8Sided Blog

the scene celebrates itself

Elongated Installations

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This morning, I took a photo of the sunrise over my backyard lake. I used to do this almost every day—my sunrise diary. But I also used to get up a lot earlier. These days, I’m in bed until 7:30-ish, which is seriously sleeping in compared to my routine a few months back. These aches and pains, combined with the cold weather, are making it tougher to catch the sunrise, but these photos remain an aspiration. How many sunrises can one see in a life? It’s worth seeing as many as you can.

I’m amused by another barometer of time due to the recent attention given to the performance of John Cage’s “As Slow As Possible” (or, originally, “Organ2/ASLSP”) at the St. Burchardi church in Halberstadt, Germany. The performance began in 2001, nine years after Cage’s death, and the church’s organ is scheduled to stop playing in 2640. This length is based on the age of the oldest keyboard instrument — 639 years — at the time of the project’s conception. Temporal reflection is the goal, as is the draw of a special kind of nerdy tourist to the town of Halberstadt.

There are other elongated installations that comment on humankind’s mere blip on the great timeline. Pogues member Jem Finer’s “Longplayer” beats out “As Slow As Possible,” beginning a year earlier and performing its computer-generated synthesis of sound well into 2999. There’s also Danny Hillis’s The Clock of the Long Now, associated with The Long Now Foundation, as well as the unexpected alliance of Bezos and Eno. Presently under construction, it’s assumed to sit within its mountainous Texas dirt hole and periodically chime over 10,000 years.

The idea is to encourage long-term thinking. Very long-term thinking. One can hope contemplation on the organ’s final note fading into the middle of the 27th century might inspire more people to consider future generations for the sake of our resources, our efforts at sustainability, and planning out our lives within a community of species. But, watching the video of the changing of the note at St. Burchardi church, you’ll see folks staring with anticipation and applauding enthusiastically as the next organ pipe finally bellows its tone. They are completely in the ‘now,’ not the ‘long.’ “As Slow As Possible,” probably to Cage’s discomfort if he knew, has become a series of sudden spectacles.

All this long-term contemplation makes me crave something speedy. So, I’m dipping into the catalog of the eclectic Icelandic label Móatún 7 for a split single from Futuregrapher and Self Oscillate. It’s what we kids called drum n’ bass when we probably should have just said ‘jungle.’ I know nothing about either of these artists, but they’ve made an enjoyable attempt at frenetically percussive riddim music. Futuregrapher’s “Dominika” has a nostalgic appeal with a fairly traditional use of that ‘Amen’ business over synthy whisps, moans, and sighs. Midway into the track, an acid riff appears out of nowhere, like someone accidentally hit the wrong patch on the softsynth. But it’s brief, and it works—and I don’t like acid riffs, so hey. As interesting as that is, Self Oscillate does one better with the slinky “Gatekeeper,” sounding a little like if Photek were obsessed with film noir instead of Wuxia movies. The tune is spare, mostly chunky hi-tension drums, frequent sub-frequency dives, and a repeating half-measure bass line. I’m not sure how these cuts stand up to the rampant innovation of jungle’s heyday, but for this split single’s year of release (2019), I think they did just fine.

Wheel Around the Filter

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The track that opens SYMBOL’s I Am Humble and Powerful is the title track, and it’s something of an obstacle course. The Rhodes-ish electric piano is pleasant enough, playing freeform lines and chords that eventually resolve on melodic themes. References to Grieg’s “Morning Mood” appear with perhaps an intentionality, but possibly not. These tones are accompanied by jittery, high-speed electronic percussion that wouldn’t be out of place in a video game quest. Together, there’s an odd synergy between the dueling elements, like the mismatched characters of a buddy movie coming to blows but eventually hugging it out. The two seem out of place as a team. And the striking thing is there are over 15 minutes of this curious interplay.

That’s an odd way to open an album, which brought to mind the aforementioned obstacle course. These opening 15 minutes are hardly dissonant or unsavory, but less patient listeners will likely drift away. It could serve as a barrier to the unworthy. Rewards exist for those who hang in there. Because, as a whole, SYMBOL’s album is a bold transmission of sound rendered pristine and sometimes degraded, an imperfect beauty just within reach.

Christopher Royal King is the lead guitarist in ‘cinematic rock ensemble’ This Will Destroy You and the rotating mirror behind SYMBOLS. Christopher is also a graphic artist, working with visuals as a designer and someone whose output occasionally haunts galleries. I’m fascinated by and drawn to musicians who work equally in the visual arts; their music often hides layers, like a finished painting obscures its earliest brushstrokes. And visual art is an appropriate launching point for this album. Like the abstract dichotomy of the challenging first track, the songs on I Am Humble and Powerful evoke both clashing hues and colors that beautifully bleed into each other.

Further tracks jettison the drum shenanigans of the opener, but a rhythm remains in the mix via staccato arpeggiations emanating out of the synth machine. The overall atmosphere is broken and gentle. I’d say we’re listening to some weird music box on its last legs, spurting out its final wabi-sabi notes in a manner that’s strained but glorious. “External Reminder Prompt” lays down this vibe with quick analog-ish chunks that pleasantly wheel around the filter. Watery bubble patterns and what could be distorted Vangelis riffs grab hold of “Emotional Texture Reflection” and calmly let go before things get out of hand. But, to my ears, the grand statement has got to be the operatic swell of “A New Nothing” gliding into the tarnished nursery chimes of “W.I.L.D.” Here, we meet the simplicity of riffage, a repeated motif made unrepetitious with various distortions, filters, and reverby accents. No disrespect meant to the provocative album sequence, but this later tune is something I would joyfully ingest for 15+ minutes.

a solution is obvious

• Antique music box, rare, maybe haunted
• Perfection and Wabi-Sabi in Music
• The Nine Strangest “Buddy Movie” Team-Ups
• Why is Edvard Grieg’s ‘Peer Gynt’ A Staple In Pop Culture?
• Far out: Vangelis on the science and power of music

The Piano Remains Among the Rubble

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We don’t need any more dystopias (fictional or otherwise), but Alex Lopes‘s gentle approach to the year 3023 offers a mirror-angled lens on another way to tell the story. The piano remains among the rubble, it seems, evoking centuries-distant memories. Discovered recordings point a ruined society toward a simpler past, even if that past is our ruinous own. Every generation deserves a reminder to pare down and hit the roots.

Brazilian musician Alex Lopes often records his solo piano compositions in one take and, as he describes, “I just tweaked some stuff on the post-production.” The songs on DYSTOPIA are sparse, not flowery or busy, and heavily melodic. Titles like “DOUBLETHINK” and “BRAVE NEW WORLD” (Lopes opts for caps) disclose the particular futurism/pessimism that serves as inspiration, but I’m hard-pressed to hear somber echoes in the music. At times, the compositions steer toward the traditional and almost hymnal (thus, hopeful), but there are also Sakamoto-like moments that squeeze catchiness from minimalist songcraft.

DYSTOPIA gifts an uncomplicated calm that helps ease a listener out of feelings of, well, dystopia. Alex’s music here is understated and pleasantly conventional, but there’s something to be said for the familiar beauty that lies in those qualities. Lopes gets bonus points, too, for contacting me through his recently activated Mastodon account. That’s doubleplusgood!

a dream that lies to itself:

• The Best of Brazilian Brutalism
• Reel life: Brazilian realities reflected in cinema
• The Dystopian Elements of Brazil (the movie)
• The Future of Architecture: Utopias, Dystopias, Heterotopias
• Ryuichi Sakamoto: “We are destroying the world.”

Colorfully Aligned

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I was pretty excited to see Chrome featured on Bandcamp Daily. The piece is an excellent overview of the pioneering San Francisco duo, revealing more than a few tidbits I didn’t know. The article is understandably from guitarist Helios Creed‘s perspective (as band partner Damon Edge passed a couple of decades back), and he takes a lot of credit. But there is something to be said about Creed’s spiraling guitar lines and bizarro feedback treatments, sounding like nothing else in the late ’70s — someone that ahead of time was likely the main driver pushing Chrome to the, uh, edge.

Chrome has sadly remained under the radar even though their influence is apparent throughout the last forty years of the freaky-deeky side of rock n’ roll. For example, the Butthole Surfers definitely got their hands on a Chrome album or two in their formative days.

I initially found Chrome in my mid-teens through the “New Age” video (probably seen via Night Flight). I was always on the hunt for weird shit™ to help me escape the confines of life in Central Louisiana, and “New Age” fit the bill. The song — and Chrome’s output at the time — was a remarkable portent. It signaled many things on the horizon, both sonically and culturally. Check the cyberpunk current running through the “New Age” video, which also pays homage to A Clockwork Orange and THX 1138.

Chrome - New Age

Around the time I discovered Chrome, I also encountered Cabaret Voltaire’s Red Mecca. That’s not too far off of a connection — Chrome were, in a way, the American Cabaret Voltaire when one looks at their respective experiments recorded in the late ’70s and early ’80s. And as many accept Red Mecca as a dark reflection on England’s Thatcher years, Chrome’s 1980 album Red Exposure (colorfully aligned!) could be seen as a similar reaction to the national mood that brought the US into the Reagan era.

And listen to Cabaret Voltaire’s “Landslide,” taken off Red Mecca. My favorite DJ in the world will be the one who sublimely mixes this with “New Age” in the middle of a packed-out ’80s night somewhere.

Cabaret Voltaire

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I’m torn. YouTube is a repository of things otherwise impossible-to-find or out-of-print. It’s the only public place where you can hear Kraftwerk’s disowned early albums or watch Keith Levene abuse a Prophet-5 as PIL runs through “Careening.” These things are on YouTube because of fans and super-fans, noting a cultural absence and taking matters into their own hands. But no one’s getting paid, except for YouTube. And maybe also the uploader who unscrupulously turns on the monetization of a vintage work that’s not theirs.1The Chrome and Cabaret Voltaire videos above were uploaded respectively by Helios Creed and Mute Records, so they are welcome to monetize to their hearts’ content. That’s why I’m torn.

But discoveries like The Black Tower make YouTube seem all right. The enigmatically but actually named John Smith is a British avant-garde filmmaker whose work escaped me until I randomly peeped an exchange about The Black Tower on the Twitter machine. From what I’ve recently seen, Smith’s work is minimal but compelling, weaving stories and visual play from things noticed in his immediate surroundings. For instance, the 1975 short film Leading Light looks entirely shot in his bedroom.2Sharp eyes might spot The Velvet Underground. This article in Senses of Cinema digs further into Smith’s ‘familiar-but-unfamiliar’ approach.

The Black Tower is a 23-minute film released by Smith in 1987. The super-fan uploader didn’t monetize this, which is nice — The Black Tower is the sort of thing that should remain free of ads; otherwise, its spell is broken. “Architectural horror” is an intriguing phrase I saw to describe the film. For me, The Black Tower is like a campfire ghost story, except it’s told next to a darkened chip shop in a disused city alleyway instead of a campfire. 

John Smith's The Black Tower

The Black Tower mainly comprises of stationary shots of nothingness and near-nothingness, but this is gripping stuff. And inspiring, too — don’t let anyone tell you lack of budget and gear constrain triumphant acts of creativity. Just get that Black Tower out of your head.

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I often wonder why more artists don’t exploit that a Bandcamp download can contain more than just audio files and an album cover. There’s an opportunity to expand an album, to add GIFs and short movies, PDF booklets, and collections of images. Surprise the listener with digital esoterica, revealed only upon purchase and download.

The concept’s potential is a natural fit for Puremagnetik. This small company is developing unique audio plug-ins for creators while manning an active experimental label on Bandcamp. Ambient explorer Taylor Deupree has released Small Winters through the label, and something new from Taylor is a cause for celebration on its own. Taylor is a longtime master of the is-it-broken-or-intentional style of soundscape as he loops warm tones over crackles and randomly conjured defects. The sources for these tones are often something other than synthesized — on Small Winters, you’ll find a glockenspiel. If you’re into this flavor, Taylor doesn’t disappoint. I’m a fan.

But there’s more in store for those who download Taylor’s latest. The album’s title, Small Winters, is also the name of a DAW plug-in designed by Puremagnetik’s Micah Frank with prodding from Taylor. “Taylor suggested that a custom device might be an interesting way to constrain the album’s sonic palette,” says Frank. “We bounced some ideas back and forth and came up with this concept of a broken Tascam 4-track from the future.” Purchase this release on Bandcamp, and you’ll find a text file bundled with the tracks outlining instructions for downloading the plug-in.

The album prominently utilizes the plug-in throughout, most notably on “Long Winter,” which treats the glockenspiel with percolating layers of static-tinged stereo-enhanced repetition. The result is beautiful; the hard attack of the ‘spiel is softened by reversed effects, low-end ghost notes, and a healthy dollop of artificial tape hiss. An ARP 2600 eventually joins in with hints of a glimmering, subdued melody.

“Long Winter” is followed by a series of shorter tracks with uncapitalized titles like “air” and “tea.” After the set’s preceding magnum opus, these might come off more like mere demonstrations of the included plug-in if the cuts didn’t fit snuggly within Taylor’s body of work. I know Taylor and Small Winters don’t rely on a plug-in for beautiful, melancholic atmospheres. But I can’t tell if this plug-in requires Taylor to come close Small Winter‘s remarkable sound. I’ll have to play with the included plug-in and figure that out for myself.

Unforeseen Circumstances

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It turns out that if you put off replacing aging scleral contacts for a couple of years, they become brittle and might crack as you gently clean them in your hands. Good to know. And that’s why I’m dealing with unforeseen circumstances — meaning, in my present state, I can’t see circumstances for shit. 

I’ve written about keratoconus here a few times. It’s a total bummer. The eyeballs lose their shape, and one’s eyesight gets wacky. As it’s a structural degradation of the eye itself, glasses aren’t too much help. Scleral contacts are your best bet (unless you want to live la vida loca and get a corneal transplant, which I am not wont to do).

The good news is I found a rad new eye doctor on a friend’s recommendation. She has keratoconus, too, which is bad news for her but good news for me. It’s nice to have a doctor who understands your condition and what you’re going through first-hand. This doc is also about 5 minutes from my house. That proximity is a novelty — over a decade ago, when first diagnosed, there were so few eye specialists dealing in keratoconus that I had to be driven (as I couldn’t safely drive) four hours to Miami. I did that almost monthly for a year. And my new doc had to do the same thing at the time.

I saw this doctor yesterday and was thoroughly eye-prodded and iris-scanned to get the perfect fit for my new scleral lenses. I can’t wait to get them. Because right now, I’m legally blind. And I’ll remain this way until the contacts arrive, which appears to happen next Thursday. 

I won’t get into what these things cost. I’ll just say that if you wear ‘normal’ contacts, multiply your price by at least five. But I can’t normally function, easily work, or do much of anything enjoyable without my expensive bionic eyes. That keratoconus is not covered by any insurance plan I know of is another white mark on the chalkboard of health care crimes in the good ol’ USA.

But I can blog, right? Sure! But if you spied into my window, you’d see me holding my phone up to my face, typing on the tiny keyboard with my thumbs. It’s so much comfier on my peepers to do it this ridiculous way than looking into my huge 29″ computer monitor. And watching movies? On my iPad, also held maybe five inches from the tip of my nose. So, what do you have planned for the week ahead? I’ll be holding various devices against my nose.

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I also realized that I hadn’t posted my BNDCMPR playlist for June. So, here it is. As always, this playlist is a selection of fantastic songs I ran across on Bandcamp over the past month. The playlist is shorter this time, but the quality is mountain high. If you dig anything I included, then feel free to purchase the tune. Or, at least, follow the corresponding artist or label on Bandcamp. Enjoy!

Calming

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I’m tip-toeing through the day aided by light, calming music. Quiet tones to drown out the world’s turmoil and the grim news-blasts.

I’m alternating between two albums today. The first is the recent RVNG Intl. edition of Flore Laurentienne’s Volume 1, originally released in 2019 by Costume Records. Described by the press release as “the vessel of Canadian composer Mathieu David Gagnon,” Flore Laurentienne is an artful project based upon subtly texturized string and piano compositions. The tunes on Volume 1 are bright and nourishing, evocative of an incoming dawn’s welcome reset. Ranging from the structured beauty of “Petit Piano” to the sparse organ etude in “1991” (with what sounds like bowed cymbals droning tensely at the midpoint) to the kosmiche synth surprise of “Route” — the album feels warm and breathing, like an organism going through different stages of its life.

Mathieu has stated that the interactions of humans and nature (and their effects on each other) inspired Volume 1, so the organic sheen is intentional. Cementing the association is the alias Flore Laurentienne, named after Canadian botanist (and clergyman) Marie-Victorin Kirouac‘s guide to all species indigenous to southern Quebec.

Though the original release of Volume 1 dates to 2019, this new edition contains a fresh piece, “La fin et le commencement.” The song is quite pretty, using a string section and minimal piano to leisurely mimic the effect of a Shepard tone — that is, a musical progression that gives the illusion of a constant rise in pitch.

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The other album I’m turning to today for ‘calmness’ is the soundtrack to After Yang. I saw the movie over the weekend, and though I should rewatch it, I was immediately taken by the score. The music is composed by Aska Matsumiya save for an appearance by the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto on a piece called “Memory Bank.” 

I recommend playing this album in sequence. However, I’d start with the third track (the video game-inspired “Welcome to Family of 4” is terrific in the movie but devoid of context here), and you’ll find hymn-like melodies and sparkling but restrained instrumentation. Like Flore Laurentienne, the music here has warmth and luminance though Matsumiya’s compositions have a pronounced drifting quality. Even the piano-led songs seem to ‘float away,’ and the stirring “Mizuiro” (featuring múm’s Gyða Valtýsdóttir on cello) is likewise buoyant. As for Sakamoto’s contribution, it says a lot that “Memory Bank” fits snuggly alongside the rest of this score —the song’s strings and piano are a little more pronounced than Matsumiya’s but complement and round out the overall musical intentions with grace.

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.

Bells and Mechanical Tune-Teasers

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Spotify Shuts Out SongShift → SongShift is a popular iOS app that allows the transferring of playlists across platforms. That is, if you use Apple Music (like me) and want to grab one of Joe Muggs’ Spotify-only Soft Music For Hard Times playlists, SongShift makes it happen. Now it seems Spotify is pouring the jerk sauce on this recipe, as the SongShift team recently made this announcement: “The Spotify Developer Platform Team reached out and let us know we’d need to remove transferring from their service to a competing music service or have our API access revoked due to TOS violation … as of SongShift v5.1.2, you will no longer be able to create transfers from Spotify to another music service.”

I guess one can understand the rationale. Spotify’s strength and differentiator, as far as music listening goes, is its playlists. If you’re into Spotify-only playlists, transferring them to your streaming place of choice might keep you from committing to their platform. Transferability makes it easier to leave the Spotify ecosystem, too. But it still comes off as a weaselly power move, especially as all other services allow these transfers (for now — this decision could set the tone). 

Spotify is a public critic of Apple’s walled garden, and Jason Snell points out this hypocrisy on his Six Colors blog: 

Spotify hates how Apple tends its own ecosystem, but it has zero interest in allowing its customers to migrate metadata in any way that might make it more convenient to leave Spotify behind. That’s their decision to make, of course, but for a company that claims to support consumer freedom, it has just made a hypocritical decision designed to reduce the freedom of its own customers.

One can argue about ownership of playlists, but the music is not the property of Spotify or anyone else besides the rights-holders. And I’m sure rights-holders would prefer the containers for their music remain fungible across applicable services. 

But what are you gonna do? I suppose if you use SongShift, maybe don’t update to the latest version (though I don’t know for sure if that will make a difference). And transfer those Spotify playlists as soon as you can, even if you use something other than SongShift. I’m sure Spotify will quickly put the kibosh on those other services, too.

Update: Spotify has done an about-face. Adds SongShift: “The only caveat is, you have to have created the playlist yourself, or the playlist must be collaborative and followed by you.”

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The Company That Has a Monopoly on Ice Cream Truck Music → The origins of the music boxes playing from ice cream trucks are fascinating. Today’s familiar sound was once in a heated competition with sleigh-bells (“ringing a bell all day long soon proved to be too manually taxing for drivers”) and resistance from older generations complaining about the noise (little did they know).

Nichols Electronics persevered and still delivers 300-400 music boxes a year. That seems low, but the company — which has provided these boxes for several decades — is comfortable with its niche’ monopoly.’ Nichols Electronics is a lesson for labels and artists — find your audience, serve only them, and prosper with consistency despite limited opportunities for growth. 

I also like the strategic rules that Nichols Electronics sets for songs included in their music boxes: 

• They’re short and easy to remember … the perfect length at between 15 and 45 seconds.
• They’re structurally simple: “You don’t want the music to be very full,” music historian Daniel T. Neely tells us. “If it’s too complicated, the message becomes kind of muddled.”
• They’re typically rooted in nostalgia.

As the article explains, “That last point is perhaps the most crucial element of a good ice cream truck song: We’re drawn to these melodies because we’ve heard them before.” It also helps when the ‘nostalgic’ song is in the public domain and doesn’t require licensing fees. That aspect might be a problem for the heavy metal ice cream truck. 

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Yoshiaki Ochi – Natural Sonic → Today, I randomly happened across a lovely percussive ambient album from composer Yoshiaki Ochi. Light On The Attic’s Kankyō Ongaku compilation featured this Japanese artist, as did Music For Dreams’ Japanese music collection Oto No Wa. Natural Sonic calms with tropical sounding wooden percussion, floating between the tribal, the distant, and the contemporary. In my interview with Elijah Knutsen, an enthusiast of Japanese ambient music, he describes how the Kankyō Ongaku genre often features the “natural sound of life, with bits of melody blended between the long stretches of environmental sounds.” Natural Sonic includes these elements on a few of the songs — beach surf on “Woods from the Sea,” or bird sounds on “Anywhere.” But the lack of synthesizers draws Ochi’s album closer to the likes of Martin Denny (except the bird sounds here are real) than the pioneers of Asian ambient music. And, interestingly, the organic materials that populate the album result in a timelessness. Natural Sonic was recorded in 1990, a fact I had to look up as listening gave no easy clues to its year of origin. 

Put the Blueprint Down

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Season 3 of KCRW’s Lost Notes → This week, I spent 30 minutes each morning listening to the third season of KCRW’s Lost Notes podcast series. The other two seasons are terrific, but this latest particularly grabbed me. This time, each episode focuses on a prominent event or artist from 1980. The host is poet and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib, approaching his subjects with an engaging language. The series suggests 1980 as a pivotal year, setting the tone for the next decade and reverberating into the present.

If you’re me, the temptation is to skip to the end and listen to the fantastic Grace Jones episode (which also throws in a short history of Chicago’s Disco Demolition, occurring the previous year). But roll through them all, in order, to get a grander picture of the influence that year had on music and culture. Stevie Wonder, Ian Curtis, John Lennon and Darby Crash (together), Minnie Ripperton, The Sugarhill Gang, Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba — each topic is fascinating and offers something to learn. 

You can also read each episode online via KCRW’s site (click on the artist’s names above). But Hanif Abdurraqib’s personable narration, peppered with audio and musical examples, is the way to go. It’s a compelling production.

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Throwback on a Comeback: The Last Cassette Tape Factory → I enjoyed this mini-doc on ‘The Last Cassette Factory‘ — though I’m wondering if any tape manufacturers have popped up since the video’s release four years ago. As noted in the video, there’s a resurgence of cassette releases. This growth is partly thanks to Bandcamp and a need to give fans a limited, physical version of a release without breaking the bank for vinyl pressings. It’s an excellent idea for emerging bands to offer cassettes, especially when personalized with homespun artwork and packaging. Just don’t believe that your fans are listening to your cassettes. For one thing, as the first commenter on the video’s page notes, “The problem is I don’t see any quality cassette players being made today.” As for this video, we’ve all seen footage of the whirring machinery found in record pressing plants. It might be surprising to see that a cassette factory’s inner workings are also fascinating and highly technical. 

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A Guide to Sun Ra on Film → A useful list of long-form Sun Ra footage found on YouTube and elsewhere. Some of this I hadn’t seen before. The Magic Sun film, intended as a projection behind the Arkestra as they performed at Carnegie Hall, is particularly wild. And I think the writer of this piece somewhat downplays Space Is The Place — it’s a great movie, low-budget or not. 

As a proponent of focusing influence on one’s own ‘world,’ I like this quote from Ra in the listed French television interview: “You want a better world, put the blueprint down.”

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Ralph Kinsella – Lessening → My 8D Industries label released a new album today on Bandcamp. Titled Lessening, it’s the debut album from Scottish guitarist and ambient producer Ralph Kinsella. I’ve written about Ralph before — I discovered him after he reached out to this blog with his music. A few months ago, he sent the demo for this album, and I haven’t stopped listening. An antidote to lockdown — this is travel in a small room.

The last paragraph of the press release does a great job of describing Ralph’s music:

Kinsella’s guitar is the even thread, sometimes bare and then often processed, awash in texture and synthetic glares. Tracks like “In the In-Between Light” use the guitar to express enormity — of space and emotion — before the song is gently brought close by calming lines and reassuring synth patches. There’s also a soft tension in songs like “Lung Noises,” sharing the masterful slow build of the shoegaze genre’s finest practitioners. Lessening‘s closer, “Born on the Cusp,” offers a resolution — chiming guitars and reverberant tones signaling both loss and promise. This is the sound of an uncertain present feeling its way to that better world.

I hope you’ll check it out. Lessening is available now exclusively on Bandcamp and, like all 8D Industries releases, is set to ‘name your price.’ 

Old Man With Pink Hair

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Unfortunately, You Might be a Dingdong → In the new issue of his Roden newsletter, Craig Mod offers advice on dealing with dingdongs. He also provides clues to determine if you, unsuspecting reader, are unknowingly a dingdong. What’s a dingdong? Craig explains: “A dingdong is a subset of asshole, but for the sake of levity, we go with the former. A dingdong believes — genuinely! — that their opinion and their frequent, unsolicited deployment of that opinion is helpful. Often: It’s not.”

Craig rightfully points out that website comment sections are ‘dingdong bonanzas.’ I believe this extends to comments on Twitter, Facebook, and all the rest. His prescription? Block or mute. Or, even better, reply with something like, “That’s interesting — thanks!” and then block or mute. Craig calls that technique “The Dalai Lama Stance.” 

In the essay, Craig makes this case for ignoring dingdongs, no matter how tempting: 

… dingdong engagement has a very low energy-in to positivity-out yield. Almost zero. In the exceedingly small chance that you end up in a fruitful back and forth with a dingdong, it’s likely you’ll look back on that tête-à-tête and wish you had been doing literally anything else with your time.

It’s true! I remember when I was active on DJ and electronic music forums in the early ’00s. I got in so many stupid arguments. And even in exchanges with dingdongs where I felt it was my duty to set things straight, I came out defeated. I remember eventually thinking, “Has anything useful or positive ever come out of arguing in an internet forum?” Once I had my answer, I logged off for good. Now I follow my friend Zed’s advice: I don’t argue on the internet. 

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Kelly Lee Owens – “Corner Of My Sky” (feat. John Cale) → This new track from Kelly Lee Owens is excellent, and it features vocals from John Cale, who just sounds great. I want to hear from him more often (just as this vocal cameo from Brian Eno makes me want to hear him sing a lot more). And, since the early days of MTV, I’ve aggressively disliked music videos that mix in dialogue and in-video sounds over the music. But this music video is the exception — I love it so much.

But! Since writing the above paragraph, John Cale answered my plea and released a new one-off song (and video) called “Lazy Day.” It’s a weird one, not exactly what I had in mind when I said I wanted John Cale to sing some more. But the song is fun, cool, and catchy, and Cale has transformed into ‘old man with pink hair,’ which is a not-too-terribly-surprising development.

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Khotin – Finds You Well → Canadian electronic music producer Khotin went and did it. He named his album after 2020’s eternal email send-off, “I hope this finds you well.” I’m sure he’s not the only one. But it’s possible this album of hauntology-nodding textural beat constructions conveys the wistful sentiment better than the others. Yes, we’ve entered Boards of Canada territory (Boards of Edmonton, in this case), but where BoC is a tad clinical, Khotin offers the personal. Take the swirling pads and the inserted voicemail messages of “Outside in the Light” — it sounds like someone listening in, from space or the future, deciphering pleasant memories.