Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 303
August 21, 2017
Olivia Block Welcomes the Eclipse
The slowly rising, cicadas-in-heat, increasingly crunchy, white-noise opening of Olivia Block’s “Aberration of Light” sets the stage for the 30-minute sonic experience that follows. Originally released on the NNA label back in 2015, the piece was posted by Block on her SoundCloud page today, timed to the solar eclipse. The music originated earlier still, back in 2011, as a four-speaker installation. The white noise ebbs and flows as the piece proceeds, enhanced by, per the NNA writeup, a modest but grounding horn section comprised of James Falzone (clarinet) and Jason Stein (bass clarinet). For some time it is riotous, and then reduced to an eerie hum, like wind across a vast prairie. At others it is richly tonal, as when those two clarinets weigh in with deep drones that eventually engage in threatening levels of fierce patterning. As it comes to its close, that sense of impending violence — whether in the void of near silence or the tension of layered drones — breaks free into full-on tumult.
More on the composition at the website of the releasing label, nnatapes.com. More from Block, who is based in Chicago, at oliviablock.net and twitter.com/oliviablock.
August 20, 2017
Aphex Twin Details SAW2 Recordings
Aphex Twin recently debuted his own online shop, where he’s making available not only high-fidelity audio of past releases, but also candid insights into those recordings. The site is at aphextwin.warp.net. It’s been slowly accumulating his Warp releases, and even music from his own label, Rephlex. The store includes not only recordings released by Richard D. James under the name Aphex Twin, but also under such monikers as GAK, afx, Polygon Window, and the Tuss. And the releases aren’t merely archival. Included is an expanded version of the recent collection of experiments with the Korg Minilogue synth, on whose development James consulted.
In addition to the tracks themselves, streamable online and available for purchased download, there are occasional bits of information. Some of them are simply humorous (a demo for a Japanese extra on 1999’s Windowlicker is tagged “You should not drink and take Antibiotics”), and others more informative, or at least semi-informative (an extra track on 2014’s Syro is tagged “Missing track from Syro, didn’t make it for technical and personal reasons. Drums were made on FOUR customised mid-racked Pearl syncussions, thanks to Colin Fraser and Tony Allgood”).
The site has a mix of certitude and silliness that feels like Richard D. James’ hallmark. For individual tracks you don’t click on a “purchase” or “buy” link, for example; instead you click on a link that reads “Cherish.” On each page, there’s a different joke term for whether you buy the “lossless” or more standard 320 mbps version of an album (these include “No guilty conscience,” “Possess,” “Nab,” “Casket,” and “Part with money,” among others).
The audience for this information is often musicians more than just Aphex Twin listeners. A video was added for the Drukqs track “Vordhosbn,” showing its underlying software in action (the goings-on are detailed by David Abravanelat at cdm.link).
The site didn’t launch fully formed. There was initially a mention that Rephlex releases would show up, and eventually some began to. And it doesn’t appear simply to be a matter of accrual. Things are changing as well. When the site first launched there were little colorful tags next to the new tracks that were being added to various albums. Those extra tracks remain, but the icon callouts are gone.
And, fortunately, among the albums benefitting from liner notes is Selected Ambient Works Volume II, his landmark ambient album, about which I wrote a book in the 33 1/3 series, published in 2014. So far four of the tracks on the record have got little bits of additional info. The full 25 tracks are available for download, rather than the 23 or 24 that plagued discographies for years, but the discography confusion has also been added to, thanks to the appearance of a new, 26th track, an 11-minute-long piece titled “th1 [evnslower].”
Here are the Selected Ambient Works Volume II liner notes that have appeared thus far, and I’ll be keeping an eye out for additions as time passes:
Track 13: “Blue Calx”
Recorded in Linmiri [Lannerlog bedroom studio], probably the last track I ever recorded in that house, quite fitting really, end of that era. I made it when coming back to visit my parents in Cornwall after moving away to go to college to do a degree in microelectronic engineering, which I thankfully never finished, was so boring, always preferred teaching myself, so much more satisfying, letting your mind wander where it needs to go. I heard Derrick May pressed this up onto vinyl so he could DJ it, I wonder if that was true?
