LFC – Asschoes

LFC – Asschoes

The music starts on this LP and we are instantly thrown head long into a sci-fi western/frontier. The mind is pursed with images of a bearded scientist stranded in an Antarctic research station. The credits progress, ‘Deodorant Spray Song’, introduction of the cast, and we are given the first clues as to what kind of movie we are about to watch. Supporting introductions are over, ‘Atmosiren’, bleeds in and we see the director’s name and the title of the film obscuring the helicopter’s landing. Instead of a reprise or an explanation to these unusual scenes we find ourselves in ‘Insomnia Land’ a soundscape more disturbing than the previous two pieces especially when that something starts to run around in the darkened room. You’ll be glad the lights are turned off because whatever is in that room has to be as ugly and mean as a Rottweiler on methamphetamines. Did you see it? It ran by you, how could you of missed it? Let’s get the fuck out of here. 
    Then we are greeted with ‘Squeezemoon’. One step ahead of you Chief, the skidoo is running outside. Oh shit Chief it’s following us. Faster, if we don’t get out of here to warn the others the whole world is doomed. I think we can out run it Chester. Look Chief it’s coming up on our right flank. Watch out Chester, we nearly crashed. Shit chief this thing is relentless. Thank fuck for that Chester we finally made it back to base, and we seem to have lost that... whatever the fuck it was.
    ‘Ranho Amarello’, lets us now that Chester and the Chief didn’t escape the monster and that they don’t need to worry about the rest of the crew because they’ve all mysteriously disappeared. They can here the monster outside stalking the base. ‘Alien Refrigerator’ starts and Chester and the Chief notice strange noises coming from the air vents. What the fuck is it chief? Damned if I know Chester. Well let’s find out: pass me that shotgun Chester? Just as the Chief is about to fire someone falls from the ceiling. It’s the Chief’s brother John.
    ‘Trim Trum’ starts and John tells the Chief and Chester what happened to the rest of the crew. How they walked out into the Arctic wilderness one by one seemingly hypnotised, carrying no supplies. John doesn’t know anything about the monster – so Chester and The Chief fills him in. ‘Space Burger Fog Blues’ starts to play as Chester pours the two brother a glass of whiskey. What we gonna do the radio’s are still out from yesterday’s storm? I don’t know. Well all I know is if that monster wants to make a meal out of me I’m gonna give that motherfucker some serious indigestion. Right on. Hey chief what explosives we got round here?
     ‘Caverna’. The three men are watching out of the window and see the monster head into the building where the snowploughs are kept. Chester puts the dynamite into a bag, and the three men look at each as exhaustion and fear crucifies their faces. The chief leads them to the garage, they enter and we can hear the monster scurrying around. Light it Chester. Chester lights the fuse. The monster hears the men and you can hear his movements become more aggressive. But before we can see what happens the screen cuts to black, and the end credits role to the sound of ‘Arctic Frequency’.
    So let me conclude, what LFC gives us here is a very fine film score to a film that doesn’t exist (well not yet). Though we have heard similar soundscapes like this in many fine eighties sci-fi films let that not distract you from it. If you like this kind of film score, put the headphones on and close your eyes – I promise it won’t disappoint.

- The Importance Of Birds

Further discussion of this artist and album can be found here:
http://wtfmusic.org/#topic/1277260202

