#unseen worlds

[garadinervi]

Elodie Lauten, (1983, 1984, 1985, 1991), Piano Works Revisited, UW05, Unseen Worlds, 2010

[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

[luuurien]

Silvia Tarozzi & Deborah Walker - Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d’amore

(Avant-Folk, Italian Folk Music, Psychedelic Folk)

Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker rework songs from their rural Emilia youth, giving new life to long-lived Italian stories of working class women, protest, political violence, and poor-paying hard work. These avant-garde takes on beloved Mondariso songs take you to the roots of Tarozzi and Walker's music, the deepest they've ever dug into Italian folk music and its deep emotive power.

☆☆☆☆

What's most beautiful about Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d'amore is that it places Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker deeper in their musical history than ever before, those little hints of traditional Italian folk and experimental classical getting pushed out into the sun and soaking in every minute of it. Previously working with one another performing strings on recordings from the likes of Eliane Radigue and Philip Corner, the two of them have proved in the past that they have some incredible chemistry together, Canti di guerra... taking those short collaborative bursts and extending them out across 53 minutes and 12 songs. It's by far one of the most boundary-pushing and emotionally resonant albums this year, these decades-old stories brought back to life through the magic of their strings and a handful of vocalists who join in to help ensure that the words aren't lost to time either. Possessing pieces both on the extreme and serene sides of the avant-garde, Canti di guerra...'s Italian roots don't mean that Tarozzi and Walker's usual string experimentation is lost in the mix. Opening track Country cloud has sharp violin lines from Tarozzi that spit and stutter like a sprinkler half-broken, her incredible bowing technique shooting out what seems like a thousand notes a second and making for an introduction to Canti di guerra... that's somehow able to be both enchanting and a bit frightening. Other times, they'll warp Walker's cello to sound like a siren blaring in a pitch-black grass field on the chilling Parziale ("Partial") or go for abstract soundscapes with Meccanica primitive ("Primitive mechanics"), where what sounds like soft scrapes against wood and clamoring percussive instruments spent four minutes getting you invested in something mystic and playful, the album's most experimental piece and simultaneously its most sprightly. The album's best moments, though, are those aforementioned Italian folk songs, often sung by choirs of female rice field workers called Mondisaros, which Tarozzi and Walker perform with such love and passion and tenderness that I can't imagine anyone in the avant-garde scene surpassing this year. La lega ("It binds it"), the album's one and only single, is the quickest and most potent way to get a taste of this sound, Tarozzi's velvety violin and Walker's heavenly viola droning below an innumerable number of voices singing with one another, never totally in sync and imbuing the song with such spirit and history that you're immediately sucked into Canti di guerra...'s world, organic and strange and electrifying. It's not just that Tarozzi and Walker have created music that is so personal and unique with its Italian roots, but how they stitch that into their own forward-thinking artistic process to nurture and cultivate a sound that's so impeccable that even its most unusual moments have you completely won over. These dreamy, formless ambient folk tunes occasionally teeter on circuitousness, running around the same droning chords or melodic motifs for minutes at a time, but Tarozzi and Walker keep Canti di guerra... from becoming sluggish by steeping the album's slower moments in rich textures and sensitive vocal performances that allow the more relaxed pace to feel soothing rather than disengaging. After the wild and dissonant take on Il bersagliere ha cento penne ("The bersagliere has a hundred feathers") in the album's midsection, the following rendition of it with Nigerian gospel singer Ola Obasi Nnanna feels even more cerebral and stunning, Nnanna's spiritual music background perfect for this war song of death and protection that's brought even further by Tarozzi and Walker's marvelous, pensive strings. They mix the more out there string manipulation with a plain, heartfelt violin performance from Tarozzi on early highlight Pietà l‘è morta, blurring the lines between Canti di guerra...'s two musical sides and embracing their ability to bring these songs of work and war into the modern day with a unique instrumental flair. It feels like the two of them have unlocked an old tower full of stories that they can finally tell, giving a voice to music few might know otherwise through the sorrowful drones of Sentite buona gente and La lega's solar flare of chants and strings that embeds a deep connection with these songs to anyone who hears them, the kind of eternal folk songs that could be performed in another lifetime and be just as touching as they are right now. It's definitely an unusual album, and one that takes many listens to fully attune to if you're unfamiliar with Tarozzi and Walker's work or Italian folk music in general, but even on the first listen Canti di guerra... has such a strong gravitational pull that you can't help but come back to it and catch every ray of light you can find. The album's thoughtfully nostalgic nature gives way for an experience close to their hearts without causing them to lose touch with what makes their music so special, combining experimental techniques with the power of these long lived, war-torn folk songs that give listeners a chance to learn just a little bit more about that unique time in Italian musical history, with Tarozzi and Walker as their guide. It's no surprise that the album's title is something as simple and relaxed as "Songs of war, work and love": stories that are so universal and deeply felt rendered so wonderfully here that you can feel just how much heart went into crafting each and every one of them.

