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Encounters with Dave Allen
Apr 18, 2025 · original
First Encounter, Manhattan, 1991 CMJ Music Festival: My status as a college radio music director was an excuse for attending, but I was also looking for opportunities to promote the shoegazey band in which I was a guitarist. Our singer, also my girlfriend at the time (not advisable), joined me. We heard about a live ‘A&R session,‘ a music industry conference trope that’s probably familiar. Band demos (cassettes!) are put in a box where they are selected randomly, then the initial minute or two of the first song is played for a panel of supposed experts. This panel included several label folk I don’t remember and Dave Allen, representing his young World Domination Recordings imprint. My band’s demo was in the box, but never got selected. Other demos of varying quality were sampled and lightly praised or gently critiqued. No feelings were hurt, but no one was overly encouraged, though Dave
Strange Days Indeed
Mar 8, 2025 · original
A tale of many protests: Steve McQueen, a filmmaker not shy of raising thorny topics, has curated a photography exhibition titled “ Resistance .” Ths show, on display at the Turner Contemporary in Southeast England, showcases 100 years of protest in the UK stating with 1903’s suffrage protests to those in 2003 reacting against the Iraq War. Photography remains important in creating awareness and inspiring others to join in as they empathize with the activists depicted. Clarrie Wallis, the director of Turner Contemporary and McQueen’s co-curator: “Many grassroots photographers and community activists were using photography not just to document protest but also to shape their own narratives and build solidarity networks.” The problem now is how the power of photography to incite gets sapped by a proliferation of digitally created or altered imagery. I’m not just talking about AI fakes that
How to Disappear Defiantly
Jan 13, 2025 · original
This post was originally intended for the actual friends I share on Facebook, not necessarily the ‘added friends’ who I don’t know in real life. Over the decades, I’ve made many worldwide acquaintances; sadly, my only link to some is as a Facebook connection. This screed is about deleting my Facebook account, which means forever severing connections with some people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. This is not a happy post. I dislike writing these things. I’ve written about this topic before —”fool me once”—and I hope this is the last time. Before disappearing, I could have put this in a Facebook post, but I know the algorithms there will prevent my connections from seeing it. To Facebook (Meta), free speech is a grift . Any dissent is throttled to obscurity . I thought I’d be better off linking to a blog post, though I know the algorithm hates links, too. I’m banking on it hating disse
suspicions of provenance
Sep 1, 2024 · original
Hakobune ‘s guitar is processed like one hundred Guthries, ringing with reverb abandon as chords stretch into warm, elongated vibrations. The 2019 album Rain Studies is a full-spectrum affair; it alternately plays and washes away intruding sounds. Its CTwins-spirit is best transmitted on “Tenkyuu,” which sounds like muting everything but a single guitar track on Victorialand ‘s mixing desk. I suppose these comparisons are a little unfair. I feel I’m projecting my influences onto Hakobune, the Tokyo-based sound artist who also goes by Takahiro Yorifuji. But, in a way, the guitar is baggage, and a limited sound palette is never free of suspicions of provenance. Hakobune strikes me as a guitarist falling under the spell of electronic drone music but opting for the novocaine instead of the noise. Rain Studies could refer to the mix knob on a reverb unit pushed all the way to ‘wet,’ but it’s
Shimmering & Shining with The Black Watch
Jul 18, 2024 · original
It’s easy to get distracted by the number 23. Not only are we told it’s everywhere by thinkers as prestigious as Robert Anton Wilson and Jim Carrey , but those two digits look and feel special. How about a 23rd album? Perhaps that’s magical in some way (especially if the KLF ever got there ), but to most, it just sounds like a lot of albums. Twenty-two is a lot, too, not to mention twenty-four. But I don’t want to get hung up on the 23rd album because it doesn’t matter to John Andrew Fredrick of The Black Watch . Weird Rooms is the band’s album number twenty-three, but John isn’t counting or accumulating. He’s persisting. John may be aware of the potential baggage in musical prolificness. Quantity sometimes counterintuitively means stagnation: running in circles, repeating the comforts of an established sound or workflow, or releasing the same record ad infinitum. I can testify that this
