Sunday, July 29, 2007

Daniel Steven Crafts

Daniel Steven Crafts

This week's Q&A is with Daniel Steven Crafts. Crafts is a Detroit, Michigan based composer whose online statement boldly states, "The task of the truly contemporary composer is not only to write music of substance, but also to win back an audience alienated by so-called ‘modern’ music." If I hadn't already been digging his Tape Compositions, this line alone would have completely won me over. Check out his website HERE.

Crafts hosted a radio program on KPFA until moving to New Mexico in 1999. He's composed 8 operas, 6 symphonies and 13 large orchestral works, in addition to a variety of shorter pieces. He has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and ASCAP, and has 3 CDS and an Emmy-award-winning PBS video (with tenor Jerry Hadley) available at his website.

Without further ado, here's the SAR Q&A with Daniel Steven Crafts...


*Name: Daniel Steven Crafts

*Are there any additional names used to describe this project: Snake Oil Symphony / Soap Opera Suite

*Tape manipulations, digital deconstructions or turntable creations: I have simply used the term “Tape Composition.” My earliest work was done in the mid 1960's. The Snake Oil Symphony (1980) was my last piece of tape composition. I never had access to any high-powered equipment, even for that era. My work was all done with two commercial 2-track tape recorders, a revox and an ampex deck (if anyone even knows what those terms are anymore – ancient terminology). The tape pieces were all created by painstakingly dubbing bit by bit from one recorder to the other. I would often dovetail pieces by fading in one track and out on the other, then combine the “stereo” into a solid mono track. It would take days just to create a minutes worth of material. In terms of today’s technology, this would seem like working with caveman tools. In general, I saw the tape recorder as an audio canvas on which one could combine any amount of speech, sound and music in the traditional sense (either found or original). But my idea was not to ignore, but to embrace any extra-musical sense to speech or sound. That was primarily how I differed from those who were already working with tape.

*Location: Berkeley, California

*What is your creative/artistic background: My foreground is probably more applicable here. I haven’t done any tape work since the 80's. My work since then has been for symphony orchestra, and opera.

*History: Since the late 1960's

*Born: I was born in the industrial bowels of Detroit just at the turn of the mid-century.

*Motivations: The Soap Opera Suit is more comedy than composition—bits of soap operas (circa 1980) taken out of context and re-presented. The Snake Oil Symphony, however, I do consider a serious composition. I always felt the minimalists were missing the whole point of “found sound” refusing to acknowledge the extra-musical aspect of it. The SOS is composed both as “music” and as social commentary. “Snake Oil Symphony is a very large metaphor for the social relations of capitalism. In the Dearborn (Michigan) Public Library I found some salesman’s instructional records—demonstrating how to sell things to people who didn’t really want them. They were just too good to pass up. The liner notes (on the website) go into all this in probably more detail than you ever care to read.

*Philosophy/How would you like to be remembered: For me, Art has always been a tool of social change. Satire is one of the most effective ways of attacking injustice. Get people laughing at the absurdity of something and change will follow much more easily. I have always opposed the formalism of the so-called ‘Avant-Garde,’ of the last half century, as I consider it both politically and philosophically reactionary. Music (or any Art) should be neither the esoteric property of an exclusive group of professionals, nor the kind of audio wallpaper to which mass-marketing would reduce it.

*Web address: www.dscrafts.net


www.some-assembly-required.net

Episode 182, Some Assembly Required

Episode 182, Some Assembly Required

01 Party Ben – “Fischervana (smells like emerge)”
02 DJ Shadow – “What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 1-Blue Sky Revisit) / Transmission 3”
03 Cassetteboy – “The Meat Section”
04 Soundhog – “Take it easy freak”
05 Daniel Steven Crafts – “The Human Condition (Soap Opera Suite - Part V)”
06 DJ Shadow – “Organ Donor (Extended overhaul)”
07 Jeffrey Sconce – “Stars return”
08 The Evolution Control Committee – “Pertaining To The Beat”
09 The Tape-beatles – “The urge of the idea”
10 Invisibl Skratch Piklz – “Battle For The Mind (Mike)”
11 Team 9 - “Eleanor's in my head”
12 People Like Us and Matmos – “Work-All-Day”
13 John Oswald – “Carly Simon & Faster Pussycat / Vane”
14 Knackwurst – “Shake your... oh yeah”


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Sunday, July 22, 2007

July 22, 2007

No new Q&A this week, but be sure to check out this week's episode, featuring a phone interview with record producer/musician/sound collage artist, Steve Fisk. We ran a Q&A with Fisk back in July of 2006 - Check it out HERE.

