Sonic Construct MP3 Set

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Another release from Term, the free-MP3 sublabel of 12k, run by Taylor Deupree. The lag since the previous Term release, which was the subject of the March 20 Disquiet Downstream (link), may be Term’s shortest yet. Perhaps these gorgeously frail sound objects will become a more regular occurrence than they have been in the past. If not, at least the latest, a three-track set by Jodi Cave, is worth lingering over. It’s titled Absent.

Each track has the same contradiction at its core: music that might mistakenly be taken as lush is, in fact, comprised of prickly constituent parts. “Absent / Walking Backwards” (MP3) develops into a gauzy blanket, but the initial material is all tiny splinters of string instruments. (Cave credits the pre-processed material to a jam session with Sam Freeman and Sin Yi Law.) “Rara Avis” (MP3) could be a cow with wooden teeth munching its way through the day, but those rough scraping noises are eventually eased by a bed of gentle tones that might emanate from a child’s bedside mobile.

The least singular, which is to say most rangy, of the three pieces is “A Remix for Sawako,” Sawako being a Japanese solo musician currently in grad school in Manhattan, and who’s released music on 12k, and/OAR and other labels. Cave takes material from Sawako’s Ombinus EP, released on the Community Library label last fall, that album itself having been a collage of sounds lifted from Polmo Polpo, Tu’m, Yuichiro Fujimoto and others, according to the Community website (community-library.net). The game of sound-provenance telephone results in a matrix of small nuggets, clicks, clacks, rings, winding percussion, brushed surfaces and more. Think of the combination, rotating in free space, as an adult’s mobile. More info at 12k.com/term. More info on Sawako at troncolon.com.

Sound-Diary MP3s

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

There’s a blog by musician Justin Hardison at thelandof.org, which on the face of it is ordinary enough. Lots of musicians augment their individual websites with online diary entries, including the semi-regular postings of Radiohead (radiohead.com/deadairspace) and David Byrne (journal.davidbyrne.com), and the monthly home-page posts by Scanner (scannerdot.com). What distinguishes Hardison’s blog, which he does under the name My Fun, is that the entries take the form of a diary-in-sound.

Some are raw field recordings, such as two from Hampstead Heath, London, posted in March (MP3, MP3), both quiet strolls that bring to mind the perambulatory tape-art of Luc Ferrari. Others are so specific as to be universal, like a quick sliver of frying posted on February 28 (MP3). But much of the sound is processed, like a glitchy conglomeration of elements from the first of March (MP3) and, perhaps best of all, a tasteful expanse of textured undulations from March 9, titled “Improv Loops” (MP3). Just yesterday Hardison posted a rapidly spliced cutup of individual words culled from radio and elsewhere (MP3), as if William S. Burroughs had manned his own Conet Project station.

Each entry is accompanied by an photo, some self-evident, like the pan full of potatoes that illustrated the “Fried” MP3, and others less so, like a vertiginous peek up (or down) a shaft that was posted along with the loops. Again, this is where Hardison’s blog is on to something. Lots of online MP3 sources post images along with their sounds, but those are usually the web-browser equivalent of an album cover. Hardison has constructed something more singular and balanced; it’s worth trying to recognize his photos as having equal weight with his sounds: photography complementing the phonography.

Maker Faire Instrument Panel MP3

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

This is a first. I’ve been doing the almost-daily Disquiet.com Downstream entries since October 14, 2003, and today is the first time I’ve linked to something I did myself. This past Sunday I moderated a panel discussion at the inaugural Maker Faire, put on by Make magazine (makezine.com). The subject: “Making Instruments, Making Music.” The panelists: Krys Bobrowski, Tom Koch (aka univac) and Chachi Jones. Bobrowski brought along some fantastic horns made of dried kelp and an oversized glass ‘armonica designed for extended glissando. Jones and Koch brought numerous homebrew gadgets, most of which are broadly summarized as circuit-bent: Speak’n’Spells and Teletubby dolls with extra switches added on, like the hybrid “remades” of China Mieville’s fiction.

The panel took place at 11am on Sunday in a room called the Makers Lounge. The soundboard guy told us what we’d already figured out: the hall had poor acoustics at best. Plus, we shared the space with a loud bunch of retro pinball machines. (The folks who created the new USB musical interface Monome [monome.org] were in the room on Saturday but managed to relocate on Sunday.) As a result, the file’s audio isn’t the greatest quality, and my voice sounds like it’s going, as I tried to compensate for the noise and cross-traffic.

Still, it was a great experience. The audience was very responsive, and Krys, Chachi and Tom did a great job. The full file (MP3) is 45 minutes long. About 25 minutes in they perform a five-minute collaborative improvisation, and then take questions from the audience. I’ve posted the file at archive.org, the Internet Archive, along with additional information about the event.

PS (May 1, 2006): Steve Cooley of somejunkwelike.com was in the audience at the “Making Instruments, Making Music” panel and he posted two short videos (one of Krys Bobrowski on her Gliss Glass, the other of the full trio improvisation) and three photos (panel, panel, audience). Thanks, Steve!

Electroplankton MP3

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Among the keywords in the audio catalog at the Internet Archive, aka archive.org, is the name of a recent video game created for the Nintendo DS handheld: Electroplankton. As many have noted, the game is less a game than it is a toy, in that it has no intended end; it’s a musical tool with a playful graphic interface. There are three Electroplankton-derived musical downloads at archive.org currently (see the tagged files as they accumulate here), most recent among them “Grey Matters” (MP3), credited to JR Nielsen. It’s true to Electroplankton’s aquatic metaphors, with enough burbling to fill a small brook and enough light mallet-sounding work to suggest the chamber music of Tortoise.

Noise Art MP3s

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

At home amid the ruptures of constantly shifting sonic data, Stephane Leonard has produced a three-track set for the Luv Sound netlabel (luvsound.org), titled tri, that is far more listenable than it should be. One track (“Trails 2,” MP3) extends for 10 minutes into sharp if attenuated noise, the background static of a bad dream; midway through, something that sounds like a teletubby injects a scary-cute “la la la.” It would be distracting were it not so perfectly placed that you look forward to it on each listen. The keeper, “Kreisstueck” (MP3), opens with real-world audio, the distant car horns like an orchestra tuning up, the wind rushing by a familiar rough texture to anyone who’s dabbled in field recording, only to step suddenly through a window into something entirely synthetic. More info at stephaneleonard.net.