San Francisco
Tape Music Festival
Sunday January 12, 2025
Wild Why (2002)
4’54” 6 Channels
Wild Why began as a piece for live performance, using densely edited fragments of hip hop music recorded directly from commercial FM radio from 1998 to 2002. Additional loops and edits would be made in concert, using a pair of CDJs and a pair SP-202 Dr. Samples, turning the raw materials back into a piece that flowed. The live version ranged from 20 minutes to three hours in length, and recordings of those performances were then painstakingly baked down into a 45 minute live version.
Wobbly discovered electronic music as a teenager, and it was hard to see any distance between experimental music and Hip Hop & Scratch Mix 12” singles. Even if the communities were distinct, the sounds, and the samples would travel. I can still imagine a timeline where the lawyers never showed up to divert Public Enemy and De La Soul from their pursuits, and where Jungle Brothers’ Crazy Wisdom Masters set the tone for 1993 instead of The Chronic, but by 1998, it was hard to complain — the weirdest sounds were no longer being kept from the top 10, it was everywhere. Wild Why was an attempt to cut away the popular forms to show that the most experimental music imaginable was already right in front of everyone, on the pop charts.
Doom Scroll (2024)
4’00” Multichannel
Doom Scroll was created by scrolling through various social media feeds over the course of several weeks and recording each session to its own track (without listening to the previous sessions). The only performance rule was to move away from any sound that I heard as quickly as possible (the resulting length reflecting my attention span at any given moment). The multitrack session was mixed to stereo without editing or processing. Because some platforms promote audio-visual material more than others, the level of activity during scrolling sessions varied. To me, the results reflect the level of sonic input we encounter on a daily basis from a mix of sources—friends, family, colleagues, advertising, and so on. Remarkably, occasional repetitions occurred in the recordings when the same recommended content was served across the different platforms.
Paragraph 1: Crazy (Excuse Me)
Paragraph 2: (This) Flat Venus
Paragraph 3: We’re All (Gonna Die, Love)
Paragraph 4: This is Secure (Crackle-Cock)
As a composer and visual artist, Gino Robair explores how non-standard and graphical notations influence interpretive performances across different media—music, dance, video, and theater. His PhD research at the University of California, Davis focuses on papermaking as a form of embodied choreography; a performative process that puts artists in conversation with their tools, materials and ambient environment, resulting in ephemeral memory-objects that can be used as resources for interpretation within a performance context. As a percussionist, Gino has recorded with Tom Waits, Anthony Braxton, Terry Riley, Lou Harrison, John Butcher, Derek Bailey, Peter Kowald, Otomo Yoshihide, and the ROVA Saxophone Quartet.
La Voz Del Fuelle (2012)
8’47” Stereo
The bandoneón (sometimes known as fuelle, which refers to the bellows of the instrument) is an iconic symbol of Tango music. In 2010 I witnessed a performance by a young Orquesta Típica in Buenos Aires, and was stunned to experience such expressive performances of Tango music.
In composing La Voz del Fuelle, I looked to recreate the physicality of the bandoneón which is at the forefront of many modern interpretations of Tango music. In the work, recordings of the instrument are woven in amongst other typical instruments of the style, as well as extended and manipulated sounds from bandoneón, piano, violin, and cello, combining to form waves of tension and release that underpin the work. The use of pulse and rhythm is crucial in weaving the gestural content together, and clarifying a link to the authentic sound of Tango.
The work contains a brief reference to Astor Piazzolla’s Fugata (No. 2 from Silfo y Ondina), published by Tonos Music GmbH.
La Voz del Fuelle was commissioned by the Fundación Destellos, Argentina. I am also grateful to Julian Peralta (Tango composer and pianist for Astillero), the British Council in Argentina, Orquesta Típica Fernández Fierro (especially Eugenio Soria and Pablo Gignoli), Oscar Fischer (La Casa del Bandoneón), and Jorge Strada (Biblioteca de Música Astor Piazzolla, Mar del Plata) for their assistance during the composition of this work.
Diana Salazar is a Scottish-born and London-based composer and sound artist. She first studied electroacoustic composition with Dr Alistair MacDonald at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where she undertook undergraduate and postgraduate studies. In 2010 she was awarded a PhD in composition from the University of Manchester (UK) and she is now a Lecturer in Music at City University London.
Her works have been performed and broadcast throughout the UK and internationally. Many of them have been recognised in international competitions including the Bourges Competition of Electroacoustic Music (Residence Prize 2006), Prix Destellos (1st prize, 2009), and Música Viva (Prizewinner, 2009).
