Audio Excerpts, Movements 1.5, 2

March 21, 2014, EMPAC, Troy, NY

The notion that underlies this piece is levitation, both literally and metaphorically. When composing I imagined the possibility of the sonic elements existing in a parallel dimension, the aural aspect holding matter suspended as if it were an apparition in an interstitial space. In the presentation of the work, a literal manifestation or demonstration of low-end frequency levitation takes place using hand-crafted subwoofers with materials hovering in the windows of the boxes. The piece evolved out of studies accompanied by drawings and texts as investigations of threshold states. It is comprised of three movements which, forming a tapestry structure, allude to the triadic process of Hermetic sublimation.

– SF

While I still buy records and tapes, increasingly for me, the time I spend Listening To Music has become a part of the more general act of Media Consumption, which is largely grouped under the heading Time Spent on the Computer. There is a permissiveness to mixing content in the new culture of sitting on your couch with your laptop, making your own entertainment. The flatness of more access means we listen to more disjointed content all the time, and has created a feeling of normalcy around collage. “Everyone is a DJ.”

A rising tide lifts all boats, and the flattening effect we feel around instant digital access has raised the volume of consumption while simultaneously making each audio delivery channel less special and each act of listening more interstitial. I’m trying to embrace music as just another type of audio, flowing seamlessly with audio from the Internet, Radio, TV, Social Media, and every other formerly autonomous media that has been folded into a computer and now comes out of laptop speakers. I’m trying to use my mixes and radio shows to reflect on this change in my listening and exploration habits in the world of audio.

This centralization of listening has made me much more keenly aware of where and how I listen to music or audio. If digital provides All Access to Everything All the Time With No Forgetting, and if all genres are equal in the Long Tail, then to me, the new challenge is to curate or corral content from different listening scenarios. The patter and crowd noise of live sports broadcasts that come out of my TV. The band pass filter of AM talk radio in the car. The slowly evolving house music on long drives. The podcast for doing dishes vs. the other podcast for woodworking. The freedom of the tinny bluetooth speaker vs. the tether of the high quality stereo ⅛” plug. Physical formats continue to intrigue me, too. Each unit entombs it’s own content, era, sound, and culture as it recedes into obsolescence, and it’s need for specific playback technology dictates a setting, a set of constraints for listening. I have another project where I record live radio on the fly, trying to capture some of the magic of a seemingly now outdated, non-personalized, live media delivery format.

Doing freeform radio shows have allowed me the flexibility of trying to capture and express a curated version of the Universal Listening, the sound of Media Consumption Today. While I appreciate and gather content from genre-specific and format-specific DJs, I’m too interested in the avant garde, and the excitement of grasping at the contemporary to fully commit to nostalgia in my own DJing. I want to make work that treats the sound of an episode of True Blood with the same reverence as all those Parliament albums I’m supposed to know. And with this mix for Lateral Addition I feel I took a step in that direction. I’m trying to let go of some of the “complete-ism” that drives both dedicated vinyl collectors and Spotify evangelists, because to save everything is not to know everything. It’s natural for content to recede past the horizon of our memory and to be renewed again through rediscovery.

—

I moved to Santa Cruz about a year ago. As a newbie, I have spent a good deal of time alone, as I have only a small social circle, and not a lot of work that gets me out of the house. I have turned to radio, podcasts, and other media as a way to fill the air with voices, to feel less alone.

This mix reflects that through a myriad of voices. It includes talking cowboys, surfers, computers, hippies, stoney prank caller types, TV teens, and awkward real life teens in their bedrooms. There’s an eight year old pretending to be Bill Clinton, DMX revealing that he sounds exactly the same in real life as on his records, mixtape DJs yelling, Miami drive-time radio DJs yelling, and one particular Miami drive time and mixtape DJ yelling about McDonalds. Back in the 70s and 80s Jerry and Cronos chatted with the crowd at their live shows, a Village Voice writer cut a record while riding real high on the fumes of the 80s downtown crossover scene in New York, while Travolta the townie scumbag kid danced in Bay Ridge. We’ve got more kids singing in Spanish, plus their Peruvian hype man, autotune, comedians who voice cartoons, video game troll dudes, and a Chicago commuter who hears jazz in the parking garage. About ten years ago for Halloween I wore a long shroud that I made out of cassettes and fishing line over a sort of b-boy jumpsuit. I bought those tapes off Craigslist, and digitized two of the home recorded gems for this mix.

