29 июл. 2012 г.

Ergo Phizmiz & Friends ‎- The Faust Cycle





In The KLF’s 1990 Chill Out, the car radio was a means for a psycho-geographic dérive in America’s Deep South through TV-evangelists’ rants, traffic-accident reports, Tuvan throat singing and sheep herds. In The Faust Cycle, completed January 2010, English sampler virtuoso Ergo Phizmiz (born 1980) embarks in a similar dérive, though he eventually gets rid of any excuse or plausible scenario to let his mind become a permanent radio dial switching between 78 rpm shellac records, music automata, string quartets and cuckoo clocks. In this surrealist aural freak show, Phizmiz attempts to capture the last signals from 20th century’s murmuring agony, from Morse code to music boxes, from 78s to ukulele, from silent movies to bird recordings. This mammoth mix collects sonic memes and blends them with Phizmiz’s own obsessions: music machines, bird songs, Gramophones, scatology, artists as divine figures. Exploring the dark recesses of the Doctor’s House, he encounters the many faces of Faustus: the Artists, the Creators, the Originals, the Freaks, the Musicians, etc, and eventually finds a family among them. But Phizmiz is not alone in this adventure and Faust includes a host of collaborators, sponsors and music workshop participants. The former contribute a series of fantastic pop songs and incidental music, while the latter add awkwardness and freshness to the music – all enhance The Faust Cycle‘s collective experience. For Phizmiz has the ability to let other people’s creativity blossom, embedded inside his own work, and most composers will look narrow-minded, even unidimensional, compared to Phizmiz.

For instance, Chunk #3 incorporates rehearsals and final interpretation by amateur young people from the Isle of Wight (around 1h44). In the course of their workshop with Ergo Phizmiz, they created an alternative soundtrack to Murnau’s 1926 Faustus film, based on ukulele, melodica, piano, xylophones, marimbas, assorted percussion and. . . Drinking Lucky Bird [+]. The ensemble reminds some of Cornelius Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra experimentations. This episode #3 is typical of all the Cycle. It has collage and electroacoustic music by Angela Valid, on top of which Phizmiz has plenty of time to retell an episode from Homer’s Illiad. A ventriloquist duo eventually disrupts any common sense left. In an hilarious scatological passage around 2h10mn, the mix transforms into a radio drama where the narrator gets way of his soul in the toilet bowl, or porcelain. The passage eventually leads to Doctor Faustus’ sewer system. Episode ends with a desolate violin solo by Amie Willingale, followed by a no less sad, Liszt-ian piano solo, presumably an interpretation of Erik Satie’s Le Tango Perpétuel by James Nye.

The sublime first half of Chunk #4 is devoted to Bird Machines. After we’ve heard Duchamp lecturing birds, after a brief encounter with a Gramophone walking on 4 legs playing dusty shellac discs, the mix describes a series of bird machines, including a Night Jar-Machine, a Duck-Machine, a Cuckoo-Machine, all inspired by an obsession with Vaucanson’s mechanical duck. The rest of Chunk #4 has birds and nature recordings, sped-up frog recordings, Tibetan bells (56:00), slowed down bird songs mixed with 78s sizzling sounds, close to some of Philip Jeck’s own work. Also included is a great song about a Cassowary (49:15) that praises “the amazing benefits of grazing”, and an homage to Joseph Cornell – to which the Cycle is dedicated. Elsewhere, Cornell is described as ‘an assistant of Faustus’ (Chunk #2, 26:00). Martha Moopette also contributes extensively to the project in various Chunks, and it all ends  with a sublime field recording of a brook and birds by The Travelling Moongoose (Chunk #5, 2h40mn).


Subtitled ‘An adventure for radio’, The Faust Cycle is after all a regular radio play, where Phizmiz narrates his own adventures, leading us from place to place, from implausible stairs to the next imaginary room. Episodes of the Cycle have been aired on various radios between 2008 and 2010, including WFMU. The Faust Cycle would not have been possible without mp3 technology and the ability to store thousands of sound files on a hard drive and the whole project is quite vertiginous when you think about it: it contains samples of music (78rpm and other records), but also samples from sample-based music (guest contributors). In any case, The Faust Cycle is the most ambitious music project conceived in the 21st century and certainly the only one able to challenge your listening habits. That it is available for free and doesn’t fit on a regular disc speaks volumes as to the state of music today.


