Cancelling-Noise-Cancelling, or Profound Listening and the Expansion of Reality

This podcast takes a critical look at the role of attention in sonic experience. Taking Francisco Lopez as the primary artist of the investigation, it examines several of his works over the last two decades: La Selva, which consists of unaltered arrangements of field recordings in the La Selva cloud forests of Costa Rica and two different pieces, Klokken, and Fahrstuhle, from a 2010 release titled Machines." In addition, there are samples of city sounds, and cicadas drawn from my own library and from a freesound user named "edibles," a short sample of an above ground subway and an airplane landing. Ending the podcast is a short excerpt from a field recording that I did at the Traditions shopping center between Santa Fe and Albuquerque.

Throughout this investigation we look at how Pierre Schaeffer's concepts of the sonorous object and acousmatic listening set the trajectory for Lopez's work. It also pursues the ways in which Lopez thinks that profound or intentional listening can expand our notions of sonic reality. As a supplement to Lopez's work we examine brief excerpts from two of artist/composer/armchair-scientist David Dunn's repertoire that use time-domain independent pitch shifting to render audible invisible sound worlds. First is Chaos and the Emergent Mind of the Pond, an exploration of pond life, and next is Sound of Light In Trees, an investigation into an unknown microworld that has real world scientific implications. Both artists use recording technology as a primary tool in their processes but in different ways.

Cancelling-Noise-Cancelling, or Profound Listening and the Expansion of Reality

The Musician Technician Intermediary

For my podcast I wanted to explore the concept of the producer as an important and relevant musical artist, focusing on the relationship between spaces and music from a production standpoint. In the 20th century, commercial access to certain technological advancements, helped usher in a new and unique wave of musical artists—not fully musician, not fully technician, but rather intermediaries of the two.

The first artist I introduce is Lee "Scratch" Perry. Sometimes shamanistic, occasionally psychotic, Perry walks the thin line of madness and genius. It was in his Jamaican studio, the Black Ark, he perfected and proliferated Dub style music. He had a spiritual connection with his studio and honed a near symbiotic relationship with his technology.

Next I move to the slightly more contemporary, though no less innovative group the Beastie Boys. Rapper-pranksters who spurred the sampling craze that would consume and become integral to Hip-Hop music. Their initial experiments with the marriage of magnetic tape looping and rapping would go on to define the nature of Hip-Hop for decades.

Finally, I showcase an active and prominent member of the current Hip-Hop community, El-P, who strives to find a more authentic voice in a genre that has, perhaps, lost touch with its roots. El-P draws on his experiences in New York, and uses an impressive array of technology to channel an eerie empathy while attempting to find a voice for his city.

The Musician Technician Intermediary

Oneiric Sensuality and Perceptual Ecologies

For my podcast, I created an acoustic dream landscape in which the listener travels through a series of sound works as the texture and terrain for different sense experiences, and philosophical inquiries into perception, language, and sensuality. In the first part, we move through Francisco Lopez' "La Selva," exploring phenomenon involved in listening. We then enter Pierre Schaeffer's "Etude aux Chemins de Ferbi" as an exploration of the ‘mind’s ear,’ as sound inside of the head and the philosophical problems involved with sound, mind, and memory. As we move into James Tenney Karlheinz Stockhausen and William Winant's "Kontakte," We explore this piece as it relates to vision, its relation to sound, and concepts of synesthesia. Then we emerge into Janek Schaefer's "Rink," and its relation to tactility. The previous philosophical explorations are interpreted here through the lens of the tactile, branching briefly into the realm of autism. Finally we conclude with a resolution into "Lantern Marsh" by Brian Eno and "CCC (Cistern Chapel Chance Chants" by Deep Listening band. These works have woven throughout the entire work and conclude here with an exploration into the underlying connectivity of all sense perception.

Other intelectual works included by Alan Watts, Terrence McKenna, quotes from Francisco Lopez, quotes from Caroline A. Jones’ essay "Synaesthesia", Jill Bolte Taylor on left brain shutdown, and Samantha Baggs on the experience of autism.

