The latest freebie from the Kracfive gang is “Blind Alley Cat,” credited to Kettel. It weaves a slowly developing snake-charm melody over the sort of meticulously percussive momentum that makes Volkswagen TV-commercial directors salivate, until, after nearly three minutes, it stutters to a sudden close, like someone forgot to check the gas gauge. Grab “Blind Alley Cat” from the MP3 Rotor section at kracfive.com. It’s up for the month of May, after which another Kracfive song will take its place. More info on Kettel, born Reimer Eising, at kracfive.com/kettel.
Month: May 2005
Michael Nyman MP3s
With the possible of exception of John Adams, composer Michael Nyman may be the most melodic of the major minimalists. Yeah, say that five times fast to a tune by Gilbert and Sullivan, and then head over to the Other Minds catalog at the Internet Archive (aka archive.org), which has in its coffers not one but four entries of Nyman’s music recorded live during OM’s 2005 concert series. These include two sets performed by the Del Sol String Quartet (String Quartet No. 3 and “The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi,” the latter featuring soprano Cheryl Keller and visuals by Mary Kelly, though the MP3s, of course, include none of Kelly’s images) and two by Nyman himself (his soundtrack for Manhatta, a short silent film by filmmaker Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand, and excerpts from his most widely heard work, the score for The Piano). Make that Nyman himselves, because the Manhatta piece, the most highly recommended download of the group, features him performing on piano along with two prerecorded piano lines. The result is a rambunctious mesh of staccato lines and complementary patterns, with Jazz Age echoes of Gerswhin in particular and futurism in general (it would make a good programming choice alongside Wynton Marsalis’ Citi Movement). As with Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint composition, it appears that Manhatta is intended to be realized by a combination of live soloist plus tape, not as an ensemble performance. The Sheeler/Strand film dates from the 1920s, but unfortunately it is not, as one commentator notes in the Internet Archive entry for Nyman’s Manhatta, in the vast public-domain repository at archive.org. (This link should go to a list of the Nyman entries; otherwise search the archive.) More on Nyman at michaelnyman.com and the Del Sol at delsolquartet.com.
Tangents (SF, Corona, PostClassic)
Bay Sounds: In response to the recent trio of Disquiet concert reviews (“Beyond Laptops”), I got a request for info on how to find updates on San Francisco concerts of experimental/electronic music. These are some good resources: (1) the somewhat East Bay-oriented bayimproviser.com calendar, (2) the noise/rock-oriented thisactisnoact, (3) the S.F. e-flyer from flavorpill (sf.flavorpill.net, now featuring daily updates) and (4) local events site sfstation.com. And of course the websites of venues and musicians who promote/perform this sort of music, and the local newspapers and alt-weeklies. … Corona, N.Y.: A brief trip to Manhattan last week left little time for music, aside from some record shopping at and in the vicinity of the Other Music record store (othermusic.com). One exhibit of note, though: artist Chris Marker has a multi-screen video showing at MOMA, in the Yoshiko and Akio Morita Gallery, on the second floor. Titled OWLS AT NOON Prelude: The Hollow Men, it features stark images and reflects on the T.S. Eliot poem from which it takes its name. Playing for its 19-minute running time is Toru Takemitsu‘s Corona, in a performance by pianist Roger Woodward (link). … Z-Trip Unmashed: Turntable juggler DJ Z-Trip has a “celebrity playlist” up at the iTunes Music Store, featuring DJ Zeph, Prefuse 73, Cee-Lo and People Under the Stairs (iTunes link). Each track has a brief comment. Of D’Angelo‘s “Chicken Grease,” he says, “If you can’t feel this, you are probably that person at church who claps off beat.” And of a Miami Boyz entry from 1988, “I can’t believe this is in the iTunes store.”
… Meet the Composers: Some excerpts from the recent announcement of the Meet the Composers Commissioning Music/USA 2005 grants: “Mary Ellen Childs will write a work for pianist Kathleen Supove that incorporates live video of Supove’s physical movements; Pat Muchmore will create a work for solo trombonist Jennifer Baker using interactive electronics; Frederic Rzewski will write a solo for pianist Robert Satterlee. … Anthony Cornicello will compose an electro-acoustic work for ModernWorks. … [F]lute pioneer Robert Dick will compose a piece for wind quintet, with each movement based on a classic work of science fiction; guitarist/composer Fred Frith will write a work for the Bang on a Can All-Stars; Guillermo Galindo will write a piece for San Francisco’s Earplay using computers and abandoned machinery parts, and featuring his cybertotemic instrument MAIZ. … Kui Dong will write a work for string quartet and traditional Chinese instruments inspired by a combination of Vivaldi‘s Four Seasons and the work of John Cage. … Eve Beglarian will write a work for cellist Maya Beiser that incorporates sound design created from recordings of 12 women, each representing different vocal traditions from around the world.” More details at meetthecomposer.org.
