waxing prolix

So we've been refreshing the sound modules on SWARM, and have been experimenting with multitrack audio. The idea is that you can, with one command, get all the orbs to play back different mp3 files at the same time, and they will stay roughly synchronized. Erik found some great multitrack Flaming Lips and a highlight of running the orbs was tooling around on the mothership, very late one night, to the sounds of the Orbs singing.

This sounded so good that I was inspired to make my own music for the Orbs. Originally this was a 64 minute audioscape I procedurally composed as an aid to insomnia (as much as I love Eno's Thursday Afternoon, there's only so many times you can listen to something, plus it's a little sparse to mask noise very well). It's not really a song, as nothing really happens: it's essentially a "Steve Reich ninth chord" (my specialist terminology) with some high-Q filter sweeps that pick out harmonics above. I re-mastered it as six separate stereo tracks, one for each robot; since it's one chord they will naturally harmonize. Seeing as how you likely don't have spare robots rolling around, here it is as one long track to soothe your insomnia (it's not particularly exciting): song_of_the_orbs.mp3 (77 MB)

Photo Credit: Marcus Hertlein

Labels: music, projects

In a snarky mcCoincidence (see last post), it turns out there's a band called the Fuck Buttons, and as you might guess from the name, they are pretty awesome.

Labels: music

It's Beethoven's Ninth, slowed down by a factor of about 25. That is one second of the original takes about 25 in this version, called 9 Beet Stretch.

It's very listenable ambient music, with some surprising movement. Some of the passing chords can be very dark, and stretched tympani could be the very soundtrack of Doom, but after a while it all returns to the dominant or subdominant.


What's cool is you can listen to it streaming 24/7. Perfect for hacking sessions.

Labels: music

• Neu + Serge Gainsbourg = Stereolab
• CAN: definitive experimental confirmation of Foote's Groove Theory, to wit: It doesn't matter what's on top as long as your rhythm section is smoking.
• Harmonie: god this would have been my favorite band had I heard them as a teenager
• Popol Vuh: makes Herzog worth it
• What the heck is Charlie Parker doing in my Krautrock collection?
  
• Kraftwerk = GOD. I confess to having a total adolescent fantasy that Kraftwerk, hanging out after Coachella, comes across SWARM and naturally think it is the necessary thing for the cover of their next album "Die Kugel-Maschinen"
  

Labels: music

No, not DWR. The usual Kahunas. Reich, Glass, Adams. Some of my favorite music: definitely tickles whatever symphonic Asperger's neural feedback is going on in my cortex. (Tim Page, in his eloquent essay on the subject, talks about his shock of recognition upon first hearing Reich's Music for 18 Musicians.) I had a similar shock and have been a connoisseur of the minimal, a fan of the drone, ever since I can remember.

So it's a true pleasure to discover an unsung master in Charlemagne Palestine. Right now I'm listening to -- technically blasting -- Schlingen-Blängen, which is more than an hour of a single organ chord. While some neurotypicals might find that tedious, I find it gorgeous. You see, there's all sorts of things going on in the music: harmonics, beats, overtones, pedal tones: a symphony's worth of rolling gorgeousness. Or more. It's just great.

Labels: music