Former Beatle John Lennon is Dead (he remains alive in my conciousness)

There is undoubtedly a strong connection between human speech and music. This podcast considers the implications of how new sound and recording technology has changed the way we hear voices, and connect with their singer, as listeners. In particular it focuses on John Lennon whose split from the Beatles in 1969 and murder in 1980 both stand as symbolic events which occurred at the crossroads of broader cultural change.

Creative Sampling

My podcast explores how the changing technology has pushed musical composition from classical techniques to the current sampling / mashup culture, and the impacts of this trend on our established ideas of individuality, creativity, and innovation. Sampling John Oswald, Cornelius, Girl Talk and RJD2 as well as authors Chris Cutler, Daphne Keller and Paul D. Miller, I explain how the recycling of old music is a natural response to recording and how this “plagiarism” can be seen as a truly novel creative work in two ways: first, the art of the collage, and secondly, close examination of a small segment of sound to find a new meaning, arriving at the conclusion that “the sum created from audio collage leaves its original elements far behind.”

Recyclation: A New Aural Collage

I chose to talk about recycling within music. It happens all the time, but some pieces are more specifically geared to or created out of that idea of recycling. This podcast looks at the idea of some music being either abstract or figurative. The aural collage created by the work of men like Pierre Schaeffer and John Oswald take the pre-existing and morph it into something new, arguing that their works are new pieces despite being created from what already existed. Dub artists like Prince Jammy and King Tubby reuse and recycle base tracks, showcasing the interest of vocal and instrumental art, for versioning is a common practice in the dub genre. The podcast also suggests that mash-ups of songs like that of Danger Mouse and the Legion of Doom are created not to create something different, but perhaps help listeners discover a new way of listening to what they've heard time and time again.

http://www.archive.org/details/PodcastRecyclation

Spatial Effects of Dub vs other Genres

My podcast describes how the use of different production techniques give Dub a spatial effect, specifically focuses on the techniques of reverberation and layering. I was really interested in how the reverb effects made the Dub songs sound as if they were drifting off into the distance or were being heard from a another room, or big concert hall. In order to demonstrate this, I take samples of Dub, and compare them to other songs of different genres where reverberation is used, but not in the same way that it is in Dub. I also briefly discuss how the use of vocals contributes to this spatial, or tangible difference.

Link: http://www.archive.org/details/SpatialEffectsOfDubVsOtherGenres

Augustus Pablo & King Tubby - "King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown"

Michael Veal explains in his book Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae that “the most important understanding of the dub mix is as a deconstructive, B-side remix of a 45 rpm single; the remix engineer draws on various strategies to manipulate the listener’s anticipation of musical events, and defamiliarize the vocal song on the A-side” (64). Some “various strategies” commonly employed by engineers and producers of dub music are the effects of fragmentation, reverberation and delay. Fragmentation, which refers to the technique of cutting out vocals of the remixed tracks to create a more poignant and interpretive lyrical content, was used to “create abrupt shifts in ensemble texture” (64). Then, sound engineers used delay to create rhythmic effects, which gives the dub track its characteristic echo; the reverberation technique then takes the delay effects and creates an environment in which one hears the song. Veal describes the function and relationship of these techniques in the genre of dub mixing: fragmentation creates the tension, and reverb connects it all back together. In the track “King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown,” from a collaborative dub album with the same name by Augustus Pablo and King Tubby, we see these techniques demonstrated by some of the earliest in the dub scene: the vocals in the song are simply “Baby I’ve… that love,” and at the very end “Baby I love you so,” a grossly fragmented and deconstructed version of the original “Baby I Love You So” by Jacob Miller. The lack of much vocal content makes the few words heard carry a stronger message. The instrumental portion of the mix is punctuated with delay echo effects and reverberation techniques such as panning to give the track a sense of movement within the sound space, and a laid-back rhythmical cohesion. The strategies used in this track are not exclusive to the pioneers of dub: they continue to be used in more recent dub remixes, such as “Radiation Ruling the Nation [Protection],” Mad Professor’s dub remix of Massive Attack’s track. The same fragmentation of lyrical content can be heard, as well as frequent use of delay and reverberation.

