Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 380
April 7, 2015
A Roadside Snapshot
A fine field recordist has skills like those of a fine photographer. An everyday slice of life takes on the sense of a composed thing, a considered object, something constructed by hand from start to finish. The person holding that camera no more put that mountain next to that moon than the person holding that microphone put that bell next to that birdsong. And yet, by framing the material, they both present it as their own, lay claim to the natural world and the built environment. This “Small Roadside Shrine” on the SoundCloud account of London-based Mola Recordings frames a brief moment in time, when the rush of water or traffic, or both, and a dull bell — or perhaps a bucket — and the wisp of bird chatter combine into a sonic snapshot of a moment and a place. It is barely half a minute in length, but then again that framed photo over your desk is just six inches square. Both contain lifetimes.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/mola-recordings. More from Mola Recordings at mola-recordings.blogspot.com.
April 6, 2015
Cities and Memory: Oblique Strategies
For Cities and Memory: Oblique Strategies, more than 60 musicians and artists from almost 20 countries around the world took the classic card set by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt as their guide. Each participant either made a field recording or reworked an existing sound, or both, in pursuit of responding to the Oblique prompts. Marcus Lisle, for example, took the sound of cracking ice on the Merrimack River in the U.S. and had these as his Oblique Strategies: “Trust in the you of now,” “Work at a different speed.” For David Mixco, it was a Pudong airport in China and “You are an engineer,” “What context would look right?” For Christina Wong it was a tuna auction in Tokyo, Japan and “Move towards the unimportant,” “Do we need holes?”
This playlist contains some of the resulting sounds:
The mix of unmediated and repurposed sounds works well in this context. The sheer breadth of material can’t be easily consumed, and even the map-specific locations don’t entirely focus the imagination on what is generally unmoored and often abstract. Instead, variety is the guide, a flux of contrasts in a sea of geolocated audio.
More on the project at citiesandmemory.com. The audio is hosted at audioboom.com.
April 5, 2015
Kate Carr’s Ambient Naturalism
Kate Carr’s “Once Upon a Rose Coloured Time” is a piece of nature-infused ambient music. It’s all rustling leaves, birdsong, and a slow foundation of pure droning sonic billow. Two components stand out from the naturalist undercurrent, nudge it from background audio to foreground listening. There is a gentle guitar line that arrives about halfway through, and there is a brief, upward, single-note melodic line. The latter may, in fact, be a snippet of birdsong set on loop. That, as a result, it brings to mind, quite favorably, Brian Eno’s Thursday Afternoon is a sign of just how well those naturalist and sonic tendencies overlap.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/katecarr. More from Carr, who is from Sydney and is currently based in Belfast, at twitter.com/flamingpines.
Kate Care’s Ambient Naturalism
Kate Carr’s “Once Upon a Rose Coloured Time” is a piece of nature-infused ambient music. It’s all rustling leaves, birdsong, and a slow foundation of pure droning sonic billow. Two components stand out from the naturalist undercurrent, nudge it from background audio to foreground listening. There is a gentle guitar line that arrives about halfway through, and there is a brief, upward, single-note melodic line. The latter may, in fact, be a snippet of birdsong set on loop. That, as a result, it brings to mind, quite favorably, Brian Eno’s Thursday Afternoon is a sign of just how well those naturalist and sonic tendencies overlap.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/katecarr. More from Carr, who is from Sydney and is currently based in Belfast, at twitter.com/flamingpines.
April 2, 2015
Disquiet Junto Project 0170: A Glitch in the Night
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.com and at Disquiet.com, 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.
This assignment was made in the evening, California time, on Thursday, April 2, 2015, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, April 6, 2015.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0170: A Glitch in the Night
Create a one-minute track that takes the project title as its guiding aesthetic.
This project is the third in an ongoing occasional series that focus on late-night ambience. Collectively these nocturnal endeavors are being called “One Minute Past Midnight.” No one’s work will be repurposed without their permission, and it’s appreciated if you post your track with a Creative Commons license that allows for non-commercial reuse, reworking, and sharing.
The steps for this project are as follows:
Step 1: The primary goal of this project is to make a one-minute track. That track should, in your imagination, fit the description “A Glitch in the Night.”
Step 2: You may create an entirely original work that fits the brief project outline in Step 1. Or, you might choose to rework audio from one of two previous projects in this series, #0160 from January 22, 2015, and #0163 from February 12, 2015, both of which involve field recordings made of the sound one minute past midnight:
http://disquiet.com/0160/
http://disquiet.com/0163/
Step 3: If you choose, per Step 2, to use pre-existing material, locate segments that are especially quiet and meditative — and confirm that they are available for creative reuse. Many should have a Creative Commons license stating such, and if you’re not sure just check with the responsible Junto participant.
Step 4: Upload your track to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.
Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.
Deadline: This assignment was made in the evening, California time, on Thursday, April 2, 2015, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, April 6, 2015.
Length: The length of your finished work should be roughly between one and four minutes.
Upload: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, only upload one track for this assignment, and 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 include the term “disquiet0170-midnightglitch” in the title of your track, and 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 170th Disquiet Junto project — “Create a one-minute track that takes the project title, ‘A Glitch in the Night,’ as its guiding aesthetic” — at:
http://disquiet.com/2015/04/02/disqui...
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
More on the One Minute Past Midnight series at:
http://oneminutepastmidnight.com/
Join the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet...
Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:
Photo associated with this project by Javier Morales, used via Creative Commons license:
April 1, 2015
A Soft Fabric Made of Countless Tiny, Hard Elements
Pocka’s “tbs” lingers at the percussive end of the broad continuum known as ambient. The track is all tapped-metal sounds, things like prayer bells and mangled cymbals and dull blades snapping away. In turn, those individual sounds are filtered through sharp, mathematically unforgiving digital echoes, processes that render the source audio into something akin to shuffled cards of muted reflections. The result is a soft fabric made of countless tiny, hard elements.
Track originally posted by Pocka, aka Brad Mitchell, for free download at soundcloud.com/pocka.
March 31, 2015
March 30, 2015
Bright Static and Touchtone Glitch
Texture isn’t secondary in Yusuke Nakamura’s “Tone.” On first impression, it sounds like a landline phone call that has fallen just short of a full connection, and we’re listening in as the systems on either end try to reconcile their differences. It’s all bright static and touchtone glitch. In time the basic, underlying 4/4 grid of the music becomes clear, but even as the song-ness of it takes hold, that frazzled-communication vibe retains its fresh, vigorous hold on your ear.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/yusuke_nakamura. More from Nakamura, who is based in Tokyo, Japan, at twitter.com/Yusuke_BluSwing and blu-swing.com.
