Disquiet – Page 1488 – Listening to culture. Playing with audio. Sounding out technology. Composing in code.

Live Dimuzio MP3s

February 7, 2006July 1, 2007 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Two of the concert performances mentioned in the interview with gregarious live electronic improviser Thomas Dimuzio (“Crashing by Design,” posted on Disquiet.com at the end of last month) are among those that Dimuzio has recently uploaded to his website, thomasdimuzio.com. The full sets are available for a fee, but lengthy sample stretches are free, including around 10 to 15 minutes of: (1) the 2004 show with Scott Arford (sampling and processing) and Chris Fitzpatrick (keyboard, processors, CD player, sequencers, voice), with which the interview begins (MP3), and (2) the duo with Michael Thomas Jackson (looping and processing, objects, shortwave, CD player, cassette) as part of the 2004 Activating the Medium Festival (MP3).

I attended both those shows, and it’s a testament to their level of abstraction how new the music sounds, even when hearing it a second time. The key item in Jackson’s list of tools is “objects.” He’s a homegrown minimalist, and the music may be at its best when his small sounds emerge from the noise. Likewise, despite the combined fire power of that trio, they spend much of the piece in a sustained lull.

Also recommended, (3) a collaboration with Elliott Sharp (fretless electroacoustic guitar, processing, microphone) dating from 2003 (MP3). His burbling strings ground Dimuzio’s more outward-bound tendencies.

The current downloads also feature Anla Courtis and Mitchell Brown. A second, forthcoming set of 10 additional shows will reportedly include work with Dan Burke, Due Process, Chris Cutler, Joseph Hammer and Kadet Kuhne.

Live Underworld MP3

February 6, 2006 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Electronic music, from the avant-garde of Alvin Lucier to the minimalism of Steve Reich to the various vinyl and laptop specialists in international clubbing, has its growing share of classics. One surefire entry on the pop-rave side of things is “Rez” by the band Underworld, a trenchantly pulsing rising tide of percussive synth riffs that’s a frequent highlight of their live shows. Underworld has been posting some free MP3s, and some web-only commercial downloads, at underworldlive.com, among them a recording of “Rez” from a 2005 show in Spain. You need to register to gain entry, and the site’s a bit slow, but it’s worth it. Commercial recordings are housed in the Downloads section, free ones in the Archive section.

Off Topic, Four Things

February 5, 2006June 10, 2007 / By Marc Weidenbaum

This generally un-musical “meme” has been jumping from site to site. I was “tagged” by my friend Andrew (andrewjaffe.net).

Four jobs I’ve had:

laundry room attendant at summer camp
office manager at graphic design firm
senior editor at Tower Records Pulse! magazine
editorial director, music, at citysearch.com

Four movies I can watch over and over:

Distant Voices, Still Lives
Planet of the Apes
Playtime
The Limey

Four places I’ve lived:

Brooklyn, New York
Sacramento, California
New Orleans, Lousiana
San Francisco, California

Four TV shows I love:

Good Eats
The Daily Show
My Name Is Earl
The Wire

Four places I’ve vacationed:

Madrid, Spain
Vancouver, Canada
Scotland
Vietnam

Four of my favorite dishes:

New York pizza
Greek avgolemono soup
Japanese mabo ramen
Thai gai kaprow

Four sites I visit daily:

Four places I would rather be right now:

in bed
Hanoi, Vietnam
Tokyo, Japan
in orbit

Four bloggers I am tagging (you’re it):

20 x 20 = 65 MP3s

February 3, 2006 / By Marc Weidenbaum

In his always timely monthly update, Scanner (aka Robin Rimbaud) mentions the following free download, to which he contributed: “Tune your URL to godxiliary.com and download the massive .zip file of a year long project, where 20 songs were built and destroyed by 20 musicians, so it’s been a constant recycling of each other.” The website provides a grid visualization of the musicians’ participation, and though the exact meaning of the coordinates isn’t immediately apparent, there are 65 tracks total, consisting of between two and six variations on 20 original tracks. For example, there are five versions of a track listed as number 15: initially 30 seconds of vibrant sparkling and plucking (courtesy of unscrew); then a downtempo edit by deceptikon, stretching the original to three times its length; then, thanks to jerohme spye, a more blippy, upbeat rendition; then a randomized take by serocell that leaves little of the original; and finally a 15-second held tone by michL bridge, the project’s most prolific participant. Bridge, unlike the rest of the musicians, uses the files’ tag fields to comment on all his entries. That edit of track 15 is described as “15 seconds of love.” The zip file (archived at scene.org) includes all 65 tracks, plus four different playlists, sorting the files chronologically, reverse-chronologically, numerically and reverse-numerically.

Mecha-Exotica MP3s

February 1, 2006December 21, 2008 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Pierre Bastien‘s recent record out on Rephlex, titled Pop, like its predecessor, Mecanoid, creates shopworn arrangements from instruments largely of Bastien’s own creation. These aren’t instruments as in virtual plugins for software or homebrew synthesizers, but dilapidated contraptions that have steampunk charm, acoustic instruments strummed by electric motors, birdlike whirlygig-pets chirping on command, a kind of mecha-exotica. By way of example, he’s posted four full tracks on his website. Two are from Mecanoid, the warbly, nostalgic “Avid Diva” (MP3), a small menagerie of mallets and strings, and “Damn Mad” (MP3), which has as its root rhythm a scratched record and a slack drum. Two others are from the decade-old Boite #3 on Editions Cactus: “L’Orchestre Thermo-dynamique” (MP3), in which wheezy breaths and saliva-stained trumpet abet octogenarian-paced arrangements, and “Odovinil” (MP3), the most disorienting of the batch, which uses a messed up gospel record as its fulcrum. (The “Odovinil” link on Bastien’s site is misdirected, but it’s correct here.) If you can break yourself from their spell, track down Bastien’s 1988 Mecanium for its randy take on Duke Ellington’s “Caravan.” More info at pierrebastien.com.