Digital or analog, the essence of recording and production is the act of representing. One thing becomes another; one medium stores information about another. That representation can also be physical, tangible, and visible. In a sculptural pianola, Akko Goldenbeld turns the Dutch city of Eindhoven into a pianola roll, so that the landscape of buildings and streets acts as a physical musical score. I think it raises some questions about whether translating the one into the other obscures the experience of a city rather than clarifies it, but that would discount the act of watching it: with the visual connected to the sound, one begins to see the topography of the resulting music.

From the description on the video:

The tall buildings in the city centre have a heavy touch; the low-rise villas to the South create considerably gentler sounds. Akko Goldenbeld has a very personal way of looking at, or rather listening to the city.

He has created a scale model of Eindhoven and assigned it the role of sound recorder; the buildings create a score. Placed on a revolving wooden cylinder the buildings set little hammers in motion that play the keys of a piano. And turning and turning, the city makes its voice heard: from loud to soft, long to short, high-pitched to low, traslating the urban developers’s three-dimensional reality into an aural experience. Stadsmuziek (City Music) makes you tune in to the ensemble-playing that is environemental planning.

Via a terrific blog dedicated to data visualization (and, here, sonification) and their relation to design, Infosthetics. (Say that three times fast. Infosthetics sells aesthetic sensibilities by the seashore… Yesth, indeed. I’m glad this is a blog and not radio. It’s eight minutes past the hour. This is CDM.)

Pour some port, find a comfy spot on the couch, and fire up the YouTubes. A surprisingly-rich raft of terrific documentary video for synth and electronic music enthusiasts has been making the rounds.

In our queue: Analog Suicide interviews a legendary vintage synth spot in Berlin, an hourlong documentary features not only Richie Hawtin but a range of techno pioneers, as well as other shorts from T-Mobile (yes, the phone company), and the BBC scores more history of the British side of the synth revolution in music. Sit down and get ready, because here we go.

From Detroit to Berlin and Back: In-depth Interviews with Pioneering Artists

At top: an hour-plus documentary produced for T-Mobile’s Electronic Beats series follows the rise of techno legend Richie Hawtin, including some terrific Detroit footage with artists like Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, and of course Magda. Love him or hate him, Richie’s impact on electronic music is formidable, and it’s great to see coverage finally return to a tale of his roots. It seems the perfect way to get ready for Detroit’s Movement Festival, starting May 28. Via the astute music coverage on the XLR8R blog, here by Ken Taylor.

There’s quite a lot more Electronic Beats TV on the YouTube page:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ElectronicBeatsVideo

Here are a few of my favorites. Kangding Ray of Raster-Noton is framed by signature, hypnotic minimal visuals. He has some wonderful things to say about the beauty of materials in sampling. Then there’s some beautiful footage of TESSEL, a morphing architectural form which really deserves some separate coverage here. Have a look:

Thomas Heckmann looks at machines, vintage and circuit bent, and talks about working with their idiosyncrasies in musical production.

From the role of machines to the role of humans, Moderat talk about collaboration as therapy, and what it does for them … and then go parachute jumping. I think people falling from a plane makes the perfect soundtrack.

Conversations for Synth Lovers, via AnalogSuicide

AnalogSuicide’s Tara Busch is one of our favorite journalists covering synthesis, and a great artist to boot. This week, she visits the legendary vintage synth destination Schneiders Beuro in Berlin. Via Synthtopia, who, like MatrixSynth, I think has an alarm that goes off when videos hit YouTube with certain keywords – incredible.

On the producer side, massively-accomplished producer Gareth Jones (Depeche Mode, Wire, Erasure) makes an appearance, too:

Lots more where that came from:
http://www.youtube.com/user/tarabusch

Synth Brittania

Via our friend and Chicago producer/nerd fashionista/writer Liz McLean Knight comes a BBC Four documentary that covers British synth artists in the late 70s and early 80s, including Joy Division, Human League, Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire, and Gary Numan.

There’s just too much goodness here. I want to sit down with the past and present staff of Keyboard and watch this one. Watch it while the Beeb lets you.

I’m personally gratified in that I believe technically and artistically, we’re entering another of these sorts of ages. Who knows what the cultural impact may be, but at least for those passionate artists and technologists who are involved, something’s happening. And these videos are a great place to begin for inspiration.

So, now that you have those to watch, I guess I really need not write until Monday! See you then! (joke … sort of.)

Operating systems aside, the most important “platform” for your music may be the work environment you create for yourself to produce. Seeing that physical environment for someone else can be an inspiration, and certainly a window into their personality. So, as I look through the workspaces submitted by readers, I asked the terrific blog TRASH_AUDIO to select a few of the favorites from their series, “Workspace and Environment.” Rather than ask the usual, bland music journalistic questions of artists, they explore those artists’ creation spaces, and discuss process through that context. (Eat your heart out, MTV Cribs.)

TRASH_AUDIO also has a new site address, so go enjoy:
http://trashaudio.com/

It’s worth checking out the whole site, but here are their top five favorite workspaces and environments, in no particular order. Some are the tangles of wires you might expect, others more unusual, clean digital environments like the images I chose here (if only because I’m more used to seeing the tangles of wires).

1. Finnish-born Sasu Ripatti of Vladislav Delay and Luomo has found an acoustically-wonderful, isolated environment on an island, an environment surrounded by trees and far from people. On the road, it’s just one laptop, one Korg nanoKEY, and an audio interface, to which he adds Faderfox MIDI controllers, small KAOSS pads, and effects pedals for live gigs.

