8Sided Blog

a zine about sound, culture, and the punk rock dream

Michael Bratt’s Tour of the Darkroom

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Michael Bratt is a D.C.-based composer with an impressive CV, having studied music extensively, conducted orchestras, scored films, and co-founded ensembles like Cleveland’s FiveOne Experimental Orchestra. His is a life enveloped in modern music, both as an enthusiast and a practitioner. The approach is academic — a lot of thought goes into his music, as you’ll discover below — but doesn’t ignore the visceral pleasure of a beautiful, meaningful recording. 

Michael sent his new album The Darkroom, a set containing one solo song and four collaborations. It’s “a collection of ambient electroacoustic works,” he tells me. “Many of the tracks are extremely personal in nature, and some of these collaborations have been three or four years in development.” The solo track opening The Darkroom, “Visions,” planted the seed for the project six years ago. 

This patience is refreshing in an age when we’re told to release nonstop music. It also results in an attention to detail, as heard throughout The Darkroom. Take the title cut as an example, where strings and flutes play off each other elegantly while a more abrasive electronic section sneakily rises from silence to dominance. Or the plucked piano notes of “As the Earth Grew Still,” spaced together with implied distance before gradually coalescing in harmonic layers. In other words, nothing here sounds hashed out.

Each of the collaborative songs features a different artist or ensemble. There’s Azerbaijani-American flutist Jeiran Hasan, the harp-viola-flute ensemble The Lynx Trio, guitarist Bruce Middle, and the double-u duo. With explicit intention, Bratt considers these compositions true collaborations rather than ‘guest spots.’ “When I work with someone, there is a lot of back and forth,” Bratt explains. “I rarely write something, hand it off, and that’s the end of it.”

Based on the weight of talent and intellect on The Darkroom, you might expect an album that’s heavy and impenetrable. But it’s a soulful listen, very human and reflective, with many moments that are gently disarming. “You Belong Here” comes to mind, with processed guitars and subtly droning electronics conveying a comfortable loneliness.

When Michael Bratt sent me The Darkroom, I asked for a few more details in my reply. He responded with a track-by-track tour of the album, outlining the methods and inspirations for each song. These notes are terrific and illuminate the thought that went into this project. It would be a shame to excerpt these explanations, so I’ll let Michael take it from here as I publish his comments in full:

“Visions” → “The inspiration for this piece came from the Bach cello suites (G Major Minuet 1). In that piece, Bach utilizes registers to create three independent lines of music to give the impression of polyphony. I wondered how I could accomplish the same idea utilizing technology. Instead of working with register, I chose to use the pan position. The majority of the piece is a simple square wave that’s panned fast enough to create a Gestalt effect in the brain, which gives the impression, or vision of polyphony.”

“Fire From Within” → “The title comes from Pablo Neruda‘s poem, “As if you were on fire from within, the moon lives in the lining of your skin.” Both Jeiran Hasan and I have known each other for years. We were part of the Cleveland new music ensemble, FiveOne Experimental Orchestra. The poem references this inner fire or desire in people, to the point where our skin glows and everyone can see it. That’s the imagery that I was after.”

“The Darkroom” → “Growing up, my father (an amateur photographer) had a darkroom in our basement. This work evokes those feelings of freedom through organic form. The piece gradually works on an idea that continually develops over and over. The music is minimalist and is monochromatic, much like the black and white photographs my father took as a child. While it’s compartmentalized, focusing on one idea, it doesn’t contain a form or separate sections. It’s meant to be taken as a whole idea.”

“You Belong Here” → “One of the teenagers at my church committed suicide two days before service. I ran the mixing board at the church that Sunday, and the pastor had everyone disperse into small prayer sessions around the church as the band serenaded. Everyone was devastated, trying to hold it together. I captured that recording of the band from the mixer and slowed it down 2000%. That became the basis for the guitar solo with Bruce Middle. The sermon from that day was titled ‘You Belong Here.'”

“As the Earth Grew Still” → “My original concept for ‘As the Earth Grew Still’ was a piece about intimacy (human connection). I knew that I would be collaborating with Robert and Melissa Wells and was looking forward to working with a couple who knew each other intimately. Unfortunately, much changed in our world during 2020, and it irrevocably disrupted my writing process. The piece grew to be a reflection of my isolation locked in social distancing with my family. It employs a visual cueing system I developed that allows me to synchronize pianos together in non-related meters and tempi. This is done through a computer application I wrote which creates a website that the performers visit on their mobile devices — replicating my experience in isolation when we were doing things separately — together.”

Michael Bratt’s The Darkroom is available now on Bandcamp and various streaming platforms.

Undermining, Not Underlining

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Discovery vs. Intention → What a fun conversation between Brian Eno and Stewart Brand, promoting We Are As Gods, a new documentary on Brand’s fascinating life. The first half uses Eno’s soundtrack contribution as a topic launching pad. The conversation touches on the intersection of film scoring with ambient music, how multi-track recording brought music closer to painting, and how endless options are making us all permanent curators. My favorite part comes at 17:00 when Brand asks Eno to differentiate, in terms of the creative process, discovery from intention: 

I think the thing that decides that is whether you’ve got a deadline or not (laughs). The most important element in my working life, a lot of the time, is a deadline. The reason it’s important is it makes you realize you’ve got to stop pissing around. You have to finally decide on something. Whether I finish something or not completely depends on whether [a piece of music] has a destination and a deadline.

Eno goes on to describe his fabled archive of half-finished music — “6790 pieces … I noticed today” — most of which is created through discovery, i.e., “pissing around.” Then, when he gets an assignment (a destination with a deadline), he pulls something relevant to the project from the archive and finishes it. That’s an inspiring process and one I’d love to replicate. 

I wonder how much time Eno spends “pissing around” and building this archive. I imagine an ideal would be one or two hours a day. And I’m curious how he decides on and enforces self-imposed deadlines to move his own projects forward.

Oh, and this quote in the video from Eno is a keeper: “What I like better than underlining is undermining.”

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Etcetera → Seth Godin’s advice on how to make your Zoom calls better. Now I want a beam splitter. ❋ This 2015 compilation is a psychedelic overview of On-U Sound’s post-punk dub: Trevor Jackson Presents: Science Fiction Dancehall Classics. ❋ Writer Ernest Wilkins explains why he’s joining the parade of newsletter publishers leaving Substack. This part is especially eye-opening: “I’ve lost anywhere between $400 and $1100 in churned subscriber revenue due to paid subscribers not wanting to give money to this platform anymore. I need it to be clear that for the two years on Substack before this, I had a 0% subscriber churn rate.” ❋ I’m excited about this forthcoming documentary on ‘sound activist’ Matthew Herbert, A Symphony of Noise. ❋ Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine in The New York Times: “My nieces and nephews — they would complain to me, ‘Why are you so purposely obscure? You know, it seems stupid.'”

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Rachika Nayar – Our Hands Against The Dusk → I’ve been delightfully obsessed with Rachika Nayar‘s debut album over the past couple of weeks. The Brooklyn-based artist (in both visuals and sound) has accomplished some heavy-lifting with Our Hands Against The Dusk — the album is unabashedly experimental and uncompromising but somehow remains accessible and, yes, beautiful. Guitar is the main instrument throughout, but it’s looped, processed, and sometimes ‘glitched’ into unfamiliarity. The opening track, “The Trembling of Glass,” is an introductory window to Nayar’s technique, with layers of texture and manipulation swept away in the last half to reveal a bare acoustic motif. It hooked me in straight away.

Interviewed in Magnetic, Nayar explains her method: 

I see one aspect of my process on this album as tearing up an instrumental sample into a million pieces and then putting those fragments through cycles of recombination … these processes feel to me like exploring a single idea through multiple and multiplying perspectives — seeing one thing in all its different realities and selves. 

When one listens closely, there are many opportunities to identify what Nayar is up to, but her execution is nuanced and organic, despite the music’s inherent digitalness. One hears these ‘million pieces’ as a whole, as guitars ring with hopeful tones on “New Strands” and pianos and cellos combine and intertwine on “No Future.” The effect is mesmerizing — dancing somewhere between music that’s ambient, experimental, and influenced by modern classical — but, most of all, it’s affecting. The emotion that went into creating this album is anything but disguised. 

Our Hands Against The Dusk is the most impressive debut I’ve heard in a while. Don’t hesitate to open your ears and heart to it.

3+1: Airships on the Water

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Airships on the Water - The Bridge

There’s this geographical prejudice that the interesting music — especially of the post-rock variant — only comes out of places like Chicago, or Brooklyn, or Austin, etc. So it’s always a thrill to find music that shatters the bubble, reminding us that creative folk trying new things are all around us. Airships on the Water are evidence, based out of Fayetteville, Arkansas, which you may have flown over without consideration on your way to somewhere like Austin (to reference the often mocking ‘fly-over state’ tag). But listen closely, and you might hear exceptional, flowing, and perhaps hidden music like “An Arm Within Reach,” the latest song from Airships on the Water. This effort is joyous and expressive, sparkling with bells, piano, ringing guitars, and nuanced but dynamic drums. It’s a grand and refreshing sound.

Airships on the Water is the project of Russel Hensley, who is also the drummer for the band Take Shapes — responsible for other cool sounds from ‘the natural state.’ AotW (if I may be so bold to abbreviate) have two albums — 2017’s Beneath a Thousand Branches and 2020’s Folded into Bells — and the third on the way. “An Arm Within Reach” is a teaser from this forthcoming album and is pure appetite whetter. 

I pulled Russel aside — while floating in his Airships on the Water guise — and asked him to deliver some 3+1. Check out the tune and his thoughtful responses below.

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1. I love the graphic of the branch growing out of the guitar pedal. What does that image mean to you, and how does it relate to Airships on the Water? Is the cord plugged into an amplifier or a guitar? Or something else?

My brother Brandon Hensley is an excellent graphic artist, and he’s always done the artwork for my albums. I usually have a concept that I feed to him, and he does a great job of producing an image that looks cool and captures what was in my head. When I look at this image now, it makes me think of the creative process and the transformative power of music. The signal goes in and comes out as this living, growing thing. You put a lot of love and hard work into crafting songs, and you hope in the process they become more than the pieces put into them. You hope the signal travels to the listener and blossoms into something that resonates with and affects them.

It’s not been intentional, but I’ve noticed that a similar theme has popped up in my concepts for artwork in the past. For example, the cover art for my last album, Folded into Bells, was of a bird making a nest out of a cassette tape. So there’s another example of imagery where music is being elevated beyond the medium and becoming more than its original form. But that’s just one interpretation! I tend to gravitate toward imagery that’s a little open-ended, so I’m always interested to hear what other people see in it. 

2. What is your earliest *significant* musical memory or recollection? 

As soon as I read this question, a very clear memory sprang to my mind, so I feel like I have to go with it! The first song I ever remember loving, and I mean LOVING, was “Dizzy” by Tommy Roe. My mom would play oldies in the house all the time, and for some reason, this goofy bubblegum pop song from the late ’60s really stuck with me as a kid. I remember being about 5 or 6 and belting out that song at the top of my lungs in our kitchen. The song “Sweet Pea” was also on that same Tommy Roe CD, and it has a pretty famous drum break in it that’s been sampled a ton over the years. Is there a chance that song entered my subconscious and contributed to my desire to play the drums years later, thus making this Tommy Roe story actually relevant?? Well, probably not — but at least I still remember it!

3. How do you listen?

When it comes to music, I think I would describe myself as a curious listener. Even when I’m listening to music purely for enjoyment, I’m usually trying to identify little details that draw me to that song. Sometimes I’ll be listening for technical details that I just like the sound of, like specific instrumentation or certain rhythms, but I’ll be searching for the elements that make me feel a certain way more often. I’ll ask myself questions like, “How did they pull that off? Why do I like it? How could I create that same effect?” I get inspired to create music that makes me feel the way a song does, not necessarily sound the way a song does. This kind of curious listening is a nice way of gathering up more sonic colors to paint with later on.

+1: Something you love that more people should know about.

On a recent music deep dive on YouTube, I came across a song called “Light” by a group/project called FEM. As far as I can tell, FEM is the side project of the singer/multi-instrumentalist Cuushe, who makes catchy electronic dream-pop type songs. FEM has more of a full band sound, combining her vocals with guitars, bass, keys, and jazzy drums. So far, I’ve only found that one track by them, so I’m not sure if it was just a one-off thing or there are plans for more. It’s a beautiful song with a fascinating mix of sounds, so I’m hoping they keep it going. Maybe if more people check out “Light” by FEM, they’ll be motivated to release some more music!

Visit Airships on the Water on Bandcamp.

Transportation in One Direction

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No Scene Happening But They Made It Happen → Austin Kleon appeared on The Unmistakable Creative Podcast, dropping oodles of terrific insight and advice for creative people. I was delighted to hear Austin talk about punk rock as an aesthetic influence, basically (and unknowingly) boiling down the topic of my recent post on ‘the punk rock dream.’ Here’s what Austin said:

I always think punk rock helps with all this stuff. Being in touch with that DIY spirit of the ’80s and ’90s, even the late ’70s, that punk aesthetic. I think every artist should read Michael Azerrad’s book Our Band Could Be Your Life. I think you should read about artists who … there was no scene happening, and they just made it happen. I think that’s fundamentally an American thing, to be in the middle of nowhere and to hit the road. I’ve always been influenced by the do-it-yourself ethic of punk and not thinking of punk as a style but as a real way of being. I always think that helps and that every generation sort of needs to rediscover punk because its roots go deep.

The whole interview is fun and inspiring. Add it to the queue.

Also, Lee Schneider gave a shout-out to ‘the punk rock dream’ on his Universal Story Engine blog. Lee is moving his writing off Mailchimp and Substack and explores the reasons why and the alternatives he’s looking to use. There’s some detail on the privacy issues inherent in many newsletter platforms, a topic I didn’t get to in my post. 

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Pizza Toast & Coffee → Craig Mod has written endlessly about pizza toast — in his two wonderful email newsletters, this lengthy article for Eater, and an elaborate self-published book. All of that is fascinating, but I can’t say I quite got the appeal of this hodgepodge entrée. Why all the (mostly digital) ink devoted to tomato sauce on a slice of bread? And then Craig released this video:

I’m a sucker for quiet, transportive videos like this one. If you can focus for the video’s five-minutes — restrain the fidget, imagine there’s no phone in your pocket, drown out all other sounds — Craig’s slowly paced document will place you right inside the Būgen cafe as the rain lingers outside. Craig films Yamane-san’s elegant creation of the pizza-ish toast like a tea ceremony, some of the rituals (such as the slicing) not quite making sense at first. Then the big reveal, and yes, now I finally get it. 

I could attempt pizza toast — the video exposes the process and ingredients clearly — and I might. It sure looks tasty. But Craig’s video is all about mood, and that’s mostly the mood of Būgen and the care of Yamane-san. It’s apparent that mood’s as essential to Craig’s love of pizza toast as the toast itself. As I mentioned, I find this video transportive, but, unfortunately for any at-home pizza toast attempts, that transportation only goes in one direction. 

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Moderator – Midnight Madness → Electronic music producers from Greece have a fondness for jazzy beat constructions. A few prominent small labels are carrying the torch, such as the long-lasting Timewarp outfit. Then there’s Melting Records, an Athens-based imprint specializing in instrumental hip-hop and trip-hop reminiscence. But Melting’s discography has recently branched the label’s sound into uncanny territories. Melting Records releases are still sample-heavy, crate-dug assemblages accompanied by rhythms that err on the phat side. But the sources have gotten more global, drawn from a world of foreign locales, and snatched from genres and eras that extend beyond the usual jazz/funk spectrum.

Case in point: Midnight Madness, the latest album from Greek DJ and producer Moderator. As noted in the release’s promo text — which, full disclosure, the label hired me to write — Midnight Madness has a midnight movie feel, like we’re witnessing something sordid and exotic from the safe distance of a cinema’s chair. The consistent Morricone-meets-RZA vibe amplifies the grainy film quality of the album’s 14 tracks, helped along by crackly spoken snippets captured from who-knows-where. It’s hard to know what is sampled and what originates from Moderator himself — the vocals are obviously ripped from parts unknown, but there are also lovely instrument textures throughout, threading the tunes together.

“Walking Slow” summarizes the album’s modus operandi — spaghetti whistles, Agent Cooper on guitars and saxophone, forlorn vocals, and those beats those beats those beats. Some songs have speedier moments verging on big beat (remember that?), but Moderator is best when the pace is leisurely, and the layers are thick and dreamy. “Crystal Gaze” and “Once Upon a Time” are fine examples of this, two songs that lope like a sleepwalking b-boy unable to escape slumberland. 

Too Drummy for Ambient

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Grooving to Amapiano → Prodded by Awesome Tapes From Africa, today I’m immersing myself in the South African genre of amapiano, defined as “a township-developed style that fuses elements from a number of different club-ready genres from across the decades.” This DJ mix by Teno Afrika is an overview of what amapiano is all about:

But Uwami, a fantastic new album by DJ Black Low, is really connecting me to this sound. Some of the production flourishes — especially the in-your-face percussive electronics — are especially provocative and attention-grabbing. I haven’t listened to a tune and remarked, “oh, shit!” to myself in a while. I did that a couple of times within the first few songs.

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ZZT Records in 1982 → This eight-minute ‘documentary’ on Zang Tumb Tuum (more commonly known as ZTT Records) is a fascinating time capsule. What a find! I’ve written about my ‘80s obsession with producer Trevor Horn, and ZTT is commonly known as his label. But, as the video shows, co-runners Jill Sinclair (also Horn’s wife) and music writer Paul Morley played a part, too. I love when professional units (labels, bands, companies) consist of distinctive personalities, each taking on a unique role. In ZTT’s case, Sinclair is the grounded business mind, Horn is the producer and resident nerd, and Morley is the prankster and creative spirit. Morley seems relegated to the background in this video, but he was crucial to the look and feel of ZTT. The Dada and futurist-influenced aesthetic and winking pseudo-corporate speak filling liner notes, label press releases, and manifestos were all Morley’s doing, no doubt. All of this conflicting but complementary energy created a classic record label that’s worthy of study and admiration. 

Also: I wonder if Rod Stewart was aware of what Horn said about him here when Horn was hired to produce a Rod Stewart album.

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Ausklang – Chronos → Soaring spaciousness abounds on Chronos, an album from the Berlin-based trio Ausklang. The band’s not quite moody enough for post-rock, a bit too drummy for ambient, and way too heady for indie-rock. They’re somewhere in the middle of all of that, probably closer to what I hesitate to call “soundtrack rock.” Ausklang are like a Popol Vuh for the drone-footage age, replacing the ecstatic mysticism with shoegazey optimism. 

The pieces are primarily improvised, the best bits edited together, and then overdubs added — a songwriting process pioneered by fellow German space cadets CAN. But while CAN gloriously sprawled and looped, Ausklang build and erupt. The title track, for instance, is a subdued slow-end jam that blasts itself into reverb-drenched guitar lines and cymbal crashes near the five-minute mark. And then there’s the gorgeous “Future Memories,” lulling the listener with a beatific guitar-then-piano melody before a Slowdive-like upward swell washes everything away.

The band performs a two-hour improvised ambient set every week at The Zionskirche, a 19th-century neo-romantic church. This aspect of Ausklang closes out Chronos via two beatless tracks that combine light drones, guitar atmospherics, and hopeful piano. Thus the album’s sequence mirrors the band’s dynamic sense — the tracklist progressively glides and thickens before floating down to a gentle landing. The album is so satisfying upon reaching the end, it’s tempting to replay Chronos from track one and fly again.

Whistling Away in the Background

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Steve Cobby – I’ve Loved You All My Life → Maybe there’s a lockdown stimulus to Steve Cobby‘s prolificness — he’s released two previous albums since the pandemic’s start, as well as a single and a murmur or two from his old outfit, Fila Brazillia. But Steve has always brimmed with musical output, a career-long series of textured and melodic songs with intricacies that belie their frequency. 

If there is a stuck-at-home influence on his latest album, the warmly titled I’ve Loved You All My Life, it’s in the sense of longing for sightseeing. The cover depicts a green, lush, but enclosed location — the starry sky is our escape hatch. And the music seems to travel, not explicitly quoting worldly influences but hinting at them as if remembering what it was like to be a tourist. “Kintsugi” comes closest, resembling a sort of Polynesian jazz fusion with tuned percussion, soaring flute-like lines, and thick four-fingered chords. Someone’s whistling away in the background, like an overzealous member of Martin Denny’s band. There are many other sonic vacations on the agenda — “Plutus Maximus” feels like a night-time stroll through a pleasantly unfamiliar town, and “Keeping Ourselves Together” could soundtrack a tranquil cabana session, fruity drink in hand. And the album closes with “Mise En Abyme,” a wistful duet of harmonica and piano that might signal the recognition of memory, that the things we miss the most live on inside our heads. 

I’ve Loved You All My Life is a joy to listen to and, yes, reassuring. This album might be my favorite of Steve’s work out of all of his recent (all worthy) options. And, if you’re into vinyl, act fast — the Bandcamp campaign to get the album on vinyl ends in a week (Steve’s already met his goal, but this is still the only way you’ll get to nab the wax). 

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Tomaga – Intimate Intensity → It’s never too late to discover a great band. Sad circumstances may make it seem otherwise, as in the case of Tomaga. Somehow this London duo was off my radar despite first appearing in 2013. I happened across their 2019 album Extended Play 1 a few months ago, and from the first track, “Bluest,” I was immediately roped in. Tomaga’s sound is textured and intricate, with jazzy post-punk drums, flashes of discordance, and in-studio arrangements hinting at a modernized This Heat. That’s when I learned the bittersweet moment of my discovery — looking up Tomaga online, I saw that 1/2 of the band, Tom Relleen, had just died of stomach cancer.

Tomaga’s other half, drummer and percussionist Valentina Magaletti, announced last month that the band completed a new album before Relleen’s passing. Intimate Intensity is due on March 26 and, judging from the four advance tracks streaming on Bandcamp, this is an early contender for ‘album of 2021.’ The title track is especially potent, carrying forward all the elements that drew me into “Bluest.” The drums, accompanied by pingy percussion, play at a meter just out of grasp; a muted bass carries a wisp of melody; warm, melancholic strings embrace this sonic space. This is the final sound of Tomaga (as it’s the last song on the album), and it’s weighty and intensely moving.

Floating Points collaborated with Marta Salogni on a gorgeous, plaintive ‘reinterpretation’ of “Intimate Intensity,” released last week. It’s a benefit for The Free Youth Orchestra, a charity set up in Tom Relleen’s name. Amazing stuff. 

Side note: I recently wrote about my love for an EP by Holy Tongue, and I now see that Valentina Magaletti is also a member of that project. 

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Abel Ray – “Last Exit To Transkei” → I don’t listen to much house music anymore (which I suppose is funny from someone once kinda known as a house DJ). At one time, the genre sounded like the future but now, to me, a lot of it sounds stuck in the past. So it’s exciting when I run across something house-adjacent that’s nudging the genre forward an inch or two. 

Abel Ray is an electronic music-maker hailing from Morocco, and “Last Exit To Transkei” is a track from his forthcoming Labyrinth EP. The cut draws upon the same pool as My Life in a Bush of Ghosts and similar fourth world experiments — a stew of cultural music and references stirred and poured over a rhythmic backbone. At times dubby and spacious, “Last Exit To Transkei” reveals its layers over ten engrossing minutes. Flutes, chants, hand percussion, and restrained synthesizers may sound like nothing new, but seamlessly meshed, they signal where things will go. This is music that blurs genre and location, the four-on-the-floor beat as a map guiding the listener through the territory. 

Transported by Ambience

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Status: 2021-02-22 16.28.45

Recorded audio can have a transportive intention, from the ‘it’s like you’re there’ feel of a great live album to the third LP in the Environments series plopping the listener in the middle of a hippie be-in. 

Environments! That series was launched in 1969 when sound recordist Irv Teibel realized listening to the ocean waves he captured for a Tony Conrad film improved his concentration. Teibel eventually released eleven installments, with a few of the Environments records displaying this bold motto on the cover: “The music of the future isn’t music.”

Hippie be-ins aside, many used the Environments LPs like how we have ‘mood’ playlists on Spotify or ‘music for studying’ YouTube channels. The sounds were played in the background, non-intrusive for the most part, aiding the listener in achieving a flow state.1There’s a fabulous email newsletter called Flow State that gives music recommendations to listen to during your workday. You can lessen the anxiety of paper-shuffling and deadlines by making the brain think you’re working amid gentle rain in a pine forest.2I’m not a Star Trek fan, but for a few years, this was my constant deep work soundtrack. I think this sound hits my pleasure zone because it reminds me of a quiet overnight airplane flight.

These ‘environments’ take on an extra layer after months of lockdown and working from home. Concentration and flow state are still goals, but the transportive aspect has prominence. We want to feel like we’re somewhere else, to break up the Groundhog Day-ness of repetitive tasks in the same room. Every. Single. Day. 

One recent example is I Miss My Bar. Set up by an actual bar in Monterrey, the site provides a series of looped audio feeds of sounds you might hear in your favorite drinking establishment. Sliders allow you to adjust the volumes of the various loops, or you can mute sounds entirely. You can also tailor the sounds to resemble a coffeehouse if that’s your flavor. 

This isn’t the Environments record that transports us into a pine forest or a deserted beach. I Miss My Bar and sites like it imagine city life — the busy, crowded pub and the cheerful night out. Telling the brain that we’re in a forest is relaxing, but hanging out in a forest isn’t normal for most of us. Recapturing normalcy in these times is oddly regenerative, and for many of us, that’s the social sounds of a bar or coffeehouse.

As usual, YouTube takes things a step further. In The New York Times, Eliza Brooke writes about YouTube’s version of urbanized environments that features imaginary spaces and pop culture references. Of course, there’s the Rainy Day Coffee Shop, but there’s also the Twin Peaks diner and lots of Harry Potter. There’s an additional visual aspect with YouTube, often a static shot or animation looped alongside the audio, and sometimes subtly creative as in this subway ambience stream. 

Writer Kyle Chayka refers to these videos as “an imagination aid” to help you “pretend you’re somewhere else, or someone else, far from your current worries.” While transportive, the Environments records were primarily for concentration, the cover text often noting their meditative qualities. 2021’s ‘environments’ deliver transportation first and foremost. The soothing, flow states are a byproduct of aurally planting ourselves outside of our overly familiar settings. These streams promise distant travels from a small room. 

You Could Be a Rapscallion

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Can’t Get You Out Of My Head → I’m looking forward to seeing Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, the latest documentary epic from Adam Curtis. He’s expanding on his favorite topic: how those in power unscrupulously maintain their positions in a world that’s increasingly outside of their control. The ideas in Curtis’s docs are heavy and frightening, but his style is endearing. That style includes a dizzying montage of images usually sourced from discarded video newsfeeds, big text in an Arial font, his hypnotic “as I slowly count to ten …”-like narration, and a slew of impeccable music selections.  

Most likely, that music is why Can’t Get You Out Of My Head is presently geo-locked and only accessible to UK viewers via BBC iPlayer. Without getting too deep in the music rights weeds, the United Kingdom has a unique set-up where much of the music registered through its collective management organizations (CMOs) is pre-cleared for synchronization on national television. In other words, if a song is available through the UK CMOs, then a BBC television program can use the music without negotiating a license — the fee is already set. This means songs can get placed in British television programs quickly and without fuss. And if you believe what Adam Curtis says in this interview, he was still choosing final songs as recently as two weeks ago. But the downside of this type of license is it’s only valid for the UK — these rights don’t extend to other countries, and that’s why you can’t see this (and most other BBC shows) on iPlayer if you’re not in Ol’ Blighty.1If that’s the case, your new friend’s initials might be VPN. 

I’m sure the producers and music supervisors are presently working on the appropriate licenses for international audiences. Clearing music for global viewing isn’t quick and easy and could take months. But my money is on Can’t Get You Out Of My Head appearing on Amazon Prime eventually, as that’s where a number of Curtis’s previous documentaries are sitting. Or, you could be a rapscallion and keep an eye on YouTube. 

In the meantime, check out this New Yorker profile on Adam Curtis. Sections of the piece describe his process, which is perplexing and fascinating. Curtis regularly watches hours of random footage on fast forward until: 

When something catches Curtis’s eye, he slows the film down and makes a note. “VVVVVVVVG shots—beam plays over sleeping children,” Curtis wrote, of a BBC documentary about psychiatric therapies from 1970, in a viewing note that he shared with me. The number of “V” s indicates how good Curtis thinks the footage is. (I counted twenty-three “V” s before one “G.”) He then organizes his impressions into broad categories: whether something helps tell the story, or illustrates an idea, or reflects broader themes about the history of the world. “It’s messy,” Curtis said. “But I have a very good memory.”

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Cop Rock → Speaking of music rights and takedowns and whatnot, check out this bizarre story about a cop in Beverly Hills attempting to use Instagram’s copyright protections to stop a livestreamed recording. As an activist was filming an interaction, the officer inexplicably pulls out his phone and starts loudly playing Sublime’s “Santeria.” 

Based on what’s visible in the video, [the officer] seems to be banking on Instagram’s copyright algorithm detecting the music, and either ending the live stream outright or muting it. Or, even if the algorithm does not detect the song immediately, someone — for example, a disgruntled police officer—could simply wait until a user posts an archive of the live video on their page, then file a complaint with Instagram that it contains copyrighted material.

Though Instagram has strict music policies, the rules have loosened. Most music labels and publishers have deals in place with Facebook/Instagram to allow music. And clips with this music is generally okay when the “recorded audio [is not] the primary purpose of the video” (quoting Instagram).

But some songs still pose potential problems and takedowns, such as those recorded by The Beatles. And that’s not lost on the Beverly Hills police force. In a separate incident, the same activist questioned an officer who pulled out his phone and treated live viewers to “In My Life.”

So far, the videos are still online despite the policemen’s efforts. But these strange tactics are another reminder that we’ve already fallen into some bizarro-tech Black Mirror timeline.

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Shea Betts – Enna → NYC musician/librarian Shea Betts visits us again with a dose of aural contemplation on his tranquil new album, Enna. I recently reviewed Sea / Sky, his debut release, and its overdriven, ‘natural-wonder’ ambient music style. While that album conveyed a windy skyline meeting rough seas, Enna captures an extended episode of pleasance and stillness. And with the cover art foliage and titles like “First Light,” “Bloom,” and “Sunday,” one gets the feeling that spring is in the air. 

The album’s method resembles languid chords played on organ or harmonium, realized through warm, synthesized textures that sit somewhere between the two. Shifting movements in the mid-range are often accented with sparkling overtones (most prominently on “First Light” and “August“), barely hinting at melody but still feeling familiar and song-like. 

These days I’m drawn to music that I best describe as “reassuring,” something that I can put on as I sit back and clear the attic. Enna fits the bill. And the songs are relatively short — we usually expect a single track in this drone-ish style to take up a side of an LP — but the spaces left in-between songs suggest a moment to breathe and reflect. I’m not sure if this was Betts’ intention and that he meant Enna as a sort of sonic balm, but its tones indeed do wonders for a restless psyche. 

Slippery Between Fingers

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The Web is Too Damn Complicated → Robin Rendle says, “The web doesn’t have to be this ugly and embarrassing thing … the web can be made beautiful.” He’s made a beautiful webpage to prove this case. Rendle has illustrated his scrollable essay with vintage woodcuts and metal engravings that are surprisingly effective in amplifying his points. And those points are about how the recent ubiquity of email newsletters is a missed opportunity for a blog renaissance.

Rendle is really asking, “how do we make the web for everyone?” He sees the rise of newsletters as an encouraging sign that people are moving away from social media’s grasp. But why not embrace blogs, which are capable of much more creativity than allowed in email? Because, ultimately, the open web is not as convenient. Website-building is not intuitive, nor is website-following (“RSS is for nerds.”). The creators of Substack know this and made a publishing tool that’s easy to use and receive. 

“If we could subscribe to websites easily,” says Rendle, “then the web itself might not feel quite so forgettable.” He suggests that browsers should include built-in RSS reading. In a way, I guess this would be like a global version of Facebook’s newsfeed. That feed is essentially an RSS reader, but one can only subscribe to feeds within Facebook’s prison camp. 

I do like newsletters. On second thought, I actually like that more people are writing and sending out personal essays. The email newsletter is merely the delivery method. Thanks to Feedbin, I read my newsletters in an RSS reader, living side-by-side with the blogs I enjoy. 

I have an email newsletter but, if I had to choose, this blog is my preference. It feels more open, free, and permanent (as permanent as something on the web can be). I do fear that newsletters may prove a fad — both Facebook and Twitter are jumping on the newsletter bandwagon, which hints that ‘peak newsletter’ isn’t too far off. Blogs remain that scruffy outlier, unpeggable and persistent, slippery between fingers of profit-hungry CEOs. Email’s okay, but blogs keep the web weird. 

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New Wave Eye Candy → That’s a tag on Simon Reynolds’ Hardly Baked blog, and there are three installments in the series (so far). These posts contain a long scroll of vintage graphics from album covers, adverts, and posters that exemplify the look and attitude of the post-punk new wave. It’s also a remarkable glimpse of cutting edge graphic design just before the days of Photoshop et al.

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Emily A. Sprague – Hill, Flower, Fog → “Mirror” is the unassuming third song on Emily A Sprague’s latest, Hill, Flower, Fog. As gentle as a shower of cotton puffs, the song lightly bubbles and pings in sensuous repetition for over nine minutes. The changes are subtle — a lonesome synth swell lingers in the background, pining for recognition, and stereo echoes increase patiently. “Mirror” is the best kind of unobtrusive, and it’s almost shocking when it ends. It feels like a sound that should last forever. 

It’s tempting to say the same about all of Sprague’s latest album for RVNG Intl. — its warm reassurance is a welcome companion. It feels real, and, over six sonic tapestries, Sprague turns a Eurorack’s cold toughness inside out and brushes its circuitry with earth, dew, and sap. Like mysteries of the natural world, Sprague’s electronics feel emergent.

Hill, Flower, Fog is a pandemic album, recorded last March as the world started to realize the trials to come. But these songs magically (and sonically) trade impending sense of loss and uncertainty for sonic intimacy and optimism. One could note that Sprague’s cyclic melodies and looping treatments reflect the imposed routines of lockdown. However, the music is encouraging, inferring these daily patterns as something cherishable, an opportunity for reflection and moving inward. It seems to say, “one day at a time.”

User-Centric Dreaming

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User-Centric Dreaming → The user-centric streaming royalty model — explained and critiqued here — was the focus of a new study by the National Music Centre in France. Using data from Deezer (who are publicly open to exploring this model) and Spotify (who aren’t but might be shifting), the study determined a small advantage for niche artists, offset by the amount of major label back-catalog material that makes up the majority of streams. Here’s Stuart Dredge in Musically:

There is plenty more to parse from this new study, such as the likely increases for genres like classical music, jazz, metal and blues (and corresponding drops for streaming’s biggest genres: rap and hip-hop). Meanwhile, catalogue music is a beneficiary, which – again, as indicated in previous studies – is one reason why user-centric might not be the redistribution of revenues from major labels to independents that might have been expected.

The user-centric model dispenses of the system of pooled royalties that go out to artists streamed on platforms like Spotify. Instead, a listener’s subscription money only goes to the artists that a listener streams. So, if you listen to nothing but Merzbow1preferably at an ear-splitting volume on Spotify Premium for 30 days, then all of your $9.99 monthly subscription fee goes to Merzbow.

This model may not change the royalty pay-outs much, according to the study. But I’m still into the model for two reasons. First of all, I feel like it would give listeners more emotional investment in the artists they stream. I want to think we’d feel an additional connection with our listening choices, knowing that our streams contain direct support for our favorite artists. Though it’s worth noting, the much-maligned per-stream rate isn’t likely to change.2Though, as a Spotify Premium subscriber, if you only listened to one Merzbow song in a month, then that single stream is worth $9.99. Crazy, eh?

Second, and more significantly, the user-centric model would destroy the shadow industry of stream farms. These are the “pay X amount of dollars for ten thousand streams” folks who load songs into a wall of smartphones, playing a song on each repeatedly to increase stream counts. These plays also theoretically increase the royalties paid to the farmed songs, but it’s at the expense of other artists legitimately streamed on the platform because of royalty pooling. Under a user-centric model, if the stream farm pays $9.99 for a premium account, then the only potential royalty from that account comes out of that $9.99, even if the song is looped a kazillion times. And it won’t affect the royalties of valid artists.

As the Musically article points out, right now, this is all pie-in-the-sky thinking. That’s because for the adoption of the user-centric model, the major labels — many of whom are Spotify shareholders — would have to agree to it. As the model helps niche artists, even slightly, the majors are not going to let this happen.

Anyhoo … want to grok some more pros-and-cons on user-centric streaming? This analysis of how the model changes an artist’s digital marketing strategy, via Bas Grasmayer and his excellent MUSIC X newsletter, is an illuminating read.

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Daniel Lanois on WTF with Marc Maron + Rick Rubin on The Moment with Brian Koppelman → Possibly the best thing I did all week was listening to these two podcasts back-to-back. These conversations illustrate how a music producer’s role can overlap with some combination of philosopher, personal coach, and crisis manager. It’s not just about drum sounds and reverb. Lanois talks specifics about the process of wrangling great work from icons (and their giant egos), and Rubin expands on that with the big picture view. I recommend you listen in that order — a masterclass in the mindsets required to inspire others into action, not just applicable to inside a recording studio. Bonus: this interview with Trevor Horn conducted by Prince Charles Alexander (also a producer of renown) has a lot more ‘shop talk’ than the previous two but is still a fascinating listen. Horn is such an engaging interviewee. 

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Burdy – Satellite → Back in the ’90s, all of us downtempo-headz listened to lots of Fila Brazillia and the other artists inhabiting the Hull, UK, imprint Pork Recordings. One act that stood out was Baby Mammoth, a duo who shared Fila’s knack for melody and sly rhythmic constructions. An amicable gent named Burdy was one-half of Baby Mammoth. We ended up becoming friends thanks to his semi-frequent sojourns to the US, where we often DJ’ed the same club nights. After a couple of solo releases and a stint as an Australian, Burdy took a long break from music-making. Now he reaches out from his new base in chilly Canada, surprising us with a delightful album of fresh music. Satellite is out today on Filtered Deluxe Recordings and features ten tracks that won’t disappoint fans of the Mammoth or their Pork label-mates. The songs feature Burdy’s sense of melody, sense of humor (“Murder Hornets,” anyone?), and his sense of style. Meaning, this is stylish stuff — pleasantly sloping beats, a rush of organic and electronic instrumentation, and vibes for days (or daze) make me wistful for when we used to pack dance floors with 100 BPMs and below. Start with the second track, “Kananaskis,” with its road-movie guitar, watery bounce, and cryptic chants, immediately pulling you in for the long haul.