Month: December 2010

On Soundcheck with John Schaefer Today at 2:20pm (Manhattan’s WNYC 93.9 FM, AM 820)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Short notice: I’ll be on Soundcheck, the great John Schaefer radio show, today, December 3, at 2:20pm (EST). We’ll be discussing the Tabletmat.com-hosted “Hanukkah, remixed” compilation that I put together, Anander Mol, Anander Veig.

More on the show at wnyc.org. The radio broadcast also streams live online, and will be available later as a free podcast at that same URL.

Yeah, this is in about 15 minutes from when this post is being published. I’d put an alert up at twitter.com/disquiet, but figured I should also mention here.


 

PS: Here’s the audio of the interview, streaming. Also available for download as an MP3, if you’re an Anander Mol completist.

[audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wnyc.org/soundcheck/soundcheck120310bpod.mp3|titles=”Soundcheck December 3 2010″|artists=John Schaefer interviewing Marc Weidenbaum ]

It was a good conversation. Several tracks were played during the segment, including Paula Daunt‘s Alicia Jo Rabins remix, xntrxx‘s Dave Tarras remix, and the original “Ose Shalom” by the 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra as well as Diego Bernal‘s remix. Speaking of the 4th Ward, that track provided a good transition from the first part of the Soundcheck episode, because the show opened with photographer Michael Schmelling and New Yorker staff writer Kelefa Sanneh discussing their recent book about the Atlanta hip-hop scene, Atlanta being the city that the 4th Ward group calls home.

Hanukkah, Remixed: The Outtakes

A companion album of outtakes to the "Hanukkah, remixed" compilation Anander Mol, Anander Veig, which I curated for Tabletmag.com

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Please note: This entry in the Listen? series is a little shorter than the usual hour length, but that’s the result of the overall definition of the project.

This is a companion album to the Hanukkah remix compilation Anander Mol, Anander Veig. I curated the original album for Tablet Magazine (tabletmag.com). It was released for free download on November 29, 2010, and is available here: “Anander Mol, Anander Veig.”

See below to stream tracks individually, and proceed to archive.org to download the tracks as MP3 or Ogg files. The full collection streams here:

[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/AnanderMolAnanderVeigOuttakes/VoxTabletTheme-AdamWilliamsRemix.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/AnanderMolAnanderVeigOuttakes/VoxTabletTheme-AlecVanceRemix.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/AnanderMolAnanderVeigOuttakes/VoxTabletTheme-CedarAVRemix.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/AnanderMolAnanderVeigOuttakes/VoxTabletTheme-LeonardoRosadoRemix1.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/AnanderMolAnanderVeigOuttakes/VoxTabletTheme-LeonardoRosadoRemix2Undress.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/AnanderMolAnanderVeigOuttakes/VoxTabletTheme-MystifiedRemix.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/AnanderMolAnanderVeigOuttakes/VoxTabletTheme-PaulaDauntRemix.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/AnanderMolAnanderVeigOuttakes/ose-shalom-4th-ward-22tape.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/AnanderMolAnanderVeigOuttakes/sivivon-sov-sov-sov-alicia-jo-rabins-ocp.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/AnanderMolAnanderVeigOuttakes/the-spinning-top-sholem-aleichem-mystified.mp3|titles=”Vox Tablet Theme by Jewlia Eisenberg and Red Pocket (Adam Williams Remix)”,”Vox Tablet Theme by Jewlia Eisenberg and Red Pocket (Alec Vance Remix)”,”Vox Tablet Theme by Jewlia Eisenberg and Red Pocket (Cedar AV Remix)”,”Vox Tablet Theme by Jewlia Eisenberg and Red Pocket (Leonardo Rosado Remix)”,”Vox Tablet Theme by Jewlia Eisenberg and Red Pocket (Leonardo Rosado Undress Remix)”,”Vox Tablet Theme by Jewlia Eisenberg and Red Pocket (Mystified Remix)”,”Vox Tablet Theme by Jewlia Eisenberg and Red Pocket (Paula Daunt Remix)”,”Ose Shalom”,”Sivivon Sov Sov Sov”,”The Spinning Top (Remixed Excerpt)”|artists=Adam Williams,Alec Vance,Cedar AV,Leonardo Rosado,Leonardo Rosado,Mystified,Paula Daunt,22tape,ocp,Mystified]

This compilation is of 10 related outtakes. There are seven remixed versions of the theme song to the tabletmag.com podcast, Vox Tablet, originally composed by Jewlia Eisenberg and performed by Red Pocket. The podcast, hosted by Sara Ivry, that accompanied the release of Anander Mol is available here: “Another Way.”

There is also an alternate remix of two tracks heard on the original album. On the record, “Ose Shalom” by the 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra was remixed by Diego Bernal of San Antonio, Texas, but here it is heard in a remix by 22tape of Chicago, Illinois. And on the original album, “Sivivon Sov Sov Sov” by Alicia Jo Rabins was remixed by Paula Daunt, but here it is heard in a remix by ocp (aka João Ricardo of Porto, Portugal, who on the original record is heard remixing “Chanukah Chag Yafe” by the Alexandria Kleztet).

