Archive for July, 2007

UK rejects music performers’ copyright extension

26 July 2007 at 11:08 am · Filed under Music ·Tagged , , ,

Good to see that the government is reported to be rejecting calls to extend copyright in sound recordings and performers’ rights. In the face of opposition from Cliff Richard, Katie Melua, Roger Daltrey and a group of star-struck MPs, Gordon Brown looks to be following the sound advice of the Gowers report that he commissioned as Chancellor.

I’m in the rare position of saying, without reservation – good on you, Gordon. You’ve been a model of good sense in all this – a far cry from your opposite number who, in a recent address to the BPI, said that the Conservative Party would play ball and extend copyright terms – in exchange for social responsibility from record companies in the marketing of rap. (Read the full speech here in pdf.) In the face of stiff competition that is quite the silliest response of a politician I’ve heard to the question of music and copyright.

Oh, and if you think it’s ironic that the man who sang “Hope I die before I get old” should be leading the charge to extend performers’ rights to 95 years, don’t worry – the IPKat got there first. And surely I can’t be the only one to note the irony that for The Who – squillionaires all – their wealth has less to do with sitting on their arses watching the royalties come in and more to do with the fact that, as one of the most bankable live acts in the world, they’re still out there, performing.

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New Music online radio stations

25 July 2007 at 1:31 pm · Filed under Music, Web resources ·Tagged

(Photo by Carl Palmer Hull, from flickr, some rights reserved.)

So, to compliment some of my other big resource posts, how about a list of online radio stations playing, mostly or totally, New Music?

Resonance FM

The daddy, at least here in the UK. The London Musicians’ Collective started broadcasting Resonance back in 2002 and it has since become a watchword for smart, community, experimental, adventurous broadcasting that, frankly, beats the crap out of anything the BBC bothers with these days. Broadcasting across London on 104.4FM, everyone else can listen online.

Radio Wandelweiser

Probably my favourite radio station at the moment, and definitely my go-to channel when I’m between CDs at my desk, Radio Wandelweiser broadcasts a continual loop of tracks from the Wandelweiser catalogue, plus lots of as-yet unreleased material by the group of composers associated with the label, and recordings of works by likes of Cage, Feldman and Lucier. Quiet, compelling, beautiful, uncompromising, essential.

Postclassic Radio

Kyle Gann’s own radio station. Again, this runs a continual loop of music, rather than a strict radio schedule, but the playlist is long enough that you’re not going to come across repeats too often, and Gann refreshes the list pretty regularly. Anyone who knows Gann’s music or writing might think they know what to expect from his selections, but the station still throws up plenty of surprising (and rare) music.

WPS1 Art Radio

Supported by MoMA, WPS1 is basically the US equivalent of Resonance. Their schedule is huge and various, but Elliott Sharp’s Sonorama is probably the place to start (occasionally podcast too).

Counterstream

A project of the American Music Center, Counterstream broadcasts new and exploratory music from the AMC archives. As well as a regular schedule, they also broadcast ‘Spotlight Sessions‘ focusing on the music of a particular composer or performer (the most recent was on John Morton, whose latest CD I reviewed here).

Iridian Radio

Another Postclassic-ish station, hosted on Live365 (although this one came first), Iridian Radio plays “Music that’s smart, but still warm to the ears – John Adams, Kronos Quartet, Bang on a Can, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson”.

Innova.mu

Rambler-favourites, Innova run a collection of radio stations on Live365 broadcasting tracks from the label’s catalogue: Innova Classical, Innova Experimental, Innova World, Innova Avant Jazz and Innova Sonic Circuits.

Touch Radio

Not strictly internet radio as such, more like a streaming podcast, TouchRadio is an offshoot of ambient/experimental/drone label Touch, showcasing recent releases and related work.

Radio Molecule

In their own words: “Rotated Selections of Independent Music; Label Collections; Women’s Work; New American Composers, New Music you won’t find anywhere else. Works by Sofia Gubaidulina, Lesli Dalaba, Unsuk Chin, John Zorn, John Cage, Terry Riley.” Listen here.

Bentstrings Radio

Bentstrings Radio plays “alternative experimental genre bending music”, such as Nick Didkovsky, Meredith Monk and Frank Zappa.

The Pounding System with Clay / WFMU

Not currently running, this is just archives for this beats, electronica, dub and soundtrack show from WFMU. Worth exploring.

Many more online radio stations for classical music listed here.

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Philip Tagg on the Intel bong

25 July 2007 at 11:22 am · Filed under Music, Video ·Tagged

Available on YouTube and blogged at Loose Poodle comes this video by University of Montréal musicologist Philip Tagg.

