Korean Piano Solo (MP3)

Sima Kim recorded live, casually, in Tokyo

20130215-simakim

This lushly yet lightly flowing solo piano piece by **Sima Kim** was recorded live at Nui., a hostel and bar/lounge in the Kuramae area of Tokyo, Japan. In a manner, the track seems to have been doubly improvised — not only composed while performed, but also not pre-scheduled. It was recorded on February 11, a day after Kim’s brief recent Toyko tour ended, per [the flyer above](http://simakim.tumblr.com/post/41444836145/live-info-sima-kim-2013-tokyo-live).

https://soundcloud.com/sima-kim/improvisation-at-nui

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/sima-kim](https://soundcloud.com/sima-kim/improvisation-at-nui). Kim was born in South Korea and raised in Europe. More from him (albeit in Korean, primarily) at [simakim.tumblr.com](http://simakim.tumblr.com/) and [twitter.com/sima_kim](https://twitter.com/sima_kim).

Disquiet Junto Project 0059: Vowel Choral Drone

The Assignment: Make music from three randomly assigned vowels.

20130214-vwls

*Each Thursday at [the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com](https://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto) a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: [just join and participate](https://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto).*

This assignment was made in the early evening, California time, on Thursday, February 14, with 11:59pm on the following Monday, February 18, 2013, as the deadline.

These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):

>Disquiet Junto Project 0059: Vowel Choral Drone
>
>This week’s project involves the human voice. You will create a choral drone from three samples that you will create with your own voice. This project requires a single die, or the digital equivalent.
>
>Here are the steps in the project:
>
>Step 1: Roll a die three times (or three dice once) to determine which vowels you will use. Depending on your luck, you may end up with two or even three of the same vowel.
>
>1 = A (“a” as in “yay”)
>
>2 = E (“e” as in “bee”)
>
>3 = I (“i” as in “die”)
>
>4 = O (“o” as in “yo”)
>
>5 = U (“u” as in “you”)
>
>6 = Y (“y” as in “Sylvia”)
>
>If you don’t have access to a die, you can use various digital equivalents. This link, for example, will roll three dice simultaneously:
>
>http://www.random.org/dice/?num=3
>
>Step 2: For each vowel that you have been assigned by the dice, record a 10-second sample of you holding that vowel as a constant tone (volume, timbre, note, etc.).
>
>Step 3: Create a choral drone that utilizes only these three sources of audio. You can treat them with effects lightly, but they should be recognizable as the human voice throughout the duration of track.
>
>Deadline: Monday, February 18, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are.
>
>Length: Your finished work should be between 2 and 5 minutes in length.
>
>Information: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto.
>
>Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please include the term “disquiet0059-vwls”in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.
>
>Download: Consider setting your track in a manner that allows for attributed, commerce-free remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).
>
>Linking: When posting the track, be sure to include this information:
>
>More on this 59th Disquiet Junto project at:
>
>https://disquiet.com/2013/02/14/disquiet0059-vwls
>
>More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
>
>http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Image up top from [phonetics.ucla.edu](http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/appendix/languages/akan/akan.html).

The Ghosts of Union Station

Christopher McFall's latest explores a Kansas City landmark.

20130210-cmcfall

**Christopher McFall**’s *Quivering into your blood night radio* takes as its subject the movements and echoes of a Kansas City train depot called Union Station, an old landmark whose halls have long been attractive to him. The result is a deeply reverberant music that melds rhythmic drones and more recognizable field recordings, ranging from what appear to be snippets of archaic, jazz-era pop standards, to the motions of individuals within the grand hall. Writes McFall of his focus on Union Station:

>I’ve often felt that the echo within the space from the musical backdrop comes across as rather haunting when combined with the sounds of visitors moving about throughout the terminal. So, this environment has served as the foundation for constructing this release.

Tracks originally posted for free download at [impulsivehabitat.com](http://impulsivehabitat.com/releases/ihab064.htm), where it is available as both [MP3](http://impulsivehabitat.com/releases/064/ihab064.zip) and [FLAC](http://impulsivehabitat.com/releases/064/ihab064_flac.zip).

The Library Drone

HVAC field recording

20130212ssulibrary3012

There’s an underlying drone to most large buildings, especially to those that prize a relative approximation of hermetic enclosure. Libraries, hospitals, factories — they all produce noises as a result of their activity, but they also have at their core a root drone, the building’s equivalent of something located somewhere between room tone and soundscape, between the intimacy of a truly confined space and the largely unintended sonic component of the overall location.

The following audio is the HVAC drone in a self-contained study room at a library that I frequent, up at Sonoma State in California, about an hour north of San Francisco, where I live. In person, this drone can have a sheer rush to it, a sense of energy that this recording doesn’t quite capture. It can project the sense of wind, even though this particular room, a small one, like the rest of the library, is entirely still. The result is a matter of disorientation: being alone in a placid space while the sounds suggest you’re at the top of a perilous shaft.

There are some flubs in this audio document, some shifting of a finger on the recording device, and later another finger on a key on a laptop. I could have re-recorded it, but consciousness of the avoided errors would have just had the ear listening for further desecrations. If anything, the odd flub can aid in a field recording of background noise by helping the ear keep the subject in relative focus.

This was recorded directly to the MP3 format on an Olympus VN-8100PC. Photo take on a Nexus 4 and filtered for contrast and affect in the app Pixlr Express.

Track posted for free download at [soundcloud.com/disquiet](https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/the-library-drone).

The Art of Audio Arts

A panel discussion at the Tate

20130211-audioarts

The Tate Modern has posted almost six hours of discussion from a series of panels about the classic sound art publication Audio Arts, the cassette-based magazine that ran from 1973 to 2006. The panel tracks were originally posted for free download as parts [1](http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/audio/record-legacy-audio-arts-magazine-contemporary-art-part-1), [2](http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/audio/record-legacy-audio-arts-magazine-contemporary-art-part-2), and [3](http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/audio/record-legacy-audio-arts-magazine-contemporary-art-part-3) at [tate.org.uk](http://www2.tate.org.uk/audioarts/), which is also housing digitized recordings from Audio Arts. The archives include interviews with [R. Buckminster Fuller](http://www2.tate.org.uk/audioarts/cd1_bf.shtm), [Lawrence Weiner](http://www2.tate.org.uk/audioarts/cd1_8.shtm), [Nam June Paik](http://www2.tate.org.uk/audioarts/cd2_7.shtm), and [Tacita Dean](http://www2.tate.org.uk/audioarts/cd3_1.shtm). It’s several months worth of listening. Dive in and please report back.