Matmos at the MCA

Sunday, June 13th, 2010 | Author: Jason Araujo

Last night I had the good fortune to see Matmos play at the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown Chicago. Although I’ve known about Matmos ever since going to a college full of experimental-music heads in an area known for it’s experimental music scene, I’ve only accidentally listened to their music and never seen them live at all. I was intrigued by an auditory museum installation, where they presented audio in headphones to museum goers as a companion to their travels, and involved sounds created to go with the dioramas. That, and the fact that they have been known to capture sounds of deer antlers being bowed pretty much planted them firmly in the pantheon of musicians I hadn’t listened to but I knew would appeal to me. (which, by the way, is a long list.. I’m pretty bad about getting to all those amazing artists out there I don’t even know about yet).

If music was associated with body parts, say for example, James Brown made music of the hips, or Muddy Waters made music of the throat, I would have to say that Matmos creates music of the mind. You hear it, and you think it, and it picks your brain up and sets it on its left side where it writhes and computes ecstatically.

Last night’s mind music performance started out with a piece for acoustic cactus. Yep, you read that right. Acoustic cactus. plucked. But don’t believe me, scroll down for the video. The opening piece (for which I accidentally had the most ideal seat) set up the tone for the performance. It unfolded as a journey through studiously rehearsed percussion pieces, intricate rhythms on custom tweaked drums, strange sound sources, and an incredible musicianship brought together to weave a pleasantly estranging soundscape.
From ripping beer cans apart and amplifying the rhythm, to meandering schizophrenic vocoder poetry, to interacting with a joyful baby’s cries from the audience, Matmos showed a considerable musical presence that was inspiring to anyone who was conscious throughout the show. And if anyone happened to sleep through it, I’m sure their subconscious will be forever warped.

You can see some of the photos on flickr

Matmos is releasing their new album shortly, entitled “Songs About Montana”. I haven’t seen it online yet, but it may be available at cantaloupemusic.com soon enough. Or you could just see them live and hit them up at the schwag booth. They’re fairly nice guys, and will give you funny looks just for fun.

and here’s the vid:
(sorry for the poor soundquality on this one… due to world cup madness, I wasn’t able to return home beforehand in order to pick up my H4N, so the camera mic had to suffice)

also, don’t miss awesome controllerism at 4:15. two x/y joysticks with extendable nylon(?) cords, which = z control, and also appear to have velocity as well. nice!

Category: Uncategorized, audio, shows, social, video  | Tags: , , , , , ,  | Leave a Comment

in a landscape

Monday, May 03rd, 2010 | Author: Jason Araujo

this is a piece of work that i have put together from two different sources, both captured without the final product specifically in mind.

about the audio:

before i left california, i wanted to make a last recording on the regularly tuned yamaha grand with steinway hammers of bay records recording studio, where i used to work. i had no specific musical theme in mind. instead, i approached the work as an engineer. i set up 2 pairs of mics, one with the gain set so that it would be able to handle loud attacks, and a 2nd pair with the gain cranked to capture the quieter sounds of decays.
i blended the resulting tracks so that the attack is preserved from the first pair of mics, and the 2nd pair is mixed in gradually so that the more subtle overtones could be emphasized.
as for the composition of the piece, this was just a warmup i was performing before hitting many sustained chords. it ended up being a nice little tune in its own right, so i edited it up for this project. there is some time stretching and cuts here and there. since i had been freestyling the warmup without any time in mind, it needed to be reigned in for this work. i tried to keep the digital witchcraft to a minimum, but it was also very necessary in some parts to fill in gaps, and therefore actually became a part of the composition.

about the video:
my housemate (of my new home in chicago) and i were working on a freelance gig recording audio and video for an opera singer here, and she had borrowed a camera to fulfill the job. it sat around in our house for a week, and the night before it was returned i decided to make use of it and record some shots of the piano innards i had toted to chicago from oakland.
this piano soundboard was cut out of an upright piano that was found on the street in oakland and had clearly weathered the winter outdoors. i loved the way it sounded and looked, and i knew it would be a great addition to wherever i ended up in chicago. i wasn’t disappointed.
i had no real specific agenda in mind when using the camera to capture the piano, but as i began taking shots i unintentionally began treating it as a landscape that i was exploring. i was drawn to the textures and shapes of the piano, and i wanted to document them intimately in this medium.
it vaguely occurred to me that these two media could go together, but i had no real specific plan until my housemate laura announced that she was organizing a small film festival to be held in two parts. the first weekend would be in our chicago loft, and the second would be held in champaign, illinois. this inspired me to get down and sit with these particles and to build something out of them.
in processing the video, i sought to overcome what i felt to be the camera’s insufficient color representation. i tried several methods (by means of stabbing in the dark with color effects), and stumbled on this aesthetic which i felt really balanced with the way i wanted the music to be seen.

i’ve taken the title of this piece from john cage’s work of the same name. i stumbled on his piece after determining that i was indeed documenting a landscape. i felt the name an appropriate homage to a visionary composer known for prepared piano works.

