Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 451
July 9, 2013
The Rock’n'roll Drone (MP3)
More than anything he has posted in recent memory, “The Empty Quarter” by Mysterybear sounds like rock’n'roll. It rocks more than it rolls, which is to say it is more full of dense fulmination than of soulful rhythm. It certainly is not rock, not by a long stretch. “The Empty Quarter” is 20 minutes of what most frequent listeners to rock might think of as the sound of a guitar cord being plugged in, and then somehow stretched for the length of an opening act’s performance. It is deep swells and arching tones and fuzzy noise, all wrenched with a sense of deep concentration. At the 17-minute point, it reaches its zenith, a plateau of antic fire that is equal parts Jimi Hendrix and Terry Riley. “The Empty Quarter” was recorded live on July 5, 2013, at 119 Gallery in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/mysterybear. More from Mysterybear at mysterybear.net.
July 8, 2013
sound.tumblr.com
Been getting my sound.tumblr.com account going again. It’s the linkblog I produce to correlate with the course on sound in the media landscape that I teach at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. Broadly speaking it’s about the sounds of brands and the brands of sounds. It’s about audio and commerce.
Recent posts include:
◼ a new company founded by Emma Clarke, the former voice of the London Underground;
◼ a pair of sound-related promotions that are part of Coke’s “Ahh Effect” campaign (mentioned here earlier this week);
◼ a report on the persistence of radio (some 93 percent of adult Americans reportedly listen to radio every week);
◼ a generative sound promotion by AIAIAI headphones (developed with Yuri Suzuki; see video above);
◼ “a special window for public transportation that uses a transmitter to silently release high-frequency oscillations that your brain will convert into sound” (see video below);
◼ and Jay-Z’s data-mining app.
A Creative Commons Discussion (MP3)
Robert Nunnally, in the fourth episode of his podcast, has interviewed David Nemeth, a prolific annotator/commenter in the more exploratory realms of Creative Commons music. Nemeth’s actsofsilence.com is a must-read for reviews of new releases, and the site is a key resource thanks to its massive directory of netlabels, over 500 as of its most recent update. Nemeth also runs theeasypace.com, which is, despite its title, a more rapidly paced survey of recent releases.
Following a brief introduction, during which Nunnally talks about the increasing role of Creative Commons licenses in film, Nemeth speaks at length about his own self-education about electronic music, the benefits and challenges of the approach, and a variety of other related topics. The interview was accomplished in an unusual manner. It isn’t a conversation recorded live. It is Nemeth recording himself responding to written questions he received from Nunnally. The absence of Nunnally’s questions suggests the structure of an Errol Morris documentary. And there is an interesting transition each time a new segment of the Q&A begins, because the background sound can be heard to shift. The result brings to mind short black-screen title cards in a feature-length film:
Graham Wafercast Episode 4, David Nemeth Interview, host: Robert Nunnally (Gurdonark) by Gurdonark on Mixcloud
It’s downloadable from Nunnally’s box.com account. Track originally posted for free streaming at mixcloud.com/gurdonark. More from Gurdonark/Nunnally at gurdonark.blogspot.com.
July 7, 2013
Cues: 1,100 Tracks, DG Sublabel, Amon/Kronos
◼ Random Access: Jos Smolders, back in the golden age of the compact disc, 1994, released Music for CD Player, a collection of 99 short tracks intended for the listener to sequence. He’s now released a sequel in the form of an 1,100-track album, titled Music for FLAC Player. Yes, that is 1,100 tracks, the overwhelming majority of which are one second or less in length, and all but 30 or so of which are under 45 seconds:
Music for FLAC-player by Jos Smolders
Writes Smolders of the project:
The [Music for CD Player] disc contained 99 tracks. The original plan, however, was to have many more tracks. However CD Redbook protocol allowed a maximum number of 99 tracks, with a minimum length of 3 seconds. With the Internet as a platform these limitations are gone. The number of tracks for an online album are limitless and the length of the tracks can be near zero.
◼ Recomposing DG: The esteemed classical label Deutsche Grammophon is launching a new label called Panorama (via classical-music.com). The first Panorama album will be from the highly collaborative Schiller (aka Christopher von Deylen). DG had previously released a series of genre-pushing “recomposed” albums including Max Richter’s reworking of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Matthew Herbert’s reworking of Mahler‘s 10th Symphony.
◼ Amon v Kronos: “V838 Monocerotis” is the title of a new piece Kronos Quartet has
commissioned from Amon Tobin as part of the ensemble’s 40th-anniversary
celebration: amontobin.com, kronosquartet.org.