… New CD Releases: Records due out on Tuesday, May 10, include Foetus‘ Love CD/DVD (Birdman), which includes “Blessed Evening” (video directed by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs [link], with an assist from Spike Jonze) and guests Jennifer Charles (of Elysian Fields) and theremin player Pamelia Kurstin. … Rhys Fulber (ex-Front Line Assembly and Delerium) debuts as Conjure One, with Conjure One, hosting contributors Tom Holkenburg, Chris Elliott and various singers (on Nettwerk). … According to Steve Reich‘s website, Steve Reich & Musicians Live 1977 (Orange Mountain) includes live, unedited performances of “Six Pianos,” “Pendulum Music,” “Violin Phase,” “Music for Pieces of Wood” and “Drumming-Part IV,” recorded at the Kitchen in Manhattan. (“There is background traffic noise on ‘Violin Phase’ and ‘Music for Pieces of Wood’, and yet there is the real musical energy of intense young performers including the composer.”) … Cheb i Sabbah‘s La Kahena (Six Degrees) features North African vocalists, and was recorded in Marrakech, San Francisco, New York and New Delhi. … In the spirit of Verve’s remix series, Atlantiquity (Rhino) collects newly remixed Atlantic hits, including ones by Slave, Eddie Harris, Average White Band, Donny Hathaway, Chic and the Spinners, remixed by King Britt, Sa-Ra, Charlie Dark and others. … More new-release news at brainwashed.com/releases.
… Keeping Score: Via IMDB.com, Michael Nyman is attached as a composer on three films in progress: Charged: The Life of Nikola Tesla, from director Ken Russell, as well as Where Love Reigns and Therese Raquin. … Fellow minimalist Philip Glass is listed as the composer on Vic Sarin‘s forthcoming Partition.
… Quote of the Week: “I moved to a house whose owner had been absent a couple of years. The trees and bushes are so overgrown with parasitic vines that their growth is being stunted. I’ve pulled down hundreds of feet of vines, releasing the trees underneath to uncurl and grow toward the sky again. New music is similarly overgrown with vines: the school-taught classical assumptions about what constitutes musical sophistication.” That’s composer, critic and teacher Kyle Gann writing about “Strategies For and Against Sophistication” on his blog, PostClassic.
Pocka Odds’n’Ends MP3 Album
The Kikapu netlabel’s 75th release comes from its founder, Brad Mitchell, who records under the name Pocka. Titled Devoured by a Shark, it collects what he describes as “random” tracks that have been on his “hard drive for the better part of a year or more.” The set opens wisely, with one of its strongest pieces, “Metahmafasis,” which floats a brief piano figure over the sort of microsonic whirring we’ve come to expect from Pocka. That foreground melody doesn’t evolve much, though he does eventually embrace some thick chords. It’s actually the background that changes the most, from light buzzes to scrappy rhythms, and there’s a lesson in there: throughout this album it’s worth paying attention to the background; even if it initially seems like ambient inaction, that’s often where the action is. This is especially the case on tracks that are nothing but background, like the haunting “Gwely Mernans (Remix)” and the arid “Ratsagain (Extended),” both rich swaths of sound. A drum’n’bass/dancehall montage (“Cutty Ranks Mashup”) doesn’t offer much that’s new, except to longtime Pocka followers, who might be surprised that someone who has produced a substantial amount of enticingly vaporous sounds has interest in these by-the-books rhythms. The same could be said of “Ziggomatic 17 (Remix),” but at least it does inject some brisk chaos. Those are all just a few of the album’s 14 tracks. One major highlight is “Cherublossom,” which plunks electric piano for funky little riffs, and then sets ’em against an equally tasty drum beat. Download the full batch at kikapu.com.
MP3 Noise Album on Test Tube
The new album from Sal., Ohne Titel Mit Titel, now downloadable from the Test Tube netlabel, will appeal mostly to veteran noise fans, but there are nods to a more general audience. While three tracks are about as pleasurable as the wind breaking against a cheap microphone during an ill-fated field-recording trip to the shore (“Compreendo perfeitamente a tua estupidez,” “Compreendo perfeitamente a tua necessidade,” “Compreendo perfeitamente porque e que e redondo”), the irritants here can become attractors. In particular, “wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww” (yes, that’s the title) is far more complex than it initially appears, a fevered rash of conflicting cogs banging against each other, spitting up tiny, high-pitched sparks. For most listeners, though, the one real keeper is “Parte Primeira,” which opens with a pleasurable rhythmic lope and hints at the fire of feedback, and then evolves through an exploration of murkiness, before splintering into a wash of sine waves and white noise. Get it at monocromatica.com/netlabel.