If still waters run deep, then what’s hidden inside sub-arctic air? Scott Sherk went to Iceland, and he has plenty of documentary audio evidence to show for it. His new, 12-track release on the Wandering Ear netlabel, Icelandic Air, available for free download, contains a wide range of rarified aural soundscapes, from church bells echoing in the distance (MP3) to the frigid white noise of coastal surf (MP3) to the ever-whiter noise of a rapid waterfall (MP3). As with any venture into the mythical unknown, the experience proves surprisingly closer to one’s own than might be imagined: the birdsong no less lovely (MP3), the sheep no more sentient (MP3). But there is, in Sherk’s audio slideshow, a sense of remove from the industrial that will, for most listeners, be bracingly unfamiliar. There aren’t many places in the world where one can listen for half an hour and strain to hear a plane cross overhead, but the 30-plus minutes of Icelandic Air provide just such a refuge. (Just to manage expectations, at least one plane — from the sound of it, a propeller-powered one — will fly through your headphones.) Get the full set at wanderingear.com. More on Sherk at thethirdbarn.org.
Aaron Spectre / Drumcorps Megamix MP3
The music of Aaron Spectre, who records digitally mutilated metal under the name Drumcorps, regularly provides serrated bludgeons to the ear. And few Spectre outings are as introspective as the 20-minute mix nestled in the nearly 160MB podcast uploaded on November 14 at adnoiseam.net (MP3).
Spectre’s contribution begins approximately 45 minutes in, and after a characteristically explosive opening, it ventures deep into unfamiliar territory, a downtempo realm of cautiously spaced percussion and rank echoes. Inevitably, of course, aural nihilism rears its pixelated head, all cacophonous, splintering grindcore, set to self-immolate in Spectre’s personally circuit-bent Osterizer. While the overall effect is, certainly, more volatile than much of what appears in this Disquiet Downstream series, Spectre’s facility with digital transformation and his comfort with noise make him required listening.
The source material for the mix is as follows:
01 – Drumcorps – No Escape – [Unreleased]
02 – Nine Inch Nails – The Mark Has Been Made – [Nothing]
03 – Rotten sound – The Effects – [Spinefarm]
04 – Converge – Year Of The Swine / Conduit – [Equal Vision]
05 – Broken Note – war In The Making – [Ruff)
06 – Animosity – Terrorstorm – [Blackmarket)
07 – Animosity & Drumcorps – Mobs Over, Rob Me – [Manalive]
08 – Genghis Tron – The Feast (Drumcorps Remix) – [Unreleased test]
09 – Genghis Tron – Relief (Drumcorps remix) – [Relapse]
10 – This Will Destroy You – A Three-Legged Workhorse – [Magic Bullet]
11 – Nine Inch Nails – 2 Ghosts 1 – [The Null Corporation]
More on Spectre/Drumcorps at drumcorps.cc and myspace.com/drumc0rps.
On November 30, 2009, I turned off the comments on this post — for some reason it had become the target of massive spamming.
Techno MP3s from Nashen
Within four bars of its clacky, syncopated opening, “Cluerman” by Nashen off the free, three-track Source EP has registered as a keeper. Even when the minimal techno trappings — serene wooshes, clubby counterpoint, machine gurgles — risk layering in too much for the whole to truly register as minimal, it has a trenchant, single-minded purpose that’s admirable (MP3). Ditto the echo-laden “Zinkin” (MP3) and the more mechanistic “Hating You,” the latter of which ditches any appearance of analog source material in favor of a machine dream (MP3). Get the full set at the releasing netlabel, bumpfoot.net.
Stephen Vitiello / Molly Berg Art-Score MP3
The sound artist Stephen Vitiello doesn’t always work alone. Often, he brings the world into his work, transforming field recordings into electronically mediated wonders. And sometimes he creates alongside witting collaborators. Up now on his website, stephenvitiello.com, is a segment of score he wrote with Molly Berg for an installation by Eder Santos. No visuals are included, but the sound is deserving of its own audience — light bells, like some digitized wind chime, ring their way through backward masked guitar, rough whistles (suggesting the sound-art equivalent of “outsider” technique), and wisps of less identifiable sounds (MP3).
Images of the Week: iOcarina
A shot of the new iPhone instrument, a functioning ocarina — a digital version of one of the oldest instruments in the world:
Here’s a shot of the score to “Shaker Melody”:
More details at ocarina.smule.com.