Texas-born, Detroit-raised, New York-based artist Matthew Dear has a new EP, to be followed by a full-length in 2012. It’s worth mentioning now for two reasons: one, the driving, “chugging” rhythms of the single, “Headcage,” will pop into your head and stay there, led by Dear’s vocal ability to croon and groove simultaneously. Second, the opening of this video may well make your mind go squish. The work of London-based director Morgan Beringer, seen previously milking monochrome textures out of another Matthew Dear collab, the film makes it look like some very colorful part of the Earth’s crust turned a film into magma. It settles down, but the opening frames are to me transcendent, especially when set to a similarly-morphing sonic backdrop.

You can stream and download the single via SoundCloud:

Matthew Dear – Headcage by ghostly

More on the upcoming release from Ghostly:
Matthew Dear: Headcage

The music writing echoes a bit for me Eno and Byrne on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts; perhaps channeling that, the album art by Michael Cina for Dear has washes of indistinct color, like a kaleidoscope set into motion, then blurred. Ghostly reports Dear co-produced the single with Van Rivers and The Subliminal Kid, vets of the acclaimed self-titled Fever Ray. The rest of the album is full of other vocal and producer collaborations. More on this when it arrives.

You can expect to see ongoing appearances by Ghostly International, the 12-year-old label with roots in Detroit that has since established firm outposts in California and New York, in these pages. (Pixels?) The reason is simple: Ghostly is a grand experiment in how to retain relevance as a label in the second decade of the 21st Century. But like any label, the proof in that exercise lies firmly in the sonic output, so while I’ll ramble a bit here, the best thing to do is to simply point to a lot of things to pipe into your headphones – particularly as Ghostly has been on a bit of a tear in the opening weeks of fall with plenty of free downloads and mixes to give you a free sample. (The first taste is free, natch.)

Ghostly is perhaps best known, traditionally, for its ties to Detroit and artist Matthew Dear (aka Audion), but contrary to proper belief, the founding role – and ongoing helmsmanship – belongs to Samuel Valenti IV. The label’s presence is now international, founded on slickly-produced tracks that seem to embody a certain zeitgeist. The recent release by mainstay Tycho is coated with a sonic equivalent of the golden patina that seems to resonate from the artist’s tinted photos and designs, emanating a warm, partially-nostalgic glow that nonetheless remains firmly digital and future-minded. Ditto Com Truise, whose modern-retro sound is now crossing Europe, or the previously-covered samplist Gold Panda.

It’s notable that Ghostly’s evolution now has been from narrowly-focused label – often experimental, as with its IDM-ish Spectral Sounds imprint, or techno-focused – to design and taste hub. Ghostly’s model for how to address the exploding access to global stuff now on the Web appears to be to cast itself as a curator, assembling stunning output by designers and design-geek goodies, and ensuring its content flows at a steady but comfortable rate through blogs, Facebook pages, and free online radio pages. While all metrics suggest that all-you-can-eat streaming services are devouring actual sales, Ghostly’s strategy could prove a bellwether: they plaster the free mix services and such, but also are developing a loyal following that consumes everything from vinyl to , all as they cultivate a subscription service that focuses on access to just their releases. (See Drip.fm, formerly the Ghostly Music Service, which in turn has a landing page that hints they may extend the same model to other labels.) Whereas just throwing your music to the winds of the cut-rate services threatens to destroy just the kind of boutique music Ghostly represents, the label suggests that careful curation could rise, not fall, in value in the wake of the cheap fire hose of sounds now available to consumers.

But that’s Ghostly. Let’s listen to some music. It’s especially worth mentioning here in the “hump day” of an autumn work week, as many turn to some of these Ghostly tracks, like the free Music for Ideas compilation, to gain inspiration for getting work done and things made. In particular, Lifehacker spotlighted Tycho in a recent feature. (See their Work Sounds series, and thoughts on whether music really can make you more productive, though I don’t wish to be glib about that on an actual music site.)

Here’s some material to watch and listen, to use as a backdrop to work or dance, or to simply let yourself drift away…

For starters, there’s the 8tracks compilation Ghostly made for itself earlier this month. With cover art by Ghostly design regular Michael Cina, it covers the gamut of recent releases, with appearances by Shigeto, Tycho, Matthew Dear, Com Truise, Jacaszek, Mux Mool, Gold Panda HTRK, plus remixes by Nicolas Jaar, Star Slinger, Teen Daze and King Midas Sound. (I can’t say enough good things about Nicolas Jaar; I’m still working on nailing down an interview. And kudos to 8tracks for being a service with a nicely-designed, clean interface that lends itself well to this sort of track compilation.)

As seen on drownedinsound.com, a good place to discover this sort of thing.

My favorite moment: the chilling, gorgeous Jacaszek track “Elegia,” which apart from its scintillating string and vocal timbres and pads, has a heart-tuggingly melancholy pulsing ostinato that moves the thing forward, before a surprising and satisfying twist in direction at the end. You’ll want to file it away for an icy day. Jacaszek is well worth listening to, generally, with richly-cinematic, Classically-inspired, electro-acoustically-skilled, moving music out of Poland. He’s newly-signed to Ghostly – check out his performance from Poland’s own, legendary Unsound Festival, in the video below:

For that aforementioned mix to boost your productivity, look to Ghostly’s “Music for Ideas” compilation, a free set of downloads celebrating the label’s appearance at a TEDx installment in hometown Detroit. It’s accompanied by an especially-gorgeous, organic Michael Cina explosion of ink and color, seen here. You get more Shigeto, Lusine, Tycho, Mux Mool, Dabrye, and company, but also the likes of Ben Benjamin, Osborne, Solvent:

Ghostly Essentials: Music for Ideas

As they describe it:

A 10 song experience of Ghostly’s artists, each with a unique mood. The Music for Ideas compilation is a joint effort between Ann Arbor-founded Ghostly International and TEDxUofM; it’s release coincides with TEDxUofM 2011: Encouraging Crazy Ideas, the second annual self-organized TED summit at the University of Michigan.

