Latest Experimental Music News
Latest Experimental Music News
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Free and Cheap Jazz: Holiday Bargains in Live Music - Jazz Police Posted: 04 Dec 2007 10:51 AM CST
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Noise in France and Belgium this week - reminder Posted: 04 Dec 2007 12:07 PM CST Bonjour, Lives this week [reminder] Category: Music ____________________________________________________________________ [05-12-2007] Crno klank, Analog
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DIY-not? Music meet food - food meet music Posted: 03 Dec 2007 07:21 PM CST
By Chris DeMento "There's nothing glamorous about having shows in your kitchen," says Brianna Toth, 24. Crediting the likes of George Chen (and Club Sandwich) for the inspiration to program all-ages concerts at somewhat unconventional spots, Toth extols the simplicity of the monthly event she puts on at her 22nd Street apartment. Her abode sits atop an overpriced tapas joint, across from a lame happy hour, down there in the somewhat unconventional Mission. The series is called Music in My Kitchen. No red tape, no velvet rope, no plus-one waistoids mugging about, mostly. Mostly it's about new sounds, good food, and sharing. Local caterer-chef Leif Hedendal cooks the spread. The musicians play for free, and donations are placed in a plastic jug, and the suggested price is never more than $10 per head. It's usually $7 - enough to cover the cost of the food. She programs all kinds of performers, anything from soupy folk to harsh-noise acid-gravy. The audience brings its own Sunny D or whatever. What could be better than discovering some kid's sound while dispatching strangely flavored bean curd, profiling in a metal folding chair, making eyes at the pretty bangs across the room, sharing two-tone-tile floorspace with the other cool kids while polishing one's climbless karabiner ego? A win-win-win, really: cheap eats and music treats for the audience, nodding heads for the band, street cred for the homemaker-promoter. But Toth set me straight on all that. The Mission, though an overly sensitive district, is not without an entirely self-assured, hopefully anti-disingenuous concern for art as art. "Bands change when they play in the house," she says. "It's about providing intimacy." She hesitated to use the word "opportunity," conceding instead that Music in My Kitchen is a platform for exposure, band-to-audience and audience-to-band. The premise: accessibility and the tone of the shows. Personal experience is the pay-off. Says Toth: "I want to stand in my sink. It's the best view." The next Music in My Kitchen, coming in January, brings together the Ohsees and the Traditional Fools. For more info, contact Brianna at bravoal...@hotmail.com.  |
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Posted: 06 Dec 2007 09:15 PM CST The holidays are a time for family, schmaltzy Christmas commercials that somehow make you cry, and, if you are involved in music journalism, listmaking. Lots and lots of listmaking.
Over the past few years, the availability of year-end critics' lists has multiplied faster than the worry lines on Be ...
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Posted: 06 Dec 2007 04:02 PM CST José González “In Our Nature” (Mute)
You know, I admit, sometimes my musical snobbery simply gets the best of me. That has been the case for José González. I can not tell you how long I ignored Mr. González simply because of that singer/songwriter tag and all the press he was getting. That specific genre is overrun and frankly I just assumed that José González was like all the rest. Wow, I could not have been more wrong. In Our Nature is González’s second album and it is a beautiful testament to his artistry. One thing that distinguishes José González from his singer/songwriting peers is the fact that he really can play the guitar. Despite the delicate nature of most of his songs his guitar playing is full of power. In Our Nature is beautiful in its simplistic approach. Rarely do these tracks stray from focusing strictly on González’s emotional vocals and acoustic guitar. While his vocal skills might not reach the heights of the greats like Kozelek, Drake and Smith, his arrangements and skillful guitar playing allow him to sit quite comfortably next to those impressive names. So, I apologize Mr. José González. Please forgive me for I truly underestimated your talents. Genre: Indie/Pop/Acoustic RIYL: Nick Drake, Mark Kozelek, Elliott Smith,
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Viktor Toth - Climbing With Mountains (BMC records, 2007) ***½ Posted: 06 Dec 2007 04:50 PM CST  Viktor Toth is a young Hungarian alto saxophonist, playing here with Hamid Drake on drums, Matyas Szandai on bass and Ferenc Kovacs on trumpet, for a free bop record which has its merits. Some of the tracks are absolutely excellent, like "Autumn In Sicily", or "Snake" with its long-spun melody full of balkan influences, or the more uptempo "Train To Sarajevo", but then at times the band falls back into some more gentle, less adventurous mainstream pieces, such as "Mese" or "R's Day". Even if the compositions leave somewhat lacking, the playing is good : Toth, Kovacs and Szandai excellent musicians, as is of course Hamid Drake, who is as recognizable as ever, precise as clockwork, creative, supple and supportive, and especially shining in the faster pieces. Nice music, but a little too nice for my taste.But then again, who am I, if William Parker writes these wonderful words in the liner notes : "Please drop all pretensions and let these sounds dance in your souls, stirring things up to take you to the top of the mountain". Listen to Marcius Message For Fishes Mese Ornette's Smile Wings Snake  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Live Stage: Brandon LaBelle [Boston] Posted: 06 Dec 2007 11:17 AM CST
BRANDON LABELLE is an artist and writer working with sounds, places, bodies, and cultural narratives. He presented a solo exhibition at Singuhr galerie in Berlin (2004), and an experimental composition for pirate drummers as part of Virtual Territories, Nantes (2005). His ongoing project to build a library of radio memories, “Phantom Radio”, was presented fall 2006 as part of Radio Revolten, Halle Germany. He is the author of “Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art” (Continuum 2006). JARROD FOWLER used to be a drummer. His music has become so abstracted and conceptualized that his percussive practice bears little resemblance to that of his contemporaries. His work is influenced by the late- and post-modern fields of philosophy, conceptualism, hip hop, poetry, and noise. He is the author of “Translation As Rhythm” (Errant Bodies 2006).  |
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12/8 - TONEBURST 5:new and unusual experimental music from austin and beyond... Posted: 05 Dec 2007 12:47 PM CST  Toneburst is an semi-regular series featuring experimental music from some of Texas' finest underground musicians. Expect short, focused sets of improvisations / compositions by solo performers and the live debut of SIRSIT (Cory Allen, Brent Fariss, Josh Russell, Rick Reed). All the performers have a highly developed sense of texture, mood and unusual sonorities. To further enhance the experience, we will feature original video and slides throughout the show. Web site for more details. Saturday, December 8, 2007 - 8pm - $5-8 Ceremony Hall Google Map 4100 Red River Austin, TX  |
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Nine Oddball Sound Design and Recording Techniques from VideoHelper Posted: 05 Dec 2007 12:01 AM CST
VideoHelper, a sound production house, has a new library of sounds they call “narrative sound design,” a combination of “experimental” sound designs. You may have already heard some of the sounds from the two-disc collection, “Modules”, as the sounds have popped up in trailers for the likes of Spiderman 3, House of Wax, and Transformers. Since we love strange sound design techniques, though, I was just as interested in the techniques used to record the library, so I asked the boys of VideoHelper to share some of their favorite recording techniques. Sure enough, they’ve got some great examples — ones that might inspire you to go grab your mobile recorder and see what damage you can do. Chris from VideoHelper searched his memory and mentioned these techniques, some of which even have subliminal political messages (hey, sound is powerful stuff). Some techniques you’ll no doubt know well (BANG THING! BANG THING RECORD WITH MIC! being one of my personal favorites to use), while others may be new. Chris writes that his favorite tips are:
VideoHelper has full details on the Modules series, with searchable sounds and previews, at their website. The library includes “modular” cuts that can be edited into full designs, with individual and annual blanket licenses. VideoHelper Music Production Library
© Peter Kirn for Create Digital Music, 2007. | Permalink | 9 comments Add to del.icio.us Want more on these topics ? Browse the archive of posts filed under News.   |
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Links for 2007-12-05 [del.icio.us] Posted: 06 Dec 2007 12:00 AM CST
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Latest Experimental Music News
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Posted: 05 Dec 2007 03:52 PM CST On Monday, Radiohead plans to stop offering its
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Posted: 05 Dec 2007 03:06 PM CST  Minox's art is atmosphere and refinement, melody and instinct, strength and vigor in splendid balance, an avant-garde trend that seeks contact with various artistic genres, without the ideological pretence of defining itself as total art. It does not limit itself only to sound but also moves toward the visual and literary arts, dance and theatre, image and poetry. Minox are already well known on the international front thanks to important collaborations and productions linked to the "Bruxelles Sound" and tied to the Central-European movement developed in the 80s by labels such as Crammed and Les Disques du Crepuscule. The band has also authored music for theatrical pieces and the first mise-en-scène in 1985 gave birth to the single "Suite Maniacal" for the Artzine Free for Industrie Discografiche Lacerba. One year later, their first album "Lazare", produced by Steven Brown of Tuxedomoon, was released to great critical and public acclaim throughout Europe. Serious events subsequently mark the group's activity (Raffaele Banci and Enrico Faggioli, two members of the first Minox line up died in '86) so Mirco Magnani and Marco Monfardini spend a long period of time away from the musical scene, dedicating themselves exclusively to sound experimentation and research, after recording an album which unfortunately never came to be released. They make their comeback in 1991, with a musical-theatrical production entitled "Minox play Lorca", a critical re-reading of the folk songs and the theatrical music of Federico Garcia Lorca.In 1994, Marco and Mirco found their independent label Suite inc. and break the label in with the CD single "Plaza", a release that pieces together the legacy left behind by their collaboration with the legendary Industrie Discografiche Lacerba. A year later they produce "B Movie Show" a concept album featuring 4Dkiller, Dubital and Minox which is something of a complex soundtrack to image-less B Movies. This occasion marks the debut of 4Dkiller, a project of electronic syntheses, the fruit of Minox's persistent dedication to sound research and experimentation. Under this guise, they come to remix several of Minox and Dubital's tracks. Over the next two years Minox produce and mix "Dubital ep", "Ignoranza & cultura" 12", "Lite" and Technophonic Chamber Orchestra's 1998 release "Beats and Movements". During the summer of 1998 Minox releases their limited edition CD Single "U Turn" featuring Lydia Lunch and making with her an interesting italian tour. During 2000 Minox went to the studio to work with their friends and collaborators from 1986 Steven Brown and Blaine L. Reininger of Tuxedomoon. A tour with Steven Brown in Italy followed, and on November 2001 has seen the light their new album "Downworks" featuring The Gentle People, Lydia Lunch, Nobukazu Takemura, Blaine L. Reininger and more.In 2003 Minox have direct the 4th volume of the thematic series Suitable "Suitable #3 the downbeatniks" and have produced the debut album of Enfantronique "Ecole 72" in 2004 they have produced "Nemoretum Sonata" the second album of Technophonic Chamber Orchestra. Actually Minox are working on their new album, they've invited Jan Jelinek (aka Farben, Gramm - Scape, de) and Dictaphone (City Center Office, de) and are compiling "Suite inc. classics" featuring Murcof, Daedelus, Jan Jelinek, Nobukazu Takemura, etc.Great atmospheric minimal synth MLP much in the mid 80s european vein of Tuxedomoon...not suprising though as this was produced by Mr Steven Brown. get it here |
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A leap of faith with the king of improvisation Posted: 05 Dec 2007 09:56 AM CST Improvisation can be a scary word. Even classical musicians with years of training on their instruments can be struck silent when faced with filling in space without specific instructions. Yet as George Lewis says, we all improvise as part of our lives.
