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5 min read 🤓

Awesome Foursomes (v - No. 954)

november 01, 2021

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

No. 954

1. Inside Outside [ookoi​]

This is the opening track of Live Beyond the Paradiso, Amsterdam (LBTP), the ookoi's second official release, originally and exclusively distributed late 2007 as a digital-data-dump-(DDD)-album during a 'Video Vortex Exhibition' at the now defunct Netherlands Media Art Institute on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam.
All tracks on LBTP were composed from recordings made during the first of two unique and —not only in our eyes and ears—mythical(!) events that the space-time warping twins in their pre-green days initiated in and around the Paradiso: headphones only concerts streamed live on the internet as part of international headphone festival Le Placard. This first of two Paradisookoiplacards with sets, besides two from the ookoi, by Adrian Vacca & Hannes Hoezl and fuck'n'roll (Constant Dullaart and friend) took place on the evening of Thursday July 28th, 2005, from 20h to 23h, in- as well as out-side the infamous Dutch pop & rock cathedral that has the back of its main stage leaning against the Singelgracht, the waterway bordering the entire Amsterdam Center and that, between the last quarter of the 17th and the 19th century was the city's boundary, with ramparts that formed the defences.
Inside Outside's chorus is also included (as 'ookoiRing_30') in a set of unique ringtones that in 2009 the ookoi released as: iRingg®, a collection of 75 loop-able sound-bites that vary in duration between 3 and 7 secs. At the time of release, ookoi's iRingg® was the first (and, arguably, only ever 🤔) non-iTunes Store iPhone app: pure DIY and not your run-of-the mill jailbreak/hack. Each user installs the apps tunes herself, and then activates and distributes them among her customers by hand.
But then here's your bonus: 'non-iTunes Store' and 'DIY' also means 'non-Apple' and subject to no business plans and related updating schemes 😎 !: ookoi's iRingg® ( _ app/v1.0 ) continues to be available for your personalised ring-pleasures!

2. Tafel 37 [ookoi]

Also 'Tafel 37' is part of Live Beyond the Paradiso, Amsterdam, the ookoi's second official release. Apart from its opening track, LBPT is a very guitaristic album, which has the ookoi treating their electric guitars in an extensive and highly colourful number of ways. In this short track the core melodic wave emerged from having a cheap electric toothbrush care- and mindfully stroking one of the duo's guitars' strings.

3. 2017 In One Minute (365bpm) [Har$]

This is a swooping & punching one-minute abstract of 2M0M1XVII, Har$' 10-seconds-a-day sound diary for the prime year 2017. It was the second in the series of such audio diaries that he vowed to produce in every single of the prime years following 2004. (The ones in which he's still alive, that is. Next ones up are the prime twin pair years 2027 and 2029)
'2017 In One Minute' is a chronological collage of 365 snippets of the prime year 2017's daily sound recordings. Each of the snippets lasts a little under 164 msec. Hence this hearer's digest has the full year Two-O-One-Seven pulsing across a minute's duration in exactly 365 equal beats.

4. Wandelzang [ookoi​​]

"De paden op de lanen in! Of zoeken we lanen op en slaan we paden in? Tjee... maar dan liefst toch enkel die welke niet al platgetreden zijn!"

In 2013 the ookoi released their 'Wandelzand' iPhone application, a GPS-empowered dada-poetic soundwalk for the wadden island Ameland. 'Wandelzand' was a logical 'next' in their series of new media art works, partly created in residency on the island, kicking of as early as 2003 with an interactive virtual island of sound ('Geluideiland') that back then was painstakingly animated and crafted in Macromedia's Flash. 'Wandelzand' placed itself within the around 2013 already well-established tradition of 'sound/art walks', which in those days had grown some aura of trendy 'hip-ness'. But as a reviewer of Gonzo (Circus) magazine observed: "the ookoi do not seem to care much about the ambient sounds. They compose music and inject the result in the listener's soundscape. 'Wandelzand' is a sing-along soundwalk, during which the walkers (the 'klankstappers') do not only walk and listen, but are also encouraged to open their mouths, take a deep breath, make their vocal cords tremble and... sing! A recreational environment like Ameland's beaches lends itself perfectly for this. There are but few other places where a 'klankstapper' may roam and sing with all her heart, undisturbed and undisturbing. It is thus that the ookoi during this soundwalk blur traditional boundaries of interaction with the environment."
The soundwalkers' vocal guide during the 'Wandelzand' tour was the islander's voice of Zander, a veteran Ameland beachcomber: Dirk Visser. Though for starters Zander came across as as pleasant and as trustworthy as your average professional tourist guide, after a while you'd find that despite the GPS tracking you were pretty likely to loose your way following Zander's words, many borrowed from TYP TOP! 'superpoems', spiced with profanities, swearing and cursing.
The track 'Wandelzang' was a reward for those klankstappers who nevertheless managed to finish this adventurous locative and literary soundwalk. When you finally reached the lighthouse, there was little doubt that there you'd sing along to anything.
Driven by a slow steady pulsing guitar, bass & drum swing, backed by a choir of bleating Ameland sheep and a full horn section joyfully blowing—but then little by little also loosing and distorting the song's melodic & harmonic contours—'Wandelzang' seems overflowing with positivity and an affirming feel ('ein bejahend Lebensgefühl', your German friend would say). But is it really that tune expressing happiness and a yearning for life that you're hearing? Something's nagging. Something devious, illusive, ungraspable... 'Wandelzang' is as atypical an ookoi song as any other. Typically ookoi. Typically atypical.

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. 954 on streaming music platforms, like YouTube Music or Spotify ... :

The b.ookoi are coming!

—wordt vervolgd—

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tags: ookoi, b.ookoi

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