The Music of Mario - Time, Space, and Nostalgia

“All games have unique rhythms.” - Koji Kondo

The notion of progress is built into the Super Mario series, also the notion of resolution. That music needs to resolve implies that it is problematized to begin with, and we can relate that problem back to the motivation to complete a videogame, and the fact that the “rhythm of the game” is something complex that we all (players, composers, and designers of games) feel. Videogames are often spoken of in a way that relates their value (either in dollars or whether they are worth a player's time) to the amount of gameplay they offer, given in units of time. Fifty hours of gameplay is widely considered a good value. Part of this can be attributed to the high cost of videogames, but I think another reason for this is that the sense of progress built into them is satisfying, and the Super Mario series represents this progress by collecting items, defeating enemies, and moving through spaces, each action having a specific associated sound. The quote above, from the sound designer for almost all of the Super Mario series, relates to the entire soundscape of a game but for the purposes of this paper I am interested in the musical themes (the background music, or BGM) of certain levels and items, how these relate to time and progress, and how the simple themes of the Super Mario series mixed with the interactivity of the videogame medium create such a strong nostalgia for players and encourage the remixes that are featured as part of my audio mix. Specifically, I review the classic “Main Theme,” the “Underground Theme,” “Starman,” “Overworld 2 Theme” (from Super Mario Bros. 3), and “Ragtime Theme” (my title, from Super Mario World).

Here's a link to a big zip of everything: get it.

Gendered Sounds -vs- Gendered Scene

Is it possible to hear gender in music? By exploring sonic dimensions of electronic music by six composers, I locate and describe what could be considered stereotypically feminine and masculine sounds. I also detail electronica that lacks explicit gendered sounds. In these instances, I discuss the gender neutrality of the compositions in relation to their gendered composers. Complicating matters further, I discuss gender-bending in electronica, where gendered sounds do not match their composer’s gender. Lastly, I consider the artistic and political ramifications of classifying electronica by gender, as in the case of music compilations presented specifically as “women’s music.” I explore the possibilities of gendered sounds, but also its politics. I will post this paper on my blog.

Slowed and Thowed: Pharmacomusical Meditation

Michael Veal traces dub's influence on other forms of music in different geographic locations at the end of his book Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae. While he quickly glosses over the well-documented emergence of the hip-hop scene in New York, it is important to note that many of dub's production techniques and cultural production happen in other African diasporas. The South has contributed to the development of American music by injecting the blues, jazz, gospel and other styles produced by African-American communities. Of specific interest to me is screwed and chopped music, which has evolved out of Houston Texas, which has corollaries in memory, fragmentation, pharmacology, and consumption. In my examination, I take a look at “Servin a duce” by DJ Screw, “Still Tippin'” featuring Mike Jones, Slim Thug, and Paul Wall, “Cadillac on 22's (screwed and chopped)” by David Banner, “Love and Happiness (Al Green screwed and chopped),” and Kid606's “Robitussin Motherfucker (DJ Screw RIP).” I conclude by noting screwed and chopped's ability through pharmaceuticals and production methods to create a meditation space for resolving some issues I have with Southern rap culture.

Download
Here's a YouTube playlist for a sampling of some screw videos and videos of DJ Screw and DJ Kralos producing screw tracks:

Helios: A Showcase of Nostalgic Production

Helios: A Showcase of Nostalgic Production

Nostalgia has always been a very prominent emotion evoked by Ambient music. Since the genre rarely utilizes lyrical content to bring about emotions like this, it has always been interesting to me to figure out exactly what aspect of the sonic qualities of Ambient music bring about the feeling of nostalgia. In this essay, I attempt to tap into the sonic qualities via production techniques of five different songs by Ambient/Electronic artist, Helios, who has always been a strong communicator of nostalgic emotion to me, personally. The essay explores the tie that reverb – among other production techniques – has with the creation of mind-space, allowing the mind to fill the space with memories that consequently evoke a sense of nostalgia. Additionally, the concept of “technostalgia” and specific production techniques that represent it are explored as possible contributors to the overall nostalgic phenomenon of Helios’ music. Overall, through exploiting the aural experience of Helios’ work, I hope to provide insight into why it causes such a longing for the past.

The Multiplicity of Noise

The Multiplicity of Noise

The advent of audio recording and playback technologies greatly facilitated the increased use of noise as a compositional element in the 20th century. As this phenomenon progressed, the idea of noise itself began to rupture into multiple strings of conceptions and possibilities. In this paper I show some of the ways that noise has been used as an element of modern audio composition. This is accomplished through discussions of works by Pierre Schaeffer, John Cage, Brian Eno, John Zorn, and Merzbow. Though all of these works are radically different, they all make use of noise to accomplish their goal. As noise compositions, these works illustrate the multiplicity and plasticity inherent in the concept of noise.

Lolspace.org Call for submission

Josh and I have recently started a project in response to some of our readings, discussions and our interest in Lolcat memes. I just wanted to point you guys to our blog, and let you know that we'd love to have some images created by you all on the blog. You can email them to Josh (josh.fishburn [at] gmail.com) or I (hebert.sara [at] gmail.com), and if you're interested in contributing on a regular basis, we can set up an account on the blog for you.


kthnxbai!

Diplo Talks About Jamaica, Dancehall

Here's the video I mentioned in class, with Hollertronix and Mad Decent founder Diplo (Wes Pentz) talking his recent trip to Jamaica with Switch (Dubsided). He gives some really nice insight into what's going on there now, and what its like to produce with Dancehall artists.

Some thoughts on radio...