Free Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ct2yyrm0diw

Gretel - Casket

Can a shadow tell a story? Can light be cast from said shadows? Well this is what happens when one stares into the heart of Gretel’s ‘Casket’ LP. Gretel whirls you to a world occupied by nostalgia, the brothers Grimm and, Miyazaki. But instead of seven foot cats and cannibalistic old ladies we are greeted by folk visions of another distinct far away land: where is this land? This land is found in the shadows of youth all tense relevance abandoned like a great Dylan song or a Di Chirico painting. And like the sense of time you are abandoned to wonder was that just a shadow or was it something more sinister? Why are those cats screeching outside the adult in you tells a story of mating season, while the child destroys this false sense of security with images of hooded monsters pandering to pagan requests.
The sense of exploration compressed in this music is unsettling as we are drowned by pieces like ‘Formless’. It screams at us: ‘We are formless and all thought of form is just that’. When I think of this music as music then I am insulting my intuition and ignoring the feeling that I am being watched, because I know Gretel is watching right now as I check underneath the bed at the three minute mark in ‘Formless’. Voyeuristic paranoia tweaking the string section as hell is let loose and the woods are set on fire by the poem’s of Gretel’s elders.
‘Masked Ball’, piece number twelve on this LP, assures me that this is just thought and there is nothing here to really harm you. The last two pieces after ‘Masked Ball’, guide us safely out of the shadowy forest. But we must not forget what we saw on this journey. We must remember the shadows so we can tell are children and so as they can tell their children. For what is a child if the child doesn’t believe in shadows?

An excerpt from Apollinaire’s ‘Shadow’

Impalpable and ark presence who have assumed
the changing shape of my shadow
an Indian on the watch through all Eternity
shadow you creep beside me
but you do not hear me any more
you will not know any more the divine poems I sing
but I hear you still and see you still
Destinies
Multiple shadows may the sun preserve you
You who love me so much that you will never leave me
And who dance in the sun without stirring the dust
Shadow ink of the sun
Signature of my light
Holder of sorrows
A god that condescends.

- The Importance Of Birds

Further discussion of this artist and album can be found here:
http://wtfmusic.org/#topic/1276638944

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/katallinaaa

Free album download: http://depositfiles.com/ru/files/sicg1a98u?redirect

[WTF Review] Alphacore - Experimental Sounds - Algorithmic Composition - Text to Music

Artist: Alphacore
WTF website: Experimental Sounds - Algorithmic Composition - Text to Music
Tags: digital, fractal, aleatoric, text based, programming, noise, ambient, algorithmic, electronic
WTF Quality: "Musician and Programmer of Text to Music and new forms of experimental music that uses everyday written text and computer generated software to create New Experimental Sounds Compositions.. "
Lifespan: 2008 -
Country: Seattle, USA
Links: http://compositions-of-alphacore.blogspot.com/

It is thus possible to make a musical composition the continuity
of which is free of individual taste and memory (psychology)
and also of the literature and ‘traditions’ of the art.

- John Cage


One such method is the use of data processed through digital software. Data can come from any source - images, numerical charts, fractals, equations, or text.

Gabriel G., also known as Alphacore, has created a blog which is full of detailed descriptions of how one can convert any of the above mentioned forms of data into sound, along with plenty of audio, visual, and technical examples.

Using the chart below and looking @ the above example you can see easily how you can convert any word, sentence, books into a musical composition . Here is its theory in its simplest form text2midi is a concept core meaning that there that there is a exact sciences and form to the converting of text into midi. There are thousands to millions of compositions that can be created & reproduced using the Theory.

- from Alphacore's blog

All digital information, fundamentally binary and numerical, transferable from one form to another, is open to the imagination as a source for creativity. The process of the transformation is as limitless as the available data, and a huge part of this creative process deals not with making sound itself but devising methods for how to code the data. It is like building an instrument, which can be a complex and laborious task.

Some more quotes and images from Alphacore's blog will give you an idea of these processes, although this is like a thin crust of a surface to what I assume must be a pretty thickly layered cake. Here is some of what Alphacore cooks up:

def sample_chance_composition_designer
dice_roll=rand(5)+1
puts "You rolled a #{ dice_roll }"

dice_roll.times do
puts "The sample to be added is the #{rand(42)+1} down"
end
end

sample_chance_composition_designer

Of course Alphacore releases his music on the net (download links at the bottom of the page) and the result of these fractal / text / image / digital processings is of course somewhat chaotic and unusual in its form. A common complaint about such music is that it is cold. This is true, the sound lacks human expression, and it does not express emotions familiar to our normal life experience. This is experimental music, testing grounds of possibilities in the binary kingdom. I must confess my personal distaste for many MIDI instrument sounds, having worked with them like crazy when I was a student and always getting the feeling that my music would sound so much better played by humans. But while a MIDI cello sounds fake and cheap to my ears, the realm of digital sound synthesis through MIDI can produce very unique and interesting sounds. The track "Sin Vs. Cos" (uploaded on wtfm) is not "played" using basic MIDI instruments but to my ears must have been generated from processing pure wave forms. I don't know all of the details for the compositional process of this piece but I would say it sounds more "organic" than other text and graphic based music.

