Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 436
November 18, 2013
A Premix Quartet
If the rampant release schedule of contemporary electronic musicians leaves you overwhelmed and befuddled, buried in an embarrassment of riches, then add Chris Herbert to your favorites list. Because for better and worse, Herbert has a modest discography in his wake, dating back to the album Mezzotint on Kranky in 2006. He leaves you wanting, not overwhelmed. Still, a forthcoming album, titled Constants, due out in February 2014, is being led into by an unusal premix, a quartet of reworkings of source material that will be heard again when the full-length comes out. The premix set is titled Wintex-Cimex ’83, and it’s being made available for free download throughout December by Lawrence English’s fine Room 40 label. Here, below, is one of the four tracks, the rough tinsel of “Soft Quasars.” Herbert has been quoted as saying that the collective work takes as its theme “radar, dying stars, aeronautics, ailing short waves flickering in the troposphere, the ghost of JG Ballard.”
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/room40. Get the full set of four tracks at room40.org. More from Herbert at chrisherbert.net and twitter.com/cjherbert.
November 16, 2013
Past Week at Twitter.com/Disquiet
Detail of projection of one of today's Oulipo sound projects. #oumupo #sfai http://t.co/DP3EfwnKkT ->
Realizing the typography on slides I use in teaching looks exactly like the photocopied typography on concert posters I made in college. ->
Did 4 pieces in Oulipo sound workshop: listening, woven audiobiography, subtractive composition, song form (name/room tone as source audio). ->
Oulipian parents: my wife & I relay-read Little House to our 3-year-old, never experiencing it in full ourselves, mentally filling in gaps. ->
So good. MT @EdieBushwick: @disquiet Do you m an H ad d to Gr n Appl books shortly for th v ning's r ading of work by th lat G org s P r c? ->
Yow, already 37 tracks in the week's Disquiet Junto project: http://t.co/LTj2ivvc92. Proof that I'm a poor judge of what will/won't work. ->
When Dave Eggers, in The Circle, describes the weather as cloudless I briefly think it's a comment about the Internet being down. ->
"Email that enhances your tech lifestyle." Email taglines that encourage you to unsubscribe. ->
This most recent Disquiet Junto project, #97, the one that ended last night, had 10 first-time participants. That's excellent. ->
For this coming Thursday's Disquiet Junto we're going to do a project from this past weekend's Oulipo sound workshop. ->
Tuesday noon siren in San Francisco: http://t.co/FrVmKgO1Mx ->
RIP, John Tavener (69), composer: http://t.co/AOXwuIe3et. (His piece Ikon of Light is a personal favorite.) ->
Rdio seems to know me a lot better than Netflix does, and I've been cohabitating with Netflix a lot longer. ->
▶ The late John Tavener's Ikon of Light: http://t.co/BRC8TyBwSs. Don't let the quiet opening trick you into setting the volume too high. ->
There may not be spiders on Mars but the track "Dalby and Marko" from Max Richter's score to The Last Days on Mars sounds like there are. ->
Favorite form of listening is from headphones in the pocket of my jacket on the floor of my office after forgetting to pause my MP3 player. ->
So, "Beskhu3epnm" is misspelled (as "Beskhu3upnm") on @Rdio's track listing for Aphex Twin's Drukqs album, right? ->
Feels like the shared, unusual double L of Ben Neill and Phill Niblock gives them some sorta ambient kinship. ->
Actually looking forward to SHIELD, rather than just looking forward to looking forward to SHIELD. ->
"Which non-expression is this?" SHIELD is figuring things out. ->
Reworkings by Scanner of music of the late John Tavener for a collaboration that will never be: http://t.co/KGAQgbSYzI ->
Today in the class I teach on sound in the media landscape (week 10 of 15): What does sound looks like? ->
Just recognizing how inherently Oulipian the .txt format is. ->
"Did you mean: nag a ram" — what Google displays if you search for "anagram" ->
There's something beautiful about the potential energy inherent in a new video-game console controller photographed on a table. ->
Music to listen to music to listen to music to. ->
Realizing reason I like James Newton Howard's Parkland score is it sounds at times like a John Hassell / Amon Tobin mixtape. ->
Today in sound class, student presentations on the sounds of department stores (paging @notrobwalker) and on headphone recommendations. ->
Proud day. I fixed Aphex Twin track misspelling on @rdio. MT @RdioHelp: Thanks for letting us know! We've fixed it: http://t.co/hxvMuPWHW6 ->
Sentence I type variations on a lot: "Despite the New Orleans area code, it is my number in San Francisco, where I live." ->
Would swear that when HR is revealed to Carter on Person of Interest the music briefly sounds like the Emperor's Theme from Star Wars. ->
So the primary reason Kit Kat isn't yet available for the Nexus 4 is to nudge us all for a few extra days to consider the Nexus 5, right? ->
There's a lovely little markdown artifact in my Aphex Twin book, which I'm particularly happy about. ->