I had some thoughts on radio after our discussion on Monday that I wanted to share here. My experience with radio has not been one of ephemerality, but of intentional listening and archiving. I don't believe that ephemerality is a necessary byproduct of the medium of radio, but a willful creation of circumstances that invoke such a feeling (not unlike the willful suspension of disbelief engaged in by an audience and participant in hypnosis). The detailed archives that I assume most radio stations keep would show the opportunity to repeat what happened in the studio at any point, much like the storage space on our computers lets us store and listen to podcasts.

I understand the collective experience of listeners to a radio program, but this is also a largely unidentifiable phenomenon with the exception of listening in the same physical space with a group and again requires a sort of suspension of disbelief. Internet radio stations give us real-time statistics (the number of simultaneous listeners to a station) that quantify the collective experience, but a collective listening experience is present in physical space or in the imagination.

The transmission of particular information via radio waves requires a physical infrastructure that eventually sends information wirelessly, which at this point is also the way that many of us receive the information that arrives on our computers. If radio stations have not made their archives available, on demand, to the listening public in the past, today's technology makes that kind of framework possible.

Sounds from Saturn

Via BoingBoing and NASA:

The Eerie, Bizarre Sounds of the Saturnian System

Sounds from outer space are weird, if not downright spooky.

Be ready for a goosebump or two as you feast your ears on some of the greatest sounds gathered during the exploration of the Saturnian system.

Link

Concepts: ‘keep them guessing’ (Scientist, quoted by Veal 79); ‘a dub mix works upon a listener’s desire for completion, a desire based on their memory of a preexisting song’ (Veal 79); ‘a dynamic of surprise and delayed gratification. The engineer continuously tantalizes the listener with glimpses of what they are familiar with, only to keep them out of reach, out of completion’ (Veal 78).

Audio: ‘New Dawn’ (8:15, Beat Pharmacy)

Allusions, comparisons: ‘Watergate Rock’ (2:50, King Tubby, 1974*); ‘Psalms of Dub’ (3:00, King Tubby, 1974*) *According to xraymusic.co.uk.

Playback architecture: I call it Desk-A-Phonic™ and it consists of a small 4’ wide desk, simple squared arc of wood with no frills, and inside the leg space on the carpet are two robust computer speakers in the far-most corners (good bass, ‘dem). Playing dub vibrates the desk, vibrates my hands on the mouse, and gives me the hint of a dub party – even if my puny bass-a-rockin’ is merely functioning as an audio symbol (nevertheless it reminds me of the dub context).

Beat Pharmacy’s ‘New Dawn’ flirts with the listener for 1:11 until the anticipated beat, a house beat, drops into the sound image; for that minute or so, the dubby guitar licks and bass harmony, and echo effects, are all calling out to us, it seems – or else they call out to the missing beat. At 1:11 the anticipated beat pummels the listener.

At 1:53 the beat forgets itself again in a dub oblivion until 2:23 (30 seconds). 2:55 – 3:02, another break-down. And at 4:00 a break. 4:32, a break which really gets down to bear bones. At around 4:50 the beat disintegrates noticeably before the break. In the fifth minute we hear effects, and more echo washing out and slapping around the beat, and a prominent bass harmony which is rather low and dark. The middle is the densest sound image. From about 6:40 to the end at 8:15, there is no beat.

The dub production strategy, if not theme, of sonic differance, if we may apply this Derridean term to the dub ‘surprise’, and to dub’s deferring the satisfaction of hearing resolutions to one’s aural expectations (namely, the bass line, beat, or vocals), has figured into house music albeit in a distilled and formalized way.

Dance musics like house (which grew largely out of club settings, and underground) have the dub differance usually toward the middle, where the track’s layers decompose, often revealing a spacious inner chamber, if you will. The dancers are enticed into this space (or must earn it by dancing), and after the break-down there is a moment to dub-out, a mini-oblivion, a clearing of the aural slate. When the party is hovering in that place of differance, perhaps not even dancing anymore, but simply swaying and tripping out, there is a level of expectation that arises about when and how the beat will flood the floor again.

Classic dubplates like ‘Watergate Rock’ (2:50, King Tubby, 1974) or ‘Psalms of Dub’ (3:00, King Tubby, 1974) – I have a theory that these two tracks are using the same riddim, but inversed – are not only using differance within the song’s own elements, but also playing with the listener’s expectations toward completing sound pictures from shards of previous songs. With dub differance the anticipatory climate is upheld or is completely freestyle throughout.

The Beat Pharmacy song complicates the expectation for the familiar house track’s middle break-down into oblivion. It does not occur. In keeping with the track’s dub inflections, ‘New Dawn’ instead goes the route of continuous differance melded with the stylings of house, and in this way it achieves a sonorous fusion whilst indicating the genetic ties between house and dub.

Joy Division Movie

Hey guys,
heres a trailer I just saw of a movie about the band Joy Division.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/weinstein/control/trailer1/

Enjoy

Building Dub

In discussing the absence of literally preserved or documented institutions in Jamaica, Michael Veal highlights the complication of the merging of cultures that willfully neglect their creations with those that place a high value on works as completed artifacts and privilege the archive over the process. Veal quotes Chinua Achebe's observations on the Igbo mbari houses in Nigeria: "Process is motion while product is rest. When the product is preserved or venerated, the impulse to repeat the process is compromised." (Veal 92) Building these houses through the available material "samples" in the environment has an analogy in dub, where the producers are sampling the available recordings to construct a variation on their original structure. Mikey Dread's "Pre-dawn Dub" and King Tubby's "Psalm of Dubs" work from apparently the same recorded tracks with substantially different results. The signature of Dread's version is the production of animal and human noises layered on top of the sometimes subtracted dub mix in a treble yell. We hear a consistent drum and bass loop, while the wavering keyboard and guitar move in and out of the mix (always on that reggae offbeat). Tubby's version is sonically heavier with deep, resonating bass and chunky guitar; it also features the guitar and keyboard moving in and out of the mix (there's that offbeat again). Here are two different constructions from a similar, but always changing, sample base. Richard Pinhas uses a similar technique in his Dextro track, but unlike the Dub producers, the samples come from the studio and from the live performance of his work. Returning to the mbari houses, one might want to know: who owns the materials from which they were built?

