Futurónica 122

futurónica_122
Episode 122 of Futurónica, a broadcast in Rádio Manobras (91.5 MHz in Porto, 18h30) and Rádio Zero (21h GMT, repeating on Tuesday at 01h) airs tomorrow, September 5th.

The playlist of Futurónica 122 is:

  1. Machinefabriek, Doepfer (2013, Doepfer Worm, Entr’acte)
  2. Jorge Peizinho, Elegia a Amílcar Cabral, 2ª versão (1978, Elegia a Amílcar Cabral, Strauss)
  3. Miguel Isaza / Mise_en_Scene, Selected Fragments 1 (2014, Selected Fragments, Impulsive Habitat)

You can follow Rádio Zero’s broadcasts at radiozero.pt/ouvir and Rádio Manobras at radiomanobras.pt.

LIA presents “The Unfolded Collection” at Sedition

InsideTheDiamond
The Unfolded Collection features three computer-generated artworks: The Lonely One in the Autumn (with a soundtrack composed by @c), Inside the Diamond and Not Even Love Will Tear Us Apart, which were performed by LIA in real-time and recorded exclusively for Sedition as high-definition videos.

NotEvenLoveWillTearUsApart
This series explores the possibilities of communicating concepts like love, poetry and time through the language of code and computer aesthetics. Through their evolving forms, shapes, movements, colours and textures, the artworks unfold abstract environments and crystalline structures creating a unique sense of exploration of the artist’s vision.

TheLonelyOneInAutumn
Austrian artist LIA is considered one of the pioneers of software and net art and has been producing works since 1995. LIA has exhibited internationally including at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, 2014; Victoria & Albert Museum, London 2009; and the Design Museum Holon, Israel, 2012. LIA has also received numerous awards, including Digital Graffiti Curator’s Choice Award, 2014; Prix Ars Electronica, Honourable Mention, 2007; Diagonale Film Festival, Innovative Cinema, First Prize, 2006; and Prix Ars Electronica, Award of Distinction, 2003.

The Unfolded Collection can be previewed at Sedition.

New podcast: Ephraim Wegner

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One piece of music was transferred to the pin roller of a music box and used as a starting point for the composition of 3024000. An audio recording of the box is divided in three parts of equal duration (A, B, C) correlated by simple overlapping.

The position of the playback moves through 4 seconds of material in 45 minutes. For every played-back position, linear grains are generated, with a duration of 12,5 msec: 320 grains per second for part A, 160 grains/sec for part B and 640 grains/sec for part C. In addition, the pitches of the three parts are changed depending on the basic material.

Minimum differences in tone pitch or divergences in the phase of the basic material can lead to clearly audible interferences. Bigger sound intervals form chordal structures and the density of partial tones originated by initial impulse cause tonal inharmoniousness.

3024000 is a musical journey through a brief theme that is magnified 765 times, layered and mingled into a completely new work.

Download here or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

“Meubles” reviewed by The Sound Projector

Meubles
Another fine item from Arturas Bumšteinas, already noted earlier this year with his concept album themed on “Sleep”. For Meubles (CRÓNICA 081-2013), he’s enlisted a small ensemble of players from Poland and elsewhere, called them the Works and Days Ensemble, and commissioned them to perform the three suites of music. Meubles is a concept album about “furniture”*. By way of underpinning the project theme, each musician was asked the poignant question “If music could be furniture, which piece of furniture it would be?” Their replies – all very imaginative, individual and personal in their interpretation of this vague and open-ended question – result in an almost surrealist catalogue of objects, including a wine cabinet, a stove, a bed, a window, and (my personal favourite) a Billy bookcase from Ikea. It’s my guess that these responses have been the basis for the score of the Meubles suite. I’m all in favour of using unconventional methods to fuel the generation of music. If Stockhausen could write prose instructions for his players for Aus Den Sieben Tagen, then why can’t Bumšteinas get his players to concentrate on a piece of furniture to help them focus on the music production? As the Ensemble perform their (semi-improvised?) parts, the instruments – brass, strings, piano, guitars, percussion and organ – all wrap around each other with the intimacy of a fitted carpet lying snugly in place in a well-appointed room. There are no patterns or melodies that I can discern, but the continual music does hang together in a very harmonious and pleasing manner; no hideous discordant moments await the listener. Slow and syrupy it be, but certainly not formless drone. It’s nice to hear such concord and agreement between people, and it all conveys the pleasant sense of stability that you might associate with a good armchair. From November 2013.

