Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 199
March 16, 2021
DJ Krush in the Temple by the Foot of the Mountain
The widespread isolation of pandemic culture provided the natural incubator for DJ Krush to spin echoes of turntablist gestures alone in a Japanese temple as winter turned to spring.
Please trust me that while I’ve only seen Krush live a handful or so of times, I have listened to countless hours of his recorded concert performances, and this is, I believe, one of his finest. Krush originated as a Japanese hip-hop DJ, and from the beginning emphasized abstraction and atmosphere, as well as utilized regional music and sonic culture as source material and inspiration.
This hour-long set was first streamed in late February as part of the MUSO Cultural Festival, broadcast from the temple Daichuji, located in the Japanese city of Numazu, Shizuoka, by the foot of Mount Ashitaka. A brief accompanying statement explains: “Within the temple, a conceptual live performance was filmed as if to experience the essence of Zen through sound.” The festival takes its name from Muso Soseki, who founded Daichuji in 1313.
The show opens with an exceptionally sparse seven minutes of elegant, cautious play, then ratchets up to something closer to the smokey, noir quality of his early work. From there the pace slowly builds, remaining downtempo throughout, but gaining depth: more sounds, more motion, more contrast. Even as the audio accrues, there remains room for the slightest hand gesture to bring a warble to the surface, for his wrists to syncopate martial drums and drop in quick samples. So much gets folded in: dance music, chanting, birdsong, and rapturous percussion stuttered in his mixer.
The show ends as it began, with choice bits of sound, wooden flutes from some of his most famous music, until the beats drop out. From there on, for the last five minutes or so, the work is Krush at his most ghostly, not mournful so much as reflective, peaceful, finally resolving in a climactic drone before dissipating like a candle blown out.
Video originally posted at YouTube. More on the festival at muso-festival.com.
March 15, 2021
Loraine James and the Art of the Skeletal Beat
There’s a new Loraine James album, Reflection, due out June 4, which fast as 2021 feels is far too far away. Fortunately, one track is already up. “Simple Stuff” is little more than a spartan beat and a mumbled mantra monologue, but that’s more than enough to tide a fan over. The calisthenics of its percussion are a marvel, even by the high standards James has led us to expect on previous releases like her 2019 breakthrough, For You and I, last year’s Nothing EP, and her superb remix of Lunch Money Life’s “Lincoln.”
“Simple Stuff” has the jerky start and stop, the asymmetric yet perfectly balanced form, of an expert breakdancer backlit by the setting sun, of a Calder mobile in a delicate breeze. Even more than usual for James, the metrics are here reduced to their skeletal core, each triggered impulse an isolated action. There are no percussive chords, just a sequence of precisely poised sonic objects, each given room to breathe before the next arrives. This is simple stuff, true, but not easily achieved.
Like “Glitch Bitch,” the lead track off For You and I, “Simple Stuff” has essentially just a repeated two-word phrase as its vocal material. There’s a bit more to it here, but less, too, so muffled is it for much of the track, like she’s got her mouth under a jacket collar while navigating a dense sidewalk headed somewhere. That Loraine James is headed somewhere has been clear for some time now. Our next glimpse of where comes June 4, unless she reveals another cut in the interim. Meanwhile, we have “Simple Stuff.” It’s a phenomenal piece of work, and there are 10 additional tracks due when Reflection finally arrives.
Album available for prerelease at lorainejames.bandcamp.com. More from James, who is based in London, England, at twitter.com/LoJamMusic.
March 14, 2021
Current Favorites: Soil, Tree, “Apache”
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.
▰ Garble Blox is Chicago’s J. Soliday on the Portland (Maine) label Traced Objects in sheer joyous noise mode. True to the title this is John Cage by way of Carl Stalling, found sounds and sound effects broken and reconstituted with the hijinks set to 11. Two tracks, 17 minutes each:
▰ This isn’t literally “The Sound of a Soil Sleeping,” but it sure has the droning, industrious quality of life underground, plick plock activity amid the earthy gravitas. It’s a highlight of Five Days in March, the Berthoud, Colorado, musician C. Reider’s brand new album. Also particularly recommended: the similarly percolating one with non-fungible tokens in its title:
five days in march by C. Reider
▰ Forget the sound of a tree falling in the forest. How about the sound of the wind that might fell a tree, as heard from inside the tree. That’s what Robert Cole Rizzi captures in this track:
▰ A friend mentioned this video of the “Apache” breakbeat on loop for 10 hours, and while I didn’t quite make it to 10, I sure got lost in it for extended periods of time. The video is from 2017, the source audio from 1973. Nonetheless: timeless.