transformation through reverb and equalization

The cultural and technological influences on dub music are centered in the Jamaican culture and political turmoil of the 70’s and 80’s. One use of technology that stands out is the use of reverb and the use of equalization and filtering devices. In King Tubby’s “Black Lash” The light and upbeat sounds of the horns playing drastically transform to a more desperate and even spooky feeling to the song as the use of reverb is applied to the horns. With the sound of the box reverb in the back transformed into a bubbling almost flapping sound I can feel the heat of the Jamaican sun. In contrast to the low tones of the horns Tubby uses equalization to bring out the higher and sharper tones of the symbols and guitar. “Equalization could also be used to help craft the ambient aspects of a performance. In particular, the interplay of echo and equalization enabled engineers to make simulated sound spaces sound as if they were continually morphing in dimension and texture. Lee “Scratch” Perry’s song “Upsetting Dub” is very similar in the way it uses reverb and equalization. The songs feels so heavy and drawn out. I can feel the tension and despair in the heat of the Jamaican ghetto.

Tubby Dub

As I listen to "Tubby's Dubs", I cannot help but notice the repetitive nature of all of the works. Using both the repetitive beat of reggae, as well as the consistent use of echo's; the Dub style manages to create an enjoyable tune with the use of only a few sounds. I believe that this style is successful because of the meaningful use of these techniques. The echos, pitch changes, volume changes, and added sounds made dub something to be listened to half a century ago as well as something to listen to today. By turning the reggae genre electronic, dub became the popular type of music to enjoy in Jamaica. When I listen to some of these tracks I can still see the ghost of Stockhausen, as well as other artists from the first unit. In Lee Perry's "The Tackro", Perry has all of the classic characteristics of dub music, but he incorporates screams of different pitches. Not quite as random as the work we listened to during the first unit, but still incorporating different sounds and noises of life into his work. The feeling of reggae has always been a very upbeat feeling, the use of the echo as well as some of the other electronic techniques can completely change the feeling of the original song. I believe that dub was effective because of the way it could influence such a straight forward genre.

Control in a Constructing Reality

The music emerging from Kingston not only dabbled in experimentation it reflected its surroundings. Through sound alteration artists like Lee “Scratch’ Perry and King Tubby could create a reality on their own terms. “They created a music as roughly textured as the physical reality of the place, but with the power to transport their listeners to dance floor nirvana as well as the far reaches of the cultural and political imagaination: Africa, outer space, inner space, nature, and political/economic liberation.” Just as in reggae a “slower tempo resulted in a brooding mood to discuss heavier topics” which was evident in early dub works. In Lee Perry’s “Guiding Star’, the slower tempo sets up a darker, ominous mood. The echoes and reverbs in the piece create an eerie sense of the past. However it simultaneously serves as a dance beat, and the lyrics suggest a rub-a-dub element to the piece in which couples can dance slowly and closely with one another in the dance halls. King Tubby captures this environment as well by bringing the harsh sounds of the streets directly into his track “A Ruffer Version.” A dance beat is paired with the firing of bullets and sirens. The sounds layered together make them inseparable. Just like Lee Perry track, heavy tones are set to beats that bring the community closer together. It was impossible to escape the violence and turmoil but they were able to harness and control it through sound while still incorporating cultural influences. The ability to place the sounds to their liking brought forth a sense of control and power during a time of instability and despair.

Domestication and Reclamation of Space in Dub

The rise of commodity scientism in the 1950's, as Timothy Taylor points out in Strange Sounds, began to confuse domesticated space and authority. While women were consuming space age kitchen appliances, men took on the hi-fi as a tool "to reclaim some domestic space and authority in the home". (Taylor 79) What would this domestication and reclamation sound like in Dub, a genre in which much of its music production took place in domesticated space (such as Lee Perry's Black Ark) with high technologies?

The home as the domestic space is a place of familiarity, where goings-on can be controlled. Riddims in dub music inhibit similar feelings as they are generic progressions that form the basis of these songs. The bass and saxophone lull in King Tubby's "Bag a Wire Dub" forming a space of familiarity and safety, allowing the listener over the the 3 minutes to become intimate with the riddim. The reclamation of this domesticated space takes place when (often) arrthymically, we hear a reverberated clang, which is probably King Tubby abusing his spring reverb unit. The domesticated space is disintegrated; it becomes fragmented and interrupted challenging the established safety within the riddim. "Bag a Wire Dub" is a constant flux of riddim-domesticated space and clang-reclaimed space. Scientist's "Beam Down" inhibits this flux in a slightly different way. A bass line creates a smooth, regular riddim with slight variations of reverb added. However, throughout the track, similar clangs and drum hits fragment the space created by the riddims, gradually growing in intensity throughout the track. The volume of these clangs grows throughout the track, reminiscent of of the hifi's volume level causing "spatial/spousal conflict" within the home. (Taylor 80) Much like how the hifi emerged as a reclaimer of domestic space, the abused spring reverb unit reclaims songs from the riddim.