In other news, it's starting to look like we'll be doing another Festival of Appropriation this year. There are some exciting prospects in the works, and we're aiming for a November opening, so stay tuned for more information, along with a call for Minnesota artists.

The FOA started out as a six-month long exhibition at a Minneapolis coffee shop. It moved from there to yearly, month-long shows at venues such as The Rogue Buddha Gallery and alternative spaces such as Theatre de la Jeune Lune and The Varsity Theater. At this point, it looks like we plan to do it about every other year. Check out www.festivalofappropriation.org for more information about this collage, assemblage and mixed media art exhibition.

Don't forget to check out this week's episode (#181) to listen to my phone interview with Steve Fisk, along with nine of his sound collage tracks....

Thanks for listening!
Jon Nelson

www.some-assembly-required.net

Episode 181, Some Assembly Required

Episode 181, Some Assembly Required
(featuring an interview with Steve Fisk)

01 Steve Fisk – “The Firin’ Line”
02 Steve Fisk – “Taxman”
03 Steve Fisk – “Ragged old flag”
04 Steve Fisk – “Government Figures”
05 Steve Fisk – “Topeka Hello”
06 Steve Fisk – “Break on thru”
07 Steve Fisk – “Aviation Oakie”
08 Steve Fisk – “L’estancia”
09 Steve Fisk – “At it again”


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Sunday, July 15, 2007

Fortyone

Fortyone
Let's see, when did I... oh yes, there was a compilation at Comfort Stand, I think. Comfort Stand is/was an awesome online record label, started by The Bran Flakes Otis Fodder, I believe. It boasted an impressive number of DIY releases by all kinds of artists, including a good number of sound collage artists. I explored by listening to a compilation they were offering of various artists (there were literally so many that it would have been difficult to find an easier way to find out much about a good cross section of the work being offered there), and Fortyone really stood out to me.

I've always been a fan of the linear edit, specifically with regard to spoken word samples. I don't know why I haven't done more of it, myself, actually. At one end of the spectrum you've got funny, irreverent guys like Wayne Butane and at the other there's the excellent video art piece by Omer Fast (CNN Concatenated). Fortyone is closer to Wayne Butane in this arena, but maybe a little more thoughtful. Just a tad.

In fact, one of my favorite pieces by Fortyone is called "Love Everyone," off of the album "No More Mayonnaise." That piece starts off with the question and answer: "Q: What do you have to do? A: All you have to do is, be kind, be good, to everyone." That was the track which really warmed me to the project. I'd already decided I was a fan, but hearing the message of that track, I realized I needed to listen even more carefully.

With 22 albums and 5 singles, many of which are available free from his website, Fortyone is definitely more prolific than most, which makes it very difficult for me to review it all! However, with very few exceptions, I've found it was worth the effort. There are even videos to watch, online, so get to it.

Without further ado, here's the SAR Q&A with Fortyone...


*Name: Fortyone (or) 41
*Are there any additional names used to describe this project: Not really. I have associated ‘Freelove Records,’ the name of my made up, non-label “label,” with my music for quite some time now. But it's really just Fortyone.

*Do you use a pseudonym? Boy, that question smacks you right in the pilose face as you play percussion on a moist concavity somewhere in the heart of dixie doesn't it...

*Members: Steven Blair Nichols. And always in upper and lower case letters, that's very important. Could I please encourage your readers to do some research on International Maritime Admiralty Law and English Grammar and to start demanding that all their business be conducted using their grammatically correct actual "living/breathing" names (upper and lower case).

