ambient music – Page 2 – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 323

Mescaline Woods (1969) by Gage Taylor.

• The soundtrack to The Man Who Fell to Earth will be released for the first time next month in a double-disc set (CD & vinyl). This isn’t, as some people have hoped, David Bowie’s unheard music for the film, but a collection of the pre-existing songs and other pieces, plus the original compositions by John Phillips. Consequence of Sound has a track list.

• At Scream Addicts: Joe R. Lansdale talks about the only film adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House that you need to see: the 1963 version directed by Robert Wise.

• The new wave of new age: How music’s most maligned genre finally became cool by Adam Bychawski.

• Transmissions From The Abyss: Dark ambient music for the perfect headspace by S. Elizabeth.

• Jason Farrago reviews Art Aids America, an exhibition at the Bronx Museum, New York.

• Curse Go Back: a limited reissue of tape experiments by William Burroughs.

• Samuel Wigley on Notorious at 70: toasting Hitchcock’s dark masterpiece.

• Toyah Willcox remembers working with Derek Jarman on The Tempest.

• “Why are musicians so obsessed with David Lynch?” asks Selim Bulut.

• Read the original 32-page programme for Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

• David Parkinson chooses 10 essential films starring Oliver Reed.

• Mixes of the week: The Sounds of the Dawn NTS radio shows.

• Keith Haring envisions Manhattan as a kingdom of penises.

• Frank Guan on Massive Attack’s Blue Lines, 25 years on.

• Honky Tonk Pts 1 & 2 (1956) by Bill Doggett | I’ve Told Every Little Star (1961) by Linda Scott | I’m Deranged (1995) by David Bowie

Ceramic Buddha Machines

The experimentalists at Fm3 continue to impress with their commitment to unorthodox music delivery when the trend remains digital and ephemeral. Back in April they announced a new line of ceramic-bodied players for their series of Buddha Machines, that essential collection of ambient loops in a case the size of a box of matches. The new players will be available at the end of the year. Being ceramic they’re probably a little less portable than the plastic versions, and might also be more fragile. For durability and retro cachet I would have opted for Bakelite if that material is still being manufactured anywhere. (It seems it is, thanks Wikipedia.)

Back in the digital and ephemeral world, Fm3 also have a Buddha Machine app for iPhones and iPads. If that seems to defeat the object of the loops being encased in a box of their own you do at least have the option of mixing six of the machines at once. For an idea of how far the mixing and extrapolation of these sounds can be taken, Robert Henke’s two ambient mixes of Buddha Machine samples from 2007 and 2008 are still available as free downloads on his website.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Gristleism
• Uncopyable
• Buddha Machine Wall
• God in the machines
• Layering Buddha by Robert Henke

Passage 13

Ed Jansen writes again with news that no. 13 of his Dutch-language web magazine Passage is now online:

Number 13 of Passage contains stories about the Buddha Machine, a strange little box that emits music, then there is ‘Escape from the dollhouse?’, which is about the art of Hans Bellmer, surreal and strangely erotic, ‘The Skeleton that Climbed in Through the Window’ tells the equally strange and sad story of the life of Unica Zürn, companion of Bellmer and ‘Nomads of the Timestream’ is of course about the work of Michael Moorcock. This collection begins and ends with two sides of a story about the version of the visit of Odysseus to the Underworld, by Ezra Pound.

The customary eclectic mix, in other words. The Buddha Machine section is a nice overview of recent ambient music machines. I love the ad art for Zhang Jian’s Short-Wave of Bengal Bay.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Passage 12
• Gristleism
• Passage 11
• Buddha Machine Wall
• Passage 10
• God in the machines
• Layering Buddha by Robert Henke

Miasmah in Manchester

Out again to Trinity Church in Salford for an evening of musical performance from the Miasmah label. “Miasma” was a fitting word for this event since all three artists proved very adept at filling the humid air with great clouds of treated guitar chords, loops and electronic noise.

The aural miasms created by The Sight Below, aka Rafael Anton Irisarri and Simon Scott, reminded me of favourites Main whose Hz album I’d been playing earlier in the day. Main were among the first musicians in the 1990s to extend the sound of the electric guitar through samples and other processing, and everyone at the Trinity tonight was following a similar path, albeit with very distinctive, individual styles. The Sight Below add a pulse of heavy rhythm to their sheets of distortion. Svarte Greiner (Erik Skodvin of Deaf Center) meanwhile, played some great bowed Stratocaster then some even better squalls of Strat feedback. Very impressive all round and the combination of volume plus environment (old church carefully lit and perfumed by clouds of incense) showed again why these kind of intimate performances often trump their recorded equivalents; sometimes you just have to be there.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Deaf Center in Manchester
• Machinefabriek in Manchester
• Trinity rendezvous
• Main

Versum – Fluor by Tarik Barri

Regular readers will know I’ve enthused before over the electronica of Robert Henke, aka Monolake. The Monolake site recently resumed its monthly free downloads and the offering for this month is a 9-minute piece of abstract video by Dutch artist Tarik Barri. Fascinatingly immersive, this is like a 360º view of the Star Gate from 2001: A Space Odyssey accompanied by ambient drones and rumbles. Henke and Barri are planning on touring this audiovisual experience with a couple of dates already announced on Barri’s website.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Moonlight in Glory