unsounded

I am enjoying the sculptures of Alexander Calder who I have just discovered through Open Culture. There is a freedom of movement in his sculptures, multiple axis that interact in a unpredictable way, there is freedom to the movements, away from conventional practical design, yet they are still bound to those laws.

Alexander Calder was very influenced by movement, and this idea of ‘Abstractions’. There is a haphazard nature to his work, inviting in complex relationships into the pendulum of balance. Finding ways for these objects at odd with each other to coexist. It reminds me of jazz, or experimental music which still desires to exist within the frame of popular music. There is still a desire to stick to a thread of relation. Whether or not this is a conscious act. These air sculptures would not have the same gravitas if they sat in a pile on the floor…

Calder came from a family of sculptures, and studied mechanical engineering to appease them. He quickly rebelled against this academic route working with wire sculptures and was very influenced by the circus before falling in with Parisian contemporaries of 1930s. Marcel Duchamp apparently the coined the term ‘mobiles’ for Calder’s moving wire sculptures, which were slightly more clumsy and mechanical wire based sculptures. In my opinion, the ‘Wind Mobiles’ or ‘Air sculptures’ are a much more elegant and effortless kind of interactive sculpture. I enjoy the juxtaposition between art/design with these pieces, there is a undeniable level of calculation balanced with the freedom of expression which is plainly visible within the work.

“How can art be realized?

Out of volumes, motion, spaces bounded by the great space, the universe.

Out of different masses, light, heavy, middling- indicated by variations of size or colour- directional line – vectors which represent speeds, velocities, accelerations, forces, etc…-these directions making between them meaningful angles, and senses, together defining one big conclusion or many.

Spaces, volumes, suggested by the smallest means in contrast to their mass, or even including them, juxtaposed, pierced by vectors, crossed by speeds.

Nothing at all of this is fixed

Each element able to move, to stir, to oscillate, to come and go in its relationship with the other elements in its universe.

It must not be just a fleeting “moment” but a physical bond between the varying events in life.

Not extractions

But abstractions

Abstractions that are like nothing in life except in their manner of reacting.” (Written By Alexander Calder From Abstraction-Création, Art Non Figuratif, no. 1, 1932)

In Sound Art and Music, we often talk about Architecture as something that is closely related. This quote brings to mind, the song Abstractions by Mingus. Much like the freedom of Calder, this at times discordant piece by Mingus really encapsulates a similar spirit. The cadences of a jazz standard through a cracked lens. There is still the intention of a feeling through it’s phrasing, even if its buried in the complex harmony.

After purchasing my Tascam DR-40X for field recording, I am hoping to build a large array of field recordings and samples of sound for a rich bank to start professional freelance work as a sound designer/sound editor/recording.

I found some very useful youtube channels for in depth reviews of recording equipment, and found a unbiased review of the TASCAM DR-40x. In general their handheld devices are highly regarded in terms of how they are built, but are often criticized for their pre-amps having a higher ‘noise-floor’ than other handheld recorders in their price range like Roland and Zoom models. These channels talked about “FetHeads” from Triton Audio, it is basically a pre-amp which adds to the gain of the microphone, effectively making it louder, but because this pre-amp is really clean, it boosts the signal without adding extra ‘noise-floor’ when you push the gain up. The inbuilt Condensor on the TASCAM DR 40X still has very good reviews, and has an A-B/X-Y Polarity configuration which means it is a versatile recording device. However, if I run into problems attaching shotgun microphones or contact microphones, I will potentially look into the FetHead as a way to compensate and clean up my recordings for professional use. When looking to create SFX, there is potentially layers of 60 odd sound files. Microphone hiss is maybe even a bigger issue than in recording for music as the noisefloor could essentially be multiplied with each overlapping recording.

I really enjoyed this radio show hosted by Orson Welles, the juxtaposition of dramatic piercing strings. There are SFX throughout, the sounds of Orson picking up the objects. Also there is a hall reverb on the vocals when shifting to the characters in the drama. The sound effects do a great job of punctuating points within the dialogue and tension is built through icy strings. A really engaging fast editing style. It’s punchy, pulpy.. and just a very engaging listen. Produced in 1951.

You can really see the development of audio quality as well as sound effects when comparing the previous drama to this War of The Worlds audio play from 38′. We have reverb in 51′ and the understanding of microphone placement and the microphone quality to capture acoustics. Foley sounds are beginning to get used and the general quality of the broadcast is much improved. There is a clear shift in the War of The Worlds production of voice to sound to voice. Almost like two separate channels. Whereas The Black Museum has sounds crossing over other sounds and a sophisticated blend of Sound Effects, Character voices in environments a clear voice over and music punctuating dialogue and SFX cues.

