based on a photo I took while swimming in Lake Huron in my teens.

Moodgadget notes that this album is the product of four years of work. Obviously, some records are produced in days, others years. How do you sort of keep material that has evolved over a longer period of time fresh?

I would like to think that it’s always “fresh” because I didn’t write music for the music people. I wrote songs about things that will always be the same so long as I remember them. I wasn’t chasing after a trending sound or trying to write something for a certain group of people. I was just writing something for me in what was almost a side effect of being someone who spends too much time thinking while sitting around a bunch of studio tools.

Since you’ve been with Moodgadget for some time, how did that relationship come about?

I met the gentlemen involved and their friends at Ghostly some years ago when I was attending parties and trying to make some connections for a couple of techno projects I was a part of at the time. They had been putting on some really cool mixed-genre multimedia shows at the time and eventually formed the label. At one point they were brainstorming by email and talking about their intentions and what they should call it and I suggested the name and they apparently liked it.

Can you share some of your background, and how you approached this musically / technically speaking?

I was always around video games and computers as a child, which gave way to spending too much time hobbying about with computers to the point where I was actively looking for new things I could do with a computer. I eventually discovered the “tracking” scene and some of the things people were doing musically with computers. I started experimenting a little bit at a young age and was writing mediocre techno and ambient things by the time I was twelve. I guess in a lot of ways, not a lot has changes other than I’ve developed some very intentional compositional habits, understand how to write music that flows the way I want it to and how to use the tools I have..which are obviously better tools than I’ve started with.

Most of the songs here were written in similar ways. I’d start with a sound I had recorded, would pull it into a virtual sampler or waveform editor, pull it apart, and start putting it back together in different ways until I had a new sort of “instrument” I could write something musical with. Then I’d start laying out some sort of melody or just ride out a loop I liked and would build something resembling a song around it.

What are you listening to these days? I hesitate to call anything “ambient” as the word has so much associated with it…

That’s a tough one, and I agree. I’ve gone through a lot of different phases but lately it’s all over the place. I’m listening to a lot more traditional music than I used to, bands and stuff. I used to listen to a lot of exclusively electronic things. I have playlists I rotate through for different moods and I guess the ones that see the most play lately are ones that include some folk and things like Grouper, Owen Pallett’s solo work, David Sylvian, Fennesz… I think I have listened to that “Transit” song Sylvian and Fennesz did together about a million times. It kills me every time. Once in awhile I’ll go on a strange bender and spend a week only listening to 80′s New Wave stuff, or something like The Stranglers.

If you asked me several years ago, almost everything I listened to was some form of techno. It’s kind of funny, because when I first began listening to music as a child, I only wanted aggressive, violent sounding metal and rock music around and my father would play Tangerine Dream and all sorts of classic synth music and I would attempt to make fun of him and tell him to put on “real music”. It looks like he gets the last laugh.

Can you describe for us what’s in your studio?

It’s not very impressive to studio nerds, it’s always been the least important part of my process for better or worse. My studio was my bedroom for most of my life. I’ve had dedicated studio space a couple times in recent history but i’ve always found myself bringing everything back to my home so I could work on things and always revert back to working where I live. The setup changes over and over, and depends on what I’m working on. Sometimes I’ll have space reserved for vocal recording, synths, guitars, odd objects or very seldomly – people singing. The centre of it all will always be the most appropriate computer or two that I own at the time (which is always something Apple based… I’ve had enough bluescreens, crashes, lost work and the like for two lifetimes.) I often run a myriad of VSTs and stand-alone applications that have been written by friends and strangers alike, but usually a fairly typical sequencer/host is at the core. I’ve been using Ableton a lot in recent years, I like how easy it is to use the same software in the studio and on stage.

At the moment I’ve an obsession with not being distracted and keeping the area free of unnecessary instruments or objects and so it usually just looks like someone’s typical office until I need to bring in a specific synth or controller to work on a specific part. I rarely use proper monitor speakers because there was a time in my life when I couldn’t and made a habit out of using headphones as long as I could until bringing it elsewhere for mixing, or compensating appropriate. A silly way to work, but old habits die hard. One of the few strengths in doing things the way I do them is that it’s very easy to take the process mobile and work from neat locations. I’ve done work on boats, in cars, in tents and cabins out under the open sky on warm nights with a laptop.

Thanks to Adam for sharing a glimpse into his creative life. Find the album at Moodgadet:
http://moodgadget.com/direwires/

Mashable - If you're a die-hard Michael Jackson fan just itching to exercise your artistic license, you're in luck. Sony Music, along with Jackson's estate, will soon be launching the Behind The Mask video project, which asks fans to contribute to a new music video for the song.