The Poetry of Dub

In Michael E. Veals book Dub he states that “although dub music is largely an instrumental medium, one of the most immediately recognizable sonic features of the dub mix is the way song lyrics are omitted and/or fragmented…”(P.64) along with “the interplay of echo and equalization enabled engineers to make simulated sound spaces as if they were continually morphing in dimension and texture”. (P.73) With in the first ten seconds of the song “A Rougher Version” by King Tubby featuring The Aggrovators we hear song lyrics but it is only about a 20 second clip of an echoing voice talking about being oppressed and humbling yourself, which is slowly being smothered by underlying rhythm of trumpets or horns that is coming forward. At the end of the snippet of lyrics the voice trails off in an eco that morphs into the underlying rhythm that is smothering it. The voice echoes back into existence about half way through the song. Stating only time will tell and not to end badly. Which the words are accented by the rhythm of random horns or trumpets that can be heard through out the song. The voice echoes back one more time towards the end of the song but the lyrics are sung and the echoing effect makes the words non distinguishing from one another and eco into each other making there own beat on top of the already slow and methodical tempo. Because of the use of the eco effect on every note in the song the beat is very jerky and almost gives you the feeling of walking around with something weighing you down. Which would make since that the feeling of the song matches the topic of being oppressed.

Les Baxter - Celestial Nocturne

"Celestial Nocturne" by Harry Revel represents what was contemporarily a "new" direction of music more in thought than in terms of what music actually shipped on the album. Timothy Taylor writes of Revel's music that it "Pushed the envelope in ways that weren't strictly technical." (Strange sounds, 73). Essentially, the music heard on the album is an almost fundamentally generic easy listening sound from its era. Taylor, however points out that this album did in fact make two firsts in musical history. The first, indeed, was not musical at all: the cover of the record was the first to ship with a color LP cover. The second is central to the music's theme but not structure: the use of a theramin. This instrument is used on the album, but it is backseat to lounge piano and choirs, and even to trumpets and other traditional band music. Nonetheless, "celestial Nocturne" and and "lunar Rhapsody" are among a host of other tracks on Revel's Music out of the moon that tie themselves to outer space to grant legitamacy and freshness to what would, without its minor use of new technology in production and packaging, have been an altogether unremarkable album. Nor was Revel alone. He was, in fact, indicative of a trend that would follow of similar easy listening albums like Ron Goodman's music in orbit that would market a technological progress rather than a music one with space imagery.

Drum & Bass - Dub

Within the pages of Michael Veal’s book Dub, he remarks on the concept of the drum and bass as an emphasis for the tracks. Rather than being all about the horns, lyrics, other instruments, etc, mixes with a “drum and bass” focus would be primarily stripped of the rest of the traditional dub pieces: “A typical drum & bass mix would focus on the propulsive motion of those to instruments throughout, with the chordal instruments only occasionally filtering through” (Veal 57). An example of this would be King Tubby’s “Silver Bullet – The Observer All Stars,” which is primarily a bass-driven track, with rhythm from other instruments coming through, but the bass is what is coming through the most, even though horns come in occasionally. This was not always a trend in Dub, even King Tubby’s work reveals that. For example, his song “The Aggrovators” is not focused on the bass or drum rhythm at all. In fact, the vocals and the other instruments, like the horns, outweigh the bass in the mix.

King Tubby - Fittest of the Fittest Dub

“In fact, although dub is certainly a genre of Jamaican music, it might be most accurate to think of it as such a process: a process of a song remixing or, more accurately, song re-composition. The fact that the dub mix is a version of a preexisting song that allows fragments of its prior incarnations to remain audible as an obvious part of the final product, makes it conducive to such conceptualizing; it can be linked with similar technology—based processes in other artistic media such as the serial reuse of images, collage manipulations of texture, and compositional procedures based on chance. An excerpt from Michael Veal’s book Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae.  When listening to King Tubby’s track Fittest of the Fittest Dub, you can really hear the process of dub. For instance the underlying bass takes you through this track, then hits the ears with vocals and keyboards that have reverberation attached to them, which first draws you in. Following is some lighter beats that take you in and out of a mixture of horns, vocals and the overlapping beat, and then right back into it again. This track reiterates the aspect of dub being a process of dissecting a variety of material and generating a completely different sound. Another track that has similar qualities to King Tubby’s and gives a good example for dub being a process is Marcus Garvey’s track Marcus Garvey.  Both tracks open with a heavy beat however with Marcus Garvey the opening beat is much heavier as well as vocals do not have a reverb connected to it. In continuing to compare the two tracks Marcus Garvey has a constant flow of vocals overlapping the beat a bit more than Tubby’s, but both do show how dub is a process of taking different fragments and creating a new collage.   

