gnomadmusic

[gnomadmusic]

(Gnomad)

Another one where things happen........sooooooooo slooooooooooooowly

[gnomadmusic]

Punk? Noise? Mainstream?

"Noise has taken the place of punk rock. People who play noise have no real aspirations to being part of the mainstream culture. Punk has been co-opted, and this subterranean noise music and the avant-garde folk scene have replaced it."

-Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth

I found this quote on the Wikipedia page for 'noise rock,' it comes from an interview Moore gave in Spin Magazine called 'The Art of Noise.' I've heard people say this about Noise before; that Noise is what Punk used to be, and that Punk is now largely subsumed into 'the mainstream.' Of course, it would've been quite a while ago that he said this (anybody else remember Spin?) But, I'd be curious to know how people feel about this!

[gnomadmusic]

Keep Living the Life

There's something I've been learning pretty much all my life: there is no straightforward path to being an artist. There is no real prescription. You can't go down to the music factory and apply for a job making music.

So, it has always been normal that people have to figure stuff out. You have to try all different kinds of things and go with what works. That isn't weird, you don't suck, and it doesn't mean you can't have a meaningful experience as an artist.

What it does mean is that your experience will very likely be different than how you imagined it. Be careful, and don't fall victim to what they call 'hustle culture.' But, keep going. Keep living the life, and know that it has the reputation of being unpredictable and exciting for a reason.

Always the same, always changing.

[gnomadmusic]

Jeffrey Earp

particular place to go - 2015

[gnomadmusic]

These are the best! Great job, homunculus-argument!

I think I got it out of my system now. I'm free.

[gnomadmusic]

Listen/purchase: Mach by Gnomad

I’D LIKE TO TAKE THE WEIGHT OFF YOUR MIND.

I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid, and then again as an adult. Once, I heard someone say that having ADHD felt like the inside of your mind was a TV, and someone else was constantly flipping the channels. I suppose it’s important to point out that descriptions like that are, perhaps, not very scientific, and that understanding something as complex as a mind involves a little more than a colorful simile. 

Still, it’s nice when you hear some words together that give a shape to how you feel sometimes. 

In the course of my journey through music, and through being a person with a flipping-channels-TV brain, I discovered that I really, really liked it when something could capture my full attention. When all that noise could be cut away, however temporarily. When I could be locked in, as they say. 

Music like this is one of the things that does that for me. Lots of things happen in this track, but they all happen extremely slowly. For me, the focus comes about because, to perceive the changes, I have to listen very closely. I suppose it’s a bit like a satisfying gif. If ten minutes of stress-free focus sounds like your bag, then I hope this track will do for you what it does for me. Or, you may just find it relaxing, which is cool too. 

[gnomadmusic]

How weird is weird?

Decided to check out this Speed Dealer Moms track this morning. This is definitely a cool track (lots of stuff going on!) but the main thought I wanted to share here is that everything exists in shades and degrees. I try to keep the content on this blog in focus; that being 'abstract' music.

But, as is the case with all things if you look at them closely enough, that definition has to exist on a gradient.

This track is definitely less conventional than a pop song, but definitely more conventional than certain types of noise and ambient music.

I wonder about how people interact with this. I feel like I have had several conversations wherein I realized that, for some people, it only takes one musical element being more 'conventional' for the entire piece to be more accessible. For example, noise music that has a beat behind it can go from being unlistenable for some people to something that is just a little different.

[gnomadmusic]

Listen/purchase: Round and Round and Back and Forth by Gnomad

Have you ever found yourself listening to a machine running and thought “...ooh, that sounds nice.” 

This is kind of like that. 

[gnomadmusic]

Objectively...subjective.

If you need any proof that art is subjective, you should watch Bram Stoker's Dracula, the 1992 movie by Francis Ford Coppala.

It made giant gobs of money, and got nominated for a huge list of awards, and won several of them.

The first time I watched it, I was sat next to a girl dressed like a dragon at a Halloween party, in a room full of people howling with laughter at how fabulously ridiculous the movie was.

[gnomadmusic]

Sky #3

We all see different shapes in the same clouds.

Always the same, always changing.

[gnomadmusic]

Framing Another Piece of the Sky

We all see different shapes in the same clouds.

Always the same, always changing.

[gnomadmusic]

Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say

Stop trying to be good at things. Instead, try to be experienced at things.

Then, say what is important to you.

You already know what it is.

It is so strange how we get in the habit of obscuring the voice of our heart due to fear, but then again it happens to all of us all the time.

It can take practice to learn how to turn that off, but you can. You can.

Always the same, always changing.

[gnomadmusic]

I’m Obsessed With the Sky Lately

We all see different shapes in the same clouds.

Always the same, always changing.

[gnomadmusic]

Oh yeah, we're movin' now.

Lines of Flight, op606, oil on canvas, 100cm x 72.7cm, 2019

Private Collection

[gnomadmusic]

Death of the Author, Life of the Work

I really like the interpretive and open-ended qualities of art. Here, I focus on abstract music and images, but this applies to everything else, too.