Appolicious - Need more information about where your friends are headed? Fresh iPhone Apps for today has an app that can help, called Squawk!. We also found an app that can help you make bigger traveling plans than just driving or walking around town in iXiGO Travel. Finally, if you’re planning to stay home, take a look at AirMusic, which lets you stream music from your iOS device to other devices around your house. Read about them all below.

AFP - Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi may be reviled by many of his own people and the international community, but he's enjoying an unexpected surge of popularity -- as a music video star.

The Internet, as the subject of one Oscar-nominated film, is full of short attention spans and flirts, social dysfunction and lust. But there’s another side of the Internet. Someone interested in finding expressive inspiration, in learning the craft of music and sound, can virtually apprentice themselves to artists and engineers they love. There may be no substitute for stepping into a studio with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, or sitting face to face as Greg Russell to talk mixing. But barring that, for the aspiring sound and musical creators of the future, you have immediate access to astounding hours of collected knowledge, to the same technologies that produce the films grabbing the Oscars, and even to simulated, augmented-reality dreams on your phone.

That revelation might not make a good movie, but it’s sure a great thing. And who knows, from Indiana to India, the next studio to craft a great score could be your own.

Rounding up some of the better resources on the Internet, I’m in particular indebted to a couple of great sources, particularly on the previously-unsung craft of mixing and sound. I don’t have a statuette to give them, but I will introduce them:

Designing Sound by Miguel Isaza and Jake Riehle is a fantastic, advertising-free blog dedicated entirely to the craft of sound design in film, television, games, and other media. I’m honored to host the site on Noisepages for CDM, and equally pleased to get to sit back and just read (and not write or edit) the content. This is a perfect opportunity to cull some of the sharp, savvy analysis and exclusive interviews from that site. You might find you have something to do during ad breaks on the Oscars, film lovers.

Soundworks Collection tells the story of sound production in extended-format, high quality videos. You can watch video about just about every major release. In fact, their collections may become to those of us who are sound enthusiasts as invaluable a companion to movie-watching as popcorn.

And from the world of paper, Mix Magazine has been doing loads of coverage on the production side in film.

Forgive me for not looking at the “Best Original Song” category this year; arpeggiators everywhere lament the absence of Daft Punk’s “Derezzed,” but what can you do? (I definitely didn’t envy Daft Punk the challenge of trying to live up to Wendy Carlos’ landmark original score.)

Original Musical Scores

‘The Social Network’
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

I’ll come right out and say it: I think this is the film, out of this extraordinary bunch, that deserves the award. In a way, the score embodies the ideas of the film, emotionally and conceptually, more than the movie itself can. From the now oddly-famous small batch synth invention Swarmatron to air conditioners and pianos, Reznor and Ross concoct a sonic and compositional world. It’s relevant, topical, and now, like Facebook – but it may have greater lasting power.

Speaking of dreams and lost, The New York Times got to do what I imagine we all would love to do: step into the Reznor/Ross studio.

And long after the movie is forgotten, I expect this soundtrack will have a beloved spot on the playlists of many readers of this site.

Mashable Interviews Trent Reznor

As it happens, I wound up by coincidence in a conversation with Jeremy Peters, who does licensing for Ghostly International. His thoughts on why this score deserves special mention:

It was great to see them go a bit outside the box and hire Reznor, and I felt like it did what the score was meant to, which is tell the story that is not being told in the visuals and dialogue, and it did it really, really well, so my vote has to go to that score.

Peters also laments, as a person in the licensing business, that so many original songs “stick out like a sore thumb,” when better musical collaborations and licensing are possible. That makes it doubly nice to see fresh faces in the nominee category here.

More Swarmatron, for good measure:

‘Inception’
Hans Zimmer

It’s hard to say much about Zimmer’s stunning score for ‘Inception’ that hasn’t already been said. But it’s worth noting that, outside the film, a ground-breaking interactive app took the dream space into mobile, generative and reactive form. Built on open source technology at RjDj, Inception is the first app to use the libpd embeddable Pure Data library seen here previously. Aside from the musical achievement here, the technical advancement is that delivering interactive music to nearly any platform is no longer just a dream.

In fact, ‘Inception’ could be seen as interactive music’s first blockbuster, topping the charts on iOS. on iTunes

’127 Hours’
A.R. Rahman

Boy, it’s a tough year to compete in soundtracks – and a great year to listen. A.R. Rahman’s fluid, genre-crossing ambient soundtrack is as expansive as the film’s desert landscapes. And it’s another achievement for the connection between India’s titanic film industry and Hollywood’s. (Rahman also contributed “Slumdog Millionaire,” a process about which he spoke to Apple’s Joe Ceillini, since it was done entirely in Logic, from laptop to studio.) The first interview that follows is more specific to this film, but the second, Indian-produced interview I think is … well, better.

‘How to Train Your Dragon’
John Powell

So, the adult dialog was Scottish, the kids are American, and the music was Celtic, even as all the characters were Vikings. It was nonetheless a lovely score (though I’m sorry that last year’s animated ‘The Book of Kells,’ set in historical Ireland with Irish accents and Irish music, didn’t get more coverage, as far as Celtic scores). For more on this movie’s sound – even if Randy Thom didn’t need another nomination this year – see Designing Sound’s interview.

Composer John Powell himself comes from a Scottish background, and says he was influenced, too, by Nordic folk music. In an interview, he explains how he lent the film a lot of its character:

John Powell Goes Epic to Score ‘Dragon’ [The Wrap]

‘The King’s Speech’
Alexandre Desplat

Understated and elegant as the film it scores, Desplat (“Deathly Hallows”) has another beautiful soundtrack. The only bad news: he’s partly overshadowed by one Ludwig van Beethoven. (Desplat says that was originally a temp track. You try out-composing Beethoven.)

Interview by Scott Holleran

Sound Mixing, Sound Editing

‘Inception’
Sound Mixing: Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo & Ed Novick
Sound Editing: Richard King

Known in particular for its use of Edith Piaf in the score, Inception is clearly our star here (and perhaps a shoe-in, as a result), a film that creates entirely different imagined worlds. Videos and interviews, via Designing Sound:

“Inception” – Exclusive Interview with Richard King

I feel it’s very important to get new sounds for each film. It’s so important to get the sounds which you feel and imagine could be there. There’s always a lot of manipulation afterward of course, but recording new raw material is so important. I’d love to record everything every time, but the most important thing is to find the sound which provides that feeling you’re looking for regardless of where it comes from.Richard King, to Designing Sound

Gary Rizzo Talks About “Inception”

Mix Magazine on the Sound of Inception

Bruce Tanis Answers Reader Questions (a foley and sound effects editor on Inception)

‘The King’s Speech’
Sound Mixing: Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen & John Midgley

‘Salt’
Sound Mixing: Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan & William Sarokin

Greg Russell has an astounding fourteenth nomination for ‘Salt.’

Interview: Greg P. Russell on “Salt” and Mark P. Stoeckinger on “Unstoppable”
More About the Sound of “SALT”

‘The Social Network’
Sound Mixing: Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick & Mark Weingarten

Some of the grand achievements in sound may not be immediately noticeable – like making a loud club party scene where you can actually hear the dialog.

Ren Klyce Talks “The Social Network” Mix

‘True Grit’
Sound Mixing: Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff & Peter F. Kurland
Sound Editing: Skip Lievsay & Craig Berkey

Skip Lievsay Talks “True Grit” Mix

‘Toy Story 3′
Sound Editing: Tom Myers & Michael Silvers

Toy Story 3 may have gone unnoticed by many this year, but it required major innovations in surround sound, making the interviews below must-read. (For the opposite, low-fidelity end of the spectrum, see the exclusive interview for a fascinating story about the “futz boxes” used to make the little snippets of dialog the toys produce.)

“TOY STORY 3″ – Exclusive Interview with Tom Myers, Michael Semanick, and Al Nelson

With Gary Rydstrom we continued the conceit that when the toys are interacting with humans, (when they are inanimate objects), they should sound smaller in scale compared to the human “real” world. But when they are interacting with each other, and walking and talking, they have a larger, almost human scale to their sounds.
Tom Myers to Designing Sound

Dolby Surround 7.1, Toy Story 3 and The Future of Sound In 3D Films

‘Tron: Legacy’
Sound Editing: Gwendolyn Yates Whittle & Addison Teague

More About the Sound of “TRON: Legacy”: Score and SFX Mix

More About the Sound of “TRON: Legacy”

‘Unstoppable’
Sound Editing: Mark P. Stoeckinger

Yes, even Vanity Fair cares about sound editing.

Vanity Fair: Mark Stoeckinger Talks Unstoppable’s Sound Editing

Macworld - I think we all remember that pivotal day when Ronald Reagan uttered those famous words: “iFixit…tear down this laptop.” Don’t worry, they obliged. Elsewhere, the Verizon iPhone 4 has an unfortunate resemblance to its ATT sibling, but Verizon says sales are still good! And Apple buys some music streaming insurance. Fortunately, the remainders for Friday, February 25, 2011 are protected against fire, flood, hurricanes, and alien invasion.