*Founding Members: Steven Nichols.

*Tape manipulations, digital deconstructions or turntable creations: Both “digital deconstruction” and “turntable creation.” I sample vinyl predominantly and both deconstruct and reconstruct the samples digitally. I do sample tape but have yet to manipulate that medium directly. So far I've remained very low-tech, almost “ghetto” in my equipment and software, using only Windows “soundrecorder 32” and a shareware program called “GoldWave” to manipulate sound digitally, and recording all the sound I use via a basic PC mic propped up against my stereo speaker. I’ve used a Panasonic REAL 3DO video game console as my CD player to sample CDs since the first album in ‘03. I’m saddened to say that it finally broke. Anyway, here’s a very brief rundown of what I do: I’ll either grab a whole bunch of source material and go through it all at once and amass a huge cache of samples, recording things that I like or have a general idea that I might be able to use and then sit down and start trying to put it together and form the tracks which appear on my CD’s in the order I make them... Or I’ll sample source material for one track at a time, though again, only recording things which strike my fancy at that time or that I think I might be able to use... I do not do much pre-planning at all and have been continually delighted at how so many times everything just seems to come together, fall into place, and fit perfectly. It’s like: “well, without thinking about the song as a whole whilst sampling, we’ve just recorded 5 minutes of raw samples, now let’s see if we can get anything to mesh,” and knock on wood, it usually does. I find this kind of hard to really convey, thus offer up my “records on my wall” e.p.’s (available for free on my website) as a great example of what I’m talking about here, and of what is really a fundamental principle of my music. A celebration of this magical randomness, if you will, and I'm sure you will.

*Another genre descriptor: Not an original one, no, but right now I do tend to refer to what I do as “collage.” Be it “aural collage,” “audio collage,” or “sample collage.” I almost wish I had a groovy invented term but alas.

Is there a story behind your name? Why 41? Even I have never really known exactly why “41.” I'm just Fortyone. After choosing 41 as my favorite number, as a teenager, years before making music, and then using the name on my music without ever thinking about it, just using it, many “reasons” have made themselves available, for example: Could it be that my last name is Nichols, like nickles which are 5 cents, and 4+1=5, or perhaps the fact that my Pap was born in 1941, or that I love the concept of April Fool’s day and it happens to be celebrated on 4/1, or could it be that ‘41’ is the international direct dialing code for Switzerland, (the neutral country) and I'm essentially a pacifist, or how about this one: Mozart is actually believed to have “encoded” the number ‘41’ into some of his pieces, on and on and on. None of these were consciously considered when choosing ‘41’ and many I only became aware of afterwards. Perhaps it would be easier to latch onto one of these when trying to explain “why 41?” to other people and even to myself, but I'd rather not.

*Location: Waynesboro, Pennsylvania

*Original Location: I was born in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania but really grew up in Pen Mar, Maryland and then moved back to Waynesboro when I was 16.
*What is your creative/artistic background: I never minded playing alone as a child (I was an only child until I was 9) and was always very creative and imaginative. I played alto sax in elementary school but gave it up because I didn't really enjoy practicing and absolutely dreaded performing as I was a tremendously shy kid. I remember making tapes of myself rapping original songs over a Casio keyboard’s programmed beats as a preteen. In fact I’m pretty sure I still have one of those tapes somewhere. I wrote TONS of poetry all throughout highscool. I know I still have plenty of cans of that sitting around. Study hall was poetry time. I dropped out during my junior year and have had no further schooling and certainly no formal training.

