Month: August 2007

If You Meet the Buddha in the Times…

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Many new readers have come through thanks to the Buddha Machine article in Rob Walker‘s “Consumed” column in this past Sunday’s magazine section of the New York Times (nytimes.com).

Here’s a quick rundown of Buddha-related material on Disquiet.com: (1) A December 2005 interview with Christiaan Virant of the duo FM3, who made the Buddha Machine (“I’m quite happy with the gritty, lo-fi digital sound that comes out of the boxes on the market right now”); (2) my “best of 2005” list, in which I list the Buddha Machine alongside proper CD releases; (3) video of FM3 in performance, playing chess with their Buddha Machines at the De Appel museum of contemporary art in Amsterdam, November 2005; (4) free MP3 downloads by Mark Rushton, based on the Buddha Machine loops; (5) my “best of 2006” list, which includes an album of Buddha Machine remixes (Layering Buddha, with work by Blixa Bargeld, Adrian Sherwood, Monolake and others) and mention of Monolake’s Jukebox Buddha full-length; (6) news of FM3’s plans, including a high-end ceramic edition; (7) free live Monolake downloads derived from his Buddha Machine fiddlings.

And for regularly updated information about the Buddha Machine, visit FM3’s dedicated fm3buddhamachine.com website.

Turntable Trio Downloads

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

In the photograph up at the website of the Four Directional Doubt netlabel (fourdirectionaldoubt.free.fr), the three men look more like keyboard players than turntablists. To many ears, they may sound like something other than turntablists as well. But turntablists they are: Jonas Olesen, ErikM and, by far the best-known, Christian Marclay — caught playing together as djTRIO at the Spor Festival in Aarhus, Denmark, in May this year.

The label has collected recordings of their group performance as a set of free downloads. These aren’t really four separate tracks, but a single piece divided into quarters — the first track, for example, ends with a jab of a horn sample that’s immediately repeated as the second part opens. This is also, as far a turntablism goes, more abstract than 90 percent of what gets recorded associated with that rubric. The trio mashes found sounds, from spoken word, to jazz, to noise, and the techniques they employ have far more in common with the chaos, clatter and attention to detail of European free improvisation than with the scratching and beat-matching of hip-hop. Still, Marclay and company share with their hip-hop brethren a fascination with the material fact of vinyl, and the result, for all their willful confusion, finds its own groove.

More on the festival at spor.kunde.siteloom.dk, on ErikM at erikm.com and on Olesen at xskalleper.adr.dk. (Marclay doesn’t appear to have his own webpage.) The music files are saved in the OGG format. Try the opening salvo (OGG) before visiting Four Directional Doubt to dive into the complete piece.