Labyrinth City

Last update: 30/10/2009

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Here are some experimental recordings I recently salvaged from a scratched DVD-R, found in one of my storage boxes, dating back to some time ago. Fbzzzzzzzt

Manipulated pre-recorded & emulated broken TV, radio, VCR sounds with feedback.

Shorter edit. Download the recording here. MP3, 320kbps. 00:16:15min:
http://www.mediafire.com/?dyodqmfzxqq
(copy & paste)

Slightly longer edit. Download the recording here. MP3, 320kbps. 00:25:18min:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ccwztgyozmz
(copy & paste)

Static & delay.

Download the recording here. MP3, 320kbps, 0:02:19min:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ntxnzggot2k
(copy & paste)

I bought a very cheap, dust-covered mixer from Cash Converters and tried to destroy it by maxing out all the signals and boosting the straight feedback loop past a channel's limit.


The following is a 3-minute extract of the intense 40-minute excercise... The result was the usual snapped dials but also unfortunately only a dead channel, slight clicking on another, and the panning messed up. But I ended up smashing it against the wall anyway. MP3, 320kbps, 0:03:01min:
http://www.mediafire.com/?otozxwkzutz
(copy & paste)

Held over two nights (7-8/11) at the State Library of Queensland in Southbank, Wireless Imagination/Mental Orchestrations was a festival of celestial recordings, discussions, and homebuilt instruments. It welcomed famed theorist Douglas Kahn who presented several films by artists working in the astronomical, radio & electromagnetics fields where they produce some startling, mind-blowing visuals coupled with accidental signals bouncing around within & out our atmosphere.

Profilic American theorist Douglas Kahn, throughout October & November and in association with the Australian Network for Art & Technology's Embracing Sound program, is touring Australia promoting the November 2009 Sound Art issue (#225) of the Art Monthly Australia magazine - of which he also guest-edited. (The issue also features many local musicians, and has a small exposé on the Audio Pollen Social Club.)

A Professor and the founding Director of Technocultural Studies at the University of California (Davis), Douglas Kahn's scholarly work is insanely sort-after as he delves deep into the historic and contemporary practice of art, music, sound, science, technology with a heavy emphasis on the avant-garde and bohemian activities of those involved. He's written a plethora of articles, papers, and a few books detailing his excursions into previously, largely overlooked electromagnetism, VLF, Futurists, noise vs. art territory.

Douglas' most celebrated work, 'Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio, and the Avant-Garde' (MIT Press, Amazon.com), draws together a collection of essays and newly translated documents addressing several 'gaps' that exist in the history of audio art. Also featuring profiles and discussion of works by artists such as John Cage, William Burroughs, Marcel Duchamp, it provided a summary of the period between 1886 & the 1960s when audio art was developing it's foundation to that of today's insanity.

On the Sunday session, 8th of November 2009, Douglas riffed and discussed with the audience subjects from his next major work 'Earth Sound Earth Signal': Trying to limit himself from that of the time when in 1876, Thomas Watson (assistant to inventor of the first practical telephone, Alexander Graham Bell) was listening to natural radio on the first telephone line at night for pleasure, not work (a major point in his work - somebody, over 130 years ago, was listening to static for pleasure! possibly the first electronic noise fan on record?) to more contemporary work from that of electro-receptor extraordinaire Thomas Ashcraft who records accidental radio signals being bounced in & around our atmosphere. Along with providing a small account of his life so far including his early musical ventures and other fields of research bound tightly to the technological revolutionary of course, it seems that Douglas will continue on with this quest to archive, insight debate, and open up minds to the all otherwise hidden audial & visual gems that surrounds us.

On the previous day, Saturday 7th of November 2009 and under the title 'The Cinema of Turbulent Transmissions', Douglas Kahn presented a few short films and sounds in one of the State Library's auditoriums:

• 'Altisonans' produced by Swedish composer Karl-Birger Blomdahl with assistance from physicist Ludvik Liszka. It was broadcasted uninterrupted in 1966 (Sweden only had one TV channel), and developed to test a theory that the Redwing, a common thrush, sounded acoustically similar to some satellites' radio telemetry emissions. Along with graphical data from photographic recordings of magnetic field fluctuations of the solar surface, oscilloscopic data and video-feedback, it certainly was one the strangest short-films to be broadcast on national TV - the public couldn't do anything about it, too. They were stuck with one of Blomdahl's experiments for twenty minutes.