Category: audio, creations, video  | Leave a Comment

rebirth for iphone!

Sunday, May 02nd, 2010 | Author: Jason Araujo

wow, i’m not much of an app follower, but they might just have me with this!

rebirth for iphone

this takes me way back to my first forays into computer music. this plus cooledit pro really brings back some memories. i guess cooledit would be a bit much to put on an iphone, but damn that’d be great. maybe for the ipad.

Category: ramblings  | Tags: , , , , ,  | Leave a Comment

Melody Club

Sunday, May 02nd, 2010 | Author: Jason Araujo

many moons ago, right before i moved to chicago, i had about a week of spare time with not a lot to do. now, this doesn’t happen often, so i thought “i’d better do something during this time or i’m gonna freak out!”
i called around a bit, and talked to ayla nereo of Beatbeat Whisper and asked her if she wanted to do a bit of recording. i think she was up in sonoma at the time, so she suggested i call up her brother davyd, whose solo project that blasted hound was getting ready to record a few new songs.

so, we got talking, set up some time, and got down to business. it lasted much longer than a week, actually, but it was a great time setting up and recording at the honey hive in emeryville where davyd lives. we decided to really just go for the sound of the house that we were recording in. so, there are mics in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the laundry room! we only had i think 3 mics up at any given time, so there was a lot of overdubbing and plenty of birds chirping and kids screaming in the background on recordings.
some of that is still in these recordings, and i really enjoy the feel of a real time and place being captured.

of course, the three weeks that this ended up taking to record wasn’t enough time to get all this mixing done. that happened after i moved to chicago, and dragged on and on for quite a while. i was trying to find a job and being horribly depressed at my dwindling funds, and it was difficult for me to listen to these tracks and really get into the space where i could address the emotional content with any clarity. so, after many months, i finished them around january (these were recorded in july!).

i’m happy with the results! i will *always* feel like there is more that i could have done on any project that i ever complete… in fact, i feel that i’ve never truly “completed” a project, rather i’ve just stopped working on it at some point. but these i feel are at a good stopping point, and i enjoy the textures that we captured. it was great to work with davyd on this, and of course all the lovely ladies who add their boisterous voices to these tracks, and pete with his smooth slide guitar through davyd’s custom built tube preamp (which added a nice touch of radio broadcast to the subtle noise in the signal). i really enjoyed the whole process from front to back. it was a pleasure to work with these fun folks.
that blasted hound

So without further ado, here are the four tracks that we recorded:

pretty good

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

not so pura vida

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

erode

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

if i wore glasses

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Category: audio, creations  | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,  | Leave a Comment

it’s been a while

Sunday, May 02nd, 2010 | Author: Jason Araujo

Well, I haven’t updated anything in a bit, here… it’s because I’ve been so involved in MAKING things that I haven’t had a chance to upload evidence of my doing things. Well, I’m going to work on catching my breath and catching up on displaying evidence of my existence on the internet.

In the meantime, I’ve attached two old files that I made quite a long time ago. Until I get some new things posted, enjoy these!

an old project i did back when i was in school and obsessed with William S. Burroughs

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

a thing i threw together for my friend Jenny Tyner, some time back. i made her very late one day so that i could record a quick take of her reciting a line from tricky’s ‘christiansands’

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

a brief tour into extremely over-compressed drums. hey, you never know how far too far is until you’ve been there, right?

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Category: audio, creations, ramblings  | Tags:  | Leave a Comment

Still Life With Flying Piano

Sunday, February 21st, 2010 | Author: Jason Araujo

Project “Still Life With Flying Piano” is finally finished!

Where did it begin? Once upon a time back in Oakland, there was some large gathering or other. It was large, organizedly rambling, and lots of fun. Then it ended. On the way back to the Cakebread Castle, 20 many people came upon a piano, alone and desolate on the street. Several many people recognized this piano as having bravely weathered the winter on the street, and was still standing proudly in the night.

20 many people decided to heft, drag, scrape and shuffle this piano back to the Cakebread Castle, where it was poked, prodded, photographed, and left to become a garden fixture.

Some unquantifiable amount of time later, this piano became naked through the use of whirling blades and was shipped off to Chicago, where it spent it’s time leaning against a wall and enjoying the view.

All along, this piano has wanted to defy the tyranny of Earth’s relentlessly consistent gravity. Today, it finally has, with a little help. And soon it will add beautiful sounds to a dance performance.

It couldn’t be happier. Fly piano, Fly!

Category: creations, ramblings  | Tags: , ,  | Leave a Comment

wow, flutter!

Friday, October 30th, 2009 | Author: Jason Araujo

WOW!
i have nothing much to say about this except that it is amazing. as a max/msp user myself, i appreciate the immense time that went into this project, as well as the incredible coding it must have taken to get those very era-specific tone generators and sounds.

wow.

Introducing Berna vintage electronic studio from Tobor Experiment on Vimeo.

