July 2021

"After Candy"

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"After Candy" [please listen on Bandcamp]

[Note: embedded players -- which I basically hate -- are replaced with links when they move off the blog front page]

This was the first track I made for my current Bandcamp release, Chamber Bits. It's the ninth track on the release. In the opening segment, I am using a mouse to move a cursor around an X/Y grid, kind of like a joystick, which changes the timbre of the notes in real time. At the halfway point an "electro" beat comes in and the track kicks into higher gear. The beat is from an early-'00s softsynth that connotes "cool" and would be completely unacceptable in any classical or sound art repertoire (see my thoughts on interrogative use of the recently outmoded).

"Piano & Woodwind Improv"

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I got busy and have been neglecting to promote my last Bandcamp release, from back in May. Here is the final track on the LP:

https://tommoody.bandcamp.com/track/piano-woodwind-improv

[Note: embedded players -- which I basically hate -- are replaced with links when they move off the blog front page]

That's me playing piano, with some segments translated to woodwind (recorder) via the magic of MIDI.
Playing skill, for me, is less interesting than the ear and editing. Tunesmithing is a matter of hearing melodies in clusters of played notes and then wrestling them into rhythmic and tonal coherence on the page (jiggering around the notation). Then it's a matter of arranging the revised clusters into a song-narrative.
The keyboard is a Native Instruments' Komplete Kontrol S49, and the piano is mainly "Berlin Concert Grand."

painting exhibition (Kate Petley, Lorraine Tady, Liz Trosper)

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I submitted a review of to an art magazine of the following exhibition:

On Screen/Off Screen: Contemporary Painting and Technology
Kate Petley, Lorraine Tady, & Liz Trosper
Barry Whistler Gallery, Dallas TX
June 5 – July 31, 2021.

Here are some detail shots of the work that I took for my reference:

Kate Petley:

petley1_650w

Liz Trosper:

trosper1_650w

Lorraine Tady:

tady1_650w

guest DJ set list (July 1, 2021) - Avant-pop & post-Prog

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Thanks to ffog for inviting me to guest-DJ again on his weekly internet radio show, Myocyte.
The mix was "simulcast" on anonradio and tilderadio, and has been archived by anonradio (scroll down to "Ffog - Pleasure & Discomfort Myocyte"). An mp3 version of the mix is here: [1 hr mp3] (The show was broadcast at 1 am on July 2 UTC, which is 8 pm Central, July 1, in the US.)

While the tracks were playing I "announced" via text chat on the #sally and #tilderadio channels on IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Listeners could comment or ask questions. This is an interesting way to DJ, very different from my old FM radio days and a few steps up aesthetically from having everyone's data and souls leeched out on spotify, etc.

Set list and notes for the show:

Arthur Brown & Vincent Crane - This Is It (1980) - Faster Than The Speed Of Light

Students at Eskilstuna Music School (Sweden) - Just the Same (2012) - YouTube (Gentle Giant cover)

Robert Jan Stips - Shivers (1981) - U.P.

Nick Nicely - DCT Dreams (1980) - 7" single (Nicely eventually became 1/2 of Psychotropic in the rave era)

John Greaves - Photography (1982) - Accident

Yu - Shoes (1982) - We Are Yu (cassette)

Wall of Voodoo - Tomorrow (1982) - Call of the West

Martin Rev - Temptation (1980) - Martin Rev

Dennis Duck - Son of Konticki (1977) - Dennis Duck Goes Disco

Supersister - Spiral Staircase (1970) 7" single b-side

Stephen Sondheim - Poems (1976) - Pacific Overtures (original cast)

Cusco - Ghost Dance (1997) - Apurimac III - Nature • Spirit • Pride

Barbara Morgenstern - Das Schöne Einheitsbild ["The Beautiful Unified Image"] (2006) - The Grass Is Always Greener

David Byrne & St Vincent - Who (2012) - Love This Giant

Sandii - Dream Catcher (1994) - Dream Catcher

Gary Wilson - I Woke Up Into a Thousand Dreams (2008) - Lisa Wants to Talk to You