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One aspect of the fun of being a music fan is tracking the trends. In practically every genre, things change and novelty is pursued. It's this continuing flux that adds elements of surprise and keeps the ancient art form fascinating.
New Orleans, once the birthplace of Jazz, is still a crucible of novelty for music--not to mention a handful of other cultural forms. The city is less a global crossroads than it was in the early 20th century. Nowadays it is more a national crossroads, a waystation for the various transient and fringe communities that do the hard work of keeping the United States weird. Even since the Storm, NOLA is a part time home for neo-carnies, pseudo-hoboes, professional vice enthusiasts, musicians and every other type of folk artist that this great nation spawns.
Each year at the New Orleans Voodoo Music Festival, while bigger names grace bigger stages, the Noomoon Tribe hosts a side stage chock full of local music acts. The names of the bands tend to change, but those who watch from year to year will notice that many of the same painted faces return over the course of time. It's possible that one or two of these dedicated artists may rise to higher levels in the music scene, but for many this is as good as it gets--a moment pushing the limits of their art on stage before a crowd that may not be large, but is most definitely appreciative.
Watch this video and see that there are many diamonds-in-the-rough in the mud of the flooded city. They pour their guts into what they do, and they always will, because it's New Orleans, shadow of America, the place where our culture is made every day, even if the fact is not always recognized.
The glaciers are melting. And when I say glaciers, I don't mean actual, literal glaciers; I mean something else entirely more vast, cool and unsympathetic--the record industry.
Yes, those stalwart champions of atavism at the various music conglomerates seem to be ever so gradually coming to terms with the inevitability of mp3 distribution. The process has been drawn out, of course, because the recorded-music industry can't wantonly enter new territory until they have proven to themselves with rock-solid conclusiveness that there is some kind of profitability in this new world.
And as these megalopolies experimented with DRM and such, the smaller mammals at their feet have filled the niches left unattended, proving for all to see that yes indeed, you can make money with the mp3 format.
So here we are. It looks like the mp3 is about to go mainstream.
The benefits of this trend are apparent enough, but what of the single-most important downside to the standardization of the mp3? The fact that they sound like hell.
When CDs first hit the market, all kinds of hyperbole was used to describe the sound. “Perfect,” “too good” and even “audio cocaine” were descriptions aimed at Compact Disc sound reproduction. But, little is said about the jangly aliasing at the high end of the mp3, that irritating digital distortion that never seems to go away no matter what you do to with your EQ sliders.
As things stand right now, mp3s are the perfect form for music distribution. They're light-weight, for one thing. And they sound just fine coming through small speakers such as those built into a laptop, or in earbuds or cheap computer speakers.
But run an mp3 through an ordinary stereo receiver to a decent pair of speakers and the inkly sizzle of the mp3 becomes unmistakable.
My fear is that with mp3s taking on an official status, we'll all develop a tolerance for this noise. No doubt there are many worse things going on in the world right now, but still it's unfortunate that we may be about to take a step backwards here. The adoption of CDs over vinyl and magnetic tape carried its own difficulties, for sure. The sound quality, though, was not worse in that case, only less “warm.”
Mp3s sound positively worse than Compact Discs. And despite the cultural revolutions that they have stimulated, they also diminish the listening experience. This is an unfortunate fact that we will have to endure for the foreseeable future.
If the Hollow Tree Experimental-Music Newsfeed has been flowing too fast for you to keep up with, then you may want to take a peek at the Google group that I've set up to archive the feed. I set up Feedburner so that each night, at approximately 5 am UTC, everything that's been posted to the feed gets bundled up and shot over by email to the Google group.
The first such email came in a few minutes ago. I can't say it's the most beautiful thing on the internet, but it meets the basic needs. Perhaps in time I'll be able to figure out a way to include pictures and html in the posts, but I kind of doubt it. Without having looked too closely, it appears that this is as good as it gets for now. But I'll scrutinize Feedburner and Google groups at some point in the future just to be sure if there's not something I can do to improve the look. And both services get upgraded fairly often. Who knows?
Also, if you feel the need, you can subscribe to the Google group's RSS or get an email subscription.
The feed itself has been getting a few hits, which is encouraging. If you find the feed useful, please take a moment to tell a friend about it won't you? Or if you like, you can post the feed on any website. (Contact me for the javascript.) The more views this feed gets, the more likely I'll be to keep it alive.
A few days ago I mentioned that I had started a new experimental-music news feed. Since then I've played around with the Google Reader feature that makes the feed possible, and found it to be exactly right for my purposes.
So, I've directed that original feed through Feedburner, making it much prettier and easier to manage. You can subscribe to the newer, more polished version with this URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/experimentalmusicnews
It hasn't been too difficult to kick out as many as six news items each day, making this feed much more active than the original experimental news feed. I expect to fold that older feed into the new one at some point. In the meantime, enjoy them both as separate entities, and go ahead and direct your insightful comments at me in whatever way suits you best.
