Two Hours of Buddha Machine Loops (MP3s)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Two hours of unadulterated streaming Buddha Machine loops are what DJ Cactus (aka Daniel Hintz) provided to listeners of his KUSF (90.3FM San Francisco) radio broadcast this past weekend. Check out the original post at kusf-archives.com, which has the set available as two streaming audio files (MP3, MP3). The sound quality is strong, and the loops are pretty much bare, with the exception of some humorous cues for the station’s call letters (which refer to the University of San Francisco), including one with the voice of William S. Burroughs. There are also some introductory comments by Hintz, who is using the first of the two generations of Buddha Machines created by the China-based duo FM3. (The image associated with this post isn’t entirely accurate, as Hintz mentions that his Buddha Machine is orange.)

The KUSF site has them as two separate streams, but they’re shown here in this interface as one playlist, so it’ll play for two hours in a row (or you can flip back and forth between the two parts using the little arrows):

[audio:http://kusfarchives.com/Music/KUSF%2003.08.09%206-8%20PM%201st%20Hour%20Spotlight%20Buddha%20Box%20by%20FM3%20DJ%20Cactus.mp3,http://kusfarchives.com/Music/KUSF%2003.08.09%206-8%20PM%202nd%20Hour%20Spotlight%20Buddha%20Box%20by%20FM3%20DJ%20Cactus.mp3|titles=”Spotlight Buddha Box (Part 1 of 2)”,”Spotlight Buddha Box (Part 2 of 2)”|artists=DJ Cactus,DJ Cactus]

What’s been noticeable as time has passed since the machine’s initial commercial release is how different settings highlight different aspects of the devices — how a given environment influences the Buddha Machine’s sound. This is partially the result, no doubt, of a low-budget production process, which results in slight variations between individual devices, but more than anything it’s a testament to the FM3 duo’s sound-design ingenuity, which involves brief loops whose ambient properties are just as capable of being subsumed by a given listening situation as they are of subsuming it — sounds that are just fragile enough that they’re easily, if subtly, altered by whatever technology mediates their presentation.

More on the station at kusf.org. Visit Hintz online at myspace.com/danielhintz and danielhintz.com.

Image of the Week: Raymond Scott, Action Hero

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

To celebrate the 100th anniversary this past September of the birth of famed sound tinkerer, the Japanese toy manufacturer Presspop, working with musician and artist Archer Prewitt, has released an collectible figurine of Raymond Scott:

Scott is pictured by a replica Clavivox, one of his many inventions, and the whole thing comes with a CD. More info at raymondscott.com and presspop.com, according to which, an earlier figure of Bob Moog is sold out. (Thanks for the tip, Mike.)

Quote of the Week: Warren Ellis’s Graphic Aether

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Two characters speak early on in Aetheric Mechanics, a new graphic novella by writer Warren Ellis and illustrator Gianluca Pagliarani:

    Q: What’s it like in space?

    A: It sings. The vibrations from the spin of the drive arms, sir, and the motion of the heat through the casements to space, which is very cold. The whole ship sings quietly, like a gently struck tuning fork. The Earth and the sea, sir, they have a mighty number of things to recommend themselves to me. But once you’ve heard the song of a spaceship, you’d never be anything but a Royal Naval outer serviceman.

An “outer serviceman” is an astronaut in this alternate history sci-fi story. Elsewhere in Aetheric Mechanics, two other characters — steampunk visions of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson — discuss a “spring heeled jack,” but they’re talking about the British mythological figure, not the electronic-music duo.

More at the website of the publisher, avatarpress.com, and the author, warrenellis.com.

Two MP3s of Bill Fontana’s San Francisco City Hall Installation

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

There’s an aviary in the rotunda of the City Hall of San Francisco, and water features, too. Well, at least it sounds that way, and will through May 8. That’s the last day of Bill Fontana‘s “Spiraling Echoes, an installation that uses echolocative technology to beam specific sounds to specific spots in the public space. The sounds, which include tweety birdsong and watery glushing, as well as the ring-ring of cable car bells, are all taken from the San Francisco soundscape.

Up at his website, resoundings.org, Fontana has provided two means by which to experience the sounds of “Spiraling Echoes” from afar. There’s a stereo mix of the four-channel projection (MP3):

[audio:http://echosounddesign.com/media/spiraling_Echoes2.mp3|titles=”Spiraling Echoes (Stereo Mix)” |artists=Bill Fontana]

As well as a field recording of the rotunda floor, and the mix of its inherent ambient noise and the projected sounds (MP3):

[audio:http://echosounddesign.com/media/sprialing_echoes_B_format.mp3|titles=”Spiraling Echoes (Ambient & Projected Sounds)” |artists=Bill Fontana]

As the latter recording shows, the sounds are subtly applied, and can even be subsumed by the goings-on within City Hall. That was certainly the case this afternoon when, in between having lunch in the Mission and catching The Watchmen a few blocks north of the Civic Center, I stopped into City Hall to experience Fontana’s “Spiraling Echoes” first-hand. It was difficult at best to tease out Fontana’s sounds given all the civic-wedding-related festivities going on. I’ll go back on a quieter day, to check it out again.

One important facet of Fontana’s installation is that the sounds aren’t still. The sonic projections move through the rotunda, thanks to motorized systems such as the one pictured below. (Photo courtesy of the Fontana website.)

More information at sfacgallery.org, and in an interview with Fontana by Jesse Hamlin of the San Francisco Chronicle at sfgate.com. The article describes the piece’s source material as follows: “it’s a shifting wash of ambient sounds that subtly evokes the Bay Area: nautical bells and red-winged blackbirds, foghorns, skylarks, the melodious flow of underwater currents recorded near the Farallon Islands, streetcar bells and bits of speech from a post-election Proposition 8 protest.”