Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 198
March 24, 2021
Impure Celestial
Cantus Figures Laurus by Sarah Davachi
Sarah Davachi has collected five CDs as a box set of recent interrelated works that engage with various organs in the context of other instruments, notably synthesizers. A key track is “Accord of Voice I,” off the album Laurus, released last December. It is a procession of held notes, their rich tonalities layering deeply, the result being beautifully impure harmonies, dense slow motion cacophonies that achieve something almost celestial. The collection is titled Cantus Figures Laurus and it includes two previous double-CD sets, Cantus, Descant and Figures in Open Air, as well as Laurus and what Davachi describes as “an extended EP of early sketches for the music fully realised on Cantus, Descant.”
Record originally released at sarahdavachi.bandcamp.com. More from Davachi at sarahdavachi.com.
March 23, 2021
A New Album from Jeannine Schulz
Another beautiful album by Jeannine Schulz, Wanderer in the Colorful Fields is six tracks of music that feels a split second shy of being entirely on pause. Quite frequently the emphasis is on slight sounds played in reverse, time slipping backward, in which case it’s still a split second shy of pause, just from the other side of the divide. It’s hard to say if the sounds — which seem to include electric guitar and bells, but could be other things entirely — are treated here like objects under glass, carefully presented, or like natural occurences, chance moments happened upon. Either way, the results are delicate, elegant, and richly reflective.
More from Schulz, who is based in Hamburg, Germany, at instagram.com/jeannine_schulz_art.
March 22, 2021
Static
The Living Stream
There is so much going on in this track, a British field recording presumably recorded recently. Something about the suggestion of that time sync makes it feel physically proximate, too, even if it’s far away from wherever the listener might be. And even if nothing in it is, technically, “alive,” in the sense that an animal might be alive, it is nonetheless very much alive. This is “Underwater Stream” by Landsounds, the name under which London-based John Hooper captures audio of the everyday and, as happens here, reveals the complexity inherent in it. In these mere two and a half minutes, there is gurgling, certainly, and droning, yes, and a hum that makes the the droning seem like its trebly by comparison, and other sounds (rope against wood?) that creak like dolphins speak. None is isolated from the others. They are in sync in their own manner. And then there’s that slow heartbeat of a pulse at the start and just before the end. It’s enough to make you think it’s been a bit of ambient techno all along.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/landsounds. More from Hooper at johnhooper.net.
March 21, 2021
Current Favorites: Cooked Viola and Buddha Machines, Thawing Ice
A weekly(ish) answer to the question “What have you been listening to lately?” It’s lightly annotated because I don’t like re-posting material without providing some context. I hope to write more about some of these in the future, but didn’t want to delay sharing them.
▰ On the double album If Not Now, released at the very end of 2020, Meredith Bates sends her violin and viola through a range of processing, yielding echoes and textures, layers and atmospheres, stutters and breakage. It somehow manages to be both intimate and orchestral at the same time. Bates is based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
▰ Three field recordings of what’s going on under the ice, captured by Ivo Vicic of Rijeka, Croatia, on Under the Ice – Secret Sounds of Nature. As Vicic describes it, what we’re hearing is a water stream, amomg other activity, recorded at a lake that has frozen over during the winter. Released earlier this month. (Thanks for the recommendation, Patricia Wolf!)
Under the ice – Secret sounds of Nature by Ivo Vicic
▰ In a 10-minute live video, Poland-baed Grzegorz Bojanek makes rough-hewn ambient music in realtime with a handful of Buddha Machines and effects pedals. Even if you’re entirely familiar with the source audio, you’ll be enchanted by the new territories Bojanek explores.
▰ The cacophonous fragility of Marcus Fischer’s mid-February “Thawing” is a field recording made during the Portland, Oregon, winter. Writes Fischer of the brief track: “Thawing ice releasing itself and falling from a large oak tree onto the snow-covered street below.”
March 20, 2021
Skateboards
Now that the
command works on this site, I may dip into mesostics on occasion. I created a mesostic tag, which unearthed a Rick Tarquinio recording from 2012 and a Felix Schramm exhibit from 2007.twitter.com/disquiet: WKRP, Debris, Chernobyl
I do this manually each week, collating the tweets I made at twitter.com/disquiet (which I think of as my public notebook) that I want to keep track of. For the most part, this means ones I initiated, not ones in which I directly responded to someone. I sometimes tweak them a bit here. Some tweets pop up on Disquiet.com sooner than I get around to collating them, so I leave them out of the weekly round-up. It’s usually personally informative to revisit the previous week of thinking out loud. They’re here pretty much in chronological order. Looking back at the tweets makes the previous week seem both longer and shorter than it was. The cadence is a way to map how time progressed. The subjects are another map of the same territory.
▰ 7:34am sounds: House creaking as it heats; wind outside much like a furnace itself, thought it’s anything but warm; garbage trucks peculiarly muted, dare say respectful. No birdsong, no airplane jet or motor noise. Occasional car engine, rumbling a block or so away.
▰ Small audience for this tweet, but I’d love 2021 to be the year for intriguing 1U modules
▰ YouTube’s grid of recommended videos put Steely Dan’s Walter Becker next to WKRP’s Les Nessman looking like he’s crooning: an algorithmic nightmare of a boomer concert cruise. (I’m Gen X, myself)
Better still is this Richter painting that the Facebook mobile thumbnail reduced it to.
▰ Eating ice cream and watching dan dan noodle recipe videos. G’night!
▰ Three episodes in, Debris had its first sonic clue last night, involving a phantom 2D portal (“the square”) in the middle of a field, the most interesting bit being that at first the audio was only caught on recordings, not heard in person.