She has had numerous composer-in-residence posts including at CEMI (Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia) at the University of North Texas, and the Destellos Foundation in Argentina.
DUMP (excerpt) (1970)
6’15” Stereo
Ruth Anderson’s collage piece SUM (State of the Union Message) is included on the Lesbian American Composers collection (1973 Opus One, reissued 1998 CRI: 780). SUM and DUMP (1970), also a sonic collage, are her best known pieces. She called her study of Zen, begun in 1990, "a natural extension of my music," and cited as influential, especially on her interest in music and healing, composers Pauline Oliveros and Annea Lockwood.
Evelyn Ruth Anderson was born March 21, 1928, in Kalispell, Montana. She was a composer of orchestral and electronic music. Her extensive education spanned two decades, and was spent at eight different institutions. Throughout this time, Anderson was the recipient of a multitude of awards and grants, including two Fulbright awards (1958–60) to study composition with Darius Milhaud and Nadia Boulanger in Paris. After completing her education, Anderson spent time as a freelance composer, orchestrator, and choral arranger for NBC-TV, and later for Lincoln Center Theater.
Gone For Eggs (2024)
15’00” Ambisonic
“Just as life gestates in the egg, so in ancient healing rituals would initiates withdraw into a dark cave or hole to “incubate” until a healing dream released them reborn into the upper world, in the same way the chick crawls out of the egg.”
- The Book of Symbols, The Archive For Research In Archetypal Symbolism
Every night, we experience a small taste of death when we lose consciousness in the depths of sleep. Every morning, we are born anew. Gone For Eggs takes this fundamental experience as a starting point to explore the oscillation between day and night, consciousness and unconsciousness, life and death.
The texts were written by Philippe Macnab-Séguin and Nicholas Papaxanthos. Portions of The Book of Symbols by The Archive For Research In Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS) were included in movements iii, iv and vi with permission from Allison Langerak Tuzo, director of ARAS.
Philippe Macnab-Séguin is a composer of instrumental, fixed-media, and mixed music whose work combines, collides, and refracts diverse styles through the lens of new media technologies such as spatial audio, live electronics, video, and smart phone applications. His music reflects his eclectic musical background as an electric guitarist in metal and jazz, his lessons in konnakol (south Indian vocal percussion) with Ghatam Karthick, his experience in Barbershop singing and arranging, and his study of Hyperglitch music and production with the producer Woulg (Greg Debicki). He and producer Nicolas Gaumond form the prog-pop duo Greetings From The Hole, and Aural Sonology, a phenomenological method of musical analysis, plays a large role in his research. He has received over 20 scholarships and awards for his work, including the Prix d’Europe, a BMI award, four SOCAN young composer awards, a JTTP award, and funding from the SSHRC and FRQSC. He received his D.Mus in composition from McGill University under the supervision of Jean Lesage.
Aspara (2022)
4’18” Stereo
This is a studio recording of a real-time performance using Max, made December 2021.
Carl Stone is one of the pioneers of live computer music, and has used computers in live performance since 1986. He has been hailed by the Village Voice as “the king of sampling.” Born in California, he divides his time between LA and Japan. He studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with Morton Subotnick and James Tenney and has composed electro-acoustic music almost exclusively since 1972. A winner of numerous awards for his compositions, including the Freeman Award for the work Hop Ken, Carl Stone is also the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Foundation for Performance Arts. His works have been performed in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America and the Near East. In addition to his schedule of performance, composition and touring, he is the emeritus professor in the Department of Media Engineering at Chukyo University in Japan.
HYMNEN (3rd Centre - SPAIN) (1967)
5’37” Quadraphonic
Hymnen (German for "Anthems") is an electronic and concrete work, with optional live performers, by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in 1966–67, and elaborated in 1969. In the composer's catalog of works, it is No. 22.
The extended work is based on national anthems. It is structured in four Regions: Region I is dedicated to Pierre Boulez and uses "The Internationale" and "La Marseillaise", Region II is dedicated to Henri Pousseur and uses the "Deutschlandlied", a group of African anthems, the beginning of the Russian anthem, and a fragment of the "Horst-Wessel-Lied", Region III is dedicated to John Cage and uses the continuation of the Russian anthem, The “Star-Spangled Banner”, and the "Marcha Real", Region IV is dedicated to Luciano Berio and uses the "Swiss Psalm".