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Karlheinz Stockhausen 1928 -2007 Posted: 07 Dec 2007 02:44 PM CST  Stockhausen epitomised all that was wrong and right in the world of contemporary classical music for me. Controversial and eccentric, he was prone to talking about receiving his music from the universal consciousness, scoring music for string quartets and helicopters, and writing operas that lasted a whole day! There was always an uncomfortable, gimmicky aspect to some of his work. However, he was undeniably a pioneer who threaded the fabric of modernity from strips of magnetic tape with music concrete pieces such as Gesang Der Junglinge and the minimalist electronica Telemusik. Like most people of my generation Stockhausen came to my notice by word of mouth. One of the faces on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, he was often name-checked by musicians in the MM or the NME which eventually piqued one’s curiosity. As with John Cage (another frequently named-dropped icon of the avant-garde back then), entering into his world was like walking into a vast auditorium filled with possibilities and spring-boards to other places and spaces. The sheer range and choice that Stockhausen’s music implied could leave you breathless and dizzy. The piece of his that I kept coming back to throughout the years was the vocal work, Stimmung, whose ability to be both soothing and provocative made it utterly exhilarating. I wasted no opportunity to swank around telling people that I really dug Stockhausen, and it was great music to put on the record player when you wanted to clear the room or appear dreadfully highbrow and (you thought) sophisticated. Notwithstanding such youthful prattyness, I didn’t always understand or like what I heard but I knew it was never going to be dull and I was well and truly hooked. In the mid-70s my sister, Lesley returned from Heidelberg, Germany where she was living at the time and presented me with a huge vinyl box set of the epic Aus Den Sieben Tagen (now sadly lost amongst several house moves) and Jonathan Cott’s Stockhausen: Conversations with the Composer was a constant companion, introducing me in some detail to the world of graphic scores, potentiometers and Stockhausen’s often bizarre but intriguing cosmology. More than that it was a portal into other worlds of strange music, filled as it was with references to lots of other people I’d never of such as Jung, Varese, Boulez, Le Corbusier, Berio and concepts about timbre, serialism, microtones and all manner of incendiary ideas that quite literally blew my mind. Stockhausen was a major artistic catalyst for me and like many others around the around the globe who came into contact with his work, my life was immeasurably enriched. It was from reading about and listening to Stockhausen that I stepped off into the world of performing music, drafting my own graphic scores and eagerly presenting them to the experimental music workshops hosted at Wallsend Arts Centre in 1975 and led by Keith Morris. The title of one of them, In The Stomach of God was lifted from Stockhausen’s recounting of one of his dreams, and used a text by Novalis (The Disciples of Sais) which Cott prefaced his book with, rightly believing it to be a perfect description of the man himself. “He watched the stars and imitated their courses and positions in the sand. Into the ocean of the air he gazed incessantly; and never tired of observing its clearness, its movements, its clouds, its illuminations.”
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Stockhausen Leaves Us With His Influence Posted: 07 Dec 2007 02:47 PM CST
Such was Stockhausen’s influence and stature that he was featured on the Beatles Sgt Pepper’s lonely hearts club band album cover, Frank Zappa cited him as an influence whilst founding members of ‘Krautrock’ group Can, Holgar Czukay and Irmin Schmidt studied under Stockhausen along with the original Kraftwerk. His influence is enormous and his body of work will no doubt divide critics and listeners alike for many years to come.
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News: Karlheinz Stockhausen R.I.P. Posted: 07 Dec 2007 02:45 PM CST
Renowned German composer and electronic music pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen passed away December 5 at his home in Kuerten, Germany, according to statement released today by Stockhausen-Verlag. He was 79. Born August 22, 1928 in a village near Cologne, Stockhausen rose to prominence in the 1950s with a number of pieces that broke decidedly with convention. Across a career that extended into this century, he invoked both awe and controversy with his unorthodox works, noted for their innovation and complexity. A man content to exist outside the classical establishment, Stockhausen saw his influence extend beyond it as well. Among his advocates were the Beatles, who included the composer on the collage cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The 362 works Stockhausen composed include the world's longest opera cycle (Licht, completed in 2003), the first annotated and published piece of electronic music (1954's Electronic Study II), and a piece for string quartet that also called for four helicopters (1993's Helicopter String Quartet). Like John Cage, he demonstrated a fascination with aleatory composition, that which accounts for an element of chance. Early in his career he was also a proponent of serialism, composition based on mathematical formulas. Stockhausen studied under Olivier Messiaen and Les Six member Darius Milhaud, among others. He was a highly respected teacher as well, whose students included several of krautrock's prominent figures, including Can's Holger Czukay and Irmin Schmidt. "In friendship and gratitude for everything that he has given to us personally and to humanity through his love and his music," wrote longtime collaborators Suzanne Stephens and Kathinka Pasveer in the Stockhausen-Verlag statement, "we bid farewell to Karlheinz Stockhausen, who lived to bring celestial music to humans, and human music to the celestial beings, so that Man may listen to God and God may hear His children." Licht will be performed in its entirety for the first time at October 2008's Donaueschingen Festival in Germany.
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Composer Karlheinz Stockhausen is dead (AP) Posted: 07 Dec 2007 06:06 PM CST
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Pioneering German composer Stockhausen dies Posted: 07 Dec 2007 03:58 PM CST German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, one of the world's most influential 20th century composers and renowned for his pioneering work in electronic music, has died aged 79.
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Posted: 07 Dec 2007 01:52 PM CST I just heard that Karlheinz Stockhausen died today. For a proper obit, you can read the Guardian Unlimited article. I just figured that since I was playing Stockhausen’s work last week, I’d write a little bit about why Stockhausen matters to me– this is, after all, a blog.
I first heard one of Stockhausen’s works just over ten years ago, having been “introduced” to the master by Tony’s older brother Wess, who has long had a serious passion for modern and avant-garde composition. Tony and I could enjoy groups like Negativland, but on a deeper level, I guess I always wanted something more personally meaningful. When his brother started telling me about a German composer who would work months intricately splicing tape shards together, only to discard the resulting few moments as unacceptable… well, I knew I had better find out more about the mysterious Stockhausen.That first day, Wess let me make a copy of his “Elektronische Musik 1952-1960,” which he had ordered from Stockhausen’s own label. With the earliest of his electronic and tape pieces, including the amazing “Gesang der Junglinge,” it was a great place to start. Every track was exciting, full of new sounds, and very much what I wanted to hear. It wasn’t long after that I found copies of “Mantra,” “Hymnen,” and “Mikrophonie,” all of which took numerous listens. I didn’t even like Mantra for quite a while, being unable to understand the ideas behind the music. Of course, doing some reading helped. Hearing more of Stockhausen’s contemporaries helped. Even John Cage helped, as odd as that may seem. There’s a lot more to hear, and a lot more to learn… and that’s the way I’m choosing to look at this. I’m still on my journey with Stockhausen, and perhaps you are as well. Good luck, –DaveX Update: A memorial booklet from the Stockhausen Foundation can be found here. |
Karlheinz Stockhausen
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Posted: 07 Dec 2007 12:22 PM CST Legendary German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen has died. He was 79.
