Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) was a German instructor of sculpture who used his remarkable photographs of plant studies to educate his students about design in nature. Self-taught in photography, he devoted himself to the study of nature, photographing nothing but plants for thirty-five years.
His photographs were taken using either a vertical or horizontal perspective and could be magnified up to twenty-seven times their actual size, revealing extraordinary details within the natural structure of the plants. In the process he created some of the most innovative photographic work of his time; the simple yet expressive forms captured on film affirmed his boundless artistic and intellectual ability.
The creator of Autechre's Gantz Graf Video talks about his work.
…………..…….where did the idea for Gantz Graf come from?
I can quite firmly say that the genesis of Gantz Graf came from an interesting experience on LSD once, in about 96, 97. If you’ve taken a few trips and seen that kind of geometrical stuff, then the film’s not too dissimilar from [the one I saw] in my head. And the shit I saw was just fucking incredible. I wish I could have one of those virtual film head sets that you could just plug in, have that trip and just record it, cause the material that I had in my head could last me several lifetimes. It’s just bonkers but you forget about it after a while, it becomes a soft memory, just dissipates out and you just can’t remember it anymore.[Read More]
After his tenure as guitarist in the great no wave band DNA, Arto Lindsay formed the equally exciting and (pun intended) ambitious Ambitious Lovers. Lindsay, a native of Brazil, began conflating the Brazilian pop music of his youth with the sonic density and avant-garde urgings he pursued as a member of the Lower East Side noise rock scene [Read More]
MP3:
- Noon Chill
- Mundo Civilizado
- Simply Are
- Recognize
It's frustrating to listen to Blectum from Blechdom, as they do their best to disfigure any number of boundaries, including the exclusivity that separates the squeaky clean sheen of techno and the lo-fi slop of so many indie-rock four-track recordings, the sexual predestination of girls and boys, and the accepted truisms of what is good and bad music. Kevin Blectum and Blevin Blechdom began collaborating at Mills College in what was the first in a series of happy accidents. The two were playing a gig in which Blectum was to fade out just before Blechdom started up, but instead Blectum's computerized sequences fell in perfect sync with Blechdom's sampler. Since then, the duo has performed a dozens of theatrical gigs and released a handful of recordings, with an album for Deluxe, a 12-inch for Kit Clayton's Orthlorng Musork, and a lathe-cut 10-inch for Dial Records.
Stilluppsteypa is a group of sound sculpture artists known for collaborating with a wide range of experimental musicians. Originally from Iceland, the three members have recently relocated to mainland Europe. The group has worked with The Hafler Trio, Nurse With Wound, Zoviet France, and Stock, Hausen, and Walkman. Not a laughing matter, but a matter of laughs is no exception to their rule of bringing all the right people into the studio. This record features the trumpet of Spaceheads' Andy Diagram and the vocals of Japanese pop icon Hanayo. Their music is improvised for the most part, and they have no qualms about using any sound source they can get their hands on. What makes Stilluppsteypa unique is their ability to meld disparate elements together to make interesting and cohesive compositions.
Popular culture's junkyard -- full of cast-away late-night TV commercials, '60s game show kitsch, and the stiff docudramas of after-school special high moralism -- is the sonic junkyard for the mongrel plunderphonics of People Like Us. The sole work of British samplist Vicki Bennett, People Like Us giddily recounts pop culture's follies as a never-ending stream of conscious joke told through a Dadaist reshuffling of cut-up source material. Bennett's fiendishly funny proto-electronica collages are diced with gasping oohs and aahs, highly suggestive vocal snippets from suave announcers, well placed fart noises, and punctuations of brash Herb Alpert-esque horn blasts. Her aural pranks build a context that is downright naughty without ever relying on a punchline. [Read More]
Seit nunmehr über fünf Jahren hat sich die in Berlin ansässige Zeitschrift De:Bug zu einem unverzichtbaren und einzigartigen Print-Medium nicht nur für Elektronische Musik entwickelt. Einst aus der noch warmen Asche des großen Neunziger-Jahre-Frontpage-Techno-Booms erwachsen, ist De:Bug heute ein strahlendes Beispiel für ein strukturelles und ökonomisches Überleben in den kleinen und großen Nischen Deutschlands, für die inhaltliche und ästhetische Durchsetzbarkeit visonärer und idealistischer Ideen; ein Magazin, das immer noch Fanzine-Geist atmet und doch längst über viele Tellerränder hinweg emotional und technisch mitten im 21. Jahrhundert steht. Ein E-Mail-Gespräch mit dem De:Bug-Gründer, Redakteur und Geschäftsführer Sascha Kösch.[Hier geht's zum Rest]
Jason Forrest is an artist, radio dj for WMFU and owner of Cockrockdisco who records and broadcasts as Donna Summer. His music would be best described as plunderphonic which combines electronica, hip-hop , death-metal and more to a wild mix.