Track 19 (“side 5, track 2, omitted from CD’s”) — otherwise known as “Stone in Focus”:
This track has now thankfully been found and uploaded here, I was very worried it had been lost, very relieved*** It was not included on the original CD’s as there wasn’t enough room. I usually always give priority to the vinyl versions of all my releases as I never ever really liked CD’s much, think I would have liked CD’s a little bit more if you could put 90 mins on them, who decided they were to be 74 mins anyway? Thinking about this now I’d love to try and get Warp to do high quality chrome cassette versions of all my Warp musics, maybe even metal ones if possible. If I wait a year or so for this I could include all the extras on the cassettes as there would be plenty of room, would have to sign the tracks over to Warp first for a physical release, something I don’t have to do for this website but that shouldn’t be too difficult.
Track 22 — otherwise known as “Spots”
Someone I used to know, you know who you are, worked as a cleaner in a police station and kindly pinched me a police interview tape. It was with a woman who murdered her husband, it’s the background audio in this track.
Track 23 — otherwise known as “Tassels”
featuring an EMS synthi ‘a’, mk1, Studiomaster star mixer, recorded 184 Southgate road, 1st floor, London. Bought the synthi when I was about 19 from Robin wood at ems, Ladock, Cornwall. Saved all my money for it for a long time, one of the first synths I ever bought and I know that machine inside and out, magical piece of equipment, always felt like it was made specially for me.
Visit the Aphex Twin site at aphextwin.warp.net.
August 19, 2017
What Sound Looks Like
Headphone etiquette at the Stanford exhibit on corporate design
An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.
August 18, 2017
What Sound Looks Like
A tiny selection of the sheet music at this local music store, now well into its fourth decade. I asked for a specific song, and they located it in under a minute.
An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.
Dead Radio
I started reading Nadine Gordimer’s novel July’s People this week simply because I’d never read her, and many friends had recommended her. In terms of the stack of books sitting here waiting to be read, reading about end of apartheid seemed like a useful filter on the world. To read meant to look away from work (which was easy, as I was on vacation), but also to look away from media, especially social media. Gordimer’s writing demands attention. She’s like if John le Carré wrote about interpersonal relations — and if he did so at a tenth the speed and several times the level of detail. Both are writers of, simultaneously, micro and macro politics, of the personal and the global. Both explore nuance and codes within communication. But she does so across impenetrable emotional voids and with zero interest in titillation.
In turning away from Twitter, I entered the deep emotional grasses of her book, and found amid the narrative strains two parents. They’re lost in many ways, foremost without a working radio. They fight over the device, searching for stations, checking “wave lengths.” More to the point, the radio works, but the stations don’t. There are no signals to be received. This is both fact and metaphor. All along, during my reading, my social media is out of control. I take breaks from it to read about the dead radio. Then I take breaks from the dead radio of Gordimer’s book to take in the fire hose of our current moment. I alternate. I think about taking a social media break, which I’ve done on occasion, but this seems like a time to be aware, to be aware of being aware. I’m intrigued by mediated awareness, I suppose.
The most quoted tweet I had was years ago, in the Arab Spring. At the time, Twitter was more about consumer goods and personal expression. I’d mentioned how “I used to look at Twitter to see what tech gadget has been released, and now it’s to see what country is on fire.” Or something along those lines. Anyhow, it’s pretty clear which country is on fire now. I might turn off Twitter, but of course when I choose to turn it, or the radio, on both would function. If the dead radio in July’s People suggests one form of broken interpersonal communication, what is the hyperactive Twitter a metaphor for? More to the point, the radio in July’s People seems dead because there are no signals. Social media seems to work because there are signals. The main thing I’ve come to appreciate is that something can function and still be broken.
August 17, 2017
Disquiet Junto Project 0294: Offline Status
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.
This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, August 21, 2017. This project was posted in early evening, California time, on Thursday, August 17, 2017.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0294: Offline Status
Pay tribute to the late Bassel Khartabil by turning his spoken words into music.
Note: Tracks from this project, and from previous Bassel-related Junto projects, may be played on the Over the Edge radio show on August 24th.
Step 1: This is the second of two consecutive projects we’re undertaking, following the news of Bassel Khartabil’s death. (If you’re new to the Junto, Bassel was an open-source coder who did a lot of work in CGI before being imprisoned in Syria. Word of his execution just recently became public. This is the sixth project we’ve done about him over the years.)
