Thomas Brett
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Notes On A Talk By W.S. Merwin
When I was in graduate school at NYU, I occasionally spent time wandering the stacks of Bobst Library. With only a subject matter and a range of Dewey Decimal numbers in mind, I’d take to the shelves intuitively–looking for interesting book titles to crack open. One afternoon, while scanning a long and deserted isle of… Continue reading
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Strange Mechanisms II: On Exercise And Musical Tempo
Last week I found myself thinking about the effects of listening to music while exercising. I run a lot but have never listened to music while doing so. The reason I guess is that I want to listen to the cadence of my feet and hear ambient sounds around me for safety reasons. My attention… Continue reading
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On The Influence Of One’s Musical Teachers
In his New Yorker piece “Every Good Boy Does Fine”, pianist Jeremy Denk reflects on taking piano lessons from the time he first took up the instrument at the age five through his college years. Denk’s teachers helped him learn to better practice, interpret and think musically. “Learning to play the piano” says Denk, “is… Continue reading
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Notes On A Talk By Robert Fripp
On a whim I searched Spotify for music by Robert Fripp but found none. Instead there was a recording of him speaking to a crowd about various musical things. And it was good. “Music never goes away” he said, “It’s always available, but we are not always available to music.” And when pushed to say… Continue reading
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Some Observations On Atoms For Peace’s “Unless”
Thom Yorke’s musical project, Atoms For Peace, brought together a number of fine musicians to jam out and record rhythmically propulsive grooves which Yorke and the producer Nigel Godrich then edited together. The result, AMOK, is a lean, hybrid acoustic-electronic work that has been described in The Guardian as “surprisingly accessible for one so extensively… Continue reading
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On Musical Invention, Sound And Process: “Bladelores” From Autechre’s Exai
No one is quite sure how the UK duo Autechre make their electronic music. Sure, they use software and computers, they program, they use hardware synths and drum machines and samplers, they improvise, they code, they make beats, they tweak, but we really don’t know how they work. Not only is the group’s musical sum… Continue reading
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On The Strange Poetics Of Spam
For some reason, lately my blog inbox has been inundated with spam. (I’ve written previously about spam here.) My irritation swiftly turned to anger at the sheer automated idiocy of it. Where is all this stuff, all this fake human fakery coming from? How is it generated and who is profiting from it? And I… Continue reading
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On Another Kind Of Wonder
My new recording, Another Kind Of Wonder, is available now. Here is the first track, “Splash”: The recording is available at cdbaby. Continue reading
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On Pantha Du Prince And Bell Laboratory’s Elements Of Light
“I think techno music at the moment is just an infrastructure. Basically, it’s not a musical term anymore. It used to be more like straight, technical funk. Nowadays, it is more of an infrastructure where you have certain beat patterns that you can call techno music. But in the end, it’s a social and economic infrastructure. The name… Continue reading
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