March 13, 2021
twitter.com/disquiet: mesostics, bands, tutorials
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.
▰ Detail of an index page from a book called The Miracle of Television (1949)
▰ My main post-pandemic prediction (and this is not an original thought by any means) is there’s gonna be a lot of bands. I think everyone’s kinda got the solo act aced at this point.
▰ Fifth robocall of the day and it’s not even 1:30pm. Either Skynet is happening or the FCC is about to crack down and the robots are making as many calls as they can before the party is over. My money is on Skynet.
▰ A mesostic:
My
sErvice to computer
Science
tOday
waS
To teach this word to
the AI that lives in
my Computer’s dictionary
(better in fixed-width font)
▰ Looking forward to episode two of Debris tonight. That’s my gauge of a new weekly TV series: do I find myself looking forward to it, or is it something that shows up as having been recorded and I then give the latest episode a go? So far, one episode in, Debris is the former.
▰ I freely admit that when I started using Scrivener, I was overwhelmed. Funny thing: I started working in it, and finding the tools I needed, and that’s all it took. Now it’s where I do most of my writing, and even some note-taking. The more I use it, the better I use it. The single tool I use the most is the ability to divide a longer piece into subsections that can be worked on independently, and also quickly and easily regrouped with the other subsections around it.
▰ There’s a seaplane overhead, sounding like a didgeridoo with wings
▰ OK
▰ While working, I’ve been listening to John Luther Adams all afternoon, and now I’m not sure what planet I’m on. In a row today: Become Ocean, Become Desert, Become River, Ilimaq, The Place We Began. Been hours since I hit pause, and I feel like I’m just beginning to come up for air. I especially recommend Become River (symphonic), Ilimaq (augmented percussion), and Place We Began (ambient).
▰ Minecraft news you can use
▰ While working this afternoon, I’ve been listening to Jana Winderen non-stop, and now I’ve convinced myself that the next time I go outside the sound of the world will be overwhelming. I need to first re-acclimate to human-scale listening.
▰ When my love
Stands next to your love
I can’t compare love
When it’s not love
It’s not love
It’s not love
Which is my face
Which is a data center
Which is on fire
On fire
▰ Just re-watched the live video of Prince’s guitar solo on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” for, like, the 650th time, thanks to Ethan Hein’s expert dissection (at ethanhein.com) of another Prince solo (“Kiss”), and still the hair went up on my arms.
▰ “Stars — they’re just like us!” (From a New York Times article on how 75 different artists rode out pandemic lockdown thus far)
▰ About half my email inbox inbox is “Sorry I haven’t been in touch. During the pandemic I’ve gotten very little done.” And half is “Here’s my fifth box set I’ve released in the past 12 months. I think I’m really hitting my stride. Hope you enjoy it.” (My outbox is, in essence, I’ve managed to get everything done except my outbox.)
▰ I’m pretty sure I haven’t had a tweet with 319 likes in less than 8 hours before. That has been weird.
▰ And on that note, have a great weekend. Wear a mask, maybe two. Enjoy YouTube synth tutorials to your heart’s desire. Get fresh air (again, through a mask). Zoom friends. Read something that’s not its own light source. Give yourself and everyone around you a break. See ya Monday.
March 12, 2021
Weekend Plans
“Skin conductivity, what’s your function? Hookin’ up modules like VCAs and gates.” These are the AllFlesh buttons, for use with modular synthesizers and other devices that accept the sort of control voltage that makes Eurorack equipment, such as pictured here, function. Usually one would patch a cable into one of those jacks from another device that would send it directions, but with AllFlesh the human body, specifically the finger, completes the circuit and thus any input jack can, in effect, become a button. (Details at landscape.fm/allflesh.)
March 11, 2021
Disquiet Junto Project 0480: Ongsay Aftcray
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 15, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, March 11, 2021.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0480: Ongsay AftcrayThe Assignment: Record a piece of music by employing Pig Latin as a technique.
Step 1: This project is informed by Pig Latin. From the Oxford English Dictionary: “a secret language formed from English by transferring the initial consonant or consonant cluster of each word to the end of the word and adding a vocalic syllable.” By way of example, “Pig Latin” in Pig Latin becomes “Igpay Atinlay.” “Disquiet Junto” in Pig Latin becomes “Isquietday Untojay.”