Step 2: Download the following short snippet of an audio file, just seven seconds, of Bassel speaking. In it you’ll hear his voice, as well as the lofi glory of mundane Internet communication, and some beeping inherent in everyday digital tools. You’ll use all this audio in your own track for this project. It’s on dropbox.com.
Step 3: Listen closely to Bassel’s voice and the other sounds that make up the file from Step 2.
Step 4: Record a piece of music that either begins with or ends with the full audio of Bassel’s voice. Use your own original instrumentation as well as elements extracted from the audio file as part of your composition to either extend from or lead up to the provided audio.
Five More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: If your hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to include the project tag “disquiet0294” (no spaces) in the name of your track. If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to my locating the tracks and creating a playlist of them.
Step 2: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.
Step 3: In the following discussion thread at llllllll.co please consider posting your track:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-...
Step 4: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.
Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.
Deadline: This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, August 21, 2017. This project was posted in early evening, California time, on Thursday, August 17, 2017.
Length: Keep your piece to under two minutes.
Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0294” in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.
Upload: When participating in this project, post one finished track with the project tag, and 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: For this project, please make sure your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution). This is aligned with the license of the source audio, and with Bassel Khartabil’s work.
Linking: When posting the track online, please be sure to include this information, along with details of your source audio, including links to it:
More on this 294th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Offline Status: Pay tribute to the late Bassel Khartabil by turning his spoken words into music. — at:
Thanks to Niki Korth, Jon Phillips, and Barry Threw for encouraging this project. More on Bassel here:
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-...
There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
August 10, 2017
Disquiet Junto Project 0293: Emerge/Immerse
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.
This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, August 14, 2017. This project was posted in early afternoon, California time, on Thursday, August 10, 2017.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0293: Emerge/Immerse
Make music for Paige Dansinger’s Palmyra 3D/VR images, paying tribute to the late Bassel Khartabil.
Step 1: This is the first of two consecutive projects we’re undertaking, following the news of Bassel Khartabil’s death. (If you’re new to the Junto, Bassel was an open-source coder who did a lot of work in CGI before being imprisoned in Syria. Word of his execution just recently became public.) Paige Dansinger is making VR drawings in Tilt Brush inspired by Bassel’s Palmyra CGI work, drawing from her own interest in making a better world. For this project we’re going to make sound, in Bassel’s honor, to accompany her 3D work. View Paige’s pieces at:
http://www.newpalmyra.org/projects/ju...
Step 2: Think about the sort of sound that might accompany, contribute to, or otherwise be a component part of a VR experience. Now, record a short piece of music, up to two minutes, that is about something emerging — something being brought to life, or coming out of a cave, or otherwise coming into being.
Five More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: If your hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to include the project tag “disquiet0293” (no spaces) in the name of your track. If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to my locating the tracks and creating a playlist of them.
Step 2: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.
Step 3: In the following discussion thread at llllllll.co please consider posting your track:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-...
Step 4: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.
Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.
Deadline: This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, August 14, 2017. This project was posted in early afternoon, California time, on Thursday, August 10, 2017.
Length: Keep your piece to under two minutes.
Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0293” in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.
Upload: When participating in this project, post one finished track with the project tag, and 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: For this project, please make sure your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution). This is aligned with Paige Dansinger and Bassel Khartabil’s work.
Linking: When posting the track online, please be sure to include this information, along with details of your source audio, including links to it:
More on this 293rd weekly Disquiet Junto project — Make music for Paige Dansinger’s Palmyra 3D/VR images, paying tribute to the late Bassel Khartabil — at:
Thanks to Niki Korth, Jon Phillips, and Barry Threw for encouraging this project, and to Paige Dansinger for the collaboration. View Dansinger’s 3D drawings of Palmyra here:
http://www.newpalmyra.org/projects/ju...
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-...
