Sketches of Sound 8: Darko Macan

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

This is the eighth occurrence of a little Disquiet.com project called “Sketches of Sound”: inviting illustrators to sketch something sound-related. 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.”

The above drawing was done for me for this project by Darko Macan, the talented Croatian comics author/artist. Like perhaps a lot of English-language comics readers, I first came upon Macan’s name when he scripted a two-issue sequence of Hellblazer for DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint, after Warren Ellis left the series, about a decade ago. “I’ve been working in comics for over 20 years,” Macan wrote, when asked for a brief bio to accompany his illustration, “but the closest I came to music was when I wrote a novel about a teenage rock-critic (in Croatian, as is my blog www.darkomacan.com).”

The previous “Sketches of Sound” contributors were, in alphabetical order, Brian Biggs, Warren Craghead III, Dylan Horrocks, Megan Kelso, Minty Lewis, Hannes Pasqualini, and Thorsten Sideb0ard.

Cornet Taxonomy & Kevin Kelly’s ‘What Technology Wants’

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

A bunch of us musically inclined people are this week discussing early Wired editor Kevin Kelly‘s recent book, What Technology Wants, over at Molly Sheridan‘s excellent blog, artsjournal.com/gap, aka Mind the Gap, where she has previously hosted online book clubs about Tara Hunt’s The Whuffie Factor, Dave Hickey’s The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty, and Lawrence Lessig’s Remix. I just uploaded my first post on the book, in which I ponder what exactly Kelly’s thesis — which involves how technological advancement can be likened to evolutionary development — means for the projected future of traditional instruments, such as the trumpet.

In one of the book’s more memorable anecdotes, Kelly reports how noted paleontologist Niles Eldredge has such an interest in the development of the trumpet, that he has applied his exceptional taxonomic skills to the history of the related instrument, the cornet — research summarized graphically here:

The above chart shows the “design heritage for each musical instrument” and “how some branches borrow from earlier models or nonadjacent (dotted lines), unlike organic evolution.”

More on the past and future of technology, and Kelly’s evolutionary comparison, at artsjournal.com/gap.

And for the time being, please don’t comment below; if you have anything to add (or detract), do so over at Sheridan’s blog, since she took the time and effort to put together this book club.