Category: audio  | Tags: , , , , ,  | Leave a Comment

Serenade

Sunday, October 18th, 2009 | Author: Jason Araujo

I once again returned to the Chicago Cultural Center, which is *still* an incredibly beautiful building. wow.
This time I went for the Sunday Salon Series, which featured the New Millennium Orchestra of Chicago.

The room sounded fabulous, and the performance was a pleasure to hear. I listened from the back room, as I had been invited this time to record. I came a bit late (um, maybe I came a lot late, actually… so late the performance was a little delayed on my account. er, sorry! It should be noted that I’m from Oakland, and that a show starting 8 minutes after the announced time is still considered as an early start), and rushed about doing a simple 4 mic setup which captured the performance nicely.

Using my trusty H4N I got an XY stereo capture from the front, and placed two KSM 44′s to the left & right of the stage set in an omnidirectional pattern to pick up the players further back as well as some hall ambience.
The H4N covered a fairly narrow stereo field, and lost a bit of the rear lines of players. The KSM 44′s filled out the extreme left & right resulting in a pleasingly wide stereo field. I’m fairly pleased with the sound, although as I’ve said before, you’d have to be a total yutz to get a bad recording in that place. It just sounds good in there.

The program was as such:

Sunday Salon Series,
October 11, 2009
Chicago Cultural Center
Preston Bradley Hall
New Millennium Orchestra of Chicago
Francesco Milioto, Conductor and Harpsichord

Serenade No. 11 for Winds in E-Flat Major K. 375 W. A. Mozart

Allegro Maestoso

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Menuetto – Trio

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Adagio

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Menuetto – Trio

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Finale – Allegro

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

BrandenBurg Concerto No. 6 in B-Flat Major BWV. 1051 J.S. Bach

Allegro

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Adagio ma non troppo

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Allegro

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Serenade No. 2 in A Major, Op. 16 J. Brahms

Allegro Moderato

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Scherzo (vivace)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Adagio non troppo

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Quasi Menuetto

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Rondo (Allegro)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The performers involved in this fine concert were:

Flute
Constance Shoepflin
Jessica Moore
Emma Hospelhorn (piccolo)

Oboe
Anna Velzo
Somerlie DePasquale

Clarinet
Daniel Williams
Emily Marlow

Bassoon
Jason Kramer
Karl Rzasa
Rebecca Wilcox

Horn
DeAunn Davis
Arisia Gilmore

Viola
Dominic Johnson
Doyle Armbrust
Oana Tatu

Cello
Eric SHeaffer
Anna Steinhoff
Dan Klingler

Bass
Jeremy Attanaseo
———————–

These files are presented in 320 kbps MP3 format.
If you’d like to download the whole show, the zip is here

Category: audio, shows  | Tags: , , , , , ,  | Leave a Comment

lullaby #2

Sunday, October 11th, 2009 | Author: Jason Araujo

corpus callosum has finished their recent video project! they’ve done a beautiful job producing this piece with the help of the community in the SF bay area. there were cameras, video cameras, props, seamsters, crafters, directors and passersby that all made this video possible.

watching this video makes me miss the bay area. especially now that it’s getting cold here in chicago. yikes. but at least i had a few warm shining moments in the studio to work with these talented folks in recording & mixing this song at Bay Records.

it took quite a bit of time & effort on the part of many to make this! i’m always astounded at the amount of time it takes to finish quality projects. but then again, i definitely suffer from a congenital time dysfunction. i always think it’ll take 5 minutes to get there on foot when it usually takes 30 mins by car.

without further ado, here are the beautiful results:

Corpus Callosum – Lullaby #2 from Dax Tran-Caffee on Vimeo.

you can also see some pics of their recent show by audrey penven:

Category: audio, creations  | Tags: , , ,  | One Comment

Temple Caves

Sunday, October 11th, 2009 | Author: Jason Araujo

I’ve always been drawn to the sounds of spaces, of nice reverberant caverns and halls. Large cathedrals, huge buildings with marble interiors, lush bathrooms with stone tile everywhere…

so whenever i get in subways, long stone hallways or cathedrals i get a bit quiet and listen to everyone talking and the echoes and lush waves of sound. it’s comforting and soothing in a way to hear all the reflections stacking and blending into a wash of sound.

on that note, i was in an underground station of the EL (chicago’s subway/elevated railway) and heard a musician busking in the station. the station is made entirely of stone and highly reflective tile, so it made a great sound. i’ve recently begun carrying my H4N hand recorder with me everywhere i go, so sure enough i’m ready to record this guy.

he’s not bad, he’s really into his song. i place myself surreptitiously behind a pillar and start recording.
and then he gets a phone call. i guess the busking was going so well that he figured he could afford to take a social break, or maybe it was part of some post-everything disdain for audiences that drove him to it, i don’t know. but it was pretty funny. maybe you had to be there.

but since you weren’t there and i was, i brought back a recording for you:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Category: audio, field recordings  | Tags: , , , ,  | Leave a Comment
« Previous Entries
My Highlights powered by RoohIt (for WordPress)