Metal Blade Records | MASTER BOOT RECORD - RAM @metalbladerecords | Uploaded September 2024 | Updated October 2024, 5 minutes ago.
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FROM "HARDWAREZ"
OUT ON OCTOBER 11 ON METAL BLADE RECORDS

C:\HARDWAREZ\TOUR.EXE
TICKETS HTTPS://MBRSERVER.COM
25 Sep - US - San Diego, CA - Soda Bar
26 Sep - US - Costa Mesa, CA - The Wayfarer
27 Sep - US - San Jose, CA - MagWest
01 Oct - US - Portland, OR - Star Theater
02 Oct - CA - Vancouver, BC - The Pearl
03 Oct - US - Seattle, WA - Substation
08 Oct - US - Mesa, AZ - The Nile Theater
09 Oct - US - Los Angeles, CA - Teragram Ballroom
12 Oct - CA - Quebec City, QC - Hackfest
18 Oct - FR - Marseille - Le Molotov
19 Oct - FR - Paris - Backstage By The Mill
20 Oct - FR - Nantes - Le Ferrailleur
22 Oct - UK - London - Academy 2
23 Oct - UK - Manchester - Satans Hollow
24 Oct - UK - Glasgow - Cathouse
26 Oct - IR - Dublin - Grand Social
28 Oct - UK - Bristol - Exchange
30 Oct - NL - Eindhoven - Effenaar
31 Oct - NL - Amsterdam - Melkweg
02 Nov - DE - Cologne - Club Volta
03 Nov - NL - Leeuwarden - Neushoorn
04 Nov - DE - Hamburg - Logo
06 Nov - DK - Copenhagen - Stengade
07 Nov - SE - Gothenburg - Valand
08 Nov - NO - Oslo - Goldie
09 Nov - SE - Stockholm - Kollektivet Livet
11 Nov - PL - Wroclaw - Lacznick
12 Nov - DE - Berlin - Gretchen
13 Nov - DE - Dresden - Chemiefabrik
14 Nov - CZ - Prague - Cross Club
15 Nov - CZ - Brno - Kabinet Muz
16 Nov - HU - Budapest - Turbina
17 Nov - AT - Vienna - Szene
18 Nov - CH - Monthey - Pont Rouge
19 Nov - CH - Zurich - Exil

Pixel art animation by instagram.com/kirokaze

SPREAD THE CODE

To create Hardwarez, the technologist worked by live streaming his desktop on YouTube while composing new music. Everything is programmed via MIDI. "The very first song I wrote is actually also the first single, "CPU," he says. "Even though the other songs on the album have a quite different style, the type of riffing and the different melodic section of this track worked as a base to upgrade the sound before moving forward." "CPU" is also where Love decided to test the real guitar overdubs and was inspired by the results.

"With every album I've upgraded bits of the sounds, adding new layers," he says. "In Hardwarez the core sounds for synth guitars, leads and pads are still those that constitute the trademark MBR sound, but what makes this album very different is the addition of guitar overdubs that play along synth guitars for both the rhythmic and solo sections."

Intensive touring augmented with live musicians helped Love to make the decision to include real guitars to achieve a massive sound and boost the enhanced frequency spectrum of the instrument. "On this record there are a lot of heavy riffs with palm muting and my lead guitarist Shreddy recorded most of those leads and solos as well playing in unison with synth leads and adding extra energy to them."

The album title merges the term "Hardware" with "warez," also known as The Scene, more commonly known as the scene of cracks and pirated software which has been influential to Love in terms of crack and keygen music. While Love also organically began listening to electronic music, acid techno, industrial and synth pop, he also grew up in the '90s through all the grunge, nu-metal and industrial scene.

Old-school metal as well as '80s and '90s movies and video games -- and music from these -- also play a role in Love's musical DNA. His years of music and computer fanaticism is all manifested in MASTER BOOT RECORD and Hardwarez. "What I'm doing with this album and to an extent with previous ones, is to mix the sounds of cracks, keygen, demoscene and video game-inspired chiptune with heavy metal and classical music using hardware and computers to produce it."

Additionally, Love explains, "Computers in general, old and new as well as hardware or software since 1986 until now, have been a huge influence on me and MBR. I grew up through all of it because my father had a computer shop in the early days. I've been dealing with all those manuals, learning how to make each of these new devices work, be it motherboards, graphic cards, mouses, scanners, CD-burners or webcams, you name it. I've seen it all in all possible variations."

Yet Love doesn't necessarily think that everything old school is necessarily better. MBR's music is produced through the most advanced technologies in audio production while the concept at its basis is to limit the framework to a specific set of sounds. The goal and result boosts creativity and define the sound of the project. Live, that duality continues. Cutting-edge tech is used next to a Commodore 64 and Amiga 500 that Love uses onstage to play some parts live. MBR utilize video projections, but also bring CRT monitors, preferring cathode TV's vibrancy to LCD monitors.

"With this album the 486DX-33MHz-64MB becomes sentient through human augmentation", Love says, concluding, "For we may become better humans with their help, but machines still need us to shine."