Ted Riederer

i figured out the name of that artist i was talking about who smashed up the instruments and then played them - Ted Riederer & the piece is called "the Resurrectionists."

Evolving West Coast Hip Hop Microcosms

It was requested by Trace that I include some of the hip hop I mentioned in class the other day. I'm really into a hip hop scene on the West coast that suggests strong influences by DIY electronics, Electronica, Dub, 70's/80's glam, science fiction, pop and lock/krumping, and remix/mashup. I've also included a lot of samples if you've never heard any of this before.





To my understanding most of this music culminates in and around Low End Theory night at the Airliner, a bar in LA. Here is a really interesting documentary project (someone beat me to it) where Daedalus (Alfred Darlington) talks about the fusion of rock, electronic aesthetic and hip-hop in this specific club scene. The resulting music is complex and sophisticated, melding earth pounding bass with throwback funk and punk sensibilities. Here is a brief tour de force of some of the artists breaking ground:

LazerSword:
http://www.myspace.com/lazersword

Low Limit:
http://www.myspace.com/lowestlayer

Nobody:
http://www.myspace.com/nobodyelvin

The Gas Lamp Killer:
http://www.myspace.com/thegaslampkiller

Samiyam:
http://www.myspace.com/samiyambeats

Robot Koch (from Berlin):
http://www.myspace.com/robotkoch
Mixtape:
http://soundcloud.com/robot-koch/robot-koch-robots-dont-sleep

Lunice (from Toronto all of his albums are free there are links on his Myspace):
http://www.myspace.com/Lunice

Slightly Different scene but also involved:

Flying Lotus:
http://www.myspace.com/flyinglotus

Many Low End Theory Podcasts:
http://www.lowendtheoryclub.com/podcast/



Finally, on another note I thought I'd share what came to mind in reading about the space age bachelor pad music. Fat Jon takes on the nom de plume Maurice Galactica for Humanoid Erotica, science fiction imbued, headphone hip-hop. Here are two nice tracks from the album as well as the very "Heavenly Bodies" like album cover.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyTPiLTMDKk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDkTAWSYXjk

Mainstreaming the Mashup

The tagline says it all: "(CNN) -- Some great songs were released in 2009 and thanks to a mashup master named DJ Earworm you can listen to the top 25 releases from the year in just under six minutes."

CNN coverage of DJ Earworm's year-end Billboard Top 25 mashup:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Music/01/25/dj.earworm/index.html

Acousmatic listening

Location: Driscoll Lounge

A low beat, consistent, accentuated by a higher pitched humanoid forced exhalation.
Intermittent high pitched beats, short bursts of them then fading away.
A short sucking high pitched sound.

Soft clicking noises interspersed with a short intake or sucking sound.

A low thrum, constant..

Highly pitched beat muddled by mid to low range sounds, in the background behind the other noises. Further away.

Lower pitched humanoid sounds, punctuated by higher pitched ones, alternating.

Low pitched exhalation, distorted and forced.

A High pitched clatter in the distance.

A new low thumping, regularly spaced, disappears then reappears as it gets louder. Eventually it too fades.

Similar noises but higher pitched with a thumping beat.

Slower this time with longer pauses, a rhythmic beat.
Two beats at a time, same pattern as before, louder,
off beat but close together.

Several humanoid voices in seeming competition.
All in pairs, in a 1-2 progression or a 1-2-2-1 progression.

Humanoid sounds low pitched or just further away, too hard to make out.

Music / Noise / Sound / Silence

The timing couldn't be any more perfect with this upcoming performance from DU's own experimental music group, The Playground Ensemble:

Music / Noise / Sound / Silence
When: Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 7:30pm
Where: Hamilton Recital Hall, Newman Center for the Performing Arts
2344 E. Iliff Ave, Denver CO (303) 871-6412
Tickets: $18 adults, $16 seniors, and free for students from any school and DU/ID
Web: www.playgroundensemble.org

What is music? When is sound just noise? The attempts of 20th-century composers to grapple with these questions generated some of the most important musical innovations of the era. In this concert, the Playground presents music that redefines these terms and examines the boundaries between them.

