Hacker uses LEGO to make acid house music

 

 

Using off-the-shelf LEGO Technic pieces, Coder and musician Alex Allmont built the "Play House" machine to play trippily hypnotic acid house tunes.

 

"For the past few years I have been experimenting with rhythm, including developing a number of LEGO musical machines. For years I have been using LEGO to prototype ideas, but I had started to use it as a material to put work in context. In particular, my more recent ideas work on getting lost in a youthful creative process whilst riffing off more mature themes, structures and sounds. My proposal was to develop Play House, an automaton that would churn out mesmerising acid house — not the white-gloves-and-whistles sort of acid house, but the more spatial stuff, inspired by artists like Plastikman and Basic Channel," Allmont said on Makezine.com.

 

He said his plan was to play the tunes out loud on speakers and draw the audience into a room "where they could explore the minutiae of the musical and mechanical structures."

 

LEGO components were extensively used in the contraption, as shown in the videos he posted online.

 

A separate article on Wired.com said the "Play House" system is spread out across a small tabletop, and triggers sampled drums and digital notes based on those of the Roland TB303.

 

Wired.com noted the Roland TB303 was the synthesizer whose bass gave rise to acid house in the 1980s. — TJD, GMA News