It can be frustrating when you make something and people have different feelings about it than you do, or if they took something away from it that you didn't intend, or if it feels to you as though they didn't 'get' it.

But, on the other hand, it's beautiful that we all have such a wide range of experiences and emotions. People can love things for completely different reasons. We all see different shapes in the same clouds.

Always the same, always changing.

[gnomadmusic]

Oh, my. If you didn't know, this is where it's really at right here. Thanks Dusted Magazine.

高野昌昭 / Masaaki Takano — しずくたち / Shizukutachi (Art Into Life)

A recording consisting solely of the sound of water droplets? As the practice of field recordings continues to expand and extend in to multiple forms of music, that notion is not as odd as it once might have seemed. But this reissue of Shizukutachi by Japanese sound artist Masaaki Takano confounds categorization. Takano began his career in the 1950s developing sound effects for stage, film and broadcasting and working as a recording engineer at music studios. By the 1970s he moved away from sound effects and began performing using self-made sound instruments and collecting field recordings of natural sounds. These two practices intersect in Shizukutachi, his first release from 1978. The project was inspired by a Japanese garden ornament and sound device called a suikinkutsu, a large earthenware jar with a small opening which is buried and covered with small stones. When water filters through the stones, it drips into the opening and the sound of the droplets reverberate in the buried jar.

Rather than head out to conduct field recordings, Takano began conducting experiments in his recording studio, consulting with a scientist who had written an article about the sound of water droplets. He explained the process they went through, noting “We raised a tank on a scaffold and ran experiments not only with water but also with milk, oil, hot water, and ice water — with Professor Isobe’s guidance. In the end, it was the temperature of the material and the shape of the receiving dish that made the difference. But it still took a year and a half to complete the record.” But Takano went further, devising his own wakatake no suiteki ongu (young bamboo

water droplet sound instrument) from thick lengths of bamboo filled with water, recording and adjusting the size of holes drilled in the bamboo and the placement of microphones to capture the resonance and full register of the sound of the dripping water. The two pieces, each 22 minutes long, while connoting the sound of nature, is more a deeply considered study in sound.

Listening without information about how the pieces were recorded, one could easily assume they were created in an electronic music studio. Reverberant, deep pings and trebly clicks are panned across the sound plane, carefully placed against silence. Takano utilized multiple instruments and fleeting patterns of sound begin to accrue as the recordings were mixed and layered. Open pulses play off of each other with measured deliberation. While clearly composed, the pieces progress as open-ended sonic documents, their intentionality eschewing any notion of ambience. In the first piece, the pace is slower, accentuating the way each sound rings out. On the second, Takano quickens the pace, adding density and introducing further registers and reverberations of sound, creating engulfing waves of freely overlapping rhythms.

It is worth noting that the reissue was remastered by Giuseppe Ielasi and the pristine recording reveals a stunning depth of nuance. In the informative liner notes by Tomotaro Kaneko (owner of the Japanese Art Sound Archive), he references a number of other works by Takano including Oto Asobi (Sound Play) which involved performances with self-made and traditional sound instruments. One hopes that eventually, some of these might be issued.

Michael Rosenstein

[gnomadmusic]

They All Count

So, I am not at all a big famous guy, but I have been a musician all my life. Many times, I've played to 40 or 50 people. Many times, I've played to several hundred people. Sometimes, I get to play to thousands.

I'm a part of some projects that have gotten five digit 'views' on social media. Some releases from those same projects have only been viewed a few hundred times.

It was one of these that I was watching today. I've thought a lot over the years about how the internet game has kinda messed up our minds, with comparison ever willing to be the thief of joy.

I randomly decided to watch a video I was in today that had been viewed around 350 times. I've heard so many people talk about how 'hundreds' of views is nothing. How a show played to 40 or 50 people is nothing. That word is so negative, so draining, and so false.

I am certainly not innocent of this kind of thinking, but the more I reflect the more I realize, some of my best memories are from being in a crowd of 40 or 50 people. Some of my most meaningful performances have been to small groups.

One time I was in a band playing to about 300 people, covering the song 'Hey Jude' by the Beatles. We got to the part with the na na nas, and I held the microphone out to this girl in the front. Usually in that scenario people just kinda yell along, but she had the most beautiful voice. Not at all nothing.

Once I was performed a microtonal guitar sonata to about 50 or 60 people. I literally made a friend from that performance; a guy came up to me, interested in talking about it. Not at all nothing.

Recently I've been having a very jolly time with this very blog, publishing some of the weirdest music I have ever made that has so far been heard by a single digit number of people. But they all count. It all matters. Our ability to make and share art is a gift, all of this is a gift. Don't worry about numbers. Seriously, try to name 300 people that you know. Think about 9 people being interested in what you have to say, caring about your perspective. It's worth it. It all matters, it is all a gift.

Always the same, always changing.