Step 2: Consider how you might apply the technique of Pig Latin to a preexisting piece of music, perhaps one of your own, or perhaps someone else’s (a remix of something from the public domain, for example). You might cut up a melodic sequence and append the starts of phrases to their ends. This needn’t by any means involve words or voice. Just use Pig Latin as a guide, one that informs how you take something that exists and then rearrange its constituent parts methodically into something else.
Step 3: Record a piece of music employing the approach you develop as a result of Step 2.
Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0480” (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 “disquiet0480” (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-0480-ongsay-aftcray/42680
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 15, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, March 11, 2021.
Length: The length is up to you. Ore more to the point: Ethay engthlay isyay upyay otay ouyay.
Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0480” 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 480th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Ongsay Aftcray (The Assignment: Record a piece of music by employing Pig Latin as a technique) — 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 Tom Scott, and used thanks to Flickr and a Creative Commons license allowing editing (cropped with text added) for non-commercial purposes:
March 10, 2021
The Miracle of Television
These images are the logo of a 1949 book titled The Miracle of Television. I wasn’t sure if the logo was specific to the book, or was more broadly that of the publisher, Wilcox & Follett Co. Two friends (Deb Chachra and Jason Richardson) explained they are Lissajous figures, meaning they’re almost certainly specific to the book.
The Miracle of Television was published in 1949, or 21 years prior to Harlan Ellison’s The Glass Teat, which could have been titled The Misfortune of Television (“ours has become a society where shadow and reality intermix to the final elimination of any degree of rational selectivity on the part of those whose lives are manipulated”).
March 9, 2021
Karlehag’s “Spring”
This is a dream of a piece by Tobias Karlehag, whose “Spring” is an evershfting melodic line, supported by a shimmering sequence of ambient pads. The melody is quite brief and cyclical, and yet something about the accumulation of tones, the slight variations in permutations, the occasional appearance of what seem to be choral vocal samples, all adds up to something far more life-like than the individual parts might suggest. Throughout, Karlehag’s darts in and out of view, maintaining the balance, implementing small changes.
This is the latest video I’ve added to my ongoing YouTube playlist of fine live performances of ambient music. Video originally posted at YouTube. More from Karlehag at tobiaskarlehag.tumblr.com.
March 8, 2021
Danish Turbines
Robert Cole Rizzi files this sonic report from wind turbines near where he lives in Kolding, Denmark. The recordings employ the Geofón made by LOM, an instrument company in Bratislava, Slovakia. The Geofón is an especially sensitive microphone, its technology having originated for seismic measurements. In the six tracks that Rizzi posted, we hear the mechanisms and the drones, the death-ambient routinized turbulence, of the wind machines doing their thing. Some of the tracks are quite violent, notably the third, which includes a squeal that on first listen might be mistaken for that of a bird, though the subsequent repetitions makes clear it’s simply a result of the machine turning. While all the tracks have a meditative sameness once they get rolling, they aren’t immune to change. Track five in particular seems to rev up at one point, like it’s suddenly increased power. Many of the tracks have the industrial whir of those extended YouTube videos of the engine room of the Starship Enterprise. The first and fifth are my favorites. If deep gray were a sound, it would sound like these tracks, especially if it were a deep gray that’s rich with imperfections and prone to wear.
Playlist originally posted at soundcloud.com/rizzi. More from Rizzi at twitter.com/RobertColeRizzi.
March 7, 2021
Current Favorites: Luu, Fripp, Euclide
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.
▰ The new release from Italian musician Elisa Luu (aka Elisabetta Luciani, based in Rome), Luu’s Strange Minimalism, packs more into four short tracks than most musicians do into a full album, even two albums. From the filmic post-classical “Violin, LuuV” to the pulsing minimalism of “Dicem, 15V,” the record is a strong example of why Luu is high on the list of my favorite musicians I have no idea why I don’t read about more frequently.
Luu's Strange Visions by Elisa Luu▰ Just a reminder that Robert Fripp is 45 weeks into his promised 50 weekly tracks of Music for Quiet Moments. If you’re more familiar with his far more widely viewed pandemic-era collaborations with his wife, Toyah Wilcox, then welcome to the introspective side of his personality and his playing. The latest was recorded in Paris six years ago:
▰ A beautiful Instagram series pairs Gregory Euclide’s photographs with one-minute loops of music by a rotating and expanding cast of contributors, including the OO-Ray, Stephen Vitiello, Jolanda Moletta, and Kirill Nikolai. There have been 159 entries to date. The latest is by Steve Ashby. Visit at instagram.com/thesisrecurring.
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