• 'Brilliant Noise' and 'Black Rain' produced by UK duo Semiconductor Films. Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt make up the group that explore the techniques and materials used by NASA scientists & other agencies to confuse the raw, almost always noise-affected data with digital animation to reveal astounding unseen forces of nature.

• 'His Favourite Wife Improved or, The Virture Of Bad Reception' produced by critically hailed filmmaker Ken Jacobs is a short 3-minute piece that is a result of a storm creating bad reception on Ken's television signal as he tried to record one of his favourite films, 'His Favourite Wife'. He decided to keep the cut-up and distorted recording, and later edited it & publically screened it. I wasn't too sure why he bothered - I guess coming from a guy that made a 7-hour film that lambasted America (Star Spangled to Death), it's values and apparently declining state, he thought it would be another fun piece to mock the absurdity of mid-century American films where it presented Man & Wife as the ultimate goal in life. Cut it up and freeze the characters. Either that or, he knows how to use his devoted audiences as idiots: They'd lap anything up he'd serve them because he swims directly against the mainstream.

• Douglas selected some audio recordings by American artist and independent scientist Thomas Ashcraft. His work is primarily focused on capturing bouncing signals from objects inside and out our atmosphere, research into radio astronomy, philosophical aspects of sound, and exhibiting art all based out of New Mexico where he moved to from the Ozarks region in the United States some time ago. His work is admired by both professional astronomers, enthusiasts, and even the sound-art community alike. Also in an almost OCD-like routine, he has collected and archived over 15,000 films on the microorganisms that live in the rain barrels on his property near Santa Fe, New Mexico.

• 'Observando El Cielo' produced by artist and filmmaker Jeanne Liotta was finished in 2007 but was composed of seven years of celestial field recordings, shot from various locations, and the use of VLF is prevailent throughout. It has been labelled as one of the 10 best film of 2007 by Chrissie Illes (film & video curator of the Whitney Museum ) in Artforum magazine. The soundtrack was composed by fellow filmmaker Peggy Ahwesh and is a dense collage of radio recordings & noisy interference.

Over these two ear and eye-opening days, I was in equal parts of awe & admiration for the artists and people who were profiled in Douglas' presentations, and initially perplexed by some of the ideas being rapidly thrown at me. It takes some time to digest everything that is mentioned, particularly if you do not come from a scientific background. However, as the information finally settles in and makes more sense, you soon open yourself up & become susceptible to the natural & man-made beauty that exists in what you used to just pass-off as another thing, another object when it in fact has marvelous underlying properties that can be used for spiritual, philosophical, or artistic consumption.


(The previous night, Saturday 7th of November 2009, featured all artists performing at once and social night, tonight however, it's more of a showcase event.)

Tonight is the closing night for the festival. It's a showcase of various mind-bending musicians & artists held out on the terrace at the State Library of Queensland. Here's a rough drawing I did of the set-up.

Dylan Martorell is an insanely profilic artist, instrument builder, and composer from Melbourne. All of his work is meticulously constructed, unique, and truly organic (seen his studio?). His work ethic makes other artists look like lazy chumps, too. Performs in many collaborations and bands, most notably the Hi God People.

Dylan's set-up tonight was sprawled across the floor. Bells, delays, constructed instruments, rocks, cymbals, branches, string, drums, and with added help by Melanie Jade (Craft Bandits, Cupcake Club) on tubular bells, xylophone(?), and some other instruments I couldn't recognise in the distance.

A somber performance, Dylan in the midst of all his instruments, the night wind blowing through slightly pushing a few bells around, everybody sitting, crowded around his space.

An extract of the live recording:


(Copy & paste. Compressed from the raw file 16bit 1536kbps .wav format to .MP3 318kbps)

Gugg is a collaborative project between Melbourne weirdos Alex Vivian (Always) and Christopher L G Hill (Moffarfarrah, Krystoffkrvstoffiston). Both have been and still are in many bands than those listed there, and are artists in their own right. I don't know how they've come up with some of their work - much of it unique, interesting, and most definitely puzzling.

