Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 337
May 13, 2016
New Autechre Plays in Chaos/4 Time
There was word out that a new Autechre track was due for broadcast at some point today. It has occurred, and the appearance of the 12-minute stretch of off-kilter beats and broken static has made its way to YouTube on several channels. How long it’ll remain online is unclear. The track is titled “feed1” according to the DJ at the start of the extracted segment, which played this evening, London time, on BBC Radio 6. It’s a perhaps uncharacteristically repetitive piece for the duo. The beat itself is difficult to nod your head to, certainly, but the overall effect is of dedicated, near-industrial perseverance. The tricky, arhythmic metrics themselves cycle on fairly steady repeat, in other words whatever chaos/4 maps to on a drum machine.
Track found via the lllllll.co discussion boards.
May 12, 2016
3 Things to Know if You’re New to the Disquiet Junto
There’s been a significant uptick in Disquiet Junto participation. As of this writing, there are now over 1,000 subscribers to the weekly project-announcement email list, and the most recent project had 8 first-timers among its participants. Will new folks joining every day, it’s a good time for three very brief tips.
Three main points for newcomers to the Disquiet Junto:
1. Process: If you don’t join the Junto group on SoundCloud and share your track with the group, very few people will find your track, and I won’t know to add it manually to the project-specific playlist.
2. Pressure: There is absolutely no pressure to join in every week, every project. The point of the Junto being weekly (starts every Thursday, ends every Monday at 11:59pm) is it’s there when you find the time and interest.
3. Participation: Participation doesn’t just mean posting tracks. It also means, among other things, listening to and commenting on each other’s tracks and weighing in on Twitter (and, to a lesser extent, Facebook), where there’s plenty of communication about what folks are up to.
Disquiet Junto Project 0228: Three Mics
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.com and at disquiet.com/junto, 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. 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 project 0228:
This project was posted in late morning, California time, on Thursday, May 12, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, May 16, 2016.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0228: Three Mics
Make a piece of music with one sound source recorded three different ways.
This week we’re going to explore how different microphones can alter the perception of a given instrument or other sound source.
Step 1: Find three microphones. (Music mic, laptop, cellphone, tablet, landline answering machine, etc.)
Step 2: Make three recordings, each of the same single sound source through a different one of the microphones from Step 1.
Step 3: Make a piece of music exploring the differences — some will be stark, others more nuanced — between those three recordings.
Step 4: Upload your completed track to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.
Step 5: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.
Step 6: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.
Deadline: This project was posted in late morning, California time, on Thursday, May 12, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, May 16, 2016.
Length: The length is up to you, though between one and three minutes feels about right.
Upload: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, only upload one track for this project, 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.
Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please in the title to your track include the term “disquiet0228.” Also use “disquiet0228” as a tag for your track.
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, please be sure to include this information:
More on this 228th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Make a piece of music with one sound source recorded three different ways”) at:
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Join the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet...
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:
Image associated with this project adopted from a photo by John Schneider, used thanks to a Creative Commons license:
May 11, 2016
An Ambient Employment of a Granular App
Dave Stafford’s video “Formation of the Universe” is a solid introduction to an amorphous, fluid music application. The application is Borderlands Granular. It allows the user (né musician) to locate tiny segments of pre-existing music and build from them glistening, refracting cues that cycle in a random, often curiously delightful state. Stafford mixes vocal samples with less identifiable source material. In addition to posting the video, he wrote a lengthy appraisal of the app, which is one of his favorites. Stafford goes into detail on how it functions. The music makes good background listening as you read up on how it was recorded.
It’s the latest piece I’ve added to my ongoing YouTube playlist of fine “Ambient Performances.” Video originally posted to Stafford’s YouTube channel. More from Stafford at pureambient.com and pureambient.wordpress.com
May 10, 2016
Boards of Canada Guitar (Pedal) Cover
While he skips the backward-masky quality of the original, SineRider’s electric-guitar cover of the Boards of Canada miniature “Over the Horizon Radar,” not even a minute and a half in length, is true to the source material’s pacing and mood. The video was recorded live, and the gap between what is seen and what is heard is worth reflecting on. The notes are plucked, but the sound really owes its quality to the (unspecified) guitar pedals that are, like the musician’s head, offscreen. A given pluck happens noticeable split seconds — we need another term for “split seconds,” as it suggests speed when what is in fact meant is a discernible gap — before the full impact of the playing is felt.
It’s the latest piece I’ve added to my ongoing YouTube playlist of fine “Ambient Performances.”
For reference, here’s the original:
And here’s the work of someone who listens like I do. This takes the original and loops it to play for five minutes:
Video originally posted at youtube.com. SineRider is the name under which Devin Powers records ambient/electronic music. He’s based in Norwood, Massachusetts. More from SineRider/Powers at soundcloud.com/sinerider, twitter.com/sinerider, and sinerider.bandcamp.com.
May 9, 2016
Lightly Warped Instrumental Chamber Pop
Spring Fields Become a Hummingbird by ykymr
The always dependable netlabel La bél, based in Italy, has released a beautiful album of lightly warped instrumental chamber pop music from Ykymr. Titled Spring Fields Become a Hummingbird, it’s a collection of seven tracks that range from melty piano and synth hymns, complete with layers of bird song (“Sorry”), to gently rhythmic post-rock (“Sleepy”). Two highlights are on the quieter side. “Snow in the Southerly” is one of those piano/bird pieces, adding a bit of electric guitar midway through. “Spring Birds” fuzzes out the piano in a static-tinged manner that sounds like an ancient archive.org 78 recording of some proto-minimalist’s private sketches.
Album originally posted for free download at labelnetlabel.bandcamp.com. More from Ykymr, based in Tokyo, Japan, at ykymr.bandcamp.com and ykymr.tumblr.com.
May 8, 2016
What Sound Looks Like
This archaic callbox stands on a street that’s been in a constant state of construction for at least a decade. New structures have risen. Old ones have been refurbished or destroyed. Entirely new tunnels have been excavated and put into use. Businesses have come and gone. The callbox, nestled into some high brush and thick weeds, was locked shut at some point along the way. Then came the indignities: the cobwebs (it should be noted these withstood a day of rain) and the mess of paint. If this box could still make or take a call, it would be an effort to access it. Perhaps it’s on a list somewhere of historic items to be protected. Perhaps it’s low on another list of things to be disposed of, or to be retrofitted. Perhaps those lists have disappeared and no one today with a municipal title even knows of its existence. Perhaps the line still works, perhaps the line is still on, and perhaps someone on the other end hears people passing, few if any providing any evidence that they note the callbox’s presence.
An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.
Nostalgic Beats in Old Kyoto
The video’s reveal comes 33 seconds in. Up until that point the camera has been slowly gazing around traditional Kyoto, Japan: the vaulted roofs, the red gateways, the concrete structures, the sculptured foliage, the constructed waterways. The wide-angle, perfect geometry of the shots, and the slow motion in which they appear, at first have the feel of a video-game cutscene, but for all the perfection, this is real. This is Kyoto, in all its preserved beauty. The stroll is accompanied by a beat, the heady semi-swagger of solid instrumental hip-hop, the way instrumental hip-hop can be tinged with nostalgia. The nostalgia of instrumental hip-hop may often be for the very early 1990s, and the nostalgia of Kyoto may be for several centuries earlier, but they pair well. Hip-hop and Japan have a longstanding relationship, a sense of mutual regard, so the matchup makes sense. And then at 33 seconds, into view comes British producer Ally Mobbs, propped up on the edge of low wall, pounding gently if insistently on an MPC 500, the portable beat machine, his head bobbing. He’s as lost in the music as we are. The difference is, he’s making the music. We get barely five seconds before he disappears from view, the camera wandering back on its own way. At 51 seconds he appears again, and remains in view, until the very end (the video is 1:34 long, but the music is over at about 1:28). There is no sound besides the music, no footsteps or birds. The headspace of the music is the headspace of Mobbs himself, who’s performing the track — recording the track — live while the camera is filming.
The video was posted two days ago on the YouTube channel of Nedavine (nedavine.bandcamp.com, nedavine.com). More from Ally Mobbs, who lives in Kyoto, at allymobbs.com, allymobbs.bandcamp.com, and twitter.com/allymobbs. Track found via a post Mobbs made on the llllllll.co discussion boards.
