[Liz Revision with Kero at Debonair 02-28-08]

1. Dimitri Debaka: “Happiness” Happiness [Time Has Changed]
2. Mason: “Quarter – The Subs Remix” Quarter [Great Stuff]
3. Dandi & Ugo, Piatto: “Cicchetti” Bored in Winter [Italo Business]
4. Three Drives: “Greece 2000 – Gustavo Bravetti Remix” Greece 2000 – The Wasted Reworks [Wasted]
5. Jeff Samuel: “Lost” Lost [Trapez]
6. Bastian Knop: “Skip This” Skip This / Flirtline [OWLintim]
7. Gui Boratto: “Beautiful Life” Chromophobia Remixe Pt. 2 [Kompakt]
8. Moritz Piske: “Slipless in Seattle – Matt Stars Slipfunk in Scattle Mashup” Slipless in Seattle [Opossum Recordings]

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I’m featured on the cover of the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye today–it’s a free magazine for a feature about geek girls, and especially those in Chicago.

“Geek Chic: New generation of women embracing inner geek” [via the RedEye]

If dissassembling computers is geeky and making jewelry is girly, then Liz McLean Knight has found geek-girl nirvana. From her Wicker Park office, Knight, 30, runs a line of accessories make from computer components and sells the “fashionably-geek hipster gear” on a Web site she created, fractalspin.com.

There you’ll find necklaces made from capacitors. Handbags made of diskettes. Cufflinks made from microcontrollers. Woot! Those wrist cuffs made of MIDI cable are super neat!

During Yuri’s Night in San Francisco you will have the opportunity to win a Tenori-On if you can create the most futuristic digital music interface / instrument (PS: The lineup is a veritable who’s who of contemporary, forward thinking electronic musicians: Amon Tobin, Tipper, John Tejada, Lusine, Scuba, Digitonal vs. Posthuman, [a]pendics.shuffle, Deru, Tycho, Mr. Projectile, Dr. Toast and Ganucheau).

Musicians have led many of the most innovative digital technological breakthroughs — the first digital synthesizer (at Bell Labs in the 50s), breakthroughs in modular electronic systems (modular synthesizers of the 60s), pioneering advances in digital storage and processing, unusual wireless interfaces and gestural controls decades ahead of the Nintendo Wii, and touch- and multi-touch tools years before the iPhone and Microsoft Surface.

But that’s all in the past. This is a design challenge for the future. We want to hear the best, most forward-thinking, generally coolest, Second Space Age-worthy instruments and digital music interfaces. If aliens land — as they did when met by a classic ARP synthesizer in Close Encounters — we want to be able to give them a great show.

Need extra incentive? The grand prize winner will take home a Yamaha Tenori-On.

How to enter

We’re looking for designs of “instruments” — whether self-contained, electrically-powered devices or hardware interfaces for computers. That can include tangible interfaces, physical computing, hacked hardware, custom-built synths and electronics, and other gadgets. These must use at least some custom software and/or hardware.

You are limited to one computer and one input device — but the “input device” can be as complex as an interactive table. If that sounds vague, just remember — ultimately, the judges and audience decide. Wow them, and all will be well.

Enter the Futuristic Music Design Challenge at Create Digital Music

Thursday, March 27, 2008 @ Debonair Social Club
1575 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago IL
9pm – 2am, 21+, $0
(773) 227-7990

Noah Pred (New Kanada, Thoughtless Music) and Eric Downer (Thoughtless Music, Fukhouse) from Toronto DJ at Ramp Chicago’s night at Debonair Social Club in their very first Chicago performance.

Resident DJ Liz Revision supports alongside resident VJ Spiderback and his special guest Amputeenie. Expect a mix of glitched-out IDM, edgy ambient, minimal techno and tech house.

Noa Pred Live Set
Noah Pred DJ Set

Old school meets new school when Toronto scene builders Noah Pred and Eric Downer perform at Ramp Chicago’s night at Debonair Social Club. With a recent full length techno release on New Kanada, Ecocosm, Noah Pred holds down a residency with the Fukhouse crew and runs the Thoughtless Music and Sentient Sound labels. Eric Downer has been a force within the
Toronto scene producing numerous events and helping to bring a larger international presence to the already cosmopolitan city.

Through his releases on New Kanada, Throughtless and Sentient Noah Pred has quickly established himself as one of Canada’s rising stars in the international electronic music scene. Having performed alongside diverse artists like Funk D’Void, James Holden and Mathew Jonson he comes to us fresh from a tour of Europe and the Canadian West coast for his very ?rst Chicago performance.

Eric Downer has been a presence in what’s come to be known as the second wave of Detroit techno since its inception. He has performed alongside Richie Hawtin at some of the earliest Plus8 parties in both Detroit and Toronto and has contiued to play a major role in Torornto’s techno community holding down residencies and putting on events at Sensor, Footwork, 99 Sudbury, Guvernment as part of the Fukhouse crew. Recently Downer has begun producing his own tracks on the Thoughtless Label that he runs with Noah Pred.

All of Ramp’s residents are original content producers while being skilled at manipulating work in the live environment. Liz Revision chooses between glitchy minimal techno and melodic IDM. Resident VJ Spiderback mixes his own visual material live in response to the music, and has invited Amputeenie to share video mixing duties.

Ramp Chicago promotes and organizes forward-thinking electronic music events that focus on innovation in sound and video. Devoted to live and interesting electronic music that takes a path somewhere between the dance ?oor and your headphones, Ramp continues to bring in artists that straddle genres and take chances. www.rampchicago.com
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So I’m engaged to Andrew Lochhead. It’s pretty great. We’ve decided to get married this year during the Movement 2008 festival in Detroit at a nice little island in the river between Detroit and Windsor, since he’s Canadian and I’m a US Citizen. We’ll have the reception at a party space somewhere in Detroit that will be open to everyone, and then move on to one of the post-Movement afterparties. After spending the next fews days at the festival we’ll go on our honeymoon in Montreal to take in Mutek.

It couldn’t be more perfect.

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