Why We Bleep 045: Algorave/Alex McLean

Would you like to learn about a novel way to make music that's available to you right now, completely free, improvisational, and insanely powerful? Today we meet Alex McLean and discuss the magic of Algorave - aka: making improvised music onstage by writing and editing small lines of code. It’s an amazing art form and Alex is the person who coined the term ‘Algorave’, and created TidalCycles, a free program for live coding, and is a great advocate for the art form. Links below to watch performances, watch Alex’s TED talk, get access to TidalCycles and more. LISTEN OTHER WAYS ▶︎ YouTube: https://youtu.be/NUgJgCvX4Y4 THANKS TO SPONSORS: ▶︎ http://signalsounds.com ▶︎ https://www.thonk.co.uk/shop/byom/ (this is the kit I mention in the ad) SUPPORT THE PODCAST ON PATREON: ▶︎ https://www.patreon.com/mylarmelodies INTRO TO LIVECODING ▶︎ Here's a TED talk Alex did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAGjTYa95HM ▶︎ Here's a nice little Resident Advisor film about Algoravin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2EZqikCIfY ▶︎ Here's a performance Alex did which I reference in the conversation, I think it's absolutely wicked and a great example of the tools being used to sensational effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vomnc9R-7mw ▶︎ Here's ORCA, which we touch on: https://100r.co/site/orca.html ▶︎ Here's a good intro vid to ORCA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaI_TuISSJE ALEX'S LINKS Here's an uber useful list of links that Alex provided for me to share with you, if you want to learn how to livecode, try it immediately in your browser, or find a community meetup. ▶︎ Introduction to live coding music and visuals - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QY2x6aZzqc ▶︎ TidalCycles https://tidalcycles.org/ ▶︎ Try Strudel right now: https://strudel.cc/ (it's TidalCycles running in a browser without any need for installation) ▶︎ Strudel Demo by Alex: https://strudel.cc/?FRyhM9b5iLDm ▶︎ TOPLAP - the home of live coding https://blog.toplap.org/ ▶︎ List of local live coding communities https://blog.toplap.org/nodes/ ▶︎ Pattern Club Sheffield - https://patternclub.org/sheffield/ ▶︎ 'Eulerroom' channel with loads of archived live coding streams: https://www.youtube.com/eulerroom ▶︎ Alex's algorithmic pattern project https://algorithmicpattern.org/ ▶︎ Comprehensive list of live coding links https://github.com/toplap/awesome-livecoding ▶︎ Alex's blog https://slab.org/ ▶︎ The nonprofit Alex works as part of https://thentrythis.org/