Disquiet

The online label Microbio’s (microbiorecords.net) latest release provides not only free MP3 files, recorded at a high level of data integrity (224kbps), but also a nifty free CD sleeve, in color, ready to be downloaded and printed (in the common AdobeAcrobat PDF file format). Even if the listener doesn’t choose to print the image, many MP3 players (hardware and soft) include the option to catalog an album cover right along with the music files. The latest Microbio release is Conjunto, a three-track EP credited to Mendigo, born Renzo Peressi, a Venezuela-based musician who also records as UVA, Poloto and Krotos. The EP’s individual tracks explore what’s generally referred to as “glitch” music — sounds that are mere microsonic irritants. The music involves melodies that are less suggested by the musician than they are inferred by the listener’s brain, which is striving to make sense of the organized flow of barely disguised static. He uses those steady beats to chart a course through a thick sonic undergrowth (the metaphor would be apt even without the record label’s life-sciences moniker, or the little biographical tidbit of Peressi’s having lived in an Andes mountain town, Mérida). It’s a deep aural atmosphere constructed entirely of buzzes and hums, rings and whirs, the overheard chattering classes of some unseen bug world underfoot. Much of the music has a palpable high-wire tension to it, though as a soundtrack it would best serve activities filmed at a cellular level, as blood clots or amoebas cleave themselves. Soon after the start of the title track, he breaks away from the haze for an extended bit of percussive play, the little beats like highly receptive, and cautious, antennae. The album, Microbio’s 12th so far, is located on the site’s “releases” page (here). Further information on Peressi is available on his Poloto MP3.com page (here).

Steve Reich, the minimalist composer, has his own website, at stevereich.com. And since the website’s launch, it has featured, on its multimedia page, a single MP3. It’s no meager offering. It’s a live recording of the world premiere, from April 24, 1976, of his Music for 18 Musicians. Not the entire piece, mind you, but a good stretch, just over 12 minutes in length. The file has been compressed to the lo-fidelity rate of 64kbps (most people rip their MP3s at a minimum of twice that level), so it is less than six megabytes large. This is the sort of sound that makes audiophiles take to the streets wearing nothing but noise-reduction headphones and “The End Is Nigh” sandwich boards. Still, the track is more than clear enough for listeners to appreciate the work’s effervescent grid of beading counterpoint. And it’s in stereo. The file may even have its own unique pleasures; fans of the muted sounds of minimal techno and deep house will probably feel right at home. Here’s to hoping that if more people download the Music for 18 Musicians MP3, the Reich site will post some additional sound clips. Currently featured on the site is extensive information on Reich’s most recent CD/DVD, the technologically themed Three Tales, including an overview of the work, interviews, performance dates and its complete libretto, among whose “characters” are such Internet Age luminaries as Jaron Lanier, who coined the term “virtual reality”; Ray Kurzweil, synthesizer-maker and futurist; and Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems.

For inclusion in Disquiet’s Downstream department, the Polish label Vivo has graciously uploaded two full-length MP3 tracks, one from each of its two most recent albums. “Daygan” is the first track on Amir Baghiri‘s new album, Yalda, and it’s something of an overture for the full recording, which is a trance-like amalgam of Middle Eastern percussion and atmosphere (information here: vivo.pl/amirbaghiri; track here). This particular track is more driving, more visceral, than others on Yalda, but there are tastes (drops of water, distant wails) of the gauze-like musical elements that have their own moments in the sun on the full-length recording. And the track “Zenzo” comes from the Zenial – Reworked album, a record that features remixes of music by Zenial (courtesy of KK Null and Zbigniew Karkowski, among others), and new works by Zenial himself (information here: vivo.pl/zenial; track here). This is an unremixed work, a slowly swelling piece featuring an eerily nattering vocal sample and a sonic halo of anxiety. Special thanks to label owner Janusz Leszczyñski, who runs Vivo from the city of Zambrow. (For more on Vivo Records, see the current issue of e|i magazine — ei-mag.com –  for which I wrote an overview of the label. The article is reprinted on the Vivo site, here.)

DJing has always had its fair share of gamesmanship and combat, from reggae dubplate soundclashes, to hip-hop battles, to remix one-upmanship, to the more recent explosion of live laptop jams. Enter the Kracfive label’s Iron Chef of Music contest. As of this writing, the first seven such events are represented on the Kracfive website (here: kracfive.com/ironchef; follow the link to “old battles”); an eighth is said due for upload shortly. If you’ve ever caught the Iron Chef television show (broadcast on the FoodTV network in the United States), you already know what’s in store: chefs face off to make the best meal, with some specific, and often odd, ingredient tossed in, like honey, or cuttlefish, or yogurt. Kracfive has adopted that conceit for digital remixes. Here are the rules for Iron Chef of Music, as posted in the site’s F.A.Q.: “contestants sample [assigned] objects for 2 minutes. Each contestant is given 2 hours to build the best song from these special ingredients, trying to beat all of their opponents. … Songs are collected, played for everyone, and voted on. The winner is the new or reigning champion!”

Kracfive has held seven Iron Chef of Music battles so far this year, using such ingredients as a song by the late great jazz musician Charles Mingus (“Half Mast Inhibition”) and the theme to MacGyver, the Reagan-era television show. The best place to start may be the most recent, recorded on July 24, 2003. The source material? “Ice & Dice,” the sounds of ice cubes rattling in a glass, and dice being rolled. Seven contestants participated, and the results of their mixes, along with the original sound source, are all available for download on the Kracfive site’s Iron Chef of Music page (again, here: kracfive.com/ironchef). An act named Kettel (reportedly a late entrant) embraces the clicky, and creates a happy-sad little instrumental that might be at home on Sesame Street. Ten and Tracer’s version similarly hews to a steady beat, but the sounds are more spare, more minimal techno than cartoon ditty. In contrast, Empty Head’s take on the ice, especially its first half, which is willfully beat-less and un-centered, suggests the ice cubes were steeped in a glass of Scotch. To be clear, the Iron Chef of Music project is not producing easy listening, even when the contest is based on a Shania Twain song — it’s more Kid606 than, say, P. Diddy — but it’s still rewarding to hear the familiar not only remixed, but done so under a time constraint, and with the added influence of friendly competition.

Plastikman, born Richie Hawtin, is one of the great techno minimalists of North America. His new album is titled Closer, and he has posted the entire thing online in streaming mode (here). Closer is the first new Plastikman full-length since Consumed, which was released in 1998. The record is marked by extended horror-soundtrack synthesizer ambience, and by lagging beats that, in jazz parlance, truly swing. Several of the album’s 10 tracks allow voices to intrude on Plastikman’s characteristically insular sound world. Hawtin is quoted in the accompanying liner notes: “How the hell did I go from being an instrumental, electronic artist to recording vocals?” The page also includes a nearly 10-minute audio-video sequence of Hawtin talking about the album and about his own musical life — about his dad’s “big white headphones” and reel-to-reel setup. The Closer tracks and the interview are available as Windows Media or Real Audio files, in lo-, mid- and broadband hi-fi. The album was released commercially this past Tuesday.