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Resonant Thoughts: Nate Silver’s “On The Edge” (2024) and Yuval Noah Harari’s “Nexus” (2024)
“The thing is our physiology is really smart. I mean, it’s just really smart. It’s very hard to trick your physiology. We live in a 3D world, we move in a 3D world. So if we make mistakes in our movement, we die. So we have much higher standards in our physiology than we do… Continue reading
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Database: James Leyland Kirby On Musical Technologies, Creating Errors, Finding New Sound Worlds, And Risk-Taking
“I love what technology affords me. Although some of my work can seem nostalgic, believe me I work in the now. I have no desire to set up a studio with a ton of old modular gear, that game is like a fruit machine: loads of people putting money into an expensive setup with flashing… Continue reading
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Keywords: Maybe Rationales
(Photo: J.S. Bach, “The Well-Tempered Clavier, Prelude in C Major”) Maybe the parts will eventually add up to something. Maybe the perfect sound will present itself. Maybe the track is good enough as is. A maybe rationale is a speculative rationalization we offer ourselves as to why it’s acceptable that the music in its present… Continue reading
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Same Walk, Different Music
M.C. Escher, “Relativity” (1953) Stereolab, “Crest” (1993). I first heard this song—and learned about Stereolab—during a musicology graduate seminar over twenty years ago. Another student had chosen the track as way to talk about a topic in musical time which I don’t recall, but the music mesmerized me and I’ve never forgotten it. Years later… Continue reading
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From The Archives: “Piano/MS20/2022”
(From The Archives is a blog post series where I revisit older tracks that have escaped notice. Normally I post music to keep track of what I’ve done and flag what seems promising. But since I have no method of curating my stuff and I’m prone to recency bias, I overlook older tracks. There’s a… Continue reading
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Database: Ed Ruscha On Traveling Along The Tops Of Things
“I’m not trying to wrap things up or make final statements or capture anything in a big way. It’s more like, whatever the voyage is, that’s where I am. I’m just traveling along the tops of things, not trying to bring an answer to anything, necessarily, but just to keep making pictures.” Ed Ruscha database Continue reading
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Art About Music: Ed Ruscha’s “Thick Blocks Of Musical Fudge” (1976), “The Music From the Balconies” (1984), “Silence With Wrinkles” (2016), “Note” (2018)
“Thick Blocks of Musical Fudge” (1976) “The Music from the Balconies” (1984) “Silence with Wrinkles” (2016) “Note” (2018) Continue reading
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Same Walk, Different Music
Burial, “Night Bus” (2006). The music of producer Burial (William Bevan) is a class in ambiance, aura, texture, and pacing. As famous for his anonymity as for using the bare bones audio editor Sound Forge, Burial makes emotionally heavy music. “Night Bus” achieves the feat of compressing a film’s worth of mood into two minutes.… Continue reading
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