Another Sound on Anothersomething

I am very happy to announce the first edition of Another Sound, a recurring feature on Joachim Baan’s great blog Anothersomething. Joachim is a very inspiring person and on Anothersomething he shares his passion with the world. In his own words: “We don’t fall for just anything. We are attracted to the quality, aesthetic and sophistication of something. A unique, incomparable and extraordinary something.” And from now on Anothersomething has its own music and sound related section called Another Sound, written by me. 

The first edition of Another Sound features Efterklang and their new album Magic Chairs. I love the way Efterklang changes their musical style without changing their way of showing their true passion for music. Please read the whole article here and let me know what you think: Another Sound on Anothersomething.

Song Review: Autechre - R Ess

Many artists follow all the classic pop music rules and recipes to get into the favor of the masses. Others just do what they like, and some, like Autechre seem to do only things that go against those rules and recipes.

R Ess, the first track of their newest album Oversteps for instance, starts with a fade in of almost 1:30. Once the melodic synthesizer part is at its peak volume it is time for the beats to slowly fade in as well.

On the left ear we hear the direct sound of the synthesizer, while the rest of the sonic panorama is covered in an ocean of reverberation as the muffled kick drum and crispy snare come in at the center. Towards the end of the track we are treated to some extra low frequencies, it is hard to really call it a bass line.

Compared to some other, rather complex Autechre songs it is quite easy to nod your head to the beat of R Ess, while enjoying the pitch shifting synth tones, even though some snare drums will not be where you expect them to be.

Autechre’s Oversteps is the first album I bought online in a higher-than-CD-audio quality: 24bit/44.1kHz at bleep.com. I really think as storage and bandwidth capacity increase, online music stores like the iTunes store should at least offer an option to buy uncompressed, or at least lossless formats.

Click to read more ...

Minus 60° - Sound and Light Installation

The sound of the surround sound installation Minus 60° bears quite some resemblance to the music of Ryoji Ikeda. If you have ever seen one of Ikeda’s live performances you have experienced the connection between his music and his visuals, mostly consisting of abstract, black and white patterns. The visual always tightly synchronized to the audible.

In Minus 60°, a sound installation by Karl Kliem, the same feeling arises, but now we are not watching from the outside, but standing in the middle of it. There are six channels of sound and each channel has its own fluorescent tube, flashing with the music. Although the idea is simple, it works. The clicks and buzzing of the music fits the clinical white lights very well. 

Five Sound Questions to Anna Friz

Canadian sound artist Anna Friz works with radio as main source and medium in most of her work, consisting of radio for broadcast, installations and performances.  

 

Listening to some of the works on her MySpace page we hear the mysterious noises between radio channels, some words in between, Russian maybe, and it feels like we are scanning the sky for audible waves. 

 

Read more about Anna Friz and her work on her website www.nicelittlestatic.com.

 

1. What sound from your childhood made the most impression on you?

The crinkle of cellophane paper. The radio heard from another room. The pump organ at my great-aunt’s house. I still like to submerge my ears below the water in the bathtub to hear the sound of my pulse and the internal rushes of blood and activity in my body. 

2. How do you listen to the world around you?

Broadly. In my daily routine, I enjoy noticing what’s in the air. I’m guilty of eavesdropping on people’s conversations when I’m on the streetcar. But I can also become very preoccupied with my thoughts, at which point I hear only drones and don’t really understand what people are saying around me. I also really like listening to inter frequency sounds on short wave at night—it’s a really beautiful and mysterious landscape, with little islands of audible stations.

Click to read more ...

Sonorous Bench: Sound Art in Public Space

There is a small tunnel underneath the railroad in Amsterdam where sounds similar to dripping water come from the walls. The first time I passed it I did not notice it right away, as the sounds are not very loud. But then I realized the experience of passing through that tunnel was more pleasant than usual. I love these sonic surprises and I wish I would encounter more of them throughout the city. 

This Sonorous Bench created by Clint Davis, Jaime Oliver, Jacob Sudol and Chris Warren, all students at the San Diego’s music department of the University of California, is another great example of sound art in public space. Two transducers emit resonance frequencies of the bench, and make it sing. It is not too loud, just a nice, subtle addition to the urban soundscape. 

Subscribe to the Everyday Listening Newsletter

You might have noticed the new field in the right sidebar of Everyday Listening labeled Monthly Newsletter, where you can fill in and submit your email address.

