Main Event
9 PM – 11 PM

A carefully structured journey through a distinct genre, showcasing handpicked selections from the most forward-thinking underground artists.

After Hours
11 PM – Late

A selection of the most groove-infused, high-energy tracks from the featured artists, maintaining a vibrant and dynamic atmosphere deep into the night.

Each Saturday unfolds in two phases:

::::::      HOUSE RULES
Respect the Sound: No loud conversations near the speakers. Mindful Photography: No flash. Experience the moment. Fluid Energy: Move intuitively. No forced crowding. Sonic Priority: The music leads, everything else follows. Refined Cocktails: Enjoy handcrafted drinks curated to enhance the listening experience.

~ PRIOR RESERVATION MANDATORY ~

Celebrating precision in sound and sonic purity, where each Saturday explores the finer details of music production, texture, and rhythm.

The selections focus on spatial awareness, intricate sound design, and hypnotic arrangements that elevate the listening experience.

:::::

Modular Minds:
A Map of Sonic Frequencies 

Modular isn’t a genre. It’s a process—a logic, a language, a feedback system where sound engineers, composers, and conceptual artists meet at a circuit-level communion. In this space, genre evaporates. Rave and reductionism share patch cables. Rhythms decompose into voltage. The artists below don’t “use modulars.” They think through them.

This is LÉTO’s attempt to chart a coherent map of these minds: the most significant, forward-pushing modular synthesizer artists in the world—past, present, and signal-propagating. From Charanjit Singh to Alva Noto, Autechre to Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, this is not a genre taxonomy. This is a live frequency map.

It begins in the shadows of electricity—where the first voltage-controlled oscillators were spiritual tools disguised as lab instruments.

Pre-Modular Forerunners

Before the Eurorack boom and Doepfer normalization, modular composition was wild, isolated, and ritualistic. Charanjit Singh, armed with a TB-303, TR-808 and Jupiter-8 in 1982 Mumbai, recorded Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, now considered the accidental birth of acid house. But this wasn’t imitation—it was synthesis: classical Indian ragas transformed into sequenced pulses, decades before their time.

Equally influential were composers like Eliane Radigue, whose feedback-based meditative works on the ARP 2500 foreshadowed minimalism’s deepest veins. Trilogie de la Mort isn’t music—it’s breath-structured voltage meditation.

These artists didn’t play genres. They played electricity.

Berlin Systems: Rhythm as Architecture

From the 1990s onward, Berlin became a central node in modular thought. Monolake (Robert Henke) turned granular synthesis and Max/MSP into techno’s skeleton, building a rhythmic architecture inspired by delay lines and dub echo chambers. His work co-designed Ableton Live, fundamentally modularizing DAW-based production.

His peer, Alva Noto, built minimalist electronic blueprints—his glitch textures on Raster-Noton stem from mathematical reduction, granular coding, and modularity as structure, not just sound. Collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto—like Vrioon and Summvs—are perhaps the purest form of modular composition-as-conversation.

Atom™, formerly known as Señor Coconut, Laserdance, and Uwe Schmidt among other aliases, deconstructs Latin rhythms and reconstructs them with digital clock precision. His album HD is both tongue-in-cheek pop and structural glitch masterpiece—modular as satirical language.

The Post-Genre Thinkers

Jan Jelinek might be better known for sample-based ambient and microhouse, but his work with the Faitiche label and groups like Groupshow embrace improvisational modular techniques.

Vladislav Delay (Sasu Ripatti) conjures dubbed-out noise from complex chains of hardware and feedback. His releases like Whistleblower and Entain read like psychoacoustic studies in rhythm decay.

Kangding Ray, with albums like Solens Arc, brings industrial, architectural tension to the modular format—using hardware to collapse techno into irregular geometries. He’s emblematic of the post-raster generation: not emulating software, but bending it through voltage.

Emptyset turns brutalist structures into raw waveform sculpture. Their performances often incorporate transducers hitting physical objects, transforming architecture into resonance. Modular becomes physical—literally.

Emergent Spiritual Mechanics

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s work with the Buchla Music Easel makes lush, generative music sound effortless. But behind it lies complex control voltages, West Coast synthesis, and biomimicry. Her albums like EARS and The Kid simulate growth and evolution.

Suzanne Ciani, pioneer of modular sound design and Buchla systems, returned to live modular performance with recordings like LIVE Quadraphonic. She doesn’t play songs. She sculpts events.

Lisa Bella Donna merges kosmische with Appalachian mysticism, building expansive sonic rituals using Moog systems. Her releases and YouTube live patches are a modular synthesis masterclass.

Adaptive Systems, Game Worlds & Audio Fiction

Modular’s future isn’t on stage. It’s in systems: games, adaptive environments, and procedural sound.

Ben Frost builds sonic dread using modular feedback and contact mic recordings. His work on Dark (Netflix) and Fortitude demonstrates modular as cinematic tension machine.

Deadmau5 famously integrates Eurorack into EDM performance, but deeper dives into his live builds show modular acting as a spontaneous composition assistant, not gimmick.

Colin Benders, once a jazz trumpet prodigy, now performs raw techno using modular rigs—no DAW. His Twitch channel is a real-time modular sketchbook.

Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never), though more sampler- and synth-based, adapts modular concepts into fractured narrative albums like Age Of. His Myriad performances extend modular storytelling into vaporwave opera.

Rituals, Listening and Extended Patches

To truly understand modular minds, one must listen differently. Not for drops.
Not for hooks.
But for signal behavior.

Monolake – “Alaska” for rhythmic architecture

Eliane Radigue – “Kyema” for feedback meditation

Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto – “By This River” for waveform intimacy

Emptyset – “Borders” for architectural distortion

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – “An Intention” for biological oscillation

Lisa Bella Donna – Live Sessions for patch walkthroughs

Colin Benders – Modular Improvs for real-time complexity

Brands, Tools, & Conceptual Instruments

This map would be incomplete without mentioning the machines themselves—because in modular, gear is thought.

Buchla: West Coast philosophy, non-linear control, pioneered by Don Buchla.

Make Noise: Tony Rolando’s Asheville-based company pushing experimental workflows (e.g. Morphagene, Maths).

Mutable Instruments: Now closed, but modules like Clouds, Rings, and Marbles redefined granular performance.

Doepfer: Inventors of Eurorack, now standard format for modular.

Intellijel: Precision tools bridging digital control and analog warmth.

Noise Engineering: Latin-named chaos generators for techno-minded modularists.

Closing Signal

Modular synthesis isn’t a secret society—it’s a language of attention. A way to listen, organize, and compose with systems instead of structures. From Singh’s accidental acid to Emptyset’s sonic concrete, from Ciani’s quadraphonic oceans to Monolake’s time-scaffolds, this isn’t about nostalgia or novelty.

It’s about frequencies. And the minds that patch them.

—LÉTO