Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

An alcoholic but tenacious Flight Attendant

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As explained on IMDb, The Flight Attendant is the story of “a reckless flight attendant with alcoholism wakes up in the wrong hotel, in bed with a dead man, and no idea what happened. Unable to piece the night together she begins to wonder if she could be the killer.”

Christina and I finished the TV show a week ago and we liked it a lot. Kaley Cuoco who plays the flight attendant is a very good actress with a great range. We discovered her in The Big Bang Theory as Penny.

In the show, Cassie Bowden, the flight attendant, has some serious daddy issues. His dad, Hank Bowden (by Jason Jones), was an alcoholic and so is she. She started to drink when she was just a young Cassie (played by Audrey Grace Marshall).

Cassie meets Alex Sokolov (by Michiel Huisman) on a flight and they spend the night together. The next morning, Cassie wakes up with a dead Alex.

With her flight attendant / international spy friend Megan Briscoe (by Rosie Perez) as well as CIA agents Shane Evans (by Griffin Matthews) and Benjamin Berry (by Mo McRae), Cassie does her best to find the killer(s). They are not so helpful.

Fortunately, Cassie can count on her best friend Annie Mouradian (by Zosia Mamet), a formidable cursing lawyer, and Max Park (by Deniz Akdeniz), Annie’s “fiancé”, to help her in her quest. They are way more reliable than any international or local spy…

The main baddies in the TV show are Miranda Croft (by Michelle Gomez) and Buckley Ware / Feliks (by Colin Woodell) and, of course, I won’t reveal what happens to them.

Peter Gordeno’s and Martin Gore’s keyboard setup during the Memento Mori tour

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On 4 June 2023, I finally saw Depeche Mode live! I was was with Christina and Kyan (Anya couldn’t make it because of her exams) and we were in Düsseldorf in Germany with our German friends for the Memento Mori tour. Here are photos we took of this unique memory.

On that day, Peter Gordeno had three keyboards in front of him:

  • Top left: An Oberheim OB-X8 that brings back the analogue sounds of the Oberheim OB-X, OB-Xa and OB-8. According to SoundOnSound, “[the OB-X8 has the] 12dB/oct [2-pole] SEM‑style OB‑X filter and both the 12dB/oct [2-pole] and 24dB/oct [4-pole] modes of the CEM3320‑based OB‑Xa and OB‑8 filters are available.” for the iconic “Oberheim Growl”. Most people don’t know but I fell in love with synthesizers, not by listening to them, but by looking at the photo of a OB-Xa when I was a kid.
  • Right: A Moog Minimoog Voyager XL released in 2010 for the 40th anniversary of the original Minimoog Model D. It is an expanded Moog Minimoog Voyager and is considered to be the ultimate Minimoog. So, the iconic “Moog Bass” is also covered.
  • Bottom left: A Roland RD-2000 stage piano which has two independent sound engines (V-Piano Modeling for piano sounds and SuperNATURAL for “everything from tone wheel organs, modern and vintage synths, and other keyboard instruments to orchestral strings and brass, world instruments, and more.”

The “Oberheim Growl”, the “Moog Bass” and the Roland V-Piano and SuperNATURAL sounds (and, possibly, other sound sounds). Everything seems to be covered.

Interestingly, Martin Gore has a much simpler setup, a pair of Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S61 MK2 released in 2017 and an iPad. The S61 are used to trigger and control a massive library of soft synths and samples managed off-stage by the musical director, Kerry Hopwood. This relatively simple setup gives Martin Gore immediate access to the entire history of Depeche Mode’s digital sound palette in a streamlined, modern package.

Thank you to Steve Jennings for the photos and very interesting details on the technical aspects of the tour setup in Front of House magazine.

It’s time for Christina and I to watch Depeche Mode: M, the live Memento Mori concert film which “weaves Depeche Mode’s 2023 Mexico City performances with segments examining music, mortality, and Mexican death traditions.”

Some of the secrets of Marta Salogni

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I am a big fan of Depeche Mode and we managed to go to Germany three years ago to see them live at their Memento Mori concert, which is actually the name of their last album.

This interesting article is an interview of Marta Salogni who was initially the mixing engineer for Memento Mori, James Ford being the main producer, but she also contributed in the production, recording and writing.

She shares some of her secrets, including her innovative use of analogue tape.