[review by Continuo]

Download from Headphonica. Visit Ergo Phizmiz’s blog.


25 июл. 2012 г.

Nobukazu Takemura


Nobukazu Takemura (竹村延和, born August 26th, 1968 in Osaka, Japan) started his DJ career during high school, spinning in the clubs of Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe. In 1987, he formed the DJ Team "Cool Jazz Productions", and in 1988, joined "Audio Sports", the now legendary hip-hop unit headed by Eye Yamatsuka of the Boredoms.

Around 1993 Takemura branched out as a solo artist in the "talkin loud" jazzy trip-hop style prevelant at the time and releasing an excellent album "Child's View". The name highlighted one of the key themes in his music that is still prevalent. He tries to create melodies that musically capture a sense of wonder, a childlike innocence and curiosity.

Takemura has a huge catalog of collaborations with critically acclaimed artists from every corner of the world. These include Issey Miyake, who had him create music for 2 seasons of designs, The Sony Corporation, which had him create all the sounds for their futuristic toy Aibo, Steve Reich, DJ Spooky, Yo La Tengo, and Tortoise. Takemura's wide range of collaborative partners reflect the wide range of his musical talents.

Takemura has also released music under the aliases "DJ Kool Jazz", "Assembler", and "Child's View"





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23 июл. 2012 г.

Bas van Huizen ‎- Ontgalman



Bas van Huizen is a sound and visual artist (video/animation) from Nijmegen the Netherlands.

Bas van Huizen comes from The Netherlands and brings us a richly detailed and overall awesome album built entirely on loops of reworked live samples of guitar, metal objects and singing bowl. And nothing more.
All the pieces are complex structures and are dramatically enhanced by the compositional talent of Bas van Huizen and of course, all the live recordings would have to be of great quality to make such an album.

'Ontgalman' titles are all made up words, but they also carry something in their names that reminds us of real and fictional things. Take my personal favorite 'Metaalmoed' for instance; it sounds like some kind of metallic ensemble is playing drums on water pipes and pots and pans and then it builds up into a wall of noise full of really dense and special sound details.
'Ontgalman' is an amazing album waiting to be discovered.


«From literally almost around the corner - probably one of the few artists who drops his promo's unstamped through the HQ letterbox - comes a MP3 release by Bas van Huizen, who surprised us before with his computer based compositions in the field of musique concrete, but here he decided to create an entire album devoted to the guitar. He plays the six strings occasionally like a guitar, wailing about, with an e-bow. But by and large his interest goes out to play around with samples of the guitar, making it sound like anything but a guitar. I must admit that the parts in which the guitar doesn't sound like a guitar were my favorite and that parts which sounded like one, didn't do much for me. Too much like retro prog rock guitars for me. But as said in the other pieces Van Huizen creates a fine tapestry of sound. Here and there it reminded me of Asmus Tietchens, especially in the metallic rumble of the seventh piece. Throughout a fine work.»
- Frans de Ward [Vital Weekly] / April 28, 2009

«Espectacular trabajo de Bas Van Huizen para Test Tube. Este artista holandés nos regala un trabajo construido enteramente a base de loops de guitarra, sonidos de objetos metálicos y el uso de la "singing bowl"; también conocida como "Himalayan bowl" o "Ring gong" en Japón; es una especie de campana, usada en Asia normalmente para acompañar la meditación, relajación o practicas religiosas. Todos estos sonidos fueron obtenidos de grabaciones en vivo.
Bas Van Huizen combina y ensambla todos estos elementos de una manera magistral y minuciosa, logrando un álbum buenísimo; con pasajes oscuros, complejas estructuras y ambientes o atmósferas con infinidad de detalles y matices. Como comenta el propio Pedro Leitao desde la pagina del lanzamiento, "Ontgalman" es un álbum asombroso y fascinante a la espera de ser descubierto; ¿a que esperas?.»
- Millerindub [Netlabels & News] / April 18, 2009




