- Really dug Moon movie. Sam Rockwell is great in captivity. And Clint Mansell's score, while among his least atmospheric, functions well. #
- Morning sounds: floors creaking, dishes rattling, laptop humming, bus passing. #
- RIP, Ali Akbar Khan (b. 1922), sarod genius & jazz-raga fomenter. #
- Have tickets to new film The Moon tonight — looking forward to lo-key science fiction mode, but all the more so to new Clint Mansell score. #
- Morning sounds: fridge, distant electric toothbrush (like a didjeridu), baby-squeal next door, occasional bus (house rattle & machine hum). #
- #followfriday on Twitter: sound-ists @soundwalkdotcom & archivists @footage plus sampling musicians @thegrassyknoll & @whyarcka #
- Evening sounds: distant typing and paper-shuffling, plane overhead, neighbor's laundry, laptop fan (healthy), car passing. #
- It's clea that the "r" key on this keyboad is no longe woking. I've had this thing since 1996. Hope new compute aives soon. #
- Just finished the sixth Parker novel, The Jugger, just in time for the latest episode of Burn Notice. It's a hard-boiled life, vicariously. #
- Tonight, neighbor's SOMA photo exhibit. Maybe Dinosaur Jr exhibit? Is there a better "all art openings" listing in SF than 96 Hours? #
- Starting next Monday I'll be in a gang discussing Dave Hickey's art-theory book The Invisible Dragon at Molly Sheridan's artsjournal.com/gap #
- RIP, Bob Bogle (b. 1934) of the Ventures, kings of instrumental rock & theme-song goodness: http://is.gd/14IJ3 #
- Sign behind the bar last night: "No Web Site." #
- Drinking a Michelada in a glass goblet from Liuzza's. Listening to various DJ Mark the 45 King instrumentals, some though my Korg Kaoss Pad. #
- Can't wait for gardenofmemory.com Sunday in Oakland: Joe Colley (who reminded me), Beth Custer, Dimuzio/Wobbly, Kent Sparling, Vorticella… #
- Gym music: the new Kronos: Floodplain. "Oh Mother, the Handsome Man Tortures Me" (rocks as hard as anything on the recent Metallica). #
- Listening to vinyl of Clash's London Calling. Reminded of added aural element, when a tiny, tinny version of the LP emanates from needle. #
- Sunday morning sounds: laptop fan, ear buzz, footsteps, a few birds (some motion, some singing), not a single car or bus for last half hour. #
Quote of the Week: La Monte Young’s Stasis
From a June 12 blog entry by composer-critic Kyle Gann:
La Monte Young showed me his early string quartet in which the five movements are all almost identical, and I asked him why, and after a moment’s musing he responded, “Contrast is for people who can’t write music.”
Full post at artsjournal.com/postclassic.
Four Film Cues by Kent Sparling (MP3s)
The sound designer and musician Kent Sparling may make some of the best music about which I have the opportunity to read the least often. Albums like Route Canal Diary and Under New Manna, their punny titles aside, are some of the richest contemporary explorations of electro-environmental ambience, close in spirit to Brian Eno’s Thursday Afternoon, yet with their own inner coherence and language.
Sparling composes film music, as well, and there are up on his kentsparling.com website, among the many tracks, four cues from the 2007 film The Princess of Nebraska (from director Wayne Wang), including “Mother of X,” a Morricone-esque combination of plain-winds and whistling (MP3); “Prostitute and Princess,” a super slomo melody caught inside a drone like a bug in amber (MP3); “Still Letting Go,” which brings the melody slightly more into the foreground, looping in a fugue-like manner amid a thick cloud of lushness (MP3); and, the real outlier, “Saint Stupid,” the sole piece among them with a prominent vocal element, first heard amid ringing come-to-prayer/dinner bells and gamelan-like percussion as a distant chorus, but holding out at the end as a single dramatic element (MP3).
Combined, the cues total just under 12 minutes of music:
[audio:http://www.kentsparling.com/ks.v1/Music_files/Sparling-Mother_of_X.mp3,http://www.kentsparling.com/ks.v1/Music_files/Sparling-Prostitute_and_Princess.mp3,http://www.kentsparling.com/ks.v1/Music_files/Sparling-Still_Letting_Go.mp3,http://www.kentsparling.com/ks.v1/Music_files/Sparling-Saint_Stupid.mp3|titles=”Mother of X”,”Prostitute and Princess”,”Still Letting Go”,”Saint Stupid”|artists=Kent Sparling,Kent Sparling,Kent Sparling,Kent Sparling]
More on Sparling at kentsparling.com and jicamasalad.net.
Two Alan Morse Davies MP3s
He may have taken a break, but he’s returned twofold.
Over at alanmorsedavies.wordpress.com, Alan Morse Davies has begun, anew, his occasional audio postings, having uploaded today a pair, his first new additions to the site since early May.
“The Beauty of a Place When Everyone Cruel Is Still Sleeping” is an exercise in what he describes as “abstract slowness,” a haunting wall of moan that, it turns out, was originally birdsong — rendered eminently ghostly when Davies reduced the tape speed to (by his approximation) 1/64th its original pace (MP3). Meanwhile, “The Sontaran Experiment in the Style of Jóhann Jóhannsson” is just that: a good-natured attempt at the mix of symphonic classicism and full-throttle drone characterizes the work of the composer in question (MP3).
[audio:http://www.at-sea.com/today/5%20-%20The%20Beauty%20of%20a%20Place%20When%20Everyone%20Cruel%20is%20Still%20Sleeping.mp3|titles=”The Beauty of a Place When Everyone Cruel Is Still Sleeping”|artists=Alan Morse Davies]
[audio:http://www.at-sea.com/today/6%20-%20The%20Sontaran%20Experiment%20for%20J%f3hann%20J%f3hannsson.mp3|titles=”The Sontaran Experiment in the Style of Jóhann Jóhannsson”|artists=Alan Morse Davies]
Heard in tandem, the pair of Davies tracks brings to mind — between the glacial pace of the first and the melancholy melodicism of the second — the manipulated 78rpm recordings that made such an impression when Davies posted them last year (disquiet.com).
Bee Symphony Raw Materials
The latest Touch podcast is a nearly nine-minute recording of bees.
Not just any bees, mind you.
These are busy bees due for their concert debut.
That bee bow will be taken at nowhere less than Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, this coming September, on Sunday the 6th. The recordings, by Mike Harding (“diffused” by Chris Watson), will serve as raw materials for a Bee Symphony by composer Marcus Davidson.
The bee recording is in the M4A format, which allows for the insertion of static images at bookmarked points, a feature that Touch has made excellent use of (at touchmusic.org.uk).
“Dangerous” is one of the more abused words in art criticism, often a figment of imagined or projected transgression by individuals who are, in fact, quite apart from the active world they presume to confront. The Hitchcockian buzzing activity of this unnerving recording quickly gives way to a surprise on the part of the recorders — that one of them has been stung, and that bees have made their way into the protective suits.
“It was going so well,” jokes the recipient of the bees’s antipathy. Later, protesting that he must proceed with the recording effort despite the pain, he adds, “It’s for the love of sound.”
More info at touchradio.org.uk. More on composer Davidson at marcusdavidson.net.