A dated but nonetheless deep and interesting dive into “the worlds most important six second drum loop” by Nate Harrison.

This fascinating, brilliant 20-minute video narrates the history of the “Amen Break,” a six-second drum sample from the b-side of a chart-topping single from 1969. This sample was used extensively in early hiphop and sample-based music, and became the basis for drum-and-bass and jungle music — a six-second clip that spawned several entire subcultures. Nate Harrison’s 2004 video is a meditation on the ownership of culture, the nature of art and creativity, and the history of a remarkable music clip.

Stoked to see Vic Acid mentioned. In classic Squarepusher form, The Winston’s original transformed to the utmost, nearly irrecognizable extreme.

via: Nate Harrison / Squarepusher

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Asako Narahashi’s series, Half Awake and Half Asleep in the Water obliterates me.

Here’s an interview with her, Under the Waves by Bridget Fitzgerald via The Morning News.

Why these areas of Japan? What places them in the series?

Japan is a relatively small country surrounded by the sea. The coastline scenery is varied; sometimes it is a fully natural environment, sometimes man-made. I wanted to look at Japan from the water.

The coastlines in all the photographs are linked to each other somehow, but each photograph is rather individual and independent.

How did it all start? How did you develop this new way of taking photographs?

One day in summer, I went to the sea with my friends. While I was swimming, I happened to see my friends, who were having a party on the beach. That was the very beginning. Swimming backstroke like a sea otter, I took photographs of them from the water. After a year, I put the camera into the water more intentionally.

How much do you get knocked around?

Thousands of small waves knock me over. However, I never fight against it, but go completely with the flow.

What are you working on next?

I had “walking eyes” first. Now I have “floating eyes,” so I will probably have “flying eyes” next. I’m half-serious and half-kidding.

And here are some quotes from her via Theme Magazine:

“I often have both feelings—‘good’ and ‘bad’—about a certain thing or subject,” writes photographer Asako Narahashi, emailing from her home in Tokyo. “I am quite a perverse person, so I cannot accept my good feelings gratefully. When I feel good, I wonder whether it is right or not. When I feel bad, I try to find a way to make it better.”

Gorgeous.

XL.img via Paris Photo by way of Dropular®
more via: 03fotos / The Morning News / Theme Magazine / booooooom / The Moment

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Seriously people.

insp/via: John+Yoko

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Last month I received a box postmarked c/o Nemo from my Other Mother. Like all great surprises it was all too confusing for a moment. Carefully wrapped in butcher’s paper with a Portland return address that once unwrapped, revealed a small, square cardboard box with a note on the lid’s interior explaining how she would “make me a home where everything is right…Exactly as I’ve wished for.” All it would take, she explained, was a bit of needle and thread and my eyeballs.

“So sharp, you won’t feel a thing.”

I actually read the note before opening the tiny hexagonal pinstriped box wrapped beneath it. Considering I’d seen trailers for Coraline months before, it started to become clear. She’d conveniently included the tools I’d need — delicately placed black buttons, spooled thread and needle.

It didn’t take long to learn that this handmade piece of craft was part of a brilliant marketing effort by Weiden & Kennedy. The box I received was one of many disseminated to creative sites and influencers with varying degrees of intricacy. Toysrevil has a great post featuring many of these precious boxes ranging from buttons and thread like the one I received, to actual assets from the film.

Props to Laika and W+K for doing their part to dilute the bitter aftertaste of PR through a creative and inspiring campaign that provides an experience of beauty and wonder. Any step backward that moves it’s art forward is if nothing else, intriguing. Coraline’s 1-2 punch is that it’s beautiful too.

srcs: Weiden+Kennedy, Laika, Toysrevil, Boing Boing

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Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane. —Philip K Dick, Valis

I’m 38 days late in reminding myself to remember to write a memorial post for Philip K. Dick on his posthumous birthday. More accurately, I forgot to remember to remind myself. It wasn’t until trolling through mp3blogs a few nights ago that I was reminded by 47 minutes worth of informal interviews I’d never heard at Kick to Kill.

Though many preceding Sci Fi authors encrypted subversive or otherwise atypical messages in the cloak of the genre, PKD was among the first to break from the stereotypical mold almost completely. Abandoning cowboys with lazer guns for a predominately contemporary setting far more like our own than a galaxy far, far away, the majority of his novels swapped outer space for an interpersonal inner space that mirrored his own.

By transmuting a life rife with amphetamine-fueled schizophrenic paranoia, alternate histories and alternating overlaps of conflicting reality into his work, he altered the landscape of Sci Fi and effectively laid the foundation for cyberpunk — inspiring such notable authors as William Gibson, Mark Leyner, Johnathan Lethem, Ursula K. Le Guin and won the praise of his contemporaries including, Robert Heinlein and Stanislaw Lem.