The Children…’s Blues is a Primal Yowl
Jun 3, 2024 · original
The Children…, as you have already noticed, follow their band name with three dots, periods, or stops. I detect the implication of something sneakily approaching. Whatever it is, it’s not necessarily coming for the children, but maybe it’s the children themselves, Village of the Damned -style . I say this in hindsight after listening to A Sudden Craving , the second album from The Children… The music evokes multitudes. It’s a layered and cinematic affair with intricate instrumentation, spacious sonic production, and beguiling stranger-lurking-around-the-corner vocals. The songs on A Sudden Craving are also delightfully ominous, spurring a complexity in their deep darkness—a reflection, rather than a warning, of what comes after those three dots. It might be those spooky movie kids with glowing eyes, or it could just be something chasing childhood’s innocence down a night’s cityscape. The
A Degree of Randomness: A Conversation With Joseph Branciforte
Mar 22, 2024 · original
Joseph Branciforte pops up on my computer monitor as we begin our chat. He’s in an austere studio chamber, pristine and wooden, with racks of audio gear and a familiar Juno-60 behind him, all by its lonesome. Are those a pair of Grammy awards I see on the shelf? It’s not the typical studio I encounter when chatting with a musician making electronic or experimental music. Besides the Juno, it doesn’t look like any studio I’ve recorded in. Mine are always a mess. Have you ever noticed that graphic artists, especially those with a refined aesthetic, have the nicest workspaces? The idea must extend to mastering and mixing engineers of Jospeph’s caliber and scrupulous dedication. Glance over his client list , and you’ll see names that I’m sure have requirements : the ECM label , known for its consistently polished palette, figures in as a patron of services. This makes Joseph’s Greyfade impri
Pierced With Lasers
Mar 17, 2024 · original
Eyesore! That’s the chant around these parts. My right eye ( previously ) was pierced with lasers the other day in preparation for next week’s big surgical procedure. Tiny little holes. Visually, I don’t quite notice—my eyesight in that eye was rotten to begin with—but there is a dull throb around the eyeball that’s making things a tad difficult. It’s not terrible or even painful. It’s persistent. “Do you want to be awake for the procedure?” the surgeon asked. How many patients choose sleep? “It’s like half-and-half. Usually the ones with anxiety.” Surprisingly, I don’t get anxious about things like this, so I decided I’ll stay awake. I want to retain the experience of this unimaginable thing taking place. Does that sound crazy to you? Just over a year ago I had the first procedure which—spoiler alert—eventually turned into a failure. But I was awake—heavily drugged, but awake—and I enjo
Creature Feature
Feb 24, 2024 · original
I have some curatorial notes today. Memora8ilia, the “filing cabinet for 8sided.blog,” is presently hosted on Tumblr . I’m in the process of moving it to a self-hosted site, at which point I’ll get more active with it. I’m not necessarily moving it off Tumblr due to recent controversies . However, that does serve as a reminder that when we rely on other platforms to present our creative work, problematic associations can (and probably will) happen. Memora8ilia is meant to be a place where I store cool things I find on the web in case I want to find them again. It’s inspired, in part, by Warren Ellis’s LTD blog , which is his “writer’s notebook” and daily log that we, his readers, are allowed to access. Warren logs what he’s reading, watching, and hearing, as well as updates on how his garden is faring (a source of both his joy and frustration). He often checks in with his morning status
Time Travel, Expressed
Feb 21, 2024 · original
I should talk about my podcast work . It’s going well! My main gig is the Spotlight On podcast, hosted by music industry vet and erudite interviewer Lawrence Peryer (LP). Several months ago, I was promoted (I suppose that’s the word—it’s a two-man operation) from editor to full-on producer/manager of the show. That means I’m handling nearly everything outside of hosting. I’m having a blast and am thankful that I’m working on such a terrific podcast. I’m always learning, a state I strive for in any project I take on. In addition to production and marketing duties, I suggest and book some of the musician guests, but LP tracks down the majority, who are mostly new to me. Fortunately, LP’s musical taste converges nicely with mine, so I’m discovering loads of new artists through the podcast. This week’s guest is the German jazz drummer Mareike Wiening . This is my first encounter with her, an
