Japanese Noise-Packed MP3s

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The elegantly named record label Cock Rock Disco, home to such noisy mixmasters as Duran Duran Duran, DJ Donna Summer, and Disquiet.com favorite Drumcorps (aka Aaron Spectre), is both a commercial label and a netlabel. Its 11th and most recent free release is an intense bit of 8bit-flavored, pop-toned, mashed-up, data-packed, whimsical aggression from Tokyo-based act CDR. The album, CDR on CRD, contains 14 tracks that sound like they were sped up to aid in compression — a mix of amped up, jocular techno with found elements such as metal guitar riffs, pop melodies, and recorded dialog, not to mention a raucous sense of humor.

For example, there’s pixie-voiced “MIKUMIKU (ran ran ru mix),” in which a digital angel squeaks her lines above rampaging automated percussion, and “DANCE fuckin RAJA fuckin DANCE,” in which Bollywood-style touches make themselves heard amid the flurry of rhythmic data. CDR isn’t incapable of reflection, though he’ll still muck it up; on a track titled “shit ambient,” after a minute of soothing if canned vocal’n’synth calm he drops in pummeling, off-kilter beats that’ll have your earbuds standing on end.

The full release is available as a single archived file (ZIP), including a little movie and cover art, with additional info available at the label’s website (cockrockdisco.com). More on CDR at myspace.com/cdr and asahi-net.or.jp/~zr3a-tnmt.

Live Jazz-tronic Roam the Hello Clouds MP3

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The Australian trio Roam the Hello Clouds works a laptop into the mix. Lawrence Pike on drums and Phil Slater on trumpet collaborate with their third member, Dave Miller, who is billed with laptop, and whose primary sound sources are the live performances by Pike and Slater, which he augments in real time. The scenario recalls the role of Brian Eno during the early stages of Roxy Music, when he was, among other things, emphasizing the use of the mixing board itself as a part of the creative process. The result, as evidence by a lengthy performance posted courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation National Radio show Sound Quality (abc.net.au), brings to mind everything from late-1960s Miles Davis to the more recent digitally augmented work of Nils Petter Molvær, to the efforts of an earlier jazz-tronic trio, Miniature, which featured saxophonist Tim Berne, drummer Joey Baron, and advanced-technique cellist Hank Roberts.

Miller’s efforts are both subtle and trenchant. They’re inherent to the playing, but generally linger in the background. For example, about 14 minutes into the hour-and-a-half Sound Quality posting (MP3), an extended tone can be heard in the background, as if a note played by Slater had been plucked from thin air and then magically wrapped around the trio like a blanket, suggesting an impossible effort at circular breathing, as if Rhasaan Roland Kirk were reborn as an ambient guru. (Also included in the MP3 is an interview with the band by Sound Quality host Tim Ritchie.)

Part of what makes Miller’s light touches work so well is that he is matched by the genteel but dedicated efforts of his partners in electro-acoustic crime. Neither Pike nor Slater are show-offs. Pike is more than happy to, when time for a solo comes, focus on small clicks and the occasional tap on a drum pedal — which Miller then refracts through effects that suggest the rhythms of a distant helicopter. As for trumpeter Slater, he is as comfortable with scratchy embouchure gestures as he is with warm, lush, held tones, and Miller knows exactly how to work with him, tossing tiny sine waves into the former and lending dubby echoes to the latter. We’re blessed these days with adventurous trios, from Medeski Martin & Wood to Dirty Three. Run the Hello Clouds is fully in their league.

More on Miller at thebodyraft.com, on Pike at myspace.com/laurenzpike, Slater at philslater.com, and Roam the Hello Clouds at roamthehelloclouds.com and the group’s myspace page, myspace.com/roamthehelloclouds. Above image courtesy of the Sound Quality website — that’s Pike on the right, Slater on the left and Miller in between.

Taut Drum’n’Bass MP3s from Cycom

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The new four-track release by Cycom, titled Isotope, packs in a compressed set of drum’n’bass that despite some occasional asides for moody filigree tends to favor of spare, hard beats — and at a time when more florid d’n’b has long since become standard TV-advertising and cop-show background music, that’s a gesture worth applauding. Isotope doesn’t have the gristle and anger of more contemporary drill’n’bass or the fetid, subterranean pleasures of dubstep, but it distinguishes itself with single-minded intent and some delicate touches. “Isotope” (MP3) opens with a glitchy salvo but dives headlong into rapidfire switchback rhythms that are accented by electronic tones; kudos to Cycom (born Thomas Fleischer) for the unexpected breaks. It’s the strongest track on the set, followed closely by “Funky Giraffe” (MP3), which does its best to locate a common ground between d’n’b and fusion jazz, with warm modulations and natural drum sounds. None of the tracks are new. “Isotope,” for example, dates from 2001 and “Giraffe” from 2004, but are previously unreleased. The closing track, a “bonus” entry titled “Down the Drain,” was first was heard on an Alphacut Records release back in 2006. Get the full set and more details at the website of the releasing netlabel, plainaudio.com.

