Friday, April 11, 2008

Friday Downstreams (Make Your Real-ity)


Canvas Bags by Tim Minchin

"Any consumer good can likewise be made into an ideological sign. For instance, bread and wine become religious symbols in the Christian sacrament of communion.. But the consumer good, as such, is not at all a sign. Consumer goods, just as tools, may be combined with ideological signs, but the distinct conceptual dividing line between them is not erased by the combination. Bread is made in some particular shape; this shape is not warranted solely by the bread’s function as a consumer good; it also has a certain, if primitive, value as an ideological sign (e.g., bread in the shape of a figure eight (krendel) or a rosette)."
Valentin Nikolaevich Voloshinov, Marxism and the Philosophy of Language


Bach - The complete Brandenburg Concertos
The Brandenburg Concertos are probably the most successful unsuccessful attempt at composing “on spec” of all time. Johann Sebastian Bach wrote these concertos in 1721 and sent them to Christian Ludwig, the Margrave of Brandenburg, in an attempt to secure a position as musician to the royal court. He was not hired and Ludwig’s response to the composition is unknown. Nonetheless The Brandenburg Concertos are one of the cornerstones of Baroque music and about the only reason we even remember the name of Christian Ludwig.
Czech Radio presents a performance of all six concertos. The ensemble is Musica Florea, directed by Marek Strynci and was recorded in June of 2006. The work is played on original instruments of the Baroque era and is based on the original score. Here we have a recording close to what Bach envisioned and is just as good as any modern orchestral recording that I have heard. The first movement of the second concerto has always been a favorite of mine and the theme of the first movement of the third concerto will be familiar to any one who had watched a lot of BBC costume dramas. These are essential works for lovers of Classical music and an exceptional performance. The concertos are available in formats of 192kbps MP3 or FLAC.

Luc Ferrari - Rencontres Fortuites
Didascalies (Sub Rosa, 2007)


FATE Magazine is the world's leading magazine of the paranormal. Started in 1948, it has published expert opinions and personal experiences relating to UFOs, psychic abilities, ghosts and hauntings, cryptozoology, alternative medicine, and Fortean phenomena for a devoted readership worldwide.

Martin Archer - Live in Krakow :: April :: 2008
British composer and improviser Martin Archer presents an 80 minute performance from Krakow courtesy of the AudioTong net label. Armed with electronics, a barrage of sound loops and a sopranino saxophone, he explores every aspect of the avant-garde with ease and imagination. While utilizing drones, samples, and the usual array of tricks, this is no minimalist chill-out. Archer challenges the listener but is able to keep us interested through his wit, creativity and complexity. He starts with a looped statement, “All wars are lost” that seems to be not so much a political statement as a personal one. By the time he is finished, he has transversed industrial sounds, avant garde jazz, Celtic music, and much more. I especially enjoy his ability on the sopranino sax which makes me wonder if he have been influenced at all by the late great British saxophonist Elton Dean. This is an album that is best listened to in its entirely but if you want a track that brings the artist’s talents together, try “CC Loop”. This is a performance that never sits still and will endlessly fascinate.

The War 0n Drugs (Secretly Canadian) - FREE rock EP

Folkstreams » The Best of American Folklore Films
A National Preserve of Documentary Films about American Roots Cultures. I found it vai the amazinf segments they ave on the archive of a 1976 doco "Born for Hard Luck: Peg Leg Sam Jackson" A film portrait of the last Black medicine-show performer, Arthur "Peg Leg Sam" Jackson, with harmonica songs, tales of hoboing, buckdances, and a live medicine-show performance.

UbuWeb Sound :: Tellus #15: The Improvisors (1986)
Excerpts from The Stephanie and Irving Stone Festival of Improvisors recorded at Roulette, NYC on November 8, 9, and 10, 1985. Participants in the festival included:

Gregg Bendian - Percussion
Jill Burton - Vocals
Chris Cochrane - Guitar
Anthony Coleman - Keyboards
Tom Cora - Cello
Judy Danaway - Guitar
Carol Emanuel - Harp
Bill Frisell - Guitar
Bobby Previte - Drums
Jim Staley - Trombone
John Zorn - Sax, Clarinets and Game Calls
Irene Schweitzer - Piano
Fred Frith - Guitar and Homemade Strings
Samm Bennett - Drums
Lindsay Cooper - Bassoon and Reeds
Bill Horvitz - Guitar
Guy Klucevsek - Accordion
Christian Marclay - Turntables
Denman Maroney - Piano
David Weinstein - Mirage etc.
Ikue Mori - Drums

Tellus #17: Video Arts Music (1987)
Numberous video pieces represented on this tape were originally produced in part at the facilities of the Experimental TV Venter, Owego, New York. This project is suppoerted in part by the New York State Council on the Arts and The National Endowment for the Arts.