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Big Blood


Big Blood is Caleb Mulkerin and Colleen Kinsella. The two have been making music together for around ten years. Today they live together and make “stuff” at home in South Portland, Maine, usually between the hours of 8pm and 3am, while their daughter is sleeping. Since November of 2006 they have released a steady stream of CDr and cassette albums mostly on their own label dontrustheruin, as well as releases on Phase! Recordings, Peasant Magik, L’animaux Tryst, and Cabin Floor Esoterica. In 2010 Big Blood released Dead Songs, (their most widely available album) on Time-Lag Records. Previous to Big Blood Colleen and Caleb were long time members of Cerberus Shoal and are total fixtures of the Portland, Maine musical landscape.






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22 июл. 2012 г.

Baku: Symphony Of Sirens


Original documents and reconstructions of 72 key works of music, poetry and agitprop from the Russian avantgardes (1908-1942).

CD1: The Symphony of Sirens. In 1922 Arseni Avraamov composed and conducted a visionary public sound event, activating the entire port city of Baku: its factory sirens, the ships horns of the entire Caspian flotilla, two batteries of artillery, several full infantry regiments, trucks, seaplanes, 25 steam locomotives, an array of pitched whistles and several massive choirs. Constantly referenced but forever lost, this extraordinary event is here painstakingly reconstructed and spatialised to approximate the original experience. Plus 39 other priceless sound works, including the legendary Victory over the Sun and other lost documents of Malevich, Dziga Vertov, Nikolai Foregger & his Orchestra of Noises, Sergei Prokofiev, El Lissitsky, Velimir Khlebnikov, Ivan Ignatyev & The Ego Futurist Group, Mikhail Matiushin, Alexei Kruchenykh, Georgi Yakoulov, Konstantin Melnikov, Igor Severyanin, Vasilisk Gnedov, Vladimir Kasyanov & The Futurist Circle, David Burliuk, Elena Guro, Olga Rozanova, H2SO4 Group, Simon Chikovani, The Nothingists, Vasily Kandinsky, Danil Harms, Igor Terent'ev, Mikhail Larionov, The Psycho-futurists group, Vasily Kamensky, Varvara Stepanova and Roman Jakobson. 

CD2: Enthusiasm! The Dombass Symphony (1930) is possibly Dziga Vertov's most revolutionary achievement: a symphony of abstract industrial noise for which a specially designed giant mobile recording system was constructed (it weighed over a ton) in order to capture the din of mines, furnaces and factories. For Vertov, the introduction of sound film didn't mean talkies, but the opportunity to collage, montage and splice together constructions of pure environmental noise. In addition, this CD collects together for the first time a definitive library of original sound documents from the Russian Avantgarde: contemporary recordings of Alexander Mossolov, Julius Meytuss, Roman Jakobson, Velimir Khlebnikov, Alexei Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Lili Brik, David Burliuk, Sergei Esenin, Vasily Kamensky, Semen Kirsanov, V.I. Lenin, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Alexandra Kollontay, Leon Trotsky, Boris Pasternak, Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelshtam, Ilya Ehrenburg, Marina Tsvetaeva, Naum Gabo, Noton Pevsner and Dmitri Shostakovich.


