FMA Blog

It was around this time last year that suRRism-Phonoethics introduced us to Detatching Realities Vol. 1 by Jared C. Balogh. The multimedia artist from Bethlehem Pennsylvania has since unleashed an outpouring of new music. His hyperactive-yet-focused release schedule mirrors the frenetic energy of his music; there is a lot happening in any given Balogh composition, but also a fantastic sense of minimalism. Balogh has worked with some of the world's finest netlabels, including Portugal's long-running Enough Records and Moscow's 45 RPM Records. Already this year, Lee Rosevere's Happy Puppy released the wonderfully organic-yet-synthetic Rhythms Of Life, and Headphonica introduced us to Detatching Realities Vol. 2.

Balogh only began releasing music under his own name in spring 2010. But Trans Atlantic Rage, a "extreme audio surrealism" project that finds Balogh performing under the name Shadow Entity Wizard alongside his wife Echo Tranquility, dates back to 1997. All told, Jared Christopher Balogh's creative force is behind an estimated 175 releases. In addition, Balogh operates Altered State Reflections, a recording studio which begat a CD-R label, and soon also took the form of a netlabel to showcase music, videos and artwork.

I interviewed Jared C. Balogh via email to learn more about his sonic evolution, his approach to distribution, and his range of influences; they include everything from Hall and Oats to Hatebreed (which I never would've guessed!) alongside Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa (which I might have guessed), and labels like Cuneiform, Ipecac and Tzadik.

Newtown Radio joins the FMA with a mix of original session tracks by The Beets, My Teenage Stride, La Big Vic, The Immaculates, Punks on Mars, Light Asylum, Boy Friend, Chelsea Wolfe, Dead Gaze, Dive, Night Manager, So So Glos, Expensive Looks, Minks and Phonetag. 

"Newtown Radio is located at the Danbro Studios in Bushwick, NYC. We're here to bring you hot new bands from around the world, undiscovered local talent and hidden gems from the past"

Newtown Sessions are curated by founder/producer Colin Ilgen, and engineered by Matt Stein at his Swan7 recording studio. The sessions air Sunday nights at 9pm ET, and are also archived in video format here -- check out clips from FMA favorites Computer Magic and Dustin Wong after the jump.

One hell of a sexy title, am I right? 

Well, the fact of the matter is this: I have a lot of good news and not a lot of tippity tappity in my fingers to waste on pleasantries, so let's get down to the proverbial metal fasteners. DRAM has been one busy mug over the last year and, as these things sometimes happen, everything we've been working on has come to fruition at one time. 

First of all, DRAM is very pleased to announce that you can FINALLY get an individual subscription to the database.  After years of only being available to universities and public libraries, we've finally figured out a way to allow the average joe or josie get their hands on 3, 6, or 12 months of unlimited streaming music by composers like Robert Ashley, Morton Feldman, Michael Pisaro, and James Tenney (and many more on our over 3,000 recordings and counting).

How?  Well, right, that's a good question.  And, it leads me to the next portion of our good news.  DRAM has started a brand new website and quarterly online journal called Sound American.  On this site, we will be featuring streaming audio interviews and archival material available only in DRAM (and in some cases specifically made only for Sound American) as well as essays and visual art.  All of this is geared toward being a more relaxed, casual companion piece to all of the research new music engines out there. 

Sound American is a place to gain context on new and experimental music and to discover that new and experimental does not in any way equal difficult and inscrutable.  Upcoming topics will include the new additions to Ben Hall's amazing collection of Southern Gospel 45s, interviews with electronic music and computer networking pioneers John Bischoff and Tim Perkis of the League of Automatic Music Composers, as well as a discussion between Nate Wooley and electro-acoustic composer Chris Brown.  Later in the year, we'll be doing a feature on John Cage in conjunction with the massive Bowerbird Cage festival in Philadelphia.

For the time being, Sound American is celebrating the inclusion of the first wave of recordings from Phill Niblock's Experimental Intermedia Archive.  The first 31 pieces are up now in DRAM and feature live performances by and interviews with such artists as Eliane Radigue, George Lewis, Alvin Curran, Pauline Oliveros, Lois V. Vierk, Carl Stone, and many more....including multi-instrumentalist Ned Rothenberg, whose program we feature for download here at FMA.

So, three pieces of good news, three times to beat our breasts with pride.  It's a rare occurence and we are excited to share it with you.  Please stop by Sound American, linger, enjoy, maybe make a tax-free donation to DRAM and get the fantastic premium in return of 3, 6, or 12 months of access to the site.  Drop Nate a line and tell him he done good.....he's so fragile.