Ten years later from The Black Museum, we see how the BBC Radiophonic Workshop begin to push the envelope of synthesis through broadcast. Pulsing low end drones, theremins and other sounds are unanimous with horror and sci-fi movies of this era and from the previous videos you can hear how different the mood is, it’s far less theatrical and more insular and psychologically unsettling.

I really like the sound design in this advert by Daphne Oram. It shows how the range synthesizers had, even in their earliest and simplest forms as tools for composition.

We will be using B.U.T.T (Broadcast Using This Tool) to broadcast our collaborative sound work. We are broadcasting through the I.P of Locus Sonus. I found this process quite easy due to my experience recording sound on my computer through DAWs. I have often had to record signal from my computer’s sound card for radio mixes if I want to rip a quote from a video for example… So by choosing ‘Stereo Mix’ on Audio settings I am able to send out the sounds from my sound card, which splits the signal coming out of my speakers through BUTT and out to broadcast without my microphone disrupting the audio quality. If we wanted more control of that signal or I wanted to play something off my computer whilst broadcasting without it being sent over, I could install a windows alternative to SoundFlower. However I think it’s entirely plausible for me to broadcast the signal only using BUTT. As I don’t think we will be balancing a performance signal alongside our per-recorded collaborative piece, which is still in the realm of possibility only using BUTT. I will just have to make sure I have no tabs open or programs that have notification sounds.

The requirements for Resonance Broadcast FM are:

Format requirements for Resonance FM:  

MP3 audio file @ 320kbps 44.1kHz 16bit Stereo, normalised at at -2.85db

As seen in the image above. I have set the Bitrate to 320kps in line with the requirements. Sample rate is also at 44.1kHz. I cannot see any setting for 16bit stereo nor for the normalisation. I will have to do some research before the final broadcast on Thursday. I may indeed have to make sure Kiro is aware of the max db range so he can adjust the mix accordingly. In the session this week I successfully streamed a 160kbps file. I am little concerned that my internet connection won’t be able handle the added bitrate. So, I will speak to Kiro and maybe Monika (who is up for helping with the producer role) to check everything is good to go before the Thursday broadcast. If not I will be on hand to troubleshoot someone else through this process and perhaps it would be wise for someone to be on hand to stream a back up in case I run into difficulties.

In the early process of developing our theme, we have decided to experiment. With Jake And Buki working with words. Kiro said there was theme of Earth. We talked about exploring the elements and due to my being situated by the Sea in Brighton currently. I set out to record some ocean sounds on my TASCAM DR-40X.

I was testing my new wind shield outside. When I realized I was about 10 minutes from the sea. I decided to record my trip. Thinking it could be used as a constant background framing for the piece of the sounds traffic and cityscape slowly fading to the sea and a more natural meditative environment. Alongside this recording I took three different approaches to recording the ocean waves. 2 with my microphone as close to the waves as possible and one more ambient recording from further up the beach. Alongside the ‘Foley’ sounds I recorded in a previous blogpost. I am hoping I have given Kiro enough to work with to produce a draft piece.

This recording I feel is most fitting with the subject matter. Kiro spoke about elements as a way to convey change. Buki suggested the title Tellurian Voices: Do you Receive. Tellurian meaning Earth. Earthly Voices. I have interpreted that as meaning a grounded voice. With this walk you get the entanglement of society morph slowly to nature. This could evoke a sense of slow settling of a mind. Or more literally Earth changing to something else.

With the Ambient recording of Ocean, there is more of a lower frequency range, it’s a little more comforting. You can hear more wind. If Kiro is going with the element theme. There is scope for this to be representative of Wind and Ocean. Below is a more detailed and harsher sounding recording of Waves. There is an abrasive quality to the water streaming off the rocks back into the ocean, I like the stereo image of some of flowing water sounds during the splashes of the waves. This could be used to create a feeling of unease potentially as opposed to previous recordings feeling a little more tranquil.

In terms of how I felt the recording went. There were moments throughout the walking piece where I had unfortunately nicked my coat and caused a disruption in the sound recording. However due to there being a lot of movement, traffic and sudden sounds in the recording I don’t think it is particularly jarring in the context. But it’s something to improve for more detailed and specific recordings I would like to do in the future. I was pretty happy with how the Ocean sounds came out. Due to the business of the beach at 6pm. I was unable to record a 10 minute segment of uninterrupted ocean sounds without people walking past or obnoxious driving on the motorway across the seafront etc… There is a rockery near by that I would like to record in the future in order to get some more dispirate water sounds. Contact Microphones could work well on large rocks around there. I also would like to try recording the Ocean with the AB Microphone pair setting to see how it effects the depth or width of the sound. We have not completely decided my role in broadcasting the piece next Thursday. I may be providing a live field recording from the sea through the Locus Sonus App. Or helping run audio out from home via Laptop. These are two formats I will explore options for in future post.

