general

Have been vowing to check out other music on CDBaby in the same categories as the Scratch Ambulance CD. Here's what I found last night, by category:

Avant Garde: Computer Music

Model, by Simon Ho. "Minimalist composition." Indeed. The CD is four 15-minute tunes that are as plain as morse code. The composer suggests you multitrack them "by your own means" to layer them into Sol LeWitt-like combos: "1234, 123, 234, 134, 12, 13..." etc. Interestingly, though, you can use the play buttons of CDBaby's embedded media player to layer the tunes probably more easily than ripping and overdubbing the CD tracks--try it!
This is found interactive minimalism of the highest and most pristine order. Hats off to Mr. Ho for this.

Zuckung, by Amoebazoid. A Cycling '74 release, which means it's all Max/MSP. I haven't paid much attention to Max being hip deep in the competition (Reaktor and PC based music generally) but I enjoyed this tuneful ambient/Squarepusheroid outing.

Electronic: Electro

The Phantasmal Farm, by The Polish Ambassador. "I don't remember much of what happened that first night at the Farm. It was mostly a blur of neon wheat and seductive llamas, but when the Farm returned me to my human form, I felt as if I had learned a new language." Seeking to learn more about this purveyor of electro party music led me to this video, which I really like, especially the Ambassador's dance moves.

Cruelest Intentions, by Scrape. "Harsh, dark, raw industrial/electro." It has been compared to Skinny Puppy but I think I like it more. The vocals are Chrome-like and the rhythms recall The Mover, but harder and more stripped-down if that's possible.

Fira, by Liquid Weeld. "We are Japanese sound artists." Some nice textures gotten with a laptop, guitar, vocal and traditional instruments.

I'm thinking of this structure as a "parapainting," much like the parabuildings added on to New York buildings to increase the rentable square feet. (example) To make the buckyball a permanent addition I'm inlaying paper that fills the negative spaces, an idea I got from Seth Price. Eventually the paper will be taped from the back but to get it off the wall I'm joining it with temporary strips of very low-tack paper tape. The poorly cut edges of the paper will not be a problem once the strips of gummed framer's tape are applied from the back--it is a magical material that turns bad seams into beautiful ones.

2 types of divisive people in the culture sphere:

1. Loudmouths who say what they think about artwork and institutions but have no power to change them except through argument. If challenged in person or online, they will do everything they can to persuade you but will admit an incorrect fact or badly formed opinion.

2. Apparently cheerful people who wield real power but never say anything substantive when challenged. They prefer the megaphone of institutional authority and behind the scenes decisions that have career consequences for others.

Which kind of divider are you?

Article in the French art magazine CIMAISE about my friend David Szafranski: [pdf]

Getting a lot of incoming links from fake blogs, suddenly. Usually Word Press. The title is something like "A Blog About Video" or "Photoshop Blog" with posts that say "So and so had a great post today about..." With a link to us poor pitiful fucks trying to do the right thing. It's unlikely these "blogs" are gaming Google's ranking system but they are certainly gaming Technorati, which treats them as legit (at least initially). First referer log spam, then comment spam, now whole blogs of spam. One can't help but be nostalgic for the Web before it was all robots and petty criminal robot wranglers.