APR 11 | Massaging The Medium

Read Before Class

Discussion led by: N/A

Tape Heads (Chapter 9) from Handmade Electronic Music (p. 47-52)
“Histories of Sound, Once Removed” , Douglas Kahn, from Wireless Imagination
Today we are focusing on what he calls “inscription” but the rest of the article applies to last week’s topics.
interview with Christian Marclay and Yasunao Tone from MUSIC magazine

Optional:

Establish schedule for Individual Meetings and the 2 Final Crit days.
Explore the physicality of phonography and its potential for exploitation and modification
Break and remake LP records to make fractured aural collages
Record original records with a DIY record lathe.
Cut 1/4” tape into a room-sized loop, revealing the physical length of recorded time
Discuss how limitations can become assets in recording, embracing noise within process

Christian Marclay video on YouTube and article from Frieze Magazine
Yasunao Tone’s bio page from his label, Asphodel (includes a sample of his “wounded CD” music.)
Alyce Santoro’s “sonic fabric” (and a related YouTube video that Pierre Schaeffer might enjoy)
Steve Reich’s early tape music (“Come Out”, “It’s Gonna Rain”)

Marina Rosenfeld, art-world turntablist and creator of the Sheer Frost Orchestra (a 17-member all-female guitar ensemble that plays solely using nail polish bottles)
DJ Spooky (aka Paul D. Miller), turntablist and art/pop/academia crossover sensation, who makes connections between avant garde art history and the contemporary art of the remix.
“A Brief History of Anti-Records and Conceptual Records” essay by Ron Rice (ubuweb)
Walter Kitundu builds and performs with homemade instruments that often feature embedded turntables
More CD glitch music from OVAL
Philip Jeck, an early LP-manipulator
Burroughs and Brion Gysin cut-up recordings (ubuweb) and Break Through In Grey Room, an album of Burroughs speeches and cut-ups made with Ian Sommerville.
Brian Joseph Davis “10 Banned Albums Burned Then Played” (ubuweb)
interview with Steve Reich about his early tape music (2002)
“A New Musical Language” (documentary, 1987) about Steve Reich’s music (ubuweb).
How to make tape loops with standard audio cassettes.
or buy pre-made “endless cassettes” designed for pre-digital answering machines.
“Box with the Sound of its own Making” (1961) by Robert Morris
“Recorded Delivery” (1995) by Janek Schaefer
Otomo Yoshihide’s “Without Records” installation featuring modified phonographs playing themselves.
DIY record lathe video on Youtube, showing an easy way to cut record grooves into a discarded CD.