Here is a subtle but startling irony: in several of his best novels, Philip K. Dick - world-famous as a science-fiction writer and hence, by definition, a creator of futuristic worlds - set his narratives in the late twentieth century, an epoch we left behind with great pomp in the celebration of the New Millennium. And yet the novels, and the stories, and the essays of Dick seem as futuristic as ever, which is to say - as vitally relevant to our own time as only great literature can be. —Lawrence Sutin

It should also be noted that the novels and short stories which were later adapted for cinema (Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly) arguably stand among the best and most challenging Sci Fi films of our time.

Rather than rant on about PKD, and the impact his work had on me at the right place and time, I’ll close with another quote and a stack of links for you to either dig deeper, or start unfolding the complex and altering experience to be found in the works of Philip K. Dick.

“I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards,” Dick wrote of these stories. “In my writing I even question the universe; I wonder out loud if it is real, and I wonder out loud if all of us are real.” —PKD

//

Official PKD

BBC Arena: A Day in the Afterlife (above)
Re: A Scanner Darkly

Informal Interviews via: Kick to Kill
Compiled Streaming Audio

PKD: Book Cover Gallery
Compiled Interviews (txt)
WTF? RoboPKD

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Last night I heard a train whistle rise and fade outside my window in the blustery night. I have no knowledge of tracks running anywhere near my home, except in aged historical photos of the area. It was clear and resonant. I went outside and heard nothing, eventually deciding to drive to the store. The car and radio starting at the end of a discussion about trains as a preferred method of travel over light rail, or something.

It sounded nostalgic.

Although I apply no supernatural meaning to these events, I pay attention to them. If no clear sense of meaning arises (like last night) I take it as a wake-up call to vigilance. Like a talisman intended not to protect, but to remind. To make note of unfolding connections and currents in and around me, but mostly — to just pay attention.

This post is only remotely related to that, thematically at least. In the randomness of it’s discovery (a pretty ubiquitous and endogenous phenomena of the web), and more specifically it’s nostalgia. My friends and I dreamed of doing this very thing about 20 years ago.

The closest we came was an appropriated canoe we adorned with fighting tiger war paint and a well-stocked cooler. Less astoundingly crafted than Swoon’s flotilla found in Todd Chandler’s Flood for sure, but an indelible experience of off-the-grid adventure and freedom.

I’m looking forward to seeing this film. From the Flood site:

FLOOD is an experimental narrative journey. It begins on the water, on a fleet of hand crafted boats, pieced together from scrap and found materials . On water time twists and bends in mysterious ways. Some people aboard the rafts cannot remember a time before the water. Others are lost in their memories from a previous life on the land. Some remember the boats starting out as a summer project among friends. Others remember fleeing their homes. Still others remember that the way of living they used to know was no longer working, and that something had to give. As the flotilla creeps down the river the past, present, and future stories of the boats and their inhabitants becomes both clearer and more elusive.
//
A mash-up of genres, Flood blends narrative, documentary, musical, and improvised experimental film. The film will be shot amidst the street artist Swoon’s Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea project, in which seven homespun boats will be built and crewed by an eclectic group of artists and performers. The boats will float down the Hudson River conducting performances as they stop in towns along the way.

The trailer and site I found this on introduced me to the moving sounds of Dark Dark Dark and Fall Harbor. Though I wouldn’t trade the playlist for our alligator chasing Everglade excursions, they seem perfect for Flood. Plus, I’m a sucker for singing saws.

Since Blanche’s description of watching the trailer echoed mine almost exactly, I’ll just copy/past in closing..

Although I’m not much for thick rimmed glasses (shout out to Tallahassee), I will admit the film is gorgeous and seems like it will be an incredibly moving narrative like a mix between Mark Twain, river rats, Noah’s ark, and two very talented–and not to mention aesthetically pleasing–bands. The presentation is awe-inspiring and the cinematography is seemingly outstanding. Definitely a strong collection of talented people.

A good find all around. Now, back to hunting down those tracks.

via: And So On…As It Was / Flood / Dark Dark Dark / Fall Harbor

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I had been out shooting the night fog and was just settling in when I received a Facebook message notification from my good friend Manu.

Emmanuel sent you a message.
(no subject)
Did you hear about Patrick McGoohan? He died today.
“I am not a number, I am a free man”

For those unfamiliar, Patrick McGoohan was the Lead, Director and oftentimes Writer for the late 1960’s television series, The Prisoner.

To say The Prisoner was groundbreaking is an understatement that belies it’s place as the crowning achievement of television programming. The Prisoner defied and defined the assumed capabilities of entertainment and indeed, the medium itself.

There had been nothing remotely like it, and when it’s final episode aired in 1968, the medium’s most brilliant mark was met, set and has remained unchallenged or unsurpassed since.

It may be a while before I can attempt to fully express my deep thanks and admiration for McGoohan, The Prisoner and the impact it’s continued to have on me for the past twenty years, as one of many… six of one, half dozen of the other. It’s late, but when I have a long moment unburdened by the need for sleep, I’ll do my best.

For now though, I simply want to pay my respects in this humble manner to the passing of Patrick McGoohan and urge the unacquainted reading this to start experiencing The Prisoner for themselves.

Rest in Peace Mr. McGoohan.

Be seeing you.

UPDATE: In his comment below, Curtis James posted this link to his brother Simon’s own posted eulogy, which concludes with a mash-up he created consisting of lines, scores and textures from The Prisoner. Great stuff — thanks to you both!

via: Manu Bonet / Wired / Obit (pdf) / The Prisoner Appreciation Society

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Incredible collage work from Norwegian transplant Are Mokkelbost. His ION series is particularly flooring. Be sure to check out his audial creations too. From Killl’s exp/noise/drone/dethmtl to Tenori On and other explorations, Mokkelbost’s work is all over the map and all equally inspiring.

via: booooooom / b-o-r-g

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It’s been years now since I shed all the plastic housings for my CD collection, boxed the inserts and ripped them all to a back-up drive. It took a while to commit to doing so. Almost as long as it took to migrate from the beloved tactile sense of albums and liner notes, to CDs.

In the end and looking back, it seems this was just another step forward along the ever-changing landscape of media. Not to get too verbose about it, but the absence of the physical has irrevocably changed the experience of music. At least for me. Reserving judgement, it seems to have made the experience more about the music itself, it’s value completely contained within itself. The ding an sich thing again. A common theme these days.

But this post about the artwork of Suehiro Maruo is only vaguely related to all that.

That relation being the first John Zorn Naked City release. A compositional workshop intended to test the limits of a rock band format. Featuring Zorn on saxophone, Bill Frisell (guitars), Fred Frith (bass), Wayne Horvitz (keyboards), Joey Baron (drums), and occasional vocals from Yamatsuka Eye, Bob Dorough, and later Mike Patton, Naked City incorporated Zorn’s appreciation of hardcore bands like Agnostic Front and Napalm Death with his other influences and experimented with compositional form and cover versions. (thanks Wikipedia)

To close another tangent, it was this release that introduced me to the work of Suehiro Maruo. A couple of his works adorned the release. Oddly traditional and modern, eastern and western, the plates included stuck with me. Searching for Maruo wasn’t easy, since I didn’t know his name. Even Wikipedia only mentioned the cover shot of Zorn’s release. One of Weegee’s more recognizable shots from his book which gave the group it’s namesake, Naked City.

Decades later, thanks to a blog I occasionally frequent (which I further tangentially assume gets it’s namesake from Gong’s first trilogy release), I was treated to a hefty download of Suehiro Maruo - Maruo Graph Exibition I and II. Post war horror, early American monster movies, and the pantheon of traditional and not-so-traditional Japanese demons are driving themes among the morbid, squirming, eye-licking pieces of the collection, along with those I’ve found since learning Maruo’s name. Heavily weighted in the tradition of nineteenth-century muzan-e “atrocity print” woodblock cuts. It seems there may have been animated adaptations of his manga, Planet of the Jap . I’ll be looking.

For now, several scaled versions are presented above, along with the link to flying-teapot’s post. Let me know if you know more. I’ll do the same.

via: flying-teapot / suehiro maruo

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I recently spent an evening catching up on a long queue of WNYC’s RadioLab podcasts. While they’re all interesting (if not pretty damn great), I found part of the Ruled by Time episode particularly interesting. It was a piece by producer Aaron Ximm on the experience of listening to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony for 24 hours straight, but only hearing it once —featuring the work, 9 Beet Stretch by Leif Inge. Inge is a Scandanavian sound artist who by his own self description, works with Conceptually Conceived™‚ projects of transmedial nature, both individually, in project-based ensembles as well as organizing events. Mostly exhibited in the Nordic Countries and in Mexico.

9 Beet Stretch is a behemoth of an audial concept. A soundscape made of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, digital stretched to a duration of 24 hours without distortion or pitch shifting, presented as a 24-hour-long sound installation/electroacoustic concert. Photo documentation of Inge’s installations consist primarily of the audience, sprawled on sleeping pads and bags, tents, hammocks and church pews — settled in for the 24 hour auditory experience.

Accompanying the shots are quotes regarding the experience (I thought I was a fly trapped in honey!) and some rather weird visualizations of 3D cybermodels languidly reclining in chunky 3D cyberspace. The effect of it streaming through my home in and out of sleep was interesting enough that I can relate, though I found it less Johnny Mnemonic and more meditative in an organic, 24 hour Tibetan singing bowl kind of way.

I’d hoped to find more visual documentation of the Hyperkinetic Video Machine Inge mentions. An audio-reactive, self-generating video device created as a visual accompaniment for the 9 Beet Stretch installations by Alfredo Salomón as a result of Inge’s fascination with his video work and subsequent request for collaboration. My own fascination with the description unearthed a decent clip (above) from one of the installations.

Even without the HVM, as far as Conceptually Conceived™ projects of transmedial nature go, the performance doesn’t disappoint on conceptual or experiential levels.

Thanks to Raudio’s cooperation with Inge, you can determine that for yourself with their 24/7 stream of 9 Beet Stretch. A 10 minute mp3 excerpt from the beginning is also available here just remember, it takes some time to get audible.

via: Radiolab / Leif Inge / Raudio

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