Night After Night

New audio: 3:33, Bicameral Brain

New death-ambient hip-hop drone by 3:33, who cite Yoshi Wada, Terry Riley, Whitehouse and La Monte Young in the press release for their forthcoming 2CD album, Bicameral Brain, due October 29 on Parallel Thought. From the group's label bio:

Too frequently, experimental music has automatically fallen under the generic label of “new” or “different”. Perhaps what is needed is a return to primitive principles, a devolution of sorts. 3:33 is a group that looks to do just that. Evolving from the groundwork of Musique Concrete composers like Pierre Shaeffer and John Cage, their music is tense and fiercely experiential; a roller coaster ride through moody beats, haunting jangles, and shrieks that will disquiet the soul.

 

There will be more to say about this one, I'm sure. For now, just have a taste.

New audio: Keith Fullerton Whitman, Greatest Hits

Keith Fullerton Whitman, electronic-music maven and proprietor of the early-electronica archival label Creel Pone and the brilliant avant-music e-tailer Mimaroglu Music Service, makes everyone's morning with a new, very personal project uploaded to Soundcloud this morning. Here, in his own words, the explanation of Greatest Hits:

On the eve of my 30th birthday, I began rendering "automatic" "enhancements" of only the most salient points of the pop music of my youth; a line, bar, or fragment of a particular song (after being heard out in "the wild" in the present; akin to running into an old friend on the street & having that awkward, stilted conversation) was chosen based on how much my nostalgic recollection of it differed from its contemporary reality.

Each edit was played back at exactly half-speed, then run through a series of time- and gain-based processes that slowly and meticulously chewed through the audio, revealing hidden layers of content, context, and temporal/spectral production details… shining a flashlight into the dark corners of each selection, exposing the hidden ghosts lurking within.

Playlist.

Celer - 日没 Nichibotsu (Bandcamp)

Motion Sickness of Time Travel - Athenaeum: 2009–2012 (Hooker Vision < Bandcamp)

Xiphiidae - Iiustus (Object Tapes)

Tuluum Shimmering - Inside the Mountain (Sheepscar Light Industrial)

Nova Scotian Arms - Sacred Drift (Sonic Meditations)

Olivia Block - Pure Gaze (Sedimental)

Olivia Block - Mobius Fuse (Sedimental)

Olivia Block - Heave To (Sedimental)

Olivia Block - Change Ringing (Cut)

Michael Daugherty - Brooklyn Bridge; Michael Burritt - Duo Concertante; David R. Gillingham - Synergy; Scott McAllister - Black Dog - John Bruce Yeh, Molly Yeh, Teresa Reilly, Columbus State University Wind Ensemble/Robert W. Rumbelow (Naxos)

Pitreleh - Pitreleh (Important)

Grapefuit - Grapefruit (Field Hymns)

Miles - Unsecured (Modern Love)

Nate Wooley - (Sit in) The Throne of Friendship (Clean Feed)

Drew Gress - The Sky Inside (Pirouet)

Strangelight - 9 Days EP (Sacrament Music; due Oct. 8)

Digital Natives - It's All Point Blank (Beer on the Rug)

Kayo Dot - Hubardo (Ice Nine)

M. Geddes Gengras - Collected Works Vol. 1: The Moog Years (Umor Rex)

Myra Melford - Life Carries Me This Way (Firehouse 12; due Oct. 22)

Pestilence - Obsideo (Candlelight; due Nov. 12)

Motörhead - Aftershock (UDR Music; due Oct. 22)

Patrick Higgins - String Quartet No. 2; Glacia - Mivos Quartet (Ex Cathedra/Words+Dreams; due Nov. 12)

Navel - Neill (self-released < Bandcamp)

Richard Lainhart - The Deep Blue of Twilight (Bandcamp)

Tim Berne's Snakeoil - Shadow Man (ECM; due Oct. 1)

Gimu - Can't Remember When I Started to Forget (Bandcamp)

Keeril Makan - Mercury Songbirds; Husk; Afterglow; Becoming Unknown; Mu; After Forgetting - International Contemporary Ensemble (Mode)

Emuul - Free Structures: What We Thought When We Thought the World Was Shifting Under Our Feet (Constellation Tatsu)

Derek Bailey - Aida (Incus/Dexter's Cigar)

New audio: M. Geddes Gengras, Collected Works Vol. 1

Compilations aren't generally things I spend much time recommending. But in the case of an artist as madly prolific as California synth muso M. Geddes Gengras, Collected Works Vol. 1, a new anthology from Mexican label Umor Rex, is a godsend. Subtitled The Moog Years, it concentrates on a specific segment of Geddes's output, culling tracks from four previous cassette-only releases. Not are the chosen cuts great representations of the artist's dreamier, more blissed-out side, but they also hang together remarkably well, resulting in a coherent album worth getting to know. It's available on limited-edition vinyl from the label website; you can also buy downloads in a variety of formats via Bandcamp.

Video: Fred Frith and Evelyn Glennie improvisation, May 19, 2013

Fred Frith and Evelyn Glennie
Moers Festival, May 19, 2013

Anniversary.

