Slow Music

Spinning

and some cool works by Pietrafesa, I found on her old webstie: http://www.pietrafesa.org/obras.htm

EQUIPO HUMANO UNO

Lovely tape collage sounds from spain
Discovered off of toys as per usual

Side a

Side b

Its the end of the year, and time to think about end of year things, but I can hardly remember this one in its entirety. I'll have to do some thinking. As with every year it seems I end up falling in love with rediscoveries more often, and they hold a place in my memory, as if invented in this year.

Anni Albers

from the MoMa

Escape: initial thoughts

I've been thinking a lot about the internet vs Cyberspace, my mind and ability to focus and endure long tasks, such as writing a blog post like this one. Right now I've set an extension in my browser to prevent me from using most social media sites but honestly thats just the first step in reclaiming my space in my brain and clearing out the clutter. What does it feel like to be bored again, without the anguish of knowing you have an alternative a single tap away?
Escape is one word that romanticizes this feeling of reclaiming your mind and spirit from cyberspace. I say cyberspace and not internet because, as Mark Fisher said, "I think we need to talk about cyberspace rather than just the internet. Technology such as smart phones mean that, increasingly, we are not "using the internet" so much as we are inside the total environment of cyberspace." Escape is sort of declarative and instant, however - like you can just leave the internet. The moderator in Mark Fisher's cybertime crisis mentioned this  - why dont you just turn off the internet, if it is like any other vice? The problem with this analogy however is that the internet doesn't stay put - it's chasing after you. Its more of an attempt to outrun cyberspace. I don't doubt the feelings of other addiction being similar to this - however someone who has not experienced this could easily shrug off the idea ("A bottle cant move, just throw it away") instead of recognizing the parasitic power of the drug, the sort of consciousness that addiction forms and takes residency inside of your brain.

Say you set down the phone: the internet can wait.  You decide you're going to read a book. Your eyes get about halfway down the page before a familiar itch starts to form, a mental block, a boredom or inability to recognize the words on the page anymore. Your mind wants you to be done with this task, its taking too long, you're not getting your fix of information quick enough. But you're smart, you've decided to set aside an entire hour to do this, and you've set your phone somewhere far away from where you are, so you decide to attempt to trudge on. 10 minutes pass and youve finished a page, but it feels like an hour has passed. So you get up, decide to work on something else. But wait, you catch yourself, you cant let your focus slip so easily. Maybe its not your fault, maybe the book is just hard to read. Pick up something easier and more entertaining instead. But another page down, you hit a dull passage, and the feeling creeps back up. Didn't you just post something to facebook recently, maybe you should check your responses? Wasn't there a youtube video about this book you could watch? You forgot to message back a friend and you should really do that soon. The book can wait

Maybe this is a feeling of ADD? I dont doubt that I'm worse for wear as a result of my diagnosis. However, I remember a time when I could flip through 70 pages in a sitting easily. When I could attempt a single task for hours without a feeling of guilt. I've always been a little behind, sure, and it's easier to work at multiple tasks at once than devote all my attention to a single one. But this is just embarassing. What is wrong with my brain? It feels like a wall, like a block, a huge stone I'm trying to move off of the information right in front of my reach. My bookshelf piles up with titles that are engaging and exciting. Snippets of information that seem like important further reading. However, the only information I know how to engage with it the titles themselves.
The diagnoses is pretty simple, I can almost hear the boomer colluqualism, "youre brain is gonna turn to mush," echoing from the past. But is it too late? It almost feels like it is. If it's too late for anything, at least, it's too late to simply just turn it off. Too late to just delete facebook, delete twitter,

....

I left from writing this for a moment, to check all other tabs in chrome: sentence hanging; incomplete.
I have so many thoughts on the subject to get out and it feels like just writing on a single topic is the act of doing an injustice to all the others. I'd like to list a few, hopefully I can find the willpower to write my thoughts on each at length

• Microwork, facebook and the media economy of free labor
• They only want to sell you things - harmful engineering and dark UI
• The internet we lost: information, creativity, and autodidacticism
• Information vs knowledge: Youtube, Video Essays, and How to videos. Hot and Cold media.
• Community, new communities, and social guilt. Will I be forgotten?
• The long escape, the faults with the cabin analogy, and a healthy relationship with the internet
• Addiction or something else?
• Should things be finished? Are we avoiding the future? Art, hauntology, and cyberspace
• Whats happening to my brain exactly?

