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6 min read 🤓

Awesome Foursomes (iv - No. 793)

august 20, 2021


« Because the sounds evoke words, and the words do the sounds, round and round and round and rounds... »

No. 793

1. No News, Strange Rumours [The Young Lions​]


This short instrumental gem gave nothing but its name to the collection of the Young Lions' only ever studio recordings, six tracks in total, laid down one—let's say it was a bright—day in April 1980 in the Ballad Studio in Vuren, a village in the Dutch province of Gelderland. They were subsequently released as a 12-inch vinyl EP on Wally van Middendorp's groundbreaking Plurex label: 'No News, Strange Rumours' (Plurex 0013).
As is written in the psalms, to the chief Musician: « The Young Lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. » There're a lot of Young Lions in the Book, so this may not have been exactly the bible quote that inspired the title of Irwin Shaw's novel (which in turn gave rise to the movie starring Marlon Brando et al. wherefrom the band got its name), but it does capture pretty accurately how we felt; at least for a while we did.
In the second part of Joseph Conrad's novella 'Heart of Darkness' you may read: « The two below me moved away then a few paces, and strolled back and forth at some little distance. I heard: ‘Military post—doctor—two hundred miles—quite alone now—unavoidable delays—nine months—no news—strange rumours’ » ...
As a textual sample this never made it to the status of song lyrics, but its message remained. As the title of our Plurex release, and as a text-score and title for the music in this recording, consisting in a number of interweaving, continuously repeating, minimal phrases, played by Rob Scholte on his electric bongo's, Ronald Heiloo on electric piano; electric guitars, distortions... maybe it was a direct-onto-cassette recording, or recorded 'sound-on-sound' on FPCM's Akai reel-to-reel recorder in very early 1979 (when the Lions still were called The Case, and did not yet include Har$ as a fifth player)... maybe yes, maybe no, it's difficult to tell for sure now, shrouded as all got in the mists of time past.
This No News, Strange Rumours is a re-mastered version of the track that originally was part of a cassette compilation of recordings made at various occasions in the years 1979-1980, released in 1982 on the Amphibious Records label, that I started together with ex-Lions Tim Benjamin and Ronald Heiloo.

young lions

2. Tafel 15 [ookoi]


During our May 2004 residency on the Dutch isle of Ameland, as part of Timo Mank's Archipel Medialab's 'Treasure Island', the ookoi were joined by PARK4DTV artists Martin Takken and Dick Tuinder. Dick and Martin concentrated on the creation of a series of short video works. But they also actively contributed to some of the many audio recording sessions we did, the results of which provided the material for our Tafelmuziek / Muziektafel (2004) CD.
'Tafel 15' is the seventh track on the album. You will hear straight electric guitar sounds only, just vibrating lines made of metal, with no effects, in a hooky and choppy miniature that stays almost painfully bare. Which accounts for its intriguing sort of naïve neo- or maybe even meta-primitivist feel. It lasts no more than a bit over 50 seconds, and prominently features the only (no exaggeration) handful of notes that Dick Tuinder played on FPCM's guitar during that spring week in 2004 on Ameland.
Dick also cut the lino inside the booklet that accompanies the CD release of Tafelmuziek / Muziektafel (2004).

lino Dick

3. Sally A GoGo [ookoi, feat. Heesbeen​​]


Little Sally Dewinter is the protagonist in Dick Tuinder’s feature film Winterland, that premiered in 2009 at the Dutch Film Festival in Utrecht. The ookoi were commissioned to contribute to that movie’s soundtrack, and as part of the process they decided to create a ‘global score’, which consisted in the rendering of a selection of their ‘Winterland - Project Icarus’ recording sessions (‘Project Icarus’ is the title of the movie within the movie that the ookoi wrote their 'second order sound track' for) as a genuine folded cardboard organ book, that could be played back and manipulated turning the wheel or handle of a street organ. It is how Sally helped them make an old dream come true: be organ grinders!
They could be heard and seen cranking the small Heesbeen street organ that they borrowed from the Museum Speelklok, manipulating their 'Project Icarus' organ book—slowing it down and speeding it up, without raising or lowering the tone, demonstrating that in all its simplicity a street organ is a genuine analogue timestretch machine, also capable of reversing the playback in a jiffy, literally in a handomdraai, without a glitch—during their elaborate 8 hour long live multimedia performance and showcase at the Amsterdam Conservatory on Saturday January 31, 2009, as part of composer and sound researcher Paul Oomen’s E@rport event, where this ‘Sally A GoGo’ was recorded, live.

