Norway declares Apple’s iTunes illegal “because it did not allow downloaded songs to be played on rival technology companies’ devices”. Go Norway!
The Long Tail wonders whether record companies shouldn’t just give away the music and sell the show instead.
Kyle Gann is test-driving bits of his forthcoming book on his blog; read him on ‘Why I am a postminimalist‘.
Wayne waxes eloquent on copyright, fair use and ethnomusicology.
Something for the politically-minded among you:
RIOT: CAN NEW MUSIC CHANGE THE WORLD?
spnm presents a performance and discussion of new music, theatre and political protest.
Friday 9 Feb: LONDON, LSO St Luke’s
Tickets: £12 (£8 concs). Just £5 for spnm members!
www.lso.co.uk/lsostlukes
Manchester RNCM: Saturday 10 February
Tickets: £13 (£9 concs). Just £5 for spnm members!
www.rncm.ac.uk
For full event details, see www.spnm.org.uk/events
Looks like it could be an interesting do, with some fine music to boot.
As completion of the Festival Hall’s extensive refurbishment draws ever nearer, news comes in of plans for the opening weekend, 8-10 June this summer. Basically, the Southbank Centre has a weekend extravaganza of free music lined up, intriguingly described by artistic director Jude Kelly as “just the beginning … reflect[ing] an exciting change of emphasis at Southbank Centre”. Various stuff is mentioned, including a performance from Brian Wilson; mentions of contemporary music are so far limited to a new Hallelujah by Julian Anderson, but with the London Sinfonietta also on the bill I expect there’ll be more to come.
I’m reserving judgement on how the RFH turns out. I hold the whole of the Southbank in great personal affection (the RFH is where I first heard proper concerts of music and it’s always had a central place in my musical development), but although several aspects of the Southbank’s development are greatly welcomed – the outdoor bar at the QEH, the Hayward Gallery’s new entrance – some I’m not so sure about, including the general move to soften up all the edges of this spectacular example of brutalism with natty paintjobs and other tricks that will soon look as dated and weary as the original concrete does to many people now. Some of the stuff added to the walkways out the front – such luminous green beams that neither support anything or provide shelter, just distract the eye – annoy me a bit, but these are just cosmetic. I’m reasonably optimistic that the functioning of the building will be improved enormously (cos there was plenty that could be changed…)
Rob Burger’s 2004 departure from Tin Hat Trio left remaining members, Mark Orton and Carla Kihlstedt, with quite a dilemma. How to replace such a long-time collaborator and colleague? In the end, they chose to substitute one for three, and so Zeena Parkins, Ben Goldberg and Ara Anderson joined the renamed Tin Hat; The Sad Machinery of Spring is the new line-up’s first release.
The album draws inspiration from the writings of Polish novelist Bruno Schulz, which possess the classically-inflected surrealism that is Tin Hat’s natural mode. Easing itself into gaps between modern chamber, folk and jazz cabaret the 15 compact tracks slip past like hours in an Austrian cafe. If one song recalls early mornings shots in European films, another sounds like a heady mix of chocolate torte, schnapps and Kurt Weill.
All five players are represented as composers on this disc but, in the same way that the group’s instrumental palette easily suggests Central Europe (clarinet, violin), Celtic folk (harp), American blues (guitar) and classical (cello), it is ensemble thinking – and some nifty arrangements – that holds together this dreamlike collection.
The Sad Machinery of Spring is out on 30th January.
John Tavener on Stravinsky.
Tokafi’s next episode of ‘The Crisis of Classical Music’ looks at crossover artists.
The Merlin umbrella licensing agency for independent labels is making big news.
Ben H. reviews the Barbican’s Gubaidulina weekend.
Claps comes briefly out of retirement to share wisdom on the DJ Drama arrest.
