Score is a new album collecting background music by someone who has recently been pursuing a spot in the foreground. It’s a retrospective compilation by Herbert (born Matthew Herbert and aka Doctor Rockit) of pieces he’s written over the years for film, cues of churning, introspective textures by someone whose modus operandi of late has been decidedly extroverted: using his Plat du Jour album as a bully pulpit against consumerism, moonlighting from electronica to front a big band on Goodbye Swingtime. The music on Score includes segments originally composed for the films Vida y Color, Le Defi and The Intended, among others. One complete track is available for free download at herbert-score.com (you have to provide an email address to gain access, but otherwise it’s free). The piece, a clackety bit of addictively jittery digital momentum, was composed for a short titled Nicotine. One small point of confusion: the info page at herbert-score.com says the album contains 17 tracks, but the track listing contains only 16 and the version currently for sale at emusic.com has only 14.
Shoegazer Techno MP3s
Dublin-based act Decal has posted a small heap of unreleased material at his website, decal-artifacts.com, much in the vein of just slightly tweaked techno, like the drolly titled “Formula for Change” (MP3), which maintains its 4/4 metrics while cycling through all mannger of moody dance floor modes. The keeper is “Dropping Quays” (MP3), which slaps a literally offbeat bit of rhythm into the mix, grounding an otherwise familiar pulse by making it more complex than it needs to be. And better yet is a recently uploaded eight-track EP titled Little Sketches, all shoegazery and lush, one of ’em featuring a proper vocal by Martin Kelly of the Ruby Tailights. It’s collected as a compressed file (ZIP). (Thanks to Shawn at xtrasauce.com for the tip.)
Cymbal-to-Noise MP3
According to cut.fm, the label that released Gunter Muller‘s recent album, Reframed, the musician is a former drummer who’s gone drone. He hasn’t entirely given up his original instrumentation, though. He’s just simplifed, way down. Each of the album’s five cuts is composed from “processed recordings of bowed cymbals.” Up on the label’s website are two-minute excerpts from each of those five pieces, from undulating expanses of structureless tone (MP3) to what seem like distant bells swallowed by a dense fog (MP3). More info on Muller, who’s played with Butch Morris and Christian Marclay, at his datacomm.ch homepage. He also appears on David Toop’s latest album, Sound Body (Samadhisound).
Email Outtage
Email sent to this website between 11pm Pacific Time today and Saturday, March 31, may be iffy. I’m in the process of changing email service providers. Apologies for any inconvenience.
Tweaked Reality MP3s
Been a while since the Downstream has included an entry from the ever expanding “Remix! Tree” at the Freesound website, freesound.iua.upf.edu. The site is a trading place for recorders and admirers of raw field recordings. The Tree is where folks go to tweak sonic reality more to their liking. Take, for example, a trio of tracks that begin with eerily dripping water drops (MP3), then loop a segment to distantly musical effect (MP3), finally warping the material until it sounds entirely synthesized (MP3). And, as it turns out, even the original track involves some slight of ear; what appears cavernous was, in fact, recorded inside a washing machine. More info on the original and resulting tracks at freesound.iua.upf.edu. They’re all attributed to a user who goes by the handle roscoetoon, whose Freesound member profile reads, “I couldn’t hold a tune if it had handles on it.”