Gestural Sound, Gestural Drawing

The work of Warren Craghead

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Warren Craghead is a master of the casual artistic action. There are the field recordings (as housed at his [soundcloud.com/craghead](https://soundcloud.com/craghead) account), such as those of a [playdate](https://soundcloud.com/craghead/sound-of-backyard-playdate), an [ice storm](https://soundcloud.com/craghead/sound-of-a-ice-storm), a [shirt being ironed](https://soundcloud.com/craghead/sound-of-ironing-a-shirt), and [an office](https://soundcloud.com/craghead/sounds-of-office). And there are the gestural drawings that comprise his primary activity. He lives a life of seeming constant production, often in the form of slips of paper and Post-it notes he leaves in the homes of friends and the packed school lunches of his children. He’s part of a group show [at the Winkleman Gallery in Manhattan](http://crl.winkleman.com/exhibitions/1492), “The Fire to Say: Comics as Poetry,” that begins tonight, January 17, and closes on February 14. Here’s a shot [he posted to Instagram](http://instagram.com/p/jPwq7eEZBf/), and noted on his [blog](http://craghead.tumblr.com/post/73549091377/installing-for-the-fire-to-say), of some of his work on display:

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And here’s one of a characteristic action ([he left a piece in a hotel stairwell](http://craghead.tumblr.com/post/73242625809/drawing-left-in-a-hotel-stairwell-2-2-seedtoss)):

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As part of this diary-like accumulation of work he has posted the audio he describes as “Sound of walking to the gallery in NYC (The Fire To Say).” It is very much that, the sound of someone walking: the sound of feet, and the sound of the world those feet are navigating. Certainly there are distinctions to be noted between gestural drawing and gestural sound, but there are parallels as well. For example, at times in the audio a whistler can be heard, and the whistle is akin to the personalized Post-it imposed on an otherwise external environment:

Track originally posted for free download to [soundcloud.com/craghead](https://soundcloud.com/craghead/sound-of-walking-to-the). Craghead lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, and makes his home on the web at [craghead.com](http://www.craghead.com).

Disquiet Junto Project 0107: Aeolian Metrics

Use a wind chime as the rhythmic foundation for a track.

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

***Note: The SoundCloud.com site is experiencing some connectivity issues as of this project’s starting. If you have difficulty accessing [the Disquiet Junto page](http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/), try another browser. If that doesn’t work, then when posting your track add it to this page as a comment, and I’ll add it manually to the project set. Sorry for the hassle.***

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*Each Thursday at [the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.com](http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/) a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just [join and participate](http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/).*

Tracks by participants will be added to this playlist as the project proceeds:

This project was published in the evening, California time, on Thursday, January 16, with 11:59pm on the following Monday, January 20, 2014, as the deadline.

These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at [tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto](http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto)):

Disquiet Junto Project 0107: Aeolian Metrics

For this week’s project, use the sound of a wind chime as the rhythmic foundation for a track. (You can record the wind chime yourself, or use a pre-existing one, such as the recordings at freesound.org.)

Deadline: Monday, January 20, 2014, at 11:59pm wherever you are.

Length: Your finished work should be between 2 and 4 minutes in length.

Information: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto.

Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please include the term “disquiet0107-aeolianmetrics”in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.

Download: It is preferable that your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).

Linking: When posting the track, be sure to include this information:

More on this 107th Disquiet Junto project (“Use a wind chime as the rhythmic foundation for a track.”) at:

Disquiet Junto Project 0107: Aeolian Metrics

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

The Disquiet Junto Project List (0001 – 0639 …)

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Photo associated with this project by Nik Stage, used via Creative Commons license from:

http://flic.kr/p/2EZmeE

Beats & Tones

Toward a speedy ambience

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Another fine track that sounds like ambient music but travels at several times the speed generally associated with the often reserved form of music, “Tout ce qui pousse (vraiment)” by Arbeemonkey mixes a droning effervescence with a pulsing momentum. Bleepy synthesized tones shuffle beneath extended notes that seem to spend much of their existence in a state of decay. It’s beautiful stuff.

Track originally posted for free download at [soundcloud.com/arbeemonkey](https://soundcloud.com/arbeemonkey/tout-ce-qui-pousse-vraiment). It’s from his recent [collaboration album](http://arbee.bandcamp.com/album/variations-sur-tout-ce-qui-pousse-musique-pour-station-orbitale) with Emmanuel Toledo. Arbeemonkey is Mathieu Lamontagne of Québec City, Canada. More from him at [arbee.bandcamp.com](http://arbee.bandcamp.com/) and [twitter.com/arbeemonkey](https://twitter.com/arbeemonkey).