An incredible artefact from ReR, this double-disc release comes housed in a beautifully detailed book, all dedicated to the pioneers of the Russian avant-garde in the early twentieth century. The first disc captures a modern-day reconstruction of Arseni Avraamov's Symphony Of Sirens, a public sound event originally conceived in 1922, made up from factory sirens, military regiments, steam locomotives and choirs, all representing the lively sonic signature of the port city of Baku. In addition to that there are 39 short-form sound pieces, reproduced from original works by the key experimenters of the era, including Dziga Vertov and Sergei Prokofiev. The second disc is probably even better, kicking off with Dziga Vertov's Enthusiasm! The Dombass Symphony from 1930. This is an original recording by the Man With A Movie Camera director, and it's an epiphany for any fans of early electronic/noise music, featuring painstaking, laborious documents of the clamour heard in mines, factories and furnaces. Further to that, the disc rounds off with a library-like collection of shorter sound works captured around the same time, including recordings from Alexander Mossolov, Leon Trotsky, Boris Pasternak and Dmitri Shostakovitch. The accompanying book is crammed with explanatory text and photographs, making this an invaluable item for anyone with an interest in Soviet-era art and music.
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These two CDs and 72 page clothbound book offer the most comprehensive presentation of the experiments and innovations in the exploration of sound by the historical Russian Avantgardes ever attempted. This publication is based around the sounds themselves. Though much was not documented at the time, and some has been lost, what remains is collected on the second CD, which centers around Dziga Vertov's prescient environmental sound composition for the 1930 film Enthusiasm...The Dombass Symphony - and also collects together for the first time 22 original recordings of Mayakovsky, Mossolov, Jakobson, Khlebnikov, Lenin, Lunacharsky, Kollontay, Trotsky, Pasternak, Meytuss, Akhmatova, Mandelstahm, Naum Gabo, Shostakovich and others. But what makes this collection doubly valuable, and unique, are the contents of CD1, which consists of 40 painstaking reconstructions - made by the Laboratorio de Creaciones Intermedia, Dept. of Sculpture at the faculty of Fine Arts in Valencia, Spain - of documented sound-works that have subsequently been lost, above all the now legendary "Symphony of Sirens" at Baku, by Arseny Avraamov.

This massive open air composition, for two artillery batteries, several full infantry regiments, all the foghorns of the Caspian flotilla, several sea-planes, twenty-five steam locomotives, multiple choirs, arrays of pitched steam whistles and all the city's factory sirens can now, for the first time, be approached as a physical event through this careful and accurate spatialised audio reconstruction (using original contemporary source materials) as well as 39 other priceless lost works, including the legendary Victory over the Sun and other works by Vertov, The Orchestra of Noises, Prokofiev, Mayakovsky, El Lissitsky, The Nothingists, Jandinsky, Malevich, Rozanova, Larionov, the Psycho Futurist Group, Kamensky, Jakobson, and others.






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Tim Hecker


Tim Hecker is an electronic musician and sound artist based in Montreal, Canada. Hecker previously recorded under the moniker Jetone, but has become better-known internationally for his ambient recordings released through Mille Plateaux, Alien8, Force Inc, Staalplaat, and Fat Cat under his own name.

Hecker is an acclaimed producer of electronica, having toured and produced under the name Jetone. His work has included commissions for contemporary dance, sound-art installations, and various writings. Tim Hecker has performed extensively including festivals such as Sónar (Barcelona), MUTEK (Montreal), Impakt Festival (Utrecht), Victoriaville in (Quebec), IDEAL (Nantes), Vancouver New Music Festival (Vancouver), and Club Transmediale (Berlin).

In addition to touring with Godspeed You! Black Emperor and recording with the likes of Fly Pan Am, Hecker has also collaborated with Christof Migone and Martin Tetrault.

His works have been described as "structured ambient," "tectonic color plates," and "cathedral electronic music," and for the most part have focused on exploring the intersections of noise, dissonance, and melody, fostering an approach to song craft which is both physical and emotive.

The New York Times has described his work as "foreboding, abstract pieces in which static and sub-bass rumbles open up around slow moving notes and chords, like fissures in the earth waiting to swallow them whole." His Radio Amor was considered to be a key recording in 2003 by The Wire.





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20 июл. 2012 г.

Black Moth Super Rainbow



A notoriously enigmatic band hailing from Pennsylvania, Black Moth Super Rainbow made waves on the indie circuit in the early 2000s with their brand of otherworldly, psychedelic indie pop. The project began in Pittsburgh in 2002, and expanded to include five members (Tobacco, the Seven Fields of Aphelion, Power Pill Fist, Iffernaut, and Father Hummingbird) in the following year. Packing a sound that nodded to contemporary retro-chic electronic acts like Air and the Octopus Project (who they would eventually collaborate with), the group released their first album, Falling Through a Field, in 2003. Basing their operations in an undisclosed location somewhere in rural Pennsylvania, the group released two more albums, Start a People and Lost Picking Flowers in the Woods, over the course of the next three years. A critically acclaimed collaboration with the Octopus Project, 2006's The House of Apples and Eyeballs, combined with a successful debut at that year's SXSW launched the group into the indie limelight. Their sticky, rainbow-tinted fourth release, Dandelion Gum, hit stores the following year.

