Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 485
August 6, 2012
Requiem for a Tablehooter (MP3)
There is a tick tock, artificial wooden block metronome sound that is the telltale heart of a certain era of synthesizers — an era that some have come to call “tablehooters” and that are celebrated on the compilation album Cheap and Plastic, put together by Hal McGee as part of an open call. The project’s instructions (e.g., “Yes, you CAN use circuit bent keyboards”) are viewable at its facebook.com page, where the 36 contributors are listed. Among them is K.r. Seward, whose entry takes the tick tock as its central, part goofy, part maudlin compositional tenet. It plays like the theme song to a Saturday morning cartoon about vampire shut-ins and the mummies who love them. His instruments included two Casios, what he described as a Radio Shack rebranding of a Casio, and two Yamahas.
Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/krseward. More on the compilation at facebook.com. More on Kevin R. Seward at audiokayness.blogspot.com.
August 5, 2012
Disquiet Junto at At Water’s Edge (MP3)
Rebekkah Hilgraves hosts the weekly “At Water’s Edge” show on the ambient Internet radio station stillstream.com, and its August 4 episode focused on the 30th Disquiet Junto project. In her studio was Junto member and participant Joe McMahon, who did a great job explaining not only the hows and whys of the Disquiet Junto, but also the specifics of his particular entry in the 30th project (MP3). In the process, Hilgraves played about two hours of tracks from the 30th project, which was an exploration of themes of sounds within perceived silence, in honor of John Cage, who would have turned 100 this year.
Download audio file (AtWatersEdge_20120804_SoundsFromSilence.mp3)
More on the episode at rebekkahhilgraves.com. More on McMahon at soundcloud.com/joe-mcmahon
August 4, 2012
Past Week at Twitter.com/Disquiet
Track the progress of the @yokoono-themed 31st Disquiet Junto project: http://t.co/cBXdemcX #
31st weekly @djunto project is based on incendiary 1955 Fluxus work by @yokoono. Instructions at http://t.co/XpNlSeEX + http://t.co/XdREURGZ #
Oddly, the "most popular posts" menu item in my @wordpress dashboard has disappeared, so I may not be posting that info today. #
The next @djunto project, the 31st weekly, is inspired by a Fluxus work by @yokoono. Details Thursday afternoon Pacific time. #
Numerical mirroring of Chris Marker's life seems fitting for director of La jetée: born 29 July 1921; deceased 30 July 2012. #
RIP, Bill Doss (b. 1968?), of the Elephant 6 and Olivia Tremor Control. #
Thumper thumper. MT @qDot: Got a Zoom H4N recorder. @subgirl's 1st recording target: bunny snores. The wait for @disquiet snore junto begins #
Man, I could have used a doula's assistance to get that doll out of a box for my 22-month-old. #
Wanna fall for KSR's 2312 but references early on to movies & to cloud data have me longing for Mieville's murkily defined neologisms. #
Tuesday noon siren in San Francisco, way up on Webster after doctor visit. #
Thanks, @SoundCloud, for blocking the guy who's been following/unfollowing/following hundreds if not thousands of accounts. #
And with a piece by @dizzybanjo there are 20 pieces in the "sounds from silence" Disquiet Junto project: http://t.co/KuEalsHX #
The two best labs on television are run by Walters. #
Impure thoughts about wool. http://t.co/1MXCaZ8v #
artisanal dystopia #
August 3, 2012
Touch, Live at Oto (MP3)
The latest Touch Editions download, from its wonderful touchradio.org.uk side project, is a live set recorded as the first in a series — Touch Invites — being held at Cafe Oto in London. The 81st in the download series, it includes performances by Jiyeon Kim, Maia Urstad, and Dawn Scarfe with “interventions” from Sandra Jasper. The works are arguably took abstract and diverse to be done justice in this compressed space, but suffice to say they range from elegant, minimalist sine waves to broken field recordings, to understated rhythmic convulsions (MP3). All the works play with noise as their primary source material, their primary object of investigation.
Download audio file (Radio81.mp3)
More on the event series at cafeoto.co.uk. More on the specific event at touchradio.org.uk. The concert took place July 17, 2012.
August 2, 2012
Disquiet Junto Project 0031: Ono’s Match
Each Thursday evening 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 to the Junto is open: just join and participate.
The assignment was made late in the day, California time, on Thursday, July 26, with 11:59pm on the following Monday, August 2, as the deadline. View a search return for all the entries as they are posted: disquiet0031-onomatch.