My Bubba & Mi is the duo of Gudbjörg Tomasdottir and My Larsdotter. Originally from Iceland and Sweden, they are now based in Copenhagen. They've been playing music together since the late oughts, but theirs is a timeless sound: two acoustic stringed instruments (guitar, banjo, bass) + two sweet harmonized vocals. Occasionally sprinkled with organ, harmonica, a scraped washboard or train rumble:

"Steamengeene" is a track off of How It’s Done In Italy, a Creative Commons full-length from Utrecht's great label/netlabel Beep! Beep! Back Up The Truck. Last year, they followed it up with two EPs: BOB (in tribute to Bob Dylan?) and Wild & You, which are also available on very vinyl looking CDs from Beep Beep.

My Bubba & Mi recently founded the Hello Jingle Factory. They exhibited the project at the Reykjavik Art Museum, but it's not just art -- they've got a real jingles and an application form if you'd like to put your own message to song. Here's the entertaining infomercial:

On Thursday, Thomas Buckner presents his 24th annual concert of commissioned works for baritone voice. Composers featured on this evening include his long-time collaborators, esteemed composers Robert Ashley, Annea Lockwood, and Alvin Lucier, along with New York premieres by Anne Guthrie, Narong Prangcharoen, and Kit Young.

In anticipation of this event, we are offering a recording of Thomas Buckner premiering "37 Haiku" by Christian Wolff, recorded at Buckner's April 12, 2007 Interpretations event. 

With Gerry Reuter, oboe; Jill Van Nostrand, french horn; Liuh-Wen Ting, viola; Jennifer Devore, cello; Petr Kotik, conductor. Interpretations series, April 12, 2007

Also, here is a video of Thomas Buckner discussing the history of Interpretations, and also his collaborations with the composers featured in this upcoming concert!

The Golden Festival is a massive Balkan and East European music and dance bacchanal. On January 14th, WFMU's Transpacific Sound Paradise presented its fourth live broadcast from the event's main stage in Brooklyn's kitschy and fabulous Grand Prospect Hall. The Grand Ballroom was one of four stages, and the two-night event featured over sixty groups. This year, the Free Music Archive will host archives from all four stages.

We're starting the Golden Festival 2012 Collection with the Atrium Room.

Black Sea Hotel (pictured) is the Brooklyn-based vocal quartet of Corinna, Joy, Sarah and Willa. Their set included traditional songs learned under a plum tree in Bulgaria, but with their own distinct twists and arrangements, since many of the songs were originally sung by larger choirs.

Brazda (pictured) is a New York-based Balkan band that plays fresh arrangements of traditional repertoire from Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, and beyond. Like many of the groups, they have provided information about each song in their set including translations. I was surprised to learn that "Yiati Foumaro Kokaini" has lyrics that translate to "That crazy rascal, cocaine smoker For my troubles, now I smoke cocaine."

Black Pus is the many-armed beast of a solo project from Brian Chippendale, one of the most distinct musicians and visual artists of our time. If you're not already familiar with the sounds of Black Pus, you may recognize Chippendale's many-armed drumming style and masked mic-in-mouth vox from his duos Mindflayer and Lightning Bolt. A co-founder of the storied Fort Thunder artist collective, Chippendale still lives in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence, in a former mill building where lately he seems to be writing a new Black Pus song almost every night. So while we're wrapping our heads around 2011's Primordial Pus (Load Records) -- not to mention the limited edition CD-R series of Black Pus 1, 2, 3, 4 and 0 -- there's already a seventh Black Pus album ready to pop.

The live set on Marty McSorely's WFMU program is a special treat because, though he is a prolific musician, Black Pus doesn't tour nearly enough to quench our thirst for Pus. The set was expertly engineered by Ernie Indradat, and the interview covers recent collaborations with Björk and the Flaming Lips. Chippendale also talks about how he assembled such a unique setup, including an oscillator pedal that was originally a gift from Shinji Masuko of DMBQ. When Marty McSorely asks "What is Brian Chippendale's Black Pus?" Chippendale responds that it's reggaeton. He goes on to elaborate on a range of influences from the free jazz assault of Peter Brötzmann's Machine Gun to the unpredictable rhythms of Sightings and Black Dice (who started out as a hardcore band in Providence around the same time as Lightning Bolt).

In some circles, Brian Chippendale is known as much for his fine art, comics and graphic novels as for his music. His visual style can be experienced as part of every Black Pus and Lightning Bolt release. And, as those of you who are on the WFMU swag mailing list may have heard, Brian Chippendale designed an awesome biker t-shirt for WFMU's marathon which begins later this month!