Guardian Unlimited Stockhausen.org This is the Hollow Tree Experimental Music Report atom feed.      
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HIMMELFAHRT (Ascension) Bar 1 Moment 1 2'19"( 4.3 MB high end .mp3) Posted: 07 Dec 2007 12:23 PM CST by Karlheinz Stockhausen  |
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Posted: 07 Dec 2007 09:24 AM CST I'm out of town on a teaching gig, which is perhaps why the news eluded me that my friend and...
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Difficult Listening Channel - 111 Posted: 07 Dec 2007 12:38 PM CST Like a Hollywood plastic surgeon, I did plenty of cutting to get this one just right. Edit after edit after edit. But that's what you love about this podcast. Headphone listening recommended. email: mi...@regurgitron.com web: www.michaeloster.com  |
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Posted: 07 Dec 2007 12:00 PM CST  August 22, 1928 - December 5, 2007 We'll be posting a great deal more in honor of the amazing life and work of Karlheinz Stockhausen.  |
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University of Arkansas offering ‘free music’ free at festival : NWAnews.com Posted: 07 Dec 2007 10:59 AM CST “We don’t play chord changes, and we don’t dictate tempo,” Sloan said. “We don’t know what we’re going to do until we get out on stage.”  bookmark this on del.icio.us
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Posted: 07 Dec 2007 01:14 PM CST Karlheinz Stockhausen, one of the most controversial composers of the 20th century, has died
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<em>Unsilent Night</em> sets a boom-box tone Posted: 07 Dec 2007 04:14 AM CST While many traditions have disappeared from the Christmas holidays, door-to-door caroling is making a comeback in a crazy way: Phil Kline's Unsilent Night for a variable number of boom boxes.
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The Soul of a New Instrument - Wall Street Journal Posted: 07 Dec 2007 01:50 AM CST
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Posted: 08 Dec 2007 01:13 PM CST Set sail for the sun
Play a tone for so long
Hold the tone Stockhausen Verlag :: Press release Press :: Guardian Blogs and other media Too many to mention, but here’s a representative cross section (ANAblog has way way more): :: Baltimore Citypaper.com |
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Nominations For Hypebot's Music Blog Awards End Sunday Posted: 08 Dec 2007 02:07 PM CST
Nominate you're favorite blog here. |
   
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MutantSounds Message to enviromental and earth protection Posted: 08 Dec 2007 02:45 PM CST  Friends of the blogThis is Mutant Sounds blog contribution to enviromental and earth protection.The need of new energy resources is urgent:climate changes,earth is burning,temperature rises,people die...no more music to be done.We have to stop this.The blog's suggestion to new energy recouces is energy from music!Since music is finally nothing else than mathematics,we can possibly transform the energy of "music" itself to useful types of energy.This is possibly a challenge ,for open minded scientists , to research.Imagine cars moving with music,planes flying with music ,cooking with music....THIS IS A DREAMWORLD! Anyway...just giving my litle contribution(possibly mutant one) to enviromental matters.... PS:collage shown above made by Jim Mutantsounds under the influence of so many things heard today about our "dying" planet.  |
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Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) Posted: 08 Dec 2007 12:38 PM CST Karlheinz Stockhausen who just passed away, would probably be best known for being listed on the Beatles St. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album (check your liner notes for where he is on the cover). But he was a modernist composer who was at the forefront of the serialist and electronic music in the 50’s, 60’s, and into the 70’s. He would also unfortunately be remembered for his controversial comments about the September 11 attacks in which he alleged to have said the attacks were “works of art”. As to whether he said it or not, it is possible he did. But in doing so, you would have to first understand the man himself and more importantly, his music for context. More importantly, that he would’ve not said to be sympathetic to the attackers in any shape or form. Rather, he was a consummate composer in which everything in the world was filtered through his ears (and eyes) as music. |
   
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Toyota unveils robot violinist (video) Posted: 06 Dec 2007 09:07 AM CST
The robot violinist is the latest addition to Toyota’s ensemble of musical androids, which can also play trumpet, tuba, trombone, French horn and percussion. In addition to further developing its musical skills, Toyota aims to continue improving the robot’s dexterity and coordination so that it can one day perform household chores. Also unveiled at the demonstration was a new mobility robot — a motorized chair that balances itself on a pair of self-adjusting Segway-like wheels that can roll smoothly over uneven surfaces and rough terrain. Intended as a personal transport system for the elderly, the mobility robot can run at a maximum speed of 6 kilometers per hour (3.7 mph) for 20 kilometers (12 miles) on a single battery charge, can handle 10-degree slopes, and is outfitted with sensors that allow it to avoid collisions with obstacles. Users can also summon the robot by remote control and use it as a porter to carry luggage. Toyota plans to begin testing the robots at hospitals next year, with the hope of putting them into practical use by the early part of the next decade. (Watch a news report about the robots.)
[Sources: Toyota, NHK] |
On December 6, several months after Toyota’s DJ Robot  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Moose Loose-Transition,LP,1976,Norway Posted: 09 Dec 2007 03:55 PM CST Great Norvegian progressive/Jazz LP,with much guitar and violin.No more infos available in English though,and no pic sleeve scans...any help would be much appreciated. get it here |
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Nokia Claims Ogg Format is "Proprietary" Posted: 09 Dec 2007 03:32 PM CST a nona maus writes "Several months ago a workgroup of the W3C decided to include Ogg/Theora+Vorbis as the recommended baseline video codec standard for HTML5, against Apple's aggressive protest. Now, Nokia seems to be seeking a reversal of that decision: they have released a position paper calling Ogg 'proprietary' and citing the importance of DRM support. Nokia has historically responded to questions about Ogg on their internet tablets with strange and inconsistent answers, along with hand waving about their legal department. This latest step is enough to really make you wonder what they are really up to."
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diseased visions & torturing nurse Posted: 09 Dec 2007 04:04 PM CST split 3" cd-r [2007, wasting] this split features one live track a piece by both projects. first is seattle-based diseased visions, which is levi berner (algiers, ground tissues, wasting...) and john lukeman from drowner and whatwedoissecret. next is shanghai's torturing nurse, which is currently junky, jiadie and youki.  diseased visions' piece from methfest is an exercise in hypnotic noise minimalism. the main component is a high pitched droning wail; think whistling tea kettle. below that is a repetitious loop of sound that i sort of lock in on as it nicely counteracts that shriller tone. towards the middle of their set they'll swap out the loop for a lulling motor-like sound. again, they'll continue to maintain a nice balance between dissonance and tranquility. the final minute breaks their motif a bit as everything drops off, save for introductory feedback and then an unexpected outburst of shouting... ... interestingly enough, torturing nurse's @ loft 49 opens up with a few yelps, making for a terrific segue. once past the initial fit of yelling, these guys get into some terrific multi-channel noise, offsetting diseased visions' less is more approach. particularly fucking great is the left channel manipulations of a sample. the way that it's being affected and the sound of it while it's being affected is a joy to my ears. meanwhile, in the right channel, there's great things happening over there as well. quite a few times the noise will briefly settle into nice repetitious patterns while the other channel continues on with the dynamics. add to this mix a great use of shouting (pretty catchy, actually), samples and noise that's just a blast to listen to and you've got yourself one hell of a reason to go to china. beautiful.Torturing Nurse @ Loft 49 |
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Posted: 09 Dec 2007 02:02 PM CST  Chronicle of Serial Murder Membrum Debile Propaganda, 2000. 1 We Slaughter (4:30) 2 Trolling '98 (6:00) 3 Primemover (1:15) 4 Activate Me (4:00) 5 Human Garbage (6:00) 6 186 Yard (3:30) 7 4315 Charlotte St. (4:30) 8 I Am The Night (1:15) 9 Constant Elevation (1:45) 10 Waste It (5:00) 11 Ken And Barbie (5:00) 12 Set Set Set (4:00) 13 I Zip (4:15) Limited to 500 copies. Comes in an A5 sleeve. Recorded in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn during the Spring of 1988.  Let Me Show You How Teito Sound Company, 2004. A1 Screwdriver (2:12) A2 Video Video (3:14) A3 One Second (1:50) A4 Built To Last (4:18) A5 Behind Closed Doors (3:34) A6 Hunts Point (3:37) B1 Read Me (3:08) B2 God Never Gives Me What I Want (4:31) B3 Again And Again (2:39) B4 Bond (4:25) B5 I Lash Out (2:29) B6 Judge And Jury (3:24) Now this is power electronics! Very much in the style that I like so much. Crushing, menacing and no fun at all.  |