Oneiric Sensuality and Perceptual Ecologies

Music For An Apocalpse

 

For my podcast I focused on music that revolved around apocalyptic ideas and themes. I highlighted a few different ways that sound artist portray post apocalyptic scenarios within their work. The first artist work that I explored was Godspeed You Black Emperor! I showed how they used found sound splices and narration to express an end of the world event. I also showcased Carla Bozulich and her band Evangelista. Bozulich in her album Evangelista creates a personal apocalypse where her beautiful voice carries over moaning strings and sounds of confusion and dismay. I then transitioned to a completely different way of displaying apocalyptic themes. Murder by Death is a band that tells stories through their music which is rich with an Americana sound. I related this to how a wild west setting is often used as the back drop for a these types of dooms day events. The Murder by Death album Who Will Survive and What Will is about a small town in Mexico getting wiped out by the Devil, I showcased a sample of a song of this album. There are many ways to express a post apocalyptic world and in my podcast I highlighted a few that really stood out to me.

Music For An Apocalpse

Video Games and Their Soundtracks

My podcast gives a brief and easy to follow overview of what exactly video game soundtracks are musically, and how they help to define an experience with video game playing. The podcast includes multiple songs from video games, with a specific focus on the soundtracks of Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Shadow of the Colossus. Video games as a type of ambient music is first discussed, and then what makes video game music different than movie soundtracks is also discussed. Also interwoven throughout the podcast is an interview with a friend of mine who also plays video games on a regular basis. Her opinion is used to compare and contrast my own, and create a more personal feeling throughout the podcast. It is meant to be an introductory level conversation so that anyone can understand the terms and follow along with why the examples exemplify the point being made.

All audio files were taken from sources on Youtube:
Amnesia: The Dark Descent: "Ambiance Theme 1" and "Terror"
"Super Mario Bros Theme"
Shadow of the Colossus: "Prologue To The Ancient Land" and "In Awe of the Power"
Pokemon Black and White: "Legendary Pokemon"

Video Games and Their Soundtracks

The Glam Rock Experience

This podcast explores the 'Glam Rock' of the 1970s. I introduce the listener to a concert space and interview some pretend fans to introspect why they may be interested in listening or going to Glam Rock concerts. The podcast takes the listener back in time to see where and how this genre was born. Interviews of David Bowie and other artists come in and out with interwoven music to create a discourse about the significance of glam rock in popular music culture. I also talk about the superficial presentations that these musicians would perform when going on stage. There is a relationship between technology and identity construction from the glam rock genre, which created a subculture of followers and fans alike. I also changed the voice pitch of my recorded material, to create an androgynous effect. The Glam Rock genre in many ways glamorized stardom, fame, and art through the music vehicle. Musicians and performers were able to explore their identities as men dressing as women or wearing makeup, to exaggerate female characteristics and question gender differences. When listening to this podcast, it's important to imagine yourself as a listener and participant in a live concert space, where you can envision a scene of over-the-top rock music theatre, where the costumes are just important as the music. With that said, Glam Rock was a transformative period that went to create an excessive experience of sight and sound. Disclaimer note: original interview and music audio material were from Youtube, and the rest were from personal recordings.

The Glam Rock Experience

M.W. Burns: a new approach to “everyday” sonic warfare

M.W. Burns uses everyday sounds in unsuspecting places at randomtimes to surprise and startle listeners. By using elements of fear, surpriseand spatial encasement, Burns draws inspiration from sonic warfare in hispieces. Although his work and sonic warfare are in fact very different, bothsounds have very similar ideas, and one may even consider Burns’ work to besonic warfare in everyday life. This podcast explores these ideas byillustrating the comparisons in their applications and meanings. The soniclandscapes portrayed bring attention to the similarities, allowing listeners togain a better understanding of Burns’ work and how it may be influenced by theidea of sonic warfare.

M.W. Burns: A new approach to everyday sonic warfare

Going Back to Push Forward - Hip Hop Tape Culture

We move very fast in the digital age, there is something to be said about slowing back down again. With the cassette tape, fans of music of all types can sacrifice the immediate convenience of digital music for the analogue alternative, which lets you learn something about yourself in the process. It allows you to listen carefully and wholly to a track or album considering the inconvenience of doing otherwise, it gives back the sensual aspects of music often lost, such as touching, feeling, smelling, and physically sharing a song/album, and gives you a deliciously low-fi tone to boot. Young hip hop beat makers have been turning to tapes as their mediums for production in recent history, revealing a new form of the genre, and a new form of ourselves in the process.