Sitting slightly facing one another, Gugg have a few pedals here & there, most prominent are the loopers & delays of course. It's all about their voices, anyway. Two very unassuming characters no more than 10 feet in front of me producing some truly fucked sounds from the air in the lungs expelled out through their esophagi and into some shitty microphones. Sounds like a valley of Smurfs all simultaneously high and performing a Pagan ritual only to summon a bad witch that ends up stealing their skincoats.

An extract of the live recording:

(Contact me for the entire recording!)

Botborg is an international collaboration that employs a complex array of self-made & bent electronics to produce a unique, often extremely visceral multi-sensory live performance.

Nowhere to be seen, Botborg projects glitched, fucked non-descript visuals onto the massive wall with both facing speakers & subwoofer being taken over by this mysterious act - the soundguy has no control, Botborg rips a hole in the speaker covers and produces a deafening glitched-out drone attack with filtered feedback on the foreground. Half-way through the drone stops, a disguised voice presents itself, and then the speakers are pushed to their proverbial breaking point: A synth-organ comes into the mix, the feedback is getting more chaotic, people around me are blocking their ears! The visuals are sending the witnesses into a comatose state, I'm rocking back & forth, someone throws up the horns, the all-encompassing sound is being projected several suburbs away ("What the fuck is that?! Is that a jet?"). We're leaving the ground, sucked up toward the roof and being thrown around the room with our eyes rolled back into our heads.

Botborg strode in, chins high, looking down to the other artists, and beamed in a transcending, ear-piercing transmission in this open balcony. Jaws dropped, bottles burst, dogs barked in the distance. Nothing even comes remotely close to a Botborg performance - it's an experience that is akin to being thrown, naked & drugged, into a super collider.

(Recording omitted!)

Michael Donnelly was the founder of the (recently) buried Music Your Mind Will Love You label of which Pacific Soma has taken it's place just above it's shallow grave. Also an artist, musician, he's collaborated with many from the East Coast, and was one of the founders of the infamous Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood. And then there's of course the mystikal 6Magik9, Innig, his electronic solo-act Terracid, etc.

Michael is situated in an enclave and hiding away from the rest of the artists on the main floor. He's deconstructed a bicycle and added various whistles, mic'd drums, into a all-encompassing instrument with the usual delays on the ground. Two amps in front of him and larger speakers in the main room make for a weird mix, particularly when I'm seated close to the enclave. But an advantage is that I'm no longer in an ear-shot of the socializing jerks dropping beer bottle caps in the back - a dedicated sect up the front creating a sound barrier, just this Old Man from the mountains confronting us with an instrumental glazed-eye dirge.

An extract of the live recording:

Download the full recording:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ytjtmdym35r

(Copy & paste. Compressed from the raw file 16bit 1536kbps .wav format to .MP3 318kbps)

Chloe Cogle is a locally based artist with a primary focus on cinematic imagery fused with obscure history & imagined memory and tangential narratives.

Chloe is perched up on a mezzanine and is projecting distorted, aged photographs of cemeteries and ghosts on the large wall, delivering a spoken-word history lesson on Dutton Park Cemetery - one of her much covered subjects in the past. As each slide moves to the next, there's a loud clicking sound and the backing feedback produces an uneasy performance to watch. There's an occasional beat and her voice soon becomes deeper, the visuals of empty fields, tombstones, ghosts, if it weren't for all the people around me, I'd be kinda freaking out and looking around me. The lightswitch isn't that far, I could totally make a run for it...

(Recording omitted!)

Alex Cuffe is another locally based sound artist with a distinct philosophical approach toward his work and the use of innovative, unique self-made instruments.

From a two-second look as I rush past Alex to the other side of the room to record his performance through some other speakers, his set-up consists of a self-made instrument called 'The Bee', jars of water, and air-pumps & filters commonly found in fish-tanks then fed through various electronics to produce one of the strangest yet most simple sounds I've heard. Sublime, and being one of the few people on the other side of the room, very relaxing - I had to leave the recorder on a bench so I could lay down.

An extract of the live recording:

Download the full recording:
http://www.mediafire.com/?yt4mhtzwomi

(Copy & paste. Compressed from the raw file 16bit 1536kbps .wav format to .MP3 318kbps. You can hear one of Dylan Martorell's bells throughout because I was seated right next to it. Also, a special appearance: The uncontrollable-sneezing lady!)