*History: Since sometime in 1997. I actually have a hard drive in my closet with all my original songs on it that I’ve been meaning to install and transfer the data off of, so I’m not exactly sure as to the specific date I made my first ‘track’ but I know it was sometime in ‘97. It’s a funny story... I actually had my first computer for quite a while, spending most of the time in chat rooms or listening to “funny wavs” on many of those types of websites, always wondering what that weird button with the red circle on it was for (in windows ‘soundrecorder’ which I of course used to play the “funny wav” files), and I know this might make me sound like a complete idiot but I really didn't know what it was for, even if I had some idea that it was for recording, and as I think back on it I’m sure I must have, I certainly didn’t know what possible use I, most certainly not a computer wiz, had for it, when one day my dad, against all my ‘better-safe-than-sorry’ apprehension, went ahead and clicked it! Well, I forget the specifics but once I saw that it did not destroy the computer or make some wretched high pitched squealing sound that wouldn't stop I was well on my way. It was still some time before I actually started making my own songs and when I did I almost literally made one every day for years. Not albums, or anything ever dreamed to be “released” or really ever made public in anyway, just songs. And remixes of my own songs. Usually at least 2-5 remixes of every song. Anyway, examples from this era can be found on my “The Mayonnaise Days” CDs.

*Born: At 10:12 AM on Wednesday, September 23rd, 1981, in Waynesboro Hospital in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania.


*Motivations:
Well, beyond the fact that I love to listen to this type of music so much myself and there’s just not enough of it out there (who else is this prolific?) so I’m essentially making it for myself so I can have fresh supply to listen to, beyond that, it’s just incredibly fun to make. This and that sense of wonder and anticipation or imagining of how others will receive it. Before making “No More Mayonnaise,” my first album, in July of ‘03, I had, inspired by the Bran Flakes’ wonderful use of children’s samples, compiled a huge cache of samples from children’s records (which I had collected by the way only to use as “talking records” in my fledging “turntablism” practice), and made a series of birthday songs for my younger brother Jack (a.k.a. Midas) out of them. I remember being filled with this wonderful anticipation as I wondered how he would like the songs, and I’ve had this same “I wonder what people will think of this” motivation ever since, but it’s really, although I often talk (and sample) of sharing, loving, and spreading joy and this is all very honest, real and a large part of it, when you get right down to it I just get a kick out of both making and listening to my music. It’s a heck of a lot of fun and I love putting it out there for others. Let’s put it that way. There’s something else I should mention here, which was another large part of the initial motivation to really start producing ‘albums’ back in 2003, and that’s the idea that although I knew I wouldn't be signing any major record deals anytime soon, ha, if ever, I could still get my music, my creations, out to lots of people via simply handing CDs out and (mainly) leaving CDs behind on everything from restaurant booths to park benches. And I’ve done so. Everywhere from along the roadside in Tennessee to the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. So far this has yielded no response besides a bit of a fuss and a generous offer to use bulletin board space out at the local Quizno’s restaurant but I still do it and still get quite the joy out of it. There’s also a testament to the power and wonderfulness of the internet here because after handing out and leaving behind literally hundreds of CDs and receiving not one response I began receiving responses from all around the world after having some songs up on Comfortstand for only a matter of days!
*Philosophy: Well, so far I’ve been all about only using pre-recorded material. That is: 100% samples. While other collage artists use drum machines to create drum loops, record their own vocals for specific tracks, write and record original questions to go with sampled answers or vice versa, etc... (which is all fine and dandy and very enjoyable), I’ve always tried to stick with only samples. There’s just something about looking at a stack of records and saying, “there, every single sound you hear came from that.” A few times I have used sound that I’ve originally recorded (mostly of my brother Midas as on the “Alien Pops trilogy”) but this was recorded years before making that particular Fortyone album and thus essentially functions as any other found, already recorded, source of sound and allows me to still proclaim: 100% samples! As for the character of the music itself... simplicity, silliness, lightness, humour, absurdity, and nonsense. I like to avoid a heavy, “artsie fartsie,” over-produced style. I think producing the songs the way I do, almost as a journal, a daily thing, and regularly finishing albums in one month or less obviously helps one to avoid an “over-produced” sound. I would never keep something I wasn't satisfied with but I do not spend days or weeks going back over each and every song. I feel this would diminish the work and result in a phony or forced sound. And though one may pick up certain “messages” in my work it’s really all about the music for the music’s sake itself - for the fun of it alone, and not about any real “meaning” or ulterior “message.”

