Recent interview with me at freemusicarchive.org on Creative Commons, Disquiet Junto, and more • Projects: Instagr/am/bient + LX(RMX): Lisbon Remixed • Key Topics: #sound-art, #classical, #generative • How to Submit for Review • Elsewhere: Twitter (Disquiet + Junto), SoundCloud (Disquiet + Junto).

Listening to art. Playing with audio. Sounding out technology. Composing in code.

tag: ipod

How to Submit Music (& Apps) for Review on Disquiet.com

[ August 21, 2010 / Department: field notes / Comment: 1 ]

This site’s been experiencing a significant uptick in correspondence about how to submit music (as well as apps) for review. I just updated the Disquiet.com F.A.Q page (i.e., Frequently Asked Questions, at disquiet.com/faq) in this regard. Here are the key sections:

4. Can I send you music for review consideration? I would love to hear your music. However, just to get this clear from the outset, I am a horrible correspondent. I simply don’t have the time to engage in ongoing back and forths via email about whether I plan on covering your music. I get an enormous amount of music from musicians and their record labels, and that doesn’t count all time I spend seeking out music (and sound-related art), so I can’t promise to write back in a timely manner. Honestly, I can’t promise to write back at all. What I can promise is the following: I will listen to what you send to me, and I will consider it for coverage. So, how do you send me music? My preference is that you email me a link to a Zip file containing 320kbps MP3 files. If you feel the need to send me a CD (or vinyl, or some other physical format), you can email me (visit the Contact page) to get my address in San Francisco, where I live. Do not send MP3s as attachments: they clog up my email, and I just delete them. In closing, I do want to hear your music — but I also want to hear other people’s music, and the less time I spend in correspondence, the more time I can spend listening.

5. Do you review sound/audio/music-related apps? Yes, certainly — apps as well as applications. The intersection of sound and interactivity (aka games) is an important one. Since at least July 2000, I’ve been tagging such content on the site with the term “audio-games.” I can currently review apps written for Apple’s iOS operating system (I have an iPod Touch) and for Android (I have an Android mobile phone), and applications written for the Apple and Windows operating systems (I really should have a proper Linux set up, but currently do not). Just get in touch with me via the Contact page.

Full F.A.Q. at disquiet.com/faq.

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Tangents: Listening Day, iOS Thawing, Creative Commons, …

[ July 11, 2010 / Department: field notes / Leave a comment ]

Recommended reading, news, and so forth elsewhere:

Just a reminder that this coming Sunday, July 18, will be World Listening Day: worldlisteningproject.org. The date was selected because it is the birthday of composer and sound ecologist R. Murray Schafer. … Peter Kirn at createdigitalmusic.com looks into whether, and if so to what extent, Apple’s iOS is allowing apps to access the iTunes music library. … In related news, an iOS (aka iPhone/Touch) app, Soundstations, that allows you to mix nature sounds with your music: appscout.com. … Now this is noise-metal, all the songs on a single Slayer album played simultaneously: noiseforairports.com. … An installation by artist Luke Jerram, in coordination with the charitable organization Sing for Hope, brought 60 pianos to the streets of New York City: cnn.com (via twitter.com/soundscrapers). … Details on the Christian Marclay exhibit running at the Whitney through September 26: whitney.org (plus a photo essay at nytimes.com). … Alan Wexelblat at copyfight.corante.com continues the discussion about my position that, as he puts it, “even if the current record industry structure went away there would still be music, still be musicians.” … I weighed in on a discussion about ASCAP’s absurd targeting of Creative Commons as some sort of enemy of musicians, over at Molly Sheridan‘s artsjournal.com/gap.

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Tangents: Apple’s iOS, Recursive Remixes, Sonic ID

[ June 7, 2010 / Department: field notes / Leave a comment ]

Recommended reading, news, and so forth elsewhere:

The developers of the iOS app Sonorasaurus weigh in on Apple’s restrictions on developers. Let’s just say the situation is a tad more complicated than Steve Jobs suggested in his presentation today (via engadget.com: “10:14AM What about the ones we don’t approve? Well why is that? What are the reasons? 1: the app doesn’t do what you said it would. 2: It uses private APIs… and if they change the app will break… and the third reason? They crash.”) Here’s Sonorasaurus’ take, from sonorasaurus.com:

Why can’t I use the music from the iPod section? Why do I have to add files and maintain a separate library for Sonorasaurus? The answer to this is basically that Apple does now want you to be able to use your iPod library. Applications like Sonorasaurus, and many other music apps, are restricted from using the songs in the iPod library. We have done everything we can in terms of compromises by including iTunes File sharing and an HTTP Server, but until Apple lifts the iPod library restriction we are not able to give you the most convenient option possible. Why the restriction is in place continues to baffle us. We have sat and tried to think of pros and cons to give the issue a sense of purpose and balance, but so far nothing seems to go in the CONS column.

