A sneak peek at the new edition of the Buddha Machine:
The photo appeared yesterday, June 7, on the website of the duo FM3, fm3buddhamachine.com, under the heading “First photos of Buddha Machine 2.0!” with the following text:
The FM3 Buddha Machine 2.0.
Three new colours. Nine new loops. In stores Autumn 2008. Three new colours. Nine new loops. In stores Autumn 2008.
On the occasion of Bo Diddley‘s passing, this is Andy Gill writing in the Independent:
Somehow, there’s an integral drama to the stop-start, push-pull of the beat that enables it to remain fresh and exciting for far longer at a time than more direct rhythms. In simple riff terms, the Bo Diddley beat is one of the strongest girders in rock’s entire edifice.
Full article at independent.co.uk.
Right on schedule, another month yields another free track from Monalake, aka Robert Henke. “Index I” was first a 12″ and later appeared on Hong Kong, the debut Monolake album, back when the act was a duo, before Henke’s partner, Gerhard Behles, left in order to start up the audio-software company that became Ableton Live. Every month, Henke posts a free download on his website, monolake.de, and for June it’s a cleaned up edit of “Index I,” which is mostly of interest for how, over time, it has come to sound considerably less minimal. Monolake were among the originators of minimal techno, a music that removed the gloss from house and left just the pulsing infrastructure — their early works were the audio equivalent of The Lonely Crowd, picturing a dance space as a zone of interpersonal desolation. Per the website’s rules, there’s no direct link in this post to the MP3; just head to the URL link above to locate the file.
Solo albums by pop musicians are gauged by their guest stars. Solo albums by field-recording artists are gauged by their source material. On Realms, newly available for free download from the estimable wanderingear.com netlabel, those source materials include the sounds of boat masts, voice, rain, amplified room ambience, fireworks, a refrigerator, flies, birds, street noise, a cat, a fan heater, and a harmonica. Realms is credited to the London-based Adam J Wimbush (aka Ascsoms).
After Ascsoms’s processing, those sampled sounds aren’t always recognizable. “Realm D (In Loquaciousness Lay Insanity)” seems like it’s infested with small buzzing lifeforms, but it’s not the one with the fly sounds (MP3). Birds are vaguely discernible on “Realm C (The Permeated Anomaly)” as they chirp away as if in some infested, squalor aviary, where the place is so on the fritz that the automated announcements have degraded (MP3).
The real standout on the four-track set is the lead piece, “Realm A (Rococo),” which is the one that includes rain and boat masts and, perhaps explaining its achievement in ambiguity, what’s described succinctly as “unidentified field recording.” About halfway through a track marked by richly layered noise and churning rhythms, the majority of the sound suddenly drops out and about all that’s left is this cycling beat, like a rusty old machine clanking away in some back room while thunder is heard overhead (MP3). The moment is stark, and it focuses the ear on the inner workings of Ascsoms’s approach to manipulating individual sonic objects.
Get the full set at wanderingear.com. More on Wimbush/Ascsoms at myspace.com/ascsoms.
For 40 minutes, a series of bell-like tones cycle through. They’re heard as a simple riff that’s played out in minutely differing permutations, against a slowly transforming backing track. The tones are seemingly artificial, in that they don’t truly resemble actual bells, but they’re fairly organic, in that their textures bleed into the background in a natural manner and their sonic envelopes involve a comfortable give and sway. The track in question (MP3) is a live recording, made this past May 10, by Ralph Steinbrüchel, performing material from his album Basis, which was built from layers not of bells but of modified recordings of guitar and piano. Basis was released on the label Room 40 (room40.org). The MP3 was recorded at the Offf Festival in Lisbon (offf.ws). More on the recording at cronicaelectronica.org and on Steinbrüchel at synchron.ch. (Thanks to the website of the label 12k, 12kblog.wordpress.com, for the initial reference to this recording. The 12k associated label Line, 12k.com/line, released Steinbrüchel’s album Stage in 2006.)