Brightly Transmitted Influences
Feb 18, 2024 · original
Today, I’m listening to Im Fünfminutentakt , an album by the enigmatic act Fred und Luna released last April. In playful press releases, Fred und Luna are purported to be moon-based explorers observing and commenting on Earthly activities through the language of music. This set-up, along with a synthesized and intentional retro sound that those same press releases refer to as “elektrokraut,” signals the kind of thing I’d often shy away from. But Im Fünfminutentakt is a terrific album. Fred und Luna owe much to Kraftwerk and the electronic German music of the Kosimche ’70s. But where the album excels is when those brightly transmitted influences are stylistically fiddled with. Im Fünfminutentakt ‘s first three tracks are what I’m talking about: there’s “Aurum C,” a bubbling, motorik album intro, and “Nur ein Viertelstündchen,” which brings to mind a becalmed take on New Order’s “Your Sile
Elongated Installations
Feb 16, 2024 · original
This morning, I took a photo of the sunrise over my backyard lake. I used to do this almost every day— my sunrise diary . But I also used to get up a lot earlier. These days, I’m in bed until 7:30-ish, which is seriously sleeping in compared to my routine a few months back. These aches and pains, combined with the cold weather, are making it tougher to catch the sunrise, but these photos remain an aspiration. How many sunrises can one see in a life? It’s worth seeing as many as you can. I’m amused by another barometer of time due to the recent attention given to the performance of John Cage’s “As Slow As Possible” (or, originally, “Organ2/ASLSP” ) at the St. Burchardi church in Halberstadt, Germany . The performance began in 2001 , nine years after Cage’s death, and the church’s organ is scheduled to stop playing in 2640. This length is based on the age of the oldest keyboard instrument
Ballad of the Blog
Feb 15, 2024 · original
There’s nothing here, and it’s like I’ve tumbled into an invisible thicket. I call this blog danger, loosely defined as an inescapable aura of demise in the face of consistency. Can I bring a date to the relaunch? Because that’s what I’m promising—a blog anew, updated and worthy of apprehensive glances. I could go into where I’ve been, but my explanation isn’t worth your time. It’ll come off as moan moan moan been so busy my eyes are a mess fatigue is the mind-killer and so on and on and on. Let’s assume (please) that I’m trying for real this time. Mocking is appropriate if it doesn’t work out. I hate saying that I’m adopting a different tone and narrative strategy, but here we are. I’ve been thinking so much about writing these past several months. Tomes have been composed in my head, endless scrolls like ones pouring out of Kerouac’s typewriter, scotch-taped thoughts and brain flowers.
Wheel Around the Filter
Nov 7, 2023 · original
The track that opens SYMBOL’s I Am Humble and Powerful is the title track, and it’s something of an obstacle course. The Rhodes-ish electric piano is pleasant enough, playing freeform lines and chords that eventually resolve on melodic themes. References to Grieg’s “Morning Mood” appear with perhaps an intentionality, but possibly not. These tones are accompanied by jittery, high-speed electronic percussion that wouldn’t be out of place in a video game quest. Together, there’s an odd synergy between the dueling elements, like the mismatched characters of a buddy movie coming to blows but eventually hugging it out. The two seem out of place as a team. And the striking thing is there are over 15 minutes of this curious interplay. That’s an odd way to open an album, which brought to mind the aforementioned obstacle course. These opening 15 minutes are hardly dissonant or unsavory, but less
Simon Berz’s Geological World
Nov 5, 2023 · original
Piecemeal improvisations, disconnected by not only time and place but also mortality, take residence in the three-way collaboration, Breath Versus Beats . Swiss sound explorer Simon Berz launched the project by laying down a quintet of spacey drum and percussion pieces at Mariny Studios in New Orleans. Months later, Simon had an onstage encounter with Toshinori Kondo , the Japanese electric trumpeter known for his work with John Zorn, Herbie Hancock, DJ Krush, and Bill Laswell’s band Praxis. As Simon relates, “[Kondo] was standing on stage and tapped me on the shoulder. I saw this guy for the first time in my life, and the first word he said to me was, “‘Recording.'” Fast forward to the pair taking the unedited Mariny sessions to Kondo’s studio in Tokyo, where he lovingly blanketed his distinctive trumpet excursions over the top. Unfortunately, sometime later, Kondo passed away at the mu
