Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 311
February 22, 2017
No Insects Were Harmed
Clara Iannotta’s “Dead Wasps in the Jam-Jar (ii)” (2016) intrigues with its title’s promise of quotidian decay and, perhaps, with a bit of telegraphed moralizing about the price paid for sweetness. The suspense builds even before you hit play, thanks to its list of components: “for string orchestra, objects, and sine waves.” Now technically, virtually all music contains sine waves, since those are a major component of sound, but clearly the sine waves heard here are of the electronically generated variety. As for the objects, the brush held by the composer in the accompanying photo provides a hint at the untraditional instruments. What unfolds as “Dead Wasps in the Jam-Jar (ii)” proceeds is a study in controlled energies. In programmatic terms, the wasps seem to meet their fate as the four-minute mark arrives, a sharp swirling hitting hard, and more loudly than anything that proceeded it. Then warping torques and sudden jitters evidence struggle before the piece settles into an extended if anxious stillness. That final period, from about six minutes until the end, at eleven and a half minutes, is where concentrated listening is especially rewarded, thanks to Iannotta’s expert mix of textures, of held strings and fluttering percussion.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/claraiannotta. More from Iannotta, who is from Italy and is based in both Berlin, Germany, and Boston, Massachussetts, at claraiannotta.com. She is currently working on compositions for Duo 2KW and Arditti Quartet, among other ensembles.
February 20, 2017
The Elbow at the Machine
Björn Bommersheim posted this seven-minute synthesizer performance, which he describes as a “self generative eurorack modular patch,” which is to say it’s an instrument that plays itself. This isn’t to say the synth is entirely self-sufficient. Putting aside the necessity of someone (Bommersheim, that is) to conceive of and implement the patch —
“patch” meaning the various connections between various modules, and the various settings of those modules — there are numerous instances throughout “Chtou | Eurorack Ambient Soundscape” when the author is physically present. Bommersheim is seen adjusting knobs early on to set the piece in motion, and moving up and down between the levels of modules to nudge the piece in a desired direction at various instances. For the duration of the sedate, welcomingly distracting performance, rich swells of cloudy waveforms come and go, and whispy, playful, slurpy smaller tones make themselves heard.
This is the latest video I’ve added to my YouTube playlist of recommended live performances of ambient music. Video originally posted at Bommersheim’s YouTube channel. More from Bommershein, who is based in Bochum, Germany, at soundcloud.com/bjornbommersheim.
February 18, 2017
Whiz-Bang Chamber Music
I’ve been keeping a playlist of live ambient performances for awhile. Several things interest me about live ambient music. The main matter is the tension between action and stasis. Ambient music often aspires to a sense of time standing still, a time apart from time. Live performance to some degree or another, whether on stage or in a home-filmed video, aspires to some extent to express activity: something happened, and it is documented here. Two short segments comprise this elegant video by Bryan Noll. The switchover happens around the 1:40 mark of the 3:09-long clip. In both segments the same small number of synthesizer modules imparts a mix of artificially conceived plucked strings and shooting-star tones that fly through, making for whiz-bang chamber music. As Noll (who also goes by Lightbath) explains in the comments, there is some additional technology offscreen, in particular a keyboard on which he is playing the chords. At times throughout you see one or both hands enter the close-up shot to move a knob or a lever, a common activity in synthesizer performance that introduces adjustment as something between conducting and performing.
Video originally posted at Noll’s YouTube channel. More from Noll at fourhexagons.net, lightbath.com and twitter.com/lightbath.
February 16, 2017
Disquiet Junto Project 0268: Walking 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.
Tracks will be added to this playlist for the duration of the project:
This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, February 20, 2017. This project was posted in the late morning, California time, on Thursday, February 16, 2017.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0268: Walking Music
Take a stroll and describe it in sound, paying tribute to the late manga great Jiro Taniguchi.
Step 1: This week’s project pays tribute to Jiro Taniguchi, the great Japanese manga creator whose numerous works include an adaptation of a Natsume Sōseki novel, dark crime stories, and a widely celebrated and largely dialog-free volume titled The Walking Man. The Walking Man in particular is the inspiration for this week’s Junto project. Taniguchi died on February 11, 2017, at the age of 69.