Black Moth Super Rainbow is an American experimental band from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Their music contains elements of psychedelia, folk, electronica, and pop. Their distinctive sound is characterized by analog electronic instruments including the vocoder, Rhodes piano, and Novatron.

A Graveface insert included inside the album Dandelion Gum describes them as such: «Deep in the woods of western Pennsylvania vocoders hum amongst the flowers and synths bubble under the leaf-strewn ground while flutes whistle in the wind and beats bounce to the soft drizzle of a warm acid rain. As the sun peeks out from between the clouds, the organic aural concoction of Black Moth Super Rainbow starts to glisten above the trees.»

Black Moth Super Rainbow existed under a different name from 2000 to 2002; satanstompingcaterpillars, with the only members being Tobacco and Power Pill Fist. Under this name, the band self-released their music on different labels, including Fuckeroo (Flower Slides) and Side 8. After their third album in 2002 (The Most Wonderfulest Thing), the band added three members (Father Hummingbird, The Seven Fields of Aphelion, and Iffernaut) and changed their name to form Black Moth Super Rainbow in 2003. BMSR began releasing their music on the 70’s Gymnastics Recording company, which is the band’s own imprint (characterized by a tree-person jumping rope in a dress). Many of the tracks from the satanstompingcaterpillars era have appeared, often reworked, in bonus reissued albums, though most of their work from that era would never resurface. Little is known about the band or its members, as they have kept themselves something of an enigma.

On March 17, 2007, the band played alongside The Octopus Project as one band at the South by Southwest music festival, playing music from their collaborative project, The House of Apples and Eyeballs.

Black Moth Super Rainbow also opened for the band The Flaming Lips on their Fall 2007 tour. More recently, BMSR performed at the 2008 SXSW music festival in a badges and wristbands only, packed-to-capacity show at The Thirsty Nickel.

The bass guitarist of BMSR has also released solo albums (Extra Life, Thoust Pain is Thine Angre, Kongmanviong) using an old Atari synth and recording them live to tape. Tobacco has also released some albums (Fucked Up Friends, Super Gum [Destroying Dandelion Gum] {Rumored to be a remix album}). After 2005, Graveface picked them up with Lost, Picking Flowers in the Woods and bonus re-issued versions of their first two albums. Dandelion Gum was BMSR’s third album, released in 2007, and possibly their most successful album with many good reviews. With it came their first music video for the track «Sun Lips». In early 2008, they continued to release Zodiac Girls - Single and Drippers - EP in November. Along with Drippers - EP, BMSR released for MP3 download on their MySpace Bonus Drippers (The Older Unlreased & Hard-To-Find Songs), older and unreleased tracks or bonus tracks like «The Dark Forest Joggers», a Dandelion Gum vinyl exclusive, «Side 9», a Lost, Picking Flowers in the Woods vinyl bonus track. or «Melting in the Meadow», a Start a People outtake track. Word from their MySpace blog says of a fourth album to being released, but there hasn’t been a date told as of yet.

The band is slated to perform at the WIDR Barking Tuna Festival in October, 2008.

On November 4, BMSR released Drippers - EP which not only includes new tracks like «Happy Melted City» or «Milk Skates» but also features some lost tracks from the Dandelion Gum era («We Are the Pagans» and «One Day I Had an Extra Toe») it also features Mike Watt and BMSR’s first official remix of Laura Burhenn’s song «Just for the Night». Three days earlier, BMSR played their last live show for a while, due to the recording of their fourth full-length album Eating Us, which should be released on May 26, 2009.




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19 июл. 2012 г.

