Disquiet – Page 1289 – Listening to culture. Playing with audio. Sounding out technology. Composing in code.

Jakob Newman’s Buddha Machine Mix (MP3)

June 4, 2009June 5, 2009 / By Marc Weidenbaum

There’s a new Buddha Machine remix, this one an hour-plus run through samples from version 1.0 (not 2.0, as originally stated — see correction below, courtesy of Newman) of the FM3-developed sound-art gadget. Produced by Jakob Newman, it’s a roiling meld of the Buddha Machine’s trademark loops — all rough-hewn recordings of reverberant strings and less recognizable sounds — that is among the most maximalist reuses of the device to date. Newman resists the machine’s inherently meditative flavor, emphasizing instead a thick white noise and heavily echoed depth that, in effect, sounds loud even at low volume levels.

[audio:http://ia301511.us.archive.org/2/items/earman079/01-BuddhaMachine.mp3|titles=”Buddha Machines”|artists=Jakob Newman]

More on Newman at capturedspace.org. Get the full release, including CD-ready art, at archive.org. The piece was released by the earthmantra.com netlabel.

Twitter-Announced Scanner Remix MP3

June 3, 2009 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Twitter.com is, among other things, a great place to happen upon unreleased musical goods, often courtesy of the source musician — which is to say, not only overly generous gray-market bootleggers.

Just hours ago, Scanner (aka Robin Rimbaud) himself posted a link to rapidshare.com, which is tantalizingly titled “Nyman Mix,” presumably as in Michael Nyman, the accomplished minimalist composer. The announcement was, true to Twitter’s 140-character maximum, taut and to the point: “To spoil anyone quick enough, unreleased mix, stranded for legal reasons. Enjoy” (twitter.com/robinrimbaud).

The source sound is closer to African pop, all angelic vocals and chiming guitar, than to Nyman’s trademark minimalism, but it’s a glistening treat nonetheless for any listener who, as Rimbaud put it, acts quickly.

1:15 of Heavenly Reverberants by Oo-Ray (MP3)

June 2, 2009June 1, 2009 / By Marc Weidenbaum

The latest free download from Oo-Ray (aka ambient-leaning, feedback-laden, shoegazing, halo-burnishing cellist Ted Laderas) is a heavenly slice of repeatedly cycling strings and voice. It’s just over a minute long, but with its taut, plaintive line, and the rapidly scintillating fuzz of its instrumental bed, it’s an eminently loopable bit of background haze.

The file was first uploaded to Laderas’s 15people.net website. It is served via the Soundcloud service, which doesn’t allow me to place the file in the standard Disquiet audio player, but does provide its own embeddable version:

The brief write-up refers to the piece as pixelated guitar, so perhaps for once Laderas has put aside his trademark cello, but more likely he’s just describing the suggestive sonic end result of his thick, ambiguous, resonant processing. (Full disclosure: I wrote the liner notes to Laderas’s recent Luvsound release — see luvsound.org — Magnifications.)

DurÃ¡n VÃ¡zquez’s Terror Film for Radio (MP3)

June 1, 2009May 31, 2009 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Thinking of radio, DurÃ¡n VÃ¡zquez seems to have thought of the uninvited — the sounds, news, noise, and thoughts that enter our lives. For a 2008 work for the RadiaLX radio festival, he took as his source, film and news souces, including Zeitgeist by Peter Joseph (2007), Imprint by Takashi Miike (2006), Le Monde Selon Bush by William Karel (2004), Hellraiser by Clive Barker (1987), and Rosemary’s Baby by Roman Polanski (1968). Those sounds, mixed with English and Spanish repoting on war and terror, reveal the fantastical fears that underlie everyday concerns — more to the point, the exaggerated anxiety that underlies the modern sense of constant warfare. More details on his “Terror Film for Radio” (MP3) at cronicaelectronica.org.

[audio:http://download.cronicaelectronica.org/cronicast047.mp3|titles=”Terror Film for Radio”|artists=DurÃ¡n VÃ¡zquez]