Buddha Machine Remix MP3 Set from Royal Trans

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The New York-based duo of Justin Carter and Andrew Gath, who record together as Royal Trans, have released a second free collection of Buddha Machine mixes. The previous set, In an Expression of Form: The FM3 Experiments (archive.org, disquiet.com) took the nine brief loops contained in the Buddha Machine and recorded them in a variety of environments, letting the loops resound and chart the contours of the given locale, and also letting the setting’s own inherent sound mix in with the original material.

The audio on new collection, In an Expression of Form: Vol. II, released last week, is much cleaner than was the first volume. And so, though the album includes none of the helpful explanatory text that accompanied the volume one, it’s likely that live field recording wasn’t involved in the process.

The original loops will be familiar to anyone who has heard a Buddha Machine, and attractive to anyone who hasn’t. “Neu Pink,” for example, takes the sound of circulating strings and adds a rising momentum suitable to a thrill ride (MP3). “I Set My Hand on Fire” emphasizes the texture of the original before locating a loop within the loop (MP3). “Meandering,” the opening track, does quite the opposite of what its title suggests, forming a glitchy pop instrumental where there had been little more than waves and air (MP3). As a result, the recordings sound much more Royal Trans’s own than had the first Expression of Form collection. Get the full set at archive.org.

More info on the Buddha Machine at fm3buddhamachine.com, and on Royal Trans at royaltrans.net and myspace.com/royaltrans.

Two Royal Trans albums are already scheduled for the near future: 9 Drones for Horses contains pieces that reportedly complement or were inspired by individual tracks on Patti Smith’s Horses and Mint Tea will include a bonus EP of covers of songs by the Cure, Pink Floyd, Smashing Pumpkins, Cat Power, Pavement, the Beatles, and Nirvana.

Laurie Anderson “Uh” MP3

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Laurie Anderson‘s speaking voice is a national treasure. And the single syllable that best encapsulates her wit and wisdom is that symptom of inarticulateness: “uh.”

What is in most mouths a signal of hesitation can be, in hers, everything from a considered pause to an ironic gesture to a luxurious cushion of affection.

The one thing “uh” is not for Anderson — and perhaps for her alone among speakers of the English language — is a thoughtless tic. It is, instead, a springboard held on extended pause at its lowest point, while just below rests a pool of observation that trails off into the distance.

Anderson employs her trademark “uh” in much of her spoken performance work, but she may not investigate it anywhere else with the thoroughness that she does in a track available for free download at ubu.com. Not only does the phrase punctuate her talk, it is the talk’s subject — she provides an entire etymology for the syllable, perhaps factual, perhaps fantastic (MP3). For anyone enticed by, or otherwise interested in, Anderson’s “uh,” this is the ur-performance.

Though the recording includes none of the electronic techniques that are synonymous with her work, what she says is rich with a self-consciousness of the recording process, especially when she recounts, with inimitable humor, an “odd and beautiful song” she jokes that she witnessed a Cree Indian perform for anthropologists in Canada. To say anything else about it would be to give too much away; just take a listen.

According to the ubu.com entry, Anderson’s 16-minute talk was recorded in the mid-1970s as part of a spoken-word event held on the island of Ponape, which I presume is Pohnpei, in Micronesia. It was released as volume 4 of the journal Vision, edited by Tom Marioni, who is one of the other speakers in the set, which also includes Joan Jonas, John Cage, Robert Kushner, and Brice Marden. Marioni, by the way, makes an interesting observation in his contribution. He suggests that Miles Davis turned his back on his audience in his later years — that is, played facing his band — in order to show that he’s an artist, not a performer.

Grammys at 50: Samples Come Alive

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

In the post-hip-hop era, one of the best things — which is to say, perhaps one of the few good things — about the Grammys is the opportunity to watch samples come alive. Tonight’s broadcast of the 50th annual ceremony was no exception. A glowing pyramid on stage in the background during Kanye West‘s performance of “Stronger,” off his Graduation album, opened to reveal the French electronica duo Daft Punk, dressed like desktop-support figures from Tron. West’s “Stronger” samples their “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” which dates from 2001. (This sort of “live sample” is, of course, the opposite of lip-synching, the human growth hormone of pop music, which was in full effect during several performances.)

Now, if only the Academy had gotten Mountain’s Leslie West (yeah, no relation) and Gil Scott-Heron together to back up Common for his nominated “The People” (off the Kanye West-produced Finding Forever), which samples songs by both of ’em.

Of course, the novelty of Daft Punk’s Grammy Awards appearance was somewhat diminished when their original “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” served as the evident blueprint for a Heineken ad that aired later during the broadcast.

Half-hour Robert Henke MP3

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

It may be my imagination, but it seems that with each new “Free Track of the Month” that Robert Henke posts at his website, his descriptive abilities get stronger, more precise, and more illuminating. The latest download is an uncut version of the track “Plankton,” which originally appeared, in shorter form, on his Floating.Point collection in 1997. The Floating.Point version was just under 10 minutes in length, while this take is three times that. Over the course of its half hour, the piece, an effort in abstract and often beatless techno, gets muddier and thicker; there’s a kind of glistening scintillate overlay early on, though by the end a certain inherent insistence has been revelead, and what sounded like aural fairy dust has become a kind of treble grind.

Here’s a bit of what Henke says of the track himself:

The toy which made this track possible was our Boss RSD-10 sampling delay, a small digital delay unit that made it possible to feed back its output to the input. Unlike in modern delays, the feedback was realized analog, so each repetition of the signal went thru the (cheap) analog digital converter, into the memory and back to the digital to analog converters. As a result, the delays get more and more deconstructed and noisier with each repetition. This effect can be clearly heard in the last 10 minutes of the take. The unit also allows to change the delay time by continuosly changing the sample rate, which also alters the pitch.

The two altering chords in the background sounds like being created with a Prophet VS. I must just have gotten it at that time, maybe even at exactly that day… The other sounds including the flickering and the alien-like backgrounds come from the SY 77, manipulated by Gerhard Behles, while I operated the Boss delay, the other effects, and the mixing desk.

There’s additional information, including technical specifications, at monolake.de. Henke posts free MP3s monthly, but with a strict stipulation that no one link directly to the file, only to the webpage itself.

One interesting note about attribution. The Floating.Point album was released as a Robert Henke album, not a Monolake album — back then, Monolake was a collaboration between Henke and Behles, the latter of whom went on to found the audio software company Ableton, where Henke also works. Despite that distinction between “Henke” music and “Monolake” music, apparenlty Behles also worked on this “Henke” track.