There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
Image associated with this project is by Paige Dansinger, more on whom here:
August 4, 2017
What Sound Looks Like
Memories of our early file-sharing ways: This is a detail from a story by comics artist Jillian Tamaki, collected in her recent book, Boundless. The story, first published in 2015, has nothing to do with random Squarepusher songs being illicitly downloaded, and instead focuses on a single MP3 that has an unfortunate effect on listeners. (The track is six hours long and titled “SexCoven.”) In a few panels, Tamaki captures a different time from ours. She casually posits the past as a beta test for the current technological present. The past isn’t foreign, just more pixelated. There’s the boxy interface, the requisite time sink (another panel shows just how burdensome dialup surfing could be), and that no longer ubiquitous wired mouse/pad combo, among other details. Kudos in particular for the varied case treatments of Squarepusher’s name, an early glimpse at the impact of metadata fluidity, and the smudge effect of “scroll scroll” in the subsequent panel (that action description was invisible to me in print, and I only noticed it after looking at this photograph of the page). The case issues with the Squarepusher titles are the visual gateway drug into how the story’s title track makes its way from an anonymous user’s computer to countless ones around the globe. This specific story might never have begun on a commercial website, or in a bricks and mortar record store for that matter. And even if the story is a fiction, a dark fantasy rendered in the artifacts of realism, the sense of a rupture in time, a shift in culture, a warping of communication, is trenchant.
An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.
August 3, 2017
Disquiet Junto Project 0292: Eclipse Music
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.
This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, August 7, 2017. This project was posted in morning, California time, on Thursday, August 3, 2017.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0292: Eclipse Music
In coordination with St. Louis Art Hack Day, make some solar-inspired tunes.
Step 1: There’s a solar eclipse coming to the United States on August 21. This is the first full solar eclipse in the U.S. in a long time, since June 8, 1918. The next such eclipse in the U.S. won’t be until August 12, 2045. Ponder the eclipse, and that time frame. Take note that this project is being done in coordination with the upcoming Art Hack Day in St. Louis. If you’re in the area, consider joining in in person. If you’re not (true for the vast majority of Junto participants), your resulting Junto music from this project will be played as part of the St. Louis art showing on August 19. (And certainly you can opt out of that last bit, if you’d like.) Major thanks to Tyler Mathews and Jon Phillips for encouraging this project. Details here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/art-hack-day-st-louis-eclipse-tickets-35500853007
Step 2: Think about the constituent elements in (the various facets of) an eclipse, what it means in terms of sensory experience — in cultures ancient and contemporary.
Step 3: Record a piece of music that that is inspired by the sense of the eclipse that came out of Steps 1 and 2.
Five More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: If your hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to include the project tag “disquiet0292” (no spaces) in the name of your track. If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to my locating the tracks and creating a playlist of them.
Step 2: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track. (If you don’t want your music played at the Art Hack Day event, please note so in the public field associated with your track, or email me at marc@disquiet.com to let me know.)
Step 3: In the following discussion thread at llllllll.co please consider posting your track:
https://llllllll.co/t/make-music-for-a-solar-eclipse-disquiet-junto-0292/
Step 4: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.
Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.
Deadline: This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, August 7, 2017. This project was posted in morning, California time, on Thursday, August 3, 2017.
Length: The length is entirely up to the participant, though three to five minutes is suggested.
Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0292” in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.
Upload: When participating in this project, post one finished track with the project tag, and 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 preferable that your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).
Linking: When posting the track online, please be sure to include this information, along with details of your source audio, including links to it:
More on this 292nd weekly Disquiet Junto project — Eclipse Music:
In coordination with St. Louis Art Hack Day, make some solar-inspired tunes — at:
Major thanks to Tyler Mathews and Jon Phillips for encouraging this project. Details on the related August events here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/art-hack...
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/make-music-for-a-solar-eclipse-disquiet-junto-0292/
There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
July 31, 2017
5 Cassette Players Walk into an Aphex Twin Cover
The past week or so have been big news in Aphex Twin land, from the opening of his own digital superstore, at aphextwin.warp.net, packed with extra tracks and candid bits of liner notes, to a headlining gig at a Japanese music festival, and the subsequent inevitable price spike for a commemorative tape of the concert. Lost in the tumult was this little video cover of “Rhubarb,” the third track from the Selected Ambient Works Volume 2 album. In the video it’s being performed on the Crudman — well, on a quintet of Crudmen. The Crudman is an ingenious hack of a Walkman. The aftermarket technology allows the speed of the tape to be controlled as if it were a synthesizer module. Because the tapes in this video all have simply a sine wave tuned to C on them, the speed adjustment alters the note value of the audio emitted from the player. There are more details on the recording process at the Crudlabs YouTube channel, and at the crudlabs.org website, including (for the more gadget-literate audience) this breakdown of the device’s controls:
