Quick Links and News: (1) The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an exhibit up through the end of the year titled The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult (metmuseum.org), which provides a good parallel to the fascination of early sound-recording experimenters, such as Thomas Watson, in technology as a window into the paranormal. If you’re in Manhattan, check it out. … (2) Visual artist David Ellis, who uses turntables in his work (createdigitalmusic.com). … (3) The Tone Ladder, or ladder as musical instrument (tonleiter.com, via makezine.com). … Good Reads: (1) Review of sound art exhibit at Taipei Fine Arts Museum, with work by Marc Behren, Christina Kubisch and Paul DeMarinis (taipeitimes.com). It runs through November 11. … (2) Lengthy interview with Boards of Canada, on the occasion of the release of the album The Campfire Headphase (pitchforkmedia.com): “The new record is probably the slowest record that we’ve done.”
… Select New Releases: A few releases of note this coming week: (1) The Pearl (Astralwerks), by Brian Eno and Harold Budd, is reissued. … (2) Astralwerks also releases a live Kraftwerk DVD, Maximum-Minimum: Live. … (3) Talking Heads albums get the DualDisc remaster rerelease treatment, including the Brian Eno-produced studio sessions More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music and Remain in Light, all of which come with extra tracks. The complete eight discs will be available in a limited edition “brick” (Rhino). … (4) Legendary jazz drummer Jack DeJohnette goes electric as part of Ripple Effect (his project with Ben Surman) on Hybrids (Golden Beams). … (5) The soundtrack to the PlayStation Portable Wipeout Pure video game features music by Aphex Twin, Photek and others (Distinctive).
… Disquiet Heavy Rotation: (1) David Lang‘s Elevated (Cantaloupe), which, as one friend put it, “Sounds more Morton Feldman than Morton Feldman.” Includes a DVD of work with video artists William Wegman, Bill Morrison (Decasia) and Matt Mullican. … (2) The Disquiet Downstream entry of the week was Marcus Obst‘s compression of a single-day field recording into a half-hour on fast-forward (link).
… Quote of the Week: “lots of loose ends. or starts. two weeks sketching things. chipping away at structures. making polyphonic sweeps. mountains of words. the blackboard is filling up.” William Gibson says he can’t post to his website and write a novel at the same time, but that’s Thom Yorke posting at the website of his band, Radiohead, who are completing their next album (radiohead.com/deadairspace). The whole band appears to be chiming in.