Reverb is the Unifying Factor

The various technological, social and political factors that affect DUB, result in many different styles and definitions of this movement. However, one technique that remains consistent is the heavy use of reverberation or delay. Michael Veal states, “If fragmentation created dynamic tension in the mix, reverb was the cohering agent that held the disparate sounds together; as individual parts appear and disappear from the mix, reverberating trails of their presences provide continuity between one sound and the next.” Songs that are drastically different in mood, technique and tone still share a heavy reverb. King Tubby’s “A Ruffer Version” reflects the times of dark politics and war in Kingston when the recording studio served as a sanctuary and DUB was a powerful form of socio-political expression. Gun shots and sirens ring out though the mix while the reverb remains strong. King Jammy’s “Dub It in the Dancehall Dub” is nearly the opposite in every way but the consistent echo of the reverb. “Dancehall Dub” has a chill rhythm and upbeat melody that reflects the freedom and the high one feels in a Kingston dancehall surrounded by friends, rhythm and subwoofers.
When King Tubby first revealed delay on an amplifier he became one of the most sought out technicians in the region and soon everyone was trying to replicate his sound. Veal quotes Philip Smart, “The first time any other sound man ever heard delay, was when U-Roy came and take up the mic and say, “Your now entertained by the number one sound in the land, land, land, land, …”

Energy Fools the Magician

For this Blog Post, I looked though the material given though class and found this title called : Energy Fools the Magician.” After listening to this I had come to the conclusion that Timothy Taylor’s ideas on the Technoscientific Imaginary seemed to be the best way to describe this piece. This is a piece that carried a natural beat in through out but seems to bring in some kind of synthesizer at periods of the song. Through out the chapter, Taylor explained how electronic started to be incorporated within music after the Post War. This piece seems to emulate the Spooky Tooth: Ceremony area. Yes the piece doesn’t have any religious undertones with a rock twist, but the pieces seem to relate in bring in one thing to be over layered with another. With a natural sound which to me seemed to be an abstract beat, a synthesizer was placed over it with a more musical tone. There is a consistent ringing with a guitar playing various notes through out but the other sound seems to have something more to it. It sounds as though time was slowed to give it more of a chorus and make it stand out more.

Monks on Youtube

A friend of mine sent this by my way when he saw I was listening to the Monks. Totally wish I could have been dancing with those hip cats. They look a little more tame here than I thought they would have looked from our class discussion.

Beam Down

In Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae Michael Veal writes, “In the sonic culture of humans, the sensation of echo is closely associated with the cognitive function of memory and the evocation of the chronological past; at the same time, it can also evoke the vastness of outer space and hence (by association), the chronological future.”(p.198) This idea of dub as evocative of various (outer) spacial constructs existing within a chronological arrangement can be heard in “Beam Down” from Scientist. First of all, there is the clearly spacial element of reverberation applied to each snare hit. This is a common dub technique found in many songs such as King Tubby’s “No No No” and Prince Jammy’s “Jammin’ For Survival”. Additionally, the sonic manipulation of the bass through the use of EQ gives the repeating bass pattern the feel of a changing environment. The listener hears the quality of the bass sound change the “scenery” as the bassline walks through the space of the piece. Lastly, “Beam Down” makes use of sparse overlaid sounds that evoke a sense of outer space and technicality. An example of this can be found early in the piece (18 seconds) when an artificial-sounding “bleep” occurs and reverberates into the distance. Though these artificial sounds are heard only occasionally in the piece, they suggest a sense of otherworldliness that colors the entire mix. In these ways “Beam Down” by Scientist makes use of echo to evoke a sense of spatiality that gives the listener a sense of physical space (through the use of reverberation) as experienced through time (as measured by the walking of the bassline).

Having not listened to dub before, I have gathered several “first impression” observations about the genre; some of which are justly highlighted in Veal’s book, DUB. I thought it was interesting to look at the characteristics of dub that define the genre. In the second chapter of Veal’s book, he discusses several of these production strategies that make dub what it is. These include: spatial effects due to the use of reverb and echo, the use of equalization to create differences in the textures of sounds, and the inclusion of extraneous material. The best utilization of all three of these seems to come about in King Tubby’s Fittest of the Fittest Dub. Although, with perhaps the exception of the inclusion of extraneous material, it seems to me that every Jamaican dub in the class material utilizes the exact same techniques to the extent that I would argue that most Jamaican dub sounds the same. To me, the only real distinctive factor between these dub songs is the amount of inclusion or exclusion of vocal tracks. Although, perhaps it is merely the trends that certain producers have that I am hearing.

Back on track, one technique that became particularly apparent to me upon listening to dub tracks, such as Fittest of the Fittest Dub, was the use of echo, reverb, and EQ sweeps all at the same time in order to transition between certain sections of the song. It seems that this transition is comprised of an echo effect that not only fades out as time progresses, but also drops out the low frequencies gradually, until all that are left are the high frequencies before it fades out to nothing, creating a phenomenal alteration in space and texture. One section of Tubby’s track in particular starts at 0:28 when the vocal track of the singer follows this progression. The effect arises several other times throughout the duration of the track. Veal describes this use of equalization best when he states, “Using the equalization and filtering controls, overtones of an instrument can be manipulated until it sounds full, warm, and robust, or until it sounds thin, shrill, and eviscerated. Applied to an entire ensemble, a group can sound as if it is expanding or diminishing in size.” I would argue that the effects transition I described previously follows Veal’s description linearly, going from “warm and robust” to “thin and shrill” as the echo fades. This is no doubt a defining characteristic of dub mixes as it arises in other dub mixes from artists other than King Tubby, including Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Lee Perry Upsetting Dub, King Jammy’s Black and White Dub, Sly & Robbie’s Burial Dub, as well as many others by these dub legends.