*How would you like to be remembered: Quickly. Re-membered? As in becoming whole again and realizing my true nature? Oh, no, as in continuing to be noted after I’m gone. Well, I wouldn’t. And I won’t be. That is, not forever. In order to be remembered at all you must at some point be completely forgotten, you see, because “remembered” and “forgotten” arise mutually. On the other hand it might be nice to be remembered as the greatest collage artist that ever lived. But I ask you: Nice for whom? No, honestly - I'd like to be remembered as a generally good guy with good intentions who was right about the moon landings after all.

*Web address: http://www.41music.net


www.some-assembly-required.net

Episode 180, Some Assembly Required

Episode 180, Some Assembly Required

01 The Bran Flakes – “Cinder”
02 DJ Tripp – “Benny Got Back”
03 Fortyone – “Still Yet Still Yet Another Short Story”
04 Lost In The Supermaki – “Kamikaze Kitten Don't Fear The Reaper But Run From Raindrops”
05 The Bots – “Fuzzy Math”
06 Huk Don Phun – “3 Kung Fu Pieces”
07 Myeck Waters – “I love small babies”
08 stAllio!- “Crunch!”
09 Lecture On Nothing – “Making Excuses”
10 Alien Army – “Daily Nightmare”
11 Negativland – “Happy Hero: The Remedia Megamix”
12 Jeep Beat Collective – “The Bomb Drops”
13 Soundry Courter – “C'mon Now”
14 Freddy Fresh – “La Chunga”
15 Jimmi Jammes – “War Cowboys”


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Sunday, July 08, 2007

The Beige Channel

The Beige Channel

The Beige Channel is New York's Michael Farley. He studied composition at Daemen College, in Amherst, New York and The University of Wisconsin (Madison), and performs and composes music using sounds recorded on a mini disc recorder, as well as sounds from the media environment. He also plays guitar and composes more traditionally, such as music for orchestras.

He has six full length CDs, along with nine online releases and appears on a dozen compilations. He was a featured performer this weekend at free103point9's Wave Farm. The non-profit Transmission Arts organization has been presenting their Performance, Exhibition and Transmission Series since 1997, featuring works by "artists exploring transmission mediums for creative expression (including) investigations in electronic performance and other underserved movements in experimental electronic sound." Some Assembly Required is now heard on free103point9's online radio station, by the way, from 11 to noon, Mondays.

His new CD, Amusant!, will be available very soon and you can read his blog, HERE. Without further ado, here's the SAR Q&A with The Beige Channel!


*Name: The Beige Channel

*Are there any additional names used to describe this project: I have a collection of tracks I did in the early 2000s under the name diOhr, to distinguish work in more of a downtempo, pop style. Those are available at my website. I was planning to release my next cd (AMUSANT!) under the name VINYLUXXE, because the source material is from vinyl lps of the 70’s, and it will be vivacious and frolicsome, in complete antithesis to the Beige Channel style, which tends toward the meditative and bleak. However, I since found out that Vinylux is the name of a rockabilly record label, a Russian house siding business, and a design company that creates objects out of recycled records. So, I came up with another name, “Dorothy Hamill.hair,” because she was an icon of cute 70’s style, but it just doesn’t look good on paper, although it is funny when you say it, and most everyone would get the reference. I’m just going to stick with the Beige Channel because why mess with something that has at least a marginal name recognition value.

*Do you use a pseudonym? Most certainly! I prefer fictitious names because they are gender neutral, and indicate neither a group nor an individual, drawing attention to the music rather than the author. Pseudonyms allow you to create a trademark that emphasizes the outcome instead of the origin. “Beige” refers to a shading of variable degree rather than a single strong primary color, and a “channel” is a conduit as opposed to a terminus.

*Members: Just me, although I have collaborated with my daughter. I suppose everyone I have sampled is in some way a member of the project.

*Founding Members: Only myself (Michael Vincent Paul Farley).

*Tape manipulations, digital deconstructions or turntable creations: I collect field recordings on mini disc and transfer them to the computer, or play a turntable directly into the computer. Then I use Ableton Live to select fragments and build up compositions from loops, which are manipulated in varying degrees with plugins. So, all of the above, I guess.