Music for Ideas is meant to awaken the creative flow, the tenet on which TEDxUofM 2011 is based.

If you like that free download, fill up your music collection at this page:
http://www.theghostlystore.com/collections/music-free

MP3.com – yes, there’s still an MP3.com – has a good snapshot of what Ghostly’s about, accompanied by three free downloads. (Ah, free downloads from MP3.com – wow, that takes me back.) Notable: art rock duo out of Melbourne HTRK is one of the downloads, and MP3.com wisely points to the electro-acoustic bent of many Ghostly releases, something often missing from more restrictive electronic labels.

Label of the Week: Ghostly International [MP3.com]

And more HTRK listening: (“Hate Rock,” not to be confused with “Hate Beak,” the heavy metal parrot I have failed to mention for far too long)
http://mp3.com/artist/HTRK

Shigeto has his own mix, as spotted on XLR8R.com, neatly timed to coincide with a tour of Russia and China. (I know we’ve got some Russian and Chinese readers, so do go say hi, and if one of you is handy with a camera, perhaps we can get you a press pass.)

SOB.021 Shigeto by streetsofbeige

Listen to Shigeto’s Mix for Streets of Beige [XLR8R.com, with RU and CN tour dates]

Tycho is on tour now through North America, alongside Swedish rock band Little Dragon, and delivers this tasty remix of that outfit (not to be confused with the experimental outfit Little Dragons, plural):

Little Dragon – Little Man (Tycho Remix) by Tycho

If somehow you’ve missed it, you can follow the exploits of Tycho – including his aesthetic-candy tastes in design and visuals – alongside contributors like Ghostly’s and Moodgadget’s Jakub Alexander, a good place to find goodies for your eyes and ears and play “where is Tycho now”:

http://blog.iso50.com/

And you can see inside Tycho’s studio in some gear pr0n on Wired:
Tycho Shows Off Old-School Synths Used to Craft Dive’s Ethereal Sounds [Wired]
…though, of course, you read CDM, so as the saying goes, there’s nothing there you haven’t seen before.

Gold Panda is featured in a beautifully-produced film of his live performance at a sold-out show at London’s Koko. We previously followed Gold Panda in 2010 – I might add, before this record really blew up – in an in-depth behind-the scenes feature here on CDM:

Gold Panda Interview: Inspiration from Samples, Loved Ones, and Distracting Dogs

See also, from earlier this year:
Gold Panda on Sampling; Moby on Drum Machines

And if all this leaves you wanting to shake your butt around to Matthew Dear – I know there are times when that’s all I want to do – there’s a fantastic, house and techno mix from the label legend in Miami. The next time Berlin gets hit with a frozen ice fog that blots out the few hours of daylight, this is very much getting switched on, at least if I’m not in the mood for staying in messing about with long reverb tails and endless drones.

Matthew Dear DJ Set @ SAFE – Electric Pickle, Miami – 10.22.2011 by Matthew Dear

Ghostly also has a nice approach to YouTube, one worth emulating: in addition to the requisite music videos (I do want my music television), they use the service to tout upcoming releases.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ghostlyintl

If there’s a downside in any of this, it’s that Ghostly is so firmly established as curator and brand that it seems to me it falls on other venues for the kind of experimentation that might lead to future sounds, experimentation that may need to draw outside the lines of what makes Ghostly’s notion of taste so clear. And of course, I’d like to see a release that to me throws caution to the wind, even from Ghostly. At the same time, Ghostly can supply a model for upstart labels that have such aspirations, in the ways in which it crosses media and engages Web networks: there’s a roadmap here for how to thrive, let alone survive, that is not exclusively the domain of a name this well known. Look, learn, and steal.

If you have a label you’d like to see spotlighted, do get in touch. Big and small, you know they’re welcome here. (I have a few things to dig out of my inbox that look tantalizing and go in very different directions, so stay tuned.)

Previously:
Hot for Heat: Warm Up Your Weekend with a Mix from Ghostly’s Moderna (Missy Livington)

After 100 Records, A Bento Box, July Events Full of Ghostly International

Dispatches: Interviewing Lusine on Detroit’s People Mover

And, naturally, for more:
http://ghostly.com/

You’ve heard the gripes, and heard and seen the somewhat unscientific demos. Now it’s time to examine the over-compression of music with – science! Earl Vickers of STMicroelectronics examines the Loudness Wars in an academic paper, as noted to us by reader photohounds.

The Loudness War: Background,
Speculation and Recommendations [PDF Link, sfxmachine.com]

The paper comes from last November, but it’s as relevant as ever. It’s not just the usual take, either. Its history begins with Phil Spector and vinyl, considering the impact of broadcast TV and not just the music industry. It notes the evolution of compression technologies, particularly multiband technologies.

Most importantly, though – and I’ve spoken regularly to mastering engineers about this – the paper turns to the issue of listening fatigue. Here’s one whithering criticism of the industry on that: some engineers even believe that thoughtless over-compression could be to blame for the decline of the entire industry.

Mastering engineer Bob Ludwig stated, “People talk about downloads hurting record sales. I and some other people would submit that another thing that is hurting record sales these days is the fact that they are so compressed that the ear just gets tired of it. When you’re through listening to a whole album of this highly compressed music, your ear is fatigued. You may have enjoyed the music but you don’t really feel like going back and listening to it again.”