Producing Dub

For this blog post, I decided to use Veal’s concept of how a producer is an artist with Lee Perry’s “Special Dub”. The Special dub is a piece that shows how much creative control the producer has in a song. Unlike times when the producer was just an engineer to get sound on a “recordable medium”, here Lee Perry uses his board as an instrument and it clearly shows through the amount of effects placed on the piece and the incorporated sonorous objects. From this, I have to ask the question: who is more responsible for works nowadays? Is it the producer or the musician? Or are they the same person? This concept is also seen in King Tubby’s Black Lash. Here he uses, trumpets from Johnny Cash’s “Ring Of Fire” and manipulates them over a consistent drum and bass loop to change his song and here the producer is certainly the musician. Here he transforms a song about drug addiction into a upbeat, positive island groove.


“More then any other engineering mixing dub, Perry’s Black Ark suggests the mood of an engineer completely absorbed in the world he is fashioning; this is estatic music created at the mixing board. “

Alchemists of Sound

I recently discovered this great documentary about the BBC's Radiophonic workshop on youtube (in 7 parts). part 1. part 2. part 3. part 4. part 5. part 6. part 7.

from the BBC's website:

The BBC's Radiophonic Workshop was set up in 1958, born out of a desire to create 'new kinds of sounds'. Alchemists of Sound looks at this creative group from its inception, through its golden age when it was supplying music and effects for cult classics like Doctor Who, Blake's Seven and Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, and charts its fading away in 1995 when, due to budget cuts, it was no longer able to survive.

There are interviews with composers from the Workshop, as well as musicians and writers who have been inspired by the output. Great archive footage of the Workshop and its machinery is accompanied by excerpts of the, now cult, TV programmes that featured these sounds.

Tools for your dub texts

Here are links to the Cut'n'Mix site and the Language Is a Virus resources.

Digital Instrument Playing :) Intense!!!!

w00t: a collage of computer game sound and image

Bob Ostertag, sound artist and professor of technocultural studies at UC Davis, just released "w00t" on his website.

w00t consists of a 50-minute sound collage, a 4.5 minute sound “trailer,” and associated “cover art.” There is, however, no cover. w00t is a free, internet-only release. w00t was composed entirely from fragments of music from these computer games:

Balloon Fight • Congo Bongo • Contra • Earthbound • Halo: Combat Evolved • Ico • Katamari Damacy • Killer Instinct • The Legend of Zelda • Massive Assault • Myst
• Star Fox • Super Metroid • Super Smash Bros.: Melee • Viewtiful Joe • WarioWare, Inc: Mega Party Game$ • World of Warcraft

Images from these same games were included in the w00t art work. The w00t music began as the sound for Special Forces, a live cinematic performance by Living Cinema (Pierre Hébert and Bob Ostertag), which addressed the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006.

Download "wOOt".

Space and Human Destiny (FREE!)

The final installment of our "Beyond Earth: Ethical and Political Choices in Space" Series
In this ongoing discussion moderated by David Grinspoon, PhD, the Museum invites you to consider with scientists, astronauts, ethicists, and policy makers the ethical and political implications of human space activities. Co-sponsored by the Secure World Foundation and the Center for Space Exploration Policy Research at Southwest Research Institute.

What are the long term consequences and implications of space exploration for the future of the human race? Does space hold the key to the future of life and intelligence? Can the move into space help humanity to survive? Come hear the thoughts of some of today's most visionary thinkers about space exploration, and participate in a discussion about the human future.

Tuesday's Panel will include:

Jill Tarter, PhD, director, Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute, Mountain View, California. (Named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world; many people are now familiar with her work as portrayed by Jodie Foster in the movie Contact.)
Christopher McKay, PhD, Research Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, astrobiologist, and influential writer/speaker on interplanetary bioethics.
Robert Zubrin, PhD, President, The Mars Society
Moderated by Dr. David Grinspoon, Curator of Astrobiology, DMNS
Tuesday, October 16
7:00 p.m.
Phipps IMAX Theater; use IMAX Evening Entrance
Free
Reservations: 303.322.7009 or 1.800.925.2250



--
Dr. David Grinspoon
Curator of Astrobiology
Department of Space Sciences
Denver Museum of Nature & Science
2001 Colorado Blvd.
Denver, CO 80205
direct line: 303-370-6469
fax: 303-370-6005
dgrinspoon@dmns.org


President and Rhythm Guitar
Funky Science, Inc.
david@funkyscience.net

http://www.funkyscience.net/

In the Shadow of the Moon

In the Shadow of the Moon opened last month, and I thought of it today because I remembered someone in class wondering if there had been any efforts to archive the stories of astronauts. This looks like an attempt at that, focusing on the Apollo missions to the Moon.

Also, on the movie's website, there's a really nice writing by the film's composer, Phillip Sheppard and how he approached scoring the film (Under "About the Film"):

My initial impulse when thinking about the project was 'Space! America! Let's go big and bombastic adn write music that's going to punch them out of their seats.' But of course that's not what the film's about; its much more of a human story. Funnily enough it's more in the way of a chamber piece; it's more intimate...

So for the launch, where you may expect a full symphony orchestra to be playing right from the off, we're starting really small with just the tiniest instrument, the little marimba, and then building to something that's absolutely enormous We've gone the opposite way to what you might expect...

We recognized that this film is about the frontier mentality; the idea of discovering not the new West but the new world, and I wanted that pioneering spirit to be manifest in the score. I love the old West and this traditional American string music is among my favorites.

Sounds familiar but with a new approach. Its showing at the Landmark Chez Artiste on Colorado. Also, check out that computer! It looks like a giant wall of synthesizers!