As the name suggests, here you can subscribe to the new Everyday Listening Newsletter which I will be sending out once a month. In the newsletter you will find the highlights of the month, a selection of featured posts and other news about the site. So in case you do not have the time to visit us every day, you will never miss the most interesting stuff. 

I am starting this as an experiment to find out if people like a service like this. I think it is a good way to encourage readers to stay in touch. Later on I might change the frequency of the newsletters, but I will announce this beforehand, and I promise I will never give away or sell your email addresses to anyone else. I hate spam just as much as you do!

As easy as it is to subscribe to the newsletter (just enter you email address and confirm by clicking the link in the email sent to you), if you decide you rather check the website manually now and then or you prefer using an RSS subscription, it is just as easy to unsubscribe by clicking the link at the bottom of each email. 

So I hereby invite you to subscribe to the new newsletter, to stay in touch, and tell me what you think!

Earworm Assault Devices

Although I consider myself a pacifist, these Earworm Assault Devices are quite funny and (well, moderately) harmless. We probably all know the experience of having a song in our mind that just does not want to leave and keeps repeating compulsively. That is what we call an earworm. 

While most of these earworms arise naturally in our mind, a few years ago the German interface designers from Fur came up with the Earworm Assault Devices. Small weapon-like machines constructed with the sole purpose to plant unwanted song phrases in a victim’s mind. They record samples up to 12 seconds and ‘shoot’ them at your ears repeatedly.

These earworms, if chosen carefully, can stay in your head for a long time. You just have to sing that song, or whistle, over and over again. I heard there is only one way to get rid of such an earworm. Sing the song all the way through, until you reach the end, and after the last notes it will be gone. I never tried this method myself though.   

Via Richard van Tol

Five Sound Questions to Stephen Gallagher

I found out about Stephen Gallagher while visiting Social Sound Design, where he was asking questions quite similar to my Five Sound Questions. A good reason to aks him to participate in this series. So I did, and here you can read his answers. 

 

Stephen is a composer, music and sound editor for feature films, commercials, documentaries, short films, theatre, dance and television, working in New Zealand. He already has quite a list of projects on his name. Visit his website to learn more about them: www.stephengallagher.co.nz

1. What sound from your childhood made the most impression on you? 

I used to have an old hand held game that I got in Tokyo when I was 4 years old . It was a baseball game and when you pulled this little blue lever it made a sound like a small race car speeding past you. I loved it! I don’t know quite why but that sound always has stayed with me.

 

Just thinking of it now conjures up vivid images of my childhood in Tokyo. It was an amazing place for a little kid from New Zealand to spend a few years. The city was, and still is,  full of fascinating sounds. I guess I could go further and say that living there has had a profound effect on the way I feel about sound in general.

2. How do you listen to the world around you?

It really depends on where I am, what I am doing and what is happening around me. I remember that my composition lecturer, Jack Body, began his courses with a small exercise about listening to the world around you; He divided the class up into pairs. One in each pair was blindfolded and was then guided around the campus by his/her partner for a half hour. Then you swapped around. It was amazing.

Click to read more ...

Fine Collection of Curious Sound Objects

This Fine Collection of Curious Sound Objects is a project by Georg Reil and Kathy Scheuring. It is nice to see how they created a piece of sound art that also looks great. We see a couple of everyday objects which are modified to surprise users with their sonic abilities.  

All speakers, microphones and cables are carefully hidden inside the objects so they do not spoil the magic. While the sonic results are not mind blowing, the strength of this sound installation is how intuitive the and simple the objects work. They seem fun to play with for a while, and then put them away because of their limited functionality.

Click to read more ...

She Loves You Yéyé in Journal de Nîmes N°4

Although I do write quite a lot on the web, it is wonderful to see some of my words actually printed on paper. In November last year I wrote an article about Japanese music in Journal de Nîmes, the quarterly paper of denim inspired boutique Tenue de Nîmes in Amsterdam. For the newest, France-themed edition I again wrote the music section, and this time it is called She Loves You Yéye, after the Yéyé movement in French music. You can click on the image above to read the article.

I did not intent to write a complete overview of French music, as that would be a book full of content. Rather, I chose a few French artists which inspire me in some way or another. Next to my contribution this issue holds a Paris city report, a little history of the shirt, The Faces of Neal Cassady by Piet Heijden Hume and much, much more.