A bilingual blog by Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero dedicated to all things fun, like music, cinema, comedy and sci-fi. Contact: ruiz@tutanota.com - Un blog bilingüe de Carmelo Ruiz Marrero dedicado a todo lo que sea divertido, como música, cine, comedia y ciencia ficción. Contacto: ruiz@tutanota.com
This week: Actor Titus Welliver on shooting a gun, canonically … Corin Tucker doesn’t think her band’s music is too awful … Tracee Ellis Ross shares the gift of laughter and a loopy life coach … Comedian Maz Jobrani helps our listeners confront stereotypes and racism, with jokes … Hollywood costume creator Colleen Atwood reveals one dress she won’t be designing … Small, squishy creatures with powerful mouths (and we’re not talking about politics) … Why one type of Chinese cooking is so hot right now, while also less hot than you think … Some splashy history … And a newly-released song from the iconic Pop Staples …
Guests include Via Tania, who talks about her new LP with the Tomorrow Music Orchestra, and the sci-fi influenced Hairy Hands. Our album of the week is Romare's Projections, and we sample fresh selections from Cuba by Daymé Arocena, plus Moderator, Prefuse 73, Bouquet, and Har-Di-Har.
Still of “Two Trains – Sonification of Income Inequality on the NYC Subway” by Brian Foo (screenshot by the author for Hyperallergic)
As the 2 train travels from Brooklyn through Manhattan up to the Bronx, it journeys along 49 stations of neighborhoods as varied as Flatbush, the Financial District, and Wakefield. Artist and web developer Brian Foo algorithmically composed a song to reflect the income inequality of these areas connected by the tomato-red MTA line.
Foo’s “Two Trains – Sonification of Income Inequality on the NYC Subway” condenses the roughly one-hour-and-45 minute ride to just four and a half minutes, divided in 48 sections for each connection between stations. The income data sourced from the 2011 US Census corresponds to the number of instruments playing, from 3to 30, and the strength of their sound. For example, the blaring 1:37 mark represents the median income of $205,192 between Park Place and Chambers Street in the Financial District, while the most subdued movement of the song at 3:53 is between East 180th Street and Bronx Park East, an area with a median income of $13,750.
A 2 train on the elevated tracks in the Bronx in 2007 (photograph by Adam E. Moreira, viaWikimedia)
“To be as objective as possible, the same rules are applied throughout the whole song,” Foo explains on his site . “Also, I tried to select agnostic sound traits (e.g. volume, force) to correlate to median income rather than biased ones (e.g. sad vs happy sounds, vibrant vs dull sounds) to further let the data ‘speak for itself.'”
The Steve Reich-inspired lilting samples of clarinets, drum and bass, shakers, xylophone, and other instruments all play in the key of E major in tribute to the two-note subway chime of G# and E. It’s similar to Daniel Crawford’s “A Song of Our Warming Planet” from 2013, where he transformed climate change data into a rising cello solo. Both projects make what can be abstract data into a narrative aural experience.
Nanny Cantaloupe – Glossolalia 15th anniversary special thing (09.25.14)
So aside from my time here at dublab, I’ve also had a weekly live radio show in Los Angeles on KXLU 88.9 FM called Glossolalia, for 15 years now. Coincidentally it began in the same month as ublab started up in 1999. It seems fitting to do something special seeing that we’re sharing the anniversary, so here’s a collection of exclusive, mostly improvised performances recorded live on Glossolalia over the years. – Nanny Cantaloupe
Alessandro Cortini – Live on Glossolalia 08.29.12 Album Leaf – Live on Glossolalia 06.18.14 Joseph Hammer – Live on Glossolalia 02.14.01 Daedelus and Joseph Hammer – Live on Glossolalia 10.11.09 Dinosaurs With Horns – Live on Glossolalia 11.03.00 Tom Boram – Live on Glossolalia 02.22.12 M. Geddes Gengras – Live on Glossolalia 01.09.13 Points Of Friction – Live on Glossolalia 10.20.06 Kitten Sparkles – Live on Glossolalia 4.15.01 Sun Araw – Live on Glossolalia 10.09.13 Space Machine, Damion Romero & Mitchell Brown – Live 10.13.04 Golden Hits – Live on Glossolalia 06.10.09 Izapa – Live on Glossolalia 09.24.14 Carl Stone – Live on Glossolalia 03.22.06 Alessandro Cortini – Live on Glossolalia 03.20.13
New Zealanders Electric Wire Hustle and Brooklynite Helado Negro talk about their fantastic new albums. Sonzeira and Chancha Via Circuito bring a South American vibe, while Bing Ji Ling and Mirror Signal drop summery tunes. Lorn and Lord Raja go bass-heavy, and we air shoegaze by Al Lover and Tim Woulfe.
