SAMPLE & HOLD : allen ravenstine

SAMPLE & HOLD : marshall mcluhan

"All media exists to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values."

-M.M.

Originally released by Columbia Records in 1967, The Medium is the Massage, an audio translation of his insightful tome, seems oddly prophetic and absolutely timely today. Recently resurrected via the cd medium, this "cut-up" collage of McLuhan reading bits of his text with commentary supplied by a barrage of audio interventions is not unlike the Beatles "Revolution 9," a piece it predates.

An analysis of the media's role in creating our sense of "reality," it is difficult to not sense its profoundly prophetic point of view. Indeed, the media, a not so hidden persuader, massages us and prods us toward a mono-culture in which acquisition of EVERYTHING is the goal, the key to happiness.

This utterly artificial road-trip signposted by McLuhan's straight reading of his text in all its prescient glory is an aural provocation to critical thought and subsequent choices informed by human intelligence, a trait sorely missing from our present cultural discourse.

262v NOISE

"Chance favors the prepared mind"

-L. Pasteur

I approach the "composition" of electronic music, not from a technician's point of view but rather with the playful eyes and ears of a child ever open to a fortuitous moments. A new module(NEVER supplied with instructions or suggested patches) presents trepidation tempered with the potential for new sonic possibilities, especially given the endless choices modular systems offer. As a visual artist, I make (thanks Duchamp) frequency paintings!

Here is yet another 262v "composition."

Verbos 262v Harmonic Oscillator

After a lengthy wait the 262v has finally arrived! We'll see what variety of harmonic mayhem I can unleash with this module...stay "tuned"!!!

SAMPLE & HOLD : zoviet*france

Scheduled to play at the AV Festival at Newcastle upon the Tyne in the UK, the legendary electro-exploratory group Zoviet*France is in dire need of re-evaluation. Arguably the four albums pictured below represent some of their best work ranging from faux tribal percussion work-outs and blurred ghost voices to loopy ambient mirages with cut and paste noise assaults woven throughout.

The titles seem to reflect today's socio-political environment in spite of their 1986-87 productions, a glimpse into our present/future populated by Misfits, Loony Tunes and Squalid Criminals(think Mit Romney and Rick Santorum), Assault and Mirage(the Republican Party overall, and Newt Gingrich specifically), and certainly A Flock of Rotations(just about everyone's inability to move forward and Santorum's absolute need to move backwards socially).

If you can find these beautiful digi-packs housing artfully enigmatic marks and scribbles, allow yourself the "Charm, Ceremony, Chance and Prophecy" this series of Zoviet*France releases signals with a sonorous poetry that is expressively timeless.

WARNING: CONTENTS INCLUDE MATERIALS OF EUROPEAN ORIGIN.

Featuring a voice sample from the 1957 classic Jacques Tourneur film Curse of the Demon, the ether^ra track NI-ALL (recently favorited on Soundcloud by Alessandro Cortini. Thanks Alessandro!) exploits the mutant sonic characteristics of the Buchla 200e and my growing eurorack system. The track, a glitchy soup with cloudy liminal Buchla sounds floating through the mix begins with Niall Mac Ginnis ,who plays the leader of the local witch cult, intoning ominously "...some things are more easily started than stopped." Like the Green Man and Snakes and Ladders, Curse of the Demon mines a particularly british hidden reverse. Curse inhabits and informs my hypnagogic soundworld, quite the opposite of Hawaii Five O and the Boys of Summer.

SAMPLE & HOLD : autechre

Considering my steady intake of sonic debris over the years, this now sounds like a dystopian form of beauty. While this IS Autechre's most assaulting track, the cleaving blocks of sound, micro-moments of halting silence, and the hammering tonalities create a kind of organic geometry that is quite beautiful in its furious expansion and contraction.