Category Archives: Crossover

Musica di confine / Crossover music

Rùt

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victor_ivaniv_and_muhmood_-_rut__front_

Published in 2008 by Enough Records

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A Million Billion

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A Million BillionA Million Billion is Ryan Smith based out of Queens, NYC. ‘Cavity Care’ is a collection of compositions that Ryan wrote in collaboration with several choreographers over the last 6 years.
These works are distinctively experimental in nature (especially the first four pieces), but also extremely dramatic and cinematographic in tone, and as a result most of the time they transport us to movie-like settings and places.

Download from Test Tube.

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Craque

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CraqueI like the rhythmic feeling of this work. Rhythm is the main stream around which all the sound moves. Rich rhythmic patterns that derivate from dub, hip hop, techno and other urban languages, but instead of driving us straight to the physical emotion center, they drive us to the ‘braindance’ center.

Craque is Matt Cooke-Davis. Download the whole album from Test Tube. Other works on Kahvi Collective.

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Umbrellas in the Rain

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Umbrellas in the RainUmbrellas in the Rain is the alias of an austrian musician from Vienna, and ‘Wieder Daheim’ – german for ‘Home Again’ – his first effort at creating something mature enough worth listening to (and worth releasing, for that matter…). Well, he did it, and with flying colours. ‘Wieder Daheim’ is a delicate collection of abstract songs that really grab one’s heart. They are experimental enough to wander in, but also emotional enough – to the point of being nostalgic – to keep us down to earth.

We can also find enough drones to keep us occupied and plenty of found sounds of everyday objects to let us dream away. The songs are filled with a lot of different instruments too, among guitars, keyboards and xylophones.

Download from Test Tube.

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Generative Music App

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bloom, trope, airBloom, Trope and Air are three applications developed by Brian Eno and the musician / software designer Peter Chilvers that brings to the cells the concept of generative music popularized by Eno.

Part instrument, part composition and part artwork, Bloom’s innovative controls allow anyone to create elaborate patterns and unique melodies by simply tapping the screen. A generative music player takes over when Bloom is left idle, creating an infinite selection of compositions and their accompanying visualisations.

Darker in tone, Trope immerses users in endlessly evolving soundscapes created by tracing abstract shapes onto the screen, varying the tone with each movement.

Air is described as “An endless Music for Airports”. It assembles vocal and piano samples into a beautiful, still and ever changing composition, which is always familiar, but never the same.
Air features four ‘Conduct’ modes, which let the user control the composition by tapping different areas on the display, and three ‘Listen’ modes, which provide a choice of arrangement. For those fortunate enough to have access to multiple iPhones and speakers, an option has been provided to spread the composition over several players.

Buy here

Long Desert Cowboy

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coverWhat kind of feeling puts together the barren solitude of Sergio Leone’s western spaghetti and the ultra heavy suspense of David Lynch’s complex dramas? Living in Alentejo [a south-central region of Portugal] may have something to do with it, but Daniel Catarino’s (aka Long Desert Cowboy) own life experiences and close contact with a deserted inland are most likely the paint in the canvas, or the roll in the camera, if you wish.

Catarino’s sounds are miles away from the common western soundtracks, but his works create a mood that reminds me both the deserted plains of Ry Cooder and the suspense of Twin Peaks (are you old enough?).

Published by Test Tube netlabel. Free download here.

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Slept

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coverA melancholic EP inspired by this beautiful image, realized by the polish artist Slept.

‘Slept. EP’ was inspired by the cover photo – taken by a friend of the artist – and contains the first tracks made as Slept.. No samples were used. It’s all original sounds.

A little easy for me, but enjoyable.

Published by Test Tube netlabel. Free download here.

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20 videos in B flat

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In this page you can find 20 musical videos to play together (or in any order). And the music will always be nice because they all are playing in B flat.

In Bb 2.0 is a collaborative music and spoken word project conceived by Darren Solomon from Science for Girls, and developed with contributions from users.

If your computer hold up the whole stuff, there is a Buddha Machine that plays continuously here.

Click the image for a little sample, but don’t forget to try the site.

Symphonies of the Planets 1

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coverIn the August and September 1977, two Voyager spacecraft were launched to fly by and explore the great gaseous planets of Jupiter and Saturn.
Voyager I, after successful encounters with the two, was sent out of the plane of the ecliptic to investigate interstellar space.
Voyager II’s charter later came to include not only encounters with Jupiter (1979) and Saturn (1981), but also appointments with Uranus (1986) and Neptune (1989).
The Voyagers are controlled and their data returned through the Deep Space Network, a global spacecraft tracking and communications system operated by the JPL for NASA.

Although space is a virtual vacuum, this does not mean there is no sound in space. Sound does exist as electronic vibrations. The especially designed instruments on board of the Voyagers performed special experiments to pick up and record these vibrations, all within the range of human hearing.

These recordings come from a variety of different sound environments, e.g. the interaction of the solar wind with the planet’s magnetosphere; electromagnetic field noise; radio waves bouncing between the planet and the inner surface of the atmosphere, etc.

In 1993 NASA published excerpts from these recordings in a set of 5 CD (30 minutes each) called Symphonies of the Planets (now out of print).

This is the CD 1.

Perle dimenticate

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coverNon c’è niente come rimettere in ordine una casa che contiene, fra l’altro, varie migliaia di dischi (CD e vinili) sparsi fra diversi mobili, per ritrovare cose che non ricordavi di avere. Orologi russi, vecchie foto in cui fai fatica a capire chi c’è e anche qualche disco che non ascoltavi da una vita.

Così, per caso, mi arriva in mano un disco di Julie Driscoll, vocalist di grande successo con Brian Auger & The Trinity nei roaring ’60, poi sposata Tippett (Keith) e convertita alla musica improvvisata e al jazz sperimentale in una carriera solistica ben più oscura di prima sotto il nome di Julie Tippetts (con una ‘s’ aggiunta).

Oscurità da cui, però, ogni tanto escono piccole perle come questo Sunset Glow, che risale al ’74, al confine fra jazz, canzone alla Wyatt (non è impossibile che sia proprio lui l’R a cui è dedicato il brano che vi presento) e un po’ di sperimentalismo. Gli altri musicisti del disco sono Brian Godding, guitars; il marito Keith Tippett, piano, harmonium; Mark Charig, cornet, tenor horn; il compianto Elton Dean, alto saxophone; Nick Evans, trombone; Brian Belshaw, bass; Harry Miller, bass; Louis Moholo, drums.