Darkside Aleksei Brjantsev

Darkside is the live techno output of the blind martian synthesist Aleksei Brjantsev from Tartu, Estonia.

Darkside performed live with his Erica Synths eurorack, Korg SQ-1 sequencer and Synthrotek ribbon controller, Roland Tb-03 driving Korg Monotribe, Arturia DrumBrute Impact for sync and rhythmic side of things and Yamaha ReFace DX for some contrast in sound and at least one thing with keys on it.

Being blind means that the more knobs a synth has, the better it is for me.

When there are more knobs, there are fewer menus. If I have to flip through menus, I can count the button presses it takes to get to the next setting. I’m completely able to do it—but silently, not talking, with no one around. The truth is that I could do more if I weren’t blind, like not being so dependent on hardware. It isn’t intuitive to tab and arrow around the screen searching for buttons when you use software. And, unfortunately, it’s kind of a golden rule that the more professional a software package is, the less accessible it is for the blind. That’s why I’m going to integrate modular stuff into my setup pretty soon. - Aleksei commented for Telekom Electronic Beats in 2017, read the full article here