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Review of the new Biota CD "Half A True Day" Posted: 09 Dec 2007 04:36 PM CST  the writer's opinions are their own and may differ from those of the bloggers on this site. this blog welcomes submissions from anyone interested in any aspect of electronic music. contact paddyoh...@gmail.com By Camden Newhouse "Biota’s work is the musical equivalent of the introduction of perspective to painting by Italian renaissance painters." Anyone who knows me knows that before I get to my point I have to tell a few jokes, set up a couple of metaphors or analogies, etc. And, like my pal Jesus Christ, I like parables. So, we’ve all either seen firsthand or know about the clod who stands in front of an abstract painting by Pollock or Kline or Motherwell and says “my kid could do that.” First of all, your kid didn’t do it, OK? If they had, I promise you it would be in the fucking museum. If you come home from work some day and find that your kid has stretched a canvas sixteen feet long by nine feet high and done a massive abstract expressionist painting, call the museum. Then call me. Second, ironically, your kid probably COULD do that, or something similar and you know why? Because kids create from the heart. Their creations are relatively pure and honest because they are unencumbered by the adult mind which is clogged with bullshit and criticizes itself while creating and says things like “that’s no good. Wait, maybe it is. No, it looks like the stuff that other guy did. Oh, I can’t paint. Who am I kidding? I wonder if these pants make my ass look fat?” Part of the point of those big messy seemingly simple abstract expressionist paintings is that to make them the adults who created them had to turn off that meaningless chatter of the mind that gets in the way of creating. Like kids. When I was a kid in music class around 1960, our teacher one day played us some “music of the future.” This was part of an attempt to broaden our minds and included an excerpt from Stravinksky’s “Firebird Suite.” The segment of futuristic music we heard was actually called “music of the future” and it consisted of – I am not kidding – chains clanking and a foghorn and a few other sounds I don’t recall, just randomly assembled. I’m not sure if the creator of this piece of shit intended to create the impression that experimental or avant garde artists are insane idiots, but he did. And I’m saying “he” because everything like this back in the 1950s and 1960s was created by white men. Now I was an open minded person even as a kid (which makes sense, you don’t tend to suddenly become open minded in later life) and when I heard this ‘music of the future’ I thought to myself, “Man, if THIS is what we have to look forward to I’m going to poke out my ear drums now.” Back in the fifties and sixties a lot of educational things did two things simultaneously: told us whatever was known about the subject at the time, which usually wasn’t much because westerners felt compelled to mock and/or ignore anything strange or foreign and… created horribly stupid stereotypes An example of this might be a little film shown to kids in school titled something like “Africa, the dark continent.” It would consist of footage of the weirdest shit they could find like people with logs shoved through their noses and nine thousand rings around their neck chanting over a dead chicken while the narrator told us in a condescending and/or patronizing way that this was how the savages worshiped God. And in music class you had people doing the same thing with music of the future and they created the impression – at least in my town – that weirdos like Cage and Stockhausen were like people with no legs – you pitied them and tried to accept them and avoided them whenever you could. So this is America’s relationship with non-traditional art. If it doesn’t have recognizable images like bowls of fruit or Jesus or a barn, it’s not painting. If it doesn’t rhyme, it’s not a poem. If it doesn’t have a beat and a melody you can remember and whistle later then it wasn’t music. This reminds me of a strange anecdote. From the time I was 18 till I was 21 I was homeless in the sense that I lived in the homes of various friends of mine. One family I lived with for a while featured a father and mother who appeared to have nothing whatsoever in common and spent little time together. The wife was frequently out somewhere with a flamboyantly gay male friend and the husband stayed home and painted at the kitchen table. He had a visual repertoire that consisted – I am not making this up – of barns, hills, trees and sky/clouds. He bought watercolor paper by the pound and sat at the table churning out one painting after another each consisting of some combination of barn(s), hill(s), tree(s) and sky/clouds all just slightly different. His kids had cars and like I said his wife was out and I was stuck at home and trying hard to spend as much time in the basement where I slept as I could because if I went upstairs he’d have a dozen of these piece of shit paintings lined up and ask me which I liked best and we’d have a conversation that went something like this: Him: I like the way I did the shading on the barn in this one Me: Yeah, that’s pretty nice. The trees in this one are nice, too. Him: You think so? I like the trees in this one more. The sad part is that I’m 54 now and things haven’t changed all that much in terms of peoples’ acceptance and understanding of art that is non-mainstream (and by that I do NOT mean the latest hip-hop megastar in waiting or some alternative rock band that qualifies as esoteric because they only sold 20,000 copies of their first CD). Anyone who performs Cage’s 4’33” usually manages to get coverage in the local paper simply because the concept behind it still baffles the average person and leads some clod to say – altogether now – “My kid could do that!” Into this climate Biota has released its’ new album. Frankly, from my point of view, an unwelcoming climate. I know this climate well, I’ve been trying to “make it” and sell CDs in this climate for a while now and doesn’t work because, to be blunt, people don’t appreciate it. I know that sounds somewhat bitter and blameful but it’s no secret that what most people like to listen to is something that’s easy to listen to and/or relates to their ‘lifestyle’ or both. Music used to be something you had to make a sacrifice to hear – go out in the cold to a concert hall or salon, sit still, be polite, listen, absorb. Now the experience is like internet porn – you can get music free anywhere and the experience of listening is cheapened and removed from the source. Nobody gives a shit about changing “the usual.” You have to be brave and true to yourself (or selves) and pure of heart to make serious music in this climate. It’s hard to sit down and motivate yourself when you’re reasonably sure that nobody cares and there’s no way you’re going to be on MTV or at the Grammys. I’m not being bitter here, I’m being truthful. Most intelligent people consider themselves to be open minded but when it comes right down to it they are often not all that open. Anyway, to sit down and devote lots of hours and money (equipment, electricity, gas to & from wherever, etc) to making an album that won’t get heard as often as some piece of shit hip hop/country/etc CD, well that takes real dedication. Really serious dedication. I’ve taken all this time to get to this: one of the best and most important things about this and other Biota albums is that they exist. It would be easier in every sense to not make these albums, but they do, and they do it really, really well. Not everybody’s kid can make abstract expressionist paintings and not just anyone can make this type of music. There’s an old zen story about a king who has a contest to find the strongest man in the kingdom and all these guys show up to do things like lift huge boulders, trees, etc. Then a guy shows up and the king says ‘what makes you so strong?’ and the man says ‘I can hold a butterfly by the wings without hurting it.’ And he’s declared the winner. To make this sort of music, you have to be able to hold a butterfly by the wings without hurting it. There are SO many places in the Biota process where a piece could fall apart or degenerate into shit or wander off and become boring, but it doesn’t happen. You have to pay attention to every aspect of every detail. Not just every sound, but every property of it – its’ attack, decay, length, balance in the mix, relationship to all the other sounds, relationship to what came before and what comes after, etc. It’s an amazing piece of work, this new album, because it extends this process even further than on past releases. There’s an amazing sense of three dimensionality to this album and I don’t mean some sonic trick like 3D glasses for the ears where sounds move around in tricky ways. What I mean is that the relationship of sounds to each other is reminiscent of the relationship of objects to each other in a landscape. If I look at the woods, I see trees, leaves on the trees, saplings, brush and undergrowth, dead branches, rocks of various sizes, etc. Taking it all in means having some understanding that not all these things are the same size, shape, color, etc. and appreciating the fact that they have details that even separate one type of object from the other. In other words, not only does a rock not look like a tree, not all rocks look alike. Biota is acutely aware of this, a fact that is apparent immediately on listening to the new CD. The only way I can describe some of it is the way people used to describe LSD experiences – “seeing” sounds, “tasting” colors, etc. Some of the sounds are recognizable. I’m terrible with titles but it think it’s on ‘winding nth’ where there’s a repeating guitar figure reminiscent of the famous guitar instrumental “angie” (though this one ascends instead of descends). And while this is going on, another guitar drifts in from the edge of the frame to counter and highlight it while, simultaneously, other sounds act like what I imagine air would look like if you could see it: - molecules colliding, bouncing off each other, drifting up, down, around. Like dust motes in a shaft of sunlight. But these sounds are no more or less important or relevant than the repeating guitar figure. They do all sorts of things. For instance, there are a couple of overused but effective musical tricks we all know. One is to have a guitar play a repeating note while the bass plays that note, then a whole step below, then four steps below that, i.e., the guitar plays a repeating “A” and the bass descends from A to G to E and back up and down – it creates the impression that the entire composition is modulating when it isn’t. Another example is the shift between a major chord and its minor as in the pop song “96 Tears” where you play a G major for four beats then a G minor for four beats – also sounds like more than it is. You’re only changing one note but the effect sounds like more as you shift between major and minor. Those are obvious examples of clever little tricks. Many composers have taken this idea farther and the new Biota CD is a good example – a great example in fact. In the piece I mentioned, the repeating guitar figure repeats while around it various sounds touch, kiss, bounce around, fade in/out, appear, disappear, etc and the overall effect is to create an ever shifting background that makes the repeating guitar figure seem like more than it really is. I don’t mean to say the repeating guitar figure is not interesting. It is. But the stuff happening in the sonic environment around it is like changing or shifting light that makes the same object appear to change shape or texture. This is masterful stuff, the ability to create an entire landscape or world of sound in which every detail is perfectly balanced and interacts on various levels. And it none of that makes sense consider this one. Let’s say all musical instruments have a soul or spirit. If you put them all in a room at night and turn out the lights, their spirits – their essences – emerge and drift and interact. Not the actual sounds of the instruments, the thump of a drum or the toot of a flute, but the essence of those sounds. This CD consists of the essences of instruments intermingling, like worlds within worlds in a drop of pond water. Or, as I think William Blake said, ‘to see a universe in a grain of sand.’ This new CD is – and I seriously mean this – on par with Beethoven’s symphonies or Van Gogh’s paintings inasmuch as it creates a new vocabulary and pushes forward into new, uncharted and incredibly realms. Biota’s work is the musical equivalent of the introduction of perspective to painting by Italian renaissance painters. They forever changed the way we “see” in two dimensions and Biota, for my money, has changed the way I “hear” in two dimensions. for more information visit ReRmecacorp.com, waysidemusic.com and biotamusic.com  |