Caveman is an American band based in Brooklyn, New York. The band recorded their first studio album in 2011. Although originally self-released, the album was re-released by Fat Possum Records in 2012.[1] Caveman performed at SXSW 2013[2] and Sasquatch Festival 2013.[3] The band's musical style is a mixture of indie rock and indie pop. Caveman also performed at the latest Bonnaroo 2014 Arts and Music Festival.
The video for the song "In the City" features actress Julia Stiles.[4]
"This EP contains what's best about Chicago house, New York electro, Detroit funk and German techno while maintaining a 'dirty' sound with immaculate production. Really unique stuff." This Discogs user was reviewing last year's Zipacon 12-inch for Trilogy Tapes, but he could have been talking about most things in Anthony Naples' catalogue. Since he got his break in 2012, the New York artist has become adept at taking a little something from several places and making it all his own. His rise has dovetailed the wave of noisy, leftfield club music that's been coming out of New York in recent years, but in a crowded scene Naples has always stood out. His best tracks—"Perro," "P O T," "Moscato" etc—are slathered in lo-fi sonics but they still kick hard in the club; he also has a way with melodies and rhythms that makes his music memorable. "Mad Disrespect," his breakout track, is another great example of this. Tough, crunchy drums are at its core, but smart vocal samples and warm melodies draw you in and keep you hooked.
Around the time of Mad Disrespect's release, Naples cemented a couple of key relationships. The EP was the first release on Justin Carter and Eamon Harkin's Mister Saturday Night, the label offshoot of the popular New York party, and Naples became a key member of the group, later returning to the label for another 12-inch. Mad Disrespect also caught the ear of Kieran Hebden, AKA Four Tet, who asked Naples to remix his track "128 Harps." The collaboration eventually paved the way for Body Pill, Naples' debut album, which was released today through Hebden's Text Records. The album is a compact extension of the ground Naples has covered until now, with an exploration of styles and tempos that brings to mind the best work of Actress.
Data-Driven DJ is a series of music experiments that combine data, algorithms, and borrowed sounds.
My goal is to explore new experiences around data consumption beyond the written and visual forms by taking advantage of music's temporal nature and capacity to alter one's mood. Topics will range from social and cultural to health and environmental.
Each song will be made out in the open: the creative process will be documented and published online, and all custom software written will be open-source. Stealing, extending, and remixing are inevitable, welcome, and encouraged. Check out the FAQs for more information.
My name is Brian Foo and I am a programmer and visual artist living and working in New York City. Learn more about what I do on my personal website.
“I didn’t even know what the fuck I was doing until maybe two weeks before the record was ready. I was like, OK, I’m done, that’s it, no more recording; I just gotta throw it together now. It’s in there somewhere.”
When it comes time to recap the year in breakup albums, Björk’s Vulnicura will almost certainly top the list. But save some room for Jefre Cantu-Ledesma’s A Year With 13 Moons. While entirely instrumental, the New York musician’s album is also about picking through the rubble of a failed relationship—albeit in a more abstract way. Described by the artist as an attempt to engage with memory in an “unsentimental” way, 13 Moons is a kind of audio diary that is almost sculptural in its proportions.
