Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 233
June 5, 2020
BLM x Bandcamp
The excellent Bandcamp site is again waving its share of record sales today. The initial announcement referred to the current pandemic as the inspiration, and also noted “organizations in support of racial justice and change.” The event gained traction as a means to support black musicians in particular. Below is a list of some recommendations. Also, on Friday, June 19, they’re donating all their share of profits to NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The June 5 sale runs “from midnight to midnight Pacific Time.”
arckatron.bandcamp.com
damuthefudgemunk.bandcamp.com
djrobswift.bandcamp.com
dualsite.bandcamp.com
galcherlustwerk.bandcamp.com
kevbrown.bandcamp.com
klein1997.bandcamp.com
kmru.bandcamp.com
laraajimusic.bandcamp.com
lorainejames.bandcamp.com
markusfloats.bandcamp.com
matana-roberts.bandcamp.com
meroitic.bandcamp.com
pete-rock.bandcamp.com
relizee.bandcamp.com
robertaikiaubreylowe.bandcamp.com
smallprofessor.bandcamp.com
tyondai.bandcamp.com
June 4, 2020
Curiouser and Curiouser
Per the Disquiet Junto email I just sent out, the first Disquiet Junto Silent Film Project is looking to be Alice in Wonderland, directed by W. W. Young and released back in 1915. More details to follow. Over 180 people have expressed interest in participating in the project, so there will be different people on each film, and likely a variety of approaches to structuring the various collaborations.
Disquiet Junto Project 0440: Tuning In
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, June 8, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, June 4, 2020.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0440: Tuning In
The Assignment: Dismantle the institution known as A440.
Major thanks to rbxbx and to Łukasz Langa (RPLKTR) for inspiring this project.
There is just one step: Throw off the shackles of A440 and make a piece of music in your favorite alternate tuning.
Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0440” (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 “disquiet0440” (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-0440-tuning-in/
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, June 8, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, June 4, 2020.
Length: The length is up to you.
Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0440” 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 440th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Disquiet Junto Project 0440: Tuning In — The Assignment: Dismantle the institution known as A440 — at:
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0440-tuning-in/
There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
Image associated with this track is from zen Sutherland, used thanks to a Creative Commons license and Flickr. The image has been cropped, colors shifted, and text added.
June 3, 2020
Lucchi and the &
Marco Lucchi’s recordings are always welcome, especially when there’s an ampersand involved. Recent favorites include his reworking of Henrik Meierkord’s cello, as well as Lucchi’s modular synthesizer duet with the mellotron of itwasthewires. The latest track on his SoundCloud account, soundcloud.com/musichevirtuali, flips the scenario: it’s a remix of Lucchi’s music by another musician, Ivan Black. The result, a reworking of “Eine kleine elektronische Meditation,” is a slow-motion, dream-state train ride through thick sonic fog, punctuated by occasional pulse signals, which lend a dubby quality. The original piece is here, for comparison:
There have been numerous remixes of “Eine kleine elektronische Meditation,” with about 50 in the playlist. That’s a lot of &s:
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/musichevirtuali. More from Lucchi, who is based in Modena, Italy, at marcolucchi.bandcamp.com and musichevirtuali.org.
June 2, 2020
Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Lockdown Uploads
Moon above the horizon, strange bulbous flickers of light in the foreground. This is what the screen emits while Ryuichi Sakamoto’s latest lockdown upload plays. Sakamoto, not unlike the slightly elder Robert Fripp, has experienced a calling during what the former terms “these times when things are not ‘normal.'” Both are sending subtle, quiet music out into the world when the world is veering back and forth from unwelcome solitude to public violence. A musical statesman — a statesman employing music — Sakamoto has been an active, visible presence during mass mutual self-isolation. In the past month, he has shared nearly 30 videos of subdued, exploratory sounds, from moaning solo guitar to collaborations with the likes of Christian Fennesz and Marcus Fischer. Those team-ups are being collected under the rubric “incomplete,” the most recent of which, “Stealing Time,” features guest Kung Chi Shing, a Hong Kong-based violinist and activist. The music matches the imagery, which comes courtesy of Zakkubalan. There is an underlying dread, a droning substrate, as well as a surface of brief presences, pizzicato pluckings that come to merge with the background sounds.
Video originally posted on YouTube. More from Sakamoto at sitesakamoto.com.
More from at Kung Chi Shing at kungmusic.hk. More from Zakkubalan, the duo Neo Sora and Albert Tholen, based in New York, at zakkubalan.com.
June 1, 2020
Lauri Wuolio’s Drones and Percussives
When a track begins so quietly, and at such a length, that you take time to confirm it’s actually playing something, surprise is built in. The ears have perked up. The attention is focused. Slow wafts of drones build and fade, and then from way down deep amid them issues a bubbling, metalloid rhythm, one that dances atop the drone. The ear listens for correlations, how the warp and weft of the underlying current has some parallel in the speed and volume, the vibrance and shape, of the percussives. And then the metalloid presence begins to dim, and the ear traces it as it fades.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/kumea. Kumea is Lauri Wuolio of Helsinki, Finland. More at wuolio.fi.
My Back 12″s
Summer chores include collating and culling old records, beginning with the hip-hop instrumentals (mostly 12″s, but some full lengths as well). There will be little if any culling.
May 31, 2020
Current Listens: Dalt’s Voice, Mursyid’s Gamelan
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
▰ Despite the title “Patch Notes,” this 15-minute video by Lucrecia Dalt is not a tutorial. It’s a full performance, a mesmerizing one, for expertly processed voice. Dalt is based in Berlin, Germany.
▰ “Origin High Brazil” is dense drones, somehow both orchestral yet solitary, from Parker Weston of Phoenix, Arizona. It’s the second track off the Enohpoxas Blews album, recored by Weston under the PKWST moniker:
▰ Gamelan-inspired, software-forged, effortlessly dreamy synthesizer figments from the talented, Indonesia-based musician Fahmi Mursyid:
May 30, 2020
Ress the Bell Long …
There is a certain irony to the word “press” having been worn off. Especially in such close proximity to the bell that the noun references, and especially since the phrase “the bell” shows no particular sign of ware. Nor, for that matter, does the button itself, the button one hits to ring the bell. So, two questions:
First, what is that circular item directly above the words “the” and “bell”? It looks like some sort of small coin, a mark of a secret organization, an emblem of some rank or other. Is it a form of welcome to those who recognize it?
Second, about that word “long”: It’s an adjective, not an adverb, and the fray to its right suggests, in parallel to the fray on the far left, that perhaps there was another letter there, though the shadows of the doorbell casing do taper off quickly. Would it have said “longy,” which is not a word? Would some letter have completed this phrase? Did the writer belatedly deem the grammar an issue, seek to remove it, and only get this far? The visitor has much to ponder in advance of the gate being opened.
May 29, 2020
Behind the Machine
There haven’t been any Buddha Machine Variations in a few days, but there’s been a lot of activity, some of it futile (thus far), but progress is being made. This is a cable intended to connect the ER-301 module to a 16n faderbank via i2c, a nearly 40-year-old data transfer system (see wikipedia.org). I use the word “intended” because so far the connection is befuddling me.
