new thing...

i have a new cd release on the line label, called proximities. here are some notes:

Proximities was recorded in 2010 during my time as the artist-in-residence at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. I began by recording a performance of a series of tones played on an old battery powered Paia Oz synthesizer with a built in speaker, determined by the letters A-G as found in a text by minimalist sculptor Donald Judd. I recorded the tone sequence several times during sunrise, amidst 50 of Judd’s stainless steel sculpture in an old army barracks that has been converted into a museum. The performances were recorded with an H4 digital recorder, my iPhone and also a cheap Sony micro-cassette recorder. The space was one of the most resonant i have ever been inside of.

During each successive performance/recording these small recorders were emitting the sounds of previous performances through their tiny speakers. At times I also hummed. Obviously the process owes much to Alvin Lucier's seminal work "I Am Sitting In A Room." Essentially, the piece is an accumulation of field recordings, and not only is the space itself audible, but also passing cars, etc. All of the processing in the recordings was "acoustically" generated by simply playing the sound in an extremely resonant and uniquely sounding space. The occasional popping sound, many of which can be heard at the end of the piece, are the sounds of Judd’s sculpture expanding while the sunrise begins to change the temperature within the space.

the cover image is from a failed film project/experiment, also created at chinati, using the same vowel structure as i used to generate the music to determine arrangements of colored gels.

the cd is available directly from the label, or from the usual outlets. you can also hear excerpts on the line site and see images taken during the recording process.

when all that is left of a film is its background noise...

for the month of october i was invited to present a new sound piece on the website of the palais de tokyo museum in paris. the piece is a reworking of a limited red vinyl 7" released in 2007, and made by manipulating the 1962 soundtrack LP of robert bresson's film proces de jeanne d'arc. the piece is titled "one stone. and arcs and ears."

the piece was made by removing (although not completely and precisely) all of the speaking voices from the bresson LP, leaving only the background sounds, incidentals, etc. some of which were lightly processed.

for the web version, i reworked some of the mixing on both tracks and cross faded them together to form one continuous work. since the original two tracks/sides were both made from side one of the original LP, it's nice to be able to share them as one continuous "ear film".

i should also mention that it is really nice to click on a podcast-link and hear the opening sounds of crackling vinyl.

for those who speak french, you can read a longer text about the piece on the museum's website, but for those of you who speak only english, here is the text:

i began with the soundtrack LP of robert bresson's film "proces de jeanne d'arc", and edited out all of the talking of the main characters. in many cases my edits were not perfectly clean so whispered beginnings or endings of words can still be heard.

i wanted the trajectory to lose its sense of narrative - to shake all of the specificity out of it. i wanted to turn it into a path of ambivalence, fragmentation, pauses, and abstraction.

there is no music on bresson's original soundtrack, only talking and incidental sounds. on side one of the LP, a single musical instrument is heard for a few seconds (a horn playing a kind of fanfare in the middle of side one); and thus through sampling, i extended the horn sound, and used it to create a tonal field for the existing edited sounds to rest upon.

the title - 'one stone. and arcs and ears.' was made from taking some of the letters in robert bresson's name and the film title "proces de jeanne d'arc" to generate new words. 'one stone.' refers to the rock thrown through jeanne's window in the film, while 'and arcs and ears.' refers to the circular motion of the spinning record and the activity of listening...

i like very much how the crackling sounds of the original vinyl sometimes sounds a bit like the crackling of a very small fire.

for anyone completely obsessed and needing even more, here is a link to the original release with even more information...

three hour performance on saturday...

thanks to the folks at VOLUME, i will be doing a 3 hour performance (the second longest performance i've ever done) for the "perform! now!" festival which runs in chinatown for the weekend. i'll be performing on saturday july 30 from 7-10pm in a gallery space at 933 Hill St., Los Angeles. because it will be mayhem all around and people coming in and out of the performance space, i'll probably try something different (especially since i usually perform for about 20-30 minutes), so don't fall over if you see me with a guitar and a distortion pedal. it will still be slow. it will still be improvised. it will still be melodic, and somewhat melancholy. but it might also be LOUD. fortunately the event is free...

FREE... concert saturday night... FREE...

free concert, featuring lucky dragons, eamon ore-giron, and myself. this is related to the recently opened "number one greatest hits" exhibition at the fellows of contemporary arts space in chinatown. the concert will be across the patio from the foca space, at 970 n. broadway, suite 202-203. the show will start at 8 pm, and i am playing first, so don't arrive at 9 or you will miss me. this is my last gig in los angeles for the year, and i won't be performing again until march... and yes, in case you missed it, this concert is free.

when landscapes are free for ears...

i have a new sound work made with field recordings available at the soundwalk website/blog, here. it's an unusual piece for me, as i've used recordings of a woman singing and a man playing drums, so it is a bit more active and rhythmic than usual. the site is relatively new, and will continue to post new works in "edition" bursts. they have also recently posted works by aki onda, murmer, bj nilsen, yann novak, francisco lopez, radio mental, and others.

house music... (when buildings become a field of notes)

at 7:00 pm this coming saturday night, july 25, i will be fortunate enough to be doing a "dream gig". i'm performing at the schindler house (also known as the MAK center for art and architecture). also on the bill is a pair of gosh darned wonderful humans, making music as the climax golden twins. it's my favorite space in los angeles, and along with two solo sets, we will end the evening as a trio...

my relationship to schindler's work dates back to my childhood, and in 2001 i was lucky enough to be invited to create a few installations for the house and site. getting to work with the space a second time feels like a miracle...

the above images are scores for part of my performance (these will be somewhat improvised, while the rest will be entirely improvised...). if you've seen the scores i did for alvaro siza's pavilion, you will recognize the language here, participating upon and within rm schindler's original drawings for the house. if you are in the los angeles area, i would suggest attending the evening... airforms will probably be quiet until next week...

here some words from rm schindler regarding rhythm...

rhythm is a space relationship. it cannot be achieved by an arithmetical repetition of the same part but must be maintained by related spacings of parts, whether they are similar or not... as in music, such a rhythmic scheme may be simple repetition, or the more subtle locking of several rhythms.
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