Kenneth Kirschner‘s name should be familiar to anyone who checks out the Disquiet Downstream, where his work has made more than one appearance. Kirschner’s music is often produced with generative software programmed in Flash, and it’s available in abundance on his website, kennethkirschner.com. The generative pieces involve simultaneous layers of individual MP3 files that are randomly sequenced for as long as the listener is willing to sit still. Kirschner also records music the old-fashioned way, and he released a proper CD earlier this year, Post_Piano 2, in collaboration with Taylor Deupree on 12k, the record label Deupree runs. Their album was derived from a piano sketch, “11/11/03” (MP3), one of dozens of pieces of music housed on Kirschner’s site.
The duo celebrated the album’s release by, in the open-source spirit, putting out a call for other musicians to tweak Kirschner’s “11/11/2003.” The PostPiano 2 Open Remix Project received over 100 entries, 21 of which were selected by Deupree and Kirschner and posted earlier this week on 12k’s website (12k.com). They range from the beat-laden to the nearly inaudible, from a vibrantly percolating track by skoltzkolgen (MP3), accented by lone key plonks, to Blake Stickland‘s succession of drones (MP3). Remote_ turns in fine minimal techno (MP3), with echoes of the Chain Reaction catalog, while Stephen Mathieu pushes the sound of the piano until it’s just short of being unrecognizable (MP3). Those are just a few of the fine tracks, and the full set serves as a valuable introduction to the many facets of Kirschner, a lengthy interview with whom will appear on this website tomorrow.