*Another genre descriptor: I haven’t come up with anything so witty, but I like words having to do with recycling, reclaiming and re-use applied to my approach.

*Location: Delmar, NY.

*What is your creative/artistic background: Undergraduate and graduate degrees in music theory and composition. I developed an early interest in electronic music from listening to The Beatles and hearing all kinds of wacky stuff on free form college radio in the late ‘60s. I often draw inspiration from fashion and the visual arts, particularly the collagist, Joseph Cornell.

*History: I started writing songs in the style of The Doors around the early ‘70s, later composing works that emulated the piano music of Satie, before doing orchestral music influenced by Takemitsu and Feldman, then eventually finding my own voice in electronic music.

*Born: I was born in Albany, NY, in 1956.

*Motivations: Creating music is satisfying on so many levels. Composing is like trying to simultaneously create and solve your own jigsaw puzzle in sound. The process of searching for and discovering new ways to reorganize sound involves complete absorption. Making music sharpens your listening skills, both to details and to the whole. Listening is a form of attention, so hopefully it is a practice that enhances a similar adeptness in other parts of one’s life. The finished work is a miracle in that you have something new that never existed before.

*Philosophy: I like to deal with disenfranchised sounds, that is, sounds never meant or expected to accumulate significance with repetition or diffusion. By recontextualizing fragments of recuperated audio, I hope to reveal unexpected meanings inherent to the originals. I believe the listener makes the music into art, not the composer. My intention is to present discoveries for individual contemplation, not to express my feelings, nor to symbolically represent ideas that would be better voiced with words.

*How would you like to be remembered: I would like the music to be appreciated as something beautiful made from what was previously disregarded or undervalued.

*Web address: www.thebeigechannel.com


www.some-assembly-required.net

Episode 179, Some Assembly Required

Episode 179, Some Assembly Required

01 Sole & JC – “What it is”
02 Totom – “Get Down Only”
03 Dickie Goodman – “Frankenstein Returns”
04 Polycarp – “Johnny Come Lately”
05 Osymyso – “Say Something Stupid”
06 Buttfinger – “Energy Blade”
07 B'O'K – “The 12 Days of Bushmas”
08 Negativland – “The Bottom Line”
09 ~Shortee~ - “Shortee's Return”
10 Realistic –“Welcome to Heaven”
11 The Former Yugoslavia – “Man devouring man”
12 Idiom Creak – “Hometown”
13 The Beige Channel – “I Hadn't”
14 The Tape-beatles – “Creditwise”
15 Kid Koala – “Scurvy”
16 Team 9 - “Confused Imagination”


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Sunday, July 01, 2007

Beatrix*JAR

Beatrix*JAR

Beatrix*JAR is Jacob Roske and Bianca Pettis, from Minneapolis, MN. They're a performance duo who have come to be known around Minnesota and beyond for their series of workshops on circuit bending, in addition to their own work as sound artists. They have one CD, titled I Love You Talk Bird (2006), available at their website.

I first came into contact with Jacob Roske in 2003, looking for an opening act for a show at the Theatre de la Jeune Lune, in Minneapolis. I'd invited The Evolution Control Committee to perform there as part of a Festival of Appropriation preview party, and was trying to think of a local opening act. A friend told me about a number of circuit benders in town and I got in touch with as many as I could, assembling a "circuit bender's orchestra." Jacob Roske was one of the artists I met that evening, as he and Matt Cisler (Datura 1.o), Logan Erickson and Tim Kaiser came together on that occasion to create a live mix of circuit bent sounds and noises. Read my Blog post about the show HERE.

Since that performance, JAR's joined forces with Beatrix and taken the show on the road, adding a workshop wherein the duo teach others how to do what they do. Circuit bending is the creative process of altering electronic toys (and other electronics) in order to affect the audio output of these devices. It's a pretty challenging concept for those of us who aren't all that tech-savvy, but that doesn't stop Beatrix*JAR, who've conducted their workshops all over the United States. Check out their website for more information!