Enjoy!

– BMW

—

Tracklist:

Artist – Title (Album, where applicable)

Stardrive – Stardrive (Intergalactic Trot)
Bill Cobham / George Duke Band – Almustapha the Beloved (live)
Tuning ‘77 – https://archive.org/details/gd1977-12-31_505
An American Hippie in Israel trailer – http://youtu.be/Qry7XccmQKo
T. Texas Tyler – Deck of Cards
Longmont Potion Castle
Jimmy Riddle Gives an Eefin’ Lesson – http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2009/03/eef-beat-manifesto.html
Hearn Gadbois – GAHT MAYH MOH8JOH3 WOYKIHN (Tellus #12)
Amazing Amar – Talking About My Baby
Gary Wilson – 6.4 = Makeout (O.G. 1976 Version) (Mary Had Brown Hair)
MASON HO’S DREAM WAVE (edit) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMkfh4eX9v0 (see also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-5F_7DwPpo)
Door Does Impression of Miles Davis – http://youtu.be/wwOipTXvNNo
DMX Rides Orlando Sling shot !!!HILARIOUS!!! – http://youtu.be/-tZ3-a7lCAU
Three 6 Mafia – Twist It, Hit It, Light It (Instrumental)
DMX – Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer – http://youtu.be/TPXWZxtDooY
Wendy Sulca – La Tetita
Donny Matsler – 2001 (DONNY MATSLER at his… Lowry Organ) – http://waxidermy.com/donny-matsler-at-his-lowrey-organ/
Migos – Adios (Cory B Intro) (Y.R.N. Young Rich Niggas mixtape)
Jon Benjamin Voices Hal in 2001- A Space Odyssey – Late Night Basement – http://youtu.be/G0cqV3h-aDA
Saturday Night Fever
Venom – Live At City Gardens, NJ. CLASSIC. – http://youtu.be/4TztqYaemt0
Los Mier – Santa Claus Le Di Un Beso a Mama
Karol y Su Amor Gitano – Llorando Se Fue
Los Kjarkas – Llorando Se Fue
Mannie Fresh Lecture Redbull Music Academy 2011 – http://vimeo.com/32362836
Strafe – Set It Off (Instrumental)
GTA Guitar Bro – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jQkxsEbnS4
Raymond Scott – Don’t Beat Your Wife Every Night / Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (Manhattan Research Inc.)
Arthur Russell – The Platform on the Ocean (Calling out of Context)
Verticle Lines – Beach Boy
Guitar Red – Fantasy (Hard Times)
Suicide – Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne (Second Album)
WPOW Miami Power 96 Don Cox 1994 California Aircheck Video – http://youtu.be/WfrATpB2UCQ
DJ Khaled McDonalds ads (edit)
Longmont Potion Castle
Ryan Winter – Bill Clinton Speech / If I Could Give A Gift To The World (Ryan Winter, Age 8 ½, 3rd Grade, 11/93 – 12/93 cassette)
Franklin – Sometimes (Franklin’s Demo cassette)
90210 (edit)
20th Century Fox Flute Version | HQ – http://youtu.be/IsdCGQbbd8k

Please click here to listen with Dan Letson’s visuals.

Music for The Memphis Group was written in late 2013, inspired by the Milan design collective of the same name. The work produced by the association of international artists – active between the years 1981 and 1987 – playfully engaged in hypothetical and pragmatic applications (furniture, apparel, sculpture, kitchenware) for emerging global resources, both synthetic and organic, rare and commonplace.

The loud colors, plastic laminate, and asymmetrical patterning was intended in part as a rejection of dominant Modernist aesthetic ideals of the time – ideals that still hold over today in contemporary attitudes concerning clean, “essentialist” design. The Memphis Group’s willful, incongruous eclecticism filtered into a catalog of gleeful chimera, where the space-aged ornamentation of American Googie architecture fused with minimalist post-industrial Japanese practices, and where quick-witted Italian commercial design ran rampant alongside crude approximations of tribal iconography.

Despite their polymorphous approach, I could not find clear-cut examples of musical pieces sanctioned by Memphis. Scattered bits of influence seemed to be apparent – the contemporaneous work of Hosono Haroumi, Mark Mothersbaugh’s Muzik for Insomniaks, and Shimizu Yasuaki’s Music for Commercialsserved as principal inspiration for how to translate these aesthetic ideas.