Previously on the FMA: doncbruital (Angels in America) on Anarchic Self Reliance: Black Pus

For more, check out the Black Pus blog, which just debuted this trippy surrealist video for "I'll Come When I Can," off Primordial Pus.

Tracks to Sync is series of mixes curated with the online video producer in mind. Along with a few new faces, this playlist features updates from artists who'll already be familar to FMA regulars. License and artist info below, and if you're new to the Creative Commons licenses that facilitate online sharing, we've gathered links to great resources in our Music for Video portal.

The Freak Fandango Orchestra is a multi-ethnic band from Barcelona who recently performed at Barbés Brooklyn and release music under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.

Oddio Overplay first introduced the FMA to Lee Rosevere, a Canadian composer who approaches music informed by his professional broadcast experience. His latest album was imagined as a soundtrack to Isaac Asimov's science fiction stories (link). [CC BY-NC-SA]

Ending Satellites from Bayonne France mix music with photography in a journey between pictures and melodies. Be sure to get the free deluxe version of their new album for its accompanying artworks! [Creative Commons BY-NC-SA]

The OO-Ray took part in disquiet's Instagr/am/bient: 25 Sonic Postcards in which artists composed music to accompany each other's insagram photos, using sonic and visual filters to explore the intersection of technology, aesthetics, and artistic process. [Creative Commons BY-NC-SA]

junior85 aka Tony Higgins has struck up a very cool collaboration with filmmaker Danny Cooke, which began here at the FMA and we wrote about last year. Danny commissioned a new soundtrack for his latest film about letterpress and movable type. Junior85's soundtrack to Upside Down, Left To Right - A Letterpress Film is now available under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license to inspire new works.

Blear Moon also inspired a Danny Cooke film, as featured in April's Tracks to Sync.  Now based in Prague, the Russia-born artist returns with another fantastic ambient release, Town of Two Houses. [Creative Commons BY-NC-SA]

Chris Zabriskie recently removed the NonCommercial clause from his work in favor of Attribution-only, and wrote an article, "Why I Went CC-BY," explaining his reasoning. His latest release, Undercover Vampire Policeman, is beautifully minimal and darkly cinematic, with excellent song titles to boot. [CC-BY]

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Most of these artists provide contact info if you'd like to reach out for more permissions than the CC license grants -- they'll be happy to hear from you, and it can lead to cool collaborations like this one between Tony Higgins and Danny Cooke:

In possibly his most nerdy move yet, Lee Rosevere's latest project is music inspired by the writing of Isaac Asimov, known for his many science-fiction stories.

This project kinda makes sense, given that Lee's previous works (like the three installments of the Light Years albums I, II and III) have been likened to unofficial scores for non-existent sci-fi movies.  It isn't essential to be familiar with the Asimov stories the songs are named after, but it does enhance the listening experience.

The album is available now on FMA (also available in lossless FLAC with extra goodies), and here is the first 'single' "The Machine That Won The War", sync'd to an edited version of the film "Le Voyage Dans La Lune" by George Melies (1902, public domain via archive.org).

Nat M. Wills can be said to be one of America’s first modern comedians. A popular vaudeville entertainer and recording artist from the early 20th century. He is best known for his "happy tramp" persona, performing satirical numbers, and parodies of popular songs of the day.

Modern American stand up draws it roots from this art form among various other traditions that were popular in the late 19th century. The material itself often used stereo typical portrayals of ethnic groups through crude impersonations (most commonly African-Americans). Unfortunately the racial tones in American vaudeville performances were very common during its time, and is evident on Wills' "No News" among several other of his recordings.

Wills was born in Fredericksburg, VA in 1873. His birth name is said to be Louis McGrath Wills, but very little is know about his early life. After his family moved to Washington D.C. he began his career on the stage at a young age, and performed in various shows throughout the United States.

Wills died at the age of 44 in 1917. He was an auto enthusiast who was said to be working on a car in his garage with the doors closed, and succumbed to Carbon monoxide poisoning. Automobiles were relatively new at the time, and it is possible that he was unaware of the poisonous fumes that were emitted from a running engine, some also speculate that he may have committed suicide.

His recordings maintain a lightheartedness, but my favorite track "Saving Up Coupons for Mother" is pretty dark as he sings about puffing away on cigarettes for coupons to ironically purchase a tombstone for his “Pa”.

For further reading about Wills, and the Vaudeville genre check out No Applause--Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous by Trav S.D. And to hear more Nat Wills’ there is a collection of his works available at