You’ve seen much of this before, but rarely in such well-annotated, comprehensive form.

Best of all? The conclusion applies lessons from Game Theory to work on making the loudness wars come to a conclusion.

Here’s another thought, too: with artists increasingly self-releasing or releasing through more specialized labels, greater access to music online, direct-to-consumer distribution, and online replacements for conventional terrestrial radio, many of the factors that produced some of the oddest hyper-compression at the top of the charts are fading into the background.

Pax Musica for the loudness wars, anyone?

With a full length record, we also get a glimpse into sound design and live touch control, along with a cross-media event involving photography and sculpture. It’s the latest Amon Tobin, and for lovers of digital sonic manipulation, it’s big news.

Amon Tobin’s ISAM arrived this week, and it’s an epic opus of ambience and digitally-sculpted sound candy. It’s digitally-distorted without being glitch, off on cinematic reveries through noise before breaking into the odd deep-bass break. It’s also a virtuoso solo album on digital control via the Haken Continuum Fingerboard. Like that instrument, it seems free in its exploration of sound space, totally untethered from gravity.

A lot of it is pure synthesis, says the artist, though there are plenty of recorded vocals, too. (I assume when Tobin says there are “no samples,” he means “…of other people’s sounds,” as there’s definitely a lot of recording, unless he’s been holding off on us and he actually is a robot, thus making a direct digital connection to his computer.) I could imagine some finding the endless digital stretching effects and morphs and punctuation fatiguing, but tracks don’t overstay their welcome; each is a miniature sonic tableaux, and delicate moments balance the bass-ier staccato scenes.

You can have a listen without any particular narration, but Amon makes use of the commenting feature on SoundCloud to provide little annotations about what he’s doing and what you’re hearing. The full album is available on SoundCloud and sounds reasonably listenable as a 128k MP3 stream – certainly good enough to determine whether you love or hate this, and whether you want to buy a proper, high-quality download.

‘ISAM’ – Full album with track-by-track commentary from Amon Tobin by Amon Tobin

‘ISAM’ – Full album with track-by-track commentary from Amon Tobin by Amon Tobin

Via Topspin, there’s also a download of one track available. (See our notes on Topspin earlier this week.)

Want the album?

Buy direct from Amon Tobin if you’re in the US or most parts of the world or –

Buy from Ninja Tune if you’re in the UK/EU to save a few euros/pounds

The other unique aspect of this release is its multimedia versions. In addition to the digital release and t-shirts and whatnot, we get:

• The installation. Saatchi Collection artist Tessa Farmer works with Amon Tobin on a collaborative installation that employs the creepy, beautiful organic dead insects and other creatures in her sculpture. May 26 – June 3 at (aptly) The Crypt Gallery in London – let us know, readers, if you’re in London and can make it.
• The AV show. Amon Tobin has made a lot of doing audiovisual performances. These promise to be particularly involved, however. The artist will be presenting a live audiovisual show for Montreal’s MUTEK on June 1, which I expect may prove to be a real highlight of this summer’s event calendar. Also in June, he’ll take the show to Berlin, Brussels, and London’s Roundhouse.
• The photography. Working with the same materials, there’s some heavily evocative photography to enjoy, too, available on the site. Put that in full screen, crank the album, and bliss out.

All of this is covered on the official site for the album:
http://amontobinisam.com/

Making Of…

Spectral morphing is at the heart of the work on this album. As such, I would view the record’s process as an extension of a continuum (cough) with some of the landmark electronic albums of the 90s and 2000s rather than something wholly new. But I think it can be enjoyed just as that, as a kind of Baroque take on lush digital sound design. A making-of video explains the sound production work:

Here you can see the artist playing on the aforementioned Continuum instrument:

I’ll be curious to hear thoughts on this.

It’s not in any way digital – we’re in paper and needle territory – but clever design transforms packaging and notecard into playable music device. Create Transducer Music, anyone?

Designer Kelli Anderson concocted a novel approach to the wedding invitation for her friends Karen and Mike: turn the paper invite into a playable sound device. The couple even made and recorded their own song for the occasion. (The story of the individuals is worth mentioning – Karen advocates for the rights of makers and coders and Mike is a Grammy-nominated engineer.)

The device itself plays music without electricity or circuits. You may recall the FlexiDisc, the inexpensive records (normally made of vinyl, not paper), as seen in magazines, books, and comics. Here, a sewing needle is the entire playback mechanism, amplified by the paper and the kinetic energy of a person using their hand to rotate the disc. Working with her partner and music podcaster Daniel, Kelli turned to the power of geometry. (And I never miss an opportunity to work geometry into this site.)

A major breakthrough came when we realized that the ideal sound was produced when the tented page created a perfect right triangle with the flexidisc. The needle needed to be perfectly perpendicular to the flexidisc. (@Pythagorean theorem: at long last, you are an ally!) We also discovered that the “tent” needed two loosely-swinging bends to allow the record needle to travel as freely as possible. By creating two parallel folds, we essentially made the angle at the peak of the tent variable as needed. At the beginning of the track, the ideal angle of this peak is about 15 degrees. By the end of the track, the arm needed to stretch further towards the center of the flexi, with an ideal peak angle of about 35 degrees.

If you do want to play the results on a proper turntable, you can drop the same flexidisc on your (electrically-powered) record player for better sound.

Details on Kelli’s (beautiful) blog:
A Paper Record Player

And listen to the song the couple wrote for everybody

Aside from being a chance to nerd out about sound, I’m going to take this as yet another example of inventive packaging for musical objects. I’ can also imagine it as the way we’ll listen to music should environmental catastrophe mean that we don’t have access to electricity on Earth any more. File this away for your next post-oil-crisis sci-fi short story, a la the (excellent) book on that theme, The Windup Girl.