News courtesy of Roddy Schrock of eyebeam.org in Manhattan: some codes for discounts on the institution’s summer classes (info at
eyebeam.org). “SUMMER” will get you $100 off; for two people taking a class together, “COLLAB” will reduce the cost to $300/person; and for three people taking a class together, use “GROUPIE” to get the cost to $250. Classes include Kaho Abe‘s alternative controls for game play.

SoundWalk2010 will be held in Long Beach, California, on October 9 of this year. Deadline for submissions is Sunday, August 1. More info at soundwalk.org.

Alan Lockett‘s write-up at furthernoise.org of the Moritz von Oswald Trio draws from the Disquiet.com “MP3 Discussion Group” of the group’s recent work (see disquiet.com).

The website rebakery.com is an ongoing “recursive remix project” (along the lines of the “remix tree” at freesound.org).

The website ohio.com notes a great New York Times correction: “A dance review on Friday … misidentified the author of the text to which David Neumann‘s Tough the Tough (redux) is set. The author is Will Eno — not the musician Brian Eno.”

Martyn Ware (of Human League and Heaven 17) is a partner in sonicid.com, along with Noel Franus and Dan Kirby. Their mission? “[T]o demystify sonic branding and identity and give it the same credence as other design disciplines.”

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Top 10 Posts & Searches from May 2010

[ June 1, 2010 / Department: field notes / Leave a comment ]

Two of the 10 most popular posts on this site during the month of may relate to Despite the Downturn: An Answer Album (cover shown at left), the recent free album download I compiled. Each track on the album is a response-in-music to a misinformed article (“The Freeloaders”) about copyright and creativity in the May issue of The Atlantic by Megan McArdle. There is (1) the album itself and (2) the announcement of a 10th, additional track to the set, as well as news of coverage.

The majority of the most popular posts this past month were drawn from the site’s week-daily free (and legal) download recommendations, the Downstream department: (3) a Grassy Knoll demo circa 1998, (4) one minute of instrumental hip-hop bliss, (5) a sample track off the Oval album O (due out later this year, to follow up the album Oh), (6) a slice of Bruce Kaphan pedal-steel atmospherics, (7) a sample of the collaboration by experimental electronic duo Matmos and percussion quartet So Percussion (plus guests), (8) electronica lullabies from Athens-based Naono (that’s Greece, not Georgia), and (9) news (and free WAV files) of a Peter Gabriel / “Games without Frontiers” remix contest.

And, finally, (10) a brief bit on the return of the patch cord, which is cementing its role as a visual metaphor in software-based instruments — such as this screenshot from the iPhone/Touch app Circuit Synth by Michael Daines:

The most popular post of both the last 60 and 90 days was the Despite the Downturn: An Answer Album link noted above. The second most popular post of the last 60 and 90 days was the initial response I wrote to the McArdle article, “What, After All, Is the ‘Music Industry’?”

The top 9 search terms on this site for the month of May were: “rss,” “performances,” “oval” (as in Oval, see above), “drone,” “oversteps” (as in the album by Autechre), “autechre” (as in the duo that just released Oversteps), “loops,” “topic,” and “mcardle” (as in Atlantic writer and editor Megan McArdle, as noted above). Tenth place had so many words tied, it’s just silly to list them all.

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Image of the Week: The Mainstreaming of Interactive

[ May 23, 2010 / Department: field notes / Leave a comment ]

A look at the distribution of the Top 100 iPhone/Touch apps. Music is in a respectable slot, above healthcare/fitness, finance, even social networking, though well below games, books, and utilities. Overall, this makes for a healthy outlook for mainstream adoption of interactive sound:

Original post at macrumors.com, found via the-palm-sound.blogspot.com.

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