Whilst RADIOPHRENIA had existed before the pandemic, it seemed at the time to be a perfectly executed response to the gig-less world we are currently occupying. It has an ephemeral quality, in the sense there was a timetable, and you could tune in 24/7 for 2 weeks and hear a piece. It’s free to listen, but once it’s done it’s gone. Much like live radio, and unlike some modern internet radio shows that have playback. This is purposefully a moment in time which you can witness, and feels more poignant and finite. Due to the nature of recorded content and the internet, perhaps there’s an element of our engagement which is less immediate. We have the ability to order our content to fit around us. Our TV now more than ever is in step with our mood or our comfort. With music streaming services and podcasts, radio has to fight against media which can be saved and backlogged with minimal effort. It allows our brain compartmentalize, we have an infinite amount of time to engage with something so we can put it to one side. The choice to put this festival on FM radio, and have no later playback option is conscious decision to make listeners engage in the rituals of a historic radio broadcast. It means it’s hear now and only now. We either hear it or we miss it. In a sense it’s uncomfortable to address this for me. As I can relate to feeling an overload of information I must process, read, listen to, watch. “Catch Up” is in an interesting concept to me. With radio and TV broadcasts of the past before digital. These were concepts that existed. You had times you could see things and once they happened they were gone. The modern world of digesting media is having 100 things you can catch up with and dissecting these large bouts of information for things of interest. This shift slowly causing our brains to work in a more analytical way.

The Artist Cucina Povera was one of the many performers at last years RADIOPHRENIA festival.

I had not considered the racial politics of pirate radio until watching this documentary. Whilst the mainstream view of pirate radio celebrates boat-owning white middle class DJs setting sail and exercising their freedom in true Jack Sparrow style… This paints a picture of pirate radio before the 80s as predominantly white and exclusive. Norman Jay speaks about how he was denied entry to a club The Soul Mafia were performing at due to his ethnicity. This caused him to realize this seemingly radical movement had a race problem. It’s very inspiring to hear about the development of black-led pirate stations like DBC who were the gatekeepers of their own culture. In contrast to a group of white-led pirate DJs playing and celebrating black music, yet the clubs they play enforcing an unfavorable attitude towards black people existing in those spaces. This documentary really brought home the power of pirate radio and to me tells a story far more powerful than ‘The Boat That Rocked’ told. A generation of people left behind by Thatcherism, dealing with racism on top of that as their culture permeates society but then leaves them at the front gate. It also makes me think of Lovers Rock and how our radio formats; as well as the music of the 21st century is indebted to black culture.

How has Radio dealt with the change from FM to Digital? Now we have internet based radio stations, what does the terminology mean now? How does it differ from a Podcast? What is Pirate Radio?

NTS Radio is an internet radio station. An internet radio station, uses an IP Address to stream a web-broadcast (webcasting). This is different to a Podcast, as podcasts are generally downloaded and are compatible in an offline setting (ideal for people traveling by tube for example, where constant service isn’t possible to maintain a stream.)

NTS, was founded in 2003, by Femi Adeyemi. Who was working for Boiler Room and DJing in London, had the idea to create a radio station in the image of a Pirate station, trying to link together the tastes of London and pushing diversity as it’s main goal. Almost 20 years later. It is hard to say they haven’t been extremely successful and may indeed a pinbadge on the coat of the sub-cultures and counter cultures of the last decade of music with a massive reach that extends to many scenes and sits as a really accessible pathway to a vast amount of really interesting different sub genres. It now has a base in London, LA, Manchester & Shanghai. Currently through the COVID-19 pandemic running a live stream of new (some prerecorded) shows on Station 1, and selected reruns of shows from around the world on Station 2.

NTS has really led a innovation in Internet Radio, setting it apart from the BBC in the way it’s tapped into culture. With live streamed premiere’s of new albums by cult artists like Arthur Russell and Dean Blunt to curated mixes by big artists who agree to do it based on the standing and social capital the station has snowballed towards.