The Posthuman DJ - in the 70's at TX/LA radio

Wow, I am floored by this amazing broadcast from The Black Pope:

"I'm a human radio station, I'm the transmitter, I'm the tower, I'm the turntables, I'm the building, I'm every doggone thing."

More jive DJ's here.

RIAA -- "Sounds For The Space-Set!!"

Check out this great, album-sized "mashup tribute to the pioneers of electronic music......A glamorous excursion thru the solar system..." from the RIAA -- that is, the Robotic Intergalactic Astro-Artists. The playlist is like a who's-who of artists relevant to our class. Tracks 3-5 are particularly out-of-control -- out of mission-control, that is -- mashups.

http://www.m-1.us/spaceset.html

The Amen Break

Here's a great video/installation by Nate Harrison on the Amen Break sampled from The Winstons' "Color Him Father". It's easily the most used breakbeat ever and I would assume followed up in popularity by "Funky Drummer" by James Brown/Clyde Subblefield (who has a myspace page!) and "Apache" by the Incredible Bongo Band. I think its an interesting meme in electronic music. I don't really have a background in memetics, or fully understand the concepts surrounding them but I would argue that the Amen Break, as a staple of hip hop, house, drum and bass and other genres of electronic music is really successful at survival. I really would like to spend some time looking at its mutations and also how it could be detrimental to its host (perhaps it's seen as too derivative?).

Also interestingly, Harrison argues that markets and capital will benefit from a more open and flexible culture and public domain.

EDIT: I'm sorry, as my fiance pointed out in the comments, the SONG the sample is from is "Amen, Brother" which is on the B-side. Color Him Father is on the A-side.

Brian Eno-Lantern Marsh

Sounds like the call of animal in the piercing thought the dark, it echoes and fades back into the forest. Silence, a response from a distance, a more high pitched and vibrating call. The calls continue, bouncing back and for all different, yet similar in nature. Beneath this is a constant ambient fluctuation, sounds flowing at a constant speed. The two layers have merged together in a melodic humming of electronic pulses. What are there animals in the forest, is it just something synthesized or organic?

Cameron

Aphex Twin’s ‘Acrid Avid Jam Shred’

Aphex Twin’s ‘Acrid Avid Jam Shred’* begins with a heavy bass-bomb sequence; as sonic layers pile in and interact they engender a percussive phenomenology of ecstasis, or undecidability of the overall dominance amongst many layers of rhythm and harmonics. This ‘dominance’ reveals itself as the ephemeral focus of my attention-structure on a particular layer or mixture (the dynamic experience of ‘groove’). Gradually, ‘Acrid’s’ seven or eight layers reach crescendo, followed by various deconstructions, solos, and inter-mixes of polyrhythm. It might seem that each percussive ‘track’ is phenomenologically a kind of rail involving speed and motion, because of the pleasurable dips being felt in my spine each time grooves do oscillate. When I realize that groove has switched rails, it is not only a rhythm track; my very attention structure has switched focus, perhaps onto melodic counterpoints or the slower bass-bomb patterns. Is there some existential meaning of this strange poignance when a strictly rhythmic motif infuses with the trope of ecstasis – an entirely new, vast space-time designed by the Mind accustomed to postmodern economies of speed, while utterly transcendent of any conventional ‘dance’ beat psychology?

(*07:38, I Care If You Do, 1995)

Oval - You are here, here 0.9 B

An organic strumming is attacked by chopped distortion. A constant pulsing of the base grounds the piece structurally. The low end becomes equally pronounced quickly. Everything skips out and halts. The computer begins thinking again. Its thoughts culminate with the familiar base and new high orbits. Volume is quickly pushed on me. Final melodic notes end the static's frustration. Why didn't the computer pan or alter its stage width?

Charles N.

Pauline Oliveros - Bye Bye Butterfly

The dull, high-pitched sound of an oscillator is quickly penetrated by its own sharper staccato inflections. These waves rumble on out of phase, complicated by layers of their own repeating echoes. The sounds then merge into a low drone that is allowed to dissipate until the high-pitched wave dominates again. An operatic human voice suddenly cuts into the mix along with a string section, but these too echo and taper off before becoming indistinguishable in the mix, only to be repeated again. Here the drone returns, longer this time, like a cocoon diverting the brightness around it. All the while the atonality of the voices is enhanced by the grating whine of the oscillators, which remain always at a higher volume. Can any tone become a comfort by becoming familiar?

Response:The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel

The steadiness about this piece comes from its reliability on instability. Within a matter of seconds the listener is taken into different musical worlds that are blended together through the power of Grandmaster Flash’s imagination. The record scratches quickly mocks and compete with the music created by instruments and voices. One can hear the needle being moved back and forth on the record so meticulously that it prepares and trains the listener to welcome the change that comes along with every movement on the turntables. The bass line to Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” is chosen to grant a sense familiarity. Suddenly a new music sensation hits the ear then quickly falls in line to the beat of the track. Every scratch, rhythm change and mash-up takes the listener to a party created through sound. With an upbeat rhythm the song transports the listener throughout the room catching clips of voices and sounds that connect to the overall tone of the piece. No certain voice or genre defines this expression of work since each sound is timed to align with one another. Voices of males, females, even children paired with the rock, rap, dance and disco are creating a sense of unity and commonalty. With the clear musical entity Grandmaster Flash has established through the works of others, it begs one to ask a question often debated in psychology concerning identity. Is identity inwardly self-constructed or a reflection of influences of our surroundings?

