The Vancouver based artist and composer shares music sequenced using software created by Laurie Spiegel and an accompanying video by animator Spogelsesmaskinen
Composer Kristen Roos came across Laurie Speigel's Music Mouse program for Macintosh on eBay in 2019. After purchasing the floppy disc, Roos experimented with the program, emailing its creator along the way. This track, take from Roos's album Universal Synthesizer Interface Vol II, is “defined by using Music Mouse as a MIDI sequencer on a Macintosh Plus,” he explains over email. “It was an exercise in legato and staccato playing, to create variation in the repetitive sequence used throughout the piece. All of the instruments and sounds were kept in keeping with the era of algorithmic MIDI sequencing software featured on the album; a combination of 1980s drum machines, an archive of historical FM synthesis SysEx files for the Yamaha DX-7, and analog synthesizers with MIDI capabilities from this era.”
The video for “Music Mouse I” was created by Rune Brink Hansen, aka Spogelsesmaskinen. “There is a fantastical element to his work,” says Roos, “where vintage screens often become portals to other dimensions. It features a tracking shot through a suburban village landscape that gets taken over by Macintosh icons. It transitions from the black and white dithering that was characteristic of early Macintosh computers, to colour animation reminiscent of early 3D animation.”
Read Robert Barry's interview with Kristen Roos in The Wire 472. Wire subscribers can also read the article online via the digital library.
