[ rectificatif -- In the wake of the ongoing social actions, strikes and all other - so very justified - public unrest in Paris and elsewhere in France, april 4th's, 2006 Hors d'Oeuvres dinner/concert by Cosmodrone at Mains d'Oeuvres in Saint-Ouen has been canceled, and postponed till tuesday may 2nd ... ]

100+ new (r)audio philes ... [3]

april 04, 2006.

The latest - seventh - edition of Raudio, our no beginning, no end web stream, has been continuously evolving for about three months now, into a brand new 'one audio main thing' made up out of more than one hundred audio~files contributed by some twenty eight audio~philes of some ten different nationalities :: together - without repetitions - summing up to about four hours and a half of pure sound ...

[ This is the third - and last - in a series of soundblog entries providing some details for this edition's contributions ... ([prev.])

If your browser comes equipped with a recent Quicktime plugin you may just click this Raudio button. It will open a small pop-up which is nothing short of a 'dedicated Raudio player', that streams the current edition for you while you continue to read the rest of this entry ... ]

I already started putting together the playlist for the next - the eight - edition of Raudio, but there do remain a couple of contributions to the current - seventh - edition that I did not give you any details on, yet ... if I'm not mistaken, the couple actually is two ... both among the latest additions to the stream, and both from ... Germany ...

Regular viewers may have come across Michael Peters and his divers acitivities in several earlier SB entries, most notably in relation to the my2k project. He already contributed to several of the earlier raudio editions, for instance with a selection of tracks from his cut-up radio album. Michael contributed 6 new tracks to Raudio 7 ... "Totally wacky music/sounds, as one would expect," he specifies in an email accompanying his contribution ... you will hear 'radio related' work, like a slightly treated recording from "a Christian indoctrination program for children in New York, 1986 [...] pitched down 4 or 5 notes" and a new cut-up radio track, a 'computer music experiment' from 1995 using the Gumowski-Mira strange attractor, and a number of 'field recording based' tracks: 'the fun of it' ("I don't quite remember what we did that was so funny, but it had to do with fireworks"); in 'slidescan times 16' one hears "the sound of a Braun slide scanner, scanning a complete magazine of slides [...] sped up 16 times ..."; 'not an animal' is a background/foreground track, with "in the background a field recording of birds and hen", and "in the foreground: the slowed-down tweeting sound of a thermos bottle filled with hot tea, releasing tiny amounts of hot steam..."

Frankfurt based german composer Ralph Lichtensteiger sent me an voluminous and rich selection of tracks. All of his music is documented very meticulously on his web site, which is literally crammed with pictures, music and art related theoretical and philosophical texts and quotes. Especially recommended: a series of 'silence' related short texts, based upon an (I guess still valid) open call for contributions.

In Raudio #07 you hear two pieces from Ralph's Montages Pieces II (planned as part of the follow-up to his 2004 'Studies and Montage Pieces' CD), two 'Depolarisation' tracks (from his Instruments CD) and Saint Croix One (from 'Montmajour').

[ Next related SB-entry: jam karet? ; earlier related SB-entry: 100+ new (r)audio philes ... (2) ]

tags: raudio

# .193.

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brahem machines

march 28, 2006.

Had a pleasant surprise when entering the 'coeur de ville' building, opposite the town hall, in Vincennes yesterday afternoon. The walls of the long and high 'rue intérieure' had just been lined with a large collection of strange, but also classic and majestic, looking machines. Constructs with some of that typical 19th century 'weird science and mad inventors' feel ... sound machines ... mechanical sound machines ... 'Musical machines' (machines musicales), it reads on the sober green 'pamphlet' that accompanies the show.

There are about twenty of them, designed and created by Claudine Brahem. Some of them, the pamphlet explains, were commissioned for music theatre pieces. Like (see pictures) the curious rolling double bass kettle drum, that stems from a 1994 collaboration with choreographer François Verret and Fred Frith (Nous sommes des vaincus). Or the very simple but effective énumération 'toys', consisting in a spiral slide, a swing and a wheel, which are among the Brahem machines that figure in music theatre pieces by Georges Aperghis. Another one of these is the rather more 'complicated' tricyclist-orchestra ('Eclipse partielle').

Other machines were made for the exposition (they have been, as googling learnt me, exposed already at several other places during the last couple of years), and "mettent en oeuvre des mécanismes racontant une histoire sonore" ... I suppose that among these 'special constructs' are the five, what might be described as, 'mechanical generators of classical horror B-movie sounds' ... Maybe these are my favorites among the many nice constructions on view ... Besides my camera, I had a (monophonic) microcassette dictaphone in my pocket, and though there are some 'do not touch' signs, one is allowed to 'sound' many of the musical machines. So I did record some of it, and I used this recording to compile for you a short lo-fi Brahem machines monosonorama, which I join as a podcast to this entry. You may listen to short samples from four of Brahem's 'horror machines', in order: baptème par le feu et l'eau chaude, danse des fantômes, course du petit garçon poursuivi par un essaim d'abeilles and the machine à intempéries.

The last minute or so of the recording will give you a (but shallow!) impression of what happened when at some point a couple of kids, arriving in the hall after their music lessons (the Vincennes music school is in the same building), discovered the machines, and had a go at them in the cathedral-like reverberating space ... Ah, now that was having fun ... you should have seen and heard that for real ... The Brahem machines are solid, and very well constructed, but I doubt they (anything) can survive many such 'attacks', were they to continue ... :-) ...

[ The Brahem machines are on show only for a couple of days (march 28-30, and april 3-7) along the rue intérieure of the Coeur de Ville building in Vincennes (98, rue de Fontenay). They will be used in the Coeur de Ville auditorium on this saturday april 1st (16h), when Jean-Pierre Drouet will perform Georges Aperghis' Parcours. After april 7th, they move to the reception of the Vincennes conservatory, on the second floor of the Coeur de Ville building, where they can be visited until june 30th: on tuesdays between 18h30 and 20h, wednesdays between 11h45 and 12h30, 15h and 15h45, 18h and 20h, on thursdays between 18h30 and 20h; on saturdays one may opt for a tour with Claudine Brahem, on appointment (phone the conservatory at 01 43 98 68 68) ... ]

[ earlier related SB-entry: machines sonores ]

tags: sound machines, instruments, vincennes

# .191.

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