Below are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto). They appear below translated into three additional languages: German, Japanese, and Turkish, courtesy of Allan Brugg, Naoyuki Sasanami, and M. Emre Meydan, respectively.
Disquiet Junto Project 0031: Ono’s Match
This week’s project takes the opportunity to focus on the art movement known as Fluxus. We’ll use as the starting point a 1955 composition by Yoko Ono. Her work is titled “Lighting Piece” and it consists of a single, simple sentence: “Light a match and watch till it goes out.” It is one of a number of pieces that Ono produced as part of Fluxus. For this week’s Disquiet Junto project, please interpret her instruction as closely or as loosely as you choose.
Deadline: Monday, August 6, at 11:59pm wherever you are.
Length: Your finished work should be as long or short as you wish to make it, though longer than a five minutes seems unlikely.
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: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please include the term “disquiet0031-onomatch” in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.
Download: As always, you don’t have to set your track for download, but it would be preferable.
Linking: When posting the track please include this information:
More on the 30th Disquiet Junto project at:
http://disquiet.com/2012/08/02/disqui...
More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
. . . . .
Project in Japanese:
Disquiet Junto Project 0031: オノ・ヨーコのマッチ
今週のプロジェクトは芸術運動として知られるフルクサスに焦点を当てます。1955年にオノ・ヨーコ（小野洋子）によってよって作られた作品を使ってみましょう。『Lighting Piece』と題名が付けられた彼女の作品は、“マッチを点け、それが消えるまで見守る”というシンプルな文章から成る、彼女がフルクサスの一員として制作した作品の１つです。今週のプロジェクトでは、彼女の指示を解釈して制作してみましょう。その解釈の方法は厳密であれ曖昧にであれ、あなた次第です。
〆切：8月6日月曜日11:59pm あなたがどこに住んでいるかかわらず
長さ：完成品は長かれ短かれあなたが望んだ長さであるべきですが、５分以上の長さであることはなさそうです
情報：作品をサウンドクラウドのグループに投稿する際には、あなたの採用した構想、作曲、録音の過程についての説明をつけてください。この記述がこのグループの本来の目的であるコミュニケーションに大事なものとなります
タイトル／タグ：Disquiet Juntoグループに作品を投稿する際には“disquiet0031-onomatch” という言葉をタグとしてタイトルに追加してください
ダウンロード：いつものように必ずしもダウンロード可能にする必要はありませんが、望ましい
リンク：投稿する際には以下の情報を追加してください
More on the 31th Disquiet Junto project at:
http://disquiet.com/2012/08/02/disqui...
More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
. . . . .
Project in German:
Disquiet Junto Project 0031: Onos Streichholz
Diese Woche ergreift das Project die Gelegenheit, sich auf eine als Fluxus bekannt gewordene Kunstrichtung zu konzentrieren. Als Ausgangspunkt werden wir eine Komposition von Yoko Ono von 1955 verwenden. Ihre Arbeit trägt den Titel “Lighting Piece” und besteht aus einem einzelnen, simplen Satz: “Entzünde ein Streichholz und beobachte es, bis es verlöscht.” Es gehört zu einer Reihe von Stücken, die Ono als Teil von Fluxus hervorgebracht hat. Für das dieswöchige Disquiet Junto Project interpretiert ihre Anweisung bitte so wörtlich oder so frei wie ihr möchtet.
Abgabefrist: Montag, 6. August, um 23:59 Uhr, wo immer ihr seid.
Länge: Eure fertige Arbeit kann so lang oder so kurz, wie ihr wollt sein, obwohl länger als fünf Minuten unwahrscheinlich scheint.
Information: Bitte fügt eurem Track, wenn ihr ihn auf Soundcloud hochladet, eine Beschreibung des Planungs-, Kompositions- und Aufnahmeprozesses hinzu. Diese Beschreibung ist essentieller Bestandteil des kommunikativen Austauschs, der Disquiet Junto eigen ist.
Titel/Tag: Wenn ihr euren Track der Disquiet Junto Gruppe auf Soundcloud.com hinzufügt, schließt bitte die Bezeichnung “disquiet0031-onomatch” im Titel und als Tag mit ein.
Download: Wie immer, ihr müsst eure Tracks nicht zum Download freigeben, es wäre aber wünschenswert.
Verlinkung: Wenn ihr euren Track postet, fügt bitte die folgende Information hinzu:
Mehr zu Disquiet Junto unter:
http://disquiet.com/2012/08/02/disqui...
Weitere Einzelheiten zu Disquiet Junto unter:
. . . . .