NTS has an App you can download to your phone, which allows for streaming on the go. It’s two channels as well as an easily accessible backlog of shows and ways for you to bookmark your favourite presenters means it’s created it’s own ecosystem of content and it’s integration with artists and labels means it is a trusted source of quality content. Whereas with pocket FM radio, there is a sense that if a station isn’t doing it for you, you change to the next one. NTS has almost created it’s only monopoly and ways to keep you on NTS. Much like in essence, the most dominant sites on the internet (Facebook, Youtube, Instagram… etc.)

Slack City is a radio station that has just emerged in Brighton, in which I believe is clearly influenced by NTS, the giants of new alternative Internet Radio. I am in talks to begin a show for this station under my long run Mixcloud channel ‘Hit Hit Flop Flop’. – A homage to the late-great Holger Czukay and alternative/experimental pop music.

Here is one of our mixes. The idea was to link music by a common theme. Thinking of an abstract setting and what music from the collection of some friend’s and mine best suits that theme. We were influenced by video games, films, television and tropes within songwriting used by composers mainly to create a sort of stereotypical soundscape in a scene. Perhaps as a direct response to archival radio shows, which play music from one place at one specific time and are concerned the cataloguing but not so much the way this influence mixes with other things around the world and I guess we hope from our mixes that we can try to link together previous disparate sounds and find a place where they belong together. Telecom Flop was a chance explore Library music, Muzak and smooth commercially minded light-jazz. As well as a few experimental songs with instrument choices that were reminiscent of those genres.

In regards to the Assignment coming up. When I visited Slack City’s studio in September 2020. They were running through an analogue mixing desk, the signal was then sent straight to a raspberry pi Where it was streamed over the internet to the mother radio station, Totallyradio.com where an engineer handles the final broadcast signal. I have been tasked with sharing the producer role alongside producing SFX.

I watched CODA, two years ago on a day off. I had been working in customer service, very drained from a busy week. I went to an afternoon screening with a fellow Sakamoto admirer. The film follows him as he recovers from throat cancer and potentially goes about creating his final album, ‘Async’. He draws from the sound of Sergei Tarkovsky movies as an influence and searches for sounds and textures. ‘Async’ – Asynchronous, Sakamoto wanted the music to be without a clear tempo, and for the sounds and textures to be without synchronization. In a sense reflecting the setting of the world and it’s chaotic nature, for the sound to be natural and to feel not organized. All human made art is a process of organized thought & structures, in essence it is a perhaps a response to try and have control over the chaos of the natural world.

I was very interested in the ‘Tsunami Piano’ that Ryuichi had located in wreckage of the Tsunami and Earthquake in Japan in 2009. Of which Sakamoto had to say…

“I went to see one of those pianos drowned in tsunami water near Fukushima and recorded it. Of course, it was totally out of tune, but I thought it was beautiful. I thought, ‘Nature tuned it.'”

Sakamoto, In “Coda”

Sakamoto has since used this Piano on a number of different projects. It is featured on the album ‘a-sync’ which the documentary Coda is largely based around.

Life, Life. David Sylvian, singer from new-wave band Japan, reads out the poem by Arseny Tarkovsky.

The music is built mainly around spacious elements, which is reflected in Sakamoto’s previous compositional work for The Revenant. A long vortex of reverb. It also can be linked back to this 80s on experimental album Esperanto. Textural layering. Disparate synthetic elements layered atop each other. Sakamoto’s ear for harmony and classical piano training often will naturally veer these pieces into quite satisfying harmonic conclusions. When compared to his more mainstream work for film throughout the 80s, with The Last Emperor and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence it is a real departure in it’s construction.

Here is some collaborative work between Sakamoto and Alva Noto, the German visual artist and electronic-based composer. Alva Noto providing glitchy synthesis over Sakamoto’s nostalgic framing through stripped and bare-sounding piano chords/intervals.

Sakamoto has also worked with guitarist Fennesz, whose work I am familiar with through some striking ambient albums in collaboration with Jim O’Rourke. Which I am hoping to explore in another post, with other relevant avant-garde guitarists.

Since before starting University, I have been working on a collaborative new-age project inspired by Hiroshi Yoshimura, Iasos and Wally Badarou. The idea was to get out of a creative slump myself and a friend were in as we mostly work solo and are not the greatest collaborators. We felt an instrumental new-age project was a great way to work on a musical relationship in a more intuitive and less structured way. Eventually we worked out that we had some great results from recording an hour of improvisations, and choosing the best parts. In a way – this relates a little to Visiting Lecturer Lisa Busby and how she explained her process of collaboration, and how certain improvisations seem to manifest a feeling amongst the group that this part has some information that is worthy of being showcased. I used the Yamaha Portasound PSS-780 and my bandmate used a DX7 VST.

