Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 177

Radio

WheneveR I visit my fAmily I listen for which olD song from the area Ill hear that best encapsulates the lOcale, the culture

Everything Merges

Tiān by Jeannine Schulz

Jeannine Schulz had a prolific 2020, and while her most recent record dates back to the end of July, coming up on two months ago, there’s little reason to worry about a longer pause ahead. That was the brief Tiān, following shortly on When Fragments Align, both of which were self-released, and, back a bit further in March, Luminous, which came out on the Polar Seas label. Tiān, like Fragments before it, expresses a welcome expansion of the held-shutter, soft-focus, deep-field ambient music that Schulz has produced over the past couple years. It introduces light but certain textures, actual percussive elements that set and keep a pace. How those sounds, notably in the singsong “Xīn,” merge with the backing sound field, how their presence gently pushes the haze to the rear without formally drawing a line, is part of Schulz’s considered compositional accomplishment. A simple delay on a secondary pulse echoes into the distance, merging beat with atmosphere.

Schulz is based in Hamburg, Germany. Album released at jeannineschulz.bandcamp.com.

Yes, You Want to Listen to Bowed Glockenspiel

Bowed Glockenspiel sample set by Lullatone

While it’s true that I think the internet excels especially at works in progress, where the audience can witness the given musician’s process, it remains also the case that work considered (merely? purely? solely?) raw material can be an end unto itself. Which is to say that while the best listening to recorded music is often when it isn’t even done, often the very best listening is the stuff that exists before the music-making can be said to have begun. Which is to say, some sample sets are listenable until themselves.

The material in the new sample set from Japan-based act Lullatone, all bowed glockenspiel, is a fine example. Just listen the pristine, soaring, organ-like beauty of the sample. And then, of course, try out the cooked versions, four reworkings of the source audio: ambient, distorted, granularized, and “reverse reverb.”

Set first released at lullatonesamplesets.bandcamp.com.

Fog

Dunno know iF the marine layer dOes anythinG to muffle sound,but it seems to

twitter.com/disquiet: Doorbells, 9/11, DAWless

I do this manually each Saturday, collating recent tweets I made at twitter.com/disquiet, which I think of as my public notebook. Some tweets pop up in expanded form or otherwise on Disquiet.com sooner. It’s personally informative to revisit the previous week of thinking out loud.

▰ Music theory keeps you young. In music theory years, I am at best a first grader.

▰ The doorbell died after years of me writing about doorbells. Which I’ll write about more later. Main thing: shoddy temp replacement while I waited for actual replacement. Concern: when the new doorbell arrives, I won’t know. But: UPS just phoned from outside the front door. Whew.

▰ Currently immersed in un-ASMR: working inside a building the outside of which is being prepped for painting thanks to vast amounts of scraping, scratching, and knocking.

▰ I was in Golden Gate Park reading a novel on a park bench, and I thought someone was playing an Eric Dolphy album nearby. Turned out it was one of those tiny motorized toy boats on Spreckels Lake. The thing, less than a foot long, had capsized and its engine was churning away.

▰ The next to last concert I attended pre-pandemic, I mentioned, in passing, the concept of “DAWless” to a musician in their early 60s, and they laughed out loud. I cherish that laugh. Its memory has kept me company.

▰ In the Echo of No Towers: On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I spoke with Stephen Vitiello about his World Trade Center tapes. It’s informative that the audio’s from Hurricane Floyd, climate issues having received far less investment than the war on terror.

▰ First concert I attended after 9/11 was Alex Chilton, I think the Friday following. This was in New Orleans, where he and I both lived at the time. The concert was sparsely attended. Even a hint of police car lights bleeding in from the street made clear how on edge everyone was.

▰ “You have to see Heat.” Says David Costabile’s louche-bro, Wags. Glad that Billions is back at its game. As with Unforgotten, it’s both distracting and comforting (stars: they’re just like us) to watch so many of scenes set with the actors socially distanced from each other.

▰ Reminiscence: Come for the prestige TV Philip K. Dick / Kim Stanley Robinson mashup; stay for the sound design as a grand piano slowly descends through the ceiling into a massive, fully submerged concert hall.

▰ Found some old, unwatched Elementary episodes on the DVR to fill time during Wednesday night’s region-wide internet outage. Just glad I’d caught the evening’s What If…? episode about the zombie apocalypse before this actual apocalypse arrived.

▰ “I was forest bathing and I mistook you for a creek.” The soft-spoken Carmel (Regina Hall) to Tony (Bobby Cannavale), whom she’s stumbled upon peeing onto a giant tree in the first episode of Nine Perfect Strangers.

▰ I’ve realized the reason playing “All of Me” is like eating potato chips is because it starts on C and ends on a B, which you naturally bring back to a C and then you start over again, and you realize your haven’t even eaten your lunch on your lunch break so you eat potato chips.

