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The Attic Bat 2009 Mixtape: These Days

Surprise MP3

Necessary track. Cruise with this.

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New England Loops

DOWNLOAD HERE(the above image is the alternate album art for the EP. It is quite different from the art included in the .zip download but if you like it more, feel free to use it)

It was only after I felt like I truly understood what Steve Reich meant when he talked about "gradual process" music that I began to delve into ambient music. Or maybe it was only after working on some ambient music of my own that I began to understand how important gradual processes are in creating ambient soundscapes.

Like most people, I'm sure, who consider their music "ambient," Brian Eno has had a major influence on how I have come to auralize (made-up word; visualizing with your ears) the genre, with other key musicians and artists being Sigur Ros, Bjork, and Mum, all coming from a strong Icelandic tradition which places a heavy emphasis on ambient, evolving textures. Yet Eno has always amazed me, as you can tell from reading previous blog posts, with his ability to specialize in multiple specialties; popular music producer, "classical" musician, philosopher. He even has his own website which contains VERY awesome and deep blogs and articles about interesting philosophical and musical topics. I guess I have been inspired by Eno in more ways than I really know right now, and I think that is what he would want out of any of his students.

Unfortunately, a lot of ambient composers tend to fall into a very typical mold which can best be described as soothing and secure, using software synthesizers that any middle school with any experience at garageband could recognize. A more important lesson is found in the way Eno approached his ambient compositions, the key concept here being that of gradual process. If we can understand how gradual process manifests itself across various compositional environments, we stop restricting ourselves to-what have become-typical ways of structuring our music. For Steve Reich, gradual process was very goal-oriented, the actual process manifesting itself (generally) in the melodic content of the piece (as is the case in most of his chamber music pieces, Eight Lines in particular, Music for 18 Musicians...) , or the physical content of what creates the process (Pendulum Music, Come Out, It's Gonna Rain). In this method, the process is very obviously audible to the listener, as Reich has noted as his intention. For Brian Eno, the result was much more indeterminate, as we can hear in "Music For Airports," where various tape loops of unequal lengths are juxtaposed. Aside from liberating the musical result from any obviously perceptible rhythm or meter, it also prevented the result from ever being decided completely by Eno himself. While he created the single fragments of musical material, the juxtapositions could never possibly be realized fully, especially when taking into account the length of his loops being just under an hour.

This is the route I took in creating the four tracks on "New England Loops," and I was very happy with the result. Other influences, such as Aphex Twin's collection of Ambient Works (Vol. 1 and 2) got me thinking of how the typical term ambient music could manifest itself across musical genres, particularly in the realm of IDM, hardcore techno, and breakcore. The use of TR-808 samples in many of the New England Loops is partly an attempt to fuse hip-hop and ambient music, but was more likely used because the 808 is the most dope drum machine EVER.

I know these tracks are kind of long and somewhat difficult to sit through at points, but I hope you enjoy them. I made them just after graduating college, returning home for the summer and thinking about how much I love New England. STRAIGHT UP.

Crate Digging

If there is one aspect of the information age which fascinates me more than anything it is the way we have come to store data. From our earliest days of school we are taught to memorize rules, formulas, models, traditions, names, dates, and numbers all without really ever synthesizing these bits and pieces into a coherent whole. We are expected to capture these fleeting moments of history without losing step with our present state of anxiety, otherwise we may run the risk of digging ourselves into one of the many categories of "Other" that the traditions have established for us. Yet the impossible aspect of time lay in it's indeterminacy. Much of the data that we have come to inherent has come from a source that no living, sentient being of our time has any real, tangible connection to, and because of this we continue to attempt to impose an identity onto the past. Unfortunately the identity we often propose is consciously out of touch with the way we currently live our lives. For example, older and younger generations alike always speak of the "golden age" or "the way it used to be," thus establishing the past as something "Other" to how we live now (You have to admit that our perception of the present is, in most cases, very pessimistic and apocalyptic). What this worldview does is take the responsibility of life away from us in this very moment; by living with a constant yearning for something better or more pure in some way, we assume that our existence is simply a precious gem that is gradually chipped away at until we die. In reality, nothing has ever really changed with the exception of our perception of the past. We have come to archive the history of humankind as some sort of exhibit at an archaeological museum, as we constantly glorify the "geniuses" of the past. I'm not gonna lie, I think Bach is the most wonderful composer ever to live, but it has nothing to do with the content (data) of his output. It is because he learned how to synthesize the past into a coherent, all-too-human music of his time.

