Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 210
December 14, 2020
Chris Herbert’s Sketches
The album Nuvoloso is named in Italian for the place where the sounds it contains were once housed. The word means cloudy. The place is SoundCloud. Or was. Chris Herbert, who released Nuvoloso late last month, has abandoned the platform, and here collects material he once hosted there, from the fully charged guitar explorations of “Charles Bullen” (seemingly named for the This Heat band member), to the steam-powered industrial music of “Neues Zodiak Free Arts Lab,” to the atmospheric fragments that charactertize the two opening tracks, “Macrolanguage” and “Live Architecture (Submerged/Factured),” as well as the elegant unease of “Untitled Tape Sketch.”
SoundCloud is often at its best for sketches, a way by which musicians can quickly check in with their listeners and collaborators. Herbert summarizes the scenario well in his accompanying note, explaining he used the site “as an audio diary for pieces that contained germinal ideas or material that was below the threshold for release but nevertheless indicated some kind of development: there’s a range and scope that is quite different in nature to my usual output.”
Album originally posted at chrisherbert.bandcamp.com. More from Herbert, who is based in Birmingham, England, at chrisherbert.net.
December 13, 2020
Current Favorites: Maraš, Buckley, Ristić, Hoedemaekers
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. (This weekly feature was previously titled Current Listens. The name’s been updated for clarity’s sake.)
▰ Svetlana Maraš’ Ear I Am is an ever-shifting survey of antic sounds, industrial mechanics, and playful noises, all with a sense of rhythmic flow, even if that rhythm is, on occasion, purposefully quite subtle. The six-track album is a live recording, taped back in 2017 on the first of February at the Ear We Are Festival in Biel, Switzerland. She is based in Belgrade, Serbia.
▰ Linda Buckley’s “Loom” is a ferocious heave of mechanical trance state, until it isn’t, until the gear gnashing briefly disappears and all that’s left is the trance itself. And then the burners power up, and the machines go at it again. Thrilling. She is based in Dublin, Ireland.
▰ The 17th album in the great 20×20 series is another set of 20 tracks, each 20 seconds long. This latest, Do Not Go Gentle by Manja Ristić, alternates between degraded recordings of Dylan Thomas poems with snatches of string instruments, rattly percission, and field recordings. She is based in Belgrade, Serbia.
Do Not Go Gentle by Manja Ristić
▰ Rutger Hoedemaekers’ music for the TV series No Man’s Land is a beautiful expanse of tension-laden stillness. He’s probably best known for his work, with Hildur Guðnadóttir and the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, on Trapped. I can’t find much of this excellent score in embeddable form on non-commercial streaming services, but it’s at music.youtube.com and spotify.com. (If those links fail, please let me know.) Also recommended is his The Last Berliner score, which I’ve had on repeat the past few months. Hoedemaekers, originally from the Netherlands, is based in Brussels, Belgium.
December 12, 2020
twitter.com/disquiet: Yeager, RIP + Jersey Noise
I do this manually each week, collating the tweets I made at twitter.com/disquiet of which I want to keep track. For the most part, this means ones I initiated, not ones in which I directly responded to someone.
▰ There are key moments in the history of sound in the 20th century. Among the top, certainly, is Chuck Yeager’s breaking of the sound barrier on October 14, 1947. RIP to a legend (apnews.com). Also, because thinking of sound in the 20th century invokes John Cage, it comes to mind that Cage has reportedly said that his development of 4’33” originated that same year. And yes, Glamorous Glennis is my new John Cage cover band.
▰ “Mystery of booming sound in New Jersey apparently solved” is my kinda clickbait. This one is like if instructables.com had a weather-hacking category. The guilty party has “been firing off the sonically loud cone-shaped contraption — which blasts shock waves up to the sky — to break up cloud formations and scare away birds that nibble his grapes.” Full article at nypost.com. (thanks, Michael Upton).