Since the Memphis Group’s productivity emerged alongside of General MIDI and Fairlight technology, I collected large sound libraries of correlated materials and peppered them with 1950s exotica records. I made this choice to highlight the shared, reckless sense of global appropriation. Compositionally, I used contrasting time and key signatures as well as abrupt tonal shifts to mirror Memphis’s commitment to the asymmetrical. Above all, my priority was to preserve the humor and accessible heterogeneity of the original work.

Dan Letson is responsible for the visual element. His involvement was something that I had hoped for, even before the piece was finished, as his insight into the Memphis Group’s practice was absolutely integral to finishing the work. In this presentation, each track is coupled with an algorithmically-generated pattern constrained by a set of parameters that reflect certain compositional elements. Each viewing generates a unique arrangement.

I’d also like to thank Andrew Shamash for repeated listening and Eric Laska for corralling this effort and sharing it. I hope you enjoy it.

– MW

1. 00:00

Base Mutant was recorded to tape in the basement at 16th and Moore, between January and April of 2014. I made around six versions, trying out different BPMs and filters, but this one sounded best. Like the other tracks, this one was written on a Yamaha PF-500 and a MC-909. On the 909, I primarily used the synth voices “SonicVampire” and “Dial,” both of which were programmed by long-time Roland Engineer Nick Tidy. Aside from doing sound design for Roland— including 909 as well as 303 voices— Tidy composed soundtracks for a number of shareware games, most notably “Starscape.” Released in 2004, Starscape took the classic “Asteroids” 2D shooter as its model. Most of the play bears close resemblance to the original, substituting hollow outlines for relatively detailed spaceships and lasers. The most significant addition to the game, though, is the elaborate storyline, which unfolds in a series of vignettes that appear after each boss is destroyed. Tidy’s soundtrack, frantic and densely layered with bells, hits all the expected spots of 90s UK garage and techno. It seems to fit perfectly with the mundane text that scrolls along at the bottom of the screen. In the modern “Asteroids,” before the protagonist can blast away rock formations, they first need to secure permission from personnel at Research and Development: A screen appears where a hoary scientist in a white lab coat asks you to fill out a form concerning details of the planned itinerary. Garage techno blasts away as he apologizes for delays: “Once we have enough staff, everything will go a lot quicker. ” Another notable dynamic introduced by “Starscape” is the space base, which is destroyed in slow suspense throughout the game. While the original “Asteroids” encouraged the user to protect an invisible earth concept, this version introduced a visible base, called the “Aegis,” that mutates with every error. Each time the base suffers, Tidy’s soundtrack increases in speed and includes more snare drums. Upon failure, “Buum Bass” throbs as the following message scrolls: “You are lost in the icy vacuum of space.”

2. 05:30
Frounce was recorded to tape in the basement at 16th and Moore, between January and April 2014. It uses one of two “D-Beam” controllers located at the front of the 909 unit. D- Beam functions like a theremin but uses infrared rather than radio waves. Generally they make an extended wheezing sound, like air being released from a balloon, with loudness varying by proximity. Otherwise they can be set in correlation with a given sample, in this case the “QuakyPSqr” on the Yamaha PF-500. Introduced in 2000, the D-Beam was not a Roland product but was licensed by the now defunct “Interactive Light Inc.” Strict copyright prohibits the distribution of any stored D-Beam patterns.

3. 09:30
Trust One (Blowout): “He looks like John Travolta but with curly blond hair.”(UndrWater909 120:Clubbin 096:RugBurn KrasheadSaws HipHop Drums 1 HipHop Drums 2 HipHop Drums 3 HipHop Drums 4 Human Beat 1 JAck Hammer G-Funk Voice Break It On Check It Out I Like That Thats Tight Dolphin Lo Applause Pa! Chiki! Jungle Crash Swag Rim Planet Clap Regular Ride RaggaTight SD Jive Kick Jngl Tiny SD Regular OHH We’r d’ROBOZ Hi? Kick Da Lion Duel Ethno Eeh Formant Female Oos .T Nite Bass KingApprochz FnkDittyMute Splatter Criminal JunoWotImean ArtifFrog Bustranza BooSoloBoo Lonely Heart Bottle Clown) (The ● symbol alerts the user to things that must be carried out. The specific thing that must be done is indicated by the design contained within the circle. Do not excessively bend or otherwise damage the cord, place heavy objects on it, or place it in a position where anyone could walk on, trip over, or roll anything over it. Do not put burning items, such as candles, on the unit. Do not defeat the safety purpose of the polarized or grounding-type plug. Special Rhythm Sets are rhythm sets that can be used only if the SRX- 05 “Supreme Dance” wave expansion board is installed in the MC-909).

4. 10:45
GRIP was recorded to laptop in the bedroom at 16th and Moore, in December of 2012. The opening sample (“In the grip of some force that I cannot explain”) comes from a horror movie arbitrarily selected from Netflix, title unknown. A remix of GRIP is forthcoming from a Philadelphia-based sound artist. He takes exercpts of movie soundtracks and collages them together in Virtual DJ (two deck skin) to a disorienting effect. On listening to GRIP, he commented that the central sample sounded a bit like a sink drain. When discussing his musical process, he uses a lot of fishing analogies: “I catch samples.” Ideal sound production, he says, is an iPhone placed in a glass cup, playing a track from YouTube. Like vinyl, a YouTube file inevitably ends and forces you to consider the next selection.

5. 14:10
Trust Two was recorded to tape in the living room at 16th and Moore, between July and August of 2014. Since then three vocalists have proposed making additions to the track. The first came by and went straight to the basement, jerking and wheezing, crying out and smacking the lips etc., only to find that the tape had run out. The second vocalist said “slow it down for me.” I did as he requested, but he wasn’t satisfied. “Even slower.” I did so and haven’t heard back yet. I asked a third vocalist, my roommate at the time, who expressed interest but stressed that she only sang opera. Hitting C repeatedly on the Yamaha she sang half of an aria by Lorca. Her two dusty cats to circle around her with their stomachs nearly dragging on the ground.

– TL

PDF with Text and Translations

Contributions from (in the order in which they occur):

Lucio Capece
Jürg Frey
Laura Steenberge
Mark So/Eileen Myles
Jason Kahn
Manfred Werder
Jakob Ullman
Eric Laska
Maryanne Amacher
Michael Pisaro
Johnny Chang (with Dina Khouri)
Madison Brookshire
Jordan Topiel Paul
Bill Dietz
Andrew Lafkas
Walter Branchi
Éliane Radigue
Mani Kaul
Peter Ablinger

Uneven Developments is conceived as two independent monophonic compositions of synthetic sounds to be played simultaneously.

Diverse sonic events with varying duration and volume appear and behave independently on each channel. While the palette of sounds may be quite similar on both channels due to the uniform method of sound generation that is based on and inspired by analog modules, the aim of this piece is to reconsider the dominant consensus regarding the notion of stereo sound. Therefore, a central and fixed position for listening is not required and “uneven” or “unusual” speaker arrangements are strongly encouraged.

The piece is born out of two sound collages made with digitally generated sounds from Supercollider and includes processed recordings realized at the BEA5 analog studio of The Institute of Sonology in The Hague, 2013.

patooo.net

– RP

1 – An aphorism interrupted by some anecdotal wood
2 – An aphorism interrupted by some anecdotal wood
3 – An aphorism interrupted by some anecdotal wood
4 – An aphorism interrupted by some anecdotal wool
5 – An aphorism interrupted by some anecdotal oven
6 – An aphorism interrupted by some anecdotal wool
7 – An aphorism interrupted by some anecdotal wood

– HP

Please read the following instructions before playback:

The audio above is not the work but a means to facilitate the dynamic listening which you must perform.

Throughout playback you must adjust the volume of your playback system in relation to the constantly shifting loudness of the audio track.

The object of continual volume adjustment is to maintain as constant a resulting perceived volume as possible, despite continual changes of volume built into the track. Performance requires constant attention to the track’s loudness and simultaneous compensation in relation to its changes:

– if the track gets louder, you must turn down playback volume;
– if the track gets quieter, you must turn up playback volume.

By such constant compensation, perceived volume should remain as static as possible.

There are two suggested base playback levels and options for performance:

1) Throughout performance, audio should be kept at the threshold of audibility. This means that the volume level to maintain throughout should never exceed or be less than that volume level below which you could no longer apprehend an audio signal. This means that throughout performance, what you hear should be perpetually on the edge of “nothing”: as soon as you hear “something”, tend to turn it down; as soon as you can no longer hear “anything,” tend to turn it up.

2) Throughout performance, audio should be kept at the threshold of comprehensibility. The material of the audio track is spoken English text. This means that the volume level to maintain throughout should be the minimum level necessary to “follow” the semantic context of the text. This means that throughout performance, what you hear should be perpetually on the edge of clearly making out the content of the text, but no more: as soon as you clearly understand it, tend to turn it down; as soon as you can’t understand it, tend to turn it up.

In both cases, loudness changes in the track swiftly, slowly, and at every speed between; so too must your compensatory adjustments be.

+++

Notes:

– Audio begins only after 15 seconds.
– The audio track begins extremely quietly (ca. -50 dB). As such, your playback system should be turned up to its maximum setting to hear anything at all. From there, one can best proceed with either of the performance options.
– Before attempting performance, make note of the functioning of the volume controls of your playback system – whether in the form of a knob, slider, button on your keyboard or remote control, or whichever virtual control you might have on your computer or device screen. You must be able to dynamically adjust volume during playback.
– Before attempting performance, you might determine and accustom yourself to the playback level you have chosen for performance (1 or 2) so that you can better track that level during performance.
– If during playback at maximum volume your system cannot fulfill the audible requirements for performance options 1 or 2, you might consider an alternative playback system or playback via headphones.
– If during playback your system is too loud, you will need to perform the entire listening in the lower portion of your possible volume spectrum. If your volume controls do not offer adequate dynamic range in the quieter register, you might then consider an alternative playback system or playback via headphones.
–

“Successful” performance is unlikely on your first try. Performance can and should be “rehearsed.” Advanced performance might also enter into loudness compensation of noisier or more dynamic playback environments.

+++

The text of the audio track, a condensed version of Bill Dietz’s “Holiday Vignettes” (2013), was read by Tami Birch, Chris Dietz, and the author on January 10th, 2014 in Bisbee, Arizona.

A live study for “Nuvole Detail” was presented on December 21st, 2013 at Exploded View Gallery in Tucson, Arizona.

A “Nuvole Detail” Tutorial Diversions Profiling Software, with which any audio source material can serve as the basis for listening performance, will be released later in 2014.

– BD

This recording was produced during a sculpture critique with Irina Arnaut and David Barr.

– SL

EL: soo

first
in terms of editing, mix of the track
any thoughts?

Me: I just listened through again
and was wondering about the order
of the question sets

EL: ok

Me: like what if we move the first question set to after the talking set?

Me: it’s hard to say though if that would make any difference
as it stands it’s not too bad
it’s just really austere in the beginning
and a little silly at the end

EL: hah

Me: though the pink noise helps
actually quite a bit
after the describing food section

EL: its a cleanser

Me: totally a palate cleanser

EL: I’ve been working with pink noise
natural comb filters
I’m open to changing the order
I think it might be better that way because
the call and response process
is sort of like q and a
not q and q
so if we rearrange it
it might make it clearer as just qs

Me: the first three sections
are pretty pat
as in they make a lot of sense as a series of responses

Me: what if we start with sine tone?
then COD
then food
then Mexico, your click track, pink noise and dog howl?

EL: ok
I can do that

Me: or at least give it a try

EL: the one mix thought I had
yeah
I’m into rearranging it
I think describing food sounds a bit bassy or loud or something
I might just bring it down a bit

Me: it’s a super shitty recording
done through a crap mic in front of a speaker

EL: I usually dont mess with the mix too much on LA cause I want it to be as it is

Me: either clean it up or make it messier

EL: ok I might just leave it then

EL: I think this is all about

Me: there’s some mic feedback that happens
that bassy part

EL: not changing things to make them more palatable

Me: no and my sort of thing is lo-fidelity
and shit recording

EL: good

Me: partially because I don’t have the right equipment

EL: ok I’ll leave it

Me: and partially because all these artifacts are becoming extinct
and that’s interesting to me
sonic extinction

EL: it’s all just diffusing into the ether

Me: so when I was listening again today
it sounded a bit less cynical
though I still wonder if it’s opening anything up
or is it just sort of lazy? I felt lazy on my part

Me: though I did spend some time thinking about how to pose a question in sound

EL: like our idea of “question” was too open ended?

Me: perhaps

EL: it’s a perspective, right?

Me: and we didn’t get a chance to really talk midstream about what was happening once we started passing sound back and forth

EL: true
well if you think about an actual interview
its a real time, intuitive activity

Me: yes

EL: so maybe you felt lazy
because you were thinking
“if this is a piece of work
this is lazy work”

Me: but if this is an interview
it’s probably more natural, less lazy

EL: going with whatever sound you think is appropriate

Me: I definitely think that back and forth interviews over the internet make it difficult to get the true face to face quality
because everyone spends so much time on their questions and answers
so part of me did want to be quick about things

EL: kind of like how everything is photoshopped
interviews are cleaned up
but I think the perspective point is important
because as long as you think of each section as a question

Me: is it worth it to share what kinds of questions we felt we were asking with the sounds?

EL: you will process the interview differently than if you experience it as a work
if you think the thinking behind them is interesting
I guess my thinking was kind of obtuse

Me: I mean I definitely took each track as a question

EL: more macro

Me: and started from there
sort of intuiting what was being asked

EL: I think it has interesting aesthetic implications though

Me: how so?

EL: well
like the aesthetics of an interview
but stripping that format of its normal traits
and filling it with material that is more commonly considered from an aesthetic perspective or attitude
telling a public this is an interview and not a work

Me: what are the aesthetics of an interview ?

EL: trying to struggle with how to approach the sounds
well I think all aesthetics is perspective
anything is art right?
its just how you approach it
but some things are more well defined than others
you go to a museum
or listen to a recording
it’s easier to say
this is art or this is music
when you listen to an interview
you probably focus more on the content
and think less about the particulars of the format

Me: my thought was what does it mean to pour different content into established forms
the form of the interview for instance
that A to B to C to D and so forth
or even the use of an interview inside an interview
is our interview more about the form of interview?

EL: yeah maybe its less about questions and answers
more about this kind of conversation format

Me: the abstraction of asking a question in sound is probably too broad
but the idea of making an interview in sound … hmmm..

EL: I think its pretty clear that
we were having a conversation

Me: yea.. I think so

EL: hmm

Me: is that less interesting
just a sonic conversation?
does that open anything up?

EL: we can just call it Interview

Me: I thought about the questions that these sounds may have raised

EL: yeah I think
it’s more natural to think of them as questions than answers
cause answers are closed
An Interview
in Sound
hmm

Me: that’s an important distinction right.. is this an interview, a discussion, a debate?

EL: its too serial to be any of those
think about the word interview
its a view of the inside

Me: it’s also really linear
which is more interview like

EL: we approached it that way
question is harder
I mean we can still think of the material as questions
but it might be less significant to explain that

Me: well supposing that it’s difficult to say who was asking the question and who was providing the answer
sonically it doesn’t seem so completely certain
in fact the most Answer Like sound seems to be the first one in a way
it’s a sound that seems like a statement to me

EL: hmm

Me: perhaps that’s on account of my relationship to the sample

EL: perhaps

Me: which I’ve used in so many different performances now
that is has a certain value that’s been assigned to it

EL: yeah

Me: the other sounds are all open for me
and mostly used here for the first time

EL: but it doesnt necessarily answer any of the other questions
in this context it works as a question

Me: I love when this guy talks about how he loves lyricism

Me: and cites Eminem as a favorite

EL: I thought it was perfect
do you notice he hardly takes a moment
he just reads off questions one after the other
he’s playing COD while he’s doing this btw

Me: he’s just scrolling through this screen
I thought about what it means to “play” something
when I listened to this

EL: “some really bad questions in here…”

Me: “no offense to those that sent them in” !

EL: I’m really happy

Me: shout out to MongolianGnome

Me: he’s very smooth

EL: whats your middle name
“joe”

Me: Bethel

EL: you? Bonnie Bethel

Me: Bonnie Bethel Jones

EL: solid

Me: do you carry a pocket knife?

EL: such a fine start

Me: I’m wondering about the impetus behind my response/question to this…
the describing food

Me: I think my response was snarky

EL: what is describing food from?

Me: english language lessons

EL: thats what i thought

Me: for Koreans
who probably dominate COD anyways

EL: I was thinking if I could go back and tweak what I did
my first question
after your sample
I would take out the last two sections
and just leave it silent
the first beating motif

Me: you could do that if you wanted

Me: the Mexico into that first section is musically awesome

Me: hard not to hear it that way

EL: we are changning it anyway

EL: and I like how it kicks off
we are photoshopping right now

Me: editing
actually

EL: I dont want to be doing this from an aesthetic place
but the choices i made

EL: originally were kinda aesthetic

Me: yea… I think my first question was aesthetic
but then again
I do have a strong attachment to that sample

EL: its good
its the starting point
we needed to start somewhere

Me: my other choices were made as quickly as possible

EL: what are we deciding on describing food
leave it be?