Negativland


The story is about Negativland, a collective of three or more friends who sometimes get together to make music. Well, maybe it's music: recorded audio material - television jingles, radio talk-show clips, conversations culled from radio waves, anything that features the sound of a human voice - is fodder for the collage that comprises a Negativland recording. Mediaddicts who see society suffering under a constant barrage of TV, canned imagery, advertising, and corporate culture, Negativland's members are, by self-definition, artists of appropriation. They create with mirrors.

Gathering the most memorable, most evocative, or most provocative chunks from the spew, they reassemble them into something new - occasionally political, frequently critical - and spin them back into the barrage. Combining, say, car-manufacturers' slogans, sound effects, and a PSA warning against drinking and driving in "We Are Driven" (from their 1993 release, Free), they create a danceable phantasmagoria that disses our culture's obsession with the automobile: simple enough, thought-provoking, and pretty funny. At their worst, the members of Negativland are repetitive and smarmy; at their best, they are razor-sharp, microscopically focused, and deadly accurate.

At a tiny North Oakland, California, studio, where he collaborates with Mark Hosler and Don Joyce (Negativland's brain trust), Chris Grigg explains the band's techniques. "By working with several levels at the same time, we encourage people to observe multiple meanings - even if they aren't intended - in everything around them," he says. Negativland invites us to inspect more closely the surrounding world and its media, a practice Grigg calls "instructive, terribly fun, and a bit psychotic."

Negativland is an experimental music and sound collage band which originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. They "lifted their name" from a Neu! song. Long-standing band member Don Joyce produces a weekly interactive radio programme, Over The Edge, on listener-supported KPFA in Berkeley, California. A significant number of Negativland's recent releases have been formed from material which was developed by the band live on the show. The core of the band is Mark Hosler, Richard Lyons, Don Joyce and David Wills (aka "The Weatherman"). Chris Grigg is a former member. Peter Conheim joined the band in 1997. Negativland has released a number of albums ranging from pure collage to more musical affairs. These have mostly been released on their own label, Seeland Records. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they produced several recordings for SST Records, most notably Escape From Noise, Helter Stupid, and U2. Negativland is well-known for the U2 lawsuit, which nearly destroyed them as a band.

Negativland started in Concord, California in 1979 around the core founding members of Lyons and Hosler (who were in high school at the time) and released an eponymous debut in 1980. A number of releases followed in the early 1980s, but it wasn't until after the release of their breakthrough sample and cut-up sonic barrage Escape From Noise in 1987 that Negativland gained wider attention. Following the somewhat unexpected success of this album, Negativland faced the prospect of going on a money-losing tour. To prevent this, they put together a phony press release claiming that their song Christianity is Stupid (featuring the sampled and edited voice of an actor portraying a commissar repeating "Christianity is stupid! Communism is good!", taken from the propaganda movie If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?) was an inspiration for a real mass-murder committed by David Brom in Rochester, Minnesota. The resulting fallout and media frenzy, based on the humorously fabricated claims by Negativland, had the effect of pointing out the venality of the mass media. Though the story was completely unsubstantiated by any facts, the lurid combination of murder, religion, and "rock" music proved too tempting for the media to ignore. The story ran on TV news shows, newspapers, and magazines, with little to no fact-checking. Soon the world was informed of the "Killer Song" that supposedly led some kid to murder his parents with an ax. The scandal became the foundation for their next release Helter Stupid, featuring a cover photo of a TV news "journalist" intoning the fake ax murder story, with the news station's caption "Killer Song" above his head, and a photo of the ax-murderer