The Piano Remains Among the Rubble
Nov 2, 2023 · original
We don’t need any more dystopias (fictional or otherwise), but Alex Lopes ‘s gentle approach to the year 3023 offers a mirror-angled lens on another way to tell the story. The piano remains among the rubble, it seems, evoking centuries-distant memories. Discovered recordings point a ruined society toward a simpler past, even if that past is our ruinous own. Every generation deserves a reminder to pare down and hit the roots. Brazilian musician Alex Lopes often records his solo piano compositions in one take and, as he describes, “I just tweaked some stuff on the post-production.” The songs on DYSTOPIA are sparse, not flowery or busy, and heavily melodic. Titles like “DOUBLETHINK” and “BRAVE NEW WORLD” (Lopes opts for caps) disclose the particular futurism/pessimism that serves as inspiration, but I’m hard-pressed to hear somber echoes in the music. At times, the compositions steer toward
A Mess of Headaches
Sep 30, 2023 · original
I have nothing that coherent (i.e., reassuring) to say about Songtradr’s acquisition of Bandcamp. There’s an opinion that Songtradr appears to be a better fit for what Bandcamp does than Epic Games. I’m not so sure. Songtradr is interested in exploiting art (‘exploiting’ is used here factually, not judgmentally) rather than creating art. One could argue Epic at least had a hand in creation — I’m sure many of its game designers consider themselves artists. A company changing hands in under two years doesn’t bode well. The sale also may betray a purpose behind Epic’s mystifying-at-the-time purchase of Bandcamp. Is it far-fetched to suspect Bandcamp was a chess piece in Epic’s protracted battle against Apple over the high % take from app store sales? For this reason, Bandcamp doesn’t allow purchases from its app, as Apple would compromise Bandcamp’s payment of around 82% of sales directly t
Pour Out a Little Coffee
May 26, 2023 · original
Today, the final musicREDEF newsletter with Matty Karas as ‘curator’ was sent out. I’ve read this newsletter for several years — it’s been a morning coffee companion — and though the curated links to breaking and notable music stories are the main draw for most, Matty’s commentary always brought the newsletter to the forefront of my inbox. Matty’s voice, his humor, his often on-target opinions, his moving eulogies, his constant frustration over things like the under-representation of women in the music industry and frequent gun-related fatalities of young rap artists — it often felt like I was having a conversation with Matty. So, when he dropped the news of his departure yesterday , it was like a good friend had just told me he was moving out of town for good. Matty was also an early booster of this blog you’re reading, which is another personal bond I have with musicREDEF. A short news
Noise Annoys
Feb 20, 2023 · original
You may be familiar with a derisive term said in film circles: homework movies . This phrase refers to influential achievements in cinema that one doesn’t necessarily enjoy but are requirements for students of film history. Your mileage may vary here; some consider Citizen Kane the most obvious example of a ‘homework movie,’ but I find it quite enjoyable. We don’t need to debate how most of Jean-Luc Godard ‘s films feel like homework. Since the mid-60s, his movies have increasingly pummeled audiences with literary references, philosophical quotations, and fiery polemics. Even the most seasoned fans and expert critics of the French New Wave openly admit Godard often vaults far above their heads. I’m no exception. This begs the question: why keep watching something you aren’t sure you like, much less understand? Watching and admiring while shrugging for explanations opens us to accusations
And the Heart Grows Fonder
Feb 19, 2023 · original
My eyes are a mess. You probably already know this. Funny thing: I’ve only been admitted to a hospital once — at the age of 12, I stabbed my leg with a knife while building a tree fort on Christmas Eve — and still have all my organs. That includes my tonsils, my appendix, and even my wisdom teeth. I often joke that I’ll probably get hit with everything all at once, as if my maladies have been biding their time. I couldn’t have predicted that it would all go to my eyes. I’ve always had an outrageous astigmatism, but in my late 30s, the condition graduated to outright keratoconus . Then there’s this double vision, requiring expensive prism lenses on the glasses I wear in addition to the keratoconus correcting contacts. And now I’m dealing with fucking Fuchs’ Dystrophy . I’ve noticed a haze in my right eye that I first chalked up to foggy contacts. But, of course, I live in the armpit of hu

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