Me: I think I wanted to put it out there that the voice is an instrument
designed to convey meaning
but meaning isn’t really singular
so to a native speaker
the way this guy describes food is a little weird

EL: oily

EL: he thinks it’s all tasty

Me: that’s weird

EL: do you know this guy

EL: we should tour with him

Me: oily is for like skin and hair
and hot oil wrestling

EL: and oilies
http://www.oilies.co.uk/image/3%20packs_cleaned.jpg

Me: I’m not sure I’ve ever had a conversation that felt completely open
at each turn
but maybe I’ve made music that had aspects of that

Me: entire areas unresolved

EL: i think thats a definition of a good musical experience

Me: what about the hounds do you think?
we had a duo

EL: I thought it was you at first

EL: thats a live duo?

Me: yes

Me: I guess I have been thinking more about nature and electronics

Me: perhaps this is on account of the cicadas

Me: they were up here in New York and I caught just the tail end of them
the 17 year guys

EL: aged and ripe
I’m thinking this piece
will be good

Me: not a piece..an interview

Me: maybe we should do a COD style
live tweeting

Me: we can set something up after you put out the edition
and open it to the public to live QA us
not that anyone would.. haha

EL: you never know

EL: what are we calling this?

Me: .. was trying to think about that
Could just be the usual.. Interview with Bonnie Jones & Ricky Laska

Me: I sort of love the idea
of you having a sort of regular thing
where you do some kind of interview
that tweaks the interview problem
of talking about music with musicians

Me: interviews and trying to tell someone about musical ideas in words
sometimes sucks

EL: yeah

Audio from Whistling while walking through Charamarende Castle, 2009 and On the Moods of Sound (1 and 2), 2010

Sound is contingent on material yet it has no material component of its own. In some of your recent work, you focus on the material that shapes acoustic environments (such as the wood in Tonewood Hills and the awning in Eve). By emphasizing the physical reality of sound, the non-ethereal, material aspect of aural perception is accentuated. It is my belief that part of what distinguishes the culture surrounding sound practices from the wider field of visual culture is the tendency to look inward and deal with the formal aspects of sound while neglecting the outward, external elements that also inform sonic experience. I would be interested in you addressing this particular concern within your work.

Sound has no obvious materiality but it does still have materiality.

As with the media of light, one of the unique and fascinating characteristics of sound is that it can be present and absent simultaneously.

I am very interested in the relationship between the various elements that shape a situation, a space, an experience. You might say that light makes it possible to see walls or that walls enable one to experience and catch light. With sound resonating in a room, a room’s tone is created by distances, material, heights of ceilings and the thickness of walls.

A point I find interesting in Steen Eiler Rasmussen’s text Hearing Architecture is that buildings are built to make certain ways of singing or talking possible or impossible and that certain ways of singing are developed for specific buildings. This relationship between sound and architecture, in particular, has been crucial for me.

The relationship is also something I am currently investigating as part of a work/study in South India. In several of the temples here, there are pillars constructed specifically to create a unique room tone. These are referred to as musical pillars. In one particular temple, two pillars were removed by the British at some point in history. I am interested in somehow imagining and re-creating the tones that the two missing pillars may have created.

From a conceptual point of view, the project relates to a series of soundboards made of resonating tonewood that I have made. The soundboards do not produce their own sound. They exist as suggestions for alternative non-standardized resonances (see Three Non-standardized Resonances). The space between what can be heard, what can be audibly remembered and audibly imagined is central to my practice. And here the materiality and form of the objects become objects in their own right but also abstract tools with which to begin the thought process into the remembered and the imagined.

– UN

Field recordings, MP3 compression

2013

Recordings often ask you to listen out-of-body by immersing yourself in the stereo image that the medium is reproducing. As if music were a window whose objects you could only perceive by imagining yourself on the other side.

Immersion Loop asks you to stay where you are, to view the surface of the window and feel its effects in your space. The music is immersed, not the listener. Go about your business as though this sound is equal to all others: chatter, wind, traffic, footsteps, radios, appliance noise, etc.