2. Alec Empire stays true to his Berlin roots with an all-white minimal studio. It’s distraction-free – and having a big, dedicated studio space means no neighbors. Think loud. “Actually you wouldn’t really find much colour in there,” he tells TRASH-AUDIO. “And what surprises visitors is that we have no paintings or posters or anything visual up on the walls. I really find this distracting. Somehow my mind would get off path. The great thing is that we can record whenever we want.” On the road, it’s a Mac and Digidesign gear, but most importantly, a big mobile hard drive, so sounds can come along with him for constant revision. Add to that an iPhone as a musical notebook for sketching ideas.

3. Alessandro Cortini, an Italian-born artist living in the US, focuses on Buchla modular gear as the center of his workspace, with the monome and MLR as the software accompaniment. Corners of the space, he says, are dedicated to different working styles – modular, drum machine, computer – but everything is within reach, which to me is also the epitome of the brilliant Buchla design itself. If you can’t afford a modular (and certainly most of us can’t afford a Buchla 200), perhaps the ergonomics is the single most important lesson to learn here.

4. Mavis Concave, Robert Inhuman and Vankmen of Realicide adapt to a variety of environments – the corner of someone’s room, different homes. As Mavis says, the people in your surroundings often matter more than the architecture: “I need to have enough physical space for my gear and be surrounded by people who encourage the work that I am doing. I can’t be surrounded by people who write off my music production as a nuisance to have in the household. That is probably the biggest creativity/productivity block there is for me.” And for fans of hardware (you’re heard in the poll, don’t worry), that means favorite gear that can go in a car trunk, like the Korg ElecTribe ES-1 (called out by both Mavis and Robert).

5. Atom TM. I just love this, because seeing look-alike studios is boring, because I feel strongly that aesthetics around you can provide visual stimulation for your sonic creativity centers, and because it defies conventional wisdom. So I have to just run the whole quote – decoration instead of gear. (Next – perhaps decorated gear?) Take that, blank white walls of Berlin!

“Decoration instead of gear” became the motto. All my workspaces had to have big windows and if possible a nice view (even though I tend to close the curtains in summer during daytime). I don’t like “studio” atmosphere. I don’t like cables, gear and the entire tech-look. Environments that make me feel well and relaxed are usually of a different type. I like old furniture, warm colours, ornaments and in general everything that does not look contemporary. The contemporary look usually is contaminated with bad taste and pretentious design. Further, the decoration itself helps to absorb reflections and creates a dryer sound. I can say that the decoration itself, that is, obtaining/installing as well as creating amongst it, gives me more satisfaction than obtaining/installing equipment. I can see why “studios” have to look “tech”, that is because the studio owner needs to impress the entirely clueless cast of customers. There is no reason whatever to follow that look, just because it is somewhat implied in the equipment itself. In general I’m very sensible when it comes to “making music”. I find it hard to focus in other studios that don’t fit my aesthetics and sound. I think that my workspace is a perfect combination of the technical-, creative- and aethetic aspects of my work and it has become what it is through a long development of those three components.

Editorial note: In a blinding error of reading on my part, I read the words “Analog Live” as a misprint of “Ableton Live,” as referenced in the original draft of this story. I’ve been looking at software too long. To be clear, this was my inability to read, not a typo on the part of TRASH_AUDIO. I still like the idea of a parody of Ableton’s site redone in analog gear. I will from now on keep that fantasy to myself and stop applying it to the rest of the world.

Whether or not any of these approaches is meaningful to you may vary. But to me, just hearing people make decisions to reorganize their space is refreshing. I find sometimes even an arbitrary change of scenery can help unstop creative juices. Let us know if the same is true for you.

David Byrne discusses at TED the influence of architecture and venue on musical activity. (I saw him give an extended version of the same talk, with discussion, at New York’s Center for Architecture.) It’s a question that’s especially relevant to electronic music, I think, as digital music has been a big confused about its venue, sometimes living in unfriendly dance clubs, and sometimes being homeless.

The natural question, the one Byrne doesn’t ask, is what venues might be next? What if artists took an active role in creating the architecture in which they perform?

I have plenty I could say about that, but instead, I’ll just spark the question. For some ideas, look to thinkers like Buckminster Fuller, who regularly worked with students on ready-made architectural constructions, built by hand, on the cheap, in short periods of time. Resources:

10 Gonzo Machines From Rogue Inventor Buckminster Fuller [Popular Mechanics]
Buckminster Fuller Institute
Archigram Archival Project, which assembles materials from the radical Archigram architectural collective

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:

“Silophone makes use of the incredible acoustics of Silo #5 by introducing sounds, collected from around the world using various communication technologies, into a physical space to create an instrument which blurs the boundaries between music, architecture and net art. Sounds arrive inside Silo #5 by telephone or internet. They are then broadcast into the vast concrete grain storage chambers inside the Silo. They are transformed, reverberated, and coloured by the remarkable acoustics of the structure, yielding a stunningly beautiful echo. This sound is captured by microphones and rebroadcast back to its sender, to other listeners and to a sound installation outside the building. Anyone may contribute material of their own, filling the instrument with increasingly varied sounds.”

Musicians have created pieces for the Silo in the past, but in this event, an exciting element that makes this even more unique is the fact that anyone who is at the Silophone website can contribute to the concert, either by playing recorded content provided by the websites users, or by phoning or uploading individual sounds. These sounds will be heard simultaneously with Lee’s performance, making it a truly unique performance. The performance should last 35-40 minutes.

The results of the show will be recorded and released via archive.org. We encourage you to log on to Silophone at 9:30pm EST on July 16, 2007 for this event and we also encourage anyone to participate in the performance. (Real audio required to listen, Flash required to participate) .

To call the Silophone from North America: 1.514.844.5555 From the rest of the world: 001.514.844. 5555 Wait until the second ring, then start talking.

Silophone.net Site, including the ability to play the Silophone online, and lots of documentation

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.

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 . . .