“I think the function of drugs is to remove certain filters that we have in our brain to make our lives more ordinary. These filters filter out the extra perceptions of angels and all the other things that would make our lives a little bit wild. If we could see everything around us that really exists, we might not be able to take it. That’s why people crack up when they take LSD. The person that takes a drug shouldn’t be dependent on it, but should take it once and see that there’s another reality, and work towards that. You can’t take a drug again and again and improve yourself towards that reality, I feel. Once you’ve done it, once that reality is in your mind, then I think the drug has served his purpose. Our problem with drugs now, in our society is people become dependent on them because this reality is too brutal for them. They can’t accept it, so the drug takes them to another place. But since they are not ready for it physically or spiritually, that another place is too fragile and their physical body can’t take it. There is a balance between all your psychic needs, your spiritual needs and this corporal body that has to be maintained while you are alive. And even though you’ve got this spiritual body inside you, you’ve got to take care of the psychical one too. Great mystics, you know, can’t even eat because they are so much into the spiritual selves. They don’t take care of their needs, and their disciples or their friends have to do it. But if you are a drug addict, you might not have any friends to take care of you. So you end up on the street and you die. A person has to recognize that he has a responsibility as a human being. And if he’s been awakened, then it’s just work. It’s just trying to remember, and to have patience, and to know that, eventually, through many, many births, you will probably arrive at the state that that drug brought you to.” [Taking Music, William Duckworth, 1999]
Until 1877, when the first sound recording was made, sound was a thing predicated on its own immediate disappearance; today it is increasingly an object that will outlast its makers and consumers. It declines to disappear, causing a great weigt of dead music to press upon the living. What to do with it? An organic response has been to recycle, an answer strenuously resisted by traditional music thinking. Yet, plagiarism, once rejected as insupportable, has today emerged both as a standard procedure and as a consciously self-reflexive activity, raising vexed debates about ownership, copyright, skill and cultural exhaustion. This essay attempts to sketch the history of plunderphonics and relate to it to the paradigm shift initiated by the advent of sound recording.
In this article, Cutler places sampling and “plunderphonics” in historical perspective, examining the ways in wich recording and musical technology have altered the very nature of music and musical practice. [Audio Culture. Readings in Modern Music, edited by Christoph cox and Daniel Warner]
John Oswald’s “Pretender” and other pieces – all originated from existing copyright recordings but employing radically different techniques – were included on an EP and later a CD, Plunderphonic (Oswald 1988). Both were given away free to radio stations and the press. None was sold. The liner note reads: ‘This disc may be reproduced but neither it, nor any reproductions of it are to be bought or sold. Copies are available only to public access and broadcast organizations, including libraries, radio or periodicals.’ The 12″ EP, consisting of four pieces – Pretender (Parson), Don’t (Presley), Spring (Stravinsky), Pocket (Basie) – was made between 1979 and 1988 and released in May 1988, with some support from the Arts Council of Canada. The CD, containing these and 20 other pieces was realized between 1979-89 and released on October 31st 1989 and was financed entirely by Oswald himself. Between Christmas Eve 1989 and the end of January 1990 all distribution ceased and all extant copies were destroyed. Of all the plundered artists it was Michael Jackson who pursued the CD to destruction. Curiously Jackson’s own plundering, for instance the one minute and six seconds of The Cleveland Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Beethoven’s Ninth which opens Jackson’s Will you be there? on the CD Dangerous, for which Jackson claims no less than six credits, including composer copyright (adding plagiarism to sound piracy), seems to have escaped his notice.
“[…] He’s called Plastikman, and in public, Richie Hawtin. It starts with 30 or 40 – I don’t know, I haven’t counted them – fifths in parallel, always the same perfect fifths, you see, changing from one to the next, and then comes in hundreds of repetitions of one small section of an African rhythm:duh-duh-dum etc., and I think it would be helpful if he listened to Cycle [Zyclus] for percussion, which is only a 15 minute long piece of mine for a percussionist , but there he will have a hell of understand the rhythms and I think he will get a taste for very interesting non-metric and non-periodic rhythms. I know that he wants to have a special effect in dancing bars, or whatever it is, on the public who likes to dream away with such repetitions, but he should be very careful, because the public will sell him out immediately for something else, if a new kind of musical drug is on the market. So he should be very careful and separate as soon as possible from the belief in this kind of public. “
Karlheinz Stockhausen after listening to Plastikman – Sheet One, in 1995
[Audio Culture. Readings in Modern Music by Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner]
Un text foarte bun al lui Robert Henke (Monolake & Ableton) despre conditia dubioasa a live performance-ului in muzica electronica, istoria conceptului, player piano, tape concerts, Mixtur Trautonium, the golden age of electronic super groups, live early techno, faima si miniaturizarea contemporana. Din pacate textul trebuia sa aiba doua parti, cea de aici e numai prima, cea care pune problemele si dilemele. Banuiesc ca partea a doua incerca sa dea solutiile. Nu a mai aparut.