Review: Malcolm McLaren and the World's Famous Supreme Team's Buffalo Gals

Sounds like a hiss pop whine of the tape containing phonic vowel emphasis: EAH, AE, OO, I, OO, EH, EAH, AH, OO, EH, AH, AH, AH. The brass thickens with a tinny soft chorus trading melodic weaving around a set of tones. The DJ’s stuck on buh buh buh, bah, hiss pop whine primal yell build supplanted with hard-soft-fade bass, compression of scratching punctuated by the chorus, just a bit higher than before. Back to the stuttering men, words cut off to patterns of quick rise, leading us into hollow rising drums. These buffalo gals and boys are really building me up as they round the outside of the vynil at high speed. Do-si-do with the low bass texture and decrescendo of low tight frequency pounding at our chorus and twang swing pitch man competing with melodic fat density to a flow of predictable patterned language. Will this caller ever get the square dance to rock a party?

Gesang der Jünglinge

Ten seconds of silence. Watery synthesized modulations burst through the quiet. Then the sharp attack of high-pitched tinkles gives way to the sounds of singing human voices - women or young children. Voices begin to rise up in the mix. The singing voices modulate and blend with the resonances of the synthesized sounds. As piece rises into sonorous cacophony, I struggle to differentiate the sounds of human voices from the artificial oscillations of the synthesized tones. The cacophony subsides and breaks begin to occur between the bursts of sound. The voices become shorter and the synthesized tones become long and smooth. Short bursts of noise punctuate occasionally as the piece nears the end. What does my inability to understand the language of the voices contribute to my perception of the musicality of this piece?

Light Graffiti from Germany

Thought you all may be intrigued by this...

http://www.purellc.com/content/view/34/30/

Response to Brian Eno's "Lizard Point"

Lizard Point starts with a crescendo of two sustaining tones. Although these medium pitched tones are not dissonant, there is a feeling of aprehension as you realize your body is becoming encapsulated by them. Occasionally there are two more tones added that descend into a temporary resolve. Soon there are higher pitched sounds added that create a pulsing tension. The drone continues to build with the four, now familiar tones while the new sounds on top turn to a temporary beat in the distance. Now that beat liquifies. It is no longer solid. An even higher, tinny drone is added, simultaneously contrasted by a few deep bass beats. A white noise is present now, it feels like air is finally released into this created atmosphere. You take a deep breath of it while you settle into this surrounding drone that has become a comfort now. Suddenly the tinny pitch is back, this time much louder in it's sustain. The swell takes over your body and you catch just a glimpse of a space beyond. You are intriqued but then it quickly fades. It's in the distance again. Now it's gone. You are once again surrounded by this lonely but comfortable drone. Are we stifled by this space in which we have quicky become comfortable? If given another chance, do we want to break through the protective wall Eno has created and venture to the distant realm of these new sounds/space... even at the risk of discomfort or discontent?

Response to "Cosmic Raindance" by Cybotron

Stephen Younger
Blog Response
Cybotron: Cosmic Raindance

As the song begins; I'm feeling as though I need to prepare for something. Then all of a sudden a sound of a theremin appears to signal a warning that something was about to happen. This last for only a few seconds when a synthesizer launches you and from this point on, you feel as though you’re on a ride. It's as though you’re on a real theme park ride, with each of the instruments in the song sounding as though you’re passing them by. The basic beat of a synthesized drum helps you move along from place to place as everything else around you is open space. At one point a synthesized guitar sound starts to engulf you as though you were trying to navigate through an asteroid field, then it fades away for a little bit as though you just passed. All of a sudden you experience the sound of a loud crash and everything just stops. The sound of rain and lightning fill the room with water poring down. The ride feels as though it is never the same and you don’t really know when the song will crash. Can you really chart the path you take, or really understand where it all ends?

History of the Cut-up reaction

“History of the Mash-Up” by Strictly Kev.

It hits me like a collage of all the songs that we hold dear and yet all the songs that we don’t like to listen to. The first mash-up of the Beatles “Sun King” precedes everything else and we are led into other mash-ups that show how many songs and genres we avoid because of their genre are similar to the ones we like. The element of surprise drives this mash-up chronology. Theres another unexpected song that is so familiar and yet not because of the strikingly similar bass rhythm. Country singers are now rappers. Rappers are now disco artists. Hendrix is a pop star instead of a guitar god. The Beatles are electronic artists. The same song changes into a different song. A break in the middle displays an analysis of the cut-up and even the cut-up is cut-up. Then just as he did in the 60’s Ed Sullivan introduces more music and interviews that are cut-up to change the message. All these songs are very different from one another yet pieced together so seamlessly. Are any of these songs really that different from one another?
-Dan'tastic'

Response to "Lantern Marsh" by Brian Eno

Adam Butler
Blog Response
“Lantern Marsh” – Brian Eno

The scene opens with a rumbling low frequency, saturated with swooping, high-pitched wails, engulfing and encompassing the stereo field. Atonal variations of the wails come at you from every angle. Gradually, additional instruments are introduced; but are they instruments? Regardless, they fill this imaginary atmosphere with a slowed down, expanded strings sound that detunes and retunes in waves. The ear and body become immersed in a landscape not visible to the eye, but one fabricated in the mind. A vibrating static enters and leaves the left and right channels at different times, as the high wails continue; they are crying now, but about what? Slowly and gradually, all starts to fade. We are leaving it behind; floating away. Who would have thought that such emotion could be attached to an atmosphere that does not exist but in our own level of imagination?

Exotica Research | Music from Outer Space

Ken Saari's historical survey on space age pop from 1940s through early 1960s is worthwhile, and also includes many higher resolution album cover scans.