earport

4. Merging Middleweight [fpcm​​]


This track is the original soundtrack of the brilliantly visionary videoclip made by fpcm in 2015, created from rushes shot in Amsterdam's venerable artists club Arti et Amicitiae on the Rokin. When you watch the clip, note the January 14th 2015 issue (N° 1178) of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo sticking out of fpcm's bag. That's the magazine's issue released a mere week after the infamous murderous attack that hit Charlie Hebdo's Paris editorial offices on January 7th that year. The camera swirls around the ookoi that started—thinking and talking about—writing b.ookoi as long as—now— six years ago, when Korg Gadget was an inspiring music tool on the iPad, not in the least due to its random title generator: fpcm stretched 'Merging Lightweight' to 'Middleweight'.
The song sounds as a wobblingly energetic up-tempo avant-garde synth-tune played backwards. In reverse. That of course is a more than appropriate sonic metaphor for the ookoi's b.ookoi writing, seen as an object, as an architecture emerging from the concatenation of its parts, for all history is a possible future told backwards (you will experience the actual physical b.ookoi, however, as something time-based, as music, taste-able fully only in the moment, rather than view-able from afar).
The in real-time changing of the parameters of the gadget's several knobs during live playback was the tipping point for this short piece. Though in no way related to a recording of one of the ookoi's many live sessions, 'Merging Middleweight' feels as if it were derived straight from one of these. Like singalong sound sculpting. Like Hefferman and Peterman instant composing. In Second Life. Or maybe Third L, Fourth L, or who knows Whichst L.

b.ookoi.nl from park 4dtv.


To receive updates on the ookoi's b.ookoi's progress and all related events and activities, follow Stduio on Bandcamp!

Bandcamp is our preferred platform, but you can also listen to Stduio ookoi's No. 793 on streaming music platforms, like YouTube Music or Spotify ... :


stduioo

The b.ookoi are coming!

Bookoi

wordt vervolgd



Read about the ookoi elsewhere:
ANNUAL, 1, december 2023 (Korm Plastics) - Green-tainted hyperbole, quailish quirks and summer-flies. The inscrutable genius of the ookoi.
eContact! 21.2, july 2023 - Towards an Unhearable Music. Conceptualism in the ookoi's art.
Gonzo #88, september/october 2008 - Zelfcomponerende Klankstukken