Stockhausen wrote three versions, one for electronic and concrete music alone, one for electronic and concrete music with soloists, and finally an orchestral version of Region III, which can be performed by itself, or together with either the first or second version of the other three regions.
Hymnen was first performed in collaboration with the Electronic Music Studio of the broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) in Cologne, in a version with soloists on 30 November 1967. The orchestral version was written for Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. It was first performed by the orchestra conducted by Stockhausen in New York City on 25 February 1971, together with the American premiere of the other Regions in the version with soloists, taking three hours.
There are four movements, called "Regions" by the composer, with a combined duration of two hours. Each Region uses anthems as “Centres”. Tonight we will be presenting an excerpt from Region III, the 3rd Centre, featuring Spain’s national anthem.
Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) composed 319 works, published 10 volumes of TEXTE zur MUSIK / TEXTS about MUSIC, comprising sketches and explanations about his own works (Stockhausen-Verlag). His first 36 scores were published by Universal Edition in Vienna and, since its establishment in 1975, the Stockhausen-Verlag (51515 Kürten, Facs. 0049-2268-1813) has published all of his works. In 1991, the Stockhausen-Verlag began to release compact discs in the Stockhausen Complete Edition which comprises 125 compact discs to date, and all Stockhausen scores, books, videos and CDs may be ordered directly by mail order from them.
Already the first compositions of “Point Music” such as KREUZSPIEL (CROSS-PLAY) in 1951, SPIEL (PLAY) for orchestra in 1952, and KONTRA-PUNKTE (COUNTER-POINTS) in 1952/53, brought Stockhausen international fame. Since then, his works have been opposed to the extreme by some and admired by others. Fundamental achievements in music since 1950 are indelibly imprinted through his compositions.
From the beginning, his work can be classified as “Spiritual Music”; this becomes more and more evident not only in the compositions with spiritual texts, but also in the other works via “Overtone Music”, “Intuitive Music”, “Mantric Music”, reaching “Cosmic Music ” in STIMMUNG (TUNING), AUS DEN SIEBEN TAGEN (FROM THE SEVEN DAYS), MANTRA, STERNKLANG (STAR SOUND), INORI, ATMEN GIBT DAS LEBEN (BREATHING GIVES LIFE), SIRIUS, LICHT (LIGHT).
In addition to numerous guest professorships in Switzerland, the United States, Finland, Holland, and Denmark, Stockhausen was appointed Professor for Composition at the State Conservatory in Cologne in 1971, in 1996 was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Free University in Berlin, and in 2004 received an honorary doctorate from the Queen’s University in Belfast. He is a member of 12 international Academies for the Arts and Sciences, was named Honorary Citizen of Kürten in 1988, became Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, received many gramophone prizes and, among other honours, the German Medal of Merit, 1st class, the Siemens Music Prize, the UNESCO Picasso Medal, the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine Westfalia, 8 awards from the German Music Publisher’s Society for his score publications, the Hamburg BACH Prize, the Cologne Culture Prize and, in 2001, the Polar Music Prize with the laudation: "Karlheinz Stockhausen is being awarded the Polar Music Prize for 2001 for a career as a composer that has been characterized by impeccable integrity and never-ceasing creativity, and for having stood at the forefront of musical development for fifty years."
-- Stockhausen-Verlag
The End Of The Sound Of Music (2022)
3’37” 6 Channels
The End Of The Sound Of Music is a standout moment from her 360 degree work Gone Gone Beyond, a feature length film composed for Naut Humon’s Cinechamber. One could say they already know everything about the piece going in, just based on the title — but there’s just as much, if not more to experience in this piece when experienced without the visuals designed to dominate our attention.
People Like Us is Vicki Bennett, who has been repurposing existing footage and sound since 1991 to craft audio and video collages, approaching sampling as a form of folk art in the age of mechanical reproduction. All is interconnected, and ownership of an “original” concept or isolated concept misses sight of the relationships that hold the actual value threading together the valued artifacts.
Williams Mix 23A (1953/2023)
4’16” Octophonic
In 2023 Medio Mutante became the first artist to realize a new version of John Cage's "Williams Mix" for magnetic tape using the original 1952 score. The score is 192 pages long, covers 8 channels of sound, more than 600 sound samples and over 10,000 tape splices. For "Williams Mix 23A" (so named because the project was finished in late 2023 in Austin) Medio Mutante used vintage 1950s tape machines, traditional tape splicing techniques and a new library of samples combined with electronic processing of sounds to create a faithful but unique version of the work. A detailed documentary video of the process is available on Medio Mutante's YouTube channel: youtu.be/h1G8EljAfPA
John Milton Cage Jr. (1912 – 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham.