◼ iOS Care: I Care if You Listen is a new iOS
multimedia magazine about contemporary (i.e. classical) music. The initial issue features
interviews with composers Clint Mansell and Arlene Sierra.
◼ Sonic Footnotes: Ora, the occasional broadcast/podcast by Daniela Cascella and Salomé Voegelin
about “listening and writing,” has followed up its debut episode with a reading list, featuring the hosts’ own books and titles by Gert Jonke, W.H Auden, and Clifford Geertz, among others.
◼ Donut Hole: Jordan Ferguson is, like me, writing a book for the 33 1/3 series. Like me, he is focused on something that is fairly unusual for the series, in that both our books are about albums that have little in the way of words, let alone of lyrics. My book-in-progress is on Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II. Ferguson’s is about J Dilla’s Donuts. And like me, he submitted to an interview for the publisher’s website. But, being a smart guy, he did his as a video:
Also, Evie Nagy (formerly of Rolling Stone, now at Billboard) has been interviewed about her 33 1/3 book, which will focus on Devo’s Freedom of Choice.
◼ Sounds of Brands: Coca-Cola employed Kurt Hugo Schneider to milk sounds of its cans and bottles to make music. From Adweek’s coverage: “The recording obviously has some studio bells and whistles layered on it, but Adweek was assured that Schneider is truly playing the Coke ‘instruments.’” In another sound-related entry in the Coke series, you’re invited to see how long you can listen to someone singing “ah.”
A Week on Rdio
I’ve been using Rdio.com for about a week now, and I’m enjoying it. For $4.99 a month, it’s certainly an affordable option. The sound quality has been fine (on phone via T-Mobile, and via wifi on a Nexus 7 in the kitchen, as well as on a laptop). The two major selling points are access to spur-of-the-moment selections — especially for some ancient rock’n'roll, like the Who or the Kinks — and quick listens through current releases, like Sigur Rós, Kanye West, or the revived Black Sabbath.
In terms of catalog, Rdio is far from the Borgesian universal library these services are sometimes likened to. A writer at the New York Times said, back in March, “I rarely come across an instance when Rdio can’t supply a song I’m looking for,” but that may say more about the relative breadth of the writer’s taste than it does about the depth of Rdio’s holdings. There are large, bewildering holes in the discographies of prominent electronic artists — plenty of Aphex Twin albums, for example, but almost none of the myriad EPs and singles. There are just six full-lengths from DJ Krush, and just eight from Keith Fullerton Whitman, both of whom are more prolific than those numbers suggest. Then again, from Grouper there are 11, which is nearly complete, and the Tim Hecker selection is also strong. The main gripe is Rdio’s album-centric orientation, the result of which, in hip-hop and r&b, means very little in the way of instrumental tracks. In electronic music, the limited presence of singles has the unfortunate result of dimishing the connections between artists that are usually highlighted in the logrolling we call remixes.
The absence of genre on Rdio is strange, at once confusing and freeing. Tracks are devoid of the standard categorizations like “rock” or “country” or “jazz.” It’s healthy, in that you stop wondering whether album X is really genre Y, and just listen — that said, the absence of genre and tags really limits discovery and filtering options.
Speaking of context, the site is woefully limited in that regard. There are no liner notes, and what track metadata is present frequently provides a funhouse-mirror view of an album’s history: Photek’s The Hidden Camera was released in 1996, but is listed on Rdio as a March 2003 release (Spotify has the year correct); Prince’s Dirty Mind is listed as 1984, when it was 1980 (again, Spotify has it correct).
In any case, I’m enjoying Rdio so far, and have started some playlists intended for general consumption (paralleling but not overlapping much with the “Carousels” I launched on SoundCloud). Right now there are two: “Disquiet / Ambient” and “Disquiet / Beats.”
Tuonela Reports from Whoville (MP3)
So little appears to occur in the drone that is Tuonela’s “Shadow of a Shadow” that you might remove your earbuds to hear what is leaking through from the world at large. You’ll be using earbuds, or headphones, because the little that is occurring is so static — in both the primary meanings of the term, the one invoking motion and the other noise — that it requires attention. After removing your earbuds, you will recognize that nothing from the world at large resembles the thin hiss of “Shadow of a Shadow,” and so you will return to it, like Horton the Elephant attentively attending to a bit of dust.
Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/tuonela-1. More from Tuonela, who lives in Australia, at tuonela.bandcamp.com
July 6, 2013
Another from Julsy (MP3)
Like the recent track of hers that appeared here yesterday, “Same Day Every Day,” the older piece “Shift” by Julsy can be heard readily to, well, shift as it proceeds. In the case of “Same Day Every Day” the shift was from very quiet to very bold, even if the quiet was early on interrupted by rhythm and the bold was more a matter of expansiveness, of epic breadth, than of volume or energy. “Shift” begins and continues for some time, easily half of its six and a half minutes, as a child’s lullaby, a bit of light jubilance played on what sounds like a toy xylophone filtered electronically so that it pulses somewhere between Steve Reich and Moby. But every child must grow up, and as the piece enters its final third, it’s as if a small orchestra joins the toy xylophone, with martial percussion and a horn section filling out things majestically.
Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/julsy. Julsy is Julie Cocq of Montpellier, France. She participated in the “audiobiography” project on SoundCloud, so if you listen through the shimmer you can learn a bit more about her. More on Julsy at juliecocq.wix.com, facebook.com/julsysounds, and twitter.com/JulieCocq. The track’s cover artwork is by Psychonautical (society6.com).
July 5, 2013
French Electronica (MP3)
It opens with a microsonic blur, and proceeds, through heart-monitor pulses and dice-rattle percussion, to slowly build to a surprisingly epic and expansive place. The track is “Same Day Every Day” by Julsy — aka Julie Cocq of Montpellier, France.
Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/julsy. More on Julsy at juliecocq.wix.com, facebook.com/julsysounds, and twitter.com/JulieCocq. The track’s cover artwork is by Jasmine Sierra (society6.com). Some of her music is featured in the Android OS video game (play.google.com); see below for screenshot:
July 4, 2013
Disquiet Junto Project 0079: Junto of Fate
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 evening, California time, on Thursday, July 4, with 11:59pm on the following Monday, July 8, 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 0079: Junto of Fate
This week’s project involves shared source material, and it is an exploration of genre, specifically “downtempo instrumental.” The score to the film Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966) has been made available for free download as part of a remix contest being held by the netlabel Happy Puppy Records, the company releasing a restored copy of the film, and the great website freemusicarchive.org. You will be reworking the material with the goal of constructing a track that would be considered “downtempo instrumental.” One standard, six-sided die is required. The steps are as follows:
Step 1: Role a die six times and add the results.
Step 2: Role the die once and subtract this from the amount resulting from Step 1. If the result is zero, then start again at Step 1.
Step 3: The number that results from Step 2 is the track number from the album that will serve as the source material for your remix. You can locate and download your designated track from this page:
Step 4: Cut up and reuse material from the track resulting from Step 3 in the service of producing an original piece of music that would be considered “downtempo instrumental.” Also follow this language from the official contest: “no explicit adult material please. By submitting, you agree to license your track under the same BY-NC-SA license. If you include outside samples in your remix, please ensure they are of a similar sharable license.”
Length: Your piece should be between two and five minutes in length.
Deadline: Monday, July 8, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are. (The contest’s deadline is October 1, 2013, but our deadline is shorter, per the strictures of the weekly Disquiet Junto.)
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 “disquiet0079-juntofate” in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.
Download: Per the license of the source material and the rules the contest, you should employ the BY-NC-SA Creative Commons license (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing and remixing with attribution).
Linking: When posting the track, be sure to include this information:
More on this 79th Disquiet Junto project, in which the score to the movie Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966) is remixed to make a downtempo instrumental, at:
http://disquiet.com/2013/07/04/disqui...
More on the contest at:
More on the original film at:
More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet...
July 3, 2013
An Ease with Ease (MP3)
Some people’s sketches are other people’s finished listening. Taylor Deupree has such an ease with ease, such a way with sounds that depict casual environments and yet exude a depth of concern for pacing, sonic design, composition — so many elements that collectively the list might suggest fastidiousness, but in fact the work never appears overcooked, overstuffed, showy. The nylon guitar that rings concentrated note patterns through this sketch, “taylor deupree / july 03, 2013 / sketch,” recorded and posted today on his SoundCloud account, makes its steady paces through a rich atmosphere of tonal effluvia. On occasion one hears the notes themselves echoed and fragmented, tiny shards joining the mosaic of the background ambience.
The accompanying note is brief:
“starting to come up with ideas for a new release. just the early seeds, sketches… the nylon string guitar is still warm from the seaworthy/deupree collaboration (waldorf microwave, poly evolver, nylon string guitar, tc m2000)”
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/12k. More from Taylor at his website, 12k.com.
