#Carl Stone

[garadinervi]

Carl Stone, We Jazz Reworks, Vol. 2, WJLPX2, We Jazz Records, 2022 [boomkat]. Based on WJLP11 – WJLP20 (2019-2020). Reworked and produced by Carl Stone. Recorded and mixed by Carl Stone. Album sleeve rework design: Tuomo Parikka. Additional design and liner notes: Matti Nives

[dustedmagazine]

Carl Stone — Electronic Music from 1972-2022 (Unseen Worlds)

Electronic Music from 1972-2022 by Carl Stone

Unseen Worlds brings us their third installment of Carl Stone archival releases. Following "Electronic Music from the Seventies and Eighties" and "Electronic Music from the Eighties and Nineties," "Electronic Music from 1972-2022" makes a stab at filling in some of the gaps from Stone's sizable list of works. Presumably by the time this review gets published Stone will have added another release to his vast discography from the last 50 years.

"Electronic Music from 1972-2022" offers an until now unheard documentation of Stone's very earliest work in the two compositions "Three Confusongs" and "Ryouund Thygizunz," both realized in 1972 at CalArts, where Stone was studying with the composers Morton Subotnick and James Tenney. The voice of Carl's old friend and band mate, the late Z'ev (at this time still known as Stefan Weisser) was used on both these pieces. In stark contrast to the other tracks on this compilation, "Three Confusongs" and "Ryouund Thygizunz" develop slowly with heavy use of delays and resonance. Yet similarly to Stone's later works' extensive use of sampling, recordings of the voice of Z'ev reading his concrete poems provide the basic working material that launches in motion these haunting and mysterious pieces.

It was also while studying at CalArts that Stone's sampling practice found its future direction. Working as an archivist in the school's library, Stone got saddled with the job of transferring thousands of vinyl records to tape. This saturated Stone's ears with a vast and seemingly incongruous selection of music that included classical repertoire, electronic composition, world music and jazz, just to name a few. Stone had to transfer multiple discs at the same time, thus creating incorrigibly random collisions from this wealth of archival material. Through this process Stone began to see the juxtaposition and repetition of musical soundbytes as the modus operandi for his compositional practice.

Working in a vein with much in common to the use of sampling in hip hop, Stone has never shied away from plumbing the depths of popular music in a fearless and unabashed disregard for any notions of what might be regarded as good taste. It is perhaps this attitude, as much as the actual samples themselves, that imbues much of Stone's work with a heavy dose of humor and playful confrontation. The composition "Vim"  from 1987 provides a good case in point, with samples from The Beach Boys' "Fun Fun Fun" being looped and chopped nearly beyond all recognition while still creating this nagging feeling of "Where have I heard this before?" Only towards the very end of the piece does it become apparent what one has just been subjected to in the form of this insidious earworm.

Stone's work can also be eminently danceable, often employing samples of drums and percussion in a process of accretion that can lead to dizzying heights of tension and release, not far in essence from Derrick May's work, such as the seminal "Strings of Life" from1987. Stone adds to this his experience from the trippy sixties, notching up the density and movement of his compositions till they take on a distinctly psychedelic feel. One can imagine whirling dervishes, The Master Musicians of Joujouka or your favorite neighborhood rave where ecstasy meets a discombobulated vortex of looping samples and very grooving beats.

Parallel to a summary of Stone's work during this fifty years, "Electronic Music from 1972-2022" also gives an overview of the development in electronic music technology which, as much as any conceptual preoccupations, often seems to have provided the impetus for much of the development in Stone's compositions. From working with Buchla synthesizers at CalArts to early samplers and Apple computers, each advancement in all this musical hard- and software has enabled Stone to dig deeper into his proclivity for iteration and sonic disorientation.

Track eight, the 2007 piece "L'os a Moelle," is a good example of this. Developed during a residency at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales studios in Paris, Stone devised a way of injecting new musical material into the shell of another piece of music. In the case of "L'os a Moelle,"  this involves using a brazenly strutting sixties rock riff as the shell and injecting a cavalcade of disparate and confusing samples, all following the tonal and rhythmic form of the original riff, which by the end of the piece has become completely subsumed by the injection of sampled material. If this description sounds confusing, then wait until you hear the track.