It’s a neat video looking at a number of semiotic layers in the music and sounds of a 1996 Intel ad, and a large part of the video is devoted to the ‘Intel bong’ at the end of the clip that is, according to some, the most recognised audio signature ID in the world. I took a cheap shot at Philip in a comment on the Loose Poodle post, pointing out that although he devotes several minutes of his analysis to the bong as four notes, it’s actually got five notes, as legally defined by Intel themselves (here’s one example I could find of such a definition. Unrelated to this post, I heard a while ago that according to Intel’s in-house counsel it’s very common for people to ignore the first chime).

Phil has a good answer for me

I’m not dealing with that “blang” because (a) as Peter D Kaye says, it’s more of an episodic marker to break from the preceding ad; and (b) anyhow it’s a complex of timbres and of several more notes, not just one more. It’s polyphonic and the four notes aren’t, unless you count what can be heard in the reverb. I decided to deal with the four notes of the actual jingle/transscansion itself, not with the three or four notes involved in the episodic marker. There’s enough in the four notes of the transcanssion on its own for a 15-minute edutainment clip (more IOCM, more commutations, etc.).

but I’m still interested in that first chime, because I think it does actually change the musical interpretation of what follows. Yes, it’s a complex aggregate of sounds and pitches, but still basically within the same tonal field as the rest of the jingle (D flat major as Phil’s analysis shows). And the note that I hear most clearly from that aggregate is D flat itself, an octave above the first of the four bongs. And it’s only a subtle thing, but to my ears that changes the cadence (in a rhythmic, poetic sense, rather than a strictly tonal sense) of the bong from ‘masculine’ to ‘feminine’. Phil finds echoes of the four notes in Handel arias and even the Marseillaise, fair enough, but that suggests a triumphalist, forward drive to those notes. But add the first chime, and I suggest that the opposite is the case (and, interestingly, this locks more closely with Phil’s analysis of the rest of the ad) – a softer, reassuring ‘landing’ onto something familiar, rather than a springboard forward into the unknown.

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I have, like, no earthly idea what you’re talking about

24 July 2007 at 4:19 pm · Filed under Music ·Tagged , , , , ,

Y’all seen this, right?

Q. Mr. President, music is one of our largest exports the country has. Currently, every country in the world — except China, Iran, North Korea, Rwanda and the United States — pay a statutory royalty to the performing artists for radio and television air play. Would your administration consider changing our laws to align it with the rest of the world?

THE PRESIDENT: Help. (Laughter.) Maybe you’ve never had a President say this — I have, like, no earthly idea what you’re talking about. (Laughter and applause.) Sounds like we’re keeping interesting company, you know? (Laughter.)

Look, I’ll give you the old classic: contact my office, will you? (Laughter.) I really don’t — I’m totally out of my lane. I like listening to country music, if that helps. (Laughter.)

Sheesh. (Hat tip – hypebot.)

Update, 13/8/07: Hey, and now there’s a video! (Thanks Daniel)

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Small But Perfectly Formed @ the Fleapit tonight!

20 July 2007 at 12:56 pm · Filed under Concerts, Music ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

And on the back of the previous review, just a little plug for a concert tonight – Parkinson will be playing at the Fleapit in Shoreditch, alongside James Saunders, David Lacey, Paul Vogel, Mark Wastell and Nos Phillipé. Starts at 8pm, donations of £5 are suggested. More details.

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Live review: Tim Parkinson, London, 19 July 2007

20 July 2007 at 12:54 pm · Filed under Concerts, Music, Reviews ·Tagged , , , , ,

So having missed the first two of what sound like it was an excellent concert series, I made it to the last of the Music We’d Like to Hear gigs last night, put together and performed by composer and pianist for the night Tim Parkinson.

First up, Jürg Frey’s Klavierstücke (1995) was in a series of sections, the first and longest of which was essentially a low, rumbling drone at the bottom of the piano. Sustained through rapid repetition, the note became a space to move up, down and among the harmonic overtones. I’d just got locked onto the 6th or 7th partial when the next section – a series of gentle, almost-tonal diads and chords – kicked in, a huge shock, particularly in the sudden leap back to equal temperament from such a pure harmonic series. Overall, a powerful and moving piece.

Chris Newman’s Piano Sonata 8B (2001) was a very different affair. Newman’s something of a cult figure, very elusive, not always easy to deal with, and Parkinson had to go through an intermediary, and a year-long wait, to receive a brown envelope outside Leicester Square tube of some of Newman’s recent pieces. His music is some of the strangest stuff I know. I know it best through his various songs – some of which are on this CD – and they’ve always unsettled me, like Flanders and Swann after a six-pack of Tennents Super and a night on the streets. But this piano piece was something else, and I’ve still no idea what the hell was going on. It was long, mostly dissonant (although with random moments of sickly sweet tonality – like finding a dolly mixture in your meat pie), mostly homorhythmic, and played at a single dynamic level, forte. Deeply disturbing music, not least for its white-eyed, staring commitment. If anyone else has this stuff figured out, please get in touch.