As we were mostly dealing with FM Synthesis, there is a quality with this technology that to us was reminiscent of natural almost respiratory sounds of the oceans and we decided to play to a video of a coastal cam to center our improvisations around a mood or theme – this video became the inspiration for the project and therefor we name the album ‘Ocean Waves & Distant Thunders’.

I picked up this synthesizer in second hand shop a few years ago. I have always been interested in old technology and have bought a few practice keyboards in the past, what really drew me to this were its options for changing the attack/decay/sustain/release. FM synths rely on two signals being played simultaneously one that is a modulation of the main signal. With this synth I can change the A/S/D/R of both the library sound and whatever modulated frequency it is paired with, as well as the ‘feedback’ (intensity of the modulation) and the level of both signals. This means it’s incredibly versatile and is capable of producing inharmonic frequencies as well as a wide variety of tones from incredibly harsh and distorted white noise to sutble and complex meditative tones.

https://circuitboredd.bandcamp.com/album/ocean-waves-distant-thunders

After we collated our favourite improvisations, we began the process of getting it ready for physical release. All the tracks were recorded by Sam and I mixed everything prepping it for Mastering. We hired someone to master the album as well as two friends who worked separately on the artwork. One using photoshop to design the logo for our band ‘asmr’ alongside text and finding the right cover image (in which we scoured costal cams from across America, Canada & Wales). The other using InDesign to get the design ready for print to cassette. Digitally I wanted to present this music in the way most resurfaced Library Music/New Age music is presented on the internet. Through a scanned tape sleeve.

In a process that nearly took 9 months, here is the final product! Released on a label I am hoping to start for ‘Neo Age’ called Circuittboredd. Which on future releases I’m hoping a logo will take up room on the back where the barcode is on this type of library template. Here is a mock up on the design I had in mind.

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Lisa Busby gave a talk during our visiting lecture series, here is a quote from her website.

“Lisa Busby is a Scottish composer, vocalist, and improviser based in London. Situated across experimental music, performance art, and pop song, her practice often utilises the found and the prosaic, and manifests in various entangled modes – long-duration and site specific work, video, non-standard scoring/notation, “anti-production” techniques for electronic music, and live improvisation for sound/body. Currently, Lisa is one of Sound and Music’s New Voices 2019 Sound and Music’s New Voices 2019 and participating in the Social Acoustics Research Project led by Professors Jill Halstead and Brandon Labelle. Materially she is interested in fragments, fringes and collisions of song and noise; artefacts of pop and fan culture, histories and archives; experimental turntablism and expanded usage of playback, samples and loops; and everyday action as/in performative gesture. Instrumentally her specialisms are in voice, turntables, hardware and software electronics, with more recent work incorporating electric guitar and lapsteel. She performs and composes with bands The Nomadic Female DJ Troupe and Rutger Hauser; is part of The Lumen Lake music collective and record label; and is a member of the art, education, and politics group Common Study based at Somerset House Studios. She has ongoing sound and movement collaborations with Gabriel Bohm Calles and Lou Barnell.”

(From lisabusby.com)

https://vimeo.com/149414193

Busby’s relationship with music started singing in school choirs & church choirs. She tends to start solo music with process starts with a single repetitive motif, not very expansive (small riff). Stuck within a small loop of a sound recording. Built up layers of improvisation, usually first take to capture that rawness. “Not always doing very much” – Simplistic approach and allowing the instrument/atmosphere to go where it goes. Composition has multiple phases – for her process she relies on analogue equipment as she feels “DAWs can tend to sound less finished the more time you spent on them” – Which resonates a lot with me. Simplistic approach and less compositional thought, live and unprepared – which makes the product was more enjoyable and interesting. Explorative process driven from a philosphy of primitcism in production and embracing the absence of what’s deemed ‘proper’ recording technique. Sometimes audio etc can represent something that can’t be spoken. Catharsis through sadness and anxiety.

Collaborating with Cellist/

https://www.gold.ac.uk/visual-cultures/c-grant/

http://lisabusby.com/works/untitledforcello.html

Collaboration w/ John Harries ‘Proposal for a Song’
Series of songs of interactions, instructions to particapate. like a notebook of ideas.

https://soundcloud.com/radioqueens/lisa-busby-proposal-for-a-song

This ‘Proposal for a song’ was a direct reference to Kim Gordon’s piece ‘Proposal For a Story’

Recommendations during this lecture:

Of Technique: Chance Procedures On Turntable

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23305888-of-technique

https://www.printedmatter.org/catalog/31778/

soundandmusic.org