The website tenori-off.com is described by its proprietor, Dino Ignacio, as a document of “his attempt at learning to play music. Though the title suggests that the blog will be exclusively about the Yamaha Tenori-On, it will probably also focus on other instruments like Theremins and Keyboards.” The Tenori-On, pictured at left, is the celebrated instrument/toy designed by Japanese media artist Toshio Iwai. The site’s MP3 page currently lists four entries for June 2008. “Jet Slug” is a sweet exercise in light post-rock, a minimalist tune with the feel of a quiet Tortoise piece (MP3). “The Great Owl” is more along the lines of 1980s pop, with hard-coded beats and gothy keys (MP3). “Rebootron” is a kind of hybrid of the previous two, with the pulsing pop of “Great Owl” but the chamber feel of “Slug” (MP3). And “e11even” is a subdued bit of synth melodicism (MP3). More on Ignacio at dinoignacio.com.
Month: June 2008
Jazz-into-Hip-Hop MP3 Mixtape
The influence of jazz on hip-hop is never as evident as on cuts of the latter that sample the former, and that legacy in transition is rarely as fully fleshed out as on Turntable Jazz, a recent podcast by DJ ZedVantz. The set packs together 11 cuts, including a Billie Holiday remix and more great acoustic bass lines, plinkety piano riffs, stripped-bare beats, and guttural scat than you can throw a sampler at (MP3). If the Cotton Club had a resident DJ, Turntable Jazz is what he’d sound like on a good night. The full track listing of the ZedVantz podcast is as follows:
“You Let Me down Billie Holiday RMX” – Free the Robots
“I’ve Got That Tune” – Chinese Man
“Good Lord” – Kormac
“First Met You” – Funky Fresh Few
“Fire” – A-ko
“My Spider Walks Again” – Mooch
“Another Gone Record” – Rube
“Big Band Jump” – Rube
“Soul ”˜69 (part 2)” – A-ko
“Artichaut” – C.M.R.
“Swing Set” – Cut Chemist & Numark
More info on the podcast at rhythm-incursions.com, which includes a brief and informative interview with the DJ. More on ZedVantz, who’s based out of Toronto, Canada, at myspace.com/djzedvantz.
Guitronic Mark Templeton MP3s
The strings are filtered through feedback loops, clipped and set on repeat like an album that’s reached the end of its groove. These strings — acoustic guitars in particular, and also what sounds like a banjo — are heard amid rastery, digitized sound elements. And those same strings are likely distorted until they become those very sound elements, unrecognizable little segments of self-contained abstraction that musician Mark Templeton stiches together into layered compositions — some sustained cloud-like textures, others riff-like globules.
The tracks in question are the four that constitute his Holden into Ryley EP, which was released last year and is available for free download from the “media” page at the anticipaterecordings.com website. “As the Day Grows Longer” (MP3) is distinguished by a child’s xylophone and by an anguished, but understated, moan, which brings to mind Gavin Bryars’s Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet. “Goodbye to You” (MP3) takes perhaps the most active approach to fiddling with the strings, which start off all gingerly plucked, but are then tweaked as if being reiterated by a fading R2D2. The EP’s title cut, “Holden into Ryley” (MP3), is its quietest, gentle arrays of microsonic play against a lightly glitchy texture. And “I Cut Along Lines” (MP3) ventures into song form, with unaffected guitar and a short-circuiting female vocal that’s all the more emotional for its technical difficulties.
More on Templeton at fieldsawake.com.
Field Recording Transformation MP3s
Sounds sourced from the real world and transformed into something either unreal or hyperreal serve as the foundation of a new compilation from the furthernoise.org netlabel. It is titled Explorations in Sound, Vol 3: Music of Sound and was curated by Roger Mills. Field recordings subjected here to digital modifications include rubber bands (yanked and flicked into numerous variations by Solange Kershaw, MP3), the electric hum of a lamppost (investigated for all its subtlety by Rebecca Mills), and the rush of traffic (modified to approach something melodic by Gail Priest, MP3). Those are just three of the album’s 11 tracks. Other participants include Thanos Chysakis, Robert Curgenven, Dithernoise, Iris Garrelfs & Douglas Benford, Derek Morton, Lea Piontek, John Kannenberg, and Phil Hargreaves. Get the full set as a Zip archive at furthernoise.org (ZIP).
Image of the Week: iKalimba
One of many new music-creation interfaces for Apple’s iPhone — an electronic kalimba, or African thumb piano:
Image by John Biehler (johnbiehler.com), via Peter Kirn‘s createdigitalmusic.com.