The performance will include:
Profilo Sintetico-Musicale di Marinetti by Silvio Mix
Suite for Percussion by Lou Harrison
4'33" by John Cage
Sound Patterns by Pauline Oliveros
Clapping Music by Steve Reich
Dots, Lines, Zigzags by Sofia Gubaidulina
The Dead Man by John Zorn
Tabula Rasa by Einstürzende Neubauten

Artists-in-Residence at DU's Lamont School of Music, The Playground Enemble is a force for new music in the Rocky Mountain region. The group strives to provide stimulating performances, expand common perceptions of both contemporary music and the chamber ensemble, and nurture a community around this music that we love.

Brian Eno's "2/2"

A low murmur is joined by two higher, yet still subdued wails from opposite sides. Even more wails join in, but further apart, and seemingly at random. The sounds are elongated and seem to trail on forever, imperceptibly fading out behind even more moans. The moans are harmonious, rarely breaking out of fifths, thirds, and octaves. There is an occasional augmented third in the chaos that sporadically resolves into a major third. The structure of each moan becomes clearer as the sound continues: they fade in quickly from nothing and peak before fading back out into infinity. This chaotic pattern continues until only the slightest hint of a unified, orchestrated rising progression makes its way to the fore before quickly being lost in the infinite, subdued, harmonious disorder. How can such a contained, orderly harmonious sound simultaneously be perceived to be so chaotic and disorderly?

Brian Eno's "Lizard Point"

An eerie whisper. A constant background noise, its volume and pitch rising and falling. Slowly a melody/rhythm forms in the foreground, yet so soft it easily falls into the background. The sounds move backwards, unintelligibly, almost a groaning. As that fades a rhythmic mid-toned sound emerges punctuated by drips and a drop they quickly come in, then out. They deteriorate into digital/metallic sounds and fade. Sounds never quite heard fade in then out. Mid tones sweep in and out like labored breath following a distinct rhythm. A building in the distance, machinery thrumming as it slows. Going down into the basement or down a dark alley, the groans of something left behind. A small sound whips around, barely heard above the original background noise and the soft melody. Everything fades. Why should my hair stand on end, these soft sounds and rhythms bring little peace but the flavor of forgotten things, perhaps best forgotten?

Daniel Pemberton's "Voices"

Ears awaken to a monochrome train station, purgatory. Several sharp and composed tones guide the amplification of a choral roar. Voices in the form of an indistinguishable tide pulsate, forming a low pitch drone, which begins to pan from left to right growing in amplitude. A slow sighing whoosh follows the pattern making the voices recede to a dull hum. Low oscillating tones emerge hypnotically, following the same slow, steady pan. The remnant voices ebb and flow in presence and tempo. The ears are lost in a hazy labyrinth, left then right then left. Several metallic jetties arrive, grinding from low to high volume. Then it’s over. How could anyone escape Pemberton’s space, dreamed into ambience, built from loops and directional nuance?

Brian Eno’s "Lantern Marsh"

It starts with resonating harmonies and ghostlike screams from far in the distance. “Other-worldly Calls” are made, reverberating with the harmonies of the background growls. Echoing and a slow drone give the feeling of being on a strange planet. High pitched vocals and moans surge forward and back accompanied by clangs of movement. Deep drones of bass hum to balance the piece. Then the volume increases and surges only to die back down, awaiting the next wave of sounds. Repetition of change creates the illusion of familiarity. The fact that the sounds are undistinguishable creates the air of mystery, and fear. This leaves me with the question, “Why is it that I’m calmed in this dark world created by Mr. Eno; when I feel afraid?”

Pauline Oliveros's "Beautiful soop"

the beautiful - here it is a disruption of harmony and proportion. the elderly warble of a woman - her sentiment cuffed by a flip, a reversal - widening and branching out, a man's voice with a flange trailing after it, spreading out, increasing his original words. a story, a narrative arc interrupted by a high-pitched tone swelling and dropping; a cloak of squeals amplifying, obscuring the melodrama which struggles for awhile and then reasserts itself. a kind of patter, switching back and forth, to and fro: a conversation enacted between the past moment of utterance and the presence of process in a time that is not now. this juxtoposition elevates language to a position of excess and disproportion, refuses to repair the rupture, refuses and continues to send the word farther into a decadent canopy of noise. nonsense and response; the commentary of a fluttering, electric pulse on human language. finally, the voices liquefy into a synthetic soup, the surge of a dominant electric whine. if articulation cannot, will not join the dance, is speech still a means for locating new possibilities, new potentials for embodying experience?

