Brian Eno Gives the BBC a Studio Tour

And talks generative art, sculptures, beat making, note taking, and more

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

“I’m trying to make a version of me in this software,” Brian Eno tells the BBC’s Spencer Kelly in a half-hour video from the broadcaster’s Click show. The ambient godfather is giving Kelly a tour of his studio, displaying how he constructs his light installations, his sculptures made of small speakers, and his software-based music. We see the dark backroom where he’s transitioned from cathode ray tubes to LEDs, and his ceiling-high bookshelves, 65 percent of which he estimates have science as their subject. Kelly, whose BBC reporting focus is technology, pushes Eno to confirm himself as something of a scientist, which Eno agrees to do.

Broadcasting is an odd thing. Kelly needs to ask a generalist’s questions, even though it’s clear he must know quite a bit more than he’s actually acknowledging knowledge of. They get around to “those cards,” which leads to a bit of a history lesson about how Roxy Music’s limited budget inspired Eno to get some best practices in order, which in turn became the Oblique Strategies deck. He also spends an extended bit making generative drum beats, and gives us a flip through old notebooks. Somewhere people with high-definition monitors are making and trading screenshots, no doubt.

There’s also fodder for an incredibly subtle animated GIF around the 18:23 mark, when Eno, his head emerging from a thick, collared overshirt like that of a tortoise, juts back and forth along to a semi-randomized rhythm he’s just implemented.

Found via [synthtopia.com](http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2017/04/15/brian-eno-on-how-to-make-ambient-music/).

What Sound Looks Like

An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Some buildings are born as multi-unit dwellings. Others have multi-unit dwelling-ness thrust upon them. Amid that second subset are entrances that don’t live up to the challenge. This location has at least three additional addresses where there once was likely but a single residence. How you alert unit one to your arrival is unclear (since its button is missing entirely), as is how to access unit two (since its button is kaput). Adding to the mystery is the sequencing for units two, four, and three. The pièce de résistance isn’t the fact of that additional button for unit four, or even the quotidian instructions to “Hold for 3 seconds” (what happens if you hold longer?), or the readymade collage (RIP, James Rosenquist) where unit three’s identity is layered. It’s a one-two combo: First, how the “3 seconds” confuses the eye, carrying directly over from the 2 on the left, and briefly makes your brain think the center unit is, indeed, number three. Second, how the additional button for unit four is situated so as to serve as the noun in the instructional sentence — it’s virtually a doorbell emoji. As the shadows might suggest, this photograph was shot as the daylight was coming to an end, which seems appropriate to this location.

An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.

Musique Concrète + Video Games

The making of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

This short documentary video about the making of the video game *Resident Evil 7: Biohazard* explores the use of musique concrète to achieve the game developers’ pursuit of a horror aesthetic. The 8-minute profile interviews various participants in the game’s production from a variety of sound roles, including audio director, composers, and music production supervisors.

Says one member of the team: “We talked about this whole musique concréte style. So using voices became part of the score, and we gave them instructions like pretend, you know, you’ve got a plastic bag over your head and you’re asphyxiating. Pretend you’re drowing; make a sound like that. By the end it got a little bit weird: you know, you’re a zombie cow and you’re dying.”

It’s interesting to observe their collective decision and their experience of moving away from traditional game music — which is generally electronic but also usually employs recognizably musical instrumentation or reference points — to work drawn entirely from recorded audio.

Video originally posted at [Vimeo](https://vimeo.com/212347963). More on the video game, which was released back in January, at [residentevil7.com](http://residentevil7.com/). An album of the music was also released in January: [sumthing.com](https://www.sumthing.com/p/resident-evil-7-biohazard/).

Electromagnetic Ambient Music

And slivers of found radio signals

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

These two short videos from Berlin-based musician Hainbach explore mangled ambience thanks to a handy new device that benefited from an especially popular Kickstarter campaign. The gadget in question is the KOMA Field Kit, and it serves as an entry point into various less typical sonic sources, including physical connections like solenoids and DC motors, as well as the far more ethereal electromagnetic pickup. The latter is employed in the first of these videos, “David Dreams | Tape, Field Kit, OP1, Phashi.” Watch as that little hand-held sensor is moved from one device to the next, the unique nature of its detection lending an otherworldly timbre to Hainbach’s drones. “Nevada in My Dreams | Tapeloop, Fieldkit, OP1” is even slower and doomier than “David Dreams,” with bits of radio noise shooting through like sliver glimpses of alternate worlds. Hainbach’s YouTube channel is a great source of electronic music using a variety of instruments, which he details in the notes associated with the videos. This pair investigates how two very different airborne signals can contribute to the texture of recordings.

Videos originally posted at Hainbach’s [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeovElJP0n0i8ADaPsRSd8g) page. Hainbach is Berlin-based composer Stefan Paul Goetsch. More from Hainbach at [hainbach.bandcamp.com](https://hainbach.bandcamp.com/) and [instagram.com/hainbach101](https://www.instagram.com/hainbach101/). More on the KOMA Field Kit at [cdm.link](http://cdm.link/2017/04/komas-field-kit-connecting-contacts-and-pickups-and-motors-is-reality/), which is where I first came across the “Nevada in My Dreams” video.