[rhythmicreverie]

In the shadows of the neon moon, A hero made a choice, so soon, To sacrifice self for worlds unseen, In a tale of mystery, suspense and crime. Their secret, cloaked in darkness deep, Yet, justice, their compass to keep. In a world of riddles and deceit, A hero's heart beat, love and defeat.

[shepscapades]

What if. What if I said I was thinking about them again

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 214

“I did an oopsie.” 

Clockwork paused in his work, gaze turning from his work towards his ghostling (it didn’t matter if he was an adult, he’d always be his ghostling) who was smiling nervously, avoiding his eyes. 

“Oh?” He kept his tone light, even as he worked on untangling a time knot. Honestly at least Danny was immune to any effect of time, even if he couldn’t look into his timelines in exchange. It came with being the other half of Infinity. 

“Yeeah… you know that corner of the multiverse you told me not to go to because you’re working on some time problems? I might have stumbled into one of the worlds in the corner…” 

He stopped his machinations, fully turning towards Danny- Space, his Core whispered and quivered in utter delight at having an Equal in power- with a raised eyebrow, leaning on his staff and silently telling him to explain. 

Danny poked his fingers together, giving a nervous laugh. “So uh, I was just exploring right? Well me and Ellie, you know how she gets when she can’t wander, and um… I er, we might have messed with some things in the creation of it… I didn’t know it was part of that universe, I swear! It was so far at the fringes and halfway into the Zone and I couldn’t just let a universe die before it began and-”

Oh- Oh! His ghostling (and his grand-ghostlings it sounded like) had claimed his first universe! He could put off these time knots, this was a grand milestone for any Ancient, nevermind such a primordial force as one of theirs.

And this is how a DC world came into being with humans evolving with more avian traits. Like wings. And claws. Look, Dan thought it’d be funny if they gave baby humanity wings and Ellie started rambling about how much farther they could travel if they had them and Danny thought it could be cool. Oh well, time to keep an eye on their itty baby world now…

[wabblebees]

((please rb if you vote! obv this is just silly but im curious+wanna see ppls opinions<3))

[pratchettquotes]

There was a limit to how many candles he should make, Trev had told Nutt. It looked bad if he made too many, Trev explained. The pointy hats might decide that they didn't need all the people. That made sense to Nutt. What would No Face and Concrete and Weepy Mukko do? They would have nowhere else to go. They had to live in a simple world; they too easily got knocked down by life in this one.

Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

[tourettesdog]

DP AU where the ghosts all look pretty... normal. To humans.

Like humans can’t comprehend how ghosts actually look-- or maybe even what they’re doing necessarily.

Danny looks at Cujo and sees a green dog that can transform, but to a human he’s just a regular rottweiler with mood swings.

Any violence or property damage the ghosts get up to is filled in mentally by more “rational” causes. Same with general ghostly behaviors.

People going through objects? No, those objects broke, or the person stepped around it surely. Flying? They jumped high or the ground was higher than expected. Sudden disappearances? Man, that kid is good at slipping away.

Skulker’s just some gun-toting lunatic and people are constantly at ends trying to get the police to finally arrest him. No one knows why the town suddenly started attracting crazy, violent people (and animals), but they’re rolling with the punches and trying to make do.

Phantom is perceived as an actual alive child acting like a vigilante and there is so much overwhelming concern for his safety at all times. (Also confusion because he’s definitely keeping that gun-toting lunatic in line somehow???)

They’re not aware it’s Danny since he actually dresses up to disguise himself, including a domino mask and a hood.

The Fentons are convinced that their portal didn’t work as intended. They can detect the ectoplasm in the air, but they think that it’s just affected the town Mentally and that the strange happenings/people acting out are a result of ectoplasm poisoning people. They haven’t dared enter the Ghost Zone for fear of it affecting them. They’re too invested in their work to close the portal.

Sam and Tucker think Danny has lost his fucking mind and are desperately trying to get him to stop his vigilante habits before he gets himself killed. (Danny is aware they can’t see what is happening and has kept quiet about the finer details so they don’t think he’s hallucinating or something. As far as they’re concerned, the portal only shocked Danny and he was very confused for a week afterwards.)

Eventually, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz become ecto-contaminated enough from being around Danny that they start perceiving the ghosts. They each have a bit of an existential crisis as Danny starts explaining how nothing they’ve witnessed since the portal accident is as it seems.

[garadinervi]

Elodie Lauten, Sonate Modale, Live at Music Gallery, Toronto, 1985 (pt. 3) (pt. 1 here) (pt. 2 here) [re: Elodie Lauten, (1983, 1984, 1985, 1991), Piano Works Revisited, UW05, Unseen Worlds, 2010]

[floorpancakes]

ok but im rly into the idea of till having a new era that brings the light back to his eyes and drives him forward if he gets to escape the arena. idk where he'd go from there but i want to see ivans sacrifice both haunt him and drive him to actually live his damn life after being the captured bird refusing freedom cause of mizi. once he knows she's alive with the resistance he might be able to actually experience other things and widen his world and if that happens and he puts his personal sense of rebellion towards the human cause OR settles into finding some other way to feel fulfilment that isn't a single person that could be deeply fascinating to me i think

[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

[apolloskazoo]

ELLIE & JOEL HEADCANONS PART 2

Here’s the part 2 you people (me) have been asking for. Once again 1k words because I cannot control myself

• When Ellie is looking a little down or bored and Joel isn’t right beside her, he’ll make a silly little face at her from across the room to get her to laugh a little. She always makes one back to get him to laugh, too. They can make each other laugh from literally across the room with one single look. 

• Joel keeps everything Ellie makes. Drawings, school assignments, anything and everything he can get his hands on. He has stacks of papers and other things Ellie has made just lying in his drawer or pinned up on the fridge. Ellie always talks about how lame it is, and how they’re not even good, and blah blah blah, but Joel just snatches that paper right out of her hands and pins it up on the wall because he LOVES HIS DAUGHTER. 

• One time Ellie got a cut, and while Joel was patching it up he jokingly said, “want me to kiss it better?” Ellie doesn’t understand what that even means and Joel has to explain. Now whenever she gets a cut she forces him to kiss it better because 1) it’s funny 2) to make fun of him when he said it the first time and 3) maybe she wants a Joel kiss, is that so much to ask for?

• In Jackson, Ellie learns that hardwood floors and socks can create a Very Fun Activity (sliding around a room in bare socks) and Joel has a near death heart attack every time she does it because he’s convinced she’s going to slide into a wall one day (she does).

• Joel 100% snores SO LOUDLY like the dad he is and Ellie complains about it non-stop, but in reality she can’t fall asleep without the sound of his annoying dad snores, whether they’re right in her ears or coming distantly from down the hall. It helps her know that he’s alive and okay and that he’s with her, and also it’s become like white noise since it was all she could hear during the nights they were traveling (she would tease him endlessly about raiders finding them by the sound of his snoring alone. He did not find it as funny as she did). 