Negativland's next project was the infamous U2 record with samples from "America's Top 40" host Casey Kasem. In 1991, Negativland released a single with the title U2 displayed in very large type on the front of the packaging, and "Negativland" in a smaller typeface. An image of the Lockheed U-2 spy plane was also on the single cover. The songs within were parodies of the well-known song, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", including kazoos and extensive sampling of the original song. The song I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For features a musical backing to an extended profane rant from well-known disc jockey Casey Kasem, lapsing out of his more polished and professional tone during a frustrating rehearsal, commenting, for instance: "These guys are from England and who gives a shit?" (U2's members are in fact from Ireland.) U2's label Island Records sued Negativland claiming that the "U2" violated trademark law, and the song itself violated copyright law. Island Records also contended that the single was an attempt to deliberately confuse U2 fans, then awaiting Achtung Baby. Funds exhausted, Negativland settled out of court. Most copies of the single were recalled and destroyed. By the mid-1990s, rap had made authorized sampling more common in mainstream music, but the single "U2", for which Negativland did not obtain clearance to use U2 samples, is still illegal to sell in the United States, but is available for free download from Negativland's official web site. In June, 1992, R.U. Sirius, publisher of the magazine Mondo 2000 came up with an interesting idea. Publicists from U2 had contacted him regarding the possibility of interviewing Dave Evans (aka "The Edge") hoping to promote U2's impending multi-million dollar Zoo TV Tour, which featured found sounds and live sampling from mass media outlets (things for which Negativland had been known for some time). Sirius, unbeknownst to the Edge, decided to have his friends Joyce and Hosler of Negativland conduct the interview. Joyce and Hosler, fresh from Island's lawsuit, peppered the Edge with questions regarding his ideas about the use of sampling in their new tour, and the legality of using copyrighted material without permission. Midway through the interview, Joyce and Hosler revealed their identities as members of Negativland. An embarrassed the Edge reported that U2 were bothered by the sledgehammer legal approach Island Records took in their lawsuit, and furthermore that much of the legal wrangling took place without U2's knowledge: "by the time we (U2) realized what was going on it was kinda too late, and we actually did approach the record company on your (Negativland's) behalf and said, 'Look, c'mon, this is just, this is very heavy...'" Island Records reported to Negativland that U2 never authorised samples of their material; Evans response was, "that's complete bollocks, there's like, there's at least six records out there that are direct samples from our stuff." The "U2" single (along with other related material) was re-released in 2001 on a "bootleg" album entitled These Guys Are From England And Who Gives A Shit, released on "Seelard Records" (a parody of Negativland's record label "Seeland Records"). It is thought likely that Negativland themselves were responsible for the re-release, and that U2 gave their blessing; although the Negativland website refers to this release as a bootleg, it is available from major retailers like Best Buy, Amazon, and Tower Records, as well as Negativland's own mail-order business. Negativland are interested in intellectual property rights, and argue that their use of U2's and others' material falls under fair use. In 1995, they released a book with accompanying CD called Fair Use about copyright law in general, and the U2 incident in particular, and were the main subjects of Craig Baldwin's documentary "Sonic Outlaws", detailing the use of culture jamming to subvert the messages of more traditional media outlets. There are many other artists who push the boundaries of copyright law in a similar way to Negativland, including John Oswald, the Evolution Control Committee, The Bran Flakes, Sir Mildred Pierce, and People Like Us. Negativland's Mark Hosler pointed at the irony of U2 infringing copyrights on a massive scale during their Zoo TV tour by broadcasting live satellite images on stage, and getting away with it, while almost simultaneously suing Negativland, who had been doing it for a long time before it ever dawned on U2.

In 1999 Negativland collaborated with UK anarchist band Chumbawamba to produce the album the ABCs of Anarchism, which is largely based around the writings of Alexander Berkman and cut-up versions of the hit song Tubthumping, the theme tune to the children's program Teletubbies and Anarchy in the UK.

In 2003, members of Negativland contributed their efforts to Creative Commons, an organization devoted to providing artists with a broader range of copyright options. In September 2005, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the band, Negativland curated an art exhibit in Manhattan's Gigantic Artspace gallery. The exhibit, Negativlandland, included a number of pieces of artwork from and inspired by Negativland recordings, video projection of music videos created by the band and others, and some artwork created specifically for the show, such as an animatronic Abraham Lincoln figure (inspired by the band's Lincoln cut-up piece God Bull) and a hands-on exhibit featuring the Booper, the audio-processing unit that band member David Wills (a.k.a. The Weatherman) assembled out of old radio parts. The show will appear in Minneapolis on May 12, 2006, at Creative Electric Studios. The band is hoping to continue to bring Negativlandland to other cities.


Over The Edge series:



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18 июл. 2012 г.

