Pitchfork review of Eno's Lux

With this most recent album, I am falling in love all over again with Brian Eno's approach to ambient composition.  This is a great review, too, that touches not only on this new release, Lux, from 2012, but situates this album in terms of Eno's career, his theory and practice, and interesting technological issues, such as how ambient sound design functions via different recording formats and for different environments.  A highly recommend review and album!

 

 
Besides being a great discussion of the album, this is a good opportunity to introduce you to Pitchfork if you're not already familiar with it.  Enjoy!

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17303-lux/

John Cage, "Williams Mix"

The piece begins with a momentary flash of a very subtle hum of what may or may not be an audience. This is quickly drowned out by what appears to be the tuning of a radio complete with multiple moments of white noise, bringing an element of texture and tonality to the piece. The content within these brief moments of clarity while the tuning of the radio occurs intensifies as the piece continues accompanied by a frog-like croaking sound giving the piece depth and narrative. As the song arrives at its finishing point there is a recording of an audience cheering and jarring that lasts long enough to allow the listener to question if it is part of the piece or part of the environment in which it was performed. 

Grandmaster Flash - The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel

The track stutters to life before diving into a myriad of samples. Sugarhill glides into Chic and Blondie before it backs off into Sugarhill again with the ever prevalent bass lines from both Queen's "Another Bites the Dust"and Sugarhill Gang's "Rappers Delight" almost interchangeable. Flash displays his expertise in scratching to create many of the transitions. The most dynamic highlights of each sample are utilized in this song. I notice the beat never alters. The "clap, clap, clap" is relentless and carries the song from beginning to end allowing the samples to seamlessly blend together. How did Flash know he could utilize this beat and create such a smooth work of music with such versatile samples to choose from? How would the song have changed without the Rappers Delight frame that carries it?

John Cage- Imaginary Landscape （想象的风景）

Imaginary Landscape （想象的风景）

The sounds start with silent for about three seconds, and then it begins to play the change of radio station. The frequency of the change rate is about two to three seconds. Somehow, it goes back to the station that the author had already listened to before. In addition, there also has some News broadcasting in the mix. Around 2:00, it stops for a while for changing channels. As the process goes on, it seems like the author is little bit impatient, he increases the speed of changing the channel. The background of this music is the sound of turning those buttons of the radio. Then, it last for a while, he goes back to this loop. Change the channel, increase the speed, and stop it. For the final part, it ends up with fades out for ten seconds in absolutely quiet. I hold the view that, this music is very unique, if you close your eyes and feel it. It just likes a five minutes radio traveling. However, It’s a really intriguing idea, isn’t it? What’s the author’s proposition to make this kind of abstract music? 

DJ Food: Raiding The 20th Century

DJ Food: Raiding The 20th Century:

The track begins with a sample of the 20th Century Fox drum/trumpet roll, which sounds like its pitch has been lowered a little bit, with an added kick drum and cymbal. That sample then fades into a variety of vocal samples, that seem to have come from a lot of different sources; probably films, radio, or TV shows. This progresses into a orchestral sample, with is layered with a pitch-lowered 1940's/50's vocal sample. From there another classical music sample is layered with a clip from a anti-piracy speech. This turns into a montage of older popular songs, with an assortment of vocal clips mentioning downloading music illegally. The track proceeds to become a somewhat hectic and very random mash-up and layering of a huge variety of artists and genres, from the Strokes, to maybe Pantera, to the Beastie Boys, which continues far longer than any other sample. The Beastie Boys "Sure Shot" accappella, continues over a couple more different sampled instrumentals. This fades out into Jay-Z, over what sounds like John Lennon looped. The song basically continues as a very long montage of mash-ups, including but not limited to: KRS-One, Destiny's Child, The Specials, The Offspring, etc. After this the track progresses to another montage of various vocal clips, which sound like they are from the the 1940s/50s. They deal with subject matter ranging from early cassette tape splicing, to flying saucers. A few different drum breaks then begin to loop, layered under the vocal clips. The vocals cease, but the breaks continue, and then the purely drum breaks evolve into funk breaks, including James Brown, as well as some late early 80's hip-hop breaks. More, extremely random vocal samples continue over more drum breaks, including Queen. The loops and breaks then progress back into the more hectic mash-up of music that was frequent at the beginning of the song, before ending with what I think is Madonna.

"Buffalo Galls" - Malcom Mclaren and the Worlds Famous Supreme Team

The song Buffalo Gals starts with an intro and it begins with scratching behind it.  As one line starts to echo and die out a new line with a faster speed begins. Then the beats of the song start to build up, while there is a repetitive scratching in the background of the beats.  It was a repetitive drum beat that was being played. Then it switched to western lines being spoken in the mix of the beat. Next the song changes to a different voice and a slower pace.  But this only goes for a small part of the song then it goes back to normal buffalo gall track.  Why mix in so many different types of music?

