If you keep checking the Other Minds catalog at the Internet Archive, at archive.org, wondering when sets from the recent, 11th annual OM fest will be uploaded, there’s plenty in the meanwhile to download. Such as? How about Gavin Bryars (you know, the man behind Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet, Brian Eno’s old art school teacher, collaborator with Tom Phillips and Derek Bailey… yeah, that Gavin Bryars) speaking at the Exploratorium in 1986, interviewed by OM guru Charles Amirkhanian. The file is only downloadable via FTP, but the site provides clear instructions; just search for “bryars.”
Mixed Netlabel Compilation
Here’s one thing that netlabels have in common with traditional labels: various-artist compilations only work well if they have some sort of tenable theme, which Janus, on Stadtgruenlabel, does not, despite a flowery liner note about the two-faced god from which the set takes its name. There are pieces here with the canned maudlin of Angelo Badalamenti’s soundtracks (Martin Donath‘s quarter-speed “Plateau White District”; the simple melodic line of krill.minima‘s “Winterweiss”), with the look-at-me introspection of retro new wave (London Issue‘s “Sofaliebe,” a track that locates the Venn Diagram overlap between Steely Dan’s early pop fusion and Matthew Herbert’s desiccated lounge) and with a techno rhythm so familiar you wonder, for a moment, if it’s being ironic (Selffish‘s “Endless Fall”), but none of them do the others any apparent contextual favors; they don’t work toward any particular goal. However, there is a trio of less beat-oriented fare worth considering together: Lomov‘s “Northwest Passage,” which intimates forward movement with snaps and the occasional beat, but prefers to linger in its ambiguous opacity; Danny Kreutzfeldt‘s excellent soundscape, “Polar,” which is far richer than, if just as arid as, its title suggests; and Scott Taylor‘s “Andesite Black,” another soundscape, with rusty industrial overtones. It can’t be a coincidence that whoever programmed Janus chose those three tracks to open the collection. As for single, standout entries, Dataman‘s lowkey “Winter Panorama Window,” which comes midway through the album, is ambitious enough to demand repeat listens; it fades from a cafe field recording to backward-masked downtempo, with a steady but drama-infused beat. Choose your favorites at stadtgruenlabel.net.
150 Espionage MP3s
Been meaning to link to this for a while. Over in the netlabel section of the Internet Archive, at archive.org, is a selection of the some of the most mundane weirdness (or perhaps it’s a matter of weird mundanity) ever recorded. It’s 150 MP3s of random-seeming sequences of numbers (and, occasionally, words), generally read in monotone by anonymous individuals. Trick is, there’s nothing random about it. They are, the story goes, coded messages transmitted via shortwave radio, a cryptic espionage of the air. The set on archive.org contains the entirety of the Irdial record label’s quadruple-CD box set, The Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations, including a PDF of the accompanying booklet. The Conet numbers game got some press when the alt-country band Wilco was sued by Irdial for including an unlicensed sample of one track on its Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album (the title, in fact, was lifted from a sequence of words on one of the Conet tracks). That’s all in the past, and the set is downloadable in its entirety for free, in all its lo-fi glory, at archive.org (search for “ird059”). Wilco was definitely onto something; if you’re into listening to several different sound sources at the same time, the Conet tracks make a nice foundation, lending a spooky Cold War cadence to anything ambient. More info at irdial.com/conet.htm.
Prefuse 73 MP3
PREFUSE73 MP3: For every dozen folktronic tracks that find a nice, lowkey, occasionally trippy melodious zone between laptop digital synthesis and old-tyme lackadaisical stringed instrumentation, there’s but one upbeat song like Prefuse 73‘s “Pagina Dos Featuring the Books,” which hones a digital equivalent to bluegrass’ caffeinated kick. This superb little cut, off P73’s Surrounded by Silence, due out on March 21, is built from the sparest of materials: a cycling pluck of guitar, a smattering of arid beats, and these candid spoken-word snippets that lend the cut the urban-stoop soul of something out of Tommy Guerrero’s catalog (or, for that matter, one of Terence Blanchard’s soundtrack’s for Spike Lee, albeit with an amateur hum in place of the trumpet). It’s a delectable cut, from an album that’ll feature Kazu (of Blonde Redhead), Aesop Rock, Gza and Masta Killa. (The just-out single, “Hideyaface,” features Ghostface and El-P.) So, why’s the MP3 available for free in the first place? Apparently the last newsletter from Bleep.com, the online music retailer run by the Warp Records label, suffered some technical trouble, and this track is being given away as an apology. The newsletter said the file’s for subscribers only, but now the spring 2005 edition of the newsletter is archived on the Bleep.com site, along with a link to the track. Get it while the offer lasts, at warprecords.com/bleep/newsletter.
Awkward MP3 Set
Definitely check out Awkward‘s new Suicide in Installments entry, Dreamt, which inserts a pop impulse into a range of more experimental sounds, finding a middle ground between melody and drone (“Brokt”) and livening up some stuttering beats (“Untitledtwo”). Those are arguably the two best cuts on a set that varies widely enough to be mistaken for a various-artists compilation. To its credit, SII doesn’t burden its releases with the additional files so common to netlabels, but a little more information wouldn’t hurt. What we get is an album and a title (which is which might even be confusing, though the site’s news page explains all) and the names of eight cuts. Check it out at suicideininstallments.com. Some more info and related links at Awkward’s myspace.com page.