Dan Pemberton's "Phoenix"

Sounds like an opening into an infinite wormhole swirling around and growling at a high-pitched bell. It speeds up, spinning faster and expanding the space. The resonance creeps closer and progressively becomes louder. It morphs into a shadowy creature demanding an escape before a mellow peace sweeps across to take its place. The melody showers downs, erasing the memory of darkness. All that remains is a pulsating euphoria. Suddenly the song plummets back into the wormhole and swirls to a quick end. How can such a mixture of warped noise create an emanating fear while also releasing an unwinding peacefulness?

Plastikman's "Koma"

Sounds begin to form dense altered noise, as if it is descending into a spiral that speeds up to a recognizable sequence. This beat maintains the melody with a slow fade that brings up a cult beat that makes the objectives of the piece a fluid motion. The up-tempo spiral of beats becomes almost harmonious, perpetuating a stacking of sounds. The mid-range level of the sequence moves with a longer piece that becomes more rhythmic, and the tone becomes a bit louder. The strange rhythm opens one's ears to the hallucinatory, altered state that could bring about a dream state. Does this composition provide a key to our dreams or does it become something more?

The Qualities of Sonorous Objects

Writing reviews based on Pierre Schaeffer's article on "acousmatics" and the "sonorous objects" is not easy, and hardly what we're used to when reading music reviews. Few reviewers describe sounds, describe individual audio tracks or whole albums based on the sound alone, without falling into more poetic descriptions and analogies ("this sounds like a person standing lost in a crowded train station"). Many frequently describe music in terms of their emotional elements. Many reviews also tend to compare to other songs, albums, artists (e.g., "On his new album, Julian Casablancas sounds like Lou Reed fronting the Electric Light Orchestra") or entire genres.

So how do we go about writing in ways that describe sound objects on their own terms, without relying on analogies, emotional evaluators, or comparisons as a way to describe the sound? These terms might help, pulled out of Schaeffer's writings and our discussion, as general descriptors that can become specific based on the individual track you choose:

* Duration of sounds: long, short, alternated, sequenced into rhythms.
* Repetition of sounds: tempos, beats, regularity, irregularity.
* Frequency: high, low, and/ or mid-range tones/pitches, or specific mixtures of those into melodies (tones arranged one after the other) or harmonies (tones stacked or layered at one time).
* Amplitude: loud, soft, foreground, background.

Constant Noise

• Short clanging “tsstsstssts”
• Mechanical, medium to high, “ME”
o Its constant
• High ear piercing grind going up and down as if straining at different parts
• Vocal “Hua” hum of vocal tones, high and nasal.
• Crinkle sounds as someone eats, like a cricket almost rhythmic.
• High sexy undulation saxophone lout to soft, romantic and passionate to high strain and climax to soft flutter.
• Drone of gurgling, repetitive and pulsing
• “SCREECH” 1 pause 2 pause 3 pause 4 pause, “SCREECH!” sharp to fade, “EEE” “EEE” “EEE” “EEE” “EEE”
• “BEEP” high, very high pitch about the duration of someone’s foot touching the ground while sprinting
• “Saw” sound of machine, non tonal, almost percussion like, constant cracking “REE” “REE” “REE” always in bursts of three.
• Cough
• Knock of high heels, rhythmic like, “clock clock clock clock” making the third clock the highest in tone. 1 2 3 4. Reverberates and echoes with acoustics making it fill the entire room. No one notices but me as the voices start to compete and get louder as well. The sound dies down and gets softer, the voices remain the same.
• Girl sings
o Vocal is high pitched. Almost full of air and wispy. Almost super sonic, higher pitch than when your ears ring after a concert. Very raspy and annoying. Probably what a dog hears when you blow a dog whistle.

environmental sound object

short, intermittent scrapes from behind. sh-SHH-sh.... ch-SHHH-sh...sh-SHHHH-sh..... barely audible, high-pitch fade in / fade out. clop Clop CLOP Clop clop. low murmur............ mmmmmMmmMMMmmmmmmmm. in front of me ssSSSSSSsssssss. TAP TAP TAP Tap tap tap tap. huammmmmnnnnnssssss. CLANG! (Muffled, rhythmic, periodic) Bbbb--Kkk--Bbbbb-Kkkk. clop clop clop.

