"Among other things, it makes me want to hear a recording of the Workman/Julien Ottavi set from this last autumn’s ErstQuake fest"

http://www.ruccas.org/index.php?Dion%20Workman

I love the head-tilting aspect you mention--I've seen that referenced so little, but it's such an important part of my appreciation of this music. For me as a blind listener, EAI presents an outgrowth of the "space" explorations Tony Conrad mounted, but even more of Lucier's explorations, which I'm finally getting the happy chance to listen to in great detail. They give me the illusition of depth, of space and of size beyond the bilatteral concerns of two speakers. Nice review, and thanks for pointing that out!

Thanks, Dan, didn't know that site. But, at least here at work, I'm unable to open a ".OGG" file. Any hints? Plus I'm not sure how valuable it'll be to listen to the set over PC speakers anyhow....

God, I'm not the person to ask about computers as Jeff G will tell you :) I downloaded the ogg file, clicked on open in My Documents and my copy of Sound Forge opened it up just fine (from which I was able to save it in mp3 and wav formats for "normal" portable / domestic hi-fi :))
Sounds like one of those Linuxy things to me - why not ask Dion for info? I'm a caveman.

Winamp is a free download that has built-in support for the OGG format. You can also download patches for common programs like Real Player, Windows Media Player, etc. (I had to do this because my job requires me to use OGG files and unfortunately forces me to use software that runs WMP.) Or just open it in a specialized audio program like Dan mentioned...

I'm a caveman peeking out of the cave... Hey, it's really bright out here!

not sure how representative that set actually is of what took place, I know those guys cranked up the sound a lot before uploading that, not sure how much else they did.

"But, at least here at work, I'm unable to open a ".OGG" file"

some months ago our dear friend joe milazzo tried to hook y'all up to an open source application called "audacity"

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

get it. you can make (or import) your own multitrack (or single track, even mono!)recordings and export them as wav, mp3 or ogg/vorbis. a handy and completely free tool.

but the winamp may work as well dunno for sure

"I know those guys cranked up the sound a lot before uploading that, not sure how much else they did." --J. Abbey

that's a interesting thing to know because i asked myself that question when i conducted my uhm "experiments"

Listening to this live Workman set, again. Issue of how to sonically re-size a room. How one space sonically fits (or doesn’t fit) into another. Alvin Lucier’s work in this regard, noted. A parallel in video and sound installations by Jacob Kirkegard http://secretsounds.dk/zones/ (amazing site). In this connexion I found a new phrase useful, “hertzian space” (another interesting site) http://zeitkunst.org/projects/aetherspace/ the range of invisible and inaudible but otherwise felt and present electromagnetic frequencies, as one element of a room. One thing that Joe Milazzo didn’t quite touch on in No Says The Echo http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/features/000752.html : I have not been recording my playing in different rooms but playing recordings of different rooms as I play. Sleights of context. (It is relevant, bear with me). But how to level the room sonorities so that they actually do emerge as sound (supporting presence) rather than a distracting ambience we call “noise” (the experience of hearing a hiss from the microphone, say, or the acid reflux of the medium itself--or in this Workman case, the "pumped up room"). We experience living space through physical movement. So the way I have been introducing a revitalization of the concept of “live recording” is to record by/with moving a stereo microphone through the space then making this a live track in the mix of the music. Thinking of the centerless experience of Bambuti forest music, I also did a recording of a project recently led by Michel Doneda and Fabrice Charles, La Fanfare de la Toufe. Basically a kind of Kowaldian mass moving orchestra of wind instruments (played by more or less amatuers). Socially (ville in the South of France) it was quite amusing but also a great listening experience. Through headphones at least too. When I listen to the Workman set on headphones I more easily digest the space it was made in. But the thing that cloys ultimately is that the monotony of the background ambience is too loud, makes for a less enjoyable anticipation of other sounds. Personal input. The sounds that emerge are pretty interesting. While playing it back into my (blessedly queit Kreuzberg apt) empty room, I couldn’t find a level where I could manage to stop wanting to change the way the speakers sat. As if to find a way to blend the recorded room with my own. So it gets you some exercise without being even remotely danceable. Thanks for description of the listening experience Brian O.

