It’s like a garden, where everything grows by itself and you need to make just a few things, to see what is going to happen most of the time. -Giovanni Lami Does a physical medium simply contain (or mediate) a work of art, or can the medium be a work all its own? Since at…
Originally published at A CLOSER LISTEN Sound Propositions is an ongoing, semi-regular series of conversations with artists exploring their creative practices and individual aesthetics, conceived of as a counter-narrative to a dominant trend in music journalism which fetishizes equipment and new technologies. Rather than writing copy that can just as…
Originally published at A CLOSER LISTEN I wanted to be sure to share this recent broadcast of Everything is Real Radio. Hosted by Sam Sebren, this edition features the music of the late Minóy. Born Stanley Keith Bowsza on October 30, 1951, Minóy sadly left this world on March 19, 2010. A prolific participant in…
Originally published at A CLOSER LISTEN. Untitled #281 was created by extreme mutation and evolution of bird calls from original recordings carried out over a period of fifteen years (1995-2010) in multiple wilderness locations of Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Spain, South Africa, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Peru. The most dramatic antithesis of any “birdsong” piece…
This album, a sea without a port, consists of field-recordings I made while in Mexico City in July of 2013, and is a dream-like, psychogeographic narrative of the city and the limits of perception. Published by Galaverna (release page) cat: gal 0124 date: 21 dec 2015 time: 55:25 download as: AIF [514,6 MiB] MP3 [125,4 MiB] REVIEWS Joe…
Originally published at acloserlisten “The jellyfish represents the collapse of the ecosystem and the spinelessness of the people charged with protecting it.” -George Monbiot,“Feeding Frenzy” Medusa, the first collaboration between Dave Phillips (DP) and Aspec(t), (Mario Gabola and Mimmo Napolitano) is no doubt challenging music, but as the liner notes remind us, we live…
Published in the Journal of Sonic Studies: The attention to techne reveals the broader aim of the book, which is to theorize the relationship between techne and physis, technique and nature. Kane employs Kafka’s story “The Burrow,” in which a poor animal is tortured by a high-pitched noise that it cannot identify, as an alternative…
Originally published at acloserlisten.com Sound Propositions is an ongoing, semi-regular series of conversations with artists exploring their creative practices and individual aesthetics, conceived of as a counter-narrative to a dominant trend in music journalism which fetishizes equipment and new technologies. Rather than writing copy that can just as easily have come from a press release…
We’ve been in Europe since the end of May, just now returning to our temporary home-base of Minneapolis, where working on my PhD has somewhat slowed down my more casual writing projects. I’ve only published two installments of Sound Propositions in the past year (with Mark Fell and Kate Carr), contributed occasionally to CULT MTL,…
Laibach 1987 Laibach circa 1987 Originally published by Cult Mtl In the ’80s many bands flirted with fascist and totalitarian imagery, but only Laibach was willing to go all the way. The Slovenian group is currently in the middle of a world tour, and will be stopping in Quebec this week for the Festival International…
Released as part of Pietro Riparbelli’s CATHEDRALS project, this 25 track album constitutes a psychogeographic soundwalk through Montreal’s Oratoire Saint-Joseph. https://pietroriparbelli.bandcamp.com/album/oratoire-st-joseph-du-mont-royal Joseph Sannicandro – Oratoire Saint-Joseph du Mont-Royal (Montreal, Quebec)As an Italian-American, I think it goes without saying, I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church. Like many others, I experienced a definite theological break…
Originally published at acloserlisten.com “Imagine a Zen Buddhist with unresolved emotional issues.” -Mark Fell describing snd Sound Propositions set out to be a kind of anti-gear gear column. A studio diary that was about artistic decisions, not copy for a consumer electronics catalog. In short, I wanted to explore questions others weren’t asking.…