PLTSS.

claptinkleClopclopJangletinkleclopClopCLOPClopclop. low murmur, echo clap YEEEEAAHHhhhh........ Ckkkkkkkshhhhh. tap !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmclopmmmmClopmmmmCLOPmmmmmsqueakCLOPmmmmsqueakCLOPmmmmmmmm

PLTSS.

PL-PLTSS.

clop....clop...clop....clop...clop........ clopclopclopclopclopclopclopclopclopclopClopCLOP!

PLTSS....PLTSS. P-PLTSS.........PLTSSS.....PLTSS.PLTSS. CLPSS...CLPSS.

hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Sound Walk

Here is the link to my sound walk: http://drop.io/amalley.

I had to attach it because the coloring, sizing, and spacing did not show up when I copy and pasted it. It is under documents and named Sound Walk.

Leo's Acousmatic Walk

Here is a chronological transcript of my walk:

• scuff-riff-tear: low frequency, low amplitude, loosely period, reoccurring, but brief
• humanoid rumble: mixed frequency, low amplitude, droning, continuous duration
• low fuzz: mid-low frequency, low amplitude, droning, continuous duration
• oscillating abrupt tone: alternating high-mid frequency, low amplitude, filtered, brief
• high pitch jingle: high frequency, crescendo to med. amplitude decrescendo low, brief
• low rumble: low, very low frequency, low amplitude, filtered, drone, continuous duration
• clop-clop-clop: rhythmic low frequency, low amplitude, resonant
• mid pulsing fuzz: rhythmic, slowly oscillating frequency, medium amplitude, drone, continuous duration

Major change in acoustic density.

• ting-ting-ting: quick staccato pulse yet resonant, high frequency, low amplitude, very short duration
• thud and bang: quick though randomly reoccurring resonant, low frequency, medium amplitude varying duration
• internal pop: quick pop, low frequency, low amplitude, not resonant
• brief resonant tones: distinct, deliberate pitches, short, very resonant, varying frequency, medium amplitude, short duration
• cyclic hiss: low frequency, rhythmic amplitude, not resonant
• deep-to-high gurgle: low to med frequency pulse, med amplitude, couple minutes duration
• sharp clop: much more percussive than before
• delicate jingle: very delicate ting, high frequency, light amplitude, very brief
• soft clatter: percussive, organized, deliberate, filtered, changing frequency low amplitude, very brief
• high frequency fuzz: slightly pulsing, high frequency, medium amplitude, continuous duration
• muted tones: muted tones composing a deliberate melody, low amplitude, very brief
• stereophonic hum-varying frequency, high amplitude, drone, continuous duration
  

She trudges, schlepps, trains, drags..her load

1.

sudden heaving: the response of surface to weight. a complaint thrown towards the box, a blunder. some iron sparking, a collection pocketed in cotton - layering of fabric, flesh. singing split end and then loud mouthed hooves on this unsteady hallway.

2.

a rush of air disrupting the troublesome business of a grumble. some contamination meeting with a wall and one laugh - a signal without answer. guided by the rest, then falling; something caught and spit up: wads of tinsel, shredded. there is an impulse to stop, to make a revision: a hand moving through a flock of bubbles, shattering blood. a kind of gasp, release for awhile. nothing eerie about faded light, this prolonged drone.

3.

insects sucked through a wet tube, tongued. the suture of a threshing edge, unsettled snow dark with roars. let go and quick: bound back, snapping radiance against the air. everything must be a result. from the lips a wail not yet ready, embarrassing admissions poised and unwelcome. the beast withdrawing, layering it's unwholesome self against the road, a chugging of all at once: rubber and the belly. without pause, a piston.

"Stockhausen vs. the Technocrats" (plus Björk!)

Here are music videos and performance footage for works by Stockhausen, Aphex Twin, Plastikman, Scanner, and Björk, plus lectures, interviews, and documentary footage of the artists.



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

Next, here is Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Advice to clever children," an article from The Wire, November 1995.

And here is Björk's interview with Stockhausen, "Compose Yourself," from "Dazed and Confused" (#23 1996).