"I'm not the person to ask about computers as Jeff G will tell you :)"

no so very long ago, dan, you may recall it was me emailing you frantically because of that nasty "trojan" business that zapped us both back to the stone age (not a bad era maybe) and the fact is i am still just cobbling my way along. but a very brilliant engineer friend who works designing computer network security systems for banks came to our recent gig here at kule and when i was packing up, just messing around with some of my piles of junk, he leaned over and said that what he did at work all day was basically what i do musically, meaning that it is all an improvised and provisional system that needs to be torn apart almost as quickly as its built...fwiw

Excellent posts, Jeff - and thanks for re-hipping us to Audacity. Just downloaded it & it works a treat. Was wondering if you ran into recording engineer Pierre Olivier Boulant when you were down in the S of France. I've always been v impressed by his recordings (with Doneda on Fringes, Potlatch and Absinth, and with Bertrand Gauguet on Creative Sources).

" Pierre Olivier Boulant [...] I've always been impressed by his recordings (with Doneda on Fringes, Potlatch and Absinth, and with Bertrand Gauguet on Creative Sources)."

Dan, haven't you heard his work on Sillón's "Solo Las Panques" by Doneda and "Uruena" by Rombolá yet ? Amazing and beautiful.

Those three discs are sitting in the In Tray in front of me and ready for next week! Just as soon as I've got my ears round this magnificent Kapotte Muziek 4CD set on Audiobot again (and again)

does anybody have any comments on s3 in relation to misselian, the duo of julien with dion. i really like it but i would not consider that is minimal or quiet. i do not know if I should get s3 plus I do not the work of mattin, any recomendations?

olivier,

there's a mattin piece available for download here:

http://www.con-v.org/

i haven't heard it though

jg

I'd say it's very roughly in the same ballpark as 'misenlien'. The latter is one of my favorites of 2005, fwiw and, though if placed side by side, I'd prefer 'misenlien', I think it's reasonable to say that if you enjoy one you'll enjoy the other.

Go to Mattin's site (Google wmo/r) and you'll find the first two Mattin albums - now deleted - available as Ogg downloads too. Olivier, check out the other Mattin threads on Bagatellen for more discussion of his work. I think Whitenoise is the winner so far, though the solo album on 2000+ packs a punch.

"Was wondering if you ran into recording engineer Pierre Olivier Boulant when you were down in the S of France"

sorry for late reply but my initial reply (at long last) was going to be that i would prefer to be running into more french women actually...but, matter of fact, i do recall literally bumping into a guy that was also recording the event, must have been him. a hilarious thing as we both had our ears on the same kinds of details a lot of the time and so this must have been an extra amusing thing to watch as the ensemble snaked through the narrow streets of lorgues with michel acting as traffic cop and doing sonic battle with the occasional oversensitive dog that would nip and bark at his heels. i do have a bit of a different approach though and my recording gets things p-o just physically could not be in position to capture. and i go into things as well. i recall talking with fabrice and michel before the ensemble hit the streets. fabrice said that someone would be "following to record michel". and i looked at them both and said: "well, i will be following to record sounds". and they both smiled and nodded. it seems like they thought that was a good idea too. fabrice has my recording. i gave one to tatsuya to pass to michel. they are in japan with jw now i guess.

Will we be able to hear this at some stage, Jeff? I'd like to hear Doneda doing battle with a dog.

maybe check with michel or fabrice to see if that was in fact pob and what plans they have. if they have no plans or if that wasn't pob but rather some workaholic radio journalist (he was there the whole time) then my recording is at their disposal...

on second thought, why wait: annoy a hound whilst recording him. (start by playing a xtrm hi freak sine tone--from a cd by...hmmm, can't think who.. or, yes, pull a fire alarm) then use audacity to multitrack a digitally decimated henry kuntz sample (your a musician, tweak it until it shines!) and some puttering renaults and some babbling en francais and then send the finished recording to argentina and have it buried in the ground. submit a empty ogg file to slsk (make sure you label it an erstwhile release) saying it is a reynols cover band composed entirely of indigenous argentinian people. send a link to michel saying jack wright found the original 78 in fritz welch's bushwick ave basement. of course it was impossible because the landlord is greedy and empties his colostomy bag on the train and a fly can be seen crawling out of the chasis of the doorbell in 20 below farenheit and as you turn you see frayed strands of plastic garbage totes stuck to the razor-wire flying like a thousand little flags in the breeze in the direction of greenpoint, flatbush, sri lanka and you can't believe a word of it even though you know it is all there and it's all true, even the egg sandwich and the rotten jackfruit pit on the main drag of yogyakarta and the brunein gangster who won your camera in a poker game in peliatan. who is chandra puspita? why didn't martin heidegger say something about the holocaust to paul celan? is memory nothing more than the mythology of perception?

Have you ever considered a career in online journalism? I hear there's a vacancy at Paris Transatlantic.. (There's always a vacancy at Paris Transatlantic. In fact we're PRETTY VACANT)