Thanks to Howard Shin for this great tip – and Howard, Kelli, Daniel, Karen, Mike, and Pythagoras, I owe any one of you a drink if I see you.

As for music, the Pythagorean Theorem and Trigonometry are always your ally.

Previously: Reclaim the Album’s Soul: Tips for Handmade CD Artwork

Last Days of Compact Disco: Album Lovers Hand-Make Musical Objects

Perhaps it’s something of an irony, here on a site that heralds shiny technology, but there is a longing among many musicians to return to something raw and unvarnished in music. There’s discontentment in the ranks of the techno-futurists, enough to sow the seeds of rebellions. If that feeling could be given a voice, Anika would be a good candidate. A political journalist who found herself, entirely unexpected, at a session with Portishead producer Geoff Barrow, she is a vinyl-loving, politically-minded throwback, an antidote to everything that commercially-calibrated in music.

http://www.stonesthrow.com/anika

The first thing you should know about Anika’s self-titled debut is that some people immediately hate it. Others just as quickly fall in love with its tendency to sound as though it were made 30 years ago. It’s not retro as pastiche: the music is unrehearsed, largely unproduced, fed through cavernous spring reverbs and played on abused instruments and machines. It sounds like another decade because it was made in the way those records were produced. But it’s also divisive, something unprocessed enough that people can form strong opinions about how it tastes.

And, of course, there’s the question I knew I’d have to broach – the fact that the results sound rather a lot like Nico (of Velvet Underground fame). (The New York Times’ Ben Ratliff described the effect neatly as “healthily irritating.”) Barrow must have been pleased; the guy’s festival here in New York is “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” so you do the math. But it works, because the similarity is entirely organic. Anika, too, is German-born, here German by way of England with a hint of Welsh inflection, and intentionally over-pronouncing the lyrics she intones. She doesn’t sound like an imitator, but like a successor. (She also sounds a great deal more English and Welsh, for the record.)

When Anika was to do the photo shoot, she tells me, Geoff instructed the photographer to “make her look as rough as possible.” That might be the best way to sum up the musical performance and production here, too, a punk rock, just fell-out-of-bed approach to music. And like Nico, like Anika herself, no matter how rough the styling, the results are somehow oddly irresistible. (Anika, on the cover of the album, seems to channel Warhol.)

Producer Geoff Barrow, who gave us Portishead, BEAK>, and Invada Records, might be a surprising pairing on first blush. But his own sense of the importance of song-writing, of the album as a vessel for expression and not just mass-production, and taste-defying, upstream-swimming aesthetic here is perfect.

And I wouldn’t mention this here if I didn’t find this album relevant to the other techniques of production in a digital age. If it makes people angry, actually, that’d even serve its purpose.

I spoke to Anika in New York, where she was doing a series of DJ gigs. The night before, I saw her at Gallery Bar; she struck me as almost delicate with her collection of all-vinyl, no computer in sight. (She told me that she’s doubly careful because she’s actually clumsy, which I can appreciate as something of a klutz myself.) But for all the practiced carelessness of this record, Anika herself is careful and thoughtful. And I think, whether you’re in the love it or hate it camp as far as the music, what she has to say about musical expression and the industry will be very, very familiar to readers here.

CDM: Tell us a little about your background – before you got into promoting this record, you were really a journalist, right?

Anika: I was a political journalist. I had to give it up officially. It’s the Berlin-based news network – ESNA, it specializes in education and science policy, and I was the UK correspondent. We’re a news network, newspapers and policy makers buy our service. It’s on a very specialist scale.

I studied politics in University. I’m officially more of a political journalist. Music has always been there, but it was more of a hobby. I’ve been doing all sorts over the years. I did a bit of work for BBC Wales News, a lot of news stuff, worked for newspapers.

And this is something to which you intend to return.

It’s definitely something I’m going to back to. I was doing that full-time in Berlin up until October when I said, okay, I have to go back to England to rehearse, because the album’s actually doing alright. I recorded it not necessarily with the hope of releasing it. We did it as an experiment, more of a mini-rebellion for me against what I disliked about the industry at the time.

I can think of a pretty long list myself, but what was it specifically that you disliked?

I worked as a promoter. In Cardiff, I used to book bands for four bands in Cardiff and one in Bristol. I used to deal with entertainment for the venues, do all their graphic design, all their marketing, set up a label for them, release local bands in Cardiff. There were just a lot of things I really disliked about the scene, and about the way it works.

In England, people weren’t going to gigs. In my venues, the bands would always be secondary. One of the venues that I worked for, they got a sound restriction the minute I got there, which meant they couldn’t have live acts before twelve. They weren’t aloud to have any live music before midnight.

For the venues, music was always secondary. It wasn’t their biggest income, really. They knew it would only ever make ten pounds a night. Since people aren’t willing to pay for gigs, the most I could charge for a gig was four pounds – like, six dollars. People wouldn’t pay more, and they’d normally expect it to be free. And the way they run it, they never took the bar into account. I usually just break even. I don’t think I ever made money from gigs, ever. I don’t think anyone does.

I worked directly for the venue, so I was on salary. It was four venues. I had to make sure there was a band on every night in two of the venues. For the commercial nights, I had to come up with the concept, the graphic design, book the DJs. I had to do all the graphic design for the bars, the cocktail menus, the food menus, worked with the food and cocktail people to come up with good stuff. It was a lot of work for one person. I had to rep the gigs at night, as well. I’d come in at ten in the morning and I’d be working until about four or five in the morning. I’d go home, sleep for an hour, and come back to work. I’d normally work six, seven days a week. It was a bit much. I had to rep the gigs, so I had to cycle from one venue to the next to sort out the bands, give them their beer, cycle back, buy some more beer, give it to the bands, and maybe DJ at three in the morning and go home. And they’d always say, oh, well, you’re not structuring your time well enough.