The 10th and final track of this outtakes set is by Thomas Park, who records as Mystified. It’s a segment of a short story by Sholem Aleichem titled “The Spinning Top.” The spoken material is a librivox.org recording from the Aleichem book Jewish Children (Yudishe Kinder), translated by Hannah Berman and read by volunteer Adrian Praetzellis: archive.org.

Park’s remix includes a dreidel/top sample from the great website freesound.org, originally recorded by Eliot Lash (aka Halleck).

Brian Scott, of boondesign.com, who designed the original Anander Mol cover, did a new version special for this outtakes collection.

Best wishes go out to Jewlia Eisenberg, who at the time of this writing is in the hospital. I’ve heard that the three initial remixes of her Vox Tablet theme song, which were posted when the album was first released, helped cheer her up, so here’s hoping that these additional four remixes will do so even more so.

Happy holidays.
Continue reading “Hanukkah, Remixed: The Outtakes”

Black to Comm, Live (MP3)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Black in Blue: Marc Richter, aka minimalist genre-smasher Black to Comm, performing live.

Exactly a year ago, this site’s MP3 Discussion Group got together to talk about an album by Black to Comm, aka Marc Richter. The album, Alphabet 1968, on the Type label, was a rich mix of sounds, both composed and found — as we described it at the time, “from epic drones to compact minimalism, with all manner of lo-fi field recordings mixed in.”

That sonic broadmindedness is in full effect during his nearly half-hour long performance for the Rare Frequency podcast (MP3), in which he moves from splashing drums to guitar solos out of some Ennio Morricone film score, all the while this richly patterned hummingbird burble building slowly, at first almost imperceptibly, until the background becomes the foreground, a pointilist techno fantasy. To hear muted sirens played against automated arpeggios is a splendid thing, especially in Black to Comm’s hands.

[audio:http://www.rarefrequency.com/podcasts/Podcast_Spec_Ed_48_Black_to_Comm.mp3|titles=”Live on Rare Frequency”|artists=Black to Comm]

Track originally posted at rarefrequency.com. The performance occurred on November 3 of this year. More on Comm/Richter at blacktocomm.org. He also runs the label Dekorder (dekorder.de).

Top 10 Posts & Searches from November 2010

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

It would be a lie of omission if once in a while it wasn’t mentioned that these stats always seem somewhat less than meaningful, but to paraphrase a fax of a recollection of a misreading of a newspaper report of a leak of Winston Churchill, they’re still of some vague use, if only for apples-to-apples comparison, month in, month out. One thing that is self-evident yet deserves being pointed out about the whole “top 10 posts” mode is that posts made toward the end of a month, like the Hanukkah-remix project entry, or the one just last night about the musical nature of field recordings or about David Byrne‘s audio-text memoir mash, seem to get short shrift.

Digits, All: Two hands and up to ten fingers can be used to manipulate the Thicket app on the iPad (shown here), the iPhone, and the iPod Touch.

In any case, three of the top most read/visited/commented/etc. posts of the month were non-free-MP3-downloads. These would be (1) the interview with the developers of the iOS music app Thicket (shown above; “Being Decimal”), (2) our semi-regular MP3 Discussion Group (which compared notes on Brian Eno‘s recent Small Craft on a Milk Sea); and (3) a brief mention (with a truly tantalizing illustration, shown below) of Kevin Kelly‘s book What Technology Wants, in regard to cornet taxonomy.

Cornet Taxonomy: A chart showing the development of the cornet, from Kevin Kelly’s What Technology Wants

The rest of the top 10 is rounded out by entries in the site’s Downstream department (freely, legally downloadable music): (4) instrumental hip-hop from Cambridge, Massachusetts’ Tictoc and from (5) Chicago, Illinois’ 22Tape; (6) drones from Argentina (Peregrino, aka Bernardo Durand); (7) IoNizer‘s strings’n’beats EP, Infused Fear; (8) a sound-journal entry from Justin Hardison (aka My Fun); (9) a nearly songless song from Declining Winter (aka Richard Vincent Adams); and (10) despondent techno from Sherbe.

The Eno discussion mentioned above also ranks as the most popular post for the last 60 days, and the Soothing Sounds for Baby compilation is the most popular post of the last 90 days.

The top searches of the month were: “topic” (that pops up frequently, and I still have no idea why), “bandcamp” (the music-hosting service, not the American Pie joke) “karkowski” (as in Zbigniew, not the 30 Rock actress — that’s Krakowski), “alan morse davies,” “kate carr,” “autechre,” “buddha,” “Buddha Machine,” “Determinism,” “distortion,” “harold budd,” “ionizer,” “myo,” “portrait,” “scary,” and “scherbe.”

This now being December, the start of January will see two top-10 lists: one for this month, and one for the full year.