Free Oval / Markus Popp Ringtones

Yes, ringtones – from a 2010 promotional EP

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Oval, aka Markus Popp, continues to post free recordings to his Bandcamp page. Among the more recent is eight ringtones he released as a promotional EP back in 2010 to coincide with the double album *O*. This *Ringtones* EP contains brief tracks of repetitive, minimalist themes, half of them under a minute in length, the longest coming in at 1:23. They post-date the trenchant glitch of Oval’s early work and instead draw from his experiments with band instrumentation, in particular the use of taut guitar string sounds that have a distinct post-rock quality.

Album originally posted for free download at [oval.bandcamp.com](http://oval.bandcamp.com/album/ringtones-ep). The tracks are up for “name your price,” which includes “free.” More from Oval/Popp at [markuspopp.me](http://markuspopp.me/).

The Sound of Consumption

Collecting by feel, and by ear, in the toy store

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

20131104-lego

The sound comes from the end of the aisle. A wall of Lego boxes faces a wall of toy trains and other vehicles designed to delight children. The holiday crush is not quite in effect, but it is a weekend and the store is less than a month old, attracting curious shoppers. There is a temporary display at the end of the aisle. The display is a rack of inexpensive novelties, even by Lego standards: blind bags of toy figurines, each in an unrevealing foil package. You will not know which one you have purchased until you have opened it. Except in front of the rack there is a twenty-something man, clean cut and in good health, who has figured out a way around the blind bags. He is taking the Lego “minifigures” packages off the shelf one at a time. In short order, maybe five seconds each, he feels them, caressing the segments to ascertain what is inside: a gingerbread man, a yeti, a mustached policeman. The package design is covered in question marks, like the Riddler’s costume, but the man can essentially see inside. On an adjacent shelf he maintains a stack of the ones he desires, slowly and steadily making his way to a complete set of 16. Except for the brief moment when he switches between bags, there is a constant ruffling of metallic paper, like tinsel yet with an urgent, mechanical anxiousness in place of the seasonal gift-giving spirit.

Pachinko Fury

A field recording with a warning label

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

20131103-pachinko

I’ve regularly said that a multi-floor pachinko parlor in Tokyo is by far the loudest, most aggressive sound I have experienced in person, and I’ve said that as someone who has seen Metallica, Danzig, Fugazi, Slayer, Godflesh, and Napalm Death live in concert, just to name a few bands famed for their volume. The closest I’ve come to the pachinko parlor intensity was probably a Dinosaur Jr. show that was so loud people walked out of the concert hall, though the lack of enthusiasm may also have been because Nirvana was the opening act on that tour, and Nirvana, then still on the rise, was the portrait of a tough act to follow. In any case, as [mentioned here recently](https://disquiet.com/2013/10/30/how-hearing-shapes-your-fortune/), Seth S. Horowitz, author of *The Universal Sense: How Hearing Shapes the Mind*, is currently in Japan and making binaural field recordings of what he witnesses. His latest item from that information-gathering trip is [a pachinko parlor](https://soundcloud.com/universalsense/pachinko-in-the-maruhan), which [he tweeted about earlier this evening](https://twitter.com/SethSHorowitz/status/397229368201576448):

His description of the track, six minutes of white noise so dense with treacly pop music, mechanical fury, and crowd chatter is as follows: “In-ear binaural recording of a soundwalk through 3 floors of the Maruan Pachinko Tower in Shibuya, Tokyo at 11 AM. WARNING: Incredibly LOUD. Use low volume to listen.”

https://soundcloud.com/universalsense/pachinko-in-the-maruhan

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/universalsense](https://soundcloud.com/universalsense/pachinko-in-the-maruhan). More on Horowitz at [neuropop.com](http://neuropop.com/who_we_are.asp). Image found via [wikipedia.org](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hozomon_and_pagoda,_Sensoji_Temple,_Asakusa,_Tokyo.jpg). Image found via [wikimedia.org](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pachinko_parlour.jpg).

A Classic Synth, iOS-ified

An initial iSEM Demo by Dean Terry

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Demos of apps by musicians are a great way to explore both their unintended consequences and their inherent strictures. In contrast with promotional videos, which generally show the app used by someone with advanced knowledge of its inner workings, initial demos by new adapters have a more hands-on feel, with the general sense of someone coming to grips with adapting something to their own musical style and performance workflow. What follows is one of Dean Terry’s demo runs through the iSEM app, which as its name suggests is an iOS adaptation of the 1974 Oberheim SEM synthesizer. He’s an especially good reference point. Not only is he familiar with the original, he has two of them in his studio.

https://soundcloud.com/therefore/isem-test

Here are his notes on the piece, which has a steady, downtempo, stepwise flavor:

>Quick test of the iSEM iOS app. This is a first patch with some live parameter noodling, driven by the built in arpeggiator. Single take, one track.
>
>I have two actual SEMs in the studio. I think comparing is missing the point so I made something that took advantage of what this iOS app does best, which is modulation and polyphony. The best part is the 8 voice programmer which allows you to modify the sound for each of of 8 steps, which you can hear clearly in this test recording (except I’m only using 5 steps).
>
>Recording notes: This is not exactly what the app sounds like raw. It was recorded via the ipad analog outs into outboard studio preamps, eqs, and a stereo compressor. It was then sent through a few mix bus eq’s and compressors in Protools. This is how I treat all iPad apps and other digital sources and it helps make them more vibrant and analog-like.