The chapter titles from my forthcoming Aphex Twin book in the 33 1/3 series on Selected Ambient Works Volume II: http://t.co/fwDe9GX5ff ->
Considered it. Have essay on why I didn't. MT @liminalcity: @disquiet was kind of hoping each chapter just had a texture instead of a title ->
.@liminalcity Adding images was an option but I decided a book in text about sound would constrain itself to text. in reply to liminalcity ->
The 98th weekly @djunto project is a "woven audiobiography" based on project from the @dlb-led Oulipo events held last week in San Francisco ->
For this week's Disquiet Junto project you'll need a die and a mic. ->
Was Felicity's "Tahiti" joke in last night's Arrow episode a shot across SHIELD's bow? ->
This week's project was a nice reason to post a picture of Raymond Queneau’s Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes. ->
Excited that Pauline Oliveros's listed among the 2014 Whitney Biennial artists. Parsing for other sounds of interest: http://t.co/d7td8qHXmS ->
RIP, saxophonist Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre (77) of the AACP. ->
Anyone recall @DougCoupland on writing a character unlike yourself, putting in envelope for some time, then discovering it is like yourself? ->
Reasons to love the present: Jimmy Page has remixed Notorious B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize": http://t.co/xZuSldTOYc. Includes glitch drum solo. ->
Previous eldritch-school hip-hop tweet's link via @ethanhein ->
Advice for Disquiet Junto participants who find projects don't "sound like their music": http://t.co/JKpZa1ZFxA. In brief: make new account. ->
Excellent. RT @dirtydemos: Gonna attempt to get back on the @djunto horse this week. It's been a while. ->
November 15, 2013
Disquiet Junto Disambiguation
The F.A.Q. (frequently asked questions) document for the Disquiet Junto has been updated to respond to a not uncommon inquiry. The full document is here, but this is the text of the addition:
Q: I’m excited to participate, but I don’t want listeners to confuse my Disquiet Junto projects with my “real” music/sound work. Any suggestions?
A: Certainly. Variations on this question have been raised by many participants in the Disquiet Junto projects. Someone who makes minimal techno or singer-songwriter music or chamber music might not want listeners to their SoundCloud accounts have the listening experience broken up by remixed Thomas Edison cylinder or autobiographical spoken word recordings or any other number of incongruous project-derived tracks. The best option may be to create a separate SoundCloud account for your Junto projects.
Full F.A.Q. here.
A Cloud Fitted with an Iron Scaffold
If noise music is ambient music turned up loud, then shoegaze is ambient music with a beat. Not just any beat, mind you, but a beat that emerges from the ebb and flow of the underlying drone, a beat that recognizes the rhythmic content in the flow of the drone and that latches onto it, building a hard lattice that supports the seemingly ethereal initial audio. It traces that underlying form, a cloud fitted with an iron scaffold. This is what happens in “Prologue: In Recollection and Amazement,” the first track off the new album from Westy Reflector, titled Transient Lines and available at bandcamp.com. The initial glisten, with hints of Robert Fripp’s tape loops, hovers like a thick cloud, builds a pulse that then reveals itself as proper drums, playing along in stereophonic splendor. What makes this more than a matter of accrual, of layering, is that the glisten itself has a reveal — slowly, for if anything this track embraces its placid approximation of momentum, the hazy original sound acknowledges that it is produced on guitar, and more familiar chiming, ringing, strummed chords kick in.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/thereflectors. More from Westy Reflector at westyreflector.net.
November 14, 2013
Disquiet Junto Project 0098: Woven Audiobiography
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 afternoon, California time, on Thursday, November 7, with 11:59pm on the following Monday, November 11, 2013, as the deadline.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0098: Woven Audiobiography
The steps for this week’s project are as follows:
Step A: Choose a number from 1 through 6. You can roll a die or use an online number generator, or come to a decision on your own.
Step B: Write a 100-word text beginning with one of the following phrases, depending on the number you selected. Where there are brackets fill them in with the appropriate information.
“I was born in [ ] and I like …”
“My name is [ ] and I was thinking …”
“This morning I had a sense that …”
“Try as I might, the same thing …”
“The last book I read was [] and …”
“On a Sunday morning I usually …”
Step C: Write a 90-word text beginning with the same phrase.
Step D: Write an 80-word text beginning with the same phrase.
Step E: Record yourself reading the three texts as three separate tracks. Record each at the same pace. Speak slowly and take an extended pause after any period.
Step F: Layer the three tracks into one track. They should all begin at the same point and the first few words should, more or less, overlap to the point of being indistinguishable.
