archives

[ May 31, 2005 / bookmark ]

downstream / Sci-Fi MP3 EP

Kurrel the Raven’s Aechyrs to Aechyrs, on the Nishi netlabel, is utter space music. There’s no ifs, ands or buts about a four-track EP that includes one titled “Captain K-Bird Encounters the Far-Out Space Owls,” especially not when the song …

[ May 30, 2005 / bookmark ]

downstream / Mexican Abstract Hip-Hop MP3 EP

The website for the bilingual, Mexico-based netlabel Filtro, filtro.com.mx, says it’s still in beta, but the music is fully functional. The eighth and latest entry in Filtro’s steady release of free downloads is an EP of what it calls …

[ May 30, 2005 / bookmark ]

field notes / The Sound of Visual Art at SFMOMA

When the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art decided to show Winchester, three short films by artist Jeremy Blake, it knew where to display them: in the same long, velvety dark room that housed Christian Marclay’s “Video Quartet” in the …

[ May 30, 2005 / bookmark ]

field notes / Blectum, Willits @ Om Brink Series in S.F.

On Wednesday, May 25, Blevin Blectum and Christopher Willits, two of San Francisco’s most charismatic and accomplished electronic-music performers, shared a double bill in a small back room at a bar in the city’s Tenderloin district. Blectum, whose laptop often …

[ May 29, 2005 / bookmark ]

field notes / Tangents (Robotspeak, Roc-a-Fella, Grateful)

Quick Links: (1) Robotspeak, the next-generation computer-music store on Haight near Fillmore in San Francisco (and which carries Chachi Jones’ bent Speak & Spells) has launched its own print magazine: robotspeakmagazine.com. How will it distinguish itself? Says the website, …

[ May 28, 2005 / bookmark ]

field notes / DJ Krush, In Situ

Belatedly, a quick mention of the DJ Krush show a month back in San Francisco. It was Japanese turntablist Krush’s second time through town (at the same venue, no less) in just over half a year, but those two shows …

[ May 27, 2005 / bookmark ]

downstream / Evan Parker Remix MP3s

Amsterdam-based musician Robert van Heumen visited San Francisco last month. He documented the trip with an overview of his stay and, all the better, nine MP3 files. On three, recorded at the Lab and at Mills College, he plays with …

[ May 26, 2005 / bookmark ]

downstream / Quiet American MP3s

The latest from Aaron Ximm’s One-Minute Vacation series, field recordings submitted by volunteer contributors from around the world: a beach in Korea on a moonlit night (May 23), a protest march from earlier this year in Boston (May 16), a …

[ May 25, 2005 / bookmark ]

downstream / Flores-Mystified MP3 Album

After an initial track of deep foreboding, and deeper silences that seem to confirm ill fate, Rafael Flores and Mystified’s collaboration, Intrigue, on the Webbed Hand netlabel, ventures in several directions. The second track adds a voice to fill the …

[ May 24, 2005 / bookmark ]

downstream / Weekly iTunes MP3

Sometimes you do get what you pay for. Take the weekly free downloads in the iTunes Music Store. Most (heck, almost all) are missable, dismissible, entirely mistakable for some other half dozen generic singer-songwriter (or earnest rap, or desultory r’n'b) …