Month: April 2008

Don Buchla Interview MP3

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Red Bull Music Academy continues its ongoing series of interviews with under-celebrated music-industry characters. With a voice reminiscent of Tom Carvel’s, Don Buchla talks about various stages in the history of the synthesizer in a wide-ranging, two-hour conversation, all about theremins and Moogs, patch bays and and keyboard circuitry (MP3). Buchla’s knowledge of the field is on par with his substantial accomplishments. He’s the sort of guy who can say, of the traditional piano, that its design is “quite good” and you know he’s considering it amid an encyclopedic variety of instruments.

More info on Buchla and the Red Bull series at redbullmusicacademy.com.

Quote of the Week: Dinger, RIP

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

News spread this week of the passing in mid-March of Neu! and Kraftwerk musician Klaus Dinger, an early rock’n’roll proponent of man-machine interfaces. The following comment by Brian Eno was quoted frequently, perhaps because of its inclusion in the New York Times obituary (nytimes.com) written by Ben Sisario:

There were three great beats in the ’70s: Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat, James Brown’s funk and Klaus Dinger’s Neu! beat.

The entry at pitchforkmedia.com includes two Neu! videos from the early 1970s. More mourning at idolator.com, nme.com, and nedraggett.wordpress.com. Dinger was 61.

Multi-Locale Soundscape M4A by Novi_sad

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Forget the proverbial best of both worlds — courtesy of the latest free download from Touch Radio, the spinoff of the eminent Touch label, you can have a 22-minute artificial soundscape comprised of elements from at least four audio worlds: Mamori Lake, Amazonia, Brazil; Alphios Bridge, Ancient Olympia, Greece; “Vibrations from the bridge which connects Denmark with Sweden; and “A bottling plant in operation.” As well as hydrophone recordings from that same Mamori Lake and, for good balance, “sounds and notes from a church organ.”

Recorded by Novi_sad (aka Athens, Greece-based musician Thanasis Kaproulias), the track is titled “Dramazon.” Compressed at a generous 259kbps, it is far less than the sum of its constituent parts, and that’s very much to Kaproulias’s credit. Thanks to his attentive digital editing, the various source material has been reduced to a gently rolling fog of field recordings.

For unclear reasons, the file is available as an M4A rather than an MP3, even though the MP3 was listed as an option in the site’s RSS feed. Also confusing, on the label website, touchradio.org.uk (from which the above image, presumably shot at one of the recording locations, was borrowed), the file seems to be available only for streaming. In any case, additional details at the artist’s website, novi-sad.net.

Brutal New Drumcorps Mix MP3

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

New Drumcorps mix up, all digitally mutated metal riffs turned into dessicated dance music. It’s featured in the “New Music Download” podcast series from UK Channel 4 radio in Britain, hosted by Tom Ravenscroft (MP3). (It’s the episode from late March.) And if you want to skip the other material in the file, Aaron Spectre (that’s the pseudonym you get when you scratch the Drumcorps pseudonym) is currently streaming his contribution from the homepage of his website, drumcorps.cc.

One of the Channel 4 mix’s four constituent elements will be familiar to Drumcorps fans, as it’s the title track off his Grist album (Ad Noiseam/Cock Rock Disco). The reward is a trio of previously unavailable tracks: “Tooth Grinder,” attributed to Animosity vs. Drumcorps, and due for release from ManAlive; “Violent Coast,” with no commercial release planned; and a remix of Genghis Tron‘s “Relief,” also forthcoming.

“Grist” is as bracing as it was on first listen — hardcore death metal tropes like volcanic throat-singing and stop’n’start double bass drums given a new, mechanized sheen that emphasizes the music’s automatic impulses. As for the new stuff, “Tooth Grinder” is an equal partner to “Grist,” while “Violent Coast” is almost pop-grunge in its melodic, largely trad format — ditto “Relief,” which is more anthemic and arena-bound, evidence that Drumcorps is as at ease with rock-epic as he is with punk-decrepit.

Further details at channel4.com and aaronspectre.com.