Three pieces from 2022 close out this compilation and in a way encapsulate all the ideas and techniques from the preceding tracks. For long-standing fans or listeners just discovering Stone's work, "Electronic Music from 1972-2022"  will provide a fascinating look back over this composer's output from the last 50 years, straddling that fine line between rigorous experimentation and hilarious irreverence.

Jason Kahn

[burlveneer-music]

Carl Stone - Wat Dong Moon Lek - an album from earlier this year that I forgot to post (Unseen Worlds)

Carl Stone continues his late career prolific renaissance with a new album of sculpted, tuneful MAX/MSP fantasias. Stone “plays” his source material the way Terry Riley’s In C “plays” an ensemble – with a loose, freewheeling charm connected to the ancient human impulse to make sound, melody, and rhythm from anything. Stone’s unique technique simultaneously focuses and sprays sound like a symphony of uncapped fire hydrants. Is this techno, avant-garde, sound art? It’s simply (or rather fantastically messily) Carl Stone. All music composed and performed using the programming language MAX

[gacougnol]

(via ▶︎ We Jazz Reworks Vol. 2 | Carl Stone | We Jazz Records)

[jgthirlwell]

playlist 06.30.22

Shamblemaths Shamblemaths 2 (Apollon Prog) Either Orchestra More Beautiful Than Death (Accurate) Matmos Regards/Ukłony dla Bogusław Schaeffer (Thrill Jockey) Puce Mary Stuck (Hypersomnia) Master Boot Record Personal Computer (Metal Blade) Bob Vylan Bob Vylan Presents The Price Of Life (Ghost Theater) Carl Stone Wat Dong Moon Lek (Unseen Worlds) David Toop Pink Sprit, Noir World (Foam On A Wave) William Basinski and Janek Shaeffer …on reflection (Temporary Residence) Ensemble Dal Niente object / animal (Sideband) John Luther Adams Houses Of The Wind (Cold Blue) John McGuire Pulse Music (Unseen Worlds) Carrie Brownstein Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl (Penguin) Machine Girl Gemini (Orange Milk)

[radiophd]

carl stone -- axis

[aktionpak]

Carl Stone - Ngoc Suong

I just spent the last two hours having anxiety compounded by more anxiety. It gets very ugly. Financial insecurity, incredulousness at all the hate, 'oh shit i'm going to die', etc. This happened to be playing near the end of what was quite the trip. Somehow it brought everything down to a breathable level.

[pettybourgeoiz]

✰Bourgeoiz Music Discovery✰

[horsesource]

[task800]

connor using his big damn intelligence to gaslight himself into thinking everything's copacetic versus markus deciding he's DONE with this shit and deviating so hard he not just smacked leo's taint clean off, but proceeded to lead a revolution complete with a tv broadcast takeover. caregiver android. man said ENOUGH and called the fucking president

[pedroam-bang]

Total Recall (1990)

[dustedmagazine]

Carl Stone — Gall Tones (Unseen Worlds)

Gall Tones by Carl Stone

Landing in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Hospital hospital for one week in 2021 with complications from a gall stone attack, composer, bon vivant and all-round sampling wizard Carl Stone spent his time in bed productively, seeking respite from the boredom (and, one assumes, the discomfort) of his recuperation. Of the five relatively brief tracks on Gall Tones — and the title practically demands from the listener, How dare you Carl? What gall! — four were composed in bed on a laptop he had a friend smuggle into his hospital room.

Aside from the out-of-the-ordinary circumstances surrounding this release, the music itself defies expectations, with the idea of a gall stone hospital stay perhaps suggesting music of a more tortured, moribund nature. Instead, Stone brings us five tracks that would  burn a hole through any dance floor. The sheer volcanic exuberance of these pieces couldn't be further removed from the notion of hospital confinement.

Stone's modus operandi revolves around a rather intricate process of splicing and cutting and generally just sending his sonic material through a succession of chaotic blending procedures that might leave one more than just a bit disoriented after listening. Not far removed from the work of DJ Screw, though perhaps mirroring a different motivator of choice than codeine (in Stone's case, one assumes ample supplies of coffee), the music often reaches a fever pitch intensity of psychedelic proportions. Growing up in Los Angeles during the 1960's, one might wonder if Stone has transposed the synesthetic spirit of that age to the conflagration of data we live in today.

The music's common denominator lies in Stone's audacious sense of humor and fearlessness in the face of kitsch and refuse pop culture, which he gleefully harvests to give each track a readily definable atmosphere. The opening piece, Sumiya, would not sound out of place at a Goa rave, though the rhythms keep shifting ever-so-slightly out of sync and would easily send this dance party into a precipitous meltdown. Mouram follows and throws us into a kind of remix of Okinawan folk music, powered along by what sounds like some gnarly square wave clarinets or the cheesiest distorted midi guitar riff one could imagine. Tokiwarai conjures up images of The Sir Douglas Quintet caught between dimensions at some party where their drinks have been spiked with LSD and methamphetamine. Fanfare trumpets, decimated vocals and a down-tempo beat define Vatanim — court music for the king of a shopping mall somewhere out on the nether reaches of Tokyo's suburban sprawl. And finally, Tou Tou closes out the set with a deeply reconceived look at what could be construed as Norteño but which, naturally, in Carl Stone's hands devolves into this hyperventilating cascade of guitar, Farfisa organ, sloppy drumming and a final chorus which might be mistaken as a nod to La Bamba, but perhaps it's best not to go down that road. This is the kind of music we might expect to hear as soundtrack to a Philip K. Dick novel, utterly defying space, time or any dog-eared notions of propriety. And it will definitely put a smile on your face and make you grateful for Carl Stone's gall stones.

Jason Kahn

[burlveneer-music]

Carl Stone - We Jazz Reworks Vol. 2 - 6 pieces crafted from the music of 10 albums from the We Jazz catalog

We Jazz Reworks is an idea that repurposes some of the label’s output 10 albums at a time. That is, we invite producers whose music we love on board, and one by one, they tackle 10 albums worth of source material, of which they are free to use as much or as little as they choose. The series evolves chronologically, so this volume being number two, the source material is pulled from We Jazz LPs numbers 11 through 20. The artist has complete freedom. Volume 2 in the series happens with Carl Stone, a legendary figure in creative music. His career spans decades of unlimited musical innovation. Stone’s recent output on Unseen Worlds, the label who has also been instrumental in issuing some of his remarkable earlier work, ranks among the most original art of our time and renders notions such as ”genre” virtually meaningless. Here, We Jazz originals by Terkel Nørgaard, OK:KO, Jonah Parzen-Johnson and more are met here with a fresh sense of discovery, spun around and delivered ready for the turntable once again. Carl Stone says: ”It was wonderful that We Jazz gave me carte blanche to work with any materials from the set of ten releases in its catalog. This freedom to work with everything could have been a mixed blessing though, as it could be a challenge to try to deal with so much musical information. In the end I did what I almost always do: Let my intuition be my guide and to seize upon any musical items that seemed to fit into an overall approach.” ”To make a new piece I usually start with an extended period of what really is just playing, the way a child plays with toys. Experimentation without necessary expectation, leading to (hopefully) discovery of things of musical interest, then figuring out a way to craft and shape these into a structured piece of music. Each track uses a different approach, which I found along the way during this play period.” This conceptual approach becomes complete with the design, in which album graphics are treated in a similar fashion, reworking what’s there. This time around, the artwork is reinvented by Tuomo Parikka, a great friend of the We Jazz collective and a regular cover collage contributor for the We Jazz Magazine.

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

Stone Age Mound – Carl Gustav Carus // The Horror and the Wild – The Amazing Devil