Drone MP3 by (and Interview with) Joanna Brouk

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Back in 1972, Charles Amirkhanian interviewed the under-recognized composer Joanna Brouk. Audio of the interview is interspersed with examples of her work, which as heard in this 70-minute recording is comprised of slow, lengthy, drone-like performances on acoustic instruments (notably piano) that have a nearly glacial approach to melody, but that don’t dispense with melody entirely (MP3). One can recognize in the pieces root notes and variations and a clear sense of compositional narrative, but it requires not so much patience and attention as it does an appreciation for a pace that essentially allows for a note to complete its decay before it is succeeded by another note.

Just to define “under-recognized,” in contrast with many subjects of Amirkhanian’s extensive catalog of interviews, a Google Blog Search today for “Joanna Brouk” yields exactly two entries, both from the past month or so (google.com/blogsearch). More details at archive.org, where the Amirkhanian interview is housed as part of the Other Minds collection. Any additional information about Brouk and her work would be appreciated.

Simple Tom Moody MP3

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The 8bit, lo-fi artist Tom Moody says he likes “tunes built around a single sound.” His song “Nice Nemesis,” a post about which on Moody’s blog included that clause, is certainly simple enough to meet those standards (MP3). The question, though, is which single sound is the center of this poppy little merrygoround.

Is it the occasional burst of a human “huh”? The sonar ping that marks the passing of every few bars? The Casio dub that suggests a video-game simulacrum of a nightclub? The crackling percussive foundation? The appearance of a little watery melodic sequence that serves as a kind of bridge? Somehow all those elements, and more, are sequenced into just over two minutes, and yet the overall effect is, indeed, bright and easy. More details at tommoody.us.

Buddha Machine Jam MP3

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Just to follow up on this morning’s mention about a difference between two generations of the Buddha Machine, here’s a late-night jam on various instruments atop a bed of drones familiar to anyone who’s picked up one of FM3’s little sound-art gadgets. The track, titled “Buddha Machine Music,” is by Jupiter Watts, a self-styled “rock band with noisy/ experimental tendencies” from Atlanta, Georgia. The slo-mo exercise in psychedelia mixes loosely strung guitar with the Machine’s output (MP3). More info at the band’s blog, jupiterwatts.blogspot.com.

Buddha Machine 2.0?

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

This isn’t news on the order of a multi-touch iPod, a less brick-like Zune, or a post-DRM Sony MP3 player — but the Buddha Machine has apparently experienced an upgrade.

This milestone in the product life cycle of the sound-art gadget designed by the China-based duo FM3 may have occurred a year ago or more, but I only just became aware of the change.

A friend had me over for dinner recently and I noticed that his Buddha Machine has a different button than do the pair that I own. The difference between the two generations involves the button that skips through the machine’s nine lo-fi loops. (More info on the device at fm3buddhamachine.com.)

On mine (pictured above, in green), the button is a little black nubbin that you switch back and forth; there’s a helpful white arrow pointing in each direction. On the new generation (above, pink), the black nubbin has been replaced by an inset button the same color as the rest of the device.

The sound loops haven’t changed, nor has the economically tinny sound quality. Not exactly an upgrade on the order of Apple’s iterative marketing strategy — but perhaps a Buddha Machine Nano is down the road…

PS: I should have mentioned that an actual formidable upgrade, with new sounds, is due to be presented at South by Southwest this year (fm3buddhamachine.com).

Sounding Out the Game Developers Conference (San Francisco)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Some of the most widely publicized news from this past week’s Game Developers Conference (gdconf.com), held in San Francisco at the Moscone Center from February 18 – 22, centered on a sixth-sense device, from Emotiv (emotiv.com), that uses brain waves to trigger game play. Still, the original five senses were in full effect, sound key among them. (And, well, not so much smell, aside from the concerns about personal hygiene endemic to the gaming world.)

I only had one afternoon at the event, and was humored by how many guitar-input devices were in evidence, no doubt as a result of the popularity of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The prevalence of faux-guitars began to feel like one of those post-Oscar fashion rundowns, when some tabloid displays how a half dozen starlets all wore the same designer dress. As always, last year’s innovation is this year’s plug’n’play; there were plenty of vendors showing how once-proprietary and singular systems, like motion capture and facial reading, are now available to be licensed by any game developer.

It was exciting to see that at least one game in the Independent Games Summit corridor in the North Hall was a music-based one, Cinnamon Beats from the studio Secret Exit (secretexit.com, from which the above concept image was sourced).

There were a heap of panels and lectures on audio and music in video games, and I’m hopeful that footage of some of these will pop up on the Internet in the future. The ones with asterisks are of particular interest:

Many sessions were dedicated to specific games:

And there was a session with Masafumi Takada, the composer on Killer7, Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked, God Hand, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, and No More Heroes.