language removal

jun 24, 2003.

Les Années Pop, which earlier this year appeared on the first in Cory Thrall's series of "While the world waited" CD compilations, will also be part of Me'd1.ate's Project > Soundwave.

The track appears on the promotional CD Start > Transmission, a copy of which will be send to all that decide to support the development and production of Project > Soundwave financially. At least that's what I gathered from the corresponding webpage.

I would have liked to hear of such actions before- rather than afterhand, actually.

Les Années Pop is a short montage, based upon the announcement of the murder of John Kennedy ('années pop' !) by the radio announcer Matthey Doret, 11.23.1963, on Swiss national radio. What fascinated me in Doret's announcement was the tension caused by the efforts necessary to control his emotions, emotions that were clearly audible in between the words. Therefore I removed from this announcement all the words, and kept only the vocal noises, lips smacking, breathings, in between, as basic material to work with.
'Removing the language' is a 'technique' one could apply to virtually any spoken or sung piece.
There's more to Les Années Pop than the mere 'removal of language' from a radio announcement, though.

Through a review in the, by the way, highly recommended webzine Dusted Magazine I chanced upon the Language Removal Services, where you can hear (real audio) the voices-with-language-removed of legends the like of Marilyn Monroe, Sylvester Stallone, Marlene Deitrich [... Deitrich ...?...], Dion MacGregor [ ... Dion Mac--WHO ...?...], Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Jeff Koons, Susan Sontag, Steve Howe ...

Amazing.
Somewhat unfortunate that the Language Removal Services got stuck in the gimmicky aspects of their enterprise.

Which is what you're bound to get whenever you turn technique into an end rather than letting it be your means.

[ :: Start>Transmission :: ]

dam

june 22, 2003.

Because of urgent & persisting requests (... well ... ;-) ...), the first seventeen Sound Chronicles, with an overall playing time of about an hour, are now to be had, nicely packaged, shrinkwrapped and in transparent-all-over jewel case, on a 'manufacture-on-order' (DAM - 'Digital Automatic < ... ?-{ ... > Music') CDR, containing the - original ! - mp3 encoded files [in fact all of the Sound Chronicles are, when bounced-to-disk (mastered) in ProTools, directly converted to mp3-format ... an intermediate - 'normal' quality - master doesn't exist ... except for the Pro Tools sessions -- one might consider these as such ... ] as well as a 'normal' audio-CD part, which is [supposed to be] playable in most audio-CD playback equipment.

It is an interesting object, actually. Even more so when you consider how bleak mp3.com's prospects are, how small their chances to survive ... So for little money, besides a wonderful and balanced set of collaged sonic snapshots (I am very pleased with the series, actually ...) you're getting yourself a memento of an ear aera ...

Thanks for your support.