Obsolete?

Math from Pixelh8 on Vimeo.

I’m a big fan of Pixelh8 so when he announced these experimental shows I was excited and intrigued. Being more than adept in 8-bit sounds and computer wizardry, if anyone was up for the job, they had picked the right man. I had no real idea of what to expect but thought the mixture of classic war time computers and modern music geekery could go either way. As it happens it was a so so affair.

Unfortunately the show’s emphasis fell more on the computers leaving me feeling a bit lost in a sea computers rather than an actual music event. The entertainment formed a 7 part set of songs and visuals. The pieces were all made from recordings of clunks and clicks made by various items around Bletchly Park Computer Museum. This gave it a percussion heavy vibe that cried out for Pixelh8’s beautifully buzzing computer melodies and left it feeling somewhat sparse. Despite this the visuals were a delight and accompanied the pieces with a great mass of flickering animations that brought a lot of it to life.

While the pieces created work well as an experiment in Bletchley much of this type of thing has been done before. The visuals were particularly interesting but couldn’t quite make up for it.