“The laptop itself does not contribute anything on its own; we do not write a Symphony for Dell, perform a Suite for Six Vaios or Two Crashes for Power PC, unless we want to be very ironic. What makes it an instrument is the software running on it, and this is where things start to get complicated. The audience looks at a laptop while listening to music, but what exactly creates the music and how the performer interacts with this tool is completely non-transparent. The laptop is not the instrument; the instrument is invisible. And to obscure things even more, we have to realize that most of the time there is not one single instrument and it is not ‘played’ by the performer. What really happens and what remains completely undecodable for the audience is more described as a huge number of instruments played by an invisible band sitting inside the laptop. The only visible part is the performer conducting the work in a way that looks extremely boring in comparison to the amount of physical work carried out by the guy forcing a full-blown orchestra of stubborn professional musicians through a symphony. The minimum difference between pianissimo and a wall of noise? One pixel, 0.03mm.” Robert Henke
“‘Acid In The Style Of David Tudor’ is Florian Hecker’s first full length studio (as opposed to collections and commissions for art installations) album since 2003, when the groundbreaking ‘Sun Pandamonium’ was unleashed by Mego. Since then he has collaborated on audio projects with Yasunao Tone, Russell Haswell (as Haswell & Hecker) and a forthcoming live collaboration with Richard James as well a myriad of sound installation works, individually and with numerous artists worldwide.
As the title suggests this album is referencing the parallel universes of modern 20th century composition and hedonistic rave culture. A challenging but ultimately rewarding set of Electronic Music compositions which push these two reference points into unknown areas. Set in apparent contrast are the sequence of six pieces Acid In The Style of David Tudor, where hyperchaotic functions are inherently coupled to their sources of manipulation – a Buchla modular synthesizer in combination with a Comdyna analog computer – in opposition to the ASA pieces, fruit of a complex manipulation of distinct auditory patterns into a new acoustic whole. The closing Ten opens with an intense head related localization blur. Here, virtual binaural, stereophonic, biphonic and monaural sound reproduction coexist. All three approaches are displayed into a contrasting dynamics, where non- linear waveforms and psychoacoustic illusions that constantly push our perceptual and representational fabrics. Following the ideas of Robin Mackay, Hecker’s work reinstanciates the genetic ofness, once proposed by philosopher David Kaplan, cutting both genetic and cultural territories of hearing. This release is available as CD and download with an extensive 16 page essay ‘Climate of Bass Hunter: Florian Hecker Acid in the Style of David Tudor’ by Robin Mackay, founding editor of Collapse.
It is recommended to listen to this material on loudspeakers at high volume. Headphone use is not advised.” soulseduction
DubFiles presents the first dubstep documentry which takes a look inside the world of dubstep’s most prolific DJ’s, MC’s, and producers. Detailed and personal interviews with the scenes top players. Finding out their likes, dislikes, roots, influences and production tips.
Featuring: Caspa, Quietstorm, Benga, Skream, Slaughter Mob, Distance, Joe Nice, Search and Destroy, N-Type, D1, Rusko, Hatcha, Crazy D and Pinch.
Philip Sherburne prezinta pe blogul sau trailerul documentarului “Speaking Code” care se lanseaza saptamana viitoare la Festivalul de Film din Boston.
“The film tries to tell a broader story about electronic-music culture by following a few individuals as they make their way through it. Filmed over the course of a couple of years, the documentary principally features Modeselektor and the Wighnomy Brothers, catching both acts at precisely the point where their careers began to really take off. And a supporting cast of likeminded souls—Akufen, Tobias Thomas, Sascha Funke and others—help flesh out the contours of the scene.
[…]
it was at MUTEK, maybe the very first day we were filming; we were talking to Akufen in very broad terms about his productions, about the Montreal scene, about electronic music in general. He said, as a way of expressing that idea of a secret essence to it all, “It’s like speaking in code.” A shiver went up my spine; I knew we had found the title to the film. In that one image was the whole nexus of subculture, technology and of desire — the desire to have a shared secret. It’s been a long time in the making; electronic music is a lot different now than when Amy and David first approached me about the idea of an electronic-music documentary. The whole mediascape is different. The code keeps being rewritten. But I think the desire stays much the same. If nothing else, hearing those familiar tracks over the trailer confirms it.”
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