Microstoria


Microstoria is a collaboration between Markus Popp (Oval) and Jan St. Werner (Mouse On Mars). The resulting music is an electronic soundtrack, not without structure, not without melody. The "instruments" used are what could be seen as their successors-machines and digital technology. Where Oval eschews authorship of music, Microstoria explores authorship, especially in relation to improvisation. The tones used in composition are mechanized but paradoxically rich. The resulting pieces are organic in feel; a striking result when viewed in context with their origins.




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17 июл. 2012 г.

Radian


Radian is an experimental/post-rock band from Austria that mixes electronic production and traditional rock instruments resulting in a sound much resembling an electronic act. Their music touches on instrumental rock, post-rock, jazz and electronica, and is notable for imitating some of the more demanding musical structures of intelligent dance music. The trio was formed in 1996 in Vienna. The band has release albums on Rhiz, Mego, and Thrill Jockey, and has recorded with John McEntire of Tortoise.

Members:
Martin Brandlmayr - drums, vibraphone, samples & editing (also a solo artist, a member of Trapist, Kapital Band 1 and Autistic Daughters).
Stefan Nemeth - guitars, lapsteel, electronics (also cofounder of the Mosz label and a member of Lokai)
John Norman - bass





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9 июл. 2012 г.

Taylor Deupree


Taylor Deupree (b. 1971) is a sound artist, graphic designer, and photographer residing in New York. On January 1st, 1997, he founded 12k, a record label that focuses on minimalism and contemporary musical forms. In 12k's 10 years of existence Deupree has released over 40 CDs by a roster of international sound artists and has developed 12k into one of the most respected experimental electronic labels in the world. In September 2000, Deupree and sound artist Richard Chartier formed LINE, a sublabel of 12k that curates its continuing documentation of compositional and installation work by composers exploring the aesthetics of contemporary and digital minimalism. In January 2002 (as a celebration of 12k's fifth anniversary) Deupree launched term., an online series of MP3 releases. While 12k's emphasis lies not only in sound but also on design and presentation, term. exists entirely in the digital domain with no physical object or package. In September, 2003, Deupree started a 3rd record label called Happy to promote unconventional japanese pop. Happy was born from Deupree's interest in Japanese pop and the fact that it is quite unknown outside of Japan.

Since 1993 Deupree has created critically acclaimed recordings for labels worldwide including Spekk, Plop, Noble (Japan), Ritornell/Mille Plateaux, Raster-Noton, Disko B (Germany), Sub Rosa (Belgium), Fällt (Ireland), Audio.NL (Netherlands), Room40 (Australia), Instinct Records, Caipirinha Music, Plastic City (USA), Dum (Finland), and of course 12k and LINE, among others. In January 1999, Deupree currated a compilation for New York's Caipirinha Music label that he titled 'Microscopic Sound'. This release was among the first to gather together artists of this style and helped put a name to a then-rising genre of electronic music.

His solo works in recent years have explored a fusion of digital sound manipulation with organic and melodic textures that take influences from his interest in architecture, interior design, and photography. Themes of minimalism, stillness, atmosphere, nature, and imperfection prevade throughout his work . An intense passion for recording and studio technology creates a strong technological backdrop for all of his compositions.

Collaboration with other musicians is also a very important aspect of Deupree's work. Working with other artists is a way to not only create unique works beyond his solo recordings but to also expand his own techniques and processes as a learning experience. Over record years he has collaborated with a wide variety of artists such as Christopher Willits (US, guitar), Kenneth Kirschner (US, Piano), Eisi (Japan, 3-piece acoustic ambient-rock band), Tetsu Inoue (US, sound artist), Frank Bretschneider (Germany, sound artist), and Richard Chartier (US, sound artist). Deupree feels the importance of collaborative work is to not layer two individual styles but to create a 3rd, fusion sound that incorporates the strengths of each collaborator yet sounds like a unique, 3rd identity.

Deupree continues to evolve his sound and approaches each project with a new direction and different process. Continued shifting and sound exploration is vital to his work. He has many recording and remixing accomplishments and a substantial, varied, discography formed over 14 years. His design and photography work has appeared on dozens of projects and record labels around the world and published in a number of books in Japan and the UK.



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