Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 229
July 5, 2020
Current Listens: Instrumental Hip-Hop, Non-Performance Samples
This is my 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. In the interest of conversation, let me know what you’re listening to in the comments below. Just please don’t promote your own work (or that of your label/client). This isn’t the right venue. (Just use email.)
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NEW: Recent(ish) arrivals and pre-releases
▰ Caminauta collaborates, on “ambient piano,” with cellist Federico Motta for the lilting “Distance Memories.”
▰ Chris Herbert reworked the non-musical moments from live performances into a pair of extended atmospheric tracks: “transformations of fragments of dead air, non-performance squeaks, hiss, hum, and stray organ notes.” (Available for free download, too.)
▰ Anwar HighSign and Has-Lo did listeners the favor of including the instrumentals on their recent hip-hop EP, Fleece, two of which were instant favorites, both downtempo tracks featuring beats from cut-up organ and drums (“Whole Lotta Trouble,” “When I Write”).
FLEECE by Anwar HighSign/Has-Lo
▰ Carl Stone renders two very different avant-pop tracks (“Ganci” and “Figli”) from the same set of samples, both heavily altering a pre-existing vocal line.
▰ A highlight of Olivia Block’s three untitled tracks of music for piano, organ, and unspecified objects is the first, its spare chords bringing to mind Morton Feldman. The album was made available as a digital download this past week, though it was first released back in 2017 (on the Another Timbre label).
July 4, 2020
Palimpsests All the Way Down
It’s always a pleasure to write liner notes, to have a chance, before an album is released and given shape by the impressions of its listeners, to converse with the artist and put forth an initial, fledgling view.
Nathan Moody invited me to write a short essay to accompany de/Still, a “musical score” that he created as an aural interpretation of TJ Norris’ photography. Which is to say, my liner notes, which appear below, are an interpretation of music that is an interpretation of images, those images themselves an interpretation of the world as Norris perceives it.
The album, due out August 1, 2020, is currently available for pre-order at flagdayrecordings.bandcamp.com. More from Moody at music.noisejockey.net.
“Palimpsests All the Way Down”
Distant yapping, all rancor and bluster. Line interference, twitching in the ether. Burbling percussion, undulating to its own metronome. Wild-west guitar, casting shadows of sagebrush and end times. Piano chords, melting like tape in the noon sun. Orchestration buried amid static and hum. Drones mixed with fleeting bits of conversation.
The individual sounds that comprise Nathan Moody’s elegiac accompaniment to TJ Norris’ images can often be identified by the ear and characterized by the imagination. Not one of these sounds, however, stands alone. Each component sonic element is heard amid other sonic elements, mixed in close proximity even as they may sway across the stereo spectrum. Likewise, the place where one such sound object ends and the next sound object begins is entirely unclear, deliberately so. Cause and effect intermingle, as foreground and background blur into layers upon layers of detritus. It’s palimpsests all the way down.
If the trusty telephone poll that has born the weight of countless concert flyers could, itself, sing, this is how it would sound.
If the alleyway coated in dirt, graffiti, and memories could have its own voice, this is how it would sound.
If the works of TJ Norris were performed as intentional graphic scores, this is how it would sound. Because it does.
Like Norris’ elegantly layered pictures, Moody’s music is an act of collage, a tribute to chance delights amid the flotsam of human existence. And like Norris’ work, Moody’s never loses sight — despite the emphasis on wear and tear, on time and decay, on fragments and atmosphere — of the urge to appeal, to attract, to please. Even in its dingiest moments, the score finds its foundation in melodic through lines and soulfully resonant structures.
Marc Weidenbaum
San Francisco, CA
August 2019
July 3, 2020
Not-Quite-Song-Ness
This gorgeous folk chillout track combines drones and acoustic guitar, the musician Benjamin Finney echoing fragments like waves rolling over each other. The whole thing grows so subtly that it seems quiet when in fact it has accumulated substantial power and energy long before the piece comes to an end. It isn’t a song, per se, not quite, and its not-quite-song-ness may be its highest accomplishment, how the rhythm is more complicated than it appears, how the melody is more resistant to humming, how the whole thing is thoroughly present and, yet, out of reach. Absolutely gorgeous.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/benjamin_finney. More from Benjamin Finney, who is based in Manchester, England, at benjaminfinney.bandcamp.com.
July 2, 2020
Disquiet Junto Project 0444: Bot Ensemble
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 Monday, July 6, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, July 2, 2020.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0444: Bot Ensemble
The Assignment: Make music as directed by the great twitter.com/InstrumentBot account.
Thanks to Michael Upton for having proposed this project.
Step 1: You will be making music with makeshift instruments suggested by the great twitter.com/InstrumentBot account.
Step 2: Visit the account and familiarize yourself with it.
Step 3: Either select one or more of the recommended materials in the bot’s Twitter feed, or use a random number generator to determine which one(s) you will use. (Between one and three is recommended.)
Step 4: If you cannot obtain materials in the bot’s recommended instrumentation, approximate what you think it might sound like through other means.
Step 5: Produce a piece of music using only the instrument(s) determined in the previous steps.
Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0444” (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 “disquiet0444” (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-0444-bot-ensemble/
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 Monday, July 6, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, July 2, 2020.
Length: The length is up to you.
Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0444” 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:
Thanks to Michael Upton for having proposed this project.
More on this 444th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Disquiet Junto Project 0444: Bot Ensemble — The Assignment: Make music as directed by the great twitter.com/InstrumentBot account — 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-0444-bot-ensemble/
There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
July 1, 2020
Barely a Minute
It’s barely a minute in length, just enough time for the slight variations in the held drone to suggest a melody, and just enough time for the abrasive rubbings at either side of the stereo spectrum to become a kind of slow-motion percussion, and just enough time for the descending notes to make it clear they will never ever resolve, even as the piece fades out. This is “A Starry Blackness,” which according to a brief description is a work by Matthew Swiezynski “inspired by John Carpenter’s The Thing,” so perhaps there’s an Antarctic narrative unfolding beneath that scraping.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/invisible-birds.
June 30, 2020
Mike Dayton Was Ahead of the Game
Men and Microbes by Mike Dayton
Mike Dayton’s album Men and Microbes came out in mid-January, back when the “and” was more arithmetic than apocalyptic. It’s 11 tracks of variously electronic activities, from the shivering miasma of “Never feel clean” to the slow instrumental pop of “What’s a king to a single celled organism,” from the latter-day new wave of “A Delicate Balance” to the vocaloid stylings of “More them than us.” Throughout, there’s a sense of solitude to each song. No matter the relative complexity, no matter how many striations of tracks are evident in the final mix, there’s the sense of a single hand behind the wheel, at times almost giddy at the freedom (check out the chiptune funk of “Keep calm, its out of your hands”), at others deeply haunted (the album opens with a three-minute horror show titled “We were here first”). But of course Dayton isn’t alone. The “we” in that first track isn’t merely plural; it’s the microbes with whom we mere humans share the album’s title.
Album originally posted at mikedayton.bandcamp.com. More from Dayton, who is based in Minneapolis, Minnesotta, at soundcloud.com/mikejdayton.
Milestone
As of tonight, when I’ll post about something I’ve enjoyed listening to, I’ll have written on Disquiet.com every single day for the full first half of 2020. I’ve had my Disquiet website since December of 1996, and I think this will be the first time I’ve published daily for six months straight. Technically I’ve already done so, since I’ve posted this, but I’ll post something else this evening.
June 29, 2020
Esther Venrooy Controls the Chaos
This track by Esther Venrooy does crazy things to my fingers. My fingers rest on my laptop keyboard. My laptop keyboard is where the speakers are located. As the intense bell-like tones of “Slam Your Doors in a Golden Silence” rise, as their energy collects amid wisps of rougher sounds, the laptop’s surface vibrates in kind. Sonic Tesla coils send charges up my arms. There’s a luxurious chaos at work here, a chaos kept in line, and only just barely. Much as the live-wire noises and arcing tones hint at dangerous apexes, they remain held in check. There’s a famous maxim about music being “organized sound,” courtesy of composer Edgard Varèse. What Venrooy exposes here is that organization needn’t mean corralling sound into something familiar. There’s a lot of room before something is even remotely domesticated. It can mean yoking noise just tight enough to give it shape, but to still let it move under its own strange power.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/esther-venrooy-1. More from Venrooy, who is based in Breda, Netherlands, at esthervenrooy.net.
June 28, 2020
Current Listens: Filmic Exploration, Hyperspeed Pummel
This is my 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. In the interest of conversation, let me know what you’re listening to in the comments below. Just please don’t promote your own work (or that of your label/client). This isn’t the right venue. (Just use email.)
▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰
NEW: Recent(ish) arrivals and pre-releases
▰ There’s the harrowing space horror of “In the most Unlikely of Places” and the charismatic digital-beatnik broken vocal on “I am Sitting in a Room Performing the Society of the Spectacle,” but the real keeper on In the Place of a Vain Search for an Image of the Age is the title track. That’s where Conspiracy Therapists (Jeff Gburek and Filippo Panichi) unleash a dense, filmic exploration of feedback and melodic drone.
In the Place of a Vain Search for an Image of the Age by Conspiracy Therapists
▰ Come for the metalloid pandemonium of “Cortège.” Stay for the hyperspeed pummel of “I’ll See you Again.” Gaël Segalen’s album Sofia Says dates from last October, but it’s brand new to me.
▰ There’s no excuse not to make time for the Black Composer Miniature Challenge from the Castle of Our Skins ensemble. The latest is the beautiful, doleful, one-minute “Hannah Elias II” by Shannon Sea, performed on viola by Ashleigh Gordon.
June 27, 2020
Oldie but a Goodie
Took a walk to the bay and back and passed this old friend, one of more mysterious doorbells in the neighborhood. Twelve buttons sit in a blank grid at the front of a multiple-unit dwelling. Absent of labels, the mechanism begs the question as to how these buttons are employed. Are there a dozen units? Is it a very large numeric keypad with a single entry code? Is this a palatial single residence disguised as an apartment building?