▰ If you live in San Francisco and miss the Tuesday noon siren, as I do, don’t miss these Dutch air raid sirens, courtesy of Jostijn Ligtvoet:
▰ It’s unfortunate my Bluetooth headphones died barely a month after I got them, though it is reassuring that my [I’m sort of out of negative words] toward Bluetooth remains justified, but in any case the Muzak “We’re in This Love Together” hold music is textbook insult-to-injury.
▰ Can’t remember if I shared this previously, so here’s a shout-out to the excellent virtual synthesizer module developer (voxglitch) who put a request for assistance into the faceplate of of their modules.
▰ Yeah, I posted about new tracks with beats two days in a row on disquiet.com. What a weird year this is shaping up to be, huh?
▰ Today I became a dog person. (If you haven’t contributed to the 1.4 million views of this dog singing along with wind chimes, you must join in.)
▰ Very glad Mayans MC is back on television, and also somewhat distracted by imagining conversations between Edward James Olmos and Michael Irby in which they discuss their distinguished careers as space admirals.
▰ I listen to the Chernobyl score a lot, and every time it gets around to “Vichnaya Pamyat,” I think it’s a track I’d forgotten from Todd Rundgren’s A Cappella.
▰ Friends report bot-spam on their friends’ social media accounts
▰ It’s Friday, and the birdsong outside is louder than the Zoom bleed from adjacent rooms in the house, and the cray cray has (relatively) quieted in my social media feed, so I’m gonna take that as a positive sign to, shortly, begin my weekend social media fast. I enjoy yapping with folks intermittently during the day, but there is something at the end of each day, and especially on Friday afternoons when I just shut it all down, that feels quite like a holiday has begun. Especially these days when I’m at home pretty much all the time, shutting off social media feels like coming home, quieting the world, focusing. So, on that note, have a great weekend.
March 19, 2021
Dobrawa Czocher x Deutsche Grammophon Project XII
The Deutsche Grammophon label, its bright yellow logo long associated with the warhorses of the repertoire, has been exercising its experimental impulses in various ways, like the excellent “Recomposed” reworkings of Bach and Vivaldi by, respectively Peter Gregson and Max Richter, and more recently the Project XII series. Project XII introduces a newly commissioned composition each month for the year, and then collects them into an album at year’s end. It’s run twice thus far, in 2019 (which included a piece by Rachel Grimes, a pivotal early figure in the overlap of indie rock and classical) and 2020 (which included a piece by Christina Vantzou), and we’re now three months into 2021, a highlight of which is “Timelines” by Dobrawa Czocher, the Polish cellist. It’s a gorgeous, sweeping work, slowly flowing layers of cello wafting over each other in a state of classic minimalism repose.
Video originally posted at YouTube.
March 18, 2021
Disquiet Junto Project 0481: Capsule Time
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, March 22, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, March 18, 2021.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0481: Capsule TimeThe Assignment: Record a time capsule for yourself in the future.
Step 1: You’re going to record a time capsule, something for yourself to listen to in the future. The default time is five years. You can, however, set the time for however long (or short) you like.
Step 2: Record that track and post it online.
Step 3: Set a calendar entry to remind yourself to listen to it on the appointed date.
Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0481” (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 “disquiet0481” (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 tracks in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0481-capsule-time/
Step 5: Annotate your tracks 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.
Additional Details:
Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, March 22, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, March 18, 2021.
Length: The length is up to you. The length should be shorter than time between the beginning of the track and when you intend yourself to listen to it in the future, or else you may rupture the very fabric of the universe.
Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0481” 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 481st weekly Disquiet Junto project — Capsule Time (The Assignment: Record a time capsule for yourself in the future) — at:
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Subscribe to project announcements here:
https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0480-ongsay-aftcray/42680
There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
Image associated with this project is by Christoph Kummer, and used thanks to Flickr and a Creative Commons license allowing editing (cropped with text added) for non-commercial purposes:
March 17, 2021
Instagram Favorites
Sundays I usually do a roundup of music I’ve been listening to a lot but haven’t gotten around to writing about. It’s often the case that the music I’ve listened to the most ends up not being the subject of my posts here because it becomes so ubiquitous in my life through repetition that it, conversely, becomes invisible. In that spirit, I want today just to link to a few Instagram accounts that regularly appeal. If hanging out on YouTube can have the sense of discovery of crate digging, then the brevity of Instagram videos (all under a minute, unless you click through to Instagram TV, aka IGTV, which I rarely do) is more like flipping through stacks of singles.
Aaron Larget-Caplan (instagram.com/alcguitar) is a masterful guitarist, responsible for having produced the first official edition of guitar transcriptions of John Cage compositions. He also has, among other things, a focus on lullabies, and he’s commissioned a wide variety of them.
The artist Zimoun (instagram.com/studiozimoun) is a spirited, ingenious, crafty producer of kinetic sculptures that generally employ inexpensive materials in sizable amounts to achieve the sort of patterning and complexity generally associated with living things. While sound isn’t always the focus of these works, it is always a component.
Scanner Darkly (instagram.com/scanner_darkly_) writes remarkable code that powers a range of fascinating synthesizer modules, and this account always has tidbits of works in progress.
Ambalek (instagram.com/_ambalek) makes beautiful ambient and ambient-leaning music that combines atmospheric impressionism with the refinement of classic minimalism.
The Soul Science (instagram.com/thesoulscience), true to the name, brings a soulful spirit to exploratory, often noisy synthesizer work.
Those are just a few. Others I follow are viewable at instagram.com/dsqt.