The Process of Dub

In Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae, Michael Veal explains that Dub music is best described as a process. Dub music is a version of re-mixing and recomposing pre-existing songs and creating something new in which bits and pieces of the original recording can still be heard. Similar to the idea of collaging and overlapping images and textures. (pg 21-22) One example of the is "Beam Down" by Scientist. The majority of the song is filled with heavy repetitive beats, but softer, more abstract sounds can still be heard in the background creating an overlapping effect. As th song progresses more beats and consistent sounds are added in and out throughout the track. Again, this is an example of combining pre-existing tracks and sounds. Prince Jammy's "Jammin' for Survival" is a little more dynamic in that there is more overlap between the variations of sounds and doesn't produce as much as a distant feel as "Beam Down."

Jools Holland Interviews Lee Scratch Perry

Here's an excerpt from the 1985 film, "Jools in Jamaica":

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Kontakte

Kontakte starts with a scattered series of chiming. Then proceeds to produce a shaking back and forth. The volume and tempos change sporadically in no obvious pattern or logical matter. Then a rough scratching and distant grumbling. Followed by a series of squawaking and more chiming. The noise slowing begins to speed up with a variation of more high-pitched chiming, shaking and pitter-pattter. A quick crescendo and decrescendo repeated several times and then a few dramatic notes played. The song then repeats more quiet chimes and is followed by a dramatic change of volume, tempo and a deep lowering of pitch. Then a circling variation of pitch which accelerates and decelerates. Then the volume fades out to the end of the piece. How can a piece contain such sounds that when standing alone are rough to the ear, but when put together seem to flow quite well?

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Hymnen Region 1

Region 1 of Stockhausen's Hymnan starts with a series of bright chirps and squeals, oscillating in pitch and descellerating to paint a sonic backdrop for the introduction organic sounds and splashes of color descending from a pallette of white noise. As familiar, human sounding features enter the mix it becomes strangely unsettling: the familiarity of these tones is too sharp a contrast from the randomized naturalism of the wholely original static. When the peace finally cuts out after some minutes of this it reenters with a short, level vocal rhythm that gives way to enthusiastic, nationalistic anthems that almost orient the listener into a realm of percieving our own world, a mix of prideful congregations of humans. However, as glistening twinkles of distorted tones and playful static reinvade, they pull us suddenly away from this familiar territory and into a spacey, futuristic disorientation in audio space. When the sound work eventually returns to human sounds around minute eleven it is no longer recognizable and the layers of humanity have been reversed and layered so as to render the commonality of human speech foriegn and unnatural, ultimately stacking into a sort of audio babble the finally climbs to a culmination of more nationalistic melodies. These melodies, this time around, have an added audio context due to the material that reintroduced them that grants the listener perspective to percieve them as if from afar, a physical notion reinforced by the reintroduction of spacey sounds that just before minute fifteen begin to scratch and then tear us, seperating us as listeners from the human-like sounds across an audio gulf of gurgling robotic signals. These gain strength while the anthems fade away until the reintroduction of a familiar radio scan from silence, for the fourth time, leaves the listener with the question of why the set of sounds we consider language can be percieved to render so much meaning. After all, if the essential qualities and tambor of it can be maintained while perverting it so far that it meshes more with random intersteller tones, how much more poignently comforting is the meaning encapsulated in the familiar symphonies of human speech?