A longtime resident of San Francisco, Cantu-Ledesma moved to Germany in 2011 with his wife, a German citizen who was having visa problems in the United States. By early 2013, he was back in the Bay Area, alone. “It was a really difficult time in my life,” he says. “When I moved to Germany I was married—I was ready to live there, you know, and stay there, and I definitely didn’t suspect that things would go the way they did.” As luck would have it, however, his return to the Bay Area coincided with the acceptance of his application, alongside the filmmaker Paul Clipson, for an artistic residency at Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin County.
The goal of this song is to emulate a ride on the New York City Subway's 2 Train through three boroughs: Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx. At any given time, the quantity and dynamics of the song's instruments correspond to the median household income of that area. For example, as you pass through a wealthier area such as the Financial District, the instruments you hear in the song will increase in quantity, volume, and force. Stylistically, I want the song to exhibit the energy and orderly chaos of the NYC subway system itself.
The Song
Listen to the song by using the player above, or check out the song on Soundcloud if you prefer no visuals or would like to comment on a specific part of the song. Read further down to learn more about how the song was constructed.
OK It's Not OK is the follow-up to 2010's lauded double album of chamber pop songs Someone Will Take Care of Me and finds Dargel returning to the world of skittering and buoyant electronics that colored his 2008 release, Other People's Love Songs. On OK It's Not OK, Dargel plays the roles of producer, songwriter, singer and composer, demonstrating his mastery of all aspects of the creative process and injecting his songs with a diverse spectrum of sounds. The instrumentation on OK It's Not OK embraces classical, rock, and pop idioms equally – with violin, piano, and pure-tone vocals appearing alongside electric guitar, drum machines, and synthesizers.
Fans of Dargel will immediately recognize his idiosyncratic style – a combination of Steve Reich's devious grooves, Morrissey's literary wit, and Xiu Xiu's emotional directness – and newcomers will be drawn in by Dargel's indelible and contagious melodies. Dargel’s lyrics are as carefully crafted as his music. Multiple layers of word games, unexpected rhymes, and double entendres merge with quirky rhythms and complex grooves that mimic natural speech patterns. Thematically, the album is primarily concerned with the intertwining subjects of depression and composure, yet Dargel's winking delivery and clever arrangements bring a sense of levity to these heavier topics. Unpredictable melodic twists and turns seamlessly blend with Dargel’s earnest, conversational disposition, belying the sometimes-dark lyrical content which, in less careful hands, could take a turn for the morose but, in Dargel's hands, feels light and even playful.
Throughout the album, the distinction between depression and composure is evasive. Beginning with the first song — “It’s not a disguise / My vacant stare / Look into my eyes / There’s nothing there” — a gentle suspicion of composure carries the album to its penultimate song, in which a grief-stricken singer protests that “My smile shall remain / Upside down.” The final song, inspired by one of Lydia Davis’s short stories, is an untempered elegy: “If I gathered everything you created / Every little gift that survives you / Put them all in the same place and waited / Wouldn’t that be enough to revive you / Whatever it was that killed you / Surely I can rebuild you.”
The album features contributions from violinist Cornelius Dufallo, guitarist James Moore, bassist Eleonore Oppenheim, and keyboardist Wil Smith. Artist Doug Fitch created the cover art.
!["The new episode of our Six Degrees Traveler weekly internet radio broadcast is now posted. This week we spin a free-form, ambient set featuring @[6747251459:274:Björk], @[116695575013321:274:Jon Hopkins], @[7976575916:274:Bombay Dub Orchestra], @[294039750608556:274:Hundred Waters], @[9161208323:274:SYNKRO], @[206007312773347:274:Ricardo Tobar *Official*] and many more.
Listen on:
iTunes radio (Under the "Eclectic" section) or
www.live365.com/stations/sixdegrees
www.mixcloud.com/sixdegreesrecords
Playlist: http://tinyurl.com/n8cdeb5"](https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/s600x600/10991412_10152915578814760_7210133202439008381_n.jpg?oh=d51ac2cd82deb97b7d2177d47110d221&oe=5550F9D6&__gda__=1434678313_c69bd8889e2edfaa2a300b07225440cd)
My name is Brian Foo and I am a programmer and visual artist living and working in New York City. Learn more about what I do on my personal website.
