This is a cute little visual-audification tool, which comes in a java applet or a downloadable file for you Windows users:
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http://www.seeingwithsound.com/javoice.htm
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I could see using that as a sound generation tool.
Mini review:
Mental Health Consumer – Ambia
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A collection of fuzzy drones, frayed and fluttering rhythms and often lovely, hazy melodies. A fair amount more colorful than its drab cover art implies. Score yet another one for the the DIY team. If I’d had this on tape during the nineties, it might have been one of my favorites. I’d probably have written MHC’s founder Brian Ruskin a fan letter. You heard it here first: obscurity is a virtue.
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Links:
http://www.archive.org/details/ca247_mhc
http://believeinbillyrecords.googlepages.com/
Somone just commented on C. Reider’s Last.FM page saying:
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Молодой Лев Толстой))
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… which translates as “Young Leo Tolstoy))”…
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… which is pretty much the best comment ever! :DE
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In other news, I just listened to the new collaboration between myself and Desohll, and it’s pretty wonderful. Vaporous and spooky dark-ambient! It appears that its release is imminent on Drô6n Records.
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This is a preview of something else way cooler involving Desohll and C. Reider yet to come!
I … think that in maybe five years’ time, what will be cool will be not on the Internet.
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— Jean-Michel Jarre
A track from the Electret Quintet II appears on the Winter version of NNTS06… a collection of the ‘best of’ Not The Normal Shit Radio as selected by the show’s host Mark Stolk. The show is broadcast on Stillstream.
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I’m grateful for the inclusion, my track sits alongside such talents as Celer, Die Minimalistin, AAGSF and others.
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These comps are a great way to discover new artists.
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.
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— Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar
I’ve just listened to a netlabel release I’d like to recommend.
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Hedningarna is a band I’d previously never heard of, that performs Scandinavian folk music on instruments such as hurdy-gurdy, Swedish bagpipes, lute, fiddle and several custom instruments.
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DJ Nikto has taken their recordings and run loops through delays, reverbs, digital smears, stuttering pauses and filter sweeps. Simple enough in concept, but the whole is very effective, it reminds me a lot in spirit and execution of some of the more ambient releases by the hallowed Muslimgauze.
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The album is available for free from the venerable, admired Russian netlabel Top 40. There are streaming and downloading options at the link below.
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DJ Nikto remixes Hedningarna
Onward with the archival releases:
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I’ve put up an older ambient collaboration of mine as a free download on my netlabel Vuzh Music.
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“The Druser Pricid” by C. Reider and Tarkatak was originally recorded in 2000.
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The recording explores some quiet atmospherics with minimal melodic elements, then towards the end it drifts toward a subdued industrial noiseambient before drifting back into the calming atmospheres. It’s dark without being “dark”.
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It’s one of my favorite releases from my twenty years of recording obscure music.
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Take a chance on it:
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C. Reider / Tarkatak – the Druser Pricid
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Review snippets:
“If the C. Reider opus isn’t indicative of the perennial American experimental music D.I.Y. [anti-] aesthetic, perhaps nothing out there is.” — e/i magazine
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“… for those who like their strangeness densely-packed!” — Ambientrance
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“A highly rewarding and enjoyable listen for those with an ear for the darkly sublime.” — Godsend
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“Both guys really know how to create a psychedelic atmosphere in sound, with dark soundscapes and hallucinating loops, analogue synths and processed guitar sounds. Like said, the music here is very much related to Troum, but has a particulary strong voice of its own.” — Vital Weekly
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The release is also freely available on Last.FM:
“The Druser Pricid” on Last.FM
PBK’s newest CD “Under My Breath” has been potentially ‘about to be released’ for much of the last decade. Thankfully for all of us who are fans of his work, the release is finally available.
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The release features a diverse assortment of highly abstract soundwork, with collaborators such as Aube, Wolf Eyes, Artificial Memory Trace, Tore Boe, Christian Renou (from Brume), Nigel Ayers (from Nocturnal Emissions), John Wiggins, Dale Lloyd and C. Reider (that’s me!)
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PBK’s completely unique compositional style is well suited to a release like this, where a diverse group of collaborators contribute a varied sound palette. He draws strongly on the distinct characters of electroacoustic, musique concréte, ambient and noise musics in his sound. Each song presents a completely new atmosphere, in which there is a feeling of motion through a sort of “painting” or “landscape”, where new features lurch unexpectedly into view with quivering, crackling energies.
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On this new album, there is a kind of highly tense melancholy, a kind of mixture of fear and sadness, leading directly to his concept… if I may quote:
“The main control utilized by any government is “fear” as it relates to personal safety. We see this quite clearly in the U.S. since the events of 9/11. They turn huge populaces into quivering paranoiacs through media saturation and cold-war tactics. So came this idea that if anything were to be said out loud that was contrary to the “approved” line of thinking, that it would have to be said secretly, quietly, or “under the breath”
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On a personal note, his use of source material I originally used on my early 2001 release some things I did when I lost my mind, connects this album to that time period very strongly for me. I think this music could not come from any other time period.
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The Russian label Waystyx has published the CD in a very handsome die-cut cover, with graphic elements interweaving with the cut elements. The inside recording notes and song titles can only be read in the reflection of the CD itself, which is a pretty clever presentation.
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You could go to PBK’s website for more information on how to order the CD. It is highly recommended by me.
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One more quote from PBK about the new CD:
“The project was conceived to be similar to my “Life-Sense Revoked” CD relase from a few years ago, i.e a sort-of all-star collaborative recording with friends of mine whose music I admire. My personal goal with this was to achieve a new kind of ambient music for the 2000’s, one which incorporates musique concrete elements, turntable experimentalism and some of the textural elements which have been showing up in my work for years. I feel that this is a brilliant release and I hope you will enjoy listening to it as well. The guests on this recording are among my most cherished friends working in avant garde music today. I realize the odds are against us, we work in an area of sound production where neglect is the order of the day, we can’t get paid for our music, we self-release our work quite often just to document what we are doing. We continue to work against the odds in our own little corners of the world, striving to take our life experiences and turn them into art. Hopefully this release will help us gain a little wider audience, especially in the Eastern European and Russian communities where their ears seem to be really wide open and hungry for new sounds.”
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If you are interested to hear more PBK work featuring collaborative work with C. Reider, (in anticipation of our full length collab CD which should hopefully come out this Summer) I recommend (very strongly) his excellent CD “Headmix”, which has been recently made available as a free download from his SoundGenetic blog. It’s also available in its entirety on Last.FM, right here.