Andrew McLellan is best known from his ever-changing, evolving project Cured Pink Radio - an act that always surprises, never knowing what'll happen. Timothy Tate is a young, locally-based classically-taught composer, thereminist, and artist.

Andrew & Timothy's set-up consists of two large suspended, mic'd metal bars, various electronics, and Timothy's impressive, wood-cased self-made synthesizer. Andrew opens up by screaming into the bar, Timothy scraping various parts of his suspended bar with a violin bow that is routed through & out his synthesizer creating varying effects most notably a short delay. Soon Andrew brings out a range of instruments to abuse his metal bar with - the vibrators are used to create drone that are only interrupted by him violently hitting the bar with drum-sticks, his body, his head, anything. Timothy is calm as he scrapes the bar and messes with his synthesizer, contrasting Andrew's increasingly erratic behavior until the whole suspension system breaks. An impenetrable, messy collaboration between these two very different musicians.

(Recording omitted!)

N4rgh1l3 is Lloyd Barrett and Andrew Thompson in visuals & electronic manipulated-drone collaboration.

For most of the performance I was distracted and didn't focus enough on the sounds to provide an accurate, nay worthwhile-to-read description here. Though taking cues from Douglas Kahn's theoretical and practical interests in electromagnetism which he displayed over the last two days, N4rgh1l3 produces static, humming sounds reminiscent of the crackling signals being bounced around up there, toward the decaying layer. The Macbook laptop performances don't do much for me - once you'd heard one... - but the sound elements that occasionally pop up so entice me to focus more on the speakers than looking through the programme to see what's next.

(Recording omitted!)

Ross Manning is a Queensland-based artist with interests in custom electronics, sculpture, self-made instruments.

Ross is situated toward the other side of the room with a large crowd surrounding him as he persistently scrapes & plucks the self-made mic'd-up zither-like instrument producing a reverb-drenched drone with shifting pitches. The metal scraping in the foreground is largely a result of the acoustics and the rattling pieces stuck onto the instrument. Ross becomes increasingly violent as the performance wears on and finishes with a deathly blow to a bass-heavy chord that makes me jump in my seat!

An extract of the live recording:

Download the full recording:
http://www.mediafire.com/?mdcdjwmeztz

(Copy & paste. Compressed from the raw file 16bit 1536kbps .wav format to .MP3 318kbps.)

The main event tonight is The Vessel - a massive self-made instrument conceived by noise-sculpture visionary Rod Cooper and created/performed with help from fellow artists Dale Chapman, Michael Prior, Dale Gorfinkel, and Anthony Magen. It was brought up on the back of Rod's truck from Melbourne - which would have looked and sounded quite interesting on the ol' M1.

The Vessel is a huge, encompassing structure placed in the center of the room with all the creators surrounding it. In the shape of a boat with a sails reaching out to each side, abstract, distorted visuals are projected onto the fabric. Improvised horns, wandering around the darkened room, all four speakers being utilized for a surround-sound effect. All members are wearing transparent-white suits and it appears Rod is naked underneath it all - he keeps his attention on the Vessel and striking several metal mic'd up chords fed through various electronic gear on the floor. A separate amp is hooked up to what appears to be some kind of Board Weevil device & several static-producing circuits on an adjoining desk. Metal sheets are scraped, struck, a barrel is occasionally thrown around. As the performance wears on, the bass increases in volume until the audience's bodies are filled, our hearts skip a beat.

Multiple parts of the Vessel consist of a myriad of mic'd up bars, strings, that the members chaotically strike. The static from the small amp is prevalent throughout and keeps the pace with the odd burst of rhythmic white noise. The volume increases as the performance draws to a close, the pulsating noise from the surrounding four speakers keep us lead-footed and the strange visuals keep our eyelids glued open. The barrel is repeatedly struck and random metal chords are occasionally hit only to segue into a anarchistic, operatic closure to this monolithic performance that could have lasted days.

An extract of the live recording:

(Contact me for the entire recording!)