Step G: Take a couple passed through audio, lightly balancing relative volume levels to emphasize key phrases or, for that matter, to enhance the low-key cacophony.
Step H: If you desire to, weave in one tonal element, though not so loud as to overpower the speaking.
Deadline: Monday, November 18, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are.
Length: Your track’s length will be determined by the longest of your three recordings.
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.
Title/Tag: Include the term “disquiet0098-wovenaudiobio” in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.
Download: Please consider employing a license that allows for attributed, commerce-free remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).
Linking: When posting the track, be sure to include this information:
More on this 98th Disquiet Junto project, in which three original spoken texts are combined into one track, at:
http://disquiet.com/2013/11/14/disqui...
More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet...
Background: This week’s project originated as part of the Oulipo Sound Workshop that was included in the Subtle Channels series of events held in San Francisco earlier this month (November 2013). The three-hour workshop provided an opportunity to explore the role that Oulipo literary constraints play in the restricted rules of the weekly Disquiet Junto projects. There were four projects that day, including a listening exercise, a word-based one based similar to last week’s Junto project, and a subtractive one along the lines of the 7th Disquiet Junto project from back in February 2012. The fourth was a simpler version of this week’s Junto.
Above image, from Raymond Queneau’s Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes, found via the stellar goto80.com.
Aphex Twin / Chapter Titles
With the pre-press proofreading of the text nearly complete, these are the chapter titles for my forthcoming book in the 33 1/3 series on Aphex Twin’s 1994 album Selected Ambient Works Volume II. The book will be published on February 13, 2014, just weeks before the 20th anniversary of the album’s original release:
Chapter 1: There Is No Volume I
Chapter 2: Background Beats
Chapter 3: A Chill-Out Room of One’s Own
Chapter 4: Synesthetic Codex
Chapter 5: Transcribing Vapor
Chapter 6: Embedding Vapor
Chapter 7: Selected Ambient Works Volume III
Available for pre-order from amazon.com and elsewhere.
November 13, 2013
Percussion + Piano
Some rough percussion, like rubber bands imitating rain drops, or stretched leather grating under pressure, or the cabin of a wooden boat tossed in a gentle storm. A single piano line, played solemnly, like a lullaby on a deceased friend’s dilapidated instrument, slightly out of tune in specific spots, each note lingering far longer than might seem possible, pools of notes piling on the floor beside the stool.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/martinrach. More from Rach at martinrach.com.
November 12, 2013
Music for Yorkshire Dales National Park
The track “Heather Spa” takes its name from a spot in the Yorkshire Dales National Park that has served as an inspiration to musician Dennis Huddleston, who records and performs under the two-digit moniker 36. The track is an achingly beautiful expanse of slowly unfolding harmonic lushness, the sonic equivalent of watching rough surf churn in slow motion.
Track originally posted to soundcloud.com/astrangelyisolatedplace. Get the full album at astrangelyisolatedplace.com. More from Huddleston at 3six.net.
November 11, 2013
Cutest Little Synth You Ever Did See
Peter Kirn, of CreateDigitalMusic.com, has been exploring the littleBits Synth Kit, developed with KORG. It is a modular analog synthesizer that comes as a collection of small and interchangeable, mix-and-match parts. In addition to a power supply there are these functions: random, micro sequencer, filter, mix, synth speaker, oscillators (a pair), keyboard, envelope, delay, and split. To demo it, Kirn recorded a small bunch of “live jams,” each labeled as an etude. This is his “littleBits Synth Kit Etude #1,” a charming pulsing chime:
Track orginally posted at soundcloud.com/peterkirn.
More on the littleBits Synth Kit at littlebits.cc/kits.