In our monster MeeBlip round-up the other day, I mentioned the stunning enclosure Michael Roebbeling made for his DIY synth kit. But that’s not all Michael has built. He’s also created a lovely, simple step sequencer with Arduino. It’s a beautiful combination of all open-source hardware, MeeBlip and Arduino. Surprisingly, it’s his first try at all of this:

After my first successful experience in electronics, building the MeeBlip, I was hooked. So I decided to buy an Arduino and dive a bit deeper. My first project was a rudimentary sequencer to work together with my MeeBlip. It took me 3 days to figure out the schematiks and code the program.

With projects like Arduino taking out some of the headaches of getting started, this is further proof that understanding computation allows you to do anything, from hardware to software, on any platform.

Michael’s project represents a simple, afternoon project, but the Arduino can also become the basis of more sophisticated gear – and some more complex groove-making. I’ll look at some of those options here, like Steve Cooley’s beatseqr, here making some grooves with an iPad running Korg’s iMS-20 soft synth and Reason running on the MacBook Pro.

There are plenty of Arduino step sequencer projects – it’s a nice project to try – but what I especially like is that Michael’s design is really minimal, meaning it could be a good starting point for your own project. He provides full code and (via a terrific prototyping tool called Fritzing), easy-to-read, colorful schematics.

If you’ve never done this before, some basic knowledge of how to read the parts, an Arduino, and some copy-and-paste skill is all you need to get going. I’m going to set aside some time to build one myself.

SimplenZAR [Blog post documentation at Carvin' Calamari]

But while we’re on the topic – and since having step sequencers around is a terrific tool for making musical patterns with all your music gear – let’s take a quick look at what else is out there.

littlescale is a must-read for musical Arduino makings, so a good first stop. He’s got his full list of projects, including a microtonal step sequencer, seen below.

http://arduino.milkcrate.com.au/

Johan Larsby has a terrific project, complete with screen, with loads of details and source. You can build the whole thing for under $50 in parts, and his page is also a useful set of references to working with MIDI, physical controls, and the display.

Arduino Step Sequencer… ASS. Fine. Funny enough. But you lose out on bonus points for not making it a recursive acronym.

Mr Speaker goes through the process of how to construct MIDI step sequencers on Arduino in a blog post, as well.

That’s not a complete list, but now onto some fancier projects…

Steve Cooley’s beatseqr, created with Derek Scott, evolves from simple hardware “sketch” into full-blown, feature-packed sequencer, but it’s still got an Arduino (Mega) at its heart. Accordingly, Steve talks through the behind-the-scenes tech details on the Arduino forum.

And, oh yeah, it goes great with Reason. (That in turn means this and an older laptop could be a nice little groove station set up in a studio, to keep your machines out of the closet of retirement.)

Beatseqr v3 — arduino mega based step sequencer [Arduino Forum]

Official site: http://www.beatseqr.com/

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the awesome MiniCommand by Ruin & Wesen. It doesn’t in fact have an Arduino board inside, but it does use the Arduino development environment for a custom MIDI firmware framework called MIDI-CTRL. Say wha? Basically, you can use Arduino-style syntax to reprogram this little box to perform whatever MIDI magic you wish. It’s utterly insane, and perhaps a little overlooked because it’s generally associated with the Machinedrum. I’m not going to say any more now, as I know Wesen is getting some time off to work on it, and I hope to talk more about this project over the coming months.

http://ruinwesen.com/products

Result: Euclid pattern generators. (I’m working on some code that does something similar, with visualization; stay tuned while I … um, finish it, in fact.)

So there you go. If it seems overwhelming, just remember, take it one step at a time – and start with the first step. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

As I said, the place to begin is doing something like what Michael did – and you can hook up his project in a few minutes.

If you give this a try, let us know! Sounds like a fun weekend project.

Digital Trends - The slow death of Myspace continued this week with the president of Myspace Music, Courtney Holt, stepping down from his post, reports AllThingsDigital. The news of Holt’s departure comes amid rumors that Myspace parent company News Corp. has kicked off the process of selling the failing social media site.

PC World - Free streaming services are replacing piracy as the chief culprit of music industry revenue loss in the minds of fiscally frustrated executives, if a number of panel discussions at a New York digital music conference are any indication.

PC World - It's been a long time now since floppy discs and their drives were significant to file storage--not that you could store much on them anyway. They were also pretty loud to boot up in comparison to CDs and USB sticks. That said, we all still have a few floppies lying about gathering dust. If you do and want to put them to good use, try making sweet music with them instead. Wait, what?