Constantly attempting to emulate the geniuses of the past is good for the beginner's mind, as it reflects the way children come to learn much of their foundational knowledge. Fortunately, a majority of our lives is spent with the ability to critically reflect on that foundational knowledge; we should naturally (hopefully) strive in our post-childhood years to synthesize our environment-past, present, and future-into a coherent, meaningful existence. I'm not going to continue with that rant, rather I will now attempt to explain how collecting vinyl records has helped me get away from that one-dimensional view of history and data storage.

First and foremost the vinyl record is typically collected in a context akin to a musical graveyard, as past stars lives, careers, and passions are stacked away in dusty crates never really expecting to be revived, particularly not in a way that would gain them monetary reward. It is a physical product that the listener can feel, whether or not he or she had any connection at all with the artist. We can see the inconsistencies in the record; the textures of the orchestration become visible as fewer grooves allow us to locate more intimate areas of the music such as drum breaks or solo passages, wear from the previous owner's experience have shaped the wax in ways that have harmed or helped the music. It is a very raw experience to drop the needle on a record that may not have been listened to for decades. In any case, the physical presence of the record forces us to care for the object in a way which is very much lost in the digital environment, where bits and pieces of data may be lost among fields of virtual networks. One can lose their entirely library of digital music just because of a power outage.

The actual experience of digging for records has caused me to look much deeper into every aspect of music, whether musical, societal, or emotional. We can see who played on what records by looking into the jacket of a vinyl, who produced which artist, how individual styles change over the years and which musicians help in those transitions. The entire experience of our musical traditions are contained within the vinyl jacket before we even listen to the music. With the CD, we are often asked to purchase the music before we can read the little that the major labels care to write about the music, and with the digital download, we lose the holistic experience of music altogether and we are just left with the bits and pieces of digital data that we began with as a child who has yet to learn how to communicate effectively.

You can now see how I am beginning to relate this to my previous posts, as we began to see that music is much more than bits and pieces of information that we are supposed to memorize and "understand" apart from any sort of social, humanistic framework. The past does not simply exist for us to frame it and put it on our mantle for our friends to see at social gatherings, in the same way that classical music is not simply a field restricted to the class hierarchies of the concert hall. Music is music, and people are people and they have been that way since the beginning of time. I know that seems like a cliche thing to say, but it thoroughly sums up what I am trying to say, and if we really stop and think about it we may finally be able to appreciate it for what it is.

This post was initially supposed to be a simple plug for a recently opened Portsmouth record shop that Dennis told me about called "Odyssey and Oracle." I went there yesterday and I felt really good after leaving, especially after finding "Love to Love You Baby" by Donna Summer on 45. Sorry I got so sidetracked. CHECK IT OUT at 100 Albany Street.

For Poets and Dancers

DOWNLOAD THE ALBUM HERE: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EUHV0TH8

I’m definitely more of a traditionalist when it comes to making beats. As a drummer I feel a closer artistic connection to the Latin gangs of New York who would form dance bands to perform at block parties, than to the image of the producer as mad scientist in the lab. The main reason I got into electronic music production was to create new sonic experiences­ for myself, but—contrary to what you might think if you have heard any of my early “classical” electronic works—this goal has always been directed outward as well as inward.  While I have certainly been influenced by the “mad scientists” of electronic music such as Stockhausen, Lucier, Dr. Dre, or the RZA, my approach has ultimately been directed at the question, “How can I eventually perform this material live?” And as a further stipulation, without just standing alone in front of a laptop.

My previous attempts at recreating this “old school” break-centered hip-hop aesthetic focused on using live drums to supplement a DJ set which I had less control of than I would like. Working on this set of beat sketches, remixes, and rehashing of old material, I was able to focus simply on the raw sound that I wanted to project. The dirty, live breakbeat sound that I envision one hearing as they come closer and closer to the party until they are finally enveloped by it. It is the sound that I imagine coming from the early soundsystems of Coxsone Dodd in Kingston, or Kool Herc’s parties in the Bronx, or one of James Brown’s concerts. Overpowering bass and noisy, juxtaposed loops; everybody dancing and shouting and having a good time.

Unfortunately I feel like our societal values concerning music are drifting further away from the sensual aspect. In every sphere of music we seem to care more about the virtuosity of the performers than the immediate, pre-cerebral response that our bodies feel before our minds have a chance to think about it. It is happening in rock and pop music now just as much as it has been going on in classical concert music for years. The thing is, people tend to forget that a Mozart concert was a wild, spontaneous experience in