Fall and all attendant memories
Crowd the day with unrelated histories
Each year leaves its unresolving fantasies
To hang around each corner
Hang around each street.

Thick with ghosts, the wind whips round in circuitries
Carrying words as strangers exchange pleasantries
Do they intrude upon your private reveries
As they meet you on each corner
Meet you on each street.

Watch for daily braveries
Notice newfound courtesies
Finger sudden legacies
As they clean up every corner
Wash down every street.

Mark the month and all its anniversaries
Put away the draft of all your eulogies
Clear the way for all your private memories
As they meet you on each corner
Meet you on each street.

Make the time for all your possibilities
They live on every street.

Suzanne Vega, "Anniversary," from Beauty & Crime (Blue Note, 2007)

Reeling in the years.

Visting Houston about a month ago to clean out the last lingering dregs of my adolescent bedroom before the old family house is sold, I came upon these curios of my high-school existence.

Trust me, I blew my entire first paycheck from my first real job on a new cassette deck. But before that happened, 8-track is what I had in the late ’70s and early ’80s, and esoeteric titles like much of what you see here (Eagles and Styx aside) were available for a buck or less. My unit was also a recorder, which made it possible to tape ENTIRE KANSAS ALBUMS off the radio, nearly for free.

Casting nostalgia aside, I tossed these into a pile destined for the trash bin. But on returning home to New York, an article about the Eight Track Museum in Dallas popped up on Twitter. With a frantic text message to my sister, I was able to get these gems rescued, and I intend to donate them to the museum as soon possible.

The world should know, after all, that Annette Peacock once was available on 8-track cartridge.

Top row, L-R: Pink Floyd, A Nice Pair; Annette Peacock, X-Dreams; John Klemmer, Arabesque; Tangerine Dream, Rubycon

Second row, L-R: Peter Gabriel, Peter Gabriel; Eagles, The Long Run; Styx, The Grand Illusion; Cheech and Chong, Up in Smoke

Third row, L-R: Ornette Coleman, Crisis; The Nice, Elegy; Styx, Crystal Ball; Styx, Equinox

Bottom row, L-R: Renaissance, Novella; Focus, Ship of Memories

Playlist.

Celer - In Escaping Lakes (Slow Flow Rec < Bandcamp)

Derek Rogers - Perepetia (A Beard of Snails)

Nick Hennies - Duets for Solo Snare Drum (Weighter)

Paul Lawler - Opus (VCO Recordings)

Hawkwind - Onward (Four Winds Media)

James Horner - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan OST (Retrograde Records)

Mathieu Ruhlmann + Celer - Mesoscaphe (Nature Bliss < Bandcamp)

Yui Onodera + Celer - Generic City (Two Acorns < Bandcamp)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 1 (Bandcamp)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 2 (Bandcamp)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 3 (Bandcamp)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 4 (Bandcamp)

Tanya Morgan - Rubber Souls (Imprint One80; due Sept. 24)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 5 (Bandcamp)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 6 (Bandcamp)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 7 (Bandcamp)

King Crimson - Shepherd's Bush Empire, London, England, July 1, 1996 (DGMLive)

Klaus Schulze - Irrlicht (Revisited)

Shadows of Vibrate - Vibrations and Cosmic Rays (Rainbow Pyramid)

Puerta del Sol - Puerta del Sol (Rainbow Pyramid)

Cool Person - Future Person (Rainbow Pyramid)

Wave Temples - Keys to the Inner Island (Rainbow Pyramid)

Cays - Cays (Rainbow Pyramid)

Mark Bradley - Lunar Offerings (Cosmic Winnetou)

Lunar Miasma - Blackest Haze (Cosmic Winnetou)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 8 (Bandcamp)

Various Artists - Awesomely Bad Nu Metal Classics (Spotify playlist by Adam Lehrer)

New audio: Phill Niblock, Nothin to Look at Just a Record

Originally released on vinyl by the India Navigation label in 1982, Nothin to Look at Just a Record was composer Phill Niblock's debut LP, and has become something of a holy grail among lovers of early Minimalism and drone. The two works on the album, A Trombone Piece and A Third Trombone, were included in the essential 2CD anthology A Young Person's Guide to Phill Niblock (or YPGPN), compiled by Blast First! and subsequently reissued on Niblock's XI Recordings. But for those who prefer the tactile pleasures of vinyl, San Francisco archival label Superior Viaduct is pressing a facsimile reissue of Nothin to Look at Just a Record on October 29, to celebrate Niblock's 80th birthday – which falls on October 2, in case you want to send a card.

New audio: Jim O'Rourke, Steamroom series

A hefty, heady trove of new and recent music by Jim O'Rourke has just turned up on Bandcamp, priced inexpensively and available in a variety of file formats, lossless and otherwise. I've just bought Steamroom 1, a 2012 recording O'Rourke pressed up for his recent Japanese tour with Christoph Heemann and Will Long (Celer), but I can feel the other seven releases clamoring for attention already. Go, indulge.