All recordings produced by Labyrinth City and a shitty small hand-held 4-channel recorder (FYI: the streaming extracts have been compressed severely by SoundCloud). My email address is:

thelabyrinthcity -at- gmail -dotcom-

Thank you to the organisers, speakers, and all of the artists who performed. And for those who couldn't make it to the event: Do a quick search for the artists. Go to their shows. Usually free anyway. Or track down their recordings. These are some the most exciting and interesting musicians out there at the moment. Search for them and ye will find something that'll blow your mindgrapes.

Brown's Life Pro-tips Agency, Part 3.

#20. Two days in the same undies is fine, a day without brushing your teeth is not. Wash away those furs or your underwear won't be in her hamper.

#21. Look in the fridge to find there's nothing to eat. Check again in 10 minutes.

#22. Stick it to the man. Piss on the floor.

#23. Eat at Queen Street Hungry Jacks. Enjoy the hookworm.

#24. Go wall-eyed. Stare at cleavage.

#25. Graduate university. Live for the weekend.

#26. Create a blog. Forget about it after three updates.

#27. Get into a relationship. Don't talk to your friends.

#28. All girls naturally think that guys would rape them at any opportunity. So, guys, when you're accidently stuck walking a distance behind a girl and there aren't many people around: Stop, drop, and re-tie your shoe-laces. Check your phone. Look around in your bag for something. Walk the opposite direction and wait for a while before walking toward your original destination... for this is the thought-process the girl in front believes you have: "Okay, I've got my wallet, phone, keys... I know I'm forgetting something here. Hmmm. Oh, right! I haven't committed my morning rape yet!"

#29. Nothing on the telly. Watch it anyway.

#30. Do it tomorrow.

#31. Listen to noise music; Turn on a rusty faucet.

#32. Don't do the dishes. Use paper plates & cups.

#33. Pretend to read Pynchon on the train. Pick up the chicks.

#34. Haven't washed the pants yet. Use Febreeze.

#35. Take your kids to the art gallery. They're cultured.

#36. Be punk. Start on time.

#37. Be post-punk. Live at home.

#38. Watch Juno. Secretly.

#39. Hole in the pants. Don't free-ball it.

Best wishes,
Brown.

Part of the American Impressionism & Realism exhibit at the Queensland Art Gallery, the Gallery of Modern Art's cinematheque has a dual film program on at the moment and until September: The Age of Innocence - a retrospective of defining American period dramas, and Hollywood On The Hudson which focuses on turn of the 20th century films - largely shot in New York - with a live score accompanying the odd. Today, I'm seeing a film from the latter program.

Love 'Em and Leave 'Em, directed by Frank Tuttle, is a 1926 film about two sisters that, as luck would have it, are two points of a love triangle. The original tagline, as pointed out by the curator, was 'Laughs - Laughs - Laughs!' and there's some "terrific shots of a New York department store!". Oh shit son. Today the film is accompanied by a live Wurlitzer theatre organ score by David Bailey (who also did a few last year at the German Expressionism program).

In dramatic and damn-near operatic fashion, Bailey rises from the basement & plays a short song before the film starts. Mame & Janie Walsh are two orphaned sisters who live together in a small apartment and both work at a department store. From the first scenes, it is apparent they're just sick of each other: Mame is the responsible, sensible, fragile older sister whilst Janie is her opposite. Aside from these differing & conflicting personality types a man slowly tears them further apart: Bill Billingsley, a co-worker and all-round jerk.

Bill & Mame gradually get closer to each other as they're picked to dress the department store windows however Bill soon is credited with some of Mame's ideas that draw in the crowds. Bill doesn't care. Mame's still there with him, she even tells him that she loves him when Bill asks. Jerk. It is only when Mame is away on a trip that Janie steps in and lets Bill take advantage of her. They fall in love - Bill's got enough to spread it around - but Mame's got an idea in her head that Bill is ready for marraige. She comes back to find Bill & Janie sharing a kiss, and with an audience she holds back her tears with an impromptu celebration of her sister & Bill's love whilst trying to make him jealous by seducing the local track tipster Lem, proclaiming that she just "... love's 'em and leaves 'em, who cares!..."

On to the third act of this catatrosphy and Janie's in trouble from betting all of tonight's charity dance fund on the ponies. Lem's tricked her, stole the eighty she would have won and only gave back her twenty, she's got to find a hundred by tonight or Mame, whose been blamed for all of this nonetheless because only her & Janie knew where the funds were kept and Janie's tight-lipped, will be reported to the police by Miss Streeter, one of the department store heads. Oh the drama, the sisterly love, the backstabbing, I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to take a piss!

