Putting TikTok to Unintended Use

An ambient piano quartet by Lullatone's Shawn James Seymour

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

In this sweet little video demonstration, Shawn James Seymour (half of the husband-wife duo Lullatone, along with Yoshimi Yomida) shows how he used the TikTok video social-media app — in particular it’s feature-not-a-bug looping mode — to make a simple ambient track out of piano loops. He set all the loops, four total, to different lengths, and then let them play out on repeat, so that the notes overlap in different combinations. This “criss-cross” is, as he notes in one of a sequence of cards he displays by hand during the video (those hands colliding elegantly with the ones visible in all four of the devices laid out across the table), along the lines of how Brian Eno composed *Music for Airports*.

Last year, the influential and crafty artist Christian Marclay teamed with Snapchat, another social-media network, for an exhibit that mined user data to create all manner of sound art projects (see: [latimes.com](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2019-08-29/how-christian-marclay-is-turning-snapchat-messages-into-sound-art)). The scale and scope of what Seymour is up to is, of course, quite more modest in comparison, but it also uses the app itself to achieve its goals. As Seymour says (well, displays on a card), inspirationally, in the video: [“twisting technology to make something new is usually more fun than just browsing on it.”](https://twitter.com/disquiet/status/1250578667442339840)

This is the latest video I’ve added to [my YouTube playlist of recommended fine live performances of ambient music](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MJxihgJkCPEnehAPvjoF71-). Video originally posted at [the Lullatone YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_f5tuoM1xQ). More from Lullatone at [lullatone.com](http://www.lullatone.com/).

Live Coding “Avril 14th”

Aphex Twin fan Lil Data trades the piano keyboard for a computer keyboard

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

It’s April 14, which is just another day on the calendar, unless you’re an Aphex Twin fan. If you’re an Aphex Twin fan, then today is like your other favorite holiday, and your birthday, and an idealized version of Record Store Day all wrapped up in one. It’s the day when musicians celebrate the Aphex Twin song that takes its name from this date, “Avril 14th” (off the 2001 album *Drukqs*), and do their thing to and with it. Today there were numerous versions, as always, but the one that stole my heart was this live-coding version by Lil Data, who committed it in the open-source language TidalCycles. Screenshot above. Click through to Lil Data’s [Instagram](instagram.com/p/B–Y0yNj06k/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/lildata/status/1250158507367817216) accounts to witness it in all its monospace beauty as Lil Data brings the song to life one typed character at a time. “Avril 14th” is a solo piano piece, and it’s always a pleasure to watch the attention performers pay to it, such as [Josh Cohen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97FBWB4vv3s), whose YouTube video has racked up well over 300,000 views since it debuted in January 2017, and [Kelly Moran](https://twitter.com/kellymoran/status/1250132140290977800) (a Warp labelmate of Aphex Twin’s), who posted a version to Twitter today. But watching as Lil Data trades a piano keyboard for a computer one is next level. And in the opens-source spirit of the software, Lil Data posted the code-cum-transcription on [GitHub](https://gist.github.com/jarmitage/1f9dfa38f776508e8b52634ecd70c66d). More on TidalCycles at [tidalcycles.org](https://tidalcycles.org/index.php/Welcome). In the days leading up to April/Avril 14, Aphex Twin rebooted his [soundcloud.com/user18081971](https://soundcloud.com/user18081971/tracks) account (the seemingly generic name is, in fact, his birthday, August 18, 1971) and began posting new music, including a beautiful ambient piece, “qu1”:

Major thanks to [twitter.com/rbxbex](https://twitter.com/rbxbex) for having hipped me to Lil Data.

A Modern Decameron

Unfolding at hilobrow.com, thanks to Peggy Nelson

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The great [hilobrow.com](http://hilobrow.com/) website is in the midst of virtual Decameron. Writing in [her introduction](http://www.hilobrow.com/2020/04/06/ten-days-intro/) to this [currently unfolding series](http://www.hilobrow.com/tag/ten-days/), Peggy Nelson breaks down the origin of the term and the borrowed concept: “In Boccaccio’s original *Decameron* (circa 1353), ten friends decamped for a large mansion outside of Florence for two weeks to wait out the black plague surging through their city, and whiled away the time (when not indulging in light agriculture, or heavy prayer) by telling each other stories.”

Following Boccaccio’s lead, Nelson is rolling out a post a day for ten days by people creating something in isolation. This Hilobrow Decameron, which goes by the name Ten Days, isn’t just stories and poems, but [photographs](http://www.hilobrow.com/2020/04/09/ten-days-day-three/), and [weird avatars](http://www.hilobrow.com/2020/04/12/ten-days-day-six/), and of course, [sound](http://www.hilobrow.com/2020/04/11/ten-days-day-five/). In fact, all seven — as of today — entries have some manner of sonic content, Saturday’s in particular:

Day 1, a [short essay](http://www.hilobrow.com/2020/04/07/ten-days-day-one/) by Vince Keenan, included this keen observation about a role of eavesdropping in daily life, and about the void left when chance has been severely, even when purposefully, limited:

Day 2 delivered a magically surrealist story by Scotto Moore titled [“Teeth,”](http://www.hilobrow.com/2020/04/08/ten-days-day-two/) which included this bit:

Day 3, a [collection of photos](http://www.hilobrow.com/2020/04/09/ten-days-day-three/) by Puzzlepurse included this ecclesiastical assemblage:

Continue reading “A Modern Decameron”

Compact Device, Spacious Sound

A live performance by State Azure

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

You needn’t know anything about the intricacies of synthesizer design to appreciate the performance that Star Azure ekes out of this compact setup. The small assortment of devices yields a spacious and constantly shifting range of sounds, and the constant presence of the musician’s hands adjusting settings makes the scale clear. The track’s title, “Fermi’s Paradox,” relates to the search for extraterrestrial life, which here can be said to map to the subtle contrast between the deep droning backing music, and the patterns of more singular bleeps and beeps that are charted across it.

This is the latest video I’ve added to [my YouTube playlist of recommended fine live performances of ambient music](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MJxihgJkCPEnehAPvjoF71-). Video originally posted at [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVR4N021NTo). More from State Azure at [stateazure.bandcamp.com](https://stateazure.bandcamp.com/).