The Literal and Metaphorical Low Level Hum (MP3)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The Chicago-based radio show the Radius followed up its Art of Failure episode with one focused on the work of C.R. Kasprzyk, which notches back from failure to mere stasis. Titled “07.13.10b,” and nearly a dozen minutes in length, the piece is a suite of hums and buzzes that, as Radius describes it, takes as its source and subject “the mundane portions of our lives”:

These sounds, primarily the electromagnetic fields produced by computers, printers, TV’s, cars, electricity poles, coffee makers, etc., acknowledge the (in)visible place technology has in today’s society. Through close observation of this environment, the music strives for a nonlinear form; an immersion of moments found in daily life that might otherwise go unnoticed.

The result is both survey and tapestry. The individual parts are, with close attention, reminiscent of everyday life, the literal low level hum that gives voices to the metaphorical low level hum of daily activity: the buzz that serves as backdrop to the living room when the TV and stereo are off and the rest of the household is asleep, the fuzzy noise that fills the gap between buses at an urban intersection with more than its share of telephone poles, the nearly subaural undulations that emanate from the restaurant kitchen as closing time nears. But this isn’t just a catalog of field recordings. It’s elegantly arranged in a manner that plays the sounds against each other, setting pairs of quiet moments in stark contrast in a way that highlights their intrinsic differences.

Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/thethetheradius and the radio broadcast’s site, theradius.tumblr.com. More on Kasprzyk, a doctoral candidate at Bowling Green State University, at crkasprzyk.com.

A New Front in Folk’s Velvet Revolution (MP3)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The dreamy folk of Evils, by Plusplus, takes a strange turn on “Swimmer,” the seventh of the album’s eleven tracks. What had been all closely mic’d guitar, with rare but welcome dips into odd verbal intrusions, opens with artful drear, a blur of not so idle static, a machine getting its engines in gear on a cold night. The acoustic guitar seeps in, eventually taking the central spot to which it has become accustomed on this collection, but that opening threat remains (MP3). It is heard as Roches-style hushed glossolalia harmonizing, albeit buried deep in the mix and channeling a cicada-like buzz. It’s heard as a very light, Theremin-ish whizzing. Plusplus are part of folk’s velvet electronic revolution. This is music that challenges various notions of folk, notably the one that hears folk as an entrenched, pre-digital realm.

[audio:http://labelnetlabel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/07-Swimmer.mp3| titles=”Swimmer”|artists=Plusplus]

Get the release, which came out March 21, for free at labelnetlabel.com.

Music from Music for Airports (MP3)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Last Friday, the Bang on a Can All-Stars performed the group’s transcriptions of Brian Eno‘s Music for Airports with the Kronos Quartet. The show was part of a marathon of concerts, which was part of the ongoing 150th-anniversary celebration of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the event was staged. In advance of the show, Bang on a Can bassist Robert Black submitted to an interview (MP3) on the radio show Here & Now, during which he was asked by the host, “How does that work, when this was something that was technology initially?”

[audio:http://audio.wbur.org/storage/2011/04/hereandnow_0415_brian-eno-bang.mp3|titles=”Interview About Music for Airports”|artists=Robert Black of Bang on a Can]

The question’s a good one. The Bang on a Can exercise takes music that’s an early example of studio-as-instrument, a process that blurs the roles of recording, composing, and performing, and retroactively assigns the resulting music to a traditional musical score. Black doesn’t fully answer the question, but he does set up what the Eno was up to, and how the composers divided up the task: “Music for Airports was a piece that was really sort of a seminal listening experience for most of the people in Bang on a Can. So, the four sections of that — each composer that founded Bang on a Can, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and Evan Ziproryn, they each took one of those sections and then it was up to them to orchestrate it for the All Stars.”

The interview is about 10 minutes long, and while it may not be fully satisfying in explaining how the transcriptions function, it does provide helpful background, and side-by-side examples of the original music and the Bang on a Can rendition. Interview originally posted at hereandnow.wbur.org.

Sketches of Sound 13: Owen Freeman

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Every month since April 2010, Disquiet.com has hosted a project called “Sketches of Sound,” in which illustrators are invited to draw a sound-related object. I post the drawing as the background of my Twitter account, twitter.com/disquiet, and then share a bit of information about the illustrator back on Disquiet.com. Call it “curating Twitter.”

For the 13th entry, Owen Freeman graciously volunteered. I’ve followed his illustration blog for some time, and it was when he posted some moody work he’d done for Wardour Securities and Investment Review that I was inspired to contact him.

Freeman is an illustrator and designer for print, editorial, and advertising. He grew up in the Pacific Northwest and worked as a graphic designer before leaving to study illustration at the Art Center College of Design, where he graduated with distinction in 2009. His work has appeared in Communication Arts, American Illustration, and Creative Quarterly as well as Taschen’s Illustration Now! 3 and Illustration Now! Portraits. He has lived and worked in Los Angeles and London. He’s currently based on the West Coast of the U.S. And he’s at twitter.com/owenfreeman and 24houremergency.blogspot.com.

The previous “Sketches of Sound” contributors were, in alphabetical order, Brian Biggs, Leela Corman, Warren Craghead III, Dylan Horrocks, Megan Kelso, Minty Lewis, Natalia Ludmila, Darko Macan, Justin Orr, Hannes Pasqualini, Thorsten Sideb0ard, and Gustavo Alberto Garcia Vaca.

Fish Head(phone) MP3

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Before reading anything about this track, just give it a listen. Know that it’s by Richard Devine, the electronic musician known for his aggressive exploration of new recording technolgy, his appetite for the latest audio software, and his expansive work in sound design.

That is, despite a surface reading of Devine’s resume, not a chaotic system whipped up in a beta edit of a generative-audio toy for the iPad, nor is it a live performance document from a European music festival. It is an unedited survey of the life under the surface of the water in Crystal Waters, Florida, where Devine recently spent time with a hydrophone.

He writes:

We took a boat out to … specific locations including Kings Point Bay, Shell Island, and Mouth of Rainbow River. Here we captured some bizarre sounds of Dolphins communicating, thousands of shrimp feeding, and the distant moan of the Hypostomus Plecostomus catfish.

“Headphones,” he adds, “highly recommended.” The listening provides a strong parallel between the complexity of the natural world and the complexity of the composed, abstract one. For related listening, here’s an earlier field recording by Devine: maggots.

The above image accompanied the hydrophone recording at soundcloud.com/richarddevine.