In his always timely monthly update, Scanner (aka Robin Rimbaud) mentions the following free download, to which he contributed: “Tune your URL to godxiliary.com and download the massive .zip file of a year long project, where 20 songs were built and destroyed by 20 musicians, so it’s been a constant recycling of each other.” The website provides a grid visualization of the musicians’ participation, and though the exact meaning of the coordinates isn’t immediately apparent, there are 65 tracks total, consisting of between two and six variations on 20 original tracks. For example, there are five versions of a track listed as number 15: initially 30 seconds of vibrant sparkling and plucking (courtesy of unscrew); then a downtempo edit by deceptikon, stretching the original to three times its length; then, thanks to jerohme spye, a more blippy, upbeat rendition; then a randomized take by serocell that leaves little of the original; and finally a 15-second held tone by michL bridge, the project’s most prolific participant. Bridge, unlike the rest of the musicians, uses the files’ tag fields to comment on all his entries. That edit of track 15 is described as “15 seconds of love.” The zip file (archived at scene.org) includes all 65 tracks, plus four different playlists, sorting the files chronologically, reverse-chronologically, numerically and reverse-numerically.
Month: February 2006
Mecha-Exotica MP3s
Pierre Bastien‘s recent record out on Rephlex, titled Pop, like its predecessor, Mecanoid, creates shopworn arrangements from instruments largely of Bastien’s own creation. These aren’t instruments as in virtual plugins for software or homebrew synthesizers, but dilapidated contraptions that have steampunk charm, acoustic instruments strummed by electric motors, birdlike whirlygig-pets chirping on command, a kind of mecha-exotica. By way of example, he’s posted four full tracks on his website. Two are from Mecanoid, the warbly, nostalgic “Avid Diva” (MP3), a small menagerie of mallets and strings, and “Damn Mad” (MP3), which has as its root rhythm a scratched record and a slack drum. Two others are from the decade-old Boite #3 on Editions Cactus: “L’Orchestre Thermo-dynamique” (MP3), in which wheezy breaths and saliva-stained trumpet abet octogenarian-paced arrangements, and “Odovinil” (MP3), the most disorienting of the batch, which uses a messed up gospel record as its fulcrum. (The “Odovinil” link on Bastien’s site is misdirected, but it’s correct here.) If you can break yourself from their spell, track down Bastien’s 1988 Mecanium for its randy take on Duke Ellington’s “Caravan.” More info at pierrebastien.com.
Pazz & Jop Post-Mortem
This year’s Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll has been published. My list, which is the same as my previously listed favorite 10 albums of 2005 (“Best of 2005”), can be viewed here. Every year it’s interesting to see which records I loved are voted for by other participants in the poll, which aren’t, and how the networks of taste overlap.
One of the two other people who voted for Steve Reich‘s You Are (Variations) & Cello Counterpoint (Nonesuch) also voted for the very popular Congotronics (54 votes total, which got it to #24 on the album chart) by Konono No. 1 (Crammed Discs), as did I. And someone else who dug Reich’s latest chamber work also voted (out of five votes total) for Keith Fullerton Whitman‘s Multiples (Kranky), as did I. Those three artists (well, one composer, one group and one performer-composer) have a lot in common in their use of rudimentary rhythms that take on complexity through layering. I’d just like to drink at a bar where they’re on the same jukebox.
On some occasions, inevitably, in light of the vast amount of music released in a given year, some of my albums get no other votes at all. This year, three of my 10 favorite albums received only my vote. I can understand that Christopher Bissonnette‘s Periphery is not on everyone’s radar, even if Whitman’s more highly ranked Multiples, with which it shares a label, is more difficult on the ear (perhaps the Bissonnette is too “easy” a listen?). The absence of additional votes for Stephen Vitiello and David Tronzo‘s Scratchy Monsters, Laughing Ghosts (New Albion) confuses me, since both guys are pretty prominent in their fields, though I sense this album could have benefited from stronger promotion.
What truly blows me away is that no one else, out of the 794 other participants in this year’s poll, voted for Amon Tobin‘s Chaos Theory (Ninja Tune), the soundtrack to the video game by that name. Back in 2002, Tobin’s Out from Out Where got eight votes, including mine. And in 1998, his Permutation got 13 votes (I didn’t vote that year). Perhaps the poor showing this year is a result of a bias against soundtracks, or against video game soundtracks, or against video games in general. I don’t even play the game; I just highly recommend the album.