In related news, as of today’s lunch break I can play “All of Me” on guitar with my eyes closed, which is me always planning for some potential (distant!) future when, you know, one’s eyes might no longer work.

▰ What could be more ambient than muting the word ambient for a few days

▰ And on that note, have a great weekend. I have a heap of work to complete before day’s end, and zero plans this weekend, the best sort of plan some weekends.

Listen to TV captions.

Cook by ear.

Use noise cancellation as the mobile sensory deprivation tank that it is.

Three Takeyuki Hakozaki Videos

These three videos have footage of the installations that led to each of the three tracks on What Comes After, the Takeyuki Hakozaki album I wrote about earlier this week.

This is “Air,” with the fans and tuned guitars:

And this is “Magnetic,” with the tape rubbing along the guitar strings:

And this is “Complex,” for loops and synthesizer:

Disquiet Junto Project 0506: Wipe Out

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, September 13, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, September 9, 2021.

These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):

Disquiet Junto Project 0506: Wipe OutThe Assignment: Take something whole and erase half of it.

Step 1: Take an existing recording of a piece of music, preferably something of your own.

Step 2: Remove half of the track (however you might define half), and in the process create a new version of the original, or something entirely new, or something in between.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0506” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0506” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of a project playlist.

Step 3: Upload your tracks. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your tracks.

Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0506-wipe-out/

Step 5: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #DisquietJunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.

Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Note: Please post one track per weekly Junto project. If you choose to post more than one, and do so on SoundCloud, please let me know which you’d like added to the playlist. Thanks.

Additional Details:

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, September 13, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, September 9, 2021.

Length: The length of your finished track is up to you. It might be best if it’s the same length as the original.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0506” in the title of the tracks, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Upload: When participating in this project, be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.

Download: It is always best to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).

For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:

More on this 506th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Wipe Out (The Assignment: Take something whole and erase half of it) — at: https://disquiet.com/0506/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0506-wipe-out/

There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to marc@disquiet.com for Slack inclusion.

The image associated with this project is by Emma Craig, and used thanks to Flickr and a Creative Commons license allowing editing (cropped with text added) for non-commercial purposes:

https://flic.kr/p/xBs5JS

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

Sound Ledger¹ (Culture of Noise, Voices of Narwhals)

71.4: The percentage of Sheffield, England, residents stating a preference for birdsong “coming into their living area from outside”

17.5: The percentage of Beijing, China, residents stating a preference for birdsong “coming into their living area from outside (music was preferred, at 60%).

500: The potential percentage growth of vessel noise in the Canadian Arctic in the next few years

▰ ▰ ▰

¹Footnotes: Sheffield + Beijing: bloomberg.com. Arctic: newyorker.com.

Originally published in the September 6, 2021, edition of the This Week in Sound email newsletter (tinyletter.com/disquiet).

This Week in Sound: Field Recording, the Video Game

These sound-studies highlights of the week are lightly adapted from the September 6, 2021, issue of the free Disquiet.com weekly email newsletter This Week in Sound (tinyletter.com/disquiet).

As always, if you find sonic news of interest, please share it with me, and (except with the most widespread of news items) I’ll credit you should I mention it here.

▰ There’s a new video game coming out about field recording. It’s called Season, and based on various reports it seems to involve a protagonist “creating ‘a time capsule’ and deciding ‘what would capture the spirit’ of this world.” Despite the soothing premise, it has a dramatic backdrop involving, perhaps, some sort of “world-ending event” that sets the field recordist’s task in motion. PlayStation announced the game in December 2020. It’s being developed by the Scavengers Studio, based in Montréal, Québec.
https://happymag.tv/season-field-recording-game/
https://blog.playstation.com/2020/12/10/introducing-season-a-game-about-capturing-that-fleeting-moment/
https://www.play-season.com/

▰ Pilita Clark in the Financial Times decries the use of voice recognition software “to allegedly predict good recruits,” pointing to it as an example of algorithmic overkill in modern hiring.
https://www.ft.com/content/85278dcc-fed1-4c44-90e6-bceed6828c41

▰ “Among the important facts would be the nature of the clip, the purpose of the use, the intention of the creator and the user, and the perception, actual reliance and reasonableness of reliance of the listener.” A laywer breaks down some of the factors to consider in light of the rise of audio deepfakes. The author is Katherine B. Forrest, a former U.S. District Judge in New York and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General with the U.S. Department of Justice.
https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2021/08/30/hearing-voices-from-beyond-the-grave-emerging-uses-of-deepfakes/