Mame, being the big sister and taking responsibility once again, concocts a plan to seduce Lem & steal the money back whilst Janie keeps up appearances at the dance tonight. She fights Lem - with him actually throwing furniture & hits at her! - finally gets the upper-hand and returns the money all the while Bill has second-thoughts about being a jerk & fucking her sister, he runs back to Mame. In an entirely realistic twist, she takes him back regardless of: Taking all the credit for the great window dressing, tricking her into loving him, fucking her sister whilst she's away & thinking he might ask her to marry her so she cuts the trip short just for him, and him being a plain-old bore.

Love 'Em and Leave 'Em is what I imagine Germaine Greer watched when she was in her teens and then the cause for her to grow her under-arm hair long & burn her bras: Mame Walsh, played by Evelyn Brent (in one of her first main roles), is the archetype fragile woman just looking for The One, anybody could be that one, anyone will do. Janie, played by Louise Brooks (silent-film darling & once described Greta Garbo - after a supposed one-night-stand - as a "charming & tender lover"), uses her looks & her vagina to get ahead in life. Bill Billingsley - Lawrence Gray - doesn't care who he gets, just one of them will do. Maybe both, if they're willing. A delightfully boring, played-by-the-numbers film about looking for love. If it weren't for the combination of David playing the organ up the front, the rain outside, and the fleeting-but-always-hopeful idea that I might run into The One out in the gallery afterward, I would have picked up my handbag earlier and left before the second act.

Brown's Life Pro-tips Agency

Dear Rachael,

In response to your letter you sent via the oddly still-operating pony express line, I have drawn up some tips for the various life dilemmas you had outlined in detail. I hope these tips will help you and I thank you for using Brown's Life Pro-tips Agency in your time of distress.

#1. When you attend a gig alone, make sure to periodically check your mobile phone, type out a few fake text-messages, perhaps even make a pretend phone-call (checking your credit balance works) - to give the impression that you're waiting for a friend. Do all of this with a face that reads of frustration, checking your watch, look around the room sometimes on the tips of your toes, all to create the appearance that your friend is running late.

#2. Always 'Appear Offline' on MSN Messenger or any social networking website so that no-one spots you online on a Friday night.

#3. If you're at work or at a friend's house and you need to take a shit, make sure to put a handful of toilet paper in the bowl first so that no-one overhears a splash from the bathroom.

#4. When someone visits your household, place some conversational pieces around: The best of your CD collection, a few critically acclaimed books, an art piece. However, if the visitor asks about said pieces just shrug them off as if they're nothing.

#5. Don't drink black coffee before 9AM - if you do, please revert to #3.

#6. Everybody loves an Aspergers Syndrome sufferer: Constantly link-surf Wikipedia articles and take in the information. You don't need to know everything about what you read, just the basics - people will think you're interesting if you've got a wide range of interests regardless of the depth of your intelligence in any area.

#7. Develop a loving relationship with irony for it will get you very far with the current fashion and social trends. If you can't bear yourself to succumb to irony, attend as many gigs and just be everywhere - people will love you for just 'being there': "Oh you were at the last gig, right?" Instant credit and rectification of #1.

#8. When you're at a video-store and you want to watch the latest Amanda Bynes film but you wish not to be looked down or strangely at by the store clerk, make sure to also hire-out a few out-there films to counter-act and throw off the clerk: I recommend foreign and horror films. 'Man Bites Dog' and 'The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave', perhaps?

#9. When you're alone in a laundromat with a person of the opposite gender and both sitting there awkwardly, make sure you're entertaining yourself with something: Girls tend to call a girlfriend and talk incessantly for the remainder of the clothes-washing process thus ensuring that they don't have to talk to a boy there. Boys, I don't have any good advice. Maybe just take a walk outside?

#10. Windy days wreak havoc on your hair. If you wish to check that your locks are still in place and you're in the public-sphere, walk near a shop window and subtletly check yourself out, make the necessary adjustments further on down your path, wink at random boy on bike.

Wishing you the best in life,
Brown.