Without further ado, here's the SAR Q&A with Beatrix*JAR...


*Name: Beatrix*JAR

*Do you use a pseudonym? Jacob Aaron Roske is JAR and Bianca Janine Pettis is BEATRIX.

*Members: Jacob Aaron Roske and Bianca Janine Pettis

*Founding Members: Jacob started making music as JAR and he met Bianca later and she became his Beatrix.

*Tape manipulations, digital deconstructions or turntable creations: All of the above.

*Another genre descriptor: We call ourselves “sound artists”

*Why you use this descriptor: We are not “trained” musicians. The songs that we create are very visual and when we create them we work from a place of sonic expression.

*Location: Together we’re from Minneapolis. Jacob was born and raised in Hopkins, MN and Bianca was born in Denver, spent a majority of her life between Houston, TX and Charlotte, NC, attended college in Yellow Springs, Ohio (Antioch College) and moved to Minneapolis about ten years ago.

*What is your creative/artistic background: We have always been inspired by our immediate environments appropriating fashion, visual, theatrical and audio worlds to create very unique works of art and expression. We are always creating something.

*History: We’ve been making work together since the moment we met in a video editing suite - that was about 3 and a half years ago now.

*Born: Jacob was born in St. Louis Park, MN 11.26.77 and Bianca was born in Denver, CO 1.17.73 (shhh).

*Motivations/Philosophy: During a two-day residency at the Erie Art Museum in Erie, PA we invited a young lady to play a song on a large Casio keyboard we were using as a tool to demonstrate circuit bending. She approached the keyboard, her movements like a tiny robot as she struggled to recall the series of keys that make up the song “Three Blind Mice.” When she was done we asked her to play the song a second time to demonstrate to her classmates what circuit bending is. We triggered a toggle switch as she played the song once more. What resulted sounded little like “Three Blind Mice” more a sonic explosion of indeterminate glitchy garbled sounds. She continued to play and each time she stroked a new key the output of the machine was totally new and unexpected. When she was done she said: “That didn’t sound like “Three Blind Mice” at all!” Our point exactly! As children each of us approached musical instruments inspired to play but limited by the constraints of musical tradition. We wanted desperately for the instrument to make sounds but each time we approached our guitar, organ or alto sax we struggled with the hurdles of what music should sound like or how these instruments should be played. Try as we might we couldn’t color inside the musical lines. Discouraged we resolved at a young age just to be good listeners. As adults, sound art and circuit bending served as major catalysts in our musical breakthroughs. Sound Art offered us a new way of thinking about sound that actually made sense to us. We learned that musical expression is not limited to just musicians and anything that makes sound can be a musical instrument. Circuit bending reinforced this idea by allowing us to take existing audio devices and alter them to creatively express ourselves.

*How would you like to be remembered: As hyper-creative sound artists who inspired the world to delve deeper into non-traditional sounds and changed the world’s perception of what music is.

*Web address: www.beatrixjar.com


www.some-assembly-required.net

Episode 178, Some Assembly Required

Episode 178, Some Assembly Required

01 Q-Burn's Abstract Message – “Book of changes”
02 Twink – “The Great Circus Show”
03 Cecil Touchon – “Massurrealist Meditation #1”
04 People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz – “Fat Henry's Mambo”
05 Go home productions/Allen Dean - “Crazy Little Fool”
06 Dj Tico & H.O.P. - “It's.....Teeko”
07 Lecture On Nothing – “Flies”
08 Christian Marclay – “Black Stucco”
09 The Evolution Control Committee – “Machine Love”
10 Nick Zdon – “Atto Di Forza”
11 Mix Master Mike – “Terrorwrist (Beneath The Under)”
12 Beatrix*Jar – “French Binaural”
13 Steve Fisk – “Terrible Weapons”
14 The Bran Flakes – “Follow The Groove Modulations”
15 DJ Schmolli – “What's This Name For”


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http://feeds.feedburner.com/some-assembly-required/JSpD