So I quit, because I hated it. I was being absolutely taken advantage of. So now I know I only want music as a hobby and not as a career. And then a week later, I got a call from my friend saying, oh, yeah, my friend’s band are looking for a singer. Do you fancy having a go? I tried a few bands in Cardiff, not because I want to be in a band, but because I had a load of lyrics, and I wanted to see how it worked with music. I recorded stuff that directly rejected all the kind of stuff that most bands thought that they have to fit in. So on purpose, we rejected the whole imaging of it. The way I sang it, at first it was political.

How would you say it’s political?

In two ways. The songs I write are [often] directly political. It was also political in the fact that it was a statement for me. It was directly rejecting everything that pissed me off about the industry at the time. It didn’t fit. It wasn’t pleasant to listen to. For ages, in England, all the bands that were doing well were so pleasant and so nice, and they’d go on [BBC] Radio 1 and they’d have interviews and they’d be, like, oh, yeah, it was so nice, I love the record… It was great, and I think music like that is really important to have, but there was no alternative.

It’s great to have that, if you want to do the washing up or you want to do the Hoovering, fine. But there was no music that was any different.

When indie became music, rock music became mainstream, between 2000 and now,, for England, it is commercial rock, isn’t it? In England in the 90s, at least people did stuff that was more rebellious. It wasn’t so nicey-nicey all the time. What if you’ve got something to say? And people were too scared to make any statement, in case someone didn’t like it. There were scared to take a risk. And that’s the thing about this record. It wasn’t designed to be liked. It was designed to make people think.

It’s like “No one’s there.” Now it seems cliche, but when I first wrote it, it was when the English media was writing all these headlines … personifying the recession as if it was some wolf that was going to eat your children. It was just the politicians’ mistakes, and the fact that we spent beyond our means. It was scaring people so much that they weren’t spending any more, so it actually makes things worse.

It was just interesting reading people’s opinions on matters and how they’d been framed. I remember my housemates at the time making all these throw-away comments about religions that they didn’t really know anything about. It’s the same with the Recession. A lot of people didn’t know much about it and didn’t look into it and understand why. That’s the thing about “No one’s there.” It’s just saying you need to question what you’re told.

And I imagine there’s also the politics of the music itself – you had said that music itself had suffered.

The reason music was suffering was because the people going to gigs weren’t taking risks. Firstly, people stopped buying music, which was pretty shit. Gig goers in England weren’t taking risks. So I’d put on a really good band, but they hadn’t had that much press coverage that week. People follow too much what they’ve been told. So this year, at the moment, the BBC released their top ten bands of the coming year. So all the music media has been writing about these bands and no one else. They’re just so lazy. And now they will be the top years this bands because they’ve been told. It’s like the chicken and the egg – which came first?

All those people on that list have the whole package, they’ve got the photos, they’ve got the MySpace friends. It’s just so predictable.

So, really, it’s not only the press, but the listeners, as well?

It’s the chicken and the egg. What comes first, the apathetic listener, or the [press]?

Just thinking about the production here, too, do you think you can record rebelliously, as well?

You can record it rebelliously by not over-producing it. That’s exactly what we did. To try and get that, we had to go to extremes. We didn’t plan any of the songs before we turned up that day. We’d walk in – we’d go the night before and spend the night on YouTube finding things that we could twist into a completely different form, and then we’d go in the next day and say, look what I found? And then I’d go print out the lyrics, Billy would figure out the bass, and then Jeff do that and Matt would walk in, and then we’d try it out, and then the third take was the one that we used. And that’s why it’s not perfect, and that’s why it’s funny when people say oh, yeah, what is this? It’s not perfect singing or whatever. It’s like, oh yeah, it’s not. It was never meant to be.

Okay, I have to ask – obviously, the comparison is going to get made to the Velvet Underground. Was that a conscious influence?

It was really weird with the singing thing. A lot of people said oh it’s Nico and rubbish — like a rubbish, rip-off version of Nico. But firstly, I’d like to point out I’m actually half German. I learned German before I learned English.

When I was doing it, because I had a lot of political lyrics, and because some of the stuff we were doing was Bob Dylan, if anything, I tried not to sound American. So I over-pronounced everything, because I didn’t want it to sound American. And I happened to be living in Wales at the time, for the last five years. It actually sounds a little bit Welsh, but people don’t know that. And so that’s where it ended up where it was. It was me trying consciously not to sound American and then trying to sound Mockney. Mockney is like the London accent. And I didn’t want to have that, either.

I personally didn’t realize we were going to release it. I did it just for a bit of fun. I didn’t realize it was Geoff Barrow at first.

Wait – really? When did you find out that’s who it was?

[laughs] I thought it was just some guys that wanted to record stuff. And when I turned up, no one had borrowed to tell me that it was Geoff and people. I only found out after a few sessions.

My friend kept telling me, oh, they’re called, like Beep or something. I typed in Beep onto Myspace and I couldn’t find them. I think eventually it’s because Geoff gave me a CD in the studio. I was like, oh yeah, do you have one of those Beep CDs, and he said, oh, you mean Beak? And he gave me the CD. And so I went on their MySpace and I was like, oh, right, so that’s Geoff Barrow then… [laughs]

It was good, because I think we all just wanted to do something different. At first, they were just looking for a singer, I think, to do Beak stuff. But then, I just did stuff slightly differently and it ended up being a solo project.

Geoff just kept saying don’t practice. That was his only input, he said don’t practice. At first, it was just to get that kind of rawness, where we weren’t trying to fit it into anything. If I’d had more time, I probably would have had singing lessons, and it would have lost all of its vulnerability and everything. And it is vulnerable, because people can dislike it. It’s easy to go off and make stuff perfect, and then if people don’t like it…. At this sort of point, it is … [pauses] very vulnerable. It’s vulnerable to attack. Because it’s me, not necessarily feeling particularly one hundred percent when I was doing it, it makes it even more vulnerable. But at the same time, it makes it more genuine and more sincere.

It’s a rebellion against what we were told to be. We were told the right way, how best to produce a perfect record. I could have probably got singing lessons, gone to the gym a bit, got a haircut. And that would’ve been alright. And I could have fit it in.

I didn’t actually want to be a musician. I wanted to be a politician. I did it for kind of almost the right reasons. I wanted to do it for sincere reasons. There’s this hyped-up image of this amazing pop-star lifestyle. And because of these reality shows where the emphasis is only on the person’s voice, and then probably what they look like, and then nothing else matters. Nothing about what they want to say, the individuality. People often want to be famous, or they want to be musicians for completely the wrong reasons. And I think that’s why so many people have reacted strangely to the record. I know a lot of my friends at home who are used to mainstream records say, oh, this isn’t really my thing. And it’s fine. I know a few people have commented on my singing ability. And that was never really the point.

How did it come to be that you wound up going this route, then? You had been writing for some time?

I’d been writing loads in that year. It was in the years when I only had two hours at home a day to sleep, and I could never sleep. I was so shut down after work. So I ended up buying a rubbish guitar and trying to put structure to my words. I’d written for years, but never put much structure to them. Still can’t play particularly well, but it helps structure it. I used to just sit there for two hours in the time when I should have been sleeping. I think my housemates thought I was nuts at the time. But it was my way to unwind. So I wrote loads in that year.

I tried out with a few bands in Cardiff, just some jamming sessions with my friends. And it didn’t work because they had big electric guitars and would just drown out my lyrics.

I think it was because my Geoff said to my friend, oh yeah, we’re looking for a weird singer with a bit of a weird voice. And my friend was like, oh, I’ve got exactly the person.

When you did hear yourself on the album, did you say to yourself, oh yes, that’s really my voice, personally?

I didn’t listen to it. I just did it and didn’t listen. We just recorded and that was it. I just walked out of the room, went in the kitchen and made some tea, and didn’t even want to know what happened to it.

And then sometimes I’d say, oh, well that sounds really bad. I’d say, can I do it again, and we’d do it again, and we never used that one, because it just sounded, too …

I think the record can be quite enjoyable. But people seem to be one extreme or another – they’ll fall in love with it, or absolutely hate it. That to me is rather interesting.

I don’t mind. I quite like asking people why do you dislike it – because some people really do to an extreme. It’s always nice to hear why. It’s always good, because it’s made them think. It’s made them question why they don’t like it. That’s good. That’s an achievement.

I couldn’t listen to it for ages after. I just forgot about it, took up that job in Germany with the intention of staying, moving to Brussels to work in policy development.

That’s why I let [Geoff] do it. It was rejected all the pre-cut roles, how it should be. That’s why it worked so well. Geoff’s a bit of a rebel, as well. He doesn’t like fitting to what he’s told.

That’s why it’s good for me to do these DJ tours and only use vinyl. It’s really difficult for musicians at the moment … if you sell your soul and make knocking music and get endorsed by some big company, it pays for you to do that. But if you don’t, it’s really hard to try and afford to [be a] musician. I was fortunate that I moved to Berlin and managed to live. It’s really difficult how people don’t buy music any more. I know it’s really cliche to say, but it’s true. Especially with vinyl, that’s why it’s really important to endorse vinyl stores. It’s really important to buy.

So, to you playing vinyl isn’t so much about nostalgia or authenticity, it’s the economics around that physical object.

Yeah. That’s why I bought vinyl today. Even though I could probably pick up the phone and say could I have some vinyl, please. I think you need to put something back, because otherwise it’s not fair.

So many [shops] have shut down in the last years. And they do help underground music survive. They have in-stores, and they help promote records. And that’s why I was in Other Music. They helped with my record a lot.

That’s the problem with the whole downloading culture. It’s just a reflection of consumerism, how we want everything now.

What’s in Anika’s Vinyl Shopping Bag?

Anika and I met for the interview at Manhattan’s terrific independent music store, Other Music. (If you do prefer digital downloads, or happen not to be in New York, they also have a digital store – so, in fact, you can have it both ways after all.)

In fact, the very first thing she did was to show off her acquisitions. Here’s what she bought, with some commentary, via her Tumblr blog:

The Soft Moon Parallels 7” (This band played before me at Part time Punks in LA and i really liked them! I hadn’t heard of them before)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwGEG10WIY

Nite Jewel – Am i real? six song ep (I like nite jewel)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9A_2AN39X8&feature=related

Kleenex/Lilliput 4 vinyl box set (This just excited me so much that i closed my eyes and handed over the cash..)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY2nXUUvwg4

Circuit 7 video boys album 12” on MW (I love the MW label and wanted these tracks for a while)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_hV-uqNZ5c

Oppenheimer Analysis album on MW (I always play radiance because i have the single, so was desperate for more!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6faunFcrT0

Anika – I Go To Sleep by stonesthrow

While Mac blog TUAW calls on Apple to kill optical drives (does Apple need that kind of encouragement?), the shiny digital compact disc and the album in general still have their devotees. Sure, album sales are down. Sure, digital downloads are in. But look beyond business or practicality for a moment at these exotic hand-constructed musical objects, and what you see is sheer love. A hand-constructed CD or vinyl album is a gesture of making music for someone, not for the ether.

I raised the issue early last month, and readers responded with lots of examples of handmade records, which I round up here. (And yes, practical, it’s not – a number of you complained that hand-construction is a lot of work. It’s clearly best kept to small runs, but then, I think that’s part of the point.)

Also, last month at NYC’s wonderful Culturefix, a handful of us got together and constructed some handmade discs. It’s definitely something you could do at an album swap meet with other artists and DJs in an afternoon or evening, and it makes the swap feel more meaningful. Pics at top; I hope we do more of these.

If this is the way the CD goes out, I think it’ll go out with style. And whatever the trends in the larger world, who’s to deny you your tangible album, really?

(About the end of the CD – I can tell you that demos, album reviews, music bought at shows, and the like are still very much tangible. Until flash memory is cheaper than CDs, I expect that’ll remain the case.)

First off, a vinyl album – but the process of hand-making these vinyl jackets is already lovely. moni writes:

We hand sprayed album covers for Ruoho Ruotsi’s Hmmm … album (De’fchild Productions release 003) Different colors were used to make each one a little bit different. Hard work, but rewarding. These came out nicely!

The electro-pop band Miaoux Miaoux did a custom run of 100 hand-knitted CDs to benefit Cancer Research and Maggie’s, available for a donation. They also included full-color artwork:

http://miaouxmiaoux.com/album/knitted

My favorite of the round-up is the work of Atlanta-based artist magicicada, who makes handmade boxes full of “surprises” – exquisite photography and unspecified collections of nine songs, packaged in a box made of mud. He also performs music live. (Thanks for the tip, tender vittles!) More images on his site:

http://magicicada.com/

Mugison makes his own CDs, as viewed in this lovely timelapse. (Thanks, Derrida! I assume not that Derrida, but…)

Hey, they’re flat, they’re round, they’re absurdly cheap, they store a good hour of lossless audio, and you can actually hand them to someone. There’s something to be said for that. Now I hope someone takes on the idea of using generative algorithms to make one-of-a-kind album covers en masse.

Previously: Reclaim the Album’s Soul: Tips for Handmade CD Artwork, Make One Sunday

You hear the repeated chorus: music in the digital age has become meaningless and valueless, like turning on water from a tap in the middle of Rome. But, quietly, a movement is stirring that is reclaiming the value of music. Armed with nothing more sophisticated than markers, paper, collage materials, and imagination, they send mixes of music like grade school Valentines. Heck, they even use the mail. It makes the album more personal than it was even in its golden, mass-produced age.

Many of the practitioners in this case are returning to the cassette and mix tape. But I was also interested in handcrafting cases for demos, for your own music, and for mixes of Creative Commons-licensed and netlabel materials. Instead of just swapping behind our avatars and usernames on SoundCloud, it returns us to the glee of playing with markers and exchanging face-to-face.

If you’re in New York, we’ll be making our own musical packaging and then swapping records, starting with a 4:00 pm workshop on this Sunday 10/10/10 at the Lower East Side’s cozy (and tapas- and drink-stocked) Culturefix NY:

RSVP + location + Facebook; stay for the party, live music, and swap at 7p

But wherever you are, perhaps this Sunday you can make some handmade music.

Here’s a look at some of the work being done, via a Flickr group entitled “Handmade Mixes,” in a Flickr slideshow:

Group founder Samantha Saturday talks to CDM about her techniques, and gives us some crafting tips. Keeping it simple makes this manageable, too, in case you’re planning a handmade, limited edition-run of your next EP.

Tips for materials:

For collaging works I always keep a shoebox of paper scraps and snippets from newspapers, magazines, flyers, basically anything that can be glued or taped down. Keeping all your supplies close at hand is a huge help. Personally I make all my cases completely from scratch, but sometimes starting out with a pre-made CD sleeve and building on top of it is a great way to start.

My best advice is to keep the process fun and to not put too much pressure on yourself to make something totally awesome. If you just let it happen it will be awesome no matter what. There is no right or wrong way to do it.

What to bring to a workshop: (including ours on Sunday!)

Bring mixes specifically for the event and some paper, magazines, glue, snippets, or what have you to share with the workshop.

I talked to Sam about some other ideas, too…

Tell us what you’ve been making.

All of the works I have made are either for friends or for mix trades organized in different places around the internet, such as blogs and Swap-bot [an online-organized swap meet]. For every mix I make, I also create a collaged, cut & paste cover. Some are simpler than others, but I always try to make something nice to house all this great music.

In general I put so much effort and time into making individual covers for every mix because I feel that with the digital age music is starting to lose some of it’s specialness. There’s something about having album artwork to accompany the music you’re listening to. Now you don’t really get that with digital downloads and I miss that. I think it’s the same for a lot of the people who are so dedicated to creating unique artwork.

Who are some of the other people you’ve found working in this medium?

Jane Boston (Stab Heart zine) and Bianca Jagoe (Goodnight Little Spoon) are the first that come to mind. They are both pretty big swappers in the online and mail art community. I’ve sent to and received mixes from both of them and I adore the love they put forth in their creations.

Additionally some of the people that have really stood out to me are Richard Gallon [Flickr] and Evey in Orbit [Flickr. Richard creates really well-crafted covers for his cassettes. On the other hand Evey has a much more cut-and paste approach to it. Even though their techniques are very different I love the range that can be expressed because it's such an open medium.