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Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit Posted: 09 Dec 2007 12:08 PM CST |
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One of the best experimentowave releases by Motor [top-40.org] after all Posted: 09 Dec 2007 10:24 AM CST  Motor - Abstrakt Machine [top05] / Motor - Abstrakt Machine @ archive.org Abstrakt Machine is a musical montage, which features myriads of audio-grains, both artificial and natural, mixed together by the amazing technology of granular synthesis. The abstract and dense ambient-cloud surrounds you and covers you like a warm blanket. Abstrakt Machine will help you to explore the whole variety of different sub-genres of ambient music: from disquiet industrial noisescapes to calming and relaxed organic multilayered ambient, from clicky pop-up glitch to sterile microwaves. And a dozen of field recording cut-ups, indeed. A pure feeling of autumn/winter!  |
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Across the universe performed by Laibach Posted: 09 Dec 2007 04:13 AM CST This is Slovenian experimental music group, Laibach, performing The Beatles song 'Across the universe' with a very peculiar video. |
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American Made: Jazz Informed by Poetry Housed by Opera Posted: 09 Dec 2007 03:07 AM CST  Jazz does not require a dark club setting to be sophisticated and cool. For example, you can hear great jazz in a small Japanese hotel in Manhattan, the Kitano. With room for 35, the performance space adjacent to the bar allows for the most intimate relationship between performer and audience, as well as a side of sushi. Here in the Twin Cities we have our own unique spaces. On Friday night, we heard a fusion of jazz and poetry in a space that normally serves the Minnesota Opera Company. The MOC and Jeremy Walker’s Jazz Is Now project joined forces to cosponsor one of the more unique ensembles in jazz, Matt Wilson’s Carl Sandburg Project. About five years ago, Wilson’s quartet was one of the headliners at the short-lived Brilliant Corners, the experiment in small club jazz headed by Walker, who has since lived from grant to grant in trying to keep Jazz Is Now afloat. The Sandburg Project marked the beginning of JIN’s revival as a purveyor of original and experimental music; its Nownet (so called as it will sometimes be a Nonet, but you never know…) will return to public performance next fall. The MOC stage in the lower level of a warehouse district building proved to be a fine match to the compositions of one of the most creative percussionists in modern music. The lighting was bright enough to allow the audience to watch Wilson’s impromptu choreography and gleeful expressions when the ensemble sound pleased him, which was often. The sound was surprisingly clear and well differentiated considering this was, after all, a warehouse basement. The tones emanating from Ben Allison’s bass—first turned toward the back wall, later perpendicular to the front of the stage as he essentially straddled his instrument as if mounting a bicycle—resonated with the mood of the Carl Sandburg poem of the moment, liquid as “Soup,” ethereal as “Fog.” Dawn Thomson played guitar and added an interesting, sometimes compelling layer of vocals. And no matter where Jeff Lederer took his sax or clarinet, in staccato honks or anguished moans or soaring spirals, not a note was lost to underground acoustics. We heard it all. But visually and aurally, the most fascinating musician was Matt Wilson, a shirttail relative of Sandburg and fellow small town Illinois native. Attracted to the words and cadence of Sandburg’s poetry, Wilson created his own poetry of sound and motion, using not only arms and legs as do most jazz drummers, but elbows and fingertips as well, and facial expressions that seemed to coax additional layers of crackle and pop. He doesn’t limit the hi-hat to opening and closing—he makes the whole apparatus vibrate. I’ve seen him put his foot on top of the snare but not tonight. All together, the Carl Sandburg Project honored the poet by conjuring both the hustle of urban life and the slower moving rustic charm of Mid-America. That they did so using the jazz idiom on an Opera Company stage in a warehouse setting is unquestionably American, undeniably Matt Wilson, and surely blessed by Sandburg himself. Photo: Matt Wilson in an early 2007 gig at the Dakota. (Andrea Canter)  |
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Posted: 09 Dec 2007 04:14 AM CST  Excellent compilation album from 1987 with a magazine stuck to the middle of the gatefold cover. About the bands : Die Wohnhaft : French experimental band with a Test Dept. touch founded by N. Stuviska. Anyone any more info. Greater Than One : Lee Newman and Michael Wells formed Greater Than One in London, circa 1985. The group was created to explore art through performance, recordings, and installations. They released albums on Graeme Revell's Side Effects label, WaxTrax! and ROIR in the USA, Torso in Europe, and their own imprint, K=K. Nox : French industrial act from the 80s/90s. Formed by Cécile Babiole, Laurent Perrier, Gerome Nox and Laurent Pernice. Nox ceased to exist in 1994. Laurent Perrier is the founder of the excellent French record label Odd Size. Boubonese Qualk : Started in Southport (UK) in 1979. First performance in 1980 with an odd non-musical appearance before (mainly vandalism). Steven Tanza (Percussion, Vocals), Simon Crabb (Guitar, Bass, Violin, Vocals, Electronics). You can download there whole discography for free from there own website, go here. Olea Fragans : Is a French band à la Ptôse, and that's all the info I can give. Anyone any info. The rest of the bands are already well known. There seems to be two releases of this album. The release here is the one to be found most and was released on In9 and Proekos Product (INNR 001). The other one was released on Danceteria (DAN 445) with a slightly different cover. Both are from 1987. Tracks : 1. Die Wohnhaft - Avec Ou Sans Toi 2. Greater Than One - Silly People 3. Zos Kia - Muggy The Staff 4. Zos Kia - Black Action (Heavy Shit Mix) 5. Étant Donnés - L'Autre Rive 6. Nox - Yawa 7. Greater Than One - Slog On (Dead Beat) 8. Bourbonese Qualk - Sweat It Out 9. Olea Fragans - Justine Est Faite 10. Déficit Des Années Antérieures - Ode A L'Alcool De Riz (A Little note, for some reason the volume level on Black Action suddenly drops until the end of the song, maybe it's a pressing fault.) Stator + Magazine enjoy.  |
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Salute to John Lennon (HuffingtonPost.com) Posted: 08 Dec 2007 02:52 PM CST HuffingtonPost.com - Paul McCartney's instantly-notorious first public comment on John Lennon's murder in December 1980 - "it's a drag" - was at the time held up as an example of gross insensitivity by an estranged friend.
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Posted: 08 Dec 2007 12:00 PM CST Artie Shaw had a great band—in fact, five of them: he kept breaking up the bands and then later starting another. He had a good selection of wives, as well: Jane Cairns (1932); Margaret Allen (1934-37); Lana Turner (1940); Betty Kern (1941-43), daughter of songwriter Jerome Kern; Ava Gardner (1945-46); Forever Amber author Kathleen Winsor (1946-48); Doris Dowling (1952-56) and Evelyn Keyes (1957-85). It seems, from looking at the list, that Artie didn’t wear well. He said himself that he was “a very difficult man”—grouchy, in a word. When someone asked him how he was able to marry women like Lana Turner and Ava Gardner, he said, “I asked them.” He also once commented on the advantage of being a band leader, being presented, as it were, in a bandbox, in the best possible light. He took several sabbaticals from music, which didn’t really seem to be the center of his life as it is for many musicians. He took up benchrest shooting and became a precision marksman, ranking fourth in the United States in 1962. He became an expert fly fisherman. He wrote an autobiography, three novels, and a collection of short stories. He was, it seemed, one of those guys with considerable ability and a drive to be the best. He was the first white bandleader to hire a black female vocalist (Billie Holiday) One reason that his band’s music still appeals is that he carefully selected very good tunes—better than the music picked by, for example, the Glenn Miller Band. And his small-group combo, the Gramercy Five, staffed from the big band, was used for experimental music as well as standards. (You can hear the Gramercy Five here—note the harpsichord on, for example, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”) Here’s Shaw in the Fred Astaire film Second Chorus playing “Concerto for Clarinet”. Shaw got two Oscar nominations for this film: Best Score and Best Song (”Love of My Life”).
And “Begin the Beguine,” the Cole Porter tune that was his first big hit and established him nationally:
And here’s a 20-minute aircheck from December 6, 1938. |
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New <b>Experimental Music</b> to Crave - Sylvain Chauveau & Felicia Atkinson Posted: 08 Dec 2007 04:54 PM CST Experimental / Minimalist / Electroacoustic. the constant skeptic says:. “the track Aberdeen is haunting, experimental, and ephemeral… I zoned out on the highway and listened to it on my IPOD in traffic towards Washington dc circa 5am ...
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Latest Experimental Music News |
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Control Pro Tools with an iPhone or iPod Touch Posted: 10 Dec 2007 10:01 PM CST Alex le Lievre has built what looks like an insane custom controller for Pro Tools LE using an iPhone. He seems to have mimicked the look and feel of Pro Tools so successfully that some called the results a fake. There’s incredibly detailed feedback on track status, including live audio signal feeds and transport controls. It even uses iPhone’s tilt mechanism. This is interesting for two reasons: one, those lusting after iPhone and iPod Touch have another reason to drool. But secondly, Digidesign has been pretty closed about their controller mechanism. If this is real, Alex did a pretty great job of cracking into it. (I only just heard from JazzMutant, by contrast, that their Dexter won’t support Pro Tools because it’s not possible.)