▰ Still sorting out if Gibson, Doctorow, Older, or Newitz wrote our current reality. Upon reflection, I think my money is on Rita Indiana: “Orders for a Brazilian pig-feeding robot, which plays classical music while dispensing meals, soared this year as farmers strove to cut costs amid the COVID-19 pandemic.” Full article at swineweb.com.
▰ Nice. I was wondering what would come of Unsilent Night in the time of necessary social distancing. This is from the San Francisco event’s Facebook group:
▰ Not surprisingly (#pandemic), the art school where I’ve taught my sound class (Sounds of Brands / Brands of Sounds: The Role of Sound in the Media Landscape) since 2012 had to nix it for 2021, along with a lot of other people’s courses. I was thinking about putting together an ad-hoc version of the course, but I’m gonna take this as a sign from the universe to focus on writing.
▰ We’ll see the end of Fonda Lee’s three-novel Jade series in 2021, and James S.A. Corey’s nine-novel Expanse. And now I’m up to date on both. I need to find a new ongoing series to dig into (besides Slough House, which I’m closing in on, and isn’t scifi).
▰ Apparently I was only partially viewing this film about a drummer with partial hearing:
December 11, 2020
Hilary Robinson’s Sonic Advent Calendar
London-based composer Hilary Robinson has been unpacking what she describes as “a sonic advent calendar for 2020.” The playlist, titled Sounds for Shrinking Days, is growing a piece at a time, “intended to conclude with the Winter Solstice.” There are 11 tracks thus far, beginning with a slow, purposeful piano piece, one in which the lingering tones seem as important as the carefully impacted notes. The most recent, the 11th in the series, appears to employ a delay that echoes a spritely, genteel piano part, as if ghostly hands were all playing a single piano at the same time. In between are other experiments, including a vocal part that is equally reverberant and celestial (entry 6), and what appears to be a field recording of rain (entry 10). The solstice occurs on December 21, meaning there are 10 days remaining of musical miniatures. “These are short tracks,” writes Robinson, “mostly improvised, all original and created to amuse me in these darkening days.”
The playlist is at soundcloud.com/hilaryrobinson. More at from Robinson at about.me/hilaryrobinson, hilaryrobinson.bandcamp.com, and twitter.com/hvrlon.
December 10, 2020
Disquiet Junto Project 0467: Toolbox Show & Tell
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, December 14, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, December 10, 2020.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0467: Toolbox Show & Tell
The Assignment: Share a tip for making music that you learned during the pandemic.
Step 1: Much if not all of the world has been shut in for various stages throughout the pandemic. Think back to the experience you had making music.
Step 2: Think of one thing of use that you learned in the interim, a tip or technique you could share. It might be something new, or it might be an old habit that proved more valuable than you’d expected. Take the word “toolbox” in the project’s title metaphorically.
Step 3: In sharing the tip selected in Step 2, record a short piece of music that employs it.
Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0467” (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 “disquiet0467” (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-0467-toolbox-show-tell/
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, December 14, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, December 10, 2020.
Length: The length is up to you. Maybe you have learned something about time this year.
Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0467” 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 467th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Toolbox Show & Tell (The Assignment: Share a tip for making music that you learned during the pandemic), 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-0467-toolbox-show-tell/
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 Peter de Gree, and used thanks to Flickr and a Creative Commons license allowing editing (cropped with text added) for non-commercial purposes:
December 9, 2020
Harold Budd Live in 1989
This space isn’t usually used for archival work, and even less often for grey-market recordings, but a YouTube video of a 1989 performance pairing musicians Laraaji and Harold Budd is an opportune way to reflect on the latter, a day after his death at the age 84. The video was posted yesterday, December 8, clearly to note the passing. It was reportedly recorded at the Lazarote Music Festival in volcanic caves by the name of Jameos Del Agua. The festival was organized by Brian Eno, who is closely associated with both Budd and with Laraaji, as a collaborator and for having released their music. The two are heard separately here, Laraaji with his electronically mediated mbira and zither as the centerpiece of the video, and Budd at the opening and close with slow, majestic combination of solo piano and an underlying synthesizer bed of ethereal tones.