del.icio.us/skills/obituary | About this list
Something of a backlog to catch up on, going back to November, but this week we bid farewell to the following members of the musical community:
:: Joe Stanley Saxophonist and singer
:: Dick Wetmore Jazz violinist
:: Alice Coltrane Jazz pianist, harpist and composer
:: Michael Brecker Jazz saxophonist
:: Janos Furst Violinist and conductor
:: Sneaky Pete Kleinow Steel guitarist
:: Braguinha Composer of Brazilian carnival songs
:: Pierre Delanoë Songwriter
:: Elspeth Iliff Violin teacher
:: Jay McShann Blues pianist and singer
:: Freddie Marsden Merseybeat drummer
:: Georgia Gibbs Singer
:: Ahmet Ertegün Founder of Atlantic records
:: Dave Mount Drummer with Mud
:: Denis Payton Saxophonist with the Dave Clark Five
:: Mick Mulligan Jazz trumpeter and bandleader
:: Walter Ward Singer with The Olympics
:: Martha Titlon Big band singer
:: Kenny Davern Jazz and swing clarinettist
:: Walter Booker Jazz bassist
:: James Brown Soul singer
:: Don Butterfield Jazz tuba player
:: Dennis Linde Songwriter
:: Del Reeves Grand Ole Opry star
:: Daniel Pinkham Composer, organist, harpsichordist and conductor
:: Galina Ustvolskaya Composer
:: Dave Black Jazz drummer with Duke Ellington
:: Nina Milkina Concert pianist
:: Buddy Killen Music publisher and songwriter
:: Arthur Shimkin Producer of children’s records
:: Basil Poledouris Film composer
:: Mariska Veres Shocking Blue singer
:: Arlene Zallman Composer and professor
:: Hank Shaw Trumpeter and bandleader
:: Alan Freeman DJ
:: Robert McFerrin Opera singer
:: Anita O’Day Swing singer
:: Robert Lockwood Jr Blues guitarist
:: Emanuel Hurwitz Violinist and teacher
:: John Veale Composer
:: Ruth Brown R&B singer
As MusicIndustry 1.0 enters its final death throes, it all comes down to where you’re sitting to watch the show. If, for example, you’re an ex-Runrig keyboard player and Scottish National Party MP, then the outlook seems pretty bleak* to you, what with all this pesky finite copyright and all. (BTW, could someone point out to Mr Wishart that session players are often paid on a flat-fee basis, so they rarely make much money when that session they did for some unknown goes stellar. Ain’t no copyright ruling gonna change that.)
It looks even worse if you’re sitting in the major label boardrooms, with CD sales bombing so badly that execs are rumoured to be contemplating the end of DRM.
All of which is why, even though I don’t care much about The Koopas, this story makes me happy this morning. MusicIndustry 2.0 is just around the corner.
*Dare I say dour, even?
Back in 1931, Henry Cowell asked Lev Termen [aka Leon Theremin] to build him a musical instrument capable of playing the sorts of complex overtones and rhythms that Cowell was working with at the time. The two of them came up with the Rhythmicon, a keyboard instrument a bit like an electric organ with a catch. Using sets of rotating optical discs inside the instrument all the keys were set up to play repeated tones, which were related in pitch and rhythm to one another according to the proportions of the overtone series. Very much a Cowell sort of idea it proved too unreliable to really take off as a concert instrument, but in 2003 American Public Media commissioned an online version for its American Mavericks website and radio show. The Virtual Rhythmicon – a greatly enhanced extrapolation of the original concept – has been online since then, and anyone can play around and submit the results to the American Mavericks archive. Mind you, I’ve had a good muck around on it and I’ve not produced anything that comes close to what’s on this album, so it’s not to be underestimated.
By the nature of the instrument, the nine tracks on The Art of the Virtual Rhythmicon are all built around sustained synth tones, wave forms, pulse patterns and the like, but with a notable emotional range. Schaefer’s work is a lush meditation paradoxically titled ‘All Bombing is Terrorism’, Gosfield deftly blends buzzing sawtooth waves with sweeping cello harmonics. Philip Blackburn samples a quarter-tone piano duet by Mildred Couper to evoke the concert where both her compositions and the rhythmicon were heard for the first time, while Jeff Feddersen samples Cowell’s voice over music designed to push the limits of the virtual rhythmicon to sonic breaking point. Burtner’s two contributions are dedications to his new-born son and his parents’ 60th birthday, producing rich sound worlds that belie their origins in simple algorithms, and Viv Corringham mixes her own voice, using everyday objects as resonators, over jangly, brassy blasts from the rhythmicon.
The two final tracks step furthest from the pure overtone beats of the rhythmicon medium. Mark Eden’s ‘Cremation Science’ is a Warhol-inspired pop collage, but the real gem of the whole disc is the final track, Robert Normandeau’s awesome ‘Chorus’, dedicated to the victims of 9/11. Using sound materials intended to represent Judaism (shofar), Christianity (bells) and Islam (muezzin), it’s a brooding concrete slab of a work in which menace, frustration, scratchy anxiety and spiritual profundity are all held in balance for a draining 15 minutes. No one would blame you for buying the CD for this piece alone – and you’d be in luck because the rest of the disc isn’t far behind in interest.
Download “Spectral for 0″ (mp3)
from “The Art of the Virtual Rythmicon”
by Matthew Burtner
Innova Recordings
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at eMusic
Buy at Napster
Buy at RealNetworks / Rhapsody Stream from RealNetworks / Rhapsody
Part remix series, part gallery installation, part soundtrack, part DVD, this is kind of a tricky release to trace a path through, but here’s how the story goes: Portland-based artist TJ Norris puts together a 3-part series of installation under the umbrella name Tribryd, featuring photographs of derelict, abandoned and uninhabited spaces around the city (see some here). One theme of the Tribryd installations is the ever-shifting archaeology of the urban landscape. As part of his strategy for taking the pictures, Norris asks a number of musicians to write soundtracks for him to listen to whilst photographing. The pictures are taken and the installations put together, featuring as a key component new remixes of the original soundtracks. On top of this, the exhibitions also feature new video works by artists such as Sue Costabile and Ryan Jeffery using, if you still follow, several of the originally-commissioned soundtracks.
What you get on this two-disc release is a CD of the remixed tracks that were used in the installations and a DVD with four video works using the original soundtrack material. Norris’s own work appears at the end of the DVD as a swift slideshow survey of one of the Tribryd exhibitions. Although this recording is Norris’s project, he is foregrounding the efforts of his collaborators as something independent from the artworks with which they were so closely entwined. As you unpeel the layers of collaboration you hear echoes of Norris’s visual record of urban change. Many of his photos are of graffiti tags, stencils or posted bills, images that have authors themselves, and are often piled on top of one another, or juxtaposed by Norris in diptychs. It becomes impossible to say who did what, or what that ‘what’ is any more. Authorship and material detach and float freely, leaving you instead with the trace of steps taken through a series of artistic psyches.
The result might have been a plateau of dull compromise, but triMix really works as something in itself because of the variety of musical responses it has compiled, from post-melancholy guitar to minimalist noise washes. Although several tracks are strikingly beautiful it’s not an album to leave on while you do the washing up; but a closely attended journey through its many facets shows this to be a very successful sonic artwork in its own right.
Download “Continuum” (mp3)
from “Trimix”
by Nobukazu Takemura – after Scanner
Innova Recordings
Buy at iTunes Music Store Buy at eMusic Buy at NapsterMy blogging new year proper kicks off with news of a new contemporary chamber ensemble set to make their debut in London later this year. They’re called Radius and are led by composer Tim Benjamin and Ian Vine, along with six other outstanding young soloists. Their first gig is, impressively, at the Wigmore Hall on 20th April, where they will be playing works by Tim and Ian alongside Cage, Gilbert, Carter and Andriessen. Tim was kind enough to answer some questions about the group for me:
What’s the back story to Radius – how did you all come together?
I’ve had the idea for ages to set up a top-notch chamber group dedicated to contemporary music. Only last summer did things start to come together, when I was chatting with my friend Daniel Rowland at the Proms – he had just led the BBC Symphony Orchestra under John Adams. I asked whether he was up for doing some new chamber music, and was, very much so. I had recently had similar conversations with Adrian Spillett, our percussionist, Jen George, our flautist, and Olly Coates, our cellist, so it all seemed to come together very quickly.
Our inspiration for the group came from the great “Fires of London” – the band started by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies in the 60s. We even talked to his people about calling our group “The New Fires of London”! In the end, we (very democratically) selected the name “Radius”.
Radius does not receive any public funding – indeed, I’m somewhat against public funding of the arts – instead we receive some money from several generous people I’ve met in the past. I’m also contributing personally, courtesy of some good days business-wise during the years of dot-com madness.
The Wigmore Hall is a pretty special venue for a debut – how did that come about?
It was partly luck and coincidence – they had just had a cancellation when I approached them, looking for a first-rate venue for our debut in London. Of course I had to pitch the group, and it certainly helped that most of our players have performed at the Wigmore before, and were well-known to the management. They’ve certainly taken us with quite a bit of faith and no proof of our ability as an ensemble other than our personal reputations, and we certainly want to repay that trust with a performance from the top drawer on April 20th.
With yourself and Ian Vine, there are two composers already involved with the ensemble; any plans to work closely with others in future?
I go back a long way with Ian – we studied together as undergraduates with Anthony Gilbert at the RNCM – and we’re great friends. Indeed I’ve been talking with Ian for years about the need for an ensemble like Radius, so it was natural he’d be involved. There is another Vine connection – our flautist, Jen, is married to Ian!
In terms of working with other composers: this is certainly a strong possibility. We’ve got a plan in the pipe-line to set up a residential masterclass for composers, and we’ll want to work with a “big name” on that. We’ve also approached a few other younger composers whose work we admire. Of course, as we’re performing lots of pieces by well-known living composers, we like to ask them for their ideas and assistance in delivering their work – for example, Anthony Gilbert (our former mentor!) has been helping Olly and Adrian with his piece “Moonfaring”, which we’re performing on April 20th at Wigmore Hall.
And what does the future hold for Radius?
Fame, riches, and world domination, of course! But more immediately – we’ve got many exciting projects coming up. We’re working with a major national festival to put on a very interesting music theatre collaboration in the Autumn, and I’ve mentioned our planned residential masterclass already. We’re also putting together some proposals for a music-and-film project with a national broadcaster. We’ve had some invitations to do some education projects and further concert dates, and finally, we’re planning to return to Wigmore Hall again next Spring – so hopefully that world domination won’t be far off!