Here is an are.na super channel I've been keeping of reading and references on the subject:
https://www.are.na/lynn-avery/escape-k6a8x0oxyfi

New IE sounds

Incredibly excited for this release from spooky farfisa pals, IE...
"IE (pronounced “eee”) is a five-piece from Minneapolis devoted to experiences of hypnotic minimalism— sonic rituals from the future and ambient, desert soundscapes. Their shows feature sustained tones, electronic whirrs, slow beats, video and film projections, metaphysical recitations, and carefully crafted atmospheres. "

Hornsey Film

The Hornsey Film 
Dir Patricia Holland 
UK, 1970, 59 minutes
Scored by Malcom Clarke (Radiophonic) 

"A student revolt as re-lived by the students themselves, The Hornsey Film reconstructs the arguments and succession of events that led to the occupation of Hornsey College of Art between May and July 1968." 

I've been searching for media that reflects the sense of romance in revolt, especially amongst the period wading in the waters of Beatnik and high Cold War, inspired by stories of Marxist histories and ideology. This comes after a short moment in Murakami's 1Q84 which described a radical commune in Japan (fictional or not I havent researched) which sparked my curiousity about these little bits of red history that have been left untold or largely forgotten. 

I'm planning to read Murakami's Underground soon - it looks very interesting and filled with history from the perspective of those who lived (and survived) it.

Mix Day

Reeling from a lot of things, can't pick myself back up, this mix is the music that's helping me keep this sadness romantic and from consuming me.

Theres some colette roper, american cream, roedelius, deux filles, sunil, and an arca track i just want to last forever

Colette Roper

I've cried to this piece a few times already.

This Heat

Ive been fairly obsessed with this 80s post punk band, often cited as the missing link between kraut and punk, among other things. This band is frequently referenced by bands such as Palm, Women, Preoccupations, Animal Collective. I love the record Deceit --- filled with some incredible, brash, mind bending textures, especially for its time. This band truly seems to have done it all before anyone else, their work simultaneously drawing on the focus and punk energy of cold war britain, as well as the nuanced and crisp influence of modern classical composers Pierre Henry and John Cage.


here is a good interview from FACT 

Harry!

Harry!

I've made a playlist inspired by the work of Haruomi Hosono, YMO and his friends. As best I could on spotify at least - a lot of his work if not all of it is sadly absent from the platform. Notable things missing from this mix I've embedded below as well.

Marionette hands

        ////
       !!!!  _      \\\\
       !   -'/   _  ||||
        \   /    \`-'''|
         \  |     \   /
         )  |      \  \
        /   |       \  \
                     \
...

Japanese New Pottery

 

    {o}{o}{o}
     |  |  |
    \|/\|/\|/
   [~~~~~~~~~]
    |~~~~~~~|
    |_______| 

Psychology of Childrens Art

from this great collection of photos 

Games

Harry Partch

Crazy World

Its been a slow january with lots of snow here in MN (14" last night). Busy writing new Iceblink recordings, and revisiting my favorite vimeo for some inspiration

a few more mixes

Been at it again with a couple more playlists, attempting to capture some sort of influence or aesthetic. this time, in relation to the certain feeling I got while reading and then watching norweigan wood.

I had this vision of a lazy dormatory hippy 60s japan. Curious what it was like to be alive during the student riots: the westernization and counterculture, beatnik and stoner, digging whatever through imported music you could get; I created this playlist. It ranges from krautrock to 60s folk to "punk" to jazz.

Murakami's japan

Next I looked at steve reich's musical style and what it has lended to in music of recent years. Ranging from space-age to lofi to chamber to orchestral.

Reichly

I may revisit these and maybe compile them to a continuous mix. Particularly would like to return to murakami's japan with some of the more difficult to find japanese psychrock and jazz that i found on youtube, and of course "of broken lines" is clearly missing some more "toys" touch

Playlists for the new year

been busy making some mixes on spotify for fun here

...

sweeps:

 Kraut lent something to the early experiments of electronic score in the eighties, and echoed in the present ambient electronic. I was just searching for whatever mike ratledge might sit well next to, and why the word "sweeps" makes me think of a particular synth sound

of broken lines:

 Somewhere between the folk of the blacklands and the strange incantations of the spectres of electronics. Trying to form the missing link between broadcast and the focus group, in their collaborative album. Some very dark folk and softer musique concrete.