However using such terms should be de-emphasized when listening to this music. Understanding the processes and seeing the coding and data is as much a part of the experience as the sound. The lack of human expression in the sound itself is somehow balanced in the conceptual experience of the total art. Such expression is and never was a necessary element to music anyway, it just seems to be what a lot of people want to hear. Leave things to chance, let sounds be sounds, and appreciate them for what they are, without critiquing and comparing them to notions of what music is supposed to be. I feel this philosophy behind Alphacore's works.

I think that these are just a few ways people can start exploring a whole new world of creating experimental sounds and Algorithmic Compositions

I have often wondered how one could convert fractals into sound convincingly to the point where one could recognize a piece of sound as a fractal as opposed to one that was randomly generated. The problem of converting images into sound of course is the aspect of dimension, the x and y of 2D space and the waveform / time axis of sound. I have heard other artists' interpretations of fractals in music, as free jazz, traditional notated compositions, and other algorithmic methods. Ultimately these interpretations are only that, with the fractals exhibiting themselves as an inspiration only. And what about the text?

this is a experiment into the world of text_2_midi using diffrent haiku for each channels ...

Of course the text becomes a garbled and incoherent splattering of sounds which we could only understand as words if our brains had the processing power of an ultra super computer, so what is the meaning behind using text to make sound? Also one can use equations:

This is a projected based on Wolfram Equations to generate compositional Music
And relied on http://tones.wolfram.com/generate/advanced.html?generator for the basic
generation of the compositions generating several different short compositions ranging
between 15 to 20 seconds they were then mixed together in a live environment..

Interestingly, the music here is mixed into a heavy electronic beat sound. The whole concept of the equations is then receded far into the background; the listener would never pick up on it, and only hear some experimental kind of dance music.

My answer to these questions is that it doesn't matter if the original piece of data is lost in translation. These are explorations into new ways of creating sound integrated with the digital environment which is more and more becoming a part of our lives. I can imagine that years down the line the methods of this practice will become increasingly evolved, to the point where who knows what to expect.



A final note: this review encompasses the multimedia works of a net based artist, and as the medium of output changes, so does our concept of how we experience music, how it is framed, how it fits into our lives, etc. Go to the site and check out the art - there is much more to see and hear.

music downloads:
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/36987 - Define Haiku n1 ( Single )
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/30495 - Text for 3 Wheels
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/47707 - Entangled Jazz Strings
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/47415 - Wolfram Experiment
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/32560 - Improv_?_n - Jamendo

the site:
http://compositions-of-alphacore.blogspot.com/

- Jeemobon

The Importance Of Birds - Spotting Birds

Artist: The Importance Of Birds

WTF Album: Spotting Birds

Tags: Sound-Collage, Noise, Acousmatic, Field-Recordings, Experimental, Bird songs

WTF Quality: Short pieces of hard to identify noise, no structure, mysteriously humorous

Release date: 2010

Country: Ireland

Links: http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/67889?mailhash=19cfe305c9e66f22b63a828d6b833903

"What's making those sounds?"

"I have no idea . . ."

Anyone familiar with the term "acousmatic" in music should be familiar with Pythagoras - the philosopher who lectured his students from behind a curtain so as to not influence their thought processes while taking in information.
Acousmatic simply means to hear a sound without seeing what made it.
Before recorded music made it's way into the public intentional Acousmatic methods for the composer were hard to come by. Very few players desired to hide behind a curtain and play for a blinded audience.
When dealing with acousmatics in music we also have to take in consideration the origin of the sounds. It should be hard, if not impossible, to define what is actually making the sound that we are hearing. At least that's what the pioneers of musique concrète were hoping for.

The Importance Of Birds created a collection of such sounds.
In fact, it almost plays as an audio game of "Can You Guess What's Making This Sound?"

Heavily reverberated refrigerators, delayed ocean waves, overblown microphones, distorted synths, filtered power tools?

The guessing goes on and on.
But that's not where the interest ends.
The transitions between each sound and overlapping of various noises make this a worthwhile album to further investigate and purely enjoy.

Another curious aspect of the whole package is the title of the album itself along with the titles of the songs - all dealing with the anatomy of birds.
Of course my first reaction is to try and piece the meaning of the titles with the sounds of the music.
And this is where the acousmatic syndrome, and a good bit of imagination, come into play.
I have managed to tie the names of the songs with the sounds.
First, let me confess that I know my synth sounds pretty well, I can tell one effect from another and the kinds of noises a computer can make are no mystery to me.
But none of that should matter. It's very easy to shut that information out while listening to music like this. Such knowledge and logical analysis could only hinder the experience.
For example, the appropriate ending title for the album, "Tail Feathers", trails off in a fluttering of weightless static that slowly disappears resembling the lightness and movement of a bird's tail feathers while flying away into the sky.
The image so easily projected in my mind while listening.
The song titled "Toes" - a multitude of static points bouncing around like hundreds of birds walking on a tin roof.
It's all there.

Though, it shouldn't matter how you wish to listen to this EP.
Be it through playing a sound guessing game, bird visualizing imagination, or letting it just go on without a thought in the world.
This is a unique sound experience that should catch the attention of anyone looking for a little WTF in their music.

Further discussion of this artist and album can be found here:
http://wtfmusic.org/#topic/1275818027

-OnionPalac

Get the whole thing here for free:
DOWNLOAD

Joewl Levis - basement Tapes

WTF Album: basement Tapes Tags: tape recorder, low fi, Eart, vocal, found sound, dusty WTF Quality: The emperor of Eart makes music for Eart people and curses fucking rag dolls Lifespan: 2001 - Country: Australia Link: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=O79TZ4RG Fucking rag dolls. This is the fucking fucked up album the Eart needs to hear urgently, for without the knowledge, courage, wisdom, and unending love of Eart bestowed upon its inhabitants by the just emperor Jeowl, we would surely all succumb to the impending doom. Do not take this lightly. The music, honed through an eternity of dedication and perseverance, displays that ruddy, primitive, rustic, grimy quality that transmits the emotions of our great Eart leader; his hardships, trials, tribulations, triumphs, and his true inner soul. Formerly known as Earth, the land was ridden with hideous bureaucrats and impotent leaders who subjected their citizens through harsh domination - hail the great Jeowl who rules with a spirit of kindness and true understanding for the good of all. This music contains the great secrets. Secrets feared by rag dolls, secrets of galactic wisdom and the knowledge of Eart man's explorations and discoveries in space. Secrets of pussy and dick, asshole, fucking, fuck, shit, masturbation, love and hate, good and evil, the Eart man condition. Anyone who visits wtfmusic.org probably already well knows these secrets. This message is for the uninitiated. I can only attempt to emulate Joewl's message of hope and spread the word throughout the internet. Get fucked, drink a beer, listen to the Basement Tapes, become enlightened, jerk off, kill some rag dolls, water your plants, get a burger, detune your guitar, take a shit, take another shit, take a long ass shit and record it, tell some admins to get fucked (us included), listen to a song about it, join campaigns throughout the galaxy, praise Joewl, follow him on an audio journey of his daily life, sleep, feel happy, rejoice, and celebrate, all ye Eart men and Eart women. The music will take you places you have never been, you will see and taste things from the catacombs of ages forgotten and yet to be lived, wheeling and swerving through karmic cycles and gestation periods of great ages beyond what Eart minds can calculate or comprehend. The stench of a dull sultry brown texture will permeate your skin and you will grow amphibious lumps and ooze out your pores. Pure simplicity, direct, honest, emotional, dire, endless, and madness. Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=O79TZ4RG Jeemobon