Project in Turkish:
Disquiet Junto Projesi 0031: Ono’s Match (Ono’nun Kibriti)
Bu haftanın projesi Fluxus adıyla bilinen sanat akımına odaklanıyor. Başlangıç noktası olarak Yoko Ono’nun 1955 tarihli bir bestesini kullanacağız. Bu çalışmanın adı “Lighting Piece” ve tek bir basit cümleden ibaret: “Light a match and watch till it goes out (Bir kibrit yak ve sönene dek izle).” Bu, Ono’nun Fluxus akımı dahilinde ürettiği bir çok işten birisi. Bu haftanın Disquiet Junto projesi için bu talimatları dilediğinizce sadık ya da serbest bir biçimde yorumlayın.
Son Teslim Tarihi: 6 ağustos pazartesi, 23:59 (bulunduğunuz ülkenin saatine göre)
Uzunluk: Besteniz istediğiniz kadar kısa ya da uzun olabilir, fakat 5 dakikadan uzun olması pek olası değil.
Bilgi: Yaptığınız parçayı paylaşırken, lütfen bu parçanın planlama, besteleme ve kayıt süreciyle ilgili bilgi de verin. Bu açıklama, Disquiet Junto’ya içkin iletişim sürecinin önemli bir parçasıdır.
İsim/Etiket: Parçanızı Soundcloud.com’daki Disquiet Junto grubuna eklerken, lütfen “disquiet0031-onomatch” kelimesini hem parçanın isminde, hem de etiket (tag) olarak kullanın.
Download: Her zamanki gibi; parçanızın indirilebilir olması gerekmiyor, ama öyle olması tercih edilir.
Linkler: Yaptığınız parçayı paylaşırken, lütfen şu satırları ekleyin:
More on the 31st Disquiet Junto project at:
http://disquiet.com/2012/08/02/disqui...
More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
(Photo of Yoko Ono from imaginepeace.com.)
August 1, 2012
Bradbury + Gibson: The Top 10 Posts & Searches of June 2012
Each month on the first day of the month for the past countless months a little plugin in this site’s WordPress installation has provided a list of the 10 most popular posts on the site. At some point between last month and today that plugin ceased to function. So, there will be no such post today. In its place, I’ll list 10 key posts from July 2012, during which there were 42 posts. These have nothing to do with how often they were read, and are just ones that strike me as especially of note.
(1) my interview with Christof Migone about his sound art exploration of Ray Bradbury‘s The Martian Chronicles; (2) a Disquiet Junto project that explored the sounds within silence, in honor of John Cage, who would have turned 100 this year; (3) a Disquiet Junto project that employed an observation by William Gibson as its starting point; (4) the announcement of my story about the Syfy series Alphas, which ran in the magazine Nature; (5) the announcement of the upcoming class I’ll be teaching at the Academy of Art in San Francisco; (6) the announcement of this site’s newly mobile/tablet-friendly, “responsive” design (thanks to futurepruf.com); (7) the announcement of my upcoming panel discussion at GAFFTA in San Francisco about “alternative musical interfaces”; (8) the announcement of the launch of sound.tumblr.com; (9) MP3s of a series of lectures from the Tate Modern about women and electronic music; (10) the upcoming (August 19) Disquiet Junto concert in Denver, Colorado, at which I’ll be present. Here’s the poster for the Denver event:
The other part of the monthly post is a list of the most popular searches, and that is available. They were: distinction, dome, ionizer, classical, orchestra, aaron, academy, cardboard, fluxus, flyer, gaffta, Horchata, query, savaran, sexby, African Feedback, alphas.
July 31, 2012
New Free Amon Tobin MP3
There’s free, there’s free as in “Well, you still need access to the Internet,” and there’s free as in “You need to provide your email address, but sure you can unsubscribe after the fact.” Into the latter category falls the new Amon Tobin release, the heavy-beat electro of “101 South” from his Two Fingers side project. The track is available as a free download at the bigdada.com label site. To those used to Tobin’s increasingly fractured sense of rhythm, the hip-hop flavor of this track will be an enjoyable surprise. There’s no sense of shards of noise cycling around in three-dimensional audio, just ever steady forward momentum. The full album, Stunt Rhythms, is due out October 1. More on Tobin at amontobin.com.
