Plucky MP3 from Bacanal Intruder

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The world has many netlabels, and yet it could use more like Yo.yo Pang (ambulatore.com/yoyo) — for Yo.Yo Pang is focused entirely on singles. No massive hit-or-miss compilations, no fodder-laden full-lengths, no mid-sized EPs. Just singles, and so far just three.

The most recent is from the ever-plucky Bacanal Intruder: “Mi Nombre Es Matthew,” at under three minutes, all pops and whirs with ebullient melodica, coy organ and an Aphex Twin-ish piano bit (MP3). Yo.yo Pang releases are also available as Ogg Vorbis files, and each comes with an original piece of “cover art”; Bacanal’s either was embroidered, or employed a nifty PhotoShop plugin. More info on Bacanal Intruder at bacanal-intruder.tk.

Previous Yo.yo entries have included the heartbeat thump and lightly percussive patter of Ursula‘s “Yo.yo Pang Song,” which eventually dissolves into industrial ambience (MP3), and the solemn piano’n’cello drones of Trisfe‘s “Un Artista del Insomnio” (MP3).

Quote of the Week: Talking Animals

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

David Byrne went to see the band Animal Collective at its October 1 Webster Hall show in Manhattan. And then he wrote about it:

It was a funny mixture — they arrayed themselves on stage as if they were a traditional rock band. They’re more akin to laptop DJs than a band, though a band can be anything these days, I guess. The singing and dancing about are not usually part of the laptop scene, so that part energized the show in a good way.

He also pondered what “playing” means in an age of faders and samplers. And he said, of the opening band, Vampire Weekend, “I wondered if they sounded a little like early Talking Heads.” Read Byrne’s full entry at journal.davidbyrne.com.

WWII Avant, Part 5/5: Olivier Messiaen excerpt MP3s (1941)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

These are only excerpts, not full pieces, but any survey of the experimental music of World War II (the subject of all five Disquiet Downstream entries this week) would not be complete without mention of Olivier Messiaen‘s Quatuor pour la fin du temps, or Quartet for the End of Time. Messiaen composed the eight-movement work while held as a prisoner of war by the Germans. The instrumentation was determined by the musicians among his fellow prisoners and the piece debuted for its captive audience on January 15, 1941, at Stalag VIII/A. MP3 excerpts of each of the eight movements of the Quartet are available at atoposmusic.com.

Messiaen is a hero to electronic musicians for a variety of reasons, including his emphasis on tonality and his support of the ondes Martenot (an early electronic instrument). His intensive study of birdsong served as a kind of parallel to the musique concrete work of his contemporary, Pierre Henry; both men brought the sounds of the world into their music, one via transcription and one via tape manipulation.

WWII Avant, Part 4/5: Conlon Nancarrow MP3s (1943)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

No WWII-era composer’s work so closely mirrors the mechanization and industrialization inherent in the war effort as that of Conlon Nancarrow. It will always be a repertoire of virtually unplayable player piano roles (well, unplayable by human hands) for which he is best remembered. Not that some human performers haven’t risen to the challenge. Margarent Leng Tan transcribed his Three 2-Part Studies for toy piano. The work dates from 1942, two years after Nancarrow, who was born in Arkansas, chose for political reasons to live in self-exile in Mexico.

Tan summarizes her effort: “to render on a toy instrument the kind of virtuosity and precision that would lead Nancarrow to bypass the uncertainties of human excecution and invest his energies in the player piano’s unfettered possibilities.” The result is a chaotic work, full of plinky counterpoint, all of it leavened by the childhood sensibility of the toy piano’s sound (MP3). More info at archive.org.

Tomorrow: Part 5/5, Olivier Messiaen at the end of time.

WWII Avant, Part 3/5: John Cage MP3 (1941, 1942, 1945)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Charles Amirkhanian’s Ode to Gravity radio program broadcast in December 1987 an evening of John Cage‘s music, in part recorded in 1983 at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Among the pieces featured were several that Cage composed during World War II, including “Double Music” (1941), a collaboration with Lou Harrison, heard here in a performance by the Manhattan Percussion Ensemble; “Credo in US” (1942), a collage of a work performed by Musica Negativa on the album Music before Revolution (EMI); and Experiences No. 2 (1945-1948), which takes its text from “Tulips and Chimneys” by e.e. cummings, performed by Robert Wyatt on the album Jan Steele/John Cage: Voices and Instruments (EG Obscure, the same label that released Brian Eno’s early solo work).

All were composed fully or in part during World War II, the run up to which led to the emigration of many composers and other artists from Europe to the U.S. And in an interview with Amirkhanian that’s part of the recording, Cage talks about the influence of one such émigré, Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg, on his development (MP3). More info at archive.org.

Not heard in this program is perhaps Cage’s second most famous work, Imaginary Landscape #1 (second, that is, to his “silent” piece, 4’33”). Streaming audio of a performance of that work, along with a reproduction of the score, is available at medienkunstnetz.de.

Tomorrow: Part 4/5, Toying with Conlon Nancarrow.