archives

[ October 30, 2006 / bookmark ]

downstream / Live Boduf Songs MP3

The name Boduf Songs is the moniker of a single guy, Mat Sweet (not to be confused with pure-pop maven Matthew Sweet), who makes space-folk like few others. At least, like few others alive. There is a taste of John …

[ October 24, 2006 / bookmark ]

downstream / One-Minute Vacation MP3s

Just about every week, Aaron Ximm uploads a new sound recording to his quietamerican.org-based series, One-Minute Vacations. They’re submitted by travellers who are as likely to carry MiniDisc recorders as they are cameras. Among the recent entries are a …

[ October 20, 2006 / bookmark ]

downstream / Aquatic MP3

Another month, another fine free MP3 from the kracfive.com collective. This time around it’s a nearly six-minute exercise in aquatic orchestration that brings to mind Gavin Bryars’ The Sinking of the Titanic. “A Green Wall of Eyes” by Kettel …

[ October 19, 2006 / bookmark ]

downstream / Microtonal MP3

The Other Minds catalog of free listening at the Internet Archive, aka archive.org, now includes a fascinating interview with Russian-born microtonal composer Ivan Wyschnegradsky (1893-1979), in discussion with OM guru Charles Amirkhanian. It was recorded in Wyschnegradsky’s Paris home …

[ October 16, 2006 / bookmark ]

downstream / Ninja Tune MP3

Once upon a time, the website of Ninja Tune Records, ninjatune.net, could be expected to serve up a half dozen fine MP3s at any moment. Then came digital retail, and MP3s went from promo items to merchandise. But now …

[ October 12, 2006 / bookmark ]

downstream / LX Rudis MP3s

Live, Lx Rudis, who’s based out of San Francisco, does many things, key among them using motion-controlled CD players to transform sound in realm time, a DJ more interested in texture than in beatmatching. He’s got three songs up for …

[ October 11, 2006 / bookmark ]

downstream / Gothic MP3s

There’s a repeating click in “Taucher,” the first of the three tracks that comprise Pawel Grabowski’s Kissing Evil Ghosts Goodbye. It’s a Lynchian touch, suggesting the seam in a tape splice, or a skipped record, perhaps a noir-ish footstep. It …

[ October 10, 2006 / bookmark ]

downstream / Post-Grindcore MP3

It’s October, around the time when the brain starts, on some distant back burner, to ponder what’ll make the year-end best-music list. It’s quite likely that Grist by Drumcorps (aka Aaron Spectre) will be up there, certainly in the running …

[ October 9, 2006 / bookmark ]

downstream / Proto-Electronic MP3s

George Antheil (1900-1959) was the self-styled Bad Boy of Music. That’s no mere quip later foisted back on him as a nickname; it was the title of his autobiography. To electronic listeners, Antheil is best known as a practitoner of …

[ October 5, 2006 / bookmark ]

downstream / Xenakis Tape-Music MP3

The website of PS1/MoMA, wps1.org, is Byzantine, which is to say, yes, it may be hell to navigate, but that’s only partially because of an interface that employs pulldown menus, javascript popops and nested subdirectories to seeming crosspurposes. It’s …