John Oswald - Don't (Vessel Ripley) [Blog Post 1]

Sounds begin with instruments playing a slow, steady tempo, with a light chorus of vocals echoing in the background. The instruments sound distorted in a way, their sounds are oddly quiet and they are coming in with odd pitches and tones. Miscellaneous, metallic vibrations and other sounds overlap the sounds of the instruments. The voice of Elvis Presley soon cuts through the other sounds and plays loud and clear. His voice sounds slightly off though, as if it's being played through a filter of some sort. The sounds continue like this for a while, until a second Elvis comes into the track, voice being played at the same time as the first Elvis. Both voices have a similar range in tone, but not quite the same either; the variation in the lyrics further misaligns them. Vocal loops of Elvis begin playing under and between the two Elvises. Suddenly even more Elvises begin to come into the track and play along with the rest; the vocal loops also seem to be multiplying. The metallic sounds also sound a little louder than before, and the chorus continues playing in the background. The vocals of the Elvises become more misaligned, some falling behind others, creating a kind of echo. Suddenly the sound starts to rise as keys begin to play rapidly and erratically. The sounds of the keys are all off-key and they grind against each other and al the other sounds as they continue to bring the track to a fever pitch. The vocals of the Elvises also rise in volume and there seem to be half a dozen of them now. The sounds breaks off for a few seconds before a lone key breaks through the silence and the tune returns to a quieter volume. The keys begin to play again at an even more rapid pace as the volume rises even higher than it was before. The Elvises also rise in volume again, this time their voices becoming more and more distorted, becoming deeper. Soon they are incomprehensible, both because of the distortion and from the sounds of the keys playing overpowering them. The keys play through rapidly, each one a lower tone than the last, and they fade away into silence quickly, the track coming to an end. As the track continued along, the increasing amounts of distortion, the multiplication of the Elvises vocals, and the rising volume of the piece gave it a very disturbing and unnerving quality. One might wonder though, is the distortion and multiplication of Elvis' voice in the track meant to reflect the distortion of Elvis Presley's name in the track title? Is this track attempting to create a twisted, alternate version of Elvis, and if so, what are we meant to think of it?

"Jukebox Capriccio" - Christian Marclay

The song fades in with the sound of an electric hum.  A needle scratches and changes to a percussion turned jumbled, jazzy mess. These sounds mix with an array of twinkling bursts; light and flighty.  The record skips, and then dissolves into a glitch collection that combines with the return of the percussive.  The glitches continue and alternate with the drums until a point of winding down.  The record skips.  Now, longer iterations of sounds begin to loop and repeat.  Noises become more distinguishable; isolated and yet more recognizable.  I find myself becoming attached to these loops, their repetitive patterns singing in my ears. Ultimately, these moments lose out to the audible chaos.  Xylophones lead to a section of distortion - tape being pulled through a player too fast.  A keyboard becomes a drone, leading to a final moment that feels abrupt, rushed, unfinished.  Who would have thought that stopping these sounds at their audible climax would leave the listener wanting more?

“William Mix” by John Cage

The majority of the piece maintains a consist crowd of noises that occur in loop of what sounds like a rewinding of a recording of my childhood of mentally absorbing the world around me. The sounds in the foreground happen in glimpses, coming in and out, demanding your sudden attention as they do. Sounds of things being turned, blown, driven and shot past you; along with sounds of things being played and stated happen in these glimpses. As I am writing about what I am hearing and self-editing, I can hear my edits in the glimpses of noise. These glimpses of sounds are accompanied with a background sound of a group of people conversing audible as a murmur which remains the same until I tune in to pay closer attention, which is when certain phrases jump out, and it is not until then that they do. Towards the end of the piece, when a loud applause take over accompanied with someone shouting over the applause, it sounds like a celebration of normalcy and self-acceptance. Who could have thought this piece, as a sonorous object would signify in the bits of sound information it begins with; the self-discoveries and self-doubt found in one’s youth and end with the accomplishment of self-acceptance signified with the applause?

Williams Mix- John Cage

As the song begins, there is a unique wave of distorted sounds.   Between the white sound and what appears to be the tuning of a radio gives the song texture.  The texture comes from the variation of tones and pitches of those tones.  Some of the tones are a lot loader than other.  The song begins rather soft and then hits in some computer made high-pitched sounds, which seems to be the attempt to find a random station.  The reason it seems to be a radio being tuned is because there are voices, songs, talking, and noises with a pause (white noise) and static.  The complex and blunt tones come in and out and intensify as the song continues.  Even though there are many different radio stations of singing and talking, the structure of the tones are strung together, so even when there is the “white noise” you still remain involved with the tune.  Another focus I found was the use of frog noises.  They appear multiple times through out the piece.  Later on in the song, there is a sequence of clapping.  The clapping is a break from the radio tuning and signifies that this could be a performance.  There is a correlation between the voices through the radio and when the applause hits.   Men begin to yell “Bravo” over and over again and the clapping becomes a blur as a continuing sound.  Even when the applause is happening there is a variation in how it is produced.   What does the repetition of the structure of the song do to how some one may view the piece?  