Two promotional videos for the app:

Track originally posted for free download at [soundcloud.com/therefore](https://soundcloud.com/therefore/isem-test). More from Dean Terry at [deanterry.com](http://www.deanterry.com/). More on the iSEM app at [itunes.apple.com](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/arturia-isem/id673921187) and
[arturia.com](http://www.arturia.com/evolution/en/products/iSem/intro.html).

Past Week at Twitter.com/Disquiet

/ By Marc Weidenbaum
  • RIP, Lou Reed (71). It'll be a Hudson River Meditations day. ->
  • Read article for free about not doing things for free by guy who acknowledges he did something for free. ->
  • The ambient music of Lou Reed, RIP: http://t.co/EeN4jebTth ->
  • Yes! MT @_muncky: best thing about this week's @djunto: it demands you take time to listen rather than just produce: http://t.co/QAf7B9MzCW ->
  • RT @RBMA: 15 conversations with people who have shaped the way we listen to music. Out soon. #fortherecord #rbma15 http://t.co/S0U0oXhetC ->
  • Kudos to @geetadayal for getting at the tranformative experience of listening to Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music: http://t.co/KTciZa62T2 ->
  • Layers FTW. MT @boondesign: @disquiet I was listening to SAWII + Stars of the Lid: Refinement was playing underneath on Spotify. Surreal. ->
  • Tuesday noon siren in San Francisco: http://t.co/FrVmKgO1Mx ->
  • It's been almost two years since the Insta/gr/ambient compilation but SoundCloud + Instagram finally made good on it: http://t.co/HQqh6EX8Sy ->
  • Still in the "looks forward to looking forward to SHIELD" state. ->
  • Someone takes the time to post a lengthy negative response to an obituary yet doesn't sign name or use real email address? Ah, discourse. ->
  • RIP, William C. Lowe (b. 1941), who oversaw the launch of the IBM PC (b. 1981): http://t.co/VKLOo4DnDR ->
  • I like XXL and read it every month but every time I read XXL I just miss Scratch. ->
  • RIP, Lou Reed (71). It'll be a Hudson River Meditations day. ->
  • Today in sound class: the human voice (public address systems, spokespeople, phone menus). Particular focus on Dr Nina Power & pop futurism. ->
  • Great in-class presentations by students today on the sounds inherent in pool halls and in domestic kitchens. ->
  • Psyched to have essay in book alongside @chairmanmaonyc @DDDrewDaniel @peterkirn @PhilipSherburne + + + http://t.co/2R3rhitn9k #fortherecord ->
  • Tonight we moved our monthly SoundCloud API development group to @carbonfive. ->
  • Question 1: When will Google Drive spreadsheets be available offline on Macs? ->
  • Question 2: When is A$AP Rocky's instrumental album, Beauty and the Beast: Slowed Down Sessions (Chapter 1), finally coming out? ->
  • One good thing about my glasses: on Halloween all I do is let a bit of a Superman t-shirt be visible from inside my outer shirt ->
  • Nothing is scarier than witnessing company after company trying to make itself relevant to Halloween or vice versa. ->
  • That thing where you waste time looking for ways to make OS X allow you to right click to create a new txt file. ->
  • It's a good day to listen to Kid Koala. Which is to say, it's a day. ->
  • Peculiar sentence born of circumstance: Disquiet Junto project #96 (Lou Reed tribute) goes out shortly, now that Halloween has abated. ->
  • The 96th weekly Disquiet Junto begins. Due this coming Monday. A noise tribute to Lou Reed: http://t.co/iJoAHHGg2b #metalmachinemuse #rip ->
  • Already 2 tracks in Metal Machine Music tribute. Copper, steel, gold: https://t.co/HO62bSx3PQ Brass, nickel: https://t.co/755tuzGVPL #riplou ->
  • Q: Did you know RealPlayer is now RealPlayer Cloud? A: No, I didn't. ->
  • I'm only just beginning to use it much, but this now exists: http://t.co/Z35kkEyEk7. ->
  • I'm looking for a part-time paid research assistant with interest in sound, tech, music, media, art. Bay Area preferred but not essential. ->
  • Pretty sure my three-year-old would enjoy it if asked to accompany me to a Saturday afternoon Ableton Push clinic at Robotspeak. ->