Video originally posted to YouTube. Thanks to Patricia Wolf for having brought it to my attention.
December 8, 2020
December 7, 2020
Cassette Culture
Cleaned out the office a bit this weekend, and was reminded that when I interviewed Squarepusher back in 2001, I used an authentic, artisanal microcassette.
Being a cheapskate in the late 1990s when interviewing musicians meant not only using both sides of a cassette tape, but also unintentionally summoning up great hypothetical supergroups.
I’m apparently prepared for when the cassette tape revival levels up to the VHS revival, presuming these haven’t congealed in the interim.
December 6, 2020
Current Favorites: Organ/Synth + Instrumental Yo La Tengo
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. (This weekly feature was previously titled Current Listens. The name’s been updated for clarity’s sake.)
This week, some recent favorites to which I keep returning:
▰ Helena Ford’s Songs for Organ and Synth: an album of stately court music for our hybrid analog-digital present.
Songs for Organ and Synth by Helena Ford
▰ The Sounds of the Sounds of Science is a full album of instrumentals from the acclaimed indie rock band Yo La Tengo. The pieces were composed to accompany aquatic documentary shorts by the filmmaker Jean Painlevé (1902-1989). The music is more rock-like but no less atmospheric than the experimental tracks the band released earlier this year.
The Sounds of the Sounds of Science by Yo La Tengo
▰ Cellist Yo-Yo Ma has been entertaining pandemic-era listeners with solo performances, under the Songs of Comfort banner. The latest, uploaded today, is the theme composed by Ennio Morricone for the 1998 film The Legend of 1900.
December 5, 2020
twitter.com/disquiet: Record Retail + Headphone Reality
I do this manually each week, collating the tweets I made at twitter.com/disquiet of which I want to keep track. For the most part, this means ones I initiated, not ones in which I directly responded to someone.
▰ If any of you work at a record store with a substantial experimental/electronic section (or sections, better yet), could you get in touch? I’m doing a bit of research. Thanks. DM or email. (And thanks to the folks who’ve retweeted.)
▰ I wonder if I’ve truly listened to an album until I’ve listened on headphones. Or if listening on headphones is an unreal experience. Or if it was up until a certain point in recorded music. Or if it’s the case with some albums but not others. Then I start at the beginning again.
▰ Got myself some new work clothes, by which I mean pajama bottoms
▰ The photo in this week’s Disquiet Junto (disquiet.com/0466) is of the gated front door to the Luggage Store Gallery on Market Street in San Francisco.
▰ Yeah, I’ve had Hildur Guðnadóttir’s debut album, Mount A, on repeat all day.
▰ Uses for books at my desk, besides for reading:
Stands for each of my two speaker monitors
Stand for my keyboard (when I raise my screen in standing-desk mode)
Support for CD drive, which has a weird special cable that is too short to otherwise reach the USB port
▰ Munich. Buenos Aires. Nottingham. Members of the Disquiet Junto music community are taking up George Wallace’s suggestion that cities other than Miami need to get their sound machines in order. The playlist will grow as track are added over the weekend.
▰ Tired: I can’t drive 55
Wired: I can’t drive 1.5
▰ Even on non-“Bandcamp Friday” days, my filters direct emails from “noreply@bandcamp.com” into a folder, bypassing my inbox. I search once a day for “http://bandcamp.com/yum” to find emails including free access for review consideration. I look at the folder every day or so.
▰ Been working steadily to Max Richter’s Sleep all day. False advertising! :)
▰ And on that note, have a good weekend. Avoid the crazies. Check your sources. If you work at a record store that has a strong experimental/electronic section, get in touch. I have questions (no, I’m not trying to sell stuff; it’s research). Thanks. See you Monday. Maybe Tuesday.