After that, Makiko Nishikaze’s two pieces, Shades I and II came as something of a relief. They were much quieter, more reflective, but actually shared some similarities with the Newman. Nishikaze’s declared goal in music is to invite attentive listening through a continual subversion of expectations and habits. in these pieces, she mostly did this through pitch and register (and rhythm to a slight degree): like Newman, then, certain parameters – attack, dynamic, etc – remained relatively static, so the effect was of expectations being cutely teased, rather than viciously assaulted.

The last piece, Michael Maierhof’s Splitting 16 für Klavier, I didn’t take to so much. Essentially a study in preparing a piano with e-bows and large glass balls, it produced some interesting sounds, but didn’t do much more for me than that. Curiously though, and completely against expectation, the score is quite detailed, particularly with respect to rhythm, so perhaps there are subtleties I was missing (there was a lot of building noise from outside, which didn’t help).

Music We’d Like to Hear will be back next summer.

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Live review: Cattral, Zurich, 13 July 2007

20 July 2007 at 11:42 am · Filed under Concerts, Reviews ·Tagged , , , , ,

While I was in Zürich I wanted to take the opportunity to hear some new music (as well as buy up a raft of Swiss CDs on the cheap, perhaps more on which later). As they often do, the conference organised a series of concerts throughout the week, and I ended up catching the sax and guitar duo Cattral (Mats Scheidegger, guitar, Rico Gubler, sax), playing five newish Swiss pieces by Nadir Vassena, Franz Furrer-Münch, Hans Ulrich Lehmann and Mischa Käser.

The pieces by the first and last of these I will come to in a minute. Furrer-Münch (born 1924) and Lehmann (born 1937) are two of the more senior figures on the Swiss scene. The former’s andante, tranquillo, rubato, in its first performance, was a slow exploration of harmonics and breath tones for tenor sax. It was an interesting, and often beautiful sound, but it sounded to me more a presentation of materials than a particularly strong musical argument, although there may have been things going on beneath the surface that were hard to pick up on in a first hearing.

Lehmann had two pieces – Um-risse for baritone sax and guitar, and Etwas Klang von meiner Oberfläche for solo guitar. Both were of that old-school, spikey discursive serial world, with nicely shaped phrases and clear gestures, and actually very easy to find your way through. The problem was that after a while, the continual pattern of gesture–silence–gesture got a little wearing, to the extent that in a long continuous central section in Etwas Klang of repeated notes, you didn’t believe it could possibly last.

The best two pieces were the top and tail. Vassena’s Primo discorso eretico sulla leggerezzia dei chiodi worked from a close relationship of the two parts of the duo, each emerging sonically from the other. It was a lovely sound, a sort of mellow, softened Richard Barrett I guess. Funnily, though, if I had a criticism of the playing (and on the whole it was really excellent, especially Gubler’s sax), it was exactly this – that they were quite happy to soften the rough edges of the music that they were playing. Pieces like Lehmann’s remained fairly in your face because of their style, but I couldn’t be certain that Vassena was best served by such gloss.

No complaints at all about Käser’s Juturna, which finished the concert. Beginning with manic strumming on an obscenely detuned guitar, it switched between this and slapstick interludes with sax, to good comic effect. Slowly the scordatura was brought closer to true tuning between sections, and the playing became more bizarre. After a few repetitions of this, the mind did begin to wonder whether the piece was simply a move towards a properly tuned guitar (or how they would even get to that point), and if so, would that actually be terribly interesting in the end. And then it took one completely by surprise by presenting an entirely new second half. This was much slower, and compared to the comic mania that preceded it, quite dark too. Still detuned, the guitar worked out a long lament of bell tones with the sax. The remarkable thing with the sudden switch between moods wasn’t that one thing evolved into the other, rather that one became the other, and the metamorphosis happened mentally, over time, through the continuance of that sonically strange detuned guitar. Quite a remarkable piece, and I would recommend Käser’s music to anyone who comes across it.

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Catching up

15 July 2007 at 6:01 pm · Filed under Admin, Music ·Tagged

It’s been a slightly mad two weeks, with involvement in two major conferences – the International Conference on Music Since 1900 at York, and the International Musicological Society’s quinquennial shindig in Zurich last week – so forgive me if I’ve seemed remiss in keeping this thing up to date recently.

I may well have things to say about the two conferences – I have pages of notes and, personally, they couldn’t have gone any better – but for now I just want to draw your attention to a couple of things people have been kind enough to tell me about elsewhere in this world we call music:

Duo46 are an interesting-looking violin and guitar duo who specialise in new music. If you’re in Italy, you can catch them now at the Cortona Festival.

And this has been languishing far too long in my inbox and several people have linked it already, but Stephen S. Taylor’s new documentary, The End of New Music deserves a link at the very least. The first screening was actually two weeks ago, but DVDs can be bought through the site. I doubt the film’ll ever make it over to these shores, but from the trailers on the site it looks interesting, and is set to a storming rendition of Fred Rzewski’s Come Together.

We’ll talk more soon…

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