Music itself may be ephemeral, but it’s deeply connected to the spaces in which it’s performed and heard. You’ll notice that space all the more readily if it’s, say, a giant, cavernous grain silo, and you can access the space not only in person but over the Internet. And, really, you can’t call yourself an audiophile if you don’t have a grain silo handy for listening.

JollyRogered writes with this gem from the Audiooddities list. It’s a chance to hear an online performance of the digitally-connected grain silo, the Silophone:

Announcing a special online performance by Lee Rosevere, scheduled for July 16, 2007 at 9:30pm EST.

The performance will be an exclusive live internet event, where Lee will perform new original material from his home studio and stream it to the Silophone.

The Silo #5 is an abandoned grain storage facility in the port of Montréal. From the website:

The excellent architectural resource BLDGBLOG reports that the ruined husk of the recently-demolished Cabrini-Green in Chicago has been transformed into an eerie wind instrument of sorts. Geoff Manaugh writes about the image we see here:

The old tower blocks of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green, transformed by demolition into totem pole-like wind instruments, flute-ruins, a musically-active wasteland whistling to itself behind security fences.

Chicago’s Inner Flute-Ruins [BLDGBLOG]

You know what this means: who in Chicago has a good field recording setup and time to stop by on a windy day? (As a former resident of the area, I know the city can live up to its windy reputation.)

And anyone know of other acoustically-interesting architectural sites from your part of the world?

(Architecture and urban planning buffs will want to stop by the site for discussion of the fact that the buildings were entirely demolished rather than being salvaged, reused, and refurbished.)

Architecture mixed with electronics mixed with animation — we think nothing of mixing these elements now. In 1958, as Poème Electronique was unleashed on the Brussels World’s Fair, it was still experimental. The animation/installation/composition was the collaborative creation of legendary modernist architect Le Corbusier, his assistant Iannis Xenakis, who would later come to be known as a ground-breaking experimental composer, and composer Edgard Varèse. Varèse is certainly one of us: part of the reason he went into a compositional drought for many years was he was frustrated by the limitations of acoustic sound, and longed for the electronic labs we have today.

The results are, well, totally bizarre, even now. (Or, perhaps, especially now.) There’s a certain freshness, though, to the oddness of the work. I wonder what the ultimate Poème of the 21st Century could look like. I don’t think I’ve seen it yet.

Via Rhizome, via Screenhead — thanks to Marisa Olson, as I’ve been hoping this would crop up online for a long time!

More info on the work, with links, at the Electronic Music Foundation.

Updated: The old YouTube link wasn’t working; here’s a new one. If that doesn’t work, try a YouTube search for Poeme Electronique.

AudioEase’s Altiverb remains the king of the convolution reverbs, providing highly realistic recreations of reverberations and other sounds by digitally combining your source with a recorded impulse. Lately, they’ve been going mad for impulse response recordings, the samples that drive the convolutoin process.

The original Altiverb was infamous for its creation not only of soaring churches and halls, but the back of a Ford Transit van and a toilet. Ah, you say, but I don’t want a Ford Transit van. I want a Ford Ka — no, wait, make that a Peugot Partner. And I don’t want the sound of the toilet while I’m in the loo — I want to hear that same sound as though I were listening from the living room. Wait, forget the toilet entirely: I want the sound inside an old factory tank north of the Netherlands. But I want to run that through a spring reverb — no, wait, make that a cheap plastic echo toy.

All this and more can be yours, thanks to the extensive boutique of impulse response recordings over at AudioEase.

They’re free, but only to registered Altiverb users. Then again, how else can you recreate the sound of music playing in your downstairs living roo– oh, yeah, actually, I guess you could easily record that. But I bet you don’t own a Ford Ka (and if you do, you probably can’t squeeze your whole band into it).

By architectural music, I don’t mean some sort of funky digital installation. David Byrne’s new installation uses the pipes, metal beams, and girders of the Färgfabriken space in Stockholm as a musical instrument. It is definitely an installation (though the curator tries to say it’s not): there are automatic blowers forcing air through pipes, motors vibrating crossbeams, and solenoids (mechanical devices for, well, hitting things) striking the columns.

But David Byrne’s installation is as notable for what’s not there as what is: no amplification involved. All the circuitry is exposed. It’s basically just a building, controlled by an organ. And you get to play it — cool. Come at 6pm to hear the former Talking Heads front man speak, then come back at midnight for the party. Anyone here from Sweden? Let me know how it goes!

Playing the Building [Färgfabriken, Description, photos, curator comments, opening party]

Via We Make Money Not Art

So, you want to build an LCD-lit video wall and interactively trigger sounds? But, what’s that? You want your surface to be modular, reliable, pre-built? Why, that’s a job for Sensacell, a modular interactive wall system that responds to proximity within 6″ with a sophisticated LCD lighting system.

I saw Senacell at a recent night at Compact/Impact here in New York; it’s very solid: lots of redundant circuitry (lesson there to be learned!) and impressive responsiveness. Additional commentary at futurefeeder. The images are cool; there was an installation at the Prada store here. But I’d love to see a music/sound application. Better get grant writing . . .

First colored blocks, now city blocks: Swiss-based collective Rosen & Spademan
has constructed a "music building game table" for creating modular
compositions with transparent blocks, converting improvised
architecture into sound. (thanks, near near future) Their biggest goal, they say: getting people to grab the objects and play.

You can explore this and other projects on their site. My favorite
digital music term comes from their 'soundlounge' project: coach
coaching. Coach-based musicians of the world, unite!

Wondering what to do with all that useless audio gear? Try
building a big igloo out of it in a church, "a new home: a habitat for
listeners of avant-garde music." There's everything from old speakers
to turntables in there. Neat. But creator Benoît Maubrey's description
of the sounds from these retired pieces of gear starts to get creepy,
as he describes "a chorus of electroacoustic souls whispering their
last prayer. We are allowed to enter this room, our body-resistance
brings warmth into this media confessional, the sounds change around us
- or is it our imagination?"

Okay, officially time to come out of the igloo.

(Thanks to we make money not art)