– JTP

“To understand the trajectories of the stars through a galaxy, Michel Hénon computed the intersections of an orbit with a plane. The resulting patterns depended on the system’s total energy. The points from a stable orbit gradually produced a continuous, connected curve. Other energy levels, however, produced complicated mixtures of stability and chaos, represented by regions of scattered points. […]

The nested detail, lines within lines, can be seen in final form in a series of pictures with progressively greater magnification. But the eerie effect of the strange attractor can be appreciated another way when the shape emerges in time, point by point. It appears like a ghost out of the mist. New points scatter so randomly across the screen that it seems incredible that any structure is there, let alone a structure so intricate and fine. Any two consecutive points are arbitrarily far apart, just like any two points initially nearby in a turbulent flow. Given any number of points, it is impossible to guess where the next will appear—except, of course, that it will be somewhere on the attractor.

The points wander so randomly, the pattern appears so ethereally, that it is hard to remember that the shape is an attractor. It is not just any trajectory of a dynamical system. It is the trajectory toward which all other trajectories converge. That is why the choice of starting conditions does not matter. As long as the starting point lies somewhere near the attractor, the next few points will converge to the attractor with great rapidity.”

From Chaos: Making A New Science by James Gleick (pgs. 148-150)

The track is a collection of études whose content is entirely derived from sonification of the Hénon Map and a sound file of the Chaos: Making A New Science AAX format audiobook interpreted as raw audio data.

Realized in real time without any human interference, each étude is the diffusion of a single variation of a compact patch coded by Fraser & Rosenberg in Supercollider in which the chaotic sonifications modulate various parameters regulating the playback of the raw data sound file. The études were sequenced in Audacity, each separated by a period of silence. All software utilized in the piece is free and open source.

– RER & IMF

Iteration · December 8–10, 2012 · Philadelphia

Counter-variation · Strict partial order · Samples · Apartment · Two rooms subdivided into four sections, connected by another · Two to four doorways · Peavey bass amp · Water · Vans

Outline/blurb assigned numbered coordinates · Comments referencing room sections, objects occasioned, faulty time coding: https://soundcloud.com/lateral-addition/abd/s-3B10u · Lament metanalysis

Nonrandomized domestic recordings: four linear tracks, seven breaks · Contingent irregularities — exception: three guests arrive · Additive objects and/or surfaces substitute, account for one another’s duration — obfuscatory spatial treatments · Per lack of attention, nonproportional proximity the rooms the podcast · Admeasure · Aural minimalism in lieu of fiction · A man hissed from behind the door · Terminology · Regressive link · Discourse: “just me walking around” inference — preemptive, unsystematized save f trials of these spaces, their interchangeability, section lengths “two arbitrary silences, facilitating sound for rec,” imposing experiences, rites, approaches · Walking to and away from · Inability to construe systematization (e.g. weather) as voiding aesthetic games, I sunk my head only a little out of disappointment · Amount

The guests annex media · Andy Martrich : Iona (BlazeVox, 2012), Once : “The Empty Deck” (N/A, 1981), Trisha Low : Purge (Troll Thread, 2012) · Discretionary approaches of interaction and abandonment — compulsive wandering, browsing, setting down of

Attempts 40 seconds 8:00-13:00 · 50 seconds 22:00-25:00 · Bonus two more eclipsed segments

– JGF

The Musical Condition of Reasonable Conspiracy is a discussion-performance from the “discussion in a room” series I’ve been developing since 2011. My phone interview with the Australian composer Chris Mann discussing ‘composer’s conspiracy’ is transcribed into a script and reenacted by two performers while a group of Rome-based composers intervene throughout the conversation. Here, “discussion” means something simultaneously organized and performed by re-enactors, speakers, listeners and beholders, all of whom become conspirators in a shared unfolding process.

Re-enactors: Michael Fitzpatrick, Gaby Ford (The English Theatre of Rome)
Interlocutors: Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, Daniele Del Monaco, Matteo Nasini & Fabio Rizzi

• Chris Mann, composer and performer. “Language is the mechanism whereby you understand what I’m thinking better than I do (where i is defined by those changes for which i is required)”. He is currently based in New York City.

Meseo Pietro Canonica, Rome, Italy
24 May 2012

– HKW

Often, interview questions unduly influence the way in which one considers an interviewee’s response. By framing the responses with silence, a greater interpretive space is left open.

Conducted over Skype, September 2012

– EL