July 30, 2012
Digitally Enhanced Cello from Vienna (MP3)
There is much digitally enhanced cello music today, and well there should be. The world we can trace back at least to Hank Roberts and David Darling has expanded widely, deeply, and in many directions. Few musicians go as far with their instrument as the Vienna-based Alexandr Vatagin, whose laptop-enhanced playing rarely bears much resemblance to its sonorous source material. In its place are sinuous sine waves and all manner of light mechanistic experimentation (MP3). This recording, posted recently as part of the Crónica label’s excellent podcast, was recorded back on September 3, 2010. The music is drawn from Vatagin’s album Shards.
Download audio file (cronicast097.mp3)
Originally posted for free download at cronicaelectronica.org, where it is entry number 97. More on Vatagin at vatagin.klingt.org.
July 28, 2012
Mid-School Hip-Hop
The Dusted Wax netlabel remains a steady supplier of what might be termed mid-school hip-hop. This would be neither the full-on tape splicing and vinyl scratching of its earlier years, nor the codified digital beats of its attenuated present. The stuff that Dusted traffics in is deep in the era of second-generation turntablism, real and virtual, which is to say, the calisthenics we associated with DJ Krush, and the studio-heavy work of Funki Porcini, both of which drew heavily from jazz, funk, and exotica in the construction of downtempo grooves rich with atmosphere and largely uninterested in being subsumed by vocalists. That sort of instrumental activity courses through Thegntlmn’s Earbuds (Volume 1), 10 tracks of jazz-infused beats, souped up with vocal snippets and surveillance effects. The album is well represented by the track “I Was Wondering” (MP3), with its layering of muffled voices, soupy piano, and overheard conversation.
Download audio file (Thegntlmn_-_05_-_I_Was_Wondering_If.mp3)
Get the full set at dustedwax.org. More on Thegntlmn, based in Australia, at thegntlmn.blogspot.com.au.
Past Week at Twitter.com/Disquiet
Dear media theoretician who fears the Internet’s power to filter things that run counter to an individual’s worldview: Explain the Olympics. #
Already 5 fine tracks making music from perceived silence. This set will collate new tracks as they arrive: http://t.co/KuEalsHX #
Unintentionally surreal PR of the day: getting Jay and Silent Bob pitch from a http://t.co/p3GsgiAS email address. #
A PR person who queries me regularly has a unique message-count approach: adding an exclamation point to the subject line with each inquiry. #
View out window somewhat spoiled by sense of being viewed. http://t.co/tDtcL1rQ #
Rules for 30th @djunto project, inspired by John Cage’s concept of silence, live at http://t.co/zuFt2JQY + http://t.co/XdREURGZ #
One of the largest record companies on the planet sends out automated PR where track numbers routinely appear: 1, 10, 11, 12, 2, 3, 4, 5 … #
OK, the revised meaning of “audiophile” is on hold until @p_cers obtains his $1,000 speaker cables. Then all bets are off. in reply to p_cers #
People who are concerned with the culture of audio need to reclaim “audiophile” from conspicuous consumers. #
“No guns. No killing.” Enjoyed the new Batman very much. #
Got an email from @aQuariusrecOrds. Briefly assumed it must be Friday evening. in reply to aQuariusrecOrds #
Three o’clock bell in Chinatown. #
Mountain Lion: 2 hours to download, 20 minutes to install, then a 2-minute Java upgrade, and it’s (apparently) all set. #
Both these pages have details on the August 19 Disquiet Junto concert in Denver, CO: http://t.co/HmNTqAvU http://t.co/ocv2VKc9 #
This sample may be of use for Thursday’s Junto project, FYI. RT: @ethanhein Locked vinyl groove for remixing? Game on. http://t.co/x6xmCXc0 #
Would probably be happy if OS X Lion just cleaned up the Desktop Spaces UX and got rid of that galaxy background image. #
The excellent LA performance organization the wulf. is fundraising: http://t.co/yWMzpFy0 #
Wrote the Nature story on Syfy’s Alphas and didn’t even know about the Tuvan throat singing assassin or Rachel’s sonic claustrophobia. Cool. #
For fans of the TV series Alphas, whose second season starts tonight: my interview with its showrunner is in the current issue of Nature. #
Nearing 30 tracks in the @greatdismal-themed 29th Disquiet Junto project, running water as “one of the oldest songs”: http://t.co/lSzme8ob #
Man, the Margin Call score and sound design are splendid, especially when they meet up. #
Fences make good neighbors because the process of dealing with fence repair provides the opportunity to introduce yourself to your neighbors #
This set is collating all the @djunto music tracks in the current, @GreatDismal-themed project: http://t.co/TXY96a50 #
Fog horns this morning suggest somewhere a Wookie is getting a medal. #
