"The explanation is the music."
March 31, 2015 2:38 AM   Subscribe

Electronic musician Charles Cohen is interviewed for this year's Festival Présences Électronique in Paris, which follows with a roughly ten-minute clip of him performing (previously and more previously)
posted by a lungful of dragon (7 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
Ahhhh thank you for this!!! I will go check out more of his stuff.
posted by Theta States at 6:49 AM on March 31, 2015


Any idea what he's using to perform?
posted by dowcrag at 6:59 AM on March 31, 2015


Aaah. It's part of the Buchla music easel referenced in the other links.
posted by dowcrag at 7:01 AM on March 31, 2015


He's wonderful. dowcrag, here's another video with a slightly better view of the synth.
posted by erebora at 7:06 AM on March 31, 2015


Soo pleasing. Someone should make an ipad simulation of the Buchla music easel.
posted by umbú at 12:00 PM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]


I chime in on every mention of Charles Cohen to say that my musical life is divided neatly into before I sat with him in a plastic bubble in the wee hours in Pennington, New Jersey and after I sat with him in a plastic bubble in the wee hours in Pennington, New Jersey, so consider this my chime. Explaining virtuosity that one can achieve with a single, singular electronic instrument can be summed up by a video of him playing with his well-loved, somewhat modified and augmented, Buchla Music Easel.

You can, at present, buy a new Buchla Music Easel for roughly four thousand dollars, but you should not. Partly that's because BEMI are doing bad things to Don Buchla, but mostly it's because the way to best be influenced by Charles Cohen is to pick an instrument that speaks to you and then play it and play it and play it until it is as natural to you as an appendage. The Music Easel is a surprisingly limited instrument—it's the touch that's magic, and the man.
posted by sonascope at 3:25 PM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]


Played a show with him in Philly a few years ago. Good, good guy (his music isn't my thing, but them's the breaks).
posted by Joseph Gurl at 8:57 PM on March 31, 2015


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