Dan Pemberton - Phoenix

The sonorous form starts quietly with a deep, metallic sound; it begins to rotate and oscillate with increasing fervor. As it progresses the sound crescendos and swells, folding back on itself and growing with each added reverberation. A sharp, breathy exhale punctuates the hollow metal swelling, which now begins to grow darker and thicker; some barely audible ascending sound bytes trickle into the mix. The metal reverberation suddenly catches on itself and stutters, pounding and throbbing inside the piece with the discomfort of a hangover. Gradually the pulsing fades out to allow an uplifting electric organ to take its place. The tranquil tones gently glide in and float upwards, playing a soft, slow melody and allowing itself, much like the disconcerting metal in the beginning of the track, to vibrate and fold back into itself, creating a chorus of ethereal voices. Eventually each voice decrescendos to silence one at a time, allowing the metal oscillations a small resurrection before fading out completely. The title of this track is Phoenix: does this piece aurally simulate the life cycle of this mythological creature?

Kraftwerk - The Man Machine

A taping starts to play with a rapid, hollow, crispness. But is quickly interrupted by the start of some great classical symphony only being played by electrical instruments out of a Mario brothers video game and the tapping is layered into the background. Flowing at a constant speed each section of the electronic Mario brothers orchestra getting its chance to play its own part and layer itself on top of its neighbor beat by beat patter by patter. Each section of the orchestra interacting with each other and playing off each other, building the structure of the beat in a monophony than homophony than polyphony type of way. Only to be slightly broken up by an unrecognizable at first synthesized, chopped, and stretched voice that comes out of the back ground and from underneath all the layers of the electronic orchestra playing to announce its dominance over all the different layers of the electronic Mario brothers orchestra.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel

The entrance of the song is very recognizable, through out the entire track the beat of Queens “Another One Bites the Dust” comes back when you think that the track is going into a different direction switching the rhythm and the beat it still reverts back. When it changes the tempo speeds up into something unrecognizable in the rest of the track with voices and beats unlike previously heard. The tempo is played around with and controlled sourly through the turntables, with a delay here and there. Clicks and clacks are heard in certain sections of the Grand Master verse. How can someone take turntables and a few sound bites from various artists and create something that sounds completely different from anything that was used in creating the track.

John Oswald - Dont

The easily recognizable sounds of Elvis fill the start of the song, but something is off about the background. The surroundings of the voice click and crackle; start and sputter off with a disjointed rhythm. Now Elvis is interrupting himself, with an echoing embrace of his words. The background is becoming stronger now, both in volume and constancy. And then it tempers off quickly to almost complete stillness and silence. A single, strong pitch wavers in the air for a moment before Elvis resumes, but quickly the different pitches and influxes in volume of the background smacks and clicks overwhelm the voice and my ears, toying with the original rhythm, but quickly losing its rhythm in the excitement. Then the barrage heightens, with overbearing timbre and ever-increasing tempo and volume, fighting with the Elvis’ voice, eventually winning the struggle and fading off into silence. How do the sounds of one of the most recognizable voices in history become drowned out by its own self in a chaotic battle of rhythm and volume?

Marvin Gaye - What's Happening Brother?

A well-worn rhythmic mechanism—effortlessly equalized, synchronized and syncopated—impels the sound forward with a self-assured, steady gait. There are luminous voices hovering above that seem impossibly distant. They are garnished with exuberant swells of horns, strings, and a tiny precious bell, almost overpoweringly effusive, for a centerpiece. Marvin’s lead vocal is imbued with a tender determination; its coarseness is charmed into clarity and its straining is seduced into something much sweeter. His voice is bound to the rhythm beneath by chains of cacophonous consonants, but stretches nobly, tonally upward toward the heavenly hosts singing “ooh” and “aah” above. The rising and falling of Marvin’s voice functions in a frustrated teeter-totter with these untouchably close singing sirens. It seems just as Marvin relinquishes his side of the struggle, cascading back into a tired sigh, the sonorous objects of his affection take notice and reach down towards him. The rhythm, meanwhile, remains indifferent to this antagonism and continues chugging along below it. Ultimately, it seems the consistency, between the song's words and sonic illustrations, is what serves it well in articulating a case for listeners to stop and consider 'what's happening?'