Madlib’s African Scrapbook (MP3s)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The cunning, big-eared, abstractionist hip-hop producer Madlib has as much Robert Rauschenberg in him as he does Afrika Bambaataa. His works are often sewn from pre-existing material, but he’s less a DJ than he is a die-hard object-oriented composer, forming from pre-existing parts these wide, broad pieces of music that are entirely his own, yet take few if any pains to lose sight of the myriad places from which those individual parts originated. Madlib’s music often has its closest equivalent not in a DJ set, or a mix tape, but in a collage — and his audio collages bring to mind some manner of large-scale cork board, covered with items that overlap each other, ever so slightly, and thus both locate unexpected parallels and highlight under-appreciated details. The resulting assemblage may seem haphazard, but it divulges its logic, and its pleasures, in time.

Madlib’s latest album does double duty, serving both as the third in his planned monthly releases for 2010, a quest he’s called the Madlib Medicine Show, and as his latest under his Beat Konducta series of instrumental hip-hop. Titled Madlib Medicine Show #3: Beat Konducta in Africa, it’s built from countless bits of African recordings, and its sample-layering, beat-limning marvels are hinted at by two free tracks made available by the releasing label, Stones Throw: “The Frontline (Liberation)” (MP3) and “African Voodoo Queen (Drama)” (MP3).

[audio:http://www.stonesthrow.com/jukebox/madlib-bkafrica-frontline.mp3|titles=”The Frontline (Liberation)”|artists=Madlib] [audio:
http://www.stonesthrow.com/jukebox/madlib-bkafrica-africanvoodooqueen.mp3|titles=”African Voodoo Queen (Drama)”|artists=Madlib]

The full album has 37 tracks in all, and on at least one, “Spearthrow for Oh No,” Madlib (born Otis Jackson, Jr.) gives nod to his brother, Oh No (born Michael Jackson), who went to Africa on a virtual crate-digging trip last year, resulting in the excellent collection Ethiopium.

More on the album at stonesthrow.com.

Atmospheric King Crimson MP3

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The free downloads at Robert Fripp‘s website don’t stay free or downloadable for all that long. The section of rotating MP3s is called “Hot Tickles,” as it’s intended to tickle one’s fancy to purchase full-length archival recordings. Case in point, the recent 1.5-minute soundcheck from King Crimson dating from October 25, 1994. Some of these hot tickles are selected by Alex Mundy, who surveys the vast past audio documentation in Fripp’s holdings, and whose surname has led to two things: first, the inevitable nickname “Stormy,” and second the fact that it’s on each Monday that he posts his glimpses into the archives.

This soundcheck track dates from early recording sessions by the King Crimson “double trio” that eventually yielded the album Thrak. That group consisted of two guitarists (Fripp, Adrian Belew), two bassists (Tony Levin, Trey Gunn), and two percussionists (Bill Bruford, Pat Mastelotto). An extended atmospheric wash (albeit one that comes to a sudden, rapidly scaling end), it’s a good reminder that for all of Crimson’s famed contrapuntal interplay, the band also has a way with sonic textures (MP3).

[audio:http://www.dgmlive.com/tickles/kc19941025-0101-Soundcheck.mp3|titles=”Soundcheck 1994″|artists=King Crimson]

Visit the Fripp/Crimson site dgmlive.com.

Image of the Week: Cassette Tape Loop

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The word “tape” has long since moved from specific physical reference to metaphor. Most tape loops and mix tapes and tape recordings today are entirely digital, and the word “tape” serves as an aura-enhancing vestige of a time and place way back when and where those metaphors originated.

In the past year, the cassette tape has seen something of a resurgence, in large part thanks to the development of dedicated cassette-tape record labels. It’s also popped up in furniture design and illustration (and even as a Marc Jacobs USB-hub gadget), but in most cases when the cassette appears it’s as a totem of a time long gone.

Below is an image of an elegant cassette-tape loop constructed by Marc Fischer, a member of the duo Unrecognizable Now (whom I wrote about last month: disquiet.com).

As he explains it, it’s based on an earlier design, and his attempt involved using as much of the interior cassette space as possible. It’s lovely how the familiar mechanisms of a cassette tape appear in a slightly unfamiliar setup, how the looping device retains the structural integrity of the original, and simply builds upon it. This isn’t nostalgia, and nor is it ironic; it’s a logical step forward for a device that time hasn’t quite forgotten.

More on Fischer’s tape-loop experiment at unrecnow.com/dust. He’s promised audio examples in the near future.

Quote of the Week: Gann on Cage’s Silence (First Impressions)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

From the preface to Kyle Gann‘s new book, No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage’s 4’33” (Yale University Press), which I’m reading right now:

“I had to consciously remember that not every music lover out there has 4’33”, as I do, in his blood.”

What’s striking about the book is that it is, indeed, written by a music lover, as Gann describes himself, even though that music lover is also an accomplished composer, a teacher, and most prominently, a music critic — perhaps as best known for his nearly 20 years as a critic for the Village Voice, and more recently for his blogging at artsjournal.com/postclassic. It’s arguable that for a generation of music listeners (and writers, and perhaps even composers), Gann has an influence somewhat along the lines of that which his former colleague, Robert Christgau, has on rockist critics. That comparison comes to mind because No Such Thing as Silence is, in many ways, a book about influence. Gann is quite open from the start about how Cage’s prominence in new music caused Gann to, in effect, listen elsewhere for a long time: to wrestle with lesser-known subjects, rather than to heap more meaning onto someone, something, that had long since been codified.

This slim book, though, results from his realization that even that which within a subculture might be understood as having certain inherent meaning, might to the broader culture be misunderstood — or, more dangerously, to have come to take on an entirely different meaning. In the case of Cage’s 4’33”, in which a pianist sits at a closed piano for that length of time, inviting the audience (forcing them, some might say) to pay attention to the sounds that would otherwise be considered the equivalent of a tabula rasa, it seems that Gann’s biggest concern is that it has come to be thought of by some as a prank.

And for anyone concerned that this excellent primer on Cage’s thinking might be too “academic,” too culturally remote, for general reading, just give a few moments to its preface, in which Gann affectionately recounts how he performed 4’33” as part of his high school piano recital back in 1973.

Past Week at Twitter.com/Disquiet

/ By Marc Weidenbaum
  • Apologies for the dead week of post-less-ness at Disquiet.com. Coming out of a major cold. #
  • Headlines that don't mean what I think they mean: "Primus buying distressed U.S. property" http://is.gd/ahMde #
  • The show Dexter is pretty darn good but it seems to have far fewer score cues (by Daniel Licht, theme by Rolfe Kent) than do most TV dramas. #
  • Never had the flu before. "Flu" isn't the right word. It needs more hard consonants. And maybe some high-pitched headache-inducing vowels. #
  • Obama hired Edward Tufte? Next state of the union's gonna have awesome info graphics. Now get Cliff Martinez for sound design. #
  • RIP, Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse (b. 1962), indie-rock standard-bearer; Danger Mouse + David Lynch collaborator on Dark Night of the Soul. #
  • Boris Karloff on drive-in movie experience, from Peter Bogdanovich's great Targets (1968): "Strange not to hear any reactions, isn't it?" #
  • Sounds when you have the flu: digital thermometer's beep, pounding heart beat, throbbing skull, every sudden loud noise, tea kettle. #
  • Best Oscars story on sound I've read so far: Virginia Heffernan — aka @page88 — on sonic effort evident in Hurt Locker: http://is.gd/9TF4q #
  • If there's a sound for each day of the week, Sundays = bells of the many Richmond District churches ringing at noon slightly out of sync. #