Past Week at Twitter.com/Disquiet

/ By Marc Weidenbaum
  • Familial sonics: baby's snoring on my shoulder, dad's (her grandfather's) from nearby couch. … Yes, plus light hard-drive whir (Tivo's). #
  • Reading Kevin Kelley's What Technology Wants on iPod Touch. Trying to sense whether iPod Touch thinks this is appropriate or disrespectful. #
  • ♪ Remix (or "experimental rearrangement") of the late Gorecki's Miserere from back in 2008, by DeadHorseMort: http://is.gd/gYyOb #
  • RIP, Polish composer Henryk Gorecki (b.1933). #
  • Feeding infant bottle outside Exposed exhibit @sfmoma. Feeling surveilled. #
  • Anyone seen side-by-side photos of physical keyboard on Droid 2 versus Droid 2 Global? Apparently it's been upgraded. #android #mobileoffice #
  • Morning sounds: shower, typing, hard drive, baby breathing, hum (neighbor laundry?), various netlabel releases. #
  • Played with new #thicketapp in beta; now upgrading to v2.0 permanently, leaving behind stage-shift surprise in exchange for broader variety. #
  • Do Eno's apps beat his albums? Small Craft discussion happening now. Who'd produce Eno well? What's the Warp factor? http://is.gd/gTlWI #
  • Gail Wight, whom I interviewed for Nature last year, among artists with linoleum-cut loteria cards in new @sfcb project: http://is.gd/gUTlk #
  • The Tuesday-noon city-wide alarm: less alarming than usual. #
  • Thanks to Thicket app dev duo @morganpackard & @joshue for participation in interview: http://j.mp/thcktt Video of new version just added. #
  • Morning sounds: bus headed downtown, car noise reminiscent of the surf, refrigerator kicking on, hard drive. #
  • Evening sounds: dishwasher, laptop hard drive, footsteps, cars (more headed west than east), infant near-sleep babble. #
  • Whenever I see the band name Simian Mobile Disco, I mis-read it as Symbian Mobile Disco; attn: @davestewart #
  • There goes my evening — Kenneth Silverman's biography of John Cage, Begin Again, just showed up in the mail. #
  • Nice. Gentleman Losers' debut album to be reissued by City Centre Offices with "tasty bonus goodies" http://is.gd/gQmxf #
  • Ben Bunch's fantastic foam abstractions of video-game controllers & arcade coin-ops @ NYC's Proposition Gallery thru 12/5 http://is.gd/gQc3o #
  • Surprising, singing baby to sleep, how useful Grateful Dead songs are. Why? Droney melodies, lengthy lyrics. (So much pop has so few words.) #
  • Morning sounds: occasional car, high-pitched whine (various electronics), baby slowly waking (wheez, trumpet, fidget). #
  • Nothing like sorting out the office, shifting things around, and finding a snapped computer chip on floor. Wondering now what won't work … #
  • "Over the…3 shows in Brisbane, Metallica performed 40 different songs. Only 7 songs…were performed at all 3 gigs." #gratefuldeathmetal #
  • Morning sounds: steady rain, and with it how constant pinging creates a sonic image of the physical environs. Plus: slow cars, hard drive. #
  • For folks tracking the rich audio metaphors & sonic science in Fringe, next Thursday's episode apparently focuses on mysterious radio signal #
  • CRTC has added "new subcategory 36 (Experimental Music)"; distinguishes avant turntablism from beatmatching — for real: http://is.gd/gNaYN #
  • Lot of updates in ver 1.0.5 of Reactable mobile: 2 new scenes, Bluetooth headphone, 24-bit wav, beat/bar synchronization http://is.gd/gN9Uh #

Craque the Waveform (MP3)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The sine wave isn’t so much a sign of our times as it is a respite from our times, an antidote to sonic abundance and complexity. We’re inundated by an arguably unprecedented degree of sonic consciousness — from sound art to sonically refined consumer products to audio interfaces to writings on sound history and culture. This is why a track such as “FreeoBjecTs” by Craque (aka Southern Californian Matt Cooke-Davis) is such a pleasure. Billed as “free improvisation on homebuilt instruments and looper delays,” it has a refreshingly quiet approach. A good half of its 15 minutes are subtle shades of a waveform coming in and out of focus. Eventually percussion and feedback enter into the picture, but then at a pace that manages to build on the near silence, to supplement it rather than supplant it; .

Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/craque/freeobjects. More on Craque at craque.net.

22Tape’s Broken Instrumental Beats (MP3)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Back in June, 22tape‘s brand of broken instrumental hip-hop drew attention to itself with its bracingly low-key chaos. A recent numbered track, the fifth in a series of untitled instrumentals, confirms the metric imagination of 22tape (aka Jared Dunne, whose profile page lists his physical location as “Chicago/Denver”) as something to keep an ear on.

The track, “Instrumental 5,” has the shape and hallmarks of a standard homebrew beat: looped bits of found recordings, a rough structure suggesting the verses and chorus of an inchoate song, filigrees that lend nuance …

… but unlike a lot of community-forum beats, 22tape’s work truly congeals — the track rewards on repeated listens, as small bits make themselves understood less as neat standalone objects and more as meaningful parts of the composition. An early vocal snippet comes to represent authorial intent, a sampled harp suggests a work’s florid ambition (despite the overall hardened shape of the source material). And the steady string of these untitled instrumentals makes it clear that more work is on the horizon.

For the earlier track mentioned above: disquiet.com. Original “Instrumental 5” track at soundcloud.com. More on Dunne/22tape at 22tape.blogspot.com and myspace.com/22tape.