Fennesz Interview MP3 (And Video)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The Red Bull Music Academy continues to be far more than just a quickie marketing tool for the beverage manufacturer. Up recently on its website is a series of interviews recorded this year in Barcelona. Among them is one with ambient figure Fennesz, whose first release was back in the pre-laptop days of 1995, and he talks to the RBMA audience about making the transition to digital production from analog, the importance of guitars in his work, his collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto, how David Toop trainspotted his rare effort in proper sampling, and much more.

Many people around me, many colleagues around me, were doing really abstract electronic stuff at that time, and melody was kind of forbidden [laughs] — and I didn’t agree with that at all.

The podcast edition (MP3) puts the Fennesz interview alongside entries with great backpacker hip-hop act James Pants and industrial-pop mainstays Front 242. The video versions of the Fennesz, pictured below, is longer than the MP3 excerpt, and include musical interludes (redbullmusicacademy.com).

tangents / 3 months of 4’33, mic’ing Marfa, three Martinez scores …

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

An overly long list of links collected in recent months:

At the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from November 8, 2008, through February 8, 2009, guest performers will do John Cage‘s 4’33” each day (except for Wednesdays) at noon “on piano.” The performance series is associated with the exhibit The Art of Participation (sfmoma.org), which runs concurently. The exhibit will feature work by Cage, Lygia Clark, Dan Graham, Hans Haacke, Jochen Gerz, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Lynn Hershman Leeson, and Erwin Wurm, among others. … Review of Dia:Beacon exhibit that includes six films by Tacita Dean with Merce Cunningham regarding Cage and 4’33 (nytimes.com):

The 2008 projects of Meet the Composer’s Commissioning Music/USA have been announced, among them: composer and trumpeter Dave Douglas working with experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison on the film The History of Gadgetry (“The project will incorporate film with acoustic as well as electronic instrumentation”); composer David Van Tieghem working with choreographer Doug Varone on the dance work Broken Visual Novel; composer Steve Mackey, actor/singer Rinde Eckert, and ensemble Eighth Blackbird on Slide; and Hahn Rowe working with John Jasperse on Thin Man Dance. More details at meetthecomposer.org. … Among the winners of 2008 MacArthur Fellows “Genius” awards are composer and instrument maker Walter Kitundu and music critic Alex Ross (macfound.org). … Review covering four sound-oriented exhibits (and “the shocking power of silence”), including work by Tracey Emin (Scottish National Gallery, through November 9), Richard Hamilton (Inverleith House, ended October 12), Sanford Wurmfeld (Edinburgh College of Art, ended September 5), and the duo of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller (Fruitmarket Gallery, ended September 28): guardian.co.uk.

Perhaps the most promising bit of news in the New York magazine coverage of Alanna Heiss leaving the great museum P.S.1 in Queens is that the air conditioning system is due for an overhaul, which means it will no longer risk being louder than the sound art and videos on display (nymag.com). … The Buddha Machine, as a desktop item (zendesk.com). … Website focused on town-encompassing sound-art installation in Marfa, Texas (themarfasessions.wordpress.com). … Project noting 100th anniversary of Edvard Grieg‘s death, including work by Steve Roden, Marc Behrens, Natasha Barrett, Bjarne Kvinnsland,  Chris Watson, and Jana Winderen, curated by Jørgen Larsson (sleppet.no, grieg07.com). … Documentation of “Sound Room” installation by Sidney Fels and Sachiyo Takahashi (hct.ece.ubc.ca).

Excellent 2007 interview with sound artist Stephen Vitiello (turbulence.org):

One of my favorite people in the history of contemporary sound art is Terry Fox. He had this piece at the Capp Street Project that was silent but implied sound. It was a big wrecking ball that was suspended back in front of glass, and the idea was that if there was a earthquake it would shake and smash it. I guess I started thinking, ”˜what could I do that would be about sound without having to produce sound?’. I’m by no means the first artist to work with those low frequencies and the moving surfaces, but I just tried to find my own use for them, and very much got involved in responding to the architecture of each site.

Images from Vitiello’s Duets exhibit, which ran at a through August 30: mckunst.com.

Christian Science Monitor interview with Bruce Odland (csmonitor.com):

“What would it be like if we paid attention to the sounds that we make as a culture?” he muses. “We spend all our time shutting it out because, frankly, our soundscape is a total accident ”“ it’s very harsh and very unfriendly to humans.”

