Further supporting the idea that netlabels are well-suited (if not best suited) to single-song releases, the excellent Luvsound (luvsound.org) has launched a new “Single of the Week” series, with its own syndicated feed (RSS) and an initial entry by Scott Bruzenak. His “Melting Song” (MP3) is described, succinctly, as “Generative music for analog synthesizer.” It’s also a teaser for his forthcoming Luvsound full-length, The Icicle Dream. “Melting Song” is a glistening bauble of a track, a bouncy — yes, dreamy — initial entry in the new Luvsound venture.
New David Byrne and Brian Eno Team-Up MP3
More than a quarter of a century ago, producer Brian Eno and then Talking Heads singer David Byrne teamed up for a now classic venture into found sounds, modern-primitive rhythms, and koan-like observations into the mundane. That album was My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, released in 1981 and re-released on its 25-year anniversary in a remastered edition. News began circulating earlier this year (disquiet.com, nydailynews.com) that the duo would again team up. For a little while now, their modest project website, everythingthathappens.com, has had a little email opt-in window in which you could exchange your email address for eventual notification, due out yesterday, August 4, that a free MP3 of one of their new collaborative tracks would be available for download. I received that highly anticipated email at 12:21pm Eastern time, right on schedule.
The track is titled “Strange Overtones” and observers of Eno’s output as a producer will find the backing music more similar to his work with Paul Simon (on Surprise) than with Coldplay (who employed a similar free-MP3 promotional effort for their recent Eno-fied album, Vida la Vida). The rhythms are burbling and lopey, a salty, slurpy take on African pop, with dubby echoes, vintage synth sounds, and that richly ambiguous sonic bed for which Eno is best known. The song is much more straightforward pop than were the experimental studio cut-ups of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. More than anything, “Strange Overtones” resembles the music on Eno’s 1990 tandem album with John Cale (of the Velvet Underground), Wrong Way Up, production on which was so intense that, somewhat famously, it adversely affected the two’s relationship. Apparently the new Byrne-Eno effort went more smoothly; a U.S. tour is planned, currently due to start September 16 of this year and run through November 8 (full dates at everythingthathappens.com). (Quick correction: It appears that Eno won’t be on the tour. It’ll be Byrne with a band doing music he’s recorded with Eno, including material from the three Talking Heads album Eno produced.)
“This groove is out of fashion,” Byrne sings at one point, “these beats are 20 years old.” And later: “Your song still needs a chorus.” That certainly isn’t the case for “Strange Overtones,” which is a tantalizing taste of the full album, due out August 18.
There’s no direct link to the MP3; just go to everythingthathappens.com and click on the “Download the free MP3” link. (Thanks for the tip, Scott.)
Glitch Piano on the Streets of Boston
There’s an old Steinway & Sons Pianos storefront in Boston, right on Boylston Street across from the verdant Boston Commons. Outside the store, solo piano can be heard playing, at least during business hours. The music isn’t an amplification of a customer inside taking a new grand piano for a test drive. It’s a recording, seeping out into a modest bit of civic space, subdued advertising doubling as atmosphere. The speaker on which the music is broadcast is so ancient, its cone so weathered by the elements, its wiring so sketchy, that the sounds have this glitchy quality — a fuzzy texture that highlights the electronic means by which the sound is being projected. As a result, the music is less a model of the fine instruments inside the Steinway store than it is an unintentional remix, a downtempo variation on times gone by.
Tasty Instrumental Hip-Hop MP3 from Illstylus
Over at the hip-hop production discussion boards at cratekings.com/forum, one of the best recent tracks is “hhkeys1” by Illstylus (MP3, zshare.net). It was introduced with the header “A touch o soul…,” and that’s a fair if understated estimation of its qualities. While the old-school flavor of the track is very much at home in the Crate Kings forums — a place where musicians regularly plumb 1970s blaxploitation soundtracks and otherwise creaky old vinyl for beats — Illstylus is the rare producer there to let the soulful material speak for itself. There are no hard rhythms bolted on, no unnecessary frills like backing vocals or canned, atmospheric synths.
It opens with a bit of piano (hence the “keys” in the utilitarian, production-draft title), a reminder of all the recent Nina Simone samples on FM radio, but enjoyable on its own, for a certain boxy, clanky quality. Illstylus then drops in some well-orchestrated horns, a little riff with a dubby echo and some more plaintive slow passages that give the track a chamber-jazz elegance. At two and a half minutes, “hhkeys1” is a solid song, and deserves additional kudos for achieving what few Crate Kings demos do: a proper, well-constructed ending.
Read the thread where the MP3 first appeared at cratekings.com. More on Illsylus at myspace.com/illstylus.
Image of the Week: Networked Bonnets
Bonnets from “Finally, We Hear One Another” by Kelly Jaclynn Andres in collaboration Mixed Reality Lab. The piece is part of the juried ISEA 2008 exhibition in Signapore. The ISEA website describes the piece as follows: “In this artwork, pairs of visitors are equipped with a wearable series of small microphones and speakers that use wireless technology to transmit the sound of one person to the earphones of the other” (isea2008singapore.org).
The photo is by Priscilla Bracks (priscillabracks.com), who included it as part of her extensive writeup of the ISEA show for we-make-money-not-art.com. More on Andres at kellyandres.com.