Tony Allen Afrobeat Remix by Tim (Subbasshead) Prebble (MP3)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Back in June, Nigerian legend Tony Allen uploaded a heap of stems (that is, constituent multi-track elements) of the title cut off his recent album, Secret Agent, for anyone to download, mix, and upload. The original is slick Afrobeat: all chanting chorus, ’70sploitation guitar, and trance-inducing percussion. Among the many uploaded mixes is an entry by subbasshead — aka “film sound designer, occasional musician” Tim Prebble, whose great musicofsound.co.nz blog carries the inspiring subhead “Tim’s obsession with vibrating air molecules.”

So what does someone with Prebble’s ear for sonic detail and space have in store for Allen, veteran drummer of Fela’s groundbreaking band? Among many other things, Prebble adds, per his pseudonym, a serious dose of delay, turning lilting guitar lines into rich waterfalls. He also pushes the keys forward until they seem like something off an electric-era Miles Davis album, and focuses the vocals until they sound less like a pop song and more like incantations (MP3).

More on the remix project in a previous disquiet.com post.

Electronic Viola Loops & Drones (MP3)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Loops of viola form the music of Dash, aka Jordan Dykstra, who recently recorded a live performance for the great KDVS radio show Phoning It In, on which musicians literally phone in a performance, playing over their phone (presumably a land line, not a cell). In his half-hour piece, Dysktra initially produces pulsing, rhythmic work, his electronic delay systems suggesting far more strings than any individual could ever play (MP3). Eventually, though, those pulses give way, melting and morphing into feedback-laden drones that have a sweet fragility to them.

[audio:http://www.phoningitin.net/files/shows/KDVS/2009/DASH%20-%20Phoning%20It%20In%2006_24_09.mp3|titles=”Phoning It In”|artists=Jordan Dykstra]

More on Dash at existentialmedia.org/thehop.

Image of the Week: Gorfinkel’s Globular Breathing

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Balloon-powered trumpet installation by Dale Gorfinkel, images by Julian Wearne:

Located via the tag flickr.com/photos/tags/soundart at Wearne’s flickr.com/photos/ikaink account. Photos presumably shot at the West Space Gallery (westspace.org.au) in Melbourne, Australia.

Quote of the Week: Scaling Mori’s Heights

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

From an interview with Ikue Mori at newmusicbox.org. Always intriguing when matters as practical as one’s living conditions so directly impact’s one’s creative output, especially when the intensity and thoroughness of the creative output, as is the case with Mori’s music, thoroughly mask the equipment choice (in her case laptop) as being anything other than an entirely artistic decision:

    FJO: Eventually you decided to stop using drum machines and just use computers for everything. And that’s been about ten years now.

    IM: I started [doing that] in 2000.

    FJO: It’s obviously way more portable to bring one laptop than it is to lug several drum machines.

    IM: That’s really the main reason. I started realizing that what I was doing with all the equipment and cables that I was carrying, I could just program it on a computer. That was my liberation.

    FJO: So, in a way, it’s been a progression towards more and more portability. First you had the drum kit, and then the drum machines which took up considerably less room. And finally, the laptop.

    IM: Living in this city on the sixth floor with no elevator, you have to think about equipment. But also I’ve always liked to take small compact things and make something maximum out of it.

Interview conducted by Frank J. Oteri.

Past Week at Twitter.com/Disquiet

/ By Marc Weidenbaum
  • Saturday morning sounds: hard drives, paper shuffling, refrigerator. #
  • Just noticed the September 2009 issue of @dwell singles out the Technics SL-1200 turntable as a prime example of good, longstanding design. #
  • If you Twitter it's #followfriday: Texan exotica beatcrafter @dbernalmusic & legendary musician @ryuichisakamoto — also in 日本語 @skmt09 #
  • Morning sounds: shower, hard drive, plane. Nothing like summer fog to blanket and muffle noises. Always odd when there's fog but no foghorn. #
  • If there isn't already an 8-bit electro-pop cover band called the Molly Ringtones, today would be a good day to form one. #
  • Video of Alva Noto v. Japanese vending machine bleeds from mundane into magically mechanical and back http://is.gd/25H5w — RT @djrupture #
  • RIP, director John Hughes, multiplex-DJ of my adolescence: http://is.gd/25tn9 #
  • Was more excited by Radiohead tribute to Harry Patch when I thought it was for Harry Partch: http://is.gd/23MX5 #
  • New Buddha Machine”“like loop box, with gothy overtones, literally and figuratively: http://bit.ly/1nUEIv — RT @buddhamachine #
  • Afternoon sounds: footsteps, laughter, printer, techno*, traffic, typing. *Techno from CD boombox on chest of cyclist outside window. #
  • It's my birthday, & pretty much the only thing I want/need is someone to make USB (or Bluetooth) keyboards work with Android phones. #
  • House next door is for sale. New neighbors, new sounds. #
  • Don't think any scifi I read when I was young correctly predicted just how much scifi there'd be in the future. #
  • RIP, rapper Baatin (b. Titus Glover, 1974), of the great Slum Village: http://is.gd/1Z6Ff — RT @whyarcka #
  • Entrance to King Tut exhibit at @deyoungmuseum is tomb-quiet, except for a dozen audio-tour devices, all whispering slightly out of sync. #