I created the Flickr group Handmade Mixes for people to share their handmade covers, since it seems like every other mix group is mostly computer-generated works. Most of the people who contribute are people I invited, but a few other people are popping up here and there, which is so exciting! Everyone in the group does a great job and it's really inspirational to see that there are lots of people out there who make their own covers, too.

Introduce us to one of your favorite mixes.

My mix "We're the Heirs to the Glimmering World" is definitely one of my favorite mixes that I've made, both because of the music and the cover art. Usually if I'm feeling a little down I will make a mix to focus my mind on something else and that was definitely the case with this mix. It's one of the most elaborate covers I've made.

You mention on one of the Flickr images that some of these mixes came from getting together for an in-person swap.

[That's] Mix Share Swap hosted by Bianca Jagoe of Goodnight Little Spoon. I found out about the swap from Jane Boston’s blog. If you keep your eye out, there are a lot of mix swaps like this around the blogosphere. Anyone could sign up, then you were assigned two random people you would send to from the list and you received mixes from two different people. It’s a great way to share music and connect with other people.

Any thoughts on how you translate the personality of a music mix to the visuals on the handmade packaging? (It’s an age-old question, of how to make something visual out of the auditory and ephemeral.)

When I make a mix the music, of course, always comes to mind first. After, and sometimes during, compiling a mix you listen to it and different themes or a general feel to the music will come forward and I think that’s where ideas for the packaging first start to form.

Everyone has their own aesthetic and although it sounds cliché it’s definitely about putting together what feels right. Sometimes the cover doesn’t necessarily tie in directly with the music, but generally I think there is something in the sub-conscience that drives the creation. Also, the handmaking process is a lot different than say, someone creates a cover on a computer. You’re connecting with the mix on a tactile level and that alone comes through in the visuals.

More inspiration:

Check out Sam’s Flickr: Handmade album
and the Handmade Mixes group on Flickr (which I hope will also apply to original music, CC-licensed music)

All images courtesy Samantha Saturday.

Below, some of Sam’s favorites from her group.

After a fuss over a leak and then an official confirmation from Warp, Brian Eno has unveiled his next album, “Small Craft On a Milk Sea.”

The launch page reveals far more about the packaging than the actual music (though I must say, the packaging is very pretty). But the album does focus on collaboration, working with returning artists Jon Hopkins and Leo Abrahams. Hopkins and Eno have worked together regularly, and that trio produced some wonderful sounds, recording with Peter Chilvers, for the soundtrack for “The Lovely Bones.” Abrahams’ original mention on his Web diary also described some of what’s to come:

It contains the fruits of several years of jams between the three of us. I’ve not heard anything quite like it — it sounds ‘live’ and ‘alien’ at the same time. Some things have been permitted to survive, which only Brian would have had the courage to let go, and it’s so much the better for it.

(Via tinymixtapes, which also lends the live video of the trio below.

The release also comes wrapped in some evocative artworks by Eno himself, including the dune-like, oceanic long exposure image seen on the cover.

All in all, that seems there’s reason to look forward to the November 2 (November 15 UK) release date, as we get to hear the product of these three musical imaginations. Preorders, from digital to various collectors’ editions, start Wednesday of this week.

Details:
http://brian-eno.net/#headlines

And these three artists live:

Matthew Dear – Black City Teaser from Ghostly International on Vimeo.

Matthew Dear is one of electronic music’s great sonic innovators and impresarios, co-founder of Ghostly International and Spectral Sound (Ghostly recently celebrating 100 landmark releases), and recording extensively under musical identities Audion, False, and Jabberjaw. But for all that, I think it’s his voice as a songwriter and musical imagineer, as in the releases in his own name, that’s most vital. There’s a directness to his compositions and lyrical voice that’s stunning, wrapped in elaborate textures and grooves but irresistible.

All of this is reason to look forward to Black City, the full-length Matthew Dear coming out in August, as a potential highlight of the summer and 2010. This week, we get a little taste of that record with the release of “Soil to Seed,” a relaxed treat with signature doubled-up vocals, as comfortable as a July watermelon. If you happen not to like my fruit metaphors, sit back and enjoy the free download:

http://promo.ghostly.com/mp3/matthewdear-soiltoseed_1924328.mp3

I’ll say this: it’s over way, way too soon, which is probably a good sign.

Also released this week is a short teaser promo trailer video. These things are all the rage these days, but this particular entry feels less like a billboard, and more like a visual appetizer, complete with shadowy, gothic imagery undulating in glorious black and white. From the little snippets we get, it seems the visuals get the same stark richness as Dear’s productions. A spokesperson for Ghostly tells us more video is planned. Stay tuned to Create Digital Motion for more on the art direction (and other Ghostly visuals).

It’s a Ghostly release, so in the post-album age you can bet that you’ll get a case for why you should purchase or even preorder the record. Those details are a bit involved, so at this point I quoth the press release:

Pre-ordering Black City on iTunes (starting July 13th in North America & July 20th elsewhere) and The Ghostly Store (starting July 13th) gets you the manic disco odyssey “Little People (Black City)”, as well as exclusive non-album track “Innh Dahh” upon the record’s arrival. (After August 3rd, “Innh Dahh” will no longer be available at iTunes.)

As well as the usual formats, Black City will also be released in a limited edition Totem design made by an award winning design firm Boym, who won the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum’s National Design Award in 2009. More details on the Totem design coming soon.

Ghostly’s pricing is a steal – US$16 gets you vinyl and CD and instant bonus download; $8 gets you high-quality MP3.

Stay tuned for more on the release.

http://matthewdear.com
http://ghostly.com/artists/matthew-dear
http://boym.com/