the music of sound

Terje Isungset is a Norwegian musician and percussionist who primarily plays intruments made from ice. He has a blog but his record label website has a bit more information about instruments: “The instruments are made from top quality ice. It must be free of any air bubbles. The instruments are carved using saws and knives. So far these instruments have been created and recorded: Iceofon, Ice Harp, Ice Horn, Ice trumpet, Ice percussion, Ice bass drum carved from one block of ice. In addition, all stands, supports and tables are also made from ice. Only the bass drum pedal, fish line for suspension, and the strings on the Ice Harp are made from materials other than pure frozen water.”

Hmmm wonder how long it takes to defrost the mics after the recording session?

Artist Peter Wasilewski also works with ice as his primary medium, although he is primarily a visual artists; Wasilewski uses “only ice, the laws of physics, and attitude” to create his colorful images.

So of course it makes sense the two would collaborate and this video is a beautiful example of both of their work…

The image below comes from a Psychology textbook….
and I think conclusively illustrates spiders shouldn’t drink coffee!

click on image for large version

Heres a clip of Ali G interviewing a representative from UK Drug Enforcement:

The funniest line is when they are discussing ecstacy & Ali G asks, totally deadpan,
“Isn’t the most worrying aspect of this drug the fact that it actually makes you
enjoy house music?”

Seriously though, maybe this quote is relevant: “Don’t do drugs. People on drugs think they are creative. To everyone else, they seem like people on drugs.”

From here…

The song City Ports by Forss features a beautifully minimalist animation reminiscent of oscilliscope art & was originally created for Optronica festival 2005. For better resolution watch it here and if you feel like remixing anything from his latest album, SoulHack, download the samples here

I am always in search of new music & recently one of the most productive means of finding it, for me, has become radio. I am not someone who has time to listen to podcasts, but particular radio shows are worth their weight in gold as a filter for finding the best.
Two that I listen to almost religiously are BBC Radio One shows: Worldwide by Giles Peterson
and Experimental by Mary Anne Hobbes

It is possible to stream the shows from the BBC site for up to a week after broadcast, but I much prefer to be able to listen, pause, recue, listen again etc and so the New Mixes website has become a weekly visit for me, as mp3s of the shows & many others appear regularly… highly reccomended & worth a donation to support it! And by simultaneously accessing the playlists from the BBC website it is easy to find out what band/song appeals, for later sourcing….

I’ve started reading Oliver Sacks new book MUSICOPHILIA – Tales of Music and the Brain, and I’ll borrow the blurb from his description, but so far its very interesting…. “Music occupies more areas of our brain than language does–humans are a musical species. Oliver Sacks’s compassionate, compelling tales of people struggling to adapt to different neurological conditions have fundamentally changed the way we think of our own brains, and of the human experience. In Musicophilia, he examines the powers of music through the individual experiences of patients, musicians, and everyday people……”
Anyway I stumbled across the image below in my archives (yikes! I’m not sure of its source) and combined with Musicophilia its got me thinking about sound, music, time & perception…

click on image for fullsize…

And heres a clip of Oliver Sacks talking about a case from his book, who was struck by lightning and suddenly inspired to become a pianist at the age of forty-two!

What got you started with music/sound?
Anyone else discover their calling through high voltages?

I rescanned the article from an old issue of American Cinematographer (1984 I think)
which has an inspiring article about Alan Splet & Anne Krobers work on Dune… and was the first time I became aware of using a contact mic!

The article is here

Aphex Twin is infamous in ways unique unto himself, whether its his early ambient music, noodly piano experiments, putting his face in the spectrum of his music, or for making a lot of incredibly cutting edge electronic music, he is enigmatic to say the least…. Accordingly its quite a pleasant surprise to hear his music performed acoustically, and so far I’ve come across three contenders…

Alarm Will Sound (their website & myspace site) is a 20 person orchestra who are known for their challenging repertoire and their last CD release Acoustica featured exclusively Aphex Twin songs. Check them out in this video – I love the bit of them playing the Aphex Twin track “Cliffs” while lieing on the floor…

The Bad Plus (their website & myspace site) are a jazz trio of piano, double bass & drums known for their live sets which include a smattering of reworked versions of popular songs… check out their version of the Aphex Twin song Flim

Movie related, the Aphex Twin track “Jynweythek Ylow” for prepared piano appeared in Sofia Coppollas film Marie Antoinette and can be heard in this beautifully abstract video…

Aphex Twin at wikipedia and Warp records,, discography, some loops & samples, mashups (using him, rather than by him), a gear list and The Aphex Twin Community

Its not every day you get something for free, especially something useable & likely to be used, often… So go check out OhmForce Frohmage, a highly resonant low-pass filter!
Its available for Mac (PPC+Intel) AU/VST/RTAS + PC VST and did I mention its free?
For me its like preaching to the converted – I already own their OhmBoyz Delay as well as their fantastic Ohmicide distortion plug in, but Low Pass Filters are something I savour – I like it when sound gets soft, muffled & thumpy & I almost can’t play bass guitar without my Moogerfooger LPF stomp box!

So, quoting their info: Frohmage is a highly resonant LPF, the cutoff frequency unit selection can be Hz or musical note (!) with up to 15 additional bands, harmonically distributed…. Delay on each band for unique phaser effects… Distortion stage, with two routing schemes…. Very fine MIDI control (PRN and NPRN sent or recorded by Frohmage are 14-bit accurate) Low CPU load….Move several buttons at once, with group selection and side-click…. Advanced GUI full of live-performance features, such as flying knobs, preset morphing, and grouped parameters… Best of all – it sounds great!

More info on Frohmage here or download it here
And thank you OhmForce – we like our plugs with a bit of attitude!

this is kind of what i want to do with a gamelan orchestra setup, conceptually at least….