Pioneering computer musician Paul Lansky unplugs, gives up computer-based music (nytimes.com):

Basically I’ve said what I’ve had to say. Here I am, 64, and I find myself at what feels like the beginning of a career. I’m interested in writing for real people at this point.

Interview with Antony Hall, maker of sound-art devices, such as the iLog, pictured below (we-make-money-not-art.com):

Option presented to me when I purchased a ticket to see Cluster perform at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco earlier this year:

Yes, please add $2.35 USD to my order to help green my experience. This equates to 1 green ticket(s) @ $2.35 each which offsets approximately 348 lbs. of CO2. (begreennow.com)

How to strip the music from YouTube videos (lifehacker.com). … Forget stock photography. Here’s “stock audio”: audiomicro.com. A buck a minute — “or less.” … How to enjoy an Autechre concert (interimlover.livejournal.com). Rule number one: “Don’t use earplugs.” Rule number six: “Be entertained by the haters.” … What Neanderthals sounded like: engadget.com. Maybe. … A white noise machine for your browser: simplynoise.com. … And for your iPhone: red-sweater.com/shush (via downloadsquad.com). … Suzanne Vega, muse if not mother of the MP3, because her song “Tom’s Diner” was used in early testing of the compression algorithm (nytimes.com, collisiondetection.net). As mentioned in her essay, I’d emphasize that the same song is also important for having served as an early inspiration for grey-market remixes such as Danger Mouse’s Grey Album, since back in 19990 Neal Slateford and Nick Batt, recording as DNA, did an unsolicited dance mix on the a capella song. … BBC news of circa-1951 electronic music (bbc.co.uk, createdigitalmusic.com — thanks to the half dozen people who alerted me to this).

Steam-based synth (engadget.com, musicradar.com). … Music extracted from cassette tape of Apple I BASIC (engadget.com, boingboing.net). … A non-profit arts organization focused on radio and other transmissions: free103point9.org. … Video camera serves as surface-interface for computer-lab DJs (engadget.com). … The sounds of scanning (engadget.com, makezine.com). … Music based on Braun products (from objectifiedfilm.com, the website of film director Gary Hustwit [Objectified, Helvetica] — thanks for the tip, Brian Scott of boondesign.com). … Music for guitar, drums, electroencephalograph (nytimes.com). … This is real, not a summary of a Bruce Sterling short story: African drumming helps in development of whale-avoidance system (collisiondetection.net). … The listening of Neal Stephenson while working on his novel Anathem (nytimes.com). … First Brian Eno, then Robert Fripp, now Police drummer Stewart Copeland, who composed sounds for a BlackBerry (engadget.com, crackberry.com)

Scorekeeper: Michael Bross‘s Oddworld video-game soundtrack made available (music4games.net) … The following all via imdb.com: Not a big surprise, but Charlie Clouser is scoring Saw V. … David Torn did the score for The Wackness, and is now on Linea, La (by Demon Slayer director James Cotten). … Lisa Gerrard scored Romans 12:20, Playing for Charlie, and the kayak documentary Solo, and is working on Samsara by Baraka director (and Koyaanisqatsi cinematographer) Ron Fricke. … Kent Sparling scored this year’s Seventh Moon and is attached to Everything Strange and New. … David Holmes scored Hunger by British artist Steve McQueen. … No surprise that Clint Mansell did the latest from Darren Aronofsky, The Wrestler. He’s also attached to The Calling and to a forthcoming sci-fi flick called Moon. … Underutilized Cliff Martinez is on not one but three films in production: Un Simple Espion, The Company Men (by Vice‘s Raul Inglis), and Anyone’s Son (directed by Danny Aiello). … Excellent interview with Gustavo Santaolalla (nytimes.com):

“We are doing contemporary music, music that expresses the urban landscapes of Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Obviously tango will be present there. But milonga, candonga, murga”— three other local rhythms — “and rock, hip-hop and electronica are also part of the genetic map of this place”

Grey Market: SpliffHuxtable.com is probably the best MP3 blog fixated on instrumental tracks of hip-hop songs. Recent excellent examples include the string’n’percussion-laden “Reality Check” by Binary Star, produced by Trackazoids (MP3, spliffhuxtable.com), and the warped reggae of Big Pun‘s “Still Not a Player,” produced by Knobody (MP3, spliffhuxtable.com). … And a Federal appeals court has ruled in favor “open source” copyrights (nytimes.com, informationweek.com, lessig.org).

R.I.P.: Composer Donald Erb, 1927-2008  (sofaarome.wordpress.com, cleveland.com/plaindealer, nytimes.com). … Composer Mauricio Kagel, 1931-2008 (guardian.co.uk, nytimes.com). … Artist Bruce Conner, 1933-2008 (earz-mag.com, bbc.co.uk, sfgate.com).