Step 2: Take a leisurely stroll and record — whether through sound or observation, or both – what you see and experience.
Step 3: Create a short piece of music that reflects the route and experiences of your walk in Step 2.
Five More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: If you hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to include the project tag “disquiet0268″ (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:
http://llllllll.co/t/in-tribute-to-ji...
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, February 20, 2017. This project was posted in the late morning, California time, on Thursday, February 16, 2017.
Length: The length is up to you, depending on the approach you decide upon.
Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0268″ 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:
More on this 268th weekly Disquiet Junto project, “Walking Music: Take a stroll and describe it in sound, paying tribute to the late manga great Jiro Taniguchi”:
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
llllllll.co/t/in-tribute-to-jiro-tani...
There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
February 14, 2017
Sarah Davachi Live Video
It’s saying something when the wafts of stage smoke evidence more motion than does the performer. Such is, on this occasion, the painstaking, thoughtful, and introspective work of Sarah Davachi. This solemnly paced video went live late last year, coincident with the November 25, 2016, release of Davachi’s excellent Vergers album on the Important Records label, and yet it’s had oddly few viewings, at least according to YouTube’s accounting. It’s a gorgeous performance. The first half is an encompassing drone, settling into a heavy mid-range and dense with a slow boil of quarter-step commotion. Then enters what sounds like a patiently bowed violin, given to layering, its steadiness allowing for exploration of its gracefully bleak textures.
In related news, Davachi has been filling out her back catalog. Two EPs that predate Vergers appeared on her Bandcamp today: Qualities of Bodies Permanent and neustadt / altstadt EP, both dating from March 2015.
Video originally posted on the Important Records YouTube channel. More from Davachi at sarahdavachi.com and soundcloud.com/sarahdavachi.
February 12, 2017
The Modular Synth Videos of Gregory White
Gregory White is producing lovely videos of his modular synthesis work, mixing closeups of his patched devices with images from his domestic world.
There’s snowfall on suburban streets, bird feeders, and the like at the start and end of “Midwinter Rings + Chord,” giving us a sense of his mood and of his setting. These parallel aesthetics — the hush of the muffled region, the low-level hum of his music — suggest a bleed between environment and production, between world and worldview.
For “Chord + Clouds + Batumi” (the nouns in his titles all come from the names of synthesizer modules), the synthesizer is set up outdoors. The snow has stopped, though it’s still layering on the ground. The birds aren’t just pictured. They’re heard in the mix — perhaps not sampled by White’s instrument, which is going about slow chordal movement, but part of the finished track nonetheless.
Both “Midwinter Rings + Chord” and “Chord + Clouds + Batumi” were first posted on White’s YouTube channel. White is based in London, England. More from him at soundcloud.com/gregwht and gregory-white.co.uk.
February 11, 2017
Sandpaper Particulates
Ambient music isn’t inherently gaseous by nature, even if that is often its reputation. As the elegant and brief track “2.10.2017” by Bhendricksen exemplifies, the music can be just as textural as it might be ethereal. Bhendricksen’s track is a smidgin under two and a half minutes in length, and throughout it rotates sandpaper particulates this way and that. The volume swells to bring sounds into the foreground. Tiny rattles suggest the workings of myriad infinitesimal gears. It’s the sonic evidence of dust being produced, the noise pollution of Whoville.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/bhendricksen. Found via a repost by soundcloud.com/boson_spin, Stan Magendanz of Brisbane, Australia.