Going Back to Push Forward - Hip Hop Tape Culture

Lyrics for Social Change

My final podcast talks about Michael Franti and other artists who use there lyrics for a better purpose. This purpose is to conduct social change. The Bioneers movement is explained thoroughly in this recording. It is a non-profit organization who are interested in keeping the web of life for future generations. My podcast also talks about technologies that these artists use to help persuade others to help the world. Artists are becoming more and more involved in changing the world to be a better place. This podcast goes deeper into examples of artists that are contributing to making the world a better place.

Lyrics for Social Change

Global Beats: World Fusion Illusion

What is “World fusion” music? "Global Beats: World Fusion Illusion" sets out to explore the topic, focusing on the various approaches to creating music within this genre and the potential outcomes of musical globalization. Tied in with this theme of a global musical culture are the inherent issues of access, origin, production, and dissemination. How do these variables affect the mental construction of other cultures in the minds of consumers? This podcast invites listeners into a rich sonic landscape of worldbeat samples, with hopes of shedding some light on a widely misunderstood genre.

Global Beats: World Fusion Illusion

Sonorous Fractals

This episode of Sonorous Fractals investigates the relationship between listening and argumentation. This podcast pivots around the question: can listening be an argument? Attempting to answer this question leads Justin, our host, into the archives. Sifting through ancient texts and interviewing experts in the field, Justin is able to discern how listening has come to be understood as a passive sense. However, simply foregrounding our problematic relationship to listening is insufficient. Utilizing the work of avant-garde artists like Pierre Schaeffer, John Cage, Paul D. Miller, and Girl Talk, Justin traces the emancipatory potentiality of using listening as a mode of invention. He argues that listening to the ordinary sounds of the everyday provides artists with an index of possible tropes that tap directly into social memory. In other words, it affords artists the ability to resonate with their audience, persuading them into different states of being. Our handsome host concludes by noting that listening is a mode of argumentative invention because it provides arguers a reservoir of relevant sounds to guide the assembly of a piece.

Sonorous Fractals: The Podcast

emotional complexities and atomic cyborgs

"In the near future, nuclear energy [will] create a world 'in which…routine household tasks are just a molter of pushing a few buttons…where the air is everywhere as fresh as on a mountain top and the breeze from a factory as sweet as from a rose…Imagine the world of the future…the world that nuclear energy can create for us."

"technology was becoming out of control, that humans were becoming machines themselves, that people were losing their ties to nature."

In Lunar Rhapsody, from the album Music Out of the Moon, we start with a musical segment that mixes human voice with the technological theremin, capturing a mood that is full of both love and union as well as loss and sadness. In the era of this piece, society was indeed merging with technology, embodied here in the subtle mixture of theremin voice and human song. People were being taught to love the atom, and its utopian possibilities, as well as merging their homes and spaces with technological complexity. Yet at the same time people were learning to cope with the loss of a simpler world and a simpler time. The first atom bombs had been dropped only two years previous, and technological complexity had crossed a threshold where its implications (threatening and enlightening) pervaded everyday life.
In this piece, whenever the theremin comes in, we enter into these subtle emotional mixtures of both loss and love. The ambiguity of these emotional states captures the true emotional tones of the time, rather than a binary emotional tone that is either exotic and exciting or scary and dangerous.
Humans were merging their domestic spaces with these new elements; technological complexity and atomic and cold war fears. Musically, it becomes unclear where exactly the theremin plays and where the human voice plays, mirroring the difficulty in defining the borders of new technologies in the everyday life and homes spaces. This ambivalence is slightly haunting, and the musical tones of Lunar Rhapsody captures this feeling.
Towards the end, when the theremin pulls out completely, and we are left with humans singing and classical interments, we enter into and conclusion full of excitement and adventure. The merging of technos and human has become one, and the only way to escape the strangeness of these changes in the daily life spaces is to blast off into the cosmos. We end with adventure and suspense, as the unified cyborgian populous leaves the home for new frontiers of outer space, rocket ships, and alien colonies.