• Joel is known as the “pun guy” by the other adults at Jackson, and whenever there’s a new resident they all tell them that if they have any puns, give them to Joel. The entire reason the name started up was because whenever Ellie was having a bad day, telling her a pun she hadn’t heard before would cheer her up, but he didn’t know enough of them—so, obviously, he went around telling everyone that if they knew any puns, give them to him. He has people approaching him and telling him puns weekly, and he suffers through it just to see the look on Ellie’s face when she’s sad and he tells her them to get her to smile.  

• Ellie eats things off of the floor. Don’t get me wrong, she’s NOT running around grabbing week old pieces of food off of the dirty ground, but she thoroughly believes in the five second rule and not wasting food (because of FEDRA school and not eating on the road and such, but I won’t get into that). So if she drops some food on the ground, she’ll quickly snatch it up and keep eating it, because of old habits. The first time Joel sees her accidentally tip her plate onto the floor, snatch it up in record speed, and keep eating it? He’s horrified. Speechless. Beyond shocked. Ellie Williams? Who? You mean the kid who just ate the same food that landed on the floor five seconds ago like some sort of deranged animal? Yeah, he didn’t know her, she was just some random kid. What do you mean, you saw him walking in with her when they first arrived? He’s never spoken to her a day in his life before, because if he had, he certainly would’ve taught her not to eat off the damn ground. He 100% pulls her aside, dumps the food into the trash, and lectures her on not trying to beat the world record of “person who caught the most sicknesses in under a week.” Ellie doesn’t see the big deal (“at least I’m not wasting food, Joel. And it’s hardly even dirty anyway, it was on the ground for, like, a second”) but after he starts listing off all of the diseases she could get she agrees to stop, if only to get him to stop talking. 

• Joel teaches Ellie how to build and fix things, and essentially teaches her all of the stuff he learned as a contractor and mentors her. He loves teaching it to her because it’s his work and he loves to share it with her, and Ellie loves to learn it, too. When he’s working on houses or repairs in Jackson, she tags along and helps, and she likes feeling like her and Joel share a skill together, plus she thinks building is pretty rad. Also, if she and Joel share work, they get to see each other more often, which is a bonus. They’re building buds. They have matching construction hats. 

• They take walks together, especially during the time when the sun is setting and it’s a bit cooler on hot days. Sometimes they just walk and talk, and other times Ellie brings her sketchbook and Joel brings something to carve and they walk to a river or back to the porch or somewhere peaceful, and they just sit down and do their thing. Joel works on what he’s working on, Ellie draws what’s around her or what’s on her mind. They just exist peacefully beside each other, silently bonding and doing their separate tasks beside one another. 

• Ellie pets every animal she sees. A dog is passing by? Joel, stop walking, she needs to pet him NOW!!!!! Is there a cat in the window? She will spend thirty minutes trying to get the cat to trust her enough that it will let it pet her, and an hour later it’s in her lap purring and whatever she was trying to get to has already closed up, and Joel is running to find her in a panic. She 100% brings a rat home one day and asks Joel if they can keep it (she named it Chef Boyardee Ratvioli. She does not, unfortunately, get to keep it). 

• Alternatively, Joel is such a big lame dad that he has to interact with every baby he sees. A baby is crying? Here, let Joel hold it, he’ll calm it down. Is that baby staring at him as he walks by? He’s waving and when the baby waves back he cannot control his smile. Yes, of course he’ll watch someone’s infant son for a second while they go to the bathroom despite not knowing either of them. Yes, he cries when he holds Tommy’s baby for the first time and yes, Ellie does indeed make fun of him for it (she cried, too, though, don’t listen to her lies). 

• Ellie has a hard time sleeping at night while they’re traveling, so instead of just lying down and struggling to sleep, she talks to Joel every. Night. About everything. She reads him stupid puns. She tells him dinosaur and space facts. She tells him funny made-up stories. She chats about literally everything and anything, and Joel is baffled on how much she can still talk after a whole day of walking. He complains non-stop on how he wants to sleep and she needs to shut up, but eventually he gets used to it and he even, gasp, looks forward to hearing her non-stop nighttime chattering, which usually ends in Ellie talking herself to sleep halfway through a sentence. 

Part 3 only if y’all like these and I get inspired again

[foreverephemeral-art]

slugs! for the soul