February 10, 2017
Mira Calix’s (Contemporary) Dance Music
Mira Calix has listed the track as “free download for a limited period.” It’s the latest in a series of single tracks that have been filling out her “portal” on the bleepstores.com website. The longtime Warp label roster member and prominent IDMer-turned-sound-artist is at miracalixportal.bleepstores.com. The track was announced on Twitter back on February 2 with an image that combined hostage-demand typography and epileptic-antagonizing flashing. Despite all of which, it’s an elegant piece for varied strings: bowed here, plucked there, stuttering like a rope connected a boat to a pier, aching like a sine wave jutting into the audio spectrum. It could be the score to a contemporary film noir, with all its nuanced tension and romantic scene-setting. What it is is a piece for contemporary dance, as Calix writes in the accompanying note:
metamorphosis i was originally composed for matt clark’s, director of united visual artists, video artwork as part of the 3 scène project commissioned by benjamin milliepied for paris opera in 2016. the video art work, titled metamorphosis, features ballerina eve grinsztajn, and my soundtrack; musicians oliver coates and daniel pioro. i have worked extensively with matt and uva over the years, it’s always a pleasure and truly collaborative process. often you write music to picture or vice a versa, but with this project it was a real back and forth. i set the tempo and wrote the bassline, which matt an the uva used during the initial filming of the dancer to capture her movements. while they were then processing and editing that material, i wrote the rest of the piece, bringing oliver and daniel into record the final score. the entire process taking around 3 months.
Track originally posted at miracalixportal.bleepstores.com. More from Calix at miracalix.com.
February 9, 2017
Disquiet Junto Project 0267: The Metronomic Society
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, February 13, 2017. This project was posted in the late morning, California time, on Thursday, February 9, 2017.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0267: The Metronomic Society
Create a theme song for a fictional organization.
Step 1: There’s a fascinating book from 1988 titled The Metronomic Society. Written by the Michael Young, it is an academic study of the rhythms of human existence, with an emphasis on organization and societal systems. It’s not necessary to read it. It’s just helpful to know where we’re borrowing the term from.
Step 2: Imagine there is an actual group called the Metronomic Society. You might also imagine what they’re up to. Maybe it’s a Man Ray fan club, or a bunch of disgruntled piano tuners, or maybe they explore arcane theories about quantum mechanics. Who knows?
Step 3: Now compose and record a short piece of music — a sound cue, a theme, a sound logo, a jingle — for the Metronomic Society.
Five More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: If you hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to include the project tag “disquiet0267″ (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:
http://llllllll.co/t/the-metronomic-s...
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, February 13, 2017. This project was posted in the late morning, California time, on Thursday, February 9, 2017.
Length: The length is up to you, depending on the approach you decide upon.
Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0267″ 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:
More on this 267th weekly Disquiet Junto project, “The Metronomic Society: Create a theme song for a fictional organization”:
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
llllllll.co/t/the-metronomic-society-...
There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
February 7, 2017
What Sound Looks Like
It’s been raining in the city. It’s been raining hard on and off for weeks. It’s been raining, and the wind has been knocking down trees. In certain neighborhoods the intense buzz of the chainsaw has become as common a sound as one imagines it to be in rural areas, or in horror movies for that matter. Construction sites in this boomtown have been forced to take days off. Repair vehicles are a frequent block to traffic. People are expressing, albeit in diplomatically hushed tones, that they miss the drought. The rain and wind do their fair share of damage, and of cleansing. The city streets shine at night. The reflection of bus taillights on soaked black tarmac casts red streaks the length of full blocks. Perhaps the elements are to blame, as well, for this blank slate of a doorbell. It’s quite common for dwellings to be marked at multi-unit entries with thick pens, or with little plastic tags affixed by tape. Maybe the rain washed it all away. Though, judging by the uniformity of the buttons, the prim white grid, this is more likely a fresh install. Supporting the impression is the bright grey of the faceplate, and the barren cavity where there might in the future be a doorknob. What visitors are supposed to do in advance of the association of buttons with apartments is an open question. It’s also difficult to imagine how the labels will fit in this design. The spacing is tight. The sense of a geometric grid will diminish should the numbers be placed below or beside each button. Should they be written on the buttons, they’ll be worn away by usage, by friction and sweat. No doubt the landlord is waiting for the inclement weather to pass before labeling the buttons. Soon enough the rain will end, or at least take an extended pause. And then, almost certainly, the implementation of mundane visual damage will begin.
An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.
