nontronic?

Hi, and happy spring (if you are on this side of the earth). I recently did a radio show at Brown, on The Fieldhouse, but it was a bit off the beaten path, at least until the last 20 minutes or so....but, I figured I'd at least share it here, as there is a wide variety of sounds that would appeal to the person bored of 4/4 time in techno music.

Schubert'ing it

Tonight I'll be filling in on the air for the Schubert Report, from 10-12. A tough set of shoes to fill, but I'll do my best. Expect lots of artsy-fartsy music, electro acoustic, modern classical, film music, ambient, and much more!

88.1 fm Providence
or streaming at www.bsrlive.com

Eleveneleven podcast

For some time I've been a fan of the eleveneleven podcast series, now part of Alias Frequencies. I'm super excited to report that I'm this month's guest programmer!

You can stream and download here. Right click to download of course.

Hope it's as fun to listen to as it was to create!

Summer Mix

I felt a little rusty working on this mix. First one on this blog in a year! Hopefully there's some stuff that interests you.

The mix I posted in Sept 09 qualified as a "fall" mix.... so it looks like we've just snuck in a summer mix.

John Lurie - The Invention of Animals

Ben Frost - Theory of Machines

Fred Frith - Nowhere to Run

Zeena Parkins - Inyoufrom

Mapstation - Ensemble of Four

Marc Ribot - New Sad

John Lurie - Men with Sticks (noble version)

Mapstation - After all this Freedom

Billy Martin - Stridulations - Monkey

Lucky Dragons - Don't Lie (bonus)

Strategy - Summer Tour Bird Windows

ROVA & The Nels Cline Singers - Cesar Chavez

Morton Feldman - Projection 5

Taylor Dupree - Rusted Oak

Lucky Dragons - Face Down (bonus)

Anticipate Mix 2

Here's a great mix (the 2nd one) of tracks from the Anticipate Recordings label.

SETI rockin sounds

Last night's radio show, an avantgarde tip o' the hat to the oscars, and all creative movie music makers!

Super Boots

Click on the pic for last night's super bowl radio show. Sorry for the lack of new blog content, but hopefully you'll hear some interesting combinations of music on the radio show.

Lucky Dragons

Lucky Dragons are a duo, originally from the great city of Providence. Their music is best described (by me at least) as a wide tapestry of digitally manipulated sound, with a heavy component of social and musical experimentation. There's hard science behind the processes involved in making the final sound, which you can learn about in the video (and other videos online, if you choose to search them out), but if you want this layman's simple synopsis, it's great music made by people conducting electricity through touching one another. Instruments, digital/audio converters, and skin are used to create otherworldly sonic textures. Their music is very appealing to me, not only because of the raw sounds created (which may be very beautiful), but because of the process used to make the music. It's been some time since I've seen the crossroad of man and computer represented as well as with Lucky Dragons.

the quelformat? Fall Mix Partie Deux

Art: John Lurie: The Skeleton in my Closet Has Moved out to the Garden
Click to play
right click the picture to download

Just realized the last mix of avantgard-y of songs I threw together (not under the guise of a "spring mix"), named the Quelformat? mix, happened in the fall. So, with the leaves already changing here in the northeast, I figured I'd make this mix a partie deux.

The beginning starts with a beautiful accordion solo rendition of a Phillip Glass piece, followed by a dive (through a bit more accordion) into some Alvin Curran (representing Providence!), followed by some percussion, improvised structures..oh just see below. And as always, an eternal indebtedness to John Lurie, not only for the use of his artwork, but also for all of the great music he created over the years.

• What Capitalism Was - Facades
• The Beat Circus - Hypnogogia
• The Beat Circus - The Good Witch
• Alvin Curran - Music is not Music
• Ben Frost - Leo Needs a New Pair of Shoes
• Billy Martin - Killing the Drought
• Ches Smith - The Contra Alto Clarinet in E Flat
• Fred Frith - Screen
• Fred Frith - Bricks for Six
• Vincent Courtois, Sylvie Courvoisier & Ellery Eskelin - Extended
• DJ Spooky - Claude DeBussy (excerpt from Rhythm Science)
• Morgan Packard - A Place Worth Keeping Part 2
• DJ Spooky - Disjecta (excerpt from Rhythm Science)
• Hal Willner - We Travel the Subways
• David Shea - Canto I-Xx
• Raz Mesinai - The Blind Owl
• The Susie Ibarra Trio - Trance No. 1
• Kim Gordon/DJ Olive/Ikue Mori (SYR 5) - Olive's Horn
• Marc Ribot - The End

Happy Birthday Brandy!