From Saari's article:

Nothing represents "space age pop" more literally than music with an explicit outer space theme, or "outer space exotica." Music in this genre, typically of the instrumental variety, was arranged for several LP record albums from the late 1940’s through the early 1960’s. In general, the most successful examples contain adventurous arrangements of music written especially for the album. Often, electronic instruments and other novel effects are present, and these sounds are integrated effectively into the music. The least successful albums typically have some electronically generated sounds, but are otherwise lackluster compositions or mundane, syrupy renditions of popular standards with celestial titles like "Star Dust" and "Out of This World." Whether the music in the record grooves is inspired or dated, the album cover jackets typically feature imaginative period artwork and are collectable in themselves.

http://www.ele-mental.org/~ecc/exo/exotica/osearticle.html

Response to Stockhausen

In Stockhausen's piece "Gegung der Junglinge", created in 1956, he creates feelings in the listener by warping noise and sound from everyday life. In the piece he combined the sound of women's voices singing, a boy's voice, and many windy/ bubbly sounds. He used each sound differently. The would speed up the singing of the women in one section, and slow it down in another. He interrupted the singing with the sound of wind blowing. Towards the end of the piece, a boy was singing alone, with the windy/ bubbly sounds interrupting him. At the beginning, I felt a sense of community and happiness, because of everyone singing together. As the windy breaks became more and more frequent, a feeling of desertion, death, isolation, and loneliness began to set in. As the boy sang alone, I was convinced that he was alone, left by the community. I can only imagine the feelings that Stockhausen was trying to relay using this piece, but I got the same feeling of death in Stockhausen's "Hymnen Region". As it closes, "Hymnen Region" has the sound of heavy bass with high pitched noise, which gave me a feeling of emergency. A man breathing alone, was how Stockhausen finished his piece. Once again, the feeling of death emerges from his work.

Glenn Gould Resurrected

From a story on NPR: New Technology Recaptures Pianists of the Past

Maynard Keenan Interview Excerpts

A couple interesting answers from an interview with Maynard Keenan that highlight some of the industry issues that we talked about in class on Monday. Where is the motivation to produce music, and how do you keep people buying? The interview is from Suicide Girls, which is unfortunate, but it's a good one. It's puzzling to hear him talking about making music for a living and branding for fun in the same breath.

Keenan: I think it’s just the age that we’re in. With the internet the way it is, music is now a soundtrack to some other activity. You can make a living selling songs but you make a better living playing them. If you’re not going to play them you got to figure out what else to sell and I guess that comes down to t-shirts and key chains.

Keenan: If the entire world turned into something where there is no money involved. If there was no money involved it would be easy to do this but as soon as the money comes into play, everybody gets weird. It has an affect on everybody. It doesn't matter who they are but as soon as there's money involved people get fucking goofy. When you don't have money to lose you don't have to worry about somebody taking the money. All that bullshit aside I'm trying to prove that I can just make music and make my living doing that and selling shirts for fun.

SG: That was back when the Tool albums were more stripped down, would you ever go back to a more stripped down Tool?
Keenan: No, because we have your attention. If you want someone’s attention you have to scream from the back of the room to be heard. Once you have everybody’s attention you have to whisper to keep it.

the history of the album + more from

Our reading from Strange Sounds made me think of this video from Save the Album. Tim Harrington (vocalist for Les Savy Fav) gives a nice little talk about how the term album came about and where he thinks album is going. The style is a riot.

DJ Food: Raiding the 20th Century

UBUWEB's coverage of the expanded version of DJ Food's history of the cut-up is priceless, with both a good descriptor of the project and comprehensive track-listing. This piece is required listening; it covers so much, it's amazingly well-sequenced, it's witty, it rocks, and it's not only a compendium of many of THE classic voices conceptualizing the impact of recording technology on music, Paul Morley's more recent writings are smart and insightful without being overly dense.

It strikes me that this project could very well be an essential model of what we might aspire to do in terms of our output in this class. Regardless, here's your recipe before next Monday's class. Take one hour, put on your headphones, pick your best seat, and check out this amazing sonic documentary that touches on virtually everything we've discussed and read in class so far. This program will continue to inform our critical discussions and practices both conceptually and practically.

http://www.ubu.com/sound/dj_food.html

musique concrete

I thought this project (Musique Concrete) by Simon Morris was a nice mix of psychogeography, performance, and interactivity. The skateboard adds a really interesting performative element, merging musical and sports live performance in a way I haven't really seen before. I'd really like to have this for my daily commute.



Urb festival 2006 Kiasma Museum

radioLab

an interesting radio program exploring the concept of music and our perception of it:
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2006/04/21
What is music? How does it work? Why does it move us? Why are some people better at it than others? In this hour, we examine the line between language and music, how the brain processes sound, and we meet a composer who uses computers to capture the musical DNA of dead composers in order to create new work. We also re-imagine the disastrous 1913 debut of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring…through the lens of modern neurology.

Classic Stockhausen cover

Priceless Deutsche Grammophone album cover, 1971.

Björk Meets Karlheinz Stockhausen

A nice little follow-up to our previous set of readings, that at last fulfills something of a desire to have these two generations of electronic musicians actually talk together, at least in the context of interview if not full-on discussion. This interview is from "Dazed and Confused" (#23 1996), and it's called "Compose Yourself," Introduction and Interview by Björk.

http://home.concepts.nl/~sinned/d23.htm

"Stockhausen vs. the Technocrats"

Here is our primary article, Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Advice to clever children," an article from The Wire, November 1995.

Music videos and performance footage for works by Stockhausen, Aphex Twin, Plastikman, and Scanner, plus lectures and interviews with the artists.



To jump to individual chapters of the video program, here's a direct link to the playlist.