November 9, 2013
Past Week at Twitter.com/Disquiet
https… ->
I've no doubt gotten a lot more use out of my (gen 2) Nexus 7 by not putting it in a case, but the thing is taking a beating. ->
21 tracks (so far) in tribute to the late Lou Reed and his classic Metal Machine Music: http://t.co/R2Qujl5ath ->
Street music. #readymade #speaker #urbanstudies #gadget #waste #progress http://t.co/brGTJRxjUW ->
"An obscure guitar pedal was for him another kind of poem." Patti Smith on Lou Reed: http://t.co/7NhB9jeo5O via @pheezy ->
The calendar in Mavericks is a huge improvement. It's downright elegant. ->
Now 28 tracks inspired by the late Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music: http://t.co/cEZ52F7IZ9. And still almost half a day to go. ->
Just sent email newsletter to http://t.co/A2xaR3KK3n list with contest for free 33 1/3 sampler. To subscribe, here: http://t.co/7gtoM0uy6N ->
Tuesday noon siren in San Francisco: http://t.co/FrVmKgO1Mx ->
I haven't been to Japan in about four years. Maybe I should start thinking about October 2014, when Red Bull Music Academy lands there. ->
Been reading Dave Eggers' The Circle. So far I've learned that he uses commas even more often than I do. I need to step up my game. ->
Any sufficiently advanced use of technology is described as hacking. ->
Getting excited about the Oulipo sound workshop I'll run at San Francisco Art Institute this Saturday: http://t.co/vtqV0931iR ->
Bingo. MT @AnnieGilbertson: Fitting for meeting I'm sitting in discussing #lausd student "hacking". They just deleted security file #nomagic ->
Thing I learned today: updates of Arthur C. Clarke quotes are of interest to people. #magic ->
My edit of Clarke's 3rd law came after I read opening of Eggers' The Circle + headline about Mayor Ford hiring "hacker" to delete the video. ->
Tomorrow in the sound class I teach: student "sound audits" of various consumer products. Next week: what sound looks like. ->
static gif #recentretronyms ->
Yo, Google: Any sense of when spreadsheets will work offline in OS X? #nudge ->
Jealous. MT @mrbiggsdotcom: Cardiff's 40-part motet at Cloisters, in Fuentiduenas Chapel. Thought of you @disquiet http://t.co/YCiMlDA2kQ ->
Great student presentations today in sound class (1) about breathing in yoga and (2) about audio in film. ->
Sad to read about Internet Archive's fire damage, but sounds like it's OK. Great resource online and neighbor here in the Richmond District. ->
Maybe we need to sort out some sort of @NASAJuno Junto. ->
Kinda hoped OuPhoPo was a workshop for potential Vietnamese food, but is happy to look at experimental photography. ->
"What's this box with the levers on it next to the turntables?" Kid Koala on taking his Jazzy Jeff LP to RadioShack: http://t.co/Q49pk1jPM5 ->
San FranciscOuLiPo: last night at City Lights, tonight at Mechanics Inst, Friday at Green Apple, Saturday at SFAI: http://t.co/INt3wG28eo ->
Vague relief that Mail-app freezing issues in OS X Mavericks is being addressed: http://t.co/CYJS4GZoqz. Still visiting Geniuses tomorrow. ->
OS X Maverick, in which Apple plays cards with your data's fate. #badjamesgarnerjoke ->
Just tried Ford Madox Ford's "Page 99 Test" on my Aphex Twin / SAW2 book and it's all drones, power-grid hum, and movie scores. Not bad. ->
Speaker on rear of crossing-signal button box. #urbanstudies. #traffic #yellow #electricbirds http://t.co/iCZRtG5ZrL ->
Checking out the SFAI room where this Saturday I'm running an Oulipo/Disquiet Junto sound workshop. http://t.co/KLZrtPFzsx #oumupo ->
Tonight at the SF Mechanics' Institute, 3 Oulipians & 1 fellow Pessoa-head read from 50 years of experimental writing http://t.co/B1ZfM6MgnZ ->
TRS-808 is my new DJ name. ->
In light of the Oulipo activity in San Francisco this week, the Disquiet Junto will have a literary theme, transforming words into music. ->
Hope you can join in. MT @c_yantis: Thrilled, though honestly not that surprised, to see that Ford Madox Ford has found his way into a Junto ->
Do it up! #bonkers RT @Le_Berger: An 80 notes melody? That @djunto guy is bonkers. ->
Re-upped with a Mechanics Institute Library membership today. Was a member back in the late 1990s when I first moved to San Francisco. ->
Thanks to a tweet by @DavidjHendy ( https://t.co/oov7cychVb ) for inspiring this week's @djunto project: http://t.co/PT8LBLTJ4q ->
Great fun this evening at the Oulipo event at the Mechanics' Institute. Tomorrow at Green Apple, Saturday at San Francisco Art Institute. ->
Judging by io9 comments today people hate cliffhangers more than spoilers so much that they support spoilers about cliffhangers. #9timesfast ->
MT @mutagene: wrote ruby script to help with week's disquiet junto https://t.co/bDouSIiSbp . accuracy not guaranteed. now for the hard part. ->
Love when stuff is added to @academia it says "uploaded a paper on http://t.co/oDJvAqVamI" as if every paper's about http://t.co/oDJvAqVamI. ->
RIP, San Francisco DJ/musician Cheb I Sabbah (1947-2013): http://t.co/rOGTYg7P5s http://t.co/eTrcNJp4Lx ->
Headed to Green Apple books shortly for the evening's reading of work by the late Georges Perec. Tomorrow: Oulipo sound workshop at SFAI. ->
A helpful reminder during the Q&A that plenty of Oulipo, public readings aside, isn't funny. Takes pressure off tomorrow's music event. ->
