Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 412
August 7, 2014
via instagram.com/dsqt
This public speaker grid looks like you can patch in your own personalized emergency sound module.
Cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.
August 6, 2014
Solo Flute, in Narrative Segments
The solo flute is heard, in this piece by composer Mara Gibson, as a sequence of solitary gestures. A whistling high note succeeds a breathy mid-register tone, the two separated by a sudden sharp sound that reminds the listener that any instrument, including the flute, can play percussion. There are as well desperately tenuous moments where the lips seem to struggle to eke out the quietest sounds possible, and others where a short melodic phrase is given a moment to develop before being cut short. There are extended silences, and near-silences that suggest distant birdsong. At seven and a half minutes in length, it’s an absorbing work that exerts a narrative logic as each segments reflects both backward and forward.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/mara-gibson. More from Gibson, a professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, at maragibson.com and twitter.com/GibsonMara.
via instagram.com/dsqt
The sonics of thrillers: Panel from issue 3 of Black Widow, drawn by Noto, written by Edmondson.
Cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.
August 5, 2014
The Dance Music of Failing Digital Memory Systems
As solid state drives (SSD) rapidly put old physical digital memory into the trash bin of history, it’s worthwhile to reflect on the sounds intrinsic to them. While today SSD is widely appreciated for its near-silent operation, the primary sound source being the fan that is occasionally required to cool a computer system, in its day the physical disc drive was itself seen as a respite from the devices that had preceded it: the click of the shuffling CD player, the surface noise of vinyl, the playback mechanism of cassette tapes. Valentina Vuksic has made much of the inherent idiosyncrasies of the hard drive, the galloping clicks and fizzy transgressions, turning those signals of function and malfunction into sound for its own sake, a post-digital chamber music of delicate tensions. She’s employed the word Harddisko as an umbrella name for many of these projects.
It’s been two years since Sonic Circuits, the Washington, DC–based experimental music promoter, has updated its SoundCloud page, but there’s still plenty of engrossing listening there. A track by Vuksic dates, as well, from two years back, but since it currently shows just 331 listens, it’s safe to say it can benefit from some additional coverage. The performance is from a September 26, 2011, Sonic Circuits show at the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. At nearly half an hour it is an engaging and challenging listen, the dance music of failed digital memory systems.
And here’s video of one of her Harddisko installations, from the 2007 Dutch Electronic Art Festival, including interview segments in which she describes her artistic and musical activity:
More on Vuksic’s Harddisko at harddisko.ch. More from Sonic Circuits at dc-soniccircuits.org, twitter.com/soniccircuits, and soniccircuits.tumblr.com.
August 4, 2014
Early Surveillance Ambience
The early work of Scanner, especially in the early and mid-1990s, was a study in surveillance. Long before Siri and “OK, Google” tricked us into having our microphones on all the time, long before Edward Snowden revealed the extent to which the National Security Agency and other organizations are listening in on us, Scanner was plucking audio from the ether and lending it a deep sense of drama with a contextual electronic score.
That the voices he recorded were hardly high fidelity was part of his process: they bled into his electronics. Where exactly the glitchy downtempo music ended and the glitchy conversation audio began was not exactly clear. Scanner recently rereleased a project from 1996, a single that he’d recorded under the name Trawl. At the time he perceived a distinction between the more ethereal nature of his Scanner work and the dubbier, more club-friendly aspects of Trawl’s music. In time those differences may be less interesting than the commonalities, the way found vocals and sonic portent can combine to create a much darker reality, the way a musical backdrop can take a somewhat brittle conversation — in this case largely about hiring a cab for someone — into a tense observation about interpersonal politics and verbal microinteractions.
In addition to his own “Trawl, Disappearance,” the release features two remixes, one (“Wireless Rupture”) by Bill Laswell and the other (“Enter Exit”) by Mick Harris. All sales of the record share income with John Everall, the founder of the label that originally released the music, and who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Writes Scanner:
John was pivotal early in my career in supporting and encouraging me so this is a modest gesture of support. All monies received will go towards his forthcoming funeral costs, and after this sad day arrives, frighteningly soon it seems, all remaining monies will go towards Cancer Research UK.
Album posted at scanner.bandcamp.com. More from Scanner, aka Robin Rimbaud, at scannerdot.com.
via instagram.com/dsqt
Plaque above the two public phones on the ground floor of the main branch of the San Francisco Pubic Library.
Cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.
via instagram.com/dsqt
Guarding against the interpersonal noise pollution of headphone bleed.
Cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.
August 1, 2014
July 31, 2014
Disquiet Junto Project 0135: Sound of Summer
Each Thursday at the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.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 early evening, California time, on Thursday, July 31, with 11:59pm on the following Monday, August 4, 2014, as the deadline.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0135: Sound of Summer
Record the sonic equivalent of air conditioning.
This project is as follows. You are being asked to try to record one minute of sound that would suggest to the listener the pleasing experience of air conditioning — of the air being cooled on a hot summer day.
Deadline: Monday, August 4, 2014, at 11:59pm wherever you are.
Length: The length of your finished work should be approximately one minute.
Information: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, 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. Also note the segment of the video you worked on.
Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please include the term “disquiet0135-soundofsummer″ 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, and note the segment of time you composed for:
More on this 135th Disquiet Junto project — “Record the sonic equivalent of air conditioning” — at:
http://disquiet.com/2014/07/31/disqui...
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Join the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet...
Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:
Photo associated with this track by Egi Primayogha via a Creative Commons license:
