HarS@etay [intro]

february 10, 2005.

From next monday, february 14th, until february 21st, I am taking up residency in David Johnston's 'Etay' loft, in Montréal, Canada. The loft is equipped with digital video-cameras, which makes it possible to capture video 24/7. There are four cameras in the main room, and one in the bathroom, with automated saving based on motion dectection, to .mov format, and possible realtime effects interaction through a Flash GUI, and a gamepad.
During an earlier residency (jan. 14th-19th 2005), Jake Elliot additionally 'audio-wired' the loft, by building some modules of self-contained contact-mic/amplifiers, picking up the 'loft's soundings'. Jake also added some patches for automated treatment of these signals.
Upon my arrrival, monday in the afternoon, I'll see how much of this, and how all of this functions in practice ... I have just been spending some money at the Amsterdam Waterlooplein, got me some warm clothes, jacket and a hat. So, you see ... I'm ready :-) ...

I have invited several Montreal based musicians and (sound)artists to come over to the apartment, at 2019 Moreau, to visit me, talk about anything in general, but - of course - about their work in particular, and (eventually) together do a short recording session. Also (part of) these meetings will be captured, both in sound and in vision. Thanks to all that reacted so very positively to my invitation to come over and meet me in the loft. It'll be a more than busy week! Special thanks to Tobias van Veen, man of a thousand - nay! a million! - and one connections, for many a valuable suggestion on who to get in touch with, and for inviting me to contribute to this month's Upgrade event ...

I will report on all happening during that week in regular - hopefully daily - SoundBlog entries, and additionnally document each day of my stay in a short (10-15 minutes) audio reportage/montage/collage, which, at regular intervals, will become available as a Raudio Podcast. You can subscribe to the RaudioPodcastRSS, or, if you are not (yet) using or (still) unfamiliar with 'podcast'-software, keep an eye on the SoundBlog and simply get the downloadable mp3-files ...

At the end of the week, on saturday and sunday evening, I will host two 'low-volume' and informal, but public, "loft concerts", with contributions and interventions by some of the artists I met there. You will be able to (with the usual proviso's and some maybe's) meet and hear: i8u, Esther Bourdages, Thomas Phillips, Tobias van Veen, David Turgeon, Mitchell Akiyama, Michal Seta, Constantine, Anna Friz, Aimé Dotigny, jen morris aka [ sic ], possibly others, possibly more ... A definitive programme will be put together in the course of the week. Stay tuned ... :-)

[ next related SB-entry: HarS@etay [mandag] ]

tags: etay, montreal

# .140.

raudio #3 (drie/three)

february 10, 2005.

The new, third edition of Raudio's one-audio-thing mainstream has - it wasn't planned that way, but somehow that is how it turned out to be - a wintery feel to it. Cool-ish, maybe? Or is it just me? ... Interspersed with fragments from the tape spotted by Alec this january 15th in Vincennes, on which I found a recorded rehearsal of a, surely local, French R&B band, and nineteen of 0 ok,0:1's 8 second 'kloA's', from the second edition on retrouve Seth Gordon's two mysterious 'Grace, Often' recordings, a couple of tracks by Joel Assaizsky (including 'hymn', co-authored with Aryan Kaganoff) and a selection of 'recordings from the cul-de-sac', by Richardsfault.

Michael Peters sent me a DVD of a fun concert/performance of 'Tonlabor', that took place on december 11 last year, with Dr. K (Ortrud Kegel), Dr. E (Matthias Ebbinghaus) and Dr. P (Michael Peters) investigating and demonstrating their large collection of 'odd' instruments and sound-'toys' in the Boudoir, in Köln, Germany. This Raudio edition includes three short takes from Tonlabor's december live session. Among the odd instruments you can hear in action are the cracklebox (the 'kraakdoos', originally developed by Michael Waisvisz in the mid 1970's at STEIM in Amsterdam, who at the time built and sold about 4000 of them; the 'cracklebox' has been re-issued, and can be bought at or ordered online from STEIM's [added march 10, 05: alternatively, you might want to try to build a kraakdoos yourself ...]), a Hohner Guitaret and one of our world's alltime & 1960/70's electro-wonders: the Stylophone.

I bought one of those at a Berlin flea market in 1984 for a handful of D-mark. Definitely one of my best investments ever! ;-) ... But, no, of course I didn't get the box that it came in. And I didn't know of the flexi-disc that came along, to demonstrate the instrument's sheer infinite potential ... But Michael did! He ripped the recording to mp3, and mailed it to me. "The package used to contain a tune book to play along with, and a plastic record by (in the UK) Rolf Harris who explained the use of this instrument. In Germany, it was presented by Bill Ramsey, an American pop singer and entertainer who used to be very popular in Germany in the sixties. His German had an American accent. People loved that at the time ... [...] The wackiest part is at the end where he cites the numbers of the C major keys (1 - 10) that are played during a piece."

I couldn't resist the temptation ... this 'wackiest part', along with several of Bill Ramsey's instructions on how to get the most out of your Stylophone, will emerge while streaming "3 (Drie/Three)" ...

Other new contributions to this third Raudio edition:
- you'll hear three recordings from Arnold Dreyblatt's 'Propellers in Love', as performed by the Orchestra of Excited Strings in Berlin, 1986;
- Robert Patterson Collier is present with out takes from his on-going Thumb Piano Project;
- Work submitted by Joe Mason, from Chicago USA - which (date of postmark to date of delivery) took about two months to reach Paris - includes a series of recordings done with circuit bent toy keyboards, and the results of his intimate cooperation with "Mr. Seeburg", a 1968 Seeburg Select-a-Rhythm drum machine, that Joe hooked up to "pedals and cords," though he admits that it is Mr. Seeburg indeed who is "the real musical genius" behind these duo-tracks;
- Walter Cianciusi is a young italian artist/composer with a strong interest in the ideas and practice of Fluxus ... Included in "3 (Drie/Three)" are, among others, his very sparse 'Computer Music' tracks (a series of 'tape improvisations' with 'found' Windows-sounds, each lasting precisely three minutes) and the very, very dense 'Accumulatori I-IV';
- Anders Östberg, from Eskilstuna in Sweden, sent a CDr with four 'assorted tracks'. Sonically highly interesting these, as Anders writes, "unedited field recordings and unfinished compositions using field recordings";
- three brand new tracks by Roberto Pflech, about whom I do not have much more information to share with you at the moment;
- last but not least, you will encounter some fine & odd music created by Dan Stowell, the man behind flat four internet radio, creator of the electronic triangle, and much more ...

[ Earlier related SB-entry: pure sound ; next related SB-entry: Raudio #04 - GespRek 1982-2005 ]

tags: raudio

# .139.

found tapes for spies

february 07, 2005.

The mexican netlabel 'Música para Espías', sober and well presented, very much the way I like it, last week released (= put online) a 4-track net-EP with a selection of four of the 'Found Tape' montages: 'Found Tapes for Spies'. As part of the liner notes available with this release, you may now read all about hars in spanish ... :-)

The label, set up and run by fran ilich, specializes in 'audio narratives', and its collection of releases looks very attractive, very interesting indeed

As soon as I find some time to do so - and I will - I am going listen to, and maybe write you some more about, the (now, 'Found Tapes for Spies' included, 55) mp3's available for download at 'Música para Espías' ... [ Oh ... time ... how I wish I had more of thát ... Which reminds me: I'm still looking for an occasional/part time assistant in the Paris region ... Hey, girls! Don't be shy! I'm really a nice guy! There's no money in it, but it'll be fun :-) ... And coffee and lunch are free ... Might even buy you dinner every now and then ... So ... What do you say? ]

[ Earlier related SB-entry: "parfois l'amour tourne à l'obsession"; next related SB-entry: d_Revolution #1 ]

[ note august 23, 2006: The Música para Espías web label unfortunately no longer is accessible online... ]

tags: found tapes

# .138.