Williams Mix- By John Cage 

Don't (Vessel Ripley) John Oswald

Rattling washboards tinkle and tell me “don’t.” Warbling Elvis sounds a little slow, piano slightly out of tune. Bicycle wheels with little tags on them and tons of missing spokes spinning around. Two Elvis’s sing together, and whoa whoa whoa. Delirious cacophony of Elvis telling me “don’t.” When is it in the song? Stuttering Elvis overlaps and feeds back on himself, piano attacks and silence. His plea accompanied by ever-more confusing conglomeration of melody and piano smashing. Speed of “accompaniment” faster than the slowed down “melody.” Why shouldn’t I, Elvis, and what are you going to do about it?

James Tenney - Collage #1

Alternations between medium-low tones and white noise act as introductory percussion as if setting the tempo for the piece. The tones slowly start to modulate in frequency, timbre and texture and still the white noise acts as a percussive cut-up of the tones. In this setting, the white noise, even with its breathy whisper, creates a larger presence and impact than the musical tones, which start to shimmer and undulate. High frequency vibrations are then added to the mix, giving the piece a frenetic feel, as if the listener is suffering from a mood disorder. The alternations between low and high frequencies, punctuated by a pure silence sprinkled throughout, continue to increase in speed. Suddenly, the schizophrenic tonal modulations give way to a breath or two of a 50s rock and roll tune followed by the static of the radio dial hovering between stations. The stations change to a new tune, but the dial cannot make up its mind; the sound is pulled back and forth along the radio index. We hear snippets of what appear to be different songs but a familiar feeling lingers after each change of the dial. The tunes are all Elvis Presley's "Blue Suede Shoes" played at different speeds. As Elvis' vocal registers continue to compete with each other, the musical tones come back into play, reverberating in an eerie, sci fi manner. As the different iterations of his emblematic song give way to a sonic landscape of pure tonal modulations and white noise - coming full circle to the beginning of the piece - one is prompted to wonder: which of these various characters, if any, is the real Elvis?

Williams Mix (Blog post 1)

Williams Mix by John Cage

The sound at the beginning starts with what appears to be a tuning radio. It flickers in and out for a while and then presents blurbs of other things, the most apparent being frog croaks and human voices. There is an inherent distortion over every noise, muddling the ability to discern individual sounds or their sources. Now accompanying the initial noises are other miscellaneous noises. There appears to be a technological and organic theme. All noises are either produced by a living thing or a piece of technology. Things are becoming quite cacophonous. Now they’ve backed off and are coming in irregular intervals. The radio overtone is still present and remains unfixed, always in flux. The voices of people continue to blurt out at random, almost as if they are trying to have a dysfunctional conversation with one another. Creaks, croaks, static and voices now continue to permeate the radio. It’s clear that this is the comfortable pattern that this composition aims to take. Now the sounds have ceased and have been replaced with enthusiastic applause. Passionate “bravos” can be heard. The applause appears to decompose into what is now an opposite reaction. Boos and hollering have replaced the joyous applause of before, but the applause quickly returns to create a confused and mixed reaction. I do wonder… how does Cage feel about this composition of his? Does that chaotic combination of applause and booing imply anything about how he feels regarding his work?

All Cut Up

Sounds come in as a mans voice, as it speaks it is replaced by another voice, talking about the ideas behind the idea of the entire song. Coming up from behind him is a growing wane of a women's voice. The sound continues to evolve to another song  and so forth. Each transition comes after the injection of new materials, filling the space entirely. Each time it changes the sound comes in loud and full as if cutting in the middle of the song. More speech cuts in for transitions and mixes of two different sounds begin to cut together, the basic beat or rhythm continuing the entire time. Each song seems to have a similar drum type beat and symbols each time slightly different in execution but the sound seems to be driven back while the 'original' or main sound, singing and more harmonic instruments, come forward. It surprising how well each sound melts together and it cut together to make it feel like one continuous piece.Why were the sounds that were used chosen and what if they had been used differently? How would the sounds chosen change the intended message or idea?

Aphex Twin's Remote Orchestra

A very interesting new project from Aphex Twin, particularly in light of our conversations about his relationship to the early electronic avant-garde, electronic music and its relationship to the traditions of orchestral composition, and so on.


Original Creators Project article.