▰ A bird appropriately named Echo at a Sydney zoo has taken to imitating, with eerie and alarming accuracy, the sound of crying babies. The lyrebird, a resident of Taronga Zoo, apparently can also do a solid rendition of the “evacuation now” announcement, too. (Via Lawrence English)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/02/targona-zoo-lyrebird-perfectly-mimics-the-ear-splitting-wail-of-a-crying-baby

▰ What the Arctic loses in ice it gains in shipping traffic, and what it gains in shipping traffic it seems prone to lose in sea life. Marguerite Holloway explores how noise pollution has led narwhals to cease making noises themselves. “That is a very worrisome trend, of course,” says Susanna Blackwell, a marine-mammal-acoustics expert, “because that means that these long-distance communicators can’t hear each other any longer.”
https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-acoustic-lives-of-narwhals

▰ “In place of the tendency to fixate on the quantity of sound in our environment,” writes Feargus O’Sullivan, “we should think a lot more about its quality.” The article is an overview of how the “soundscape” approach to urban planning judges factors beyond merely decibel levels. “There’s no consensus about the types of sounds that are intrusive, either. Research comparing the U.K. with China and Taiwan has found marked differences. When residents of Sheffield, England, were asked which sounds they preferred coming into their living area from outside, 71.4% of respondents chose birdsong and no one chose music. When the same question was posed to residents of Beijing, 60% chose music first and only 17.5% chose birdsong.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2021-covid-city-noise/

▰ “Environmental researchers warned about the damage that noise pollution is causing in natural areas due to ecotourism and recreation activities (such as electronic music parties) that are being carried out in the jungles of Quintana Roo.” The article quotes a Dr. Yann Hénaut, of El Colegio de la Frontera Sur.
https://www.theyucatantimes.com/2021/08/noise-pollution-is-killing-birds-and-mammals-in-quintana-roo/

▰ Amazon has updated its Echo devices to recognize high background sounds, and compensate accordingly. “The feature gives Alexa the ability to respond to questions at a higher volume when loud background noise is detected,” writes Molly Price. “It’s a handy option that is surprisingly late to the game, given that Alexa has known how to whisper for some time now.”
https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/how-to-use-alexa-adaptive-volume-on-your-amazon-echo/

▰ Abner Li lays out potential Google Assistant technology that might bypass the need to say “OK, Google.” Ankit Banerjee checks in about potential privacy concerns.
https://9to5google.com/2021/09/01/google-assistant-quick-phrases/
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-assistant-ok-google-optional-2745962/

▰ Apple has acquired a company called Primephonic, a streaming service focused on classical music.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashadgrove/2021/09/06/apple-announces-its-acquisition-of-primephonic-a-classical-music-streaming-service/

▰ “The steep climb to commercializing voice” is pondered by Ken Sutton, CEO and co-founder of Yobe, an AI/voice software company. Yobe refers to this as “the cocktail party problem”
https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/03/the-cocktail-party-problem-why-voice-tech-isnt-truly-useful-yet/

▰ The folks at Nintendo Life discuss their favorite “isn’t-quite-music” sounds from video games. Winners include the Metroid Prime Trilogy, Super Mario World, Super Mario Sunshine, and Resident Evil 4, among others.
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/09/talkingpointwhatsthebestsoundinvideogames

The Art of Drones

What Comes After by Takeyuki Hakozaki

What Comes After is the perfect title for a collection of tracks that are, themselves, the sonic byproduct of art installations. The installation was the thing; the audio is a memory. A set of those memories is what came after. Each of the three tracks is a recording of roughly seven minutes taken from one of three different set-ups that artist Takeyuki Hakozaki had at the HAKO Gallery in Chiba, Japan, earlier this year, back in mid-February. (I’ve been to Chiba several times to attend the annual Shonen Jump festival, but I’ve never been to an art gallery in the city, which is outside Tokyo.) One of Hakozaki’s pieces involves several electric guitars resonating thanks to electric fans. Another involves audio tape rubbing against guitar strings. The third use a synthesizer to process tape loops. Each recording takes the form of a drone. Each is marked by different elements, and throughout you can hear voices here and there (if you speak Japanese, which I can’t, you might be able to make out some of what is spoken). “Air” is symphonic in scope, the overtones so rich I’d swear I can hear a choir chanting amid the resonances. Magnetic” is rough and raucous, albeit in slow motion. “Complex” is like a shoegazer track, subtler than “Air,” less frictive than “Magnetic.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by HAKO (@hako_chiba)

If you scroll back through the gallery’s instagram.com/hako_chiba account, you can find documentation of the first (circulator, “Air”), shown above, second (loops, “Magnetic”), and third (synthesizer, “Complex”) projects.

More on HAKO at h-a-k-o.com. More from Takeyuki Hakozaki at signflax.com and instagram.com/t.hakozaki. The audio was mastered by Taylor Deupree (of 12k Records).