Our Lives in the Bush MP3s / Over 20,000 Served

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The remix project Our Lives in the Bush of Disquiet has been downloaded over 20,000 times, as of today. I uploaded the set in early September 2006. It is an homage to the then 25-year-old (and now 27-) album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Brian Eno and David Byrne. Bush of Disquiet consists of a dozen remixes I solicited of two tracks off that album.

The songs are all available for free download in various formats (192Kbps MP3, 64 Kbps MP3, Ogg Vorbis, VBR MP3) at:

archive.org/details/OurLivesInTheBushOfDisquiet

Here’s the lineup, with links to the 192Kbps MP3s and to the websites of the contributing musicians:

  1. (MP3) “Help Me Help Me” — AllThatFall
  2. (MP3) “If You Make Your Bed in Heaven” — Roddy Schrock
  3. (MP3) “Leftover Secrets to Tell” — Pocka
  4. (MP3) “Secret Life Remix” — Stephane Leonard
  5. (MP3) “The Black Isle (Byrne/Eno Remix)” — (dj) morsanek
  6. (MP3) “Hit Me Somebody (Help Me Somebody Remix)” — MrBiggs
  7. (MP3) “Being and Nothingness (A Secret Life Remixed)” — john kannenberg
  8. (MP3) “Somebody Help Us” — My Fun
  9. (MP3) “Hey” — Mark Rushton
  10. (MP3) “My Bush in the Secret Life of Ghosts” — Prehab
  11. (MP3) “Not Enough Africa” — Ego Response Technician
  12. (MP3) “Helping (Help Me Somebody Remix)” — doogie

More info at disquiet.com/bushofghosts. Thanks to all the contributors, including Brian Scott (of boondesign.com), who produced the beautiful “cover” (shown above) and “back cover” for the collection. The project would not have been possible without the instigation of Eno and Byrne, who posted the raw materials of the original songs at bush-of-ghosts.com/remix.

On Bush of Disquiet‘s one-year anniversary, September 4, 2007, it had been downloaded almost 6,000 times (see disquiet.com), which means that the rate of downloads has increased.

Quote of the Week: Terra Firma

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

From wall text at an exhibit currently on view at the Architectural Heritage Center in Portland, Oregon:

there is not much good that is not in some way based on something old that is good

The sentiment serves sample-based composers and remixers.

The full context of the quote is: “All my training has been in offices doing classical things, with a strong leaning toward the Greek…and I believe…there is not much good that is not in some way based on something old that is good.” The attribution is architect A.E. Doyle (1877 – 1928). The exhibit is “Terra Cotta Portland,” which opened on March 29, 2008. More information at visitahc.org.

Tenori-Off MP3s

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The website tenori-off.com is described by its proprietor, Dino Ignacio, as a document of “his attempt at learning to play music. Though the title suggests that the blog will be exclusively about the Yamaha Tenori-On, it will probably also focus on other instruments like Theremins and Keyboards.” The Tenori-On, pictured at left, is the celebrated instrument/toy designed by Japanese media artist Toshio Iwai. The site’s MP3 page currently lists four entries for June 2008. “Jet Slug” is a sweet exercise in light post-rock, a minimalist tune with the feel of a quiet Tortoise piece (MP3). “The Great Owl” is more along the lines of 1980s pop, with hard-coded beats and gothy keys (MP3). “Rebootron” is a kind of hybrid of the previous two, with the pulsing pop of “Great Owl” but the chamber feel of “Slug” (MP3). And “e11even” is a subdued bit of synth melodicism (MP3). More on Ignacio at dinoignacio.com.

Jazz-into-Hip-Hop MP3 Mixtape

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The influence of jazz on hip-hop is never as evident as on cuts of the latter that sample the former, and that legacy in transition is rarely as fully fleshed out as on Turntable Jazz, a recent podcast by DJ ZedVantz. The set packs together 11 cuts, including a Billie Holiday remix and more great acoustic bass lines, plinkety piano riffs, stripped-bare beats, and guttural scat than you can throw a sampler at (MP3). If the Cotton Club had a resident DJ, Turntable Jazz is what he’d sound like on a good night. The full track listing of the ZedVantz podcast is as follows:

“You Let Me down Billie Holiday RMX” – Free the Robots
“I’ve Got That Tune” – Chinese Man
“Good Lord” – Kormac
“First Met You” – Funky Fresh Few
“Fire” – A-ko
“My Spider Walks Again” – Mooch
“Another Gone Record” – Rube
“Big Band Jump” – Rube
“Soul ”˜69 (part 2)” – A-ko
“Artichaut” – C.M.R.
“Swing Set” – Cut Chemist & Numark

More info on the podcast at rhythm-incursions.com, which includes a brief and informative interview with the DJ. More on ZedVantz, who’s based out of Toronto, Canada, at myspace.com/djzedvantz.

Guitronic Mark Templeton MP3s

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The strings are filtered through feedback loops, clipped and set on repeat like an album that’s reached the end of its groove. These strings — acoustic guitars in particular, and also what sounds like a banjo — are heard amid rastery, digitized sound elements. And those same strings are likely distorted until they become those very sound elements, unrecognizable little segments of self-contained abstraction that musician Mark Templeton stiches together into layered compositions — some sustained cloud-like textures, others riff-like globules.

The tracks in question are the four that constitute his Holden into Ryley EP, which was released last year and is available for free download from the “media” page at the anticipaterecordings.com website. “As the Day Grows Longer” (MP3) is distinguished by a child’s xylophone and by an anguished, but understated, moan, which brings to mind Gavin Bryars’s Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet. “Goodbye to You” (MP3) takes perhaps the most active approach to fiddling with the strings, which start off all gingerly plucked, but are then tweaked as if being reiterated by a fading R2D2. The EP’s title cut, “Holden into Ryley” (MP3), is its quietest, gentle arrays of microsonic play against a lightly glitchy texture. And “I Cut Along Lines” (MP3) ventures into song form, with unaffected guitar and a short-circuiting female vocal that’s all the more emotional for its technical difficulties.

More on Templeton at fieldsawake.com.