Muddy Loops

By San Francisco—based Black Thread

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

It’s just two or three phrases on repeat. They are brief bits of sound, like a few keys on a piano recorded, the tape then left in a sink for a long weekend, then wiped off with a musty towel, left in the sun for days to dry, eaten at by insects, and only then played back. The sound is muddy and muffled, somehow both remote and warm. This is “contemplation i” by Black Thread. It’s a loop set on repeat, and then allowed to fade into another loop. There’s a lovely tension between the decaying sound and the rote mechanical nature of the repetition. Somewhere in between these two loops there is a backward-masked moment of transition, like the sound goes through a mirror and gets a glimpse of itself inside out. This is loop music meant to be listened to on repeat — loops to be looped.

Tracks originally posted for free download to [soundcloud.com/blackthread](https://soundcloud.com/blackthread). Black Thread is based in San Francisco and has a new release, *Corpus*, on [the Tumeric Magnitudes label](http://turmericmagnitudes.bandcamp.com/track/corpus).

Aphex Twin 33 1/3: March 20 Talk at City Lights

Several musicians will be joining me for this event.

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

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The first scheduled reading for my forthcoming book on Aphex Twin’s album *Selected Ambient Works Volume II* for the 33 1/3 series will be at the storied City Lights bookstore in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. Several musicians will be joining me for this event. More details on them as the date nears. It’s scheduled for 7:00pm. on March 20, 2014. City Lights Bookstore is located at 261 Columbus Avenue. Here’s the description of the event from the [citylights.com](http://www.citylights.com/bookstore/?fa=event&event_id=2009) website:

>Discussion / Concert exploring themes from Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II
>
>with Marc Weidenbaum & Friends
>
>Marc Weidenbaum is the author of a new book on the British electronic musician Aphex Twin’s landmark 1994 album, Selected Ambient Works Volume II. The book was published this February, 2014, on the album’s 20th anniversary by the estimable 33 1/3 series. In addition to reading from the book and taking questions about his research and writing, Weidenbaum has invited several musicians to City Lights to perform explorations of themes — not melodies so much as ideas — from the Aphex Twin album.
>
>Extravagantly opaque, willfully vaporous — Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II, released by the estimable British label Warp Records in 1994, rejuvenated ambient music for the Internet Age that was just dawning. Faithful to Brian Eno’s definition of ambient music, Selected Ambient Works Volume II was intentionally functional: it furnished chill out rooms, the sanctuaries amid intense raves. Choreographers and film directors began to employ it to their own ends, and in the intervening decades this background music came to the fore, adapted by classical composers who reverse-engineer its fragile textures for performance on acoustic instruments. This book contends that despite a reputation for being beat-less, the album exudes percussive curiosity, providing a sonic metaphor for our technologically mediated era of countless synchronized nanosecond metronomes.
>
>Marc Weidenbaum founded Disquiet.com, which is focused on the intersection of sound, art, and technology, in 1996. A former editor of Tower Records’ Pulse! magazine, he’s written for Nature, Boing Boing, and the website of The Atlantic. He’s commissioned compositions from such musicians as Scanner, Steve Roden, and Stephen Vitiello, and lectures on the role of sound in the media landscape. He lives in San Francisco.

The book is due out on February 13, 2014.

*Photo by Steve Rhodes via Creative Commons and [flickr.com](http://www.flickr.com/photos/44124466908@N01/9259248510/in/photolist-f7d4ZG-f6XnDZ-f7d3FL-f6XyCr-f6XSX8-f7d8c1-f7czPm-f7cQLd-f6XE2T-f7cSAQ-f6XNzk-f6XPVp-f6XKDR-f6XFcg-f6XSjZ-f6XK4H-f6XGDM-f7d6dY-f7cCrj-f7cS1S-f6XsSZ-f7cVCb-f6XLgk-f7cRjQ-f7cAjm-f7cKK7-f7cE7E-f7cHws-f6XHtZ-f6XuBp-f7cKd1-9obtGW-9ks6Wv-f7d5uS-afB6xY-9knro2-e1nXjH-8VWT7L-7VpScV-e3a9dz).*