Quote of the Week: Electric Infancy

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

On the influence of electronic toys on today’s musicians:

After all, arguably, electronic toys are the midwives and nursemaids of gamers.

Electronic toys were what we played with before we even knew what video games were. In their stilted, stuttering voices they taught us to count, to spell, to recognize shapes. They sat on our bedside tables and told us the time, and with a pull of a ripcord they repeated the lines of our favorite TV show, our celebrity idol, our most beloved creature from Sesame Street, The Smurfs, The Wombles, The Muppet Show. They played music to us when no-one would pay us attention. And they let us make our own music, even when we couldn’t play a tune.

From an article by Drew Taylor at gamasutra.com about Toydeath, an Australian band of circuitbenders (toydeath.com).

Tangents / Video Streams (ping pong, Electroplankton, anechoic …)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Videos Worth Streaming: Robot orchestra made of ping pong balls and glasses (engadget.com). … And a band whose instruments are a Nintendo DS (with Electroplankton) and two handheld Apple products (dhadm.com). … Music made only from sounds from the Windows OS (youtube.com — easily six or seven people sent this link to me separately, and thanks to you all). … A harp made from laser beams (engadget.com). … Ancient interview with Robert Fripp in an anechoic chamber (youtube.com, via twitter.com/kucharo). … The Meek FM, by Rob Meek and Frank Miller, is where fonts and synthesizers meet (meekfm.org, via engadget.com). … Scratching video vinyl (createdigitalmotion.com). … A sequencer triggered by bubble gum (engadget.com). … And a similar one, with ball bearings (engadget.com). … Howard Sandroff on the early days of what became Max/MSP (gearwire.com). … Australian documentary on Japanese experimental music (pinktentacle.com). The site refers to it as “experimental Japanese music,” but that may be the subject for another documentary. … Kenneth Kirschner in concert (via his brother’s blog, billinexile.com). … Winners of last year’s Circuit Building Challenge (createdigitalmusic.com). … Destroying nine Buddha Machines (youtube.com).

Tangents / Macero, Mosquito, videos …

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Quick News, Links, Bits, Reads: A belated R.I.P. for Teo Macero, studio maven and Miles Davis fellow maverick (latimes.com, nytimes.com, jazztimes.com, pitchforkmedia.com). … The Mosquito, a high-pitched anti-truancy weapon mentioned here previously (disquiet.com, disquiet.com), is under investigation by England’s commissioner for children (nytimes.com). … Creating music from Pi at (avoision.com, via engadget.com and boingboing.net). … Circular analog synth (future-retro.com, via engadget.com). … Why do beluga whales enjoy the clarinet note G? Ask collisiondetection.net. … Urban sound is one of the factors that Dan Hill wrestles with in his essay on “the street of the future” (cityofsound.com, via williamgibsonbooks.com). … A review of a Robert Henke (aka Monolake) performance at a planetarium (skynoise.net). … Heather Powazek Champ meditates on a “bag of hush” (hchamp.com). … An album made entirely from the Kaossilator (createdigitalmusic.com). … An “instrument” by Jun Murakoshi that amplifies the world, much like a seashell (junmurakoshi.com, via boingboing.net). It’s a prototype, so you can’t purchase one down by the seashore yet. … Thread on “victorian synthesizer” at the freakangels.com/whitechapel forum, spun from the steampunk webcomic. … An album of Kraftwerk covers ends with a cease and desist form Sony (audioobjekt.com). Apparently the Fourth Law of Robotics has to do with not coveting thy neighbor’s source code.

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.