Click to Play, right click to download

Happy Birthday to the woman that I love, who ages like fine...Brandy. Here's a collection of mostly old schoolers for you, hope you like! All my love and birthday wishes to the best woman this side of the Milky Way. 

    * DJ Vadim - Getting Friendly
    * Breakestra -  Easy to be Hard
    * Bjork - Human Behavior
    * Andy Vaz feat. N. Gratin - We're Not Going to Diss You Right Now
    * Herbalizer - Sensual Woman
    * Bootsy Collins - Ahh... The Name is Bootsy, Baby
    * Charlie Feathers - Tear it Up
    * Roy Burrowes, Clifford Jordan, Charles Davis - Reggae au Go Jazz
    * DJ Vadim - Dig Yourself Baby!
    * De La Soul - Saturday
    * Femi Kuti - Eh Oh
    * Frivolous - Can't Stop the One Two
    * Mermen - Heart Beatitude
    * Leonard Bernstein - Dance at the Gym (West Side Story)
    * DJ Olive - Funky Cortado
    * Fantomas - 04-25-05 Monday
    * John Zorn - Arsenal Dance Mix
    * DJ Logic - Something Distant
    * Frivolous - Every Day of My Life
    * Nicola Ratti - Above
    * Ruben Gonzalez - Como Siento Yo
    * Joe Jackson - Stepping Out

the quelformat? Fall mix

Click to play
right click to download

Not much of a theme to this mix, just a sampling of mostly great songs I have noted over the last several months. I suppose a tip of the hat to WFMU. Watch out now! It has some teeth, but also lots of beautiful moments. Let me know if you like!

~Down the Line from Harvey - Dave Miller
~Latino Interactive - Ikue Mori
~Me Susurra Un Secreto - Trevor Dunn
~Shore Leave - Tom Waits
~Foot in Hole - Skeleton Crew
~ track #7? - DJ/rupture + Andy Moor
~Density 21.5 - Riccardo Chailly - Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Plays Varese
~For Ezekiel Honig and Young (pan) Americans - Klimek
~Frontside Boardside shovit out - Agata
~Dead Season - Tin Hat
~Poison Ivy - Mephista
~Geek Love - Ikue Mori
~Black Thursday - Tin Hat
~Along the Line - DJ Olive Vs. JP Dessy
~Dance for Burgess - Riccardo Chailly - Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Plays Varese
~Locus Solus - David Shea
~Process Part 093 (Spiritual Airport) - Kate Simko

painting by John Lurie "Some Animals Noah Only Had One Of, The Ones That Came By Two Put On A Musical, Which Like Most Musicals Was Bad". Special thanks to John Lurie.

Holden Into Ryley EP

Many people have a lot of fun distorting sounds from acoustic instruments through electronics, myself included. In a realm riddled with mediocrity, Mark Templeton rises to the top like the cream of the crop. Check out the completely free LP he just released on Anticipate by clicking here. You'll find lots of great sounds manipulated into a completely new artistic vision. Check out the other releases as well--all very good stuff coming from that label.

Anticipate Recordings Summer Tour Remix Volume 1

download


One artist I have been listening to a lot lately is Ezekiel Honig, who has a record label named Anticipate Recordings. This label combines elements of ambient, electro-acoustics, slow motion techno, and found house. Over the last several months I have been listening to quite a bit of music from that label, and wanted to throw the most recent web release up here for all a listen.

From www.anticipaterecordings.com:
We're pleased to bring you an exclusive digital release: Summer Tour Remix Volume 1, which, as the title suggests, is a collection of remixes of Sawako's Summer Tour field recordings. 11 tracks from label friends and associates that are all based on the original field recordings, with plenty of instrumental straying from the source…

The concept is simple. Take the sounds from Sawako's Summer Tour field recordings, and make new material with them. That's all the artists were asked to do. The result is a collection that displays the range of artists and the range of approaches. Some use only the original source sounds. Some use them sparingly in the context of a new song. Some add new instrumentation to an otherwise field recording-heavy piece. The common thread is that we love them all. A big thank you to the artists who took the time to participate and bring us such excellent work. Enjoy.