There are moments on William Fowler Collins’ album Western Violence & Brief Sensuality when the echo gets so deep that the original sound is lost in a well of reverberations, when the effects overcome the raw source material. It’s a remarkable experience to follow the familiar down the rabbit hole, only to come up in […]
Never seen a poem as lovely as a tree? Then try the tone poem in the Fern Room at the Lincoln Park Conservatory in Chicago, which I had the pleasure of visiting during a quick trip to the city earlier this week. The Conservatory rises from the park like some Victorian Biosphere, and has, since […]
The cello lends itself to ambient music, what with the instrument’s human scale, its inherent depth of sound, its deep self-reflecting resonance. It’s a fascinating instrument, physically imposing yet often relegated to the background, especially in most writing for string quartets. Ted Laderas is one of several musicians who employ technology in order to expand […]
Quote of the Week: Osamu Tezuka is the subject of a retrospective exhibit, Marvel of Manga, at the Asia Art Museum (asianart.org) in San Francisco. (Full disclosure: I am employed by one of the exhibit’s corporate sponsors.) Of a Beethoven manga by Tezuka, titled Ludwig B, the exhibit notes state, “Possibly because of […]
When, thanks to an MP3 file posted at the Internet Archive, Paul Zukofsky’s rendition of “Mitzvah for the Dead (for Violin and Tape),” by composer Michael Sahl, is heard, some 37 years after its broadcast on KPFA-FM, the experience is doubly nostalgic.
First, there is the matter of the time that has passed since a young […]
Quote of the Week: The eminent comics artist Ben Katchor writes and draws a single-page comic for the last page of each issue of the magazine Metropolis. The July/August 2007 entry, “Peabald’s Field Guide to the Air-Conditioners of North America,” imagines a couple whose hunt is disturbed by birds: “Damn those cerulean warblers! I can’t […]
While visiting Japan mid-December, I had a single night free for a concert. Katsura Yamauchi and Mitsuhiro Yoshimura were scheduled to play Loop-Line, a small gallery near Sendagaya Station, on December 13. Yamauchi is a saxophonist. Yoshimura was billed with “headphone, microphone.” This I was looking forward to.From afar, I’ve monitored the Loop-Line concert listings, […]
Talk about a short-lived blog. Perhaps throttleclark.com will find a second life, but with its third posting it’s pretty much fulfilled its charter agenda. Clark, a prominent artist on the Warp label, has posted three tracks at the site over as many weeks, in advance of the release of Body Riddle, his forthcoming Warp album. […]
Raz Mesinai is a maestro of Middle Eastern-edged ersatz chamber music. On his new Asphodel Records album, Safe, he piles samples of composed and improvised cues by the likes of guitarist Marc Ribot, violinist Mark Feldman and cellist Jane Scarpantoni into his computer and completes what they might never have accomplished without his post-production mediation: […]
Jo Jena’s Rhythm ‘n’ Drones on the test tube netlabel was a standout last summer amid a slew of new freely downloadable music (link), a mix of crafty guitar counterpoint and thick industrial hums. The recent addition of four angular, layered guitar pieces to Jena’s own website (www.jo-jena.com) drew my attention to some work in […]