Music for Planetariums

A taste of Rhian Sheehan's offworld, widescreen awe

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Rhian Sheehan knows something about widescreen awe. He recently composed the score to *Back to the Moon for Good*, narrated by Tim Allen (“To infinity,” and all that). It’s a film designed for planetariums. It’s about teams competing for the Google Lunar Xprize. Sheehan has a history in this sort of immersive offworld tech documentary, having also scored *We Are Astronomers* (narrated by *Dr. Who*’s David Tennant), *We Are Aliens* (narrated by *Harry Potter*’s Rupert Grint), and *We Are Stars* (narrated by motion-capture innovator Andy Serkis). It’s unclear if the track “Otium” is related to any of this work, but since the word is Latin for “leisure,” we can presume this is his own music made on his own time. It’s moves comfortably from exhilaration to ease, from a brain-tingling, wide-eyed clarity to an attenuated stasis, all in the course of just four minutes.

Track orginally posted at [soundcloud.com/rsheehan](https://soundcloud.com/rsheehan/otium). More from Sheehan, who is based in New Zeeland, at [rhiansheehan.com](http://www.rhiansheehan.com/).

What Sound Looks Like

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

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Many attempts to jury rig the fix of a doorbell would qualify as art as much as craft. Few such attempts achieve the full-on obsessive quality of this massive grid of mismatched hardware. The rusted splendor of the casing is straight out of an Anselm Kiefer sculpture. The muted buttons have the coded mundanity of a Joseph Beuys readymade. The fragile labels bring to mind the haphazard tape of Doug and Mike Starn. That the changes in color between buttons and tape do not directly correlate provides an element of visual counterpoint. Likewise, the sheer expanse of options hints at the considerable activity that is happening past this barely serviceable gate. As with any worthwhile work of art, the grid asks questions. Many of them are practical: Why the blank spot after 402? How many different label machines were used in the making of this artistic achievement? How much is the seeming discoloration of the buttons the result of the elements, and how much of it is the actual coloring of those items. And some questions are more metaphysical — what realm, for example, is accessed via the unlabeled button between 218A and 218B?

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

Nothing but Forward Motion

That's the hallucinogenic "Diving In" by Mystified

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Digging five minutes of stereo-panning, anxiously flanging, cryptically indigenous, moderately upbeat electronic party music? You could do worse than the churning, hallucinogenic “Diving In” by Mystified, aka the prolific Thomas Park of St. Louis, Missouri. Aside from a dramatic silence a minute in a half in, the piece is nothing but forward motion, the highlight a frazzled bit of what sounds like a battered ram’s horn that gets more and more mechanical with each tasty repeat.

Track originally posted for free download at [soundcloud.com/mystifiedthomas](https://soundcloud.com/mystifiedthomas/diving-in). More from Thomas Park / Mystified at [twitter.com/mystified131](https://twitter.com/mystified131).

DJing the Idea of Vinyl

Some "prickly electronic abstractions" from Stephan Dragesser

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Back in 2012, “prickly electronic abstractions” was how the Vuzh Music label [described](http://www.vuzhmusic.com/releases/flow.html) the work of Stephan Dragesser, also known as the Euphoric Hum. That description certainly applies to “Clouds,” a track Dragesser uploaded yesterday to his Soundcloud account. Based in Germany, Dragesser mixes light scratchy percussive pixelated interference, like someone is DJing not vinyl so much as the idea of vinyl, amid hushed held tones. Those tones, a sequence of meditation-ready, evenly paced chords, sound like they were lifted from an otherwise hedonistic bit of deep house. Combined, the elements begin as a partnering of equals, the static taking on a gently funky presence, the tones admirably reserved. But as “Clouds” moves, it builds, to something more imminently chaotic than it felt capable of at the opening. This is easily one of the strongest tracks in months that I’ve had the pleasure to spotlight.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/floracenter](https://soundcloud.com/floracenter/clouds).

Intensity Is Framed in Small Dimensions

A new release from Jo Thomas

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

jothomas

Jo Thomas’ music flirts with disaster at a tiny level. In “Glitch,” there is a rising tone like something about to explode, but the tension of those imminent pyrotechnics is secondary to how the intensity is framed in small dimensions: The real tension is hearing it all play out in sonic language that is actually quite subtle.

In “Alpha,” the title cut of the release on which “Glitch” also appears, bell tones and bassy thrums and white noise are sliced and shattered, resulting in a riveting sequence of tiny, split-second occurrences. “Dark Noise,” the quietest of the three tracks by far, is also the most self-effacing, providing no easy momentum or urgency, and relying instead on drawing the listener into a field of what could be nocturnal insect noise heard through thick glass and an increasingly diminishing illusion of comfort. *Alpha* was released by the label Entr’acte back in 2010, and has just been added to [its excellent SoundCloud page](http://soundcloud.com/jo-thomas/sets/alpha-e82-entracte).

More from Thomas, a tutor in Electronic
Sound and Music Culture at the University of East London, at [jothomas.me](http://www.jothomas.me/). More on the release at [entracte.co.uk](http://entracte.co.uk/project/jo-thomas-e82/).