Read about the ookoi and Raudio and Stduio on the SoundBlog:
(2023, december 31) - d.ookoi writes b.ookoi (ii) - A Year in the Rear (2023)
(2023, december 16+) - Awesome Foursomes (xi) - No. 178
(2023, december 16+) - Awesome Foursomes (x) - No. 789
(2023, december 16+) - Awesome Foursomes (ix) - No. 329
(2023, august 20) - Three days of residency at Les Ateliers Claus, Brussels
(2022, april 25) - Awesome Foursomes (viii) - No. 664
(2022, march 31) - Awesome Foursomes (vii) - No. 138
(2022, february 20) - Awesome Foursomes (vi) - No. 419
(2021, november 01) - Awesome Foursomes (v) - No. 954
(2021, august 20) - Awesome Foursomes (iv) - No. 793
(2021, july 18) - Awesome Foursomes (iii) - No. 562
(2021, july 09) - Awesome Foursomes (ii)- No. 284
(2021, june 21) - Awesome Foursomes (i) - No. 019
(2021, may 31) - d.ookoi writes b.ookoi (i)
(2020, january 26) - STDUIO Arti: aLife @Hal-fIve
(2020, january 25) - STDUIO Arti: The Lâ’¶st Weekend
(2019, march 03) - ookoi 2.0: the remake of a spect[r]al b[r]and
(2017, april 12) - 1024
(2015, march 07) - The men once in green are now writing a book!
(2014, may 09) - You are NOT Hier!
(2013, july 03) - How to keep devils away
(2013, may 06) - Next Numbr!
(2012, june 24) - Ninja Fruit Plus Instruments
(2012, may 06) - Y.3 = Yltra !
(2012, may 06) - Our final gig / Ons laatste optreden
(2010, may 23) - 'Raise the trumpet, sound the drum'
(2010, april 02) - [Second Life and WudyWudy]
(2010, january 05) - ookoi: onderood
(2009, november 17) - Soli Deo Gloria !
(2009, october 10) - Project Icarus OST
(2009, august 24) - ookoi ShakeNRoll
(2009, july 18) - Pure . Reactive . Music . Hack Day
(2009, april 07) - "Blood and Bottom" (Raudi0GaGa)
(2009, february 21) - Insular arithmetic (ookoi toont)
(2009, january 31) - A glimpse of Heesbeen
(2009, january 15) - Rien à voir
(2008, october 02) - The right to be slow
(2008, june 06) - Raudio Graffiti: almost live !
(2008, february 24) - The Great Washing
(2007, december 04) - I'm an island
(2007, november 20) - Live Beyond the Paradiso, Amsterdam
(2007, september 04) - leve ookoi! (3)
(2007, august 22) - leve ookoi! (2)
(2007, august 12) - leve ookoi! (1)
(2007, april 12) - Back to Berlin [Raudio 11/15]
(2007, march 24) - Vicky, Killers and Avatars
(2007, february 15) - Every presentation is a premiere
(2007, january 25) - 1024 Waarden, by ookoi
(2007, january 19) - Preparations for a Second Life
(2006, november 05) - Cellarlar Heroes
(2006, october 20) - Funky shit
(2006, august 14) - placard : la générale
(2006, july 07) - de-'tails of lite house keeping'
(2006, may 06) - jam karet?
(2006, april 04) - 100+ new (r)audio philes ... [3] [Raudio 07]
(2006, march 20) - raudio @cosman's
(2006, march 12) - 100+ new (r)audio philes ... [2] [Raudio 07]
(2006, march 03) - 100+ new (r)audio philes ... [1] [Raudio 07]
(2005, october 12) - Raudio #06 [Raudio 06]
(2005, september 25) - 0 OK, 0:1, life on ze road
(2005, july 31) - Outside - Inside Paradiso
(2005, june 18) - Sand-Y da-Y #5-7 [Raudio 05]
(2005, june 05) - Sand-Y :: da-Y #04 - da birds
(2005, may 26-24) - Sand-Y :: da-Y #03, #02, #01 - Crew cut ; "The truth is out here" ; ::
(2005, may 14) - 9 Beet Stretch [Raudio Special]
(2005, march 31) - Raudio #04 :: "GespRek 1982-2005" [Raudio 04]
(2005, february 10) - raudio #3 (drie/three) [Raudio 03]
(2004, december 08) - pure sound [Raudio 02]
(2004, november 24) - other, and good news! [Raudio 01]
(2004, october 10) - raudio launched
(2004, september 24) - made in ameland
(2004, june 09) - boyzz buzz # listen!global corpus
(2004, may 20-31) - >∞-îl_o_tré

Read some of the ookoi's papers in pdf:
(2014) - Localized Sounds, Sounding Locations.
Presented at the International Symposium "Locative Media and Sound Art", Kortrijk (be)
(2007) - ookoi - Uptime Publishing Demonstration. (With Jay Needham.)

ookoi - The works:
(2015—now) :: writing b.ookoi: pick a number!
(2017) Weekly, 10'24" :: ookoi dooki podcast
(2014) HIER - iPhone app, 4 track album of localized Future Popp
(2013) Y ¬ Y.1024 (HTML5 web app)
(2013) Wandelzand - iPhone app, soundwalk for the Dutch isle of Ameland
(2012) Palm Top Theatre V2
(2010) WudyWudy, machina movie, filmed in Second Life by Evo Szuyuan (trailer)
(2009) ookoi_@_E@rport, Amsterdam - channel 19 of the RAUDIO IIIII streaming audio art iThing app
(2009) ShakeNRoll, Project Icarus OST - scenes for the RJDJ reactive music iPhone platform
(2009) iRingg®, iPhone ringtones
(2009) 2525 (video)
(2008) L'Ecoute - public space screen video
(2008) Jam Karet I & Jam Karet IV - pocket movies
(2007) Live beyond the Paradiso (USB-stick data-dump)
(2007) Leve ookoi! - channel 16 of the RAUDIO IIIII streaming audio art iThing app
(2007) 1024 (DVD)
(2007) 1024 Waarden - flash animation
(2006) "Roam Stroam" - channel 12 of the RAUDIO IIIII streaming audio art iThing app
(2006) Tijdrekken - flash animation
(2005) Sand-Y (Zandoog) - channel 7 of the RAUDIO IIIII streaming audio art iThing app
(2004) Muziektafel-Tafelmuziek (CD)
...
(1980) Signs and Symptoms


tags: ookoi, b.ookoi

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