This poster is funny and probably a good indication of the quality of experience to be had at this Haters show. Nov, 15, 2007, 10 pm, 1114 Howell St., Seattle. $10 (via Novahead v. Chickentron)
You have got to love records. And by records, I mean vinyl. Its the one recording medium that is able to survive a sleeveless trip through yard sales, thrift stores, and thirty years of abuse and still be able to be played. Which is the opposite of CD-Rs, apparently. I'm reading now that the CD-R is vulnerable to "migrating dye problems", which basically means that the dye inside the disc is busy taking a trip somewhere else, eventually rendering your disc unreadable. To top it off, the experts are recommending I start backing everything up on tape again. So I'm about ready to go insane. I'm 27 years old, and I've already been through about a million media changes.
It's getting old.
The problem is that I'm a media junkie. I enjoy being able to take photos, burn albums, save text, copy websites, you name it. I like having all sorts of music available, so I can actually go listen to whatever song happens to pop in my head. Its something beyond consumerism for me, it is really more about the fascinating ability to have so much of my past archived. If I come into contact with it, I want to grab it and make a copy. When I need it again, I'd like it to be there, whatever it is. Of course, one does run into problems. The past starts intruding into the present, and eventually is bleeding into the future. Sitting around experiencing something old becomes an activity, and archived data migrates toward corruption as quickly as memories blur. I'm sometimes wondering-- "is this real? did I dream this?"
I'd like a way to check. Something of a baseline, a default, a control sample to understand everything else by. Something unquestionably true, and positively real. A thing that could only exist in the present. Let's face it, music changes. The encoding artifact can become part of the song. The newly remastered version supersedes the old. And you have the unsettling idea that somewhere, a quadraphonic version exists that you never heard.
The photos get cropped. They fade and crack. Something gets loaned out and never returned. The frame breaks. Tapes bleed through. The player breaks. The cord is lost. You forget, you remember, and you doubt. Compilations are made, and the order is lost. The cover art is resized. The media is no longer supported.
All the tapes are turning to dust.
So yeah, records are cool. I reasonably expect they'll be around when I'm dead. When my body is dispersed, I'll let go of it all, and someone else can worry about keeping everything together. Is that what it comes to? Do we try to make ourselves into gods? Accumulating a world of memory, stretching our ability to contain it? When there are so many things, you realize that its really like an entire life. Too much to deal with, and everything would be slipping away all the time. The same problem exists at NASA. The extraordinary amount of data requires constant backing up, because by the time its turn comes to be backed up, it has begun to break down. When the weight of data increases faster than it can be processed, it will begin to be lost.
I don't like to think of anything being lost. I don't like to think about the dead beneath my feet, or about the things they desired in their lifetimes. I don't like to think about how every arrow has an arc. How no matter the push, it always comes down. Isn't it sick? Does this bother you? I'm really not prepared for these type of ideas. I can't even manage a music and photo collection, ha ha. But here we all are, needing a backup.
I've only just noticed that Google Reader has a sharing option for individual tags. Whole new frontiers are open to us now, though a little bit of technical work will be needed. But for those of you who don't need your experimental news flow to be especially pretty, you can drop this url into your feed reader: HTxMR bonus feed.
I use a wide array of search services to keep me up to date on the experimental music scene(s) around the world. Most of these searches are delivered to my Google Reader account. With the tag-sharing feature in GR, I can now select the best of this experimental news and deliver it to you--immediately.
Be sure to email me with any bugs or requests. My email address can be found on the "contact" page, accessible through the main Hollow Tree XMR site.
Hollow Tree readers, you are in for a treat. The ever vigilant DaveX, host of WDBX's “It's Too Damn Early” program, and the Startling Moniker blog has sent me a piece of writing to post here on the HTxMR weblog. I'll be sticking it up there this Monday. Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed here, so you don't miss it.
Meanwhile, I've become aware that the our article submissions email address has turned into a spam trap. I have to do some maintenance over there, but until then any of you who would like to send along a record review, or something like that may use my personal email, which is listed on our contact page.
I have also received some discs in the mail, at least one of which I will write about in the near future.
Finally, the moment you didn't know you were waiting for. I have posted something NEW on my other blog, iSuck. In this episode, Zeno Izen explains why he has disappeared from the glitzy world of blogging and what he's going to do now that he's back. Go there now and read it before it gets stale.
Okay all of my very good friends... I'm still silent here, as you can tell by the silence. There has been quite a lot going on in my skull and I've found myself reassessing my blogging strategy.
It's going to be a little while more before I post much. You see, I'm going out of town for a few days. In that time, I may write some things for internet publication, but I can't be sure that they'll be experimental-music related. If you're interested, monitor this channel.
There are actually a couple of items I wanted to mention quickly.
1. Bluemars. Everytime Bluemars goes down I get a bunch of hits on this page from people trying to figure out what the story is. Unfortunately, I don't know a thing. I would guess that there is some kind of equipment issue that has taken the streaming stations offline. Other hypotheses are also reasonable.
Lone, if you want to shoot me an email at hollowtreesubmit@gmail.com explaining what the troubles are, I'll post it here unedited. People are curious and possibly even concerned.
Hello experimental music friends. Yes, I've been out of touch lately, so sorry. There's lots of experimental news to report and I plan to get to it once I clear some other items from my desk. I do appreciate your patience.
In the meantime, please indulge yourself in this YouTube clip.
Correction: In my last post, I made the regrettable error of writing that the Silophone is located in France. In actuality, the Silophone is in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is an embarrassing mistake, but it gives me the opportunity to make mention once again that there will be a very special performance at the Silophone by Lee Rosovere this very Sunday July 16 at 9:30 EST. The performance will be broadcast over the internet and all the world is invited to participate by means of their telephones or their internet connection. You can get all the details at createdigitalmusic.com.
The mistake also gives me the opportunity to point out that blogging is a tremendous medium for allowing us all to publish ourselves worldwide and instantaneously, but there isn't a single one among us who couldn't benefit from a little editing. One can only wonder where the human conversation will be in five or ten years. Will all the gatekeepers have gone away? Will each of us have to independently verify every fact that we read on the internet? And how will we verify facts when credible information becomes almost impossible to find?
And what of our very language itself? It is actually a point of controversy whether the Gutenberg press instituted a standardization of spelling. Some say that before this seminal invention, people spelled words according to their whim. Whatever the case, it is possible that the internet might accelerate the evolution of language to a degree that the writers of dictionaries and grammar texts can no longer keep up. Honestly, it seems that we may be certain of nothing anymore, except for the occurrence of unintended consequences.
In the meantime, we can enjoy the phenomena that appear before us. We look forward to this evening's performance at the Silophone and all of the innovative uses of the internet that will undoubtedly occur as human progress marches on.
(A side note: I'm listening to the Silophone while I write this. It sounds like there's a soundcheck going on. Hello. Bonjour!) -z
UPDATE: There will be a online performance at the Silophone by Lee Rosevere on July 16, with the opportunity for audience participation. Get more datafacts at this internet location. -- After the US pulls out of Iraq, and Iran takes over the Iraqi oil fields maybe we'll all start to realize that the American century is over.
When gasoline is $15 an ounce and the skies are as hot as fire, then maybe all of us in the US will relax a little bit and start to become interesting like our good friends in the nation of France, who have allowed some of their citizens to hook an old grain silo up to the internet so that everyone in the world can play sounds into it and listen to the reverb.
Or maybe the United States will actually manage to pacify Iraq and turn it into farmland to grow hemp for bio-diesel. The Live Earth concerts got nine million internet streams in one day. That ought to be enough to solve all of our problems. Thanks Mr. Sting, or whoever came up with the stunningly novel idea to have a rock show to stop global warming. Your Live Earth concert gave me something to do while I stayed inside with the air conditioning on full blast.
Speaking of concerts, please allow me to toot my own horn: Hollow Tree's got free music. You don't have to listen to it. You just have to download it.
Despite all the far-out new technology and the onset of nonlinear consumer habits, one thing about human media not changed: the music fan has no better friend than a good radio show.
No amount of magazines, peer advice or record-store browsing can substitute for those individuals who make it their business to select and play good music over the airwaves on a regular basis.
Unfortunately for fans of experimental music, it can be hard to find a good radio program dedicated to music on the outer fringes. There is a contradiction between experimental music's built-in lack of popular appeal, and radio's need of a guaranteed audience. Certainly there are experimental music programs out there, but each one is a sort of miracle unto itself, existing within and in spite of a hostile environment.
Even more rare are programs such as "It's Too Damn Early" Saturday mornings on WDBX in southern Illinois, which is not only an hours-long weekly audition of the underplayed, but is also hosted by DaveX who clearly understands the value of lagniappe. Each week, while spinng a variety of obscure tracks, DaveX provides live programming notes at his blog "Startling Moniker," where he also generously provides mp3s of previous shows. Between episodes of ITDE, DaveX also works hard at finding the latest music to share with his audience, writing reviews, keeping in touch with musicians and labels and generally acting as a cheerleader for the perpetually encouragement-starved international experimental community.
It was in this spirit of scene-building that DaveX recently invited me to participate in a mutual email interview. My answers to DaveX's questions were recently posted at Startling Moniker, and it is here and now that I present DaveX's answers to my questions:
--
Explain the usual processes that you go through to select music for your program. What are your basic criteria for what is appropriate for the show? Do you discover new artists through magazines, word-of-mouth or some other information source? (My intent with this line of questioning is not to create a howto for bands trying to get radio play. I am more interested here in getting some insight into how you operate as a "curator" or selector, if those terms mean anything to you. )
I do a lot of research for music to play on “It's Too Damn Early.” I don't think I use any methods that are particularly strange ('zines, websites, word of mouth, liner notes, other radio shows, reviews, listservs, writing to labels and musicians), but my suspicion is that I devote more time and energy to this research than many DJs, and certainly MUCH more than the casual listener. It is accurate to say that I am fascinated by music and sound in general, so this makes the research much more easy and worth my time.
One of my most basic criteria for recordings appearing on the show is that I personally enjoy it in some manner. This could be anywhere from really loving the recording, to feeling a sense of challenge while listening to it. You're very apt to use the term "curator." In the past, I have even gone so far as to name a portion of my show "The Sound Museum," which was where I'd present ordinary or unremarkable recordings that were once deemed important enough to BE recorded, but no longer were of any real value. I think of these as lost and forgotten recordings, aural fragments of us all-- a sonic detritus, perhaps.
In the greater show itself, I try to live up to the show's motto: "In all the world, nothing finer," which I gleefully stole from a vintage advertisment! To me, it means presenting a world-class selection of experimental recordings; despite having no budget, staff, assistance, etc. However, one of my stated goals for "It's Too Damn Early" is to help "grow" a community of experimental artists in Southern Illinois-- one where experimental music creation and appreciation could flourish. Because of this, I take more time to demonstrate the links between one work and another. Even if I don't state these links verbally, I always keep it in mind while selecting recordings during the actual broadcast. Also, because I am trying to "grow" experimental music appreciation and exploration in Southern Illinois, I will play from works "in progress," or from much lesser-known artists. In a larger more established community, I'm not sure this would be as good a decision for a broadcaster.
Finally, let me comment on selecting music during the show itself! While actually broadcasting, I try to be as free and flexible as I possibly can. I think of each show as a sketchpad of sorts, so I'll try out new musical ideas as far as mixing recordings, layering, ordering or juxtapositioning of tracks, etc. This is a really fascinating experience for me, so I try to share if with listeners by liveblogging the shows. Still, I think a lot of the mental process is missed. If listeners ever have a chance to watch a good radio DJ at work, they should take it!
- How do you obtain the music that you play and review? It seems as if you purchase discs for the show, or get them through the radio station. Do you actually spend money on this kind of music? If so, about how much per month?
Presently, I receive the bulk of my recordings for the show as promotional materials, which I often write away for directly. I enjoy a close working relationship with many, many labels and artists due to a large effort on my part to make sure that they receive accurate playlists and feedback via reviews and my own commentary. I am extraordinarily thankful that so many labels and artists are willing to share their music with my listeners; and that they are being helped in a small way by my broadcasts as well.
At my previous station, WIDB, recordings would be delivered through a hierarchy of program directors after being mailed to the station itself. These were the property of the station, which half-heartedly maintained a library of music. At WDBX, the situation is a bit different-- as volunteers, we are generally expected to supply our own music. WDBX does maintain a station library; but it is mostly devoted to Americana, folk, and local artists. In my experience, theft is always a serious concern with libraries of this sort; most DJs I work with maintain their own personal holdings, which they share as necessary. I am lucky that WDBX is a very open, communicative environment-- I am often able to pass on music that is useful for other shows, whether it is flexible enough for programming within another show, or simply inappropriate for my own. In the past, there has been much "cross-pollination" between the new age show and my own, much more than anyone would suspect! I also found a serious fan of early avant-garde in the fellow who ran the "singing cowboy" Western Swing show-- it always pays to share info with fellow DJs.
Normally, I do purchase quite a bit of music, but I'm not really able to do this much lately-- simple concerns like having food, gas money for getting to work, and keeping the lights on have had to take priority. I continue broadcasting, though-- I believe that art and culture should never be the sole domain of an elite, nor be out of reach of any human being. Art and communication are our heritage as human beings. I have often said that you should do whatever you have to do to ensure that this is not taken away from you.
- Tell me about music that you have crafted yourself. What kind of sounds were you trying to make? Were you trained in any instruments? What tools have you used in the course of making music?
My own recorded output has been quite small in comparison to my work on radio. I had initially hoped this would not be the case, but I have often realized that my ideas for music far outstrip my ability to acheive them physically. Ideally, I'd love to work with a group of talented musicians who could carry out some of my concepts, as a cross between a composer and a bandleader. Realistically, though, I doubt this will happen. As for sounds, I've tried all sorts of things-- I'm attracted to so many different ideas that it would be foolish to try making any sort of list. I am not trained with any instruments whatsoever, and could hardly be called proficient on even the most basic of instruments. Nevertheless, what I lack in skill and training, I more than make up for in enthusiasm. I'm hoping to get back into recording when the time seems right.
- What attracts you to radio? What are your opinions about the state of radio today? If you owned the planet Earth, how would you govern over the radio waves? What would your perfect use of radio be?
I was initially attracted to radio because it just looked like a lot of fun. I had a friend who worked at a college station, so I would accompany him occasionally. Eventually, I began helping with his experimental broadcast, ~Ore~. A lot of the deeper concepts and ideas surrounding the medium didn't occur to me until later, when I was actively co-hosting these broadcasts.
My opinion of radio today is similar to my opinion of many things: that there is a frustratingly large potential that is going unused, primarily due to a small number of people's financial concerns. The airwaves have been hijacked from the American people by corporations, big business, and the music industry-- and citizens are really not aware of it! The problem is that I think most folks are genuinely happy with radio as it is. The radio corporations, FCC, and music industry have done such a good job of maintaining a status quo that ordinary citizens have never experienced anything else-- they simply don't know what radio CAN be like. Being within range of a good community radio station usually changes that for a lot of folks, but there are far too few of these to make a serious difference in total.
As for owning the Earth-- well, that's obviously a pretty big question! I like the idea of a regulatory agency that insures one station isn't stepping on another station's signal-- there's a Christian station somewhere around our area that I suspect turns up its transmitter from time to time to drown out WDBX's signal. This is supposed to be the job of the FCC, which is necessary, but I think that they spend more time being cultural monitors nowadays to worry about the engineering aspect of their work. Beyond this, I'd try to make sure that a single company could not own so many stations as is currently allowable. In my community, I have seen a big-fish-bigger-fish progression of radio stations being eaten by other stations, being eaten by conglomerates, and still larger conglomerates. While the programming wasn't fantastic before, it's actually become quite a bit worse now. The heart of the problem is that most stations forget that the airwaves are the property of the public, and start treating them solely as a money-making opportunity to sell advertising. When you compare the miniscule budget of WDBX to one of these big stations, it is shameful how little useful, necessary services they provide to the public-- especially when we consistently trump them in this regard. In fact, I'd doubt our yearly budget could keep one of these behemoths going for a month.
- What is experimental music to you? Are there characteristics that so-called academic and popular experimental music have in common? What role do you think experimental music plays in relation to the entirety of human culture and our general direction as a species? What role should it play, do you think?
For me, experimental music is the only genre (and I use that term for lack of a better one) of music that is definined not by its sound, but by its process-- in other words, experimental music doesn't "sound like" anything in particular-- it is experimental by means of how and why it was created. While it is technically true that no musician truly knows the outcome of their recording beforehand, I think it is simple-minded and disingenious to think of ALL music as experimental-- when a rock band sits down to make a song, they have a rock song in mind-- so the experimental intent is simply not present.
On "It's Too Damn Early," I don't try to maintain a "pure" experimental output-- I know that some of the tracks I play have an intent to be droning, or noisy, or whatever-- but as an overarching concern, I also recognize that these are areas of music that are actively being explored, and thus are something I consider experimental in nature as well.
As for academic and popular experimental recordings, I think they have much more in common that folks would suspect. The joy of creating something new, the openness, acceptance of odd sounds, willingness to explore-- these are all common aspects that could easily be built on. It's really only the audience that is different, and the level at which they are willing to engage with the sounds being presented. What a long-time listener of XI Records or Pogus Productions releases expects from the liner notes of an album is clearly much different than someone who enjoys work from Public Eyesore, Roil Noise, or Deathbomb Arc. Another defining aspect of these two areas of experimental recording is in the process itself-- the "popular" recordings are much more actively cross-pollinated by shifting band members, split releases, musical guests, distros, sharing a tour, etc-- whereas I often find that while academic artists and composers are very knowledgeable about the work around them, they tend to be much less informed by it. It's not a hard and fast rule by any means-- there are many examples where this doesn't hold true! But hey, art and music are slippery.
I'm not sure what experimental music has to do with us a species-- this is probably far too large a question for me to answer, but I'm flattered you'd even try, haha. Personally, I think that experimental music and sound at best is pushing our acceptance and understanding of existing art and communication; and simulataneously delivering us all new tools with which to communicate. It's also a hell of a lot of fun to listen to and to be a part of this effort.
- You've mentioned "active listening" on your show and blog. I have my own opinions on this, and I don't want to ask too leading of a question. Still, I'll risk it: Is listening a dying art form? How do you think the act of listening is changing, especially considering the parabolic increase of signals that we are experiencing in this culture?
To begin, let me say a bit about my personal concept of "active listening," or what I am referring to when I say this term. Consider it like this-- music can be used in a variety of ways: instruction, entertainment, as data, etc... so its also safe to assume that we don't listen to different types of music in the same ways. You'd be missing the point of a good James Brown song if you didn't move your ass, and its not incredibly important that the listener even understand what is generating the sounds or how. For an experimental work, the opposite may be true! If you don't "actively" listen, you can miss important details-- and usually, knowing more about a work can lead to greater appreciation of it. If you keep waiting for the beat to kick in so you know when to leap to your feet, you'll miss out entirely. To advocate active listening is my way of telling listeners that there is more to the music I am broadcasting than is immediately apparent. In this way, the experience of radio doesn't end when I present the song-- it is a collaborative process between the listener and myself.
As for listening as an art form... I don't really have any data on this, but my best guess is that its probably not changed a whole heck of a lot. In my experience, there is a limited amount of people who listen to anything much beyond a basic level-- its simply not afforded the cultural level of importance as visual experience, as the difference between someone's "word" and their signature on a document shows. (Hell, even the verbs "shows" or "illustrates" are evidence of this bias towards the visual!) I'd like this situation to improve, but it's also not terribly realistic of myself and my abilities to expect a sea change. Still, if you want to enjoy my show more fully, this is the best way to experience it-- as an active listener, and also as a participant in some fashion.
Regarding the "increase" of input we receive-- there are a lot of conflicting ideas of how this is affecting people, and I think the most reasonable assumption is that there are a lot of real, possible reactions to it. I see evidence that people are more able to focus through the "noise" to receive the input they're seeking, which is a good listening skill to have-- but I also see that this increased focus can sometimes narrow to the point of excluding valid input as well. A lot has been written about niche genres and publications, where whole "worlds" are obsessively explored in what appear to be tiny genres of music-- power electronics, for example. This can be good in that the level of detail available to fans and researchers is incredible, but can also overwhelm fans into overlooking everything outside a small area of music. Everyone who fileshares on a regular basis is familiar with the guy who's looking for recommendations, but has narrowed his requirements so much that nothing seems to satisfy the recording he is seeking! Overall, I think that no good can come from censorship or a reduction of these "signals." I wholeheartedly agree with Thomas Jefferson's concept of the "free market of ideas," where the best ideas (or signals, perhaps) rise to the top. A good radio show can help with sifting some of these signals for us, but all listeners should realize that it's not because DJs are magical-- we may be more skilled at sifting through these signals, but it's not something that is somehow beyond the ordinary person.
NOTE: Major redesign is done for now. Here is a link to the last 'real' HTxDS post: Four Experimental Music Podcasts -- Hello. Please pardon the temporary mess here.
I was tweaking the HTML on this page a few moments ago, and I guess I deleted a span tag somewhere, causing the sidebar headers to stretch all the way across the page. I've scoured through the code and can't seem to find what went wrong. And if I've ever backed this page up anywhere, I'm sure I don't know where I saved it.
So, please stand by while I upgrade this page to the new Blogger. (I've been putting that off anyway. I guess the time to switch over is now. )
Everything here will be a little bit vanilla for a while. I might even have to resort to blogger templates. (EW!)
UPDATE: Of course I'm taking suggestions. Especially with regards to the colors. I'm enjoying these blues, but feel free to tell me if you like something else: zenoizen {a} gmail {dot} com
{Sun 24 June 2007 | 03:05:01 am GMT Daylight Time} That's it for now.
Since I've covered a handful of experimental music radio shows and podcasts here over the past few months, I thought it would be good to round up a list of those shows for you all. Times for live shows are in UTC. Remember that the USA institutes Daylight Savings Time during the summer, which means you should roll back broadcast times one hour.
It's Too Damn Early- Saturday mornings from 1000 -- 1230 UTC on 91.1 fm WDBX Southern Illinois, USA. Host DaveX. Artists include Circle Six, Android in Motion, Mystified, Eddie the Rat. [streaming] [podcast]
Rare Frequency- Thursday evenings 0000 -- 0300 UTC on 90.3 fm WXBC Newton, Massachusetts, USA. Host Susanna. Artists include Sawako, Ernst Karel, Pan Sonic, Secret Mommy. [streaming] [podcast]
804noise's Noise Solution- Thursday mornings 0400 - 0600 UTC on 97.3 fm WRIR Richmond, Virginia, USA. Host 804noise. Artists include KK Null, Harm Stryker, Insects With Tits, Pan Sonic . [streaming] [podcast]
Some Assembly Required- Syndicated for radio out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Host Jon Nelson. Evolution Control Committee, The Tape-Beatles, The Bran Flakes, Negativland. [streaming] [podcast]
That can't be it?! Surely no. Here are the raw urls to just a few shows that we have slated for testing
In the 1990s, it was considered avant garde to use sampling in popular music. It was mostly politicized hip-hop artists, such as Public Enemy and De La Soul, as well as mostly anonymous acidhouse rave musicians, with their unbridled celebration of psychedelic drug use, who tended to use sampling. Copyright issues and postmodernist theories of "recombinance" and collage as a reflection of an ever-mixing, ever-homogenizing world culture magnified sampling's radical-intellectual lustre.
Over time, however, as hip-hop and house music gained favor among Western youth, and became subject to the laws of fashion, sampling--not to mention political and psychedelic themes--became less common in those genres. By the end of the millenium, the ultimate success of record-industry funded copyright lawyers and the inevitable realization of postmodernism's basic fraudulence seemed to have pumped the final rounds into sampling's chest. Samples still exist in popular music, but these days the technique is used almost strictly as a way to avoid writing fresh hooks. Copyright issues are bypassed because the company that owns the sample also distributes the derivative song.
But sampling is not dead. Artists such as Negativland, Emergency Broadcast Network and John Oswald who have always been the true engines of sampling's progress, still record to this day. As with many experimentalists, these musicians survive because of a small but enthusiastic fan base built from word-of-mouth and outposts at the periphery of the media landscape.
Such outposts include Some Assembly Required, Jon Nelson's podcast out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. This is an exceptional program, devoted entirely to music made with sampling techniques. However, its existence underlines the sad state of sampling's popular support. Only in a world where sample-based music is no longer considered fashionable could a podcast dedicated exclusively to the genre be considered indispensible.
Is it the socialism that makes Europe such a reliable source of interesting culture? Or maybe it's because the continent of Europe is so chock full of Europeans? Who knows really?
Friendly Noise: Whether or not we're dealing with noise here can remain a side issue for the time being. This record lable based in Stockholm, Sweden can rightfully call itself friendly, considering its generous offering of mp3s at its website. And the spectrum is wide. There are European-styled jazz-pop duets here as well as organic, woody instrumental progressions, and oddball studio outtakes (of the interesting type.)
Despite the variety, all the music at Friendly Noise has a warmth to it, a self connectedness, that doesn't often show itself at this level of independence. Friendly Noise also sells physical recordings, for a not-bad price, considering the distance. (... yes from everywhere. It's Sweden.)
Hörbar Abstrakt w/ Dr. Nachstrom-- This is the podcasted version of a radioshow on Radio Helsinki. I think. Dr. Nachstrom delivers his material in what appears to be Swiss German, so it's hard for me to pick out a lot of details. The details are unimportant, though, because Nachstrom's 120-minute show is fanatastic whatever the case may be.
Also, if you don't speak Dr. Nachstrom's language, you get a nimbly-gathered assemblage of music, presented almost entirely without context. It's this lack of context that I think I enjoy so much about Hörbar Abstrakt. Hearing all of this great music without knowing what it is or where it comes from somehow enhances the experience. And the range of music that Nachstrom plays is, perhaps, without boundaries.
This is a good program to slap on when you're hanging out at home and you don't particularly care what you listen to, so long as it's good.
... meanwhile in the good old US of A, music streamers are being shaken down. Some big names are fighting the internet royalty rates that are about to go into effect, but time is running short.
Missed the No Fun Fest? Denver-based noiseman and shutterbug Rasmussen has several pages of photographs and a pretty dense blogpost summing up his view of the festival. And of course, Mr. Rasmussen took pictures last year, too.
Wikipedia watchlist
The 'experimental music' page at Wikipedia has improved significantly since the last time we mentioned it here. Most importantly, the long list of experimental musicians has been separated off as its own page. As you might imagine, the list was heavily padded with red links (links that go to nonexistent Wikipedia entries) and non-notable entries. These problems have been cleaned up and the list is now a clean, high-quality document that serves as an abbreviated consensus-based "Who's Who" for experimental music.
Of course, experimental music and Wikipedia both being what they are, the list is most likely no better than 80% satisfactory for any given experimental music lover. Would you want it any other way?
(Oftentimes with better Wikipedia entries, it's one single editor that can be thanked for maintaining the 'finished' quality. In the case of the experimental musicians list, it seems that Doctormatt is our hard-working editor on the scene.)
The main 'experimental music' entry itself is much more readable, and therefore useful. Now it becomes clear that the Techniques section is interesting, but possibly incomplete and that the External Links section offers a lot of avenues for exploration.
Here's something odd, though. The disambiguation page for "experimental" begins with this:
Experimental can refer to...
* Experiment, it refers to ideas or techniques not yet established or finalized involving innovation. It is a practice of art and search.
A practice of art and search? That makes sense in a superficial kind of way, but certainly whichever nameless editor stuck that phrase in had much more in mind. Pardon the buzz word, but that phrase- "a practice of art and search" - could stand some unpacking.
Rare-music sharing blogs
The number of blog-based music sharing sites has been growing slowly, stymied in a serious way by the file-sharing sites that they must use. Rapidshare and Megaupload are the two major sites that these bloggers use to host the digitized albums and cassettes that they offer us. Unfortunately, both of these sites cripple their services for non-subscribers so that it's difficult to download more than one or two files per day from each. Considering that there may be a half or full dozen interesting recordings shared on any given day, music freaks around the world must endure the continuous frustration of seeing handsful of rarities evade collection.
Sharebee, a new service currently in beta, helps the situation somewhat by allowing uploaders to disperse their files among multiple file-sharing services. There are other benefits to Sharebee that are apparent mostly from the uploader's perspective, but it is this mirroring feature that is most significant to the downloader. Unfortunately, Sharebee is very much in its beta phase and has been subject to recent technical difficulties.
Meanwhile, it is possible that the individuals behind this music-sharing phenominon may be the victims of an RIAA-sponsored extreme rendition program:
"On a side note, I am troubled by Over the Moons disappearance, the man or woman behind the truly wonderful 194142434445. I don't even see him or her commenting at the blogs & forums that I frequent anymore. If anyone has any information or Over the Moon, if you’re out there . . . holler."
Well, I guess I'd better post something, before you all forget that I exist. This week (month?) I offer you two recommendations and a little bit of conspiratorial speculation...
1. Rare Frequency- No doubt readers of this 'blog don't need to be informed about the existence of the Rare Frequency radio program/internet site out of Boston, MA. Perhaps, though, you might need to be directed toward the very excellent live performance by Jay Sullivan that has been available for download for a couple (few) weeks now. Rare Frequency host Susana supplemented this podcast with an interview of Sullivan and a few nice pictures of him swilling microbrews and squinting thoughtfully into the distance. I found Mr. Sullivan's performance so appealling that I actually went to the trouble to burn it to disc, in order to try it out on various listening systems.
Listening to other episodes of Rare Frequency, it strikes me that there is something unusually tasteful about Susana's musical selections. So much of experimental music is challenging to the ears that filtering for listenability invites the chance that one might miss the genre entirely. The dividing line between "experimental" and "IDM" runs partly along that dry riverbed that we call "respondent value." It takes a delicate touch to find sounds that are both listenable and innovative. Susana seems to have that touch, and employs it mostly with success.
2. My Formica Table- I think I got an email about this in February, but I haven't mentioned it here because it's been tough. There's a sort of amiable impenetrability to the way this blog is organized. I have this weird need to understand things almost completely before I write about them. But in this case I'm going to dissociate myself from the discomfort of incomplete comprehension, and just slash my way through.
The music available at this blogspot site covers a wide range, not all of it necessarily experimental and not all of it exactly to my taste. But that's not to say that the music isn't good. This group of young people includes talented, skillful musicians with that kind of knack for pop composition that seems to be genetically special to natives of the British Isles. There's up-and-comers lurking here, and they do definitely take the risks and express the points of view that entitle them to be friends of Hollow Tree.
My personal favorite bits of content on the My Formica Table blog are from Philip Dorrell. Mr. Dorrell has contributed extensive passages to My Formica Table's "What is Music Project" to the point that there is an entire PDF book that you can download, titled "What is Music?" With chapter headings such as "2D/3D Theory of Music" and "Octave Translation Invariance" you can be confident of finding a new perspective here. I haven't read much of this, but a quick skim suggests that Dorrell is not blowing faux-intellectual smoke. He certainly has some interesting ideas, and they seem to be based on good information.
3. I've spent the past week trying to burn CDs. I thought it would be an easy task. Just assemble the wave files in a cd burning program, put a disc in the machine and press go. I was wrong. Today I wasted what must be the fifteenth disc since I began this process. Because I tried a new approach with each new disc, each attempt resulted in a new twist on the concept of failure. The most recent disc, the one that made me decide to quit for the day, was somehow born with the magical capability of crashing a Sony Discman. I have tried five different software packages, now. That includes Nero, which I can only seem to find as a thirty-day trial.
Back in the days of Windows 98, burning a disc was a nearly fail-proof endeavor. With Vista, though, disc burning seems to more a cure for low blood pressure than a way to get music onto a plastic wafer.
I'm beginning to fear that this is all intentional. It only seems in the interest of Microsoft and the recording industry for consumers to be unable to burn CDs at home. There are many many hundreds of tiny independent record labels around the world that release all of their products in the CD-r format. And of course, we all know that 'filesharing' has been blamed for the decline of the music industry.
Yes, as we've discussed a thousand times before, media distribution is changing quickly and radically. There are people in positions of wealth and power who must adapt or die, as the saying goes. The well-appointed do not often deal well with adapt-or-die situations, and often they invent a third option for themselves: fight like cornered animals.
I can't prove that consumer grade disc-burning technology has been crippled for the sake of entrenched industry types any more than I can prove that the discontinuation of microphone inputs in consumer electronics were discontinued for similar reasons in the 1990s. And even if I could, I wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
All I'm saying is, what if I started distributing music on thumb drives?
For those of you who have or tend to be a mother, please accept a hearty Happy Mothers' Day from your good friends at Hollow Tree Experimental Design Studios.
Hollow Tree corporate headquarters has issued a new policy. From now on, when we get something in the mail, we will scan it (if possible) and post about it on the appropriate blog. I hadn't mentioned it, because I hadn't gotten any mail in a while. Today, though, I retrieved this delightful item from the post office.
The pictured items were include along with two 3" discs. Each disc had a track of abnormal sounds on it. The package was sent all the way from London, England from Crap Last Tape.
Thank you CLT for enriching our lives with your tangible materials. I think I might start telling people that I am a 'secular animist' from here on out. I'm going to put your music on permanent rotation. I'd stick these pieces of mail art up on my bulletin board, but I still haven't bought any thumbtacks. Instead I'll tuck the delicate little things safely into one of these two giant crates I have set aside for just this purpose.
I might as well mention my archiving project right here. I've been collecting mail art, kook literature and other ephemera for almost two decades now. Mail culture is a non event anymore, but I still keep a post office box open. Anyone is welcome to submit items to my archives. The system is very informal. I keep anything that seems interesting to me, or that I think might be interesting to someone a hundred or so years down the line. Everything else goes into a collage pile, a reuse pile, the recycle bin or into the landfill. I usually keep anything that is handmade, or looks like it might represent a certain amount of speculative effort on someone's part. These types of things tend to be interesting.
If you want to send something for the archives:
Carey PO Box 161 Asheville, NC 28801 USA
Be sure to address it to "Carey". It's a cooperative mailbox, and we're still trying to get my name on the addressee's list.
And now that I've figured out my disc burner there's no telling what I might fire back at you.
You young people think old man Zeno isn't hip, don't you? Well, let me tell you something, I got my greying ear to the ground, and I know what the kids are dancing to. The problem is that a lot of you don't have much in the way of taste.
And more to the point, what's with the sudden abuse of the term "experimental"? Experimentation is supposed to be a money-losing proposition. By definition, any particular music that achieves market success can't be called experimental anymore. When you start to sell a lot of records, your experiments are over, and you have begun applying your findings.
Look, that thing over there that's proping up your dorm room window... That's called a "dictionary." It's a type of "book."
Ah, to heck with it. What follows is a not-comprehensive list of so-called experimental music that has been formally banned from any further mention on the Hollow Tree Experimental Music Report.
1. Radiohead 2. Arcade Fire 3. Mars Volta 4. Sunn 0))) 5. Wolf Eyes 6. Boards of Canada 7. Belle and Sabastian 8. Deerhoof 9. Battles 10. Wilco
We deem these nightclub acts to be either fatuous, uninteresting or simply bad.
Meanwhile, please stand by for a HTxMR experimental music news roundup. Probably will hit your local 'blog stand sometime this weekend.
Kisses, Zeno Izen (Now entering my second second childhood.)
UPDATE: Arctic Monkeys
2nd Update: DaveX has posted his own list of not-so-experimental musical acts. You ought to take a look, because I think your favorite band might be on it.
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