Germany Dada: An Alphabet of German Dadaism (1969) by Helmut Herbst (b. 1934)
This documentary concerns the contributions of German artists to the Dadaist movement. Created in 1916, the organizers rejected previous convention and delighted in nihilistic satire in painting, sculpture and literature. Comparisons are made between the movement and the political and social upheaval at the time of the release of this feature (1969). - Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
Credit Helmut Herbst - Director; Helmut Herbst - Cinematographer; Helmut Herbst - Screenwriter

UbuWeb Sound - Tristan Tzara
1. Pour Compte (6.02), from Phases, 1949
2. L'amiral Cherche Une Maison à Louer
(Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco, Richard Hulsenbeck)
3. Dada Into Surrealism (1959)
"L'amiral Cherche Une Maison à Louer" is one of the best known examples of Dada tonal poetry, in which several voices speak, sing, whistle, etc. simultaneously in such a way that the resulting combinations account for the total effect of the work. The simultaneous poem demonstrates the value of the human voice and is a powerful illustration of the fact that an organic work of art has a will of its own. The piece was written in 1916 as a performance piece for the Caberet Voltaire by Tristan Tzara, Richard Hulsenbeck and Marcel Janco.
Janco (1895-1985), a Romanian painter and engraver, had become acquainted with Tzara in 1912, working with him on the magazine "Simbolul." Whilst studying architecture in Zurich in 1915, he met Tzara again and became involved in the Cabaret Voltaire, for which he made woodcuts and abstract reliefs, posters, costumes and masks.
The version featured here is not an original recording but one made by the Italian Trio Excoco: Hanna Aurbacher, Theophil Maier and Ewald Liska.
Some verses of Tristan Tzara, for example "nfoünta mbaah mbaah nfoünta", inspired by African singsong, seem to be analogous to Hugo Ball's work, but in general Tzara's poems consisted of absurd encounters of meanings, and not of sounds, such as the famous "La première aventure céleste de M.Anitpryine" (1916) and the poem that he composed in collaboration with Marcel Janco and Richard Huelsenbeck "L'amiral cherche une maison à louer" (The admiral looks for a house to rent). Tzara's dadaism is not phonic but semantic.

Dada Magazine (1917-1918) Please note that all files are PDFs.
Attempting to promulgate Dada ideas throughout Europe, Tristan Tzara launched the art and literature review Dada. Although, at the outset, it was planned that Dada members would take turns editing the review and that an editorial board would be created to make important decisions, Tzara quickly assumed control of the journal. But, as Richter said, in the end no one but Tzara had the talent for the job, and, "everyone was happy to watch such a brilliant editor at work."[10] Appearing in July 1917, the first issue of Dada, subtitled Miscellany of Art and Literature, featured contributions from members of avant-garde groups throughout Europe, including Giorgio de Chirico, Robert Delaunay, and Wassily Kandinsky. Marking the magazine's debut, Tzara wrote in the Zurich Chronicle, "Mysterious creation! Magic Revolver! The Dada Movement is Launched." Word of Dada quickly spread: Tzara's new review was purchased widely and found its way into every country in Europe, and its international status was established.
While the first two issues of Dada (the second appeared in December 1917) followed the structured format of Cabaret Voltaire, the third issue of Dada (December 1918) was decidedly different and marked significant changes within the Dada movement itself. Issue number 3 violated all the rules and conventions in typography and layout and undermined established notions of order and logic. Printed in newspaper format in both French and German editions, it embodies Dada's celebration of nonsense and chaos with an explosive mixture of manifestos, poetry, and advertisements‹all typeset in randomly ordered lettering.
The unconventional and experimental design was matched only by the radical declarations contained within the third issue of Dada. Included is Tzara's "Dada Manifesto of 1918," which was read at Meise Hall in Zurich on July 23, 1918, and is perhaps the most important of the Dadaist manifestos. In it Tzara proclaimed:

Dada: the abolition of logic, the dance of the impotents of creation; Dada: abolition of all the social hierarchies and equations set up by our valets to preserve values; Dada: every object, all objects, sentiments and obscurities, phantoms and the precise shock of parallel lines, are weapons in the fight; Dada: abolition of memory; Dada: abolition of archaeology; Dada: abolition of the prophets; Dada: abolition of the future; Dada: absolute and unquestionable faith in every god that is the product of spontaneity.

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