MP3 Discussion Group: ‘Choral’ & ‘Etching’ by Mountains

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

This week, the Disquiet.com MP3 Discussion Group returns to collectively given a listen to two albums released this year by the duo Mountains: Choral (cover at left — on the Thrill Jockey label) and Etching (cover below — and which Mountains self-released). Mountains is Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp, and they traffic in a rich and unique realm of drone-music, in which rural guitar atmospheres and acoustic elements mingle amid lush, beautiful harmonic fields. A previous Mountains album, Sewn, was one of the top-10 albums of the year on Disquiet.com in 2006 (disquiet.com). More on Mountains, including streams of several pieces of their music, at myspace.com/apestaartjemountains.

Participating in this week’s MP3 Discussion Group are: Julian Lewis: “I write much of Lend Me Your Ears, a UK/Spain-based MP3 blog that appreciates less obvious music.”Alan Lockett: “I write music reviews and commentary on ambient/drone, the more adventurous end of techno/house, post-dub, and IDM. Based in Bristol, epicentre of the Dub-zone in the Wild West of England, I can mainly be read on igloomag.com and furthernoise.org.” Joshua Maremont: “I record as Thermal and pursue my musical and other obsessions in San Francisco.”The conversation will play out in this post’s comments section. This is by no means a closed discussion, so do feel free to join in.

Nana/Lämgren’s Ontology of Noise (MP3)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Listen in quick succession at least twice through — not just to, but through — the relatively brief (just over three minutes) track “The One Substance” off The Ontology of Noise (MP3), released earlier this year on the record label Touch. It’s an exemplary opportunity to hear how quickly a series of repeated listens can make even the simplest of noises come to life. At first, the track, composed and performed by Nana April Jun, may come across very much as just one of those soft-to-loud studies in dynamics: the ear responds to the shift from quietude to overwhelming volume in a way that emphasizes the distinctions between the two, and masks the detail in either end of the spectrum.

The piece opens with quiet static that slowly takes on a lush feel. A small sliver of high-pitched sound comes to the fore, followed by another rising element, this time a ring of undulation that sets in motion several iterations of waves upon waves, before settling down for a moment. Then comes a hearty bellows of white noise, something like the histrionic drama of some classic prog-rock song (Nana April Jun has posited Ontology of Noise as a kind of consideration of black metal), albeit played entirely in a palette of hisses.

[audio:http://touchshop.org/media/The%20One%20Substance.mp3|titles=”The One Substance”|artists=Nana April Jun]

Well, that’s not quite what it sounds like the first time ’round. At first it’s just haze, then wave form, then static. Only in time and with attention does the variation within the track make itself present, if not entirely self-evident.

Nana April Jun is a pseudonym of Christofer Lämgren, who is based in Malmö, Sweden. More on Jun/Lämgren at nanaapriljun.com.

Image of the Week: Kannenberg’s Graphic Score

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The netlabel proprietor and musician John Kannenberg has posted the third of his graphic-scores series as a PDF. Titled Landscape 3: Aerial Perspective, the work resembles a multi-color op-art construction, rectangular blocks of color interspersed in a manner that suggests a bright, almost blinding light in the distance, when in fact all there is in the center is more white than appears elsewhere. This is the score image:

The image below is a version of the score included in the piece’s written instructions. It is subtitled in the PDF as the “flow pattern for reading the score.” The instructions call for a minimum of four participants, one of whom serves as a timekeeper. Aerial Perspective lasts for 20 minutes, and requires the inclusion of a field recording that Kannenberg has made available as a downloadable file (MP3), consisting of everyday noises, including birdsong and airplanes.

More on the score at johnkannenberg.com.

Top 10 Posts & Searches from October

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Only half the top-10-viewed posts in October were for free-MP3 (i.e., Downstream-department) content — always a good sign, as it suggests people are reading as well as snagging music.

The non-free-MP3 entries included three of the semi-weekly MP3 Discussion Groups, in which a post’s Comments section serves as a discussion forum on a particular album: (1) Vertical Ascent by the Moritz von Oswald Trio, (2) Monochromes Vol. 1 (Line) by Tu M’, and (3) Dustland by Gentleman Losers. (Two more such groups are scheduled for the coming weeks.)

Also viewed heavily: (4) a “Quote of the Week” culled from the introduction to Seth Kim-Cohen‘s new book, In the Blink of an Ear, and (5) one of the every-Saturday, automated “what I tweeted at twitter.com/disquiet” entries (subjects included Cliff Martinez, the late Victor Mizzy, Jonathan Lethem‘s new novel, the Alternative Press Expo, ramen, and fog horns).

And these were the five most-checked-out free-listening entries: (6) sine-curve soundsmith Ian Hawgood, (7) electronica by Iranian solo musician Sohrab, (8) the album Preparations by Orchard & Ponds, (9) entries from Taylor Deupree‘s sound-a-day project, and (10) the first listen to a loop from the forthcoming Gristleism gadget (a collaboration between Throbbing Gristle and FM3, creators of the Buddha Machine).

The 10 most searched-for terms of the month were, in declining order of popularity: (1) marclay (as in Christian Marclay), (2) autechre, (3) exemplified, (4) makezine, (5) Buddha Machine, (6) warp (presumably the record label), (7) celer, (8) matmos, (9) unsilent (no doubt in advance of “Unsilent Night” activity this year, courtesy of Phil Kline‘s communal composition), and (10) “Best of 2008.”

Quote of the Week: Remembering Amacher

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

From Allan Kozinn‘s New York Times obituary for Maryanne Amacher:

    “Many of Ms. Amacher’s most notable works are known only by reputation. They were site-specific installations that would be difficult, perhaps even impossible, to recreate, although several have been staged in new versions for different locations. Moreover, the handful of recordings that offer samples of her scores barely do them justice: Ms. Amacher was less concerned with sound on its own terms than with the way sound was perceived in space and over extended time periods.”

Full piece at nytimes.com. More on Amacher at maryanneamacher.org.