Cage's teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933–35), both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cage's major influences lay in various East and South Asian cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951.
Cage's best known work is the 1952 composition 4′33″, a piece performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who perform the work do nothing but be present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is intended to be the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance.
Medio Mutante is an American artist.
Public (2024)
5’22” Quadraphonic
This piece is composed entirely from sound recordings made in 1923, which entered the public domain in 2024. This allows for an opportunity to hear the past speaking to the present.
Sources:
Parade Of The Wooden Soldiers - Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra
Swingin' Down The Lane - The Columbians Dance Orchestra De Luxe
Bambalina - Ray Miller and His Orchestra
Charleston - James P. Johnson
Wolverine Blues - Jelly Roll Morton
Dipper Mouth Blues - King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band w/Louis Armstrong
Down South Blues - Alberta Hunter
Up The Country Blues - Sippie Wallace
Lawdy, Lawdy Blues - Ida Cox and Her Blues Serenaders
Moonshine Blues - Ma Rainey
Oh Daddy Blues - Bessie Smith
Down Hearted Blues - Bessie Smith
Swanee River Blues - Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra
Yes! We Have No Bananas - Harry Blake
I've Got The Yes! We Have No Bananas Blues - Eddie Cantor
Michael Zelner is an Oakland-based woodwind and electronics musician who performs in a wide range of genres and styles. You may know him from such groups and projects as The Noodles, Moe!kestra!, Daniel Popsicle, Opeye Orchestra, SWITCH, OrcheSperry, DroneShift, Strangelet, Dry Patch, New Zombies, radioDinner, and BC3o+1. He has also recorded many Bay Area musicians since 1997.
Incomprehensible Solution (2020)
6’52” 12 Channels
Incomprehensible Solution was the final track constructed for Negativland’s 2020 album ‘The World Will Decide’. YouTuber Sirj Raval explains to us the outdated magic of Generative Adversarial Networks (now succeeded by Transfomers), and his lecture is interrupted or augmented by various luminaries and engineers in the field of Artificial Intelligence. We might not need to understand an answer in order to use that answer, but we need to at least understand that even the people building these tools to answer these questions aren’t required for interpretability, because this is an arms race, and we’re probably all out of time.
“We have never made any revenue, we have no current plans to make revenue, we have no idea how we may one day generate revenue. We have made a soft promise to investors that once we have built this generally intelligent system, basically, we will ask it to figure out a way to generate an investment return for you.”
— Sam Altman
For a band so closely associated with musical sampling, it’s probably worth mentioning that most of the ‘music’ on most Negativland records is played, or even sung by the band themselves. That being said, from the band’s first record in 1980 onward, the music most frequently associated with the group features absolutely appropriated speech. This speech is then heavily edited, sometimes blatantly, sometimes subtly, in ways that seem to form an inherent critique of the netweb of mediated misrepresentations and bent narratives that move ever closer to surround us all. When the conversations taking place between people who have never met are making this much sense, you might as well admit you’re not likely to be talking to a real human being ever again.
Plexure (Temperature / Massive / Velocity) (1993)
5’21” 12 Channels
Though hardly the first to collage the finished recordings of others into new works, John Oswald’s 1985 article “Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative” mapped out the territory: any moral lines left to be navigated paled in the face of the aesthetic imperative. His 1989 CD contained a complete sample list, and was even given away for free. It was quickly made the target of a lawsuit by the Canadian Recording Industry Association, which ordered all copies to be recalled and destroyed.
A complete sample list would prove difficult to construct for his 1993 release Plexure, constructed from several thousand samples of popular music from 1982 to 1992: the decade when popular music inexorably transitioned from analog to digital production and playback. The piece is one long accelerando, all samples placed on the timeline from slowest to fastest, with several extended interludes extending the textures from individual songs. Though the mind often needs less than half a second of a song to identify a source, as the genres fly by faster than one can count, any differences between individual expressions melt into a continuum, collapsing an entire decade of music into something made of more than just people.
John Oswald has continued work on Plexure since its initial release in 1993, adding samples, layers and textures that render each year’s revision into substantially different pieces. This immersive version was constructed by myself from five stereo stems of the 1993 version of the piece. The first track is a stereo bounce, fixing most of the dynamics, but many familiar samples are now allowed to break free to their own speakers. For tonight’s program we present the final three movements of the twenty minute piece, including the climax as the tempo reaches infinity.
– J.L.
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