* The astute reader will of course be aware of Erik Satie’s furniture music, where the idea was to provide background music for specific events and occasions in salon society, such as drinking tea or playing croquet. Satie’s work is commonly taken, perhaps wrongly, to be the forerunner of ambient music. No doubt Bumšteinas is aware of this too, but he makes no explicit connection to Satie with this composition. Nor to Bill Nelson’s Red Noise, I might add. Ed Pinsent

via The Sound Projector

“Lemuria” reviewed by The Sound Projector

Lemuria
A curious work is Lemuria (CRÓNICA 083-2013), a collaboration between the sound artist Enrico Coniglio from Venice and the photographer and field recordist Giovanni Lami of Ravenna, here working as the duo Lemures. The record is a puzzling mix of field recordings and minimalist drones, and you know how commonplace such methods are these days. So perhaps on one level this is nothing very special, and yet the scant aural information they give us is presented in such a very deliberate order that it does implant strange impressions in the brain. It’s as though we’re just hearing the traces of an event that has long since passed, or are being given a handful of unconnected clues to solve a complex detective story. An episode of CSI in sound; aural forensics.

via The Sound Projector

Futurónica 121

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Episode 121 of Futurónica, a broadcast in Rádio Manobras (91.5 MHz in Porto, 18h30) and Rádio Zero (21h GMT, repeating on Tuesday at 01h) airs tomorrow, August 22nd.

The playlist of Futurónica 121 is:

  1. Eliane Radigue, Mila’s Journey Inspired By A Dream (1987, Mila’s Journey Inspired By A Dream, Lovely Music)

You can follow Rádio Zero’s broadcasts at radiozero.pt/ouvir and Rádio Manobras at radiomanobras.pt.

“Ab OVO” reviewed by Liability

Ab OVO
C’est toujours avec une certaine délectation que l’on se penche sur un disque du duo portugais @C. Depuis le temps qu’on les suit (c’était à l’époque de V3 qui était déjà leur troisième album), on ne fait que prendre du plaisir à écouter leurs constructions électroniques protéiformes. On en a loupé quelques unes mais globalement, ce qui nous est parvenu aux oreilles a su nous faire palpiter notre matière grise. Ab Ovo, même si c’est un disque issu d’un travail de commande, n’échappera pas à la règle. Enfin, il faut quand même expliquer les choses. Ab Ovo est une adaptation de la musique qu’avait déjà réalisé le duo @C pour Ovo, une création du Teatro de Marionetas do Porto. En fait Pedro Tedula et Miguel Carvalhais partaient du principe qu’une musique créée pour un spectacle ne pouvait pas se détacher réellement du contexte pour laquelle elle avait été faite. De ce fait, les deux hommes se voyaient quasiment obligés de retravailler la musique pour qu’elle soit présentable dans le cadre simple d’un album. Des 19 compositions du départ, @C remodèlera le tout pour arriver à six pièces qui sauront garder l’ADN des créations originales. Evidemment, sans avoir vu le spectacle il est assez difficile de se figurer comment la musique du duo pouvait faire corps avec les mouvements des marionnettes. Ici, on ne peut que l’imaginer, extrapoler mais on revient immanquablement à des sensations plus terre à terre liées à la compréhension des musiques électroniques abstraites et expérimentales. Cela ne veut pas dire pour autant que @C est revenu à des considérations plus cliniques ou plus techniques. Sous ses aspects d’une froideur que l’on colle souvent aux ensemble urbains modernes, ce disque n’est pas sans développer des contre feux qui le rende manifestement plus humains. En fait, Ab Ovo est un disque beaucoup plus souple et limpide qu’il n’y paraît. Il se diffuse à la manière du sang dans le réseau sinueux de nos veines. Là encore, le mouvement à toute son importance et le sens qu’il prend n’est jamais prévisible. Ab Ovo présente une musique qui se déplace à une vitesse raisonnable, comme si votre pouls ne présente aucune anomalie mais qu’il réagit a différents stimuli sans énormes conséquences. Ab Ovo est comme un songe où ces marionnettes de la troupe portugaise apparaissent comme des ombres bienveillantes vous montrant le chemin à travers les brumes d’un sommeil fantasmagorique. Fabien Pondard

via Liability

Futurónica 120

futurónica_120
Episode 120 of Futurónica, a broadcast in Rádio Manobras (91.5 MHz in Porto, 18h30) and Rádio Zero (21h GMT, repeating on Tuesday at 01h) airs tomorrow, August 8th.

The playlist of Futurónica 120 is:

  1. Francisco López, Hyper-Rainforest (2014, Hyper-Rainforest, The Epoché Collection)

You can follow Rádio Zero’s broadcasts at radiozero.pt/ouvir and Rádio Manobras at radiomanobras.pt.