Of the three songs that make up David Molina‘s Canciones del Futuro EP (recorded under the name Ghosts and Strings), two feature prominent vocals, which as is so often the case with songs end up relegating the instrumental material to the role of mere backing tracks. That’s unfortunate, because Molina has a way with murky electronic textures. The welcome exception here is the opening piece, “Heights,” which has some verbal material buried in the mix but emphasizes the electro-pneumatic pulse that serves as a downbeat, the hovering whirl of tone that is the piece’s substance, and in place of a vocal a searing yet understated woodwind line that commands the listener’s attention (MP3). That woodwind matches the voice heard early in the piece, where Molina just intones some syllables with an emphasis on sound rather than on lyrics. There is some earnest spoken-word material toward the close of “Heights,” but it’s purposefully muddied, stuck amid the music rather than above it. The song is further enhanced by a slow guitar line, and Molina achieves something special when he occasionally tweaks the woodwind, just briefly, into a glorious feedback-laden moment of electronic noise. More info at the website of the releasing netlabel, restingbell.net.
Romantic Electroplankton MP3
Newfangled, electronically based musical instruments like the Tenori-On, the Monome, and the Nintendo DS port of a popular Korg synthesizer aren’t just for so-called non-musicians. Take Electroplankton, the most restricted, or creatively circumscribed, of this batch. A sound toy (or audio game) built on the Nintendo DS platform, its fairytale interface is a child-friendly aquarium of music-emitting fish. (See image at left for a glimpse of one of its many environments.) But that hasn’t kept trained musicians from taking a dip in the Electroplankton pool. Italian pianist Fabio Ranghiero has posted a recording of an Electroplankton-derived composition at his musicalblog2.blogspot.com website (“Whiteplankton,” MP3). The track starts off with tones familiar to anyone who’s used the DS stylus to direct melodic fragments into swirling, gently pulsing compositions. Ranghiero takes it a step further, layering the material into what approaches a Romantic, in the classical sense of the world, intensity, suggesting not only that the software is good for making music, but that it may be complicated enough to allow for virtuosity.
Glistening MP3 from Luvsound’s New “Single of the Week” Series
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.