Califone is the direct descendant of the late great Chicago blues-rock band Red Red Meat, whose four albums of rackety, helter-skelter and roll madness were crucial documents of the '90s post-Stones indie underground, which also included the likes of Royal Trux, The Grifters, and Railroad Jerk. After RRM disbanded in the late '90s, gravel-voiced frontman Tim Rutili began pursuing a new musical project (as well as running Perishable Records with fellow ex-Meater Ben Massarella) he dubbed Califone, after the audio supply manufacturer.
DJ Shadow is widely credited as a key figure in developing the experimental instrumental hip-hop style associated with the London-based Mo' Wax label. His early singles for the label, including "In/Flux" and "Lost and Found (S.F.L.)," were all-over-the-map mini-masterpieces combining elements of funk, rock, hip-hop, ambient, jazz, soul, and used-bin incidentalia.[Read More]
Sean Booth and Rob Brown are one of the UK's most dedicated "techno" acts, remaining at the cutting edge of the genre through the 90s and onwards with a series of innovative releases that have eschewed the more commercial aspects of dance music. Having first started experimenting with mix tapes at school, the duo's early demos of tracks such as "Crystel" and "The Egg' brought them to the attention of Warp Records, who included them on a compilation set. [Read More]
Richard D James is the alpha male of electronica, a sinewave surfer and synthesiser symbiant, as likely to set up his FX under the polythene peaks of a well appointed Wendy house as choreograph the flexing of a bunch of fully pumped female bodybuilders whose muscle profiles suggested they'd changed their order from cheesecake to beefcake.
Of his multiple aliases and alter egos - AFX, Polygon Window, Caustic Window, The Dice Man - none are active, even Aphex Twin, the primary conduit for his creativity is at rest or play, compensating for the years of accelerated development. Maybe he's just enjoying the fruits of his labour. The six figure sum he received for supplying the cranked-up soundtrack to tyre manufacturers Pirelli's world spanning athlete ad proved that all the extra income from company's risqué calendars, de rigueur fixtures on the workshop walls of grease monkey mechanics the world over, wasn't going to waste. Like any modern mercenary, Aphex sunk his lucre into a tank and a bank, both decommissioned husks, one several tonnes of army surplus hardware sitting in his parent's front garden, the other a disused financial institution converted into living quarters. [BBC]
When Faust first emerged in 1970/71, the rock landscape wasn´t yet electrified. It was, however, dominated by 15 years of Anglo-American build-up.Working in parallel with, yet quite separately from, Krautrock contemporaries like Can, Faust cloistered themselves away and set about improvising and reconstructing modern music as if from nothing. With their huge, primordial riffs they seemed to be tapping into the molten lava of some prehistoric rock era; simultaneously, their use of synthesizers, eddying in huge, black sustained waves of intensity, pointed to a future that we have perhaps still to arrive at.
<img src="www.cdemusic.org"align="left" hspace="3"> Since first emerging in the late '60s, Joe McPhee has been heralded as one of jazz's most talented multi-instrumentalists and greatest improvisers. He has also become one of its most emotional and daring composers. McPhee first encountered jazz while serving in Germany with the U.S. Army. Originally a trumpet player, he took up the saxophone shortly after he began playing professionally, and has since gone on to investigate a wide range of instruments, including the pocket cornet, clarinet, flugelhorn, piano, and even electronics. It's this spirit of voracious creative inquiry that has marked all of his work to date.
steve roden is a visual and sound artist from los angeles. his work includes painting, drawing, sculpture, films, and sound installation. the works are a combination of conceptual strategies and intuitive movements. found structures and systems are lifted from their original intentions and used as the basis for improvisation and abstraction. in the visual works, printed language, graphic design, maps, and other forms of specific visual notation are lifted from their original intentions and abstracted to create open readings. in the sound works; objects, architectural spaces, and field recordings, are abstracted through electronics to create audio new spaces, or 'possible landscapes'. the sound works present themselves with an aesthetic roden describes as "lower case'' - sound concerned with subtlety and the quiet activity of listening.
Paul Dolden begins his career at age 16 as a professional electric guitarist, violinist and cellist. Excited by the possibilities offered by recording technologies, Paul Dolden turns to contemporary modes of production and dissemination in the creation of his music. At age 29, he wins the first of a string of European awards that establish him as a composer. Now the winner of over twenty international awards, Paul Dolden’s music is performed in Europe and North America to wildly enthusiastic audiences.
Born in Saarbrücken/ Germany in 1972, currently living in Vienna.Improv and composing activity in both acoustic and/or electronic contexts;work for theatre, film and dance as well as various remix and soundinstallation commissions since 1998 special focus on abstracting/ deconstructing the electric guitar and expanding its sonic possibilities by means of mostly dated analog technology.
The human voice is by far the most complex, and perhaps the least recognised of all instruments. Maja Ratkje knows the importance of the voice as a musical element like no-one else. Her first solo album, simply entitled Voice and based entirely on her vocal performance, reveals the vast array of sonorities and contrasts that can be found in one’s voice.
Be glad that the members of Black Dice have chosen to pursue careers in music, rather than as, say, bus drivers or postal carriers; the results of these guys being trapped in miserable service sector jobs could have been disastrous, possibly on a global scale. That's how much aggression this Providence hardcore noise terrorism outfit has pent up inside. Live, the band's startling mix of ear-splitting sonic chaos and audience intimidation can be so traumatizing to those who attend their shows unprepared that it can lead to their institutionalization. On record, you're just glad they're trapped in your stereo and not loose in the room with you. [epitonic.com]
BBCi Jazz voted Jaga Jazzist their LP of the year & if you haven't seen this video that was voted "office favourite" by myvillage.com and all over MTV Europe then you don’t know what you’re missing. Just imagine "Herbie Hancock 1970's, Tortoise and Stereolab's post-rock guitar blues, Squarepusher's lunatic jazz electronica and mangled rhythm".[contactmusic.com]
Under various guises, Matthew Herbert pushes electronic music production standards to its limits and then some. His releases for Phonography, Classic, and Warp, and his countless remixes for Raw Elements, Clear, Reflective, Perlon, Playhouse, and F Communications run the gamut from house to techno and electro, taking in abstract and experimental along the way. In early 2000, he set up Accidental, Soundslike, and Lifelike (formerly Lowlife) to release avant-garde electronic music from a family of innovative, nonconformist musicians of all stylistic leanings, in addition to releases under his own aliases Herbert, Radio Boy, Wishmountain, and Doctor Rockit [epitonic.com]
Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) was a German instructor of sculpture who used his remarkable photographs of plant studies to educate his students about design in nature. Self-taught in photography, he devoted himself to the study of nature, photographing nothing but plants for thirty-five years.
His photographs were taken using either a vertical or horizontal perspective and could be magnified up to twenty-seven times their actual size, revealing extraordinary details within the natural structure of the plants. In the process he created some of the most innovative photographic work of his time; the simple yet expressive forms captured on film affirmed his boundless artistic and intellectual ability.
After his tenure as guitarist in the great no wave band DNA, Arto Lindsay formed the equally exciting and (pun intended) ambitious Ambitious Lovers. Lindsay, a native of Brazil, began conflating the Brazilian pop music of his youth with the sonic density and avant-garde urgings he pursued as a member of the Lower East Side noise rock scene [
DJ Shadow is widely credited as a key figure in developing the experimental instrumental hip-hop style associated with the London-based Mo' Wax label. His early singles for the label, including "In/Flux" and "Lost and Found (S.F.L.)," were all-over-the-map mini-masterpieces combining elements of funk, rock, hip-hop, ambient, jazz, soul, and used-bin incidentalia.[
Sean Booth and Rob Brown are one of the UK's most dedicated "techno" acts, remaining at the cutting edge of the genre through the 90s and onwards with a series of innovative releases that have eschewed the more commercial aspects of dance music. Having first started experimenting with mix tapes at school, the duo's early demos of tracks such as "Crystel" and "The Egg' brought them to the attention of Warp Records, who included them on a compilation set. [
Richard D James is the alpha male of electronica, a sinewave surfer and synthesiser symbiant, as likely to set up his FX under the polythene peaks of a well appointed Wendy house as choreograph the flexing of a bunch of fully pumped female bodybuilders whose muscle profiles suggested they'd changed their order from cheesecake to beefcake.
Paul Dolden begins his career at age 16 as a professional electric guitarist, violinist and cellist. Excited by the possibilities offered by recording technologies, Paul Dolden turns to contemporary modes of production and dissemination in the creation of his music. At age 29, he wins the first of a string of European awards that establish him as a composer. Now the winner of over twenty international awards, Paul Dolden’s music is performed in Europe and North America to wildly enthusiastic audiences.
The human voice is by far the most complex, and perhaps the least recognised of all instruments. Maja Ratkje knows the importance of the voice as a musical element like no-one else. Her first solo album, simply entitled Voice and based entirely on her vocal performance, reveals the vast array of sonorities and contrasts that can be found in one’s voice.
BBCi Jazz voted Jaga Jazzist their LP of the year & if you haven't seen this video that was voted "office favourite" by myvillage.com and all over MTV Europe then you don’t know what you’re missing. Just imagine "Herbie Hancock 1970's, Tortoise and Stereolab's post-rock guitar blues, Squarepusher's lunatic jazz electronica and mangled rhythm".[contactmusic.com]
Under various guises, Matthew Herbert pushes electronic music production standards to its limits and then some. His releases for Phonography, Classic, and Warp, and his countless remixes for Raw Elements, Clear, Reflective, Perlon, Playhouse, and F Communications run the gamut from house to techno and electro, taking in abstract and experimental along the way. In early 2000, he set up Accidental, Soundslike, and Lifelike (formerly Lowlife) to release avant-garde electronic music from a family of innovative, nonconformist musicians of all stylistic leanings, in addition to releases under his own aliases Herbert, Radio Boy, Wishmountain, and Doctor Rockit [epitonic.com]