ProRemote 0.0.1 on YouTube (darned nice “0.0.1″ release!) All of this is assuming this is real — anyone want to hazard any feedback? (I’ve also written Alex to learn more about how he did it.) Thanks to Chris O’Malley for the tip. alternative controllers, control surfaces, controllers, DAWs, Digidesign, iphone, iPod, ipod touch, multitouch, Pro Tools, software, touch, videos© Peter Kirn for Create Digital Music, 2007. | Permalink | No comment |
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Friday 14th december 2007 in Kastanienallee 77 Posted: 10 Dec 2007 07:04 PM CST Generative.org (Italy/Germany/Berlin)
generative.org is the common art project of the video artist Peggy Sylopp and the sound artist Giovanni Longo  . They work since 2000 together with the emphasis on sound and media art, mostly with integration of different kinds of interactivity. Since 2002 they have been curating and organizing exhibitions and events for the promotion of the topic art and technology from different perspectives.Their work is characterized by an ideosyncratic attitude going beyond the fashion features and independent of mainstream conventions. They partly follow the stylistic and aesthetic concepts of avantgarde such us minimalism, fluxus or abstract expressionism and transform them experimentally to contemporary styles of electronic culture and digital art. more infos at generative.org Seiji Morimoto (Japan/Berlin) Born in Tokyo 1971, studied musicology at the Kunitachi College of Music, graduating in 1995. During this period he began to play the electronic pieces by John Cage and his own sound performances. Since then  he has been active in the field of sound-art and creates soundperformances, installations and videos. In 2003 Morimoto moved to Berlin, has performed and exhibited in many international festivals including transmediale05 in Berlin (2005), Experimental Music in Munich (2004/06). He is interested in the uncertain acoustic appearances between usual objects, for example water and stones, and the technical medium. more infos at seiji morimoto Sciss (Germany/Weimar)  Sciss has been working with electronic and sound music since 1999, and on sound installations since 2001. Between 1999 and 2004, he studied musical computer science and computer music in the electronic studio of the Technical University of Berlin. Since 2004, he has been a research associate at the SeaM Studio for Electronic Music in Weimar. more infos at sciss Salon Bruit Friday 14/12/07 at 22.00 in Kastanienallee 77, U2 Eberswalderstrasse or Rosenthaler Platz, Tram Schwedterstrasse Eintritt/Entrance 3 euros  |
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Posted: 10 Dec 2007 04:17 PM CST introduce: red cat green cat c10
[2007, jk tapes] elephant kiss are seattle's kyle reimer and tiffany gartin. yay, pop music! actually, all is not well in the land of pop for this tape. despite the fact that i have more c86 than anyone who listens to macronympha should, even i have my limits. i really want to say that this is awful, but i don't want to be such a blatant dick about it. it's got cute girl and boy harmonies, charming (to a point) innocence, no organic instrumentation (neither a pro nor a con, just putting that out there), spastic drum machine rhythm (assisted by a gameboy), but i really don't think that anyone older than say fifteen or sixteen should be listening to this (or would want to). the strongest draw that this tape would have would be in the quirky electro sound of it, as it's not really that catchy. i've listened to it five times and i still can't remember any lyrics; not that i'm complaining. this makes me want to buy multiple stereos and blast burzum, opeth and whitehouse all at the same time.   this is an odd release by jk tapes and really, to me, (further) cements the fact that this label wishes it was not not fun. i can't think of any other imprints that would release noise-related things alongside dancey, lo-fi pop. i would applaud the fact that it's quite ambitious, if it hadn't already been done so recently. the big difference that i notice between the two is that, in the beginning, nnf culled their stuff from their own scene; picking out different acts in l.a. that they were stoked on. this just seems like a stretch, and the real casualties of this release are, unfortunately, elephant kiss. i wouldn't say that this duo sucks at what they do, i just don't find it appealing. i'm sure that there's a niche market for it, but having it released on a label whose best offerings have all been experimental noise doesn't seem beneficial to anybody.Super Magic Bicycles  |
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Latest Experimental Music News |
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Mutant Sounds nominated for the best niche music blog! Posted: 11 Dec 2007 03:12 PM CST Industry blog HypeBot.com has nominated Mutant Sounds in its First Annual Blog Awards.Mutant Sounds is nominated in the Best Niche Music Blog category.Voting starts today and runs through Wednesday, Dec. 19th. Vote here.It's one thing for us to tell you that what we do here is first of all fun and love for music ,that we try to get people to know it someway ,but it means even more when an industry blog acknowledges us, as well. When i was starting about 1 year ago i never have thought that it would get this far....acually it all started as somekind of joke.But it's you with all your support and encouragement that led things in this result.I feel very happy with this ituation and if we finally would be awarded ,this award oes mainly to you all.Again, thank you for your continued support ,love and encouragement!
Peace and Love for everyone Jim Mutantsounds PS:I think another post of Eric with his thoughts on this would follow later.  |
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The Second Stage Of The Radiohead Experiment Posted: 11 Dec 2007 04:54 PM CST Certainly an awful lot has been written about Radiohead's experiments with new business models, but it's starting to crank up again, as the band gets ready to release the new album on CD. While some fans felt "betrayed" by this, the band had made it quite clear from the beginning that this was the strategy. However, it's likely that we'll now see plenty of stories focused on how well the CD sells, as if that will be the key factor in determining whether or not this experiment qualifies as a "success."
That, however, is the wrong way to look at things. It's the "old business model" way of looking at things, where the key point is how many CDs were sold. That's doesn't much matter any more. The band has supposedly made quite a lot of money from selling the MP3s directly, and the attention garnered by the marketing stunt will likely allow them to sell more concert tickets at higher prices (and, yes, the band is about to start touring). Plenty of people who knew little about the band now know a lot more and are talking about and listening to the new album. At this point, no matter what happens with the CD, you'd have to say that the experiment has been quite a success. That said, it doesn't appear as though the band fully embraces the economics impacting the music industry these days. That's because the band has decided to stop offering the downloads off its site as it gears up to try to sell the CDs. That seems like a rather pointless and shortsighted move. The music is already out there and being listened to widely. If you look on sites like Last.fm and Hype Machine, Radiohead clearly dominates. Continuing to offer fans an option in terms of how they want to consume and purchase the music only makes sense. It's not as if the music is suddenly not going to be available on various file sharing sites. So, really, all this move does is limit the ways fans can give the band money -- and that doesn't make much sense. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story  |
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Live Shows Banned from 21 Grand After Alcohol Bust at the Bay's #1 Place for Experimental Music Posted: 11 Dec 2007 04:16 PM CST
News: We are prevented from having live shows due to permit issues resulting from our unfortunate proximity to another venue being visited by the Alcholic Beverage Action Team of the Oakland Police Department that took notice of us after 7 1/2 years. We were allowed to present this event, but with a capacity limited to 49 people. Other events will be relocated, and information will be posted on our website. If you want to make reservations (advisable) - please call or email. There is also to be no alcohol at events at 21 Grand. We are working towards complying with the copious regulations and requirements of the City of Oakland to get a cabaret license and maybe, if we're lucky, a beer and wine license. sl So that's that. We're calling around to learn more. —David Downs Full release: 21 Grand is located at 416 25th St. (at Broadway) near downtown Oakland. News: We are prevented from having live shows due to permit issues resulting from our unfortunate proximity to another venue being visited by the Alcholic Beverage Action Team of the Oakland Police Department that took notice of us after 7 1/2 years. We have been allowed to present our next two scheduled events, but with a capacity limited to 49 people. Other events will be relocated, and information will be posted on our website. If you want to make reservations (advisable) - please call or email. Please be there at least 10 minutes before the scheduled door time, or your place will be given to someone who is here. There is also to be no alcohol at events at 21 Grand. We are working towards complying with the copious regulations and requirements of the City of Oakland to get a cabaret license and maybe, if we're lucky, a beer and wine license. We also greatly apologize for the last minute-ness of this information. Coming Up at 21 Grand Saturday, December 8 Set 1: KIHNOUA: with special guests Zeena Parkins 8:30pm, $7-10 Saturday, December 8 Set 2: Zeena Parkins/Larry Ochs/Dohee Lee/Scott Amendola/William Winant/Carla Kihlstedt 10pm, $7-10 Tuesday, December 11 Eugene Chadbourne/Tim Perkis duo + Myles Boisen's Past Present Future 8pm, $7-10 In the Gallery Here's the Current Status of Previously Scheduled 21 Grand Events that we are unable to host: Boilerplate:  |
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OPN Records presenta el nuevo CD de BABYLONE CHAOS .:: Posted: 08 Dec 2007 11:43 PM CST  10 temas que mezclan musica industrial con sonidos electronicos, ruido estridente y ambiental que guian al escucha a un area embujada por una sonoraridad de tinte rojo-sangriento. Dos de los temas de este album estan disponibles aqui:: http://www.myspace.com/babylonechaos Fuente:: http://www.opn-lvr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=18  |
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new CUT HANDS releases: 2007 finale Posted: 10 Dec 2007 02:26 PM CST  Slow Listener | He Is a Lost Soul As Ever There Was CH027 cd-r Evil karma drones by up and coming hypno-bruiser Slow Listener aka Robin Dickinson. You might think of drone as soothing, meditative, maybe even sleepy but that's not what makes this record, at all. Much in the vein of Birchville Cat Motel and Jazzfinger, Slow Listener takes out the soothing parts and injects his dronescapes with prickly venom and surges of white noise. Carnivorous bliss in full effect. Grey/white artwerk by Jason Rohm, in slimline dvd cases, edition of 70. --------  Dragonfrynd | Smoke Ring Mandala CH029 cd-r Terrific new project by Adam Kriney (La Otracina, Owl Xounds et al) on keyboard and effects and Clinton Wilkins on electric guitar. It's actually the first Kriney release that doesn't feature him on drums, in fact, there's no drums at all here. Just the thrill of entrancing guitarfeedback, kosmische tone workouts, touches of swirling Japanese psychrock and amplified Ash Ra Tempel meditations. A new and exciting direction for one of the most busy and promising talents in the NYC underground. Full colour covers, in slimline dvd cases, edition of 75. --------  Drenches | Holy Dread CH030 cd-r Holy Dread, man, holy SHIT. This record is fierce. Heavy nature. Electronic bullying, raining down and piercing right through your balding scalp. The title track opens this monster and when I said raining down I meant it literally like that. Amazing effects that sound like you're in the midst of heavy heavy rainstorms..inside a tent. Ever been there? It ain't nice! This might just be the toughest harsh noise rec you have yet to hear this year. Stay proud, play loud. Black and white cover art by Branden Divens himself, in slimline dvd cases. Edition of 60. -------- Thanks to all who have supported Cut Hands during it's first year in existence. Next year is gonna be even BIGGER and BETTER. THANKS!!! COMING UP !!First year celebratory extra special special release!! + SACHIKO - Hverfanda Hvél ROB FUNKHOUSER - Cosmos WALTER CARSON - tbc JULIE MITTENS - tbc SUISHOU NO FUNE - tbc ASTRO - tbc 6MAJIK9 - The Space Between HALFLINGS - tbc CADENA MUERTO - tbc more...check www.cuthands.net  |
Latest Experimental Music News
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Crab Smasher: Impossible Possible Posted: 12 Dec 2007 12:56 AM CST One of this year’s most pleasant surprises for me has been Crab Smasher’s latest 3-inch release, Impossible Monsters, although ‘pleasant’ isn’t a word I’d generally associate with Newcastle’s noisiest duo. However, it was perhaps with good reason that Grant Hunter, the act’s hack of many trades, described this as their ‘top 40’ release. One of the few genuinely interesting acts around town, Crab Smasher usually specialise in the creation of improvised, often harsh, noise soundscapes with both traditional and non-traditional instrumentation. I’ve likened them previously to ‘Black Dice on a lazy Sunday’ but I’m not sure that really applies here. ‘The Moon Rattled Inside Her’ is the third track off Impossible Monsters and it’s a driving, vaguely Kraut-rock, pop song. It’s one of their more conventional songs, and it’s all the better for it.  |
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[john cale] white light, white heat Posted: 12 Dec 2007 03:40 PM CST  This blog has covered JJ Cale a number of times but the Cale tonight is just John Cale, a musician heavily influential on other musicians but virtually unknown to the general public. An unattributable yet excellent profile of him says:Trying to categorise Cale's music has always been tricky, encompassing as it does so many diverse musical styles. Not really a rocker nor a full on avante gardiste, much of what he produces falls between the two headings. He draws heavily on his early classical training; he was touring the country with the National Youth Orchestra of Wales from his early teens, while still listening to the burgeoning cult of rock and roll in his bedroom at night.  His break came while studying experimental music at London University in the early '60s, he met American classical composer Aaron Copeland, who got Cale a scholarship to study with the Boston University Orchestra. In the fall of 1963 Cale relocated to New York and began performing in various avante garde music projects before hooking up with vocalist/guitarist Lou Reed, with whom he founded the legendary rock band the Velvet Underground in early 1965. He was heavily involved with Andy Warhol. Playing bass, viola, and keyboards, Cale was largely responsible for the band's droning sound, while Reed wrote the lyrics. This was the most accessible he'd be to the public and to get an idea of his style, listen to Velvet Underground Live 1969 [as distinct form the studio album produced after he'd been forced out].  Cale todayWhite Light White Heat, Heroin, Ocean - these were typical of his sound and Reed's lyrics and singing. On his own he went mellow and classical until he switched in 74 and released two amazing albums - Fear and Slow Dazzle, with other Island artists like Phil Manzanera and Brian Eno of Roxy Music, and Chris Spedding. I haven't heard the third so can't comment. Tracks on Fear like Fear is a Man's Best Friend, Barracuda and Gun were quite frankly unique with their gritty, dark, driving, relentless feel, especially given the era in which they were produced. He'd contrast it with catchy, melodic tracks at odds with explicit lyrics like The Man Who Couldn't Afford to Orgy. His voice is difficult to describe. Imagine Leonard Cohen and Tom Jones, deep, rich, masculine but aggressive and that was part of his appeal - he was a very dangerous man or so it seemed and could shock you to the core. His motif was dark. This was so in the finale to Slow Dazzle which I can't describe on a family blog like this. One of his greatest songs, his reworking of Heartbreak Hotel as you've never heard it before, was on this album and a return to hard, driving rhythms with Guts, which was about just that.  With NicoAt this point I was drawn into the gay, warholesque inner city party scene [which will come as a shock, given my ultra-orthodox sentiments on this blog] but as the scene fragmented and many went over to punk, I went over to pseudo-punk like the Ramones, the Stranglers, Wreckless Eric and never got back to this scene again.  |
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Posted: 12 Dec 2007 04:03 PM CST That’s what you’re going to find among the rest of Tony Youngblood’s 12/9/07 broadcast of “~Ore~ Theatre Intangible,” a Vanderbilt radio show I contribute to each week.
Actually, I don’t. Like an old person’s bowels, my offerings to ~Ore~ have been somewhat irregular. On the other hand, mine are much less disgusting as they enter your ears. Enjoy a full download of this experimental broadcast, including a lovely six-minute mix of degenerating tones and voice from yours truly, by clicking the seven chance words after the double dash– britney spears crotch shots nude girls strip I swear, I pick these words completely at random. The shame is yours for having a filthy mind. (more…)  |
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The Tar and its Babies<br><br>The tar was a kind of lu... Posted: 08 Dec 2007 05:04 AM CST  The Tar and its BabiesThe tar was a kind of lute, long-necked and with a body with a waist. Tar is a Persian word for “string,” and tars could be dutar, two strings; setar, three strings; or cartar, four strings. The waist created a double-chambered soundbox, which was covered by thin sheep skin. The strings were steel and brass, perhaps originally gut. There were 26 movable frets, and the instrument was plucked with a brass pick. Why do we care? Well, this instrument went around the known world and morphed into the sitar, the guitar and even the zither. It wasn’t the original fount of stringed instruments, itself being descended from the earlier tanbur. When the tar reached the Arab world, it ran into the resistance of early Islam to instrumental music. It was given the derogatory name of “the wood,” or al oud, from which we get the word lute. So, the instruments from which we get the music of both John Dowland and John Lennon began as a folk craft piece of stretched leather and mulberry wood. It’s a long way from there to heavy metal, but the tar and the Fender Stratocaster hang from the same family tree.  |
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Posted: 12 Dec 2007 12:08 PM CST This article appears on "Comment is Free". The Marxist critic Theodor Adorno wrote towards the end of his life of the serialist movement in modern music, whose most advanced practitioners were Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Adorno was averse to the risks in the "progressive rationalisation" of music, and gave this cautionary tale (it is in his Essays on Music, 2002, p. 657): I recall a young composer who brought me a composition in Darmstadt, perhaps as much as 14 years ago [around 1950], that appeared to me as the craziest gibberish. You couldn't make out any up and down, front and back, logic and setting - no articulation at all of the phenomenon that you could grasp ... He had truly, as Philistine enemies envision it, reduced the whole thing to a mathematical example, which may even have been correct - it was too boring for me to figure it out - but which absolutely no longer translated into any recognisable and compelling musical context. That, I fear, is my own reaction to the music of Stockhausen, who died last week. His was not a movement but a cultural moment. What Stockhausen bequeaths to modern music comprises largely misconceived ideas and sounds of surpassing ugliness. Had he been born a generation earlier, he might have been no more significant than George Antheil, the so-called "bad boy of music", who is now remembered only for his risible Ballet Mécanique- for piano, percussion, siren and aeroplane propeller. Yet Stockhausen came of age immediately after the second world war. From the ruins of a barbarous regime that had reviled "degenerate art", Germans built a constitutional democracy that exemplified tolerance and respected the creative imagination. It was a receptive audience for experimental music, and for the ideas that Stockhausen advanced through the periodical he edited, Die Reihe (The Row). Stockhausen began his career in the early 1950s with compositions for conventional instruments (such as Kreuzspiel, for oboe, bass clarinet, piano and percussion; and a series of piano pieces). He moved on to electronic music, notably with his Gesang der Jünglinge, for voice and electronic sound, the score of which - being written with geometrical figures - was incomprehensible to those trained merely in musical notation. Yet the problem was not the type of sounds produced by the avant garde; it was rather the type of composition. An impressionable writer in the Daily Telegraph last week quoted one of Stockhausen's acolytes: "Stockhausen gave us the courage to think anything was possible in music." But not everything is possible in music, any more than it is in poetry. If you read a poem you need, at a minimum, to be able to understand the language in which it is written, the conventions of the genre and the tradition of the art form. Musical appreciation does not depend on the ability to read a score, but it does require the ability to hear sounds in relation to those that precede them. The dominance of western music reflects its ability to combine melody and harmony, and thereby produce a discourse. A musical composition is above all an argument that appeals to the emotions. The work of Stockhausen is not like that. It is not music so much as a series of sonic events, which at its worst feels both pretentiously mystical and interminable (though his opera cycle Licht in fact lasts only for 30 hours). It evinces - in the phrase of the critic Robin Holloway - "neo-Wagnerian ambitions unmatched by the necessary talent." More than most cultural figures, Stockhausen attracted his share of adulators and emulators. The experience was not always happy. The British composer and devoted Maoist Cornelius Cardew worked as an assistant to Stockhausen in the 1960s before dramatically breaking with the master and publishing a stirring volume entitled Stockhausen Serves Imperialism (pdf). From my experience of Comment is free, there is a widespread assumption here that imperialism is a term best used to describe the overthrow of oppressive regimes by British and American forces. That is odd, but there it is. (The defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan was, remarked Christopher Hitchens aptly, a case of bombing a country back out of the stone age.) Given this presumption, I fear that Cardew's accusation was mistaken. Stockhausen's most notable intervention in the public sphere was instead a peculiarly fatuous description of the 9/11 bombings as "the greatest work of art ever". (Stockhausen claimed, not convincingly, to have been misquoted, but there is no dispute that he likened the murder of thousands of civilians by theocratic fanatics to an intense aesthetic experience.) Artistic values are independent of political ones. But the sounds that came from Stockhausen's electronic workshop are liable to prove as enduring and profound as their creator's most notorious pronouncement on public affairs. UPDATE: Against my expectation and experience, there is a splendid contribution posted in the comments thread underneath the article that is well worth quoting in full: When I was a student at the Royal College of Music in London, one of the professors strongly held the opinion that no potential professional musician should go through college without having played some "modern" (i.e. unpleasant-sounding) music. Like the music or loathe it, I think he had a good general point, in that musicians owe it to the composer to give a new piece the best possible performance, and to be appropriately trained to do so.
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Posted: 05 Dec 2007 03:52 PM CST |
 Stephen Philips and mystified reworked a longform piece, adding various elements, creating the original "Texture One", for Webbed Hand Records ( www.webbedhandrecords.com ). Several years later, Philips and mystified have created a new "Texture" piece, this one also based on an aquatic environment.... This item belongs to: audio/treetrunk. This item has files of the following types: 64Kbps M3U, 64Kbps MP3, 64Kbps MP3 ZIP, JPEG, Metadata, Ogg Vorbis, VBR M3U, VBR MP3, VBR ZIP  |
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Hikashu-Natsu(+2),1980+Uwasa No Jinrui(The Human Being),1981,LPs,Japan Posted: 13 Dec 2007 04:16 PM CST      Hikashu is a long running sort of avant garde pop performance ensemble started in the late 1970s. Koichi Makigami(member of Tokyo Kid Brothers amongst others) is the lead vocalist and writes most of the material. He said they were "Like a play pretending to be a band"From a synth standpoint Makoto Inoue and Yasushi Yamashita played synths in the original line up (which sounds to me generally more synth-oriented than later lineups), they left in the early 80s and among other things formed a synth duo Inoyama Land. For quite a while Hikashu used an alternative English spelling, Hikasu, without the second "h". One of the greatest avant gardish pop/post punk acts in early 80s Japan.Jangling synth sounds,Koichi's strange vocals,psychedelic lyrics....Milestones of contemporary Japan music! |
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Uton & Valerio Cosi - Kaarmeenkaantopiiri Posted: 13 Dec 2007 10:28 AM CST  Label:Fire Museum Format:Cd Released:2007 Genre:Electronic Style:Abstract,Free Improvisation,Experimental,Drone Notes:Total time:39:18 Tracklisting: 1 - Silmaympyrakolmio (15:04) 2 - Hetken Aika (Kolmessa Maailmassa) ( 4:11) 3 - Kiertoilmakristalli ( 4:20) 4 - Yhdentekeva (15:43) Perhaps this collaboration was destined to happen, and we’re overjoyed that it is happening here! Tampere, Finland’s Uton (Jani Hirvonen) and Taranto, Italy’s Valerio Cosi (who is ½ of Pulga after all) are two of the most creative and most prolific musicians working in experimental music at the moment, and on Käärmeenkääntopiiri, Uton and Valerio have mastered a sound that combines elements of psychedelia, free jazz, krautrock, environmental sounds, drones and more for an ecstatic listening experience. A mélange of electronic and acoustic instrumentation sounds here collide and join together as naturally as the coming of the tides. By turns meditative and forceful, introspective and extroverted, all the while commanding undivided attention from the listener. This is experimentation that remains inviting even in its darker passages. 2007 has been a banner year for both of these musicians, and this release finds them in top form, creating a work that shows exactly why they are in such high demand. Käärmeenkääntopiiri will leave you hoping this is the beginning of many more collaborations between these two. LINK (Rapid) pass:haloid |
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Posted: 13 Dec 2007 02:00 AM CST Perhaps the best thing about the major-label meltdown is that you seldom hear people talking about how such-and-such local musician or band got signed...
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Zs + Excepter Issue Project Room, Brooklyn NY Posted: 12 Dec 2007 01:54 PM CST It happened a month ago but I’m now done listening to Howard Stern marvel at the Zs packaging of their last album and ready to move on to their show on Friday, the last before they hole up for another album. Of course, it takes Howard Stern, or someone similarly divorced from experimental music, to imagine a distinct avant-garde movement and to elevate Zs to the forefront of it for his regular audience, even if those who respected Zs prior to hearing about them from Stern haven’t noticed any classically unified, forward-marching movement passing them by. Anyway, won’t spend too much time on that, Stern does it much more amusingly, if not a little unwittingly. Howard Stern radio segments about Zs Issue Project Room’s new location at the old canning factory in Gowanus, Brooklyn was arranged with lines of fold-up chairs and, with its high ceilings, narrow width and rows of octagonal speakers hanging low like chandeliers, it evoked a thrown-together cathedral, one that got quickly tossed aside as the entrance room filled with latecomers. Still, the holy atmosphere pervaded; our photographer Nate Dorr felt unworthy of taking images from the event. Miraculously, one blurred record materialized out of his camera:
Surrounded by a reverent audience crowding around them in a full circle, Zs indulged in dynamic extremities, with the light-clapping interplay of “Except When You Don’t” audible from the other side of the room and the bludgeoning attacks on “Nobody Wants to be Had” probably breaking out into the street. The former piece features persistent, harmonized vocal lines that come off like a fight between eighth notes and triplets, chanted in lots of fifths and some sixths that sound like cyborg Gregorian monks hopped up on earthly powers. Ultimately, I love Zs for the sometimes uncomfortable, knotted engagement they stake between slow-mutate strands of Steve Reich-styled arpeggios and melody lines and loud, sophisticated noise rock, sometimes cleaved into sharply-defined fragments placed obtusely beside each other, at other points integrated in an unholy mashup powerful enough both to drive Howard Stern into a state of hilarity and to fill Issue Project Room with a hall of devotees.
Last time I caught Excepter, I was in college and I had five Budweisers hidden at various places throughout my big winter jacket. I tried to share one of them with a girl but she took it and drank the whole thing in three gulps. I drank the rest of them. At that point, the lineup didn’t have organic instruments, nor did it have interpretative dancers. It didn’t have the somewhat tightened sense of structure and rhythm I sensed on Friday either. The band did display the same lack of concern for its audience’s engagement and its penchant for absolute indulgence. Their MySpace page contains a brief manifesto: EXCEPTER is a synthethic protest band engineered to erase cultural distinctions through polarized confusion.I guess this isn’t the same as Peter Gabriel trying to do the same thing by shitting us with anemic World Music, but I wonder whether the cultural distinctions that are erased at the end of the day are just as pliable and ready to spring back into place once the music stops. Anyway, there was something old school about the performative aspect of their Friday show; it was almost Brechtian how quiet and uncomfortably engaged the crowd seemed. Peering at these men and women with their mixers and synth stacks and Merce Cunningham rolling on the floor thing, forcing their weirdness on us by refusing to engage us, and using the tools we’re used to seeing for pop music issuing out a witch’s brew that destroys the structures and signs that pop holds dear. Alienating, much? It was sort of the opposite of the fourth wall being broken. All we ever get at rock shows these days is a broken fourth wall, the logic might run, so why not close it up for a rock show, and watch the audience gaze at the party they’re not invited to, waiting for some password. Many leave before they get in, and those who stay wait for some discernible transmission.
Apologies to Stars Like Fleas, who apparently started on time. Photos by Nate Dorr |
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