meversusthesound-blog

[meversusthesound-blog]

The Loud Objects

This time I took a listen to The Loud Objects live at Bent 2007 in NY.  Once again, it was the concept that drew me in.  These guys solder together audio circuits on an overhead projector for live performances.  They also use some audience participation of yelling and whatnot (which made me think my neighbors were being noisy again, when in fact it was coming from the video recording).  Although I didn't find the actual music pleasing, there was something interesting about it.  Though often likened to chiptune music, I found there was something very industrial about it, if not in execution, then at least in concept.  I don't mean Nine Inch Nails industrial rock, I mean ye olden industrial's experimental roots.  Though less gritty and less controversial (and less angsty), I still found enough of that in it to hold me for a solid 6.5 minute video.

Listen here:

http://youtu.be/U1TZ0gMGmVU

[meversusthesound-blog]

Bob Ostertag

And this is the part of my blog where I come off as a jerk.  I listened to Bob Ostertag's "Say No More."  Quite honestly, I figured this piece would be a step out of my comfort zone. It was more of a giant leap.  It basically summarizes everything I tend to dislike about experimental electronic music.  I'm not going to be all negative here.  I quite liked the concept behind it: record a band separately, each member playing his or her unique solo without any idea what the others were doing, then assemble them all into a cohesive piece.  This is where he loses me, with the vocals in particular.  The instrumentalists and vocalists, perhaps with the exception of the drummer, seemed to have decided to do something entirely un-musical, un-melodic, and noisy.  Instead of creating a melody, the vocalist appears to have waved his head side to side and gobbled his best imitation of a turkey.  This interspersed with the frequent I'm-falling-off-a-cliff-in-a-cartoon scream had already lost me.  But combine that with a few scratchings at a cello and various constipated overly-energetic sound effects, and I'm left feeling like I need a cup of tea and a nap.

Listen here:

http://www.bobostertag.com/music-recordings-saynomore1and2.htm

[meversusthesound-blog]

Alvin Lucier

Next I listened to Alvin Lucier's, "I Am Sitting In a Room."  For all the fact that I just said in my last post that I'm an old fashioned girl who only likes melodies and rhythms and all that jazz, I liked this piece despite myself.  It starts out with simply Lucier's voice explaining what he's going to do: record his voice speaking in a room, then play it back and record that, over and over until he captures the natural resonance of the particular room he's in.  Eventually the only semblance left of his voice is the rhythm of his speech pattern.  For him, it's feels like speech therapy.  For me, it was intensely relaxing.  His tone of voice morphing slowly into ringing frequencies created by the room in which the recording is played and re-recorded, are soothing.  I found myself relaxing and meditating as I listened.  It also peaked my curiosity. If I were to do that, what would my living room sound like? My kitchen or bedroom?  Who knows, maybe I'll give this one a shot.

Listen here:

http://youtu.be/2jU9mJbJsQ8

[meversusthesound-blog]

Hans Tammen

My next endeavor is into something more abstract.  Hans Tammen, in his Endangered Guitar project, uses an electric guitar processed by a computer to come up with some rather peculiar sounds.  I listened specifically to his latest tracks from 2009 to 2011.  Initially I heard sounds that were fairly easy to conceive as originating from a guitar: scraping strings, strings pressing against frets, the occasional plucked string.  Later the sounds became more obscure, and I began to hear sounds reminiscent of airplanes and grumbling stomachs.  Tammen is extremely successful in creating percussive rhythms without using pitch, redefining the term "rhythm guitar."  

I'm an old-fashioned girl when it comes to music, and I'll admit I do like to hear a melody and rhythm in time. So perhaps this wasn't my exact cup of tea, but I could appreciate the cohesiveness of the performance, the originality of the idea, and the technological complexity.

Listen here:

http://tammen.org/endangered-guitar/

[meversusthesound-blog]

Bubblyfish

Bubblyfish (real name Haeyoung Kim) creates chiptune music, not that she has always done so.  Originally she was a classical pianist.  Not always is this apparent in her music, though I'm definitely not saying that's a bad thing. Chiptune music tends to sound like it belongs in a video game, which makes sense considering it's made using the same technology.  Bubblyfish's music, however, transcends your typical Pokemon soundtrack to find something enchanting.  In her piece "Bit + Beat," she seems to challenge what the genre is capable of.  It begins with a little intro reminiscent of a Bach piece translated for Gameboy, then moves into a harsh bass drone with splashes of a high synth, before moving into a complex drum beat, and finally finishes with a few more synth-y bits and a revisitation of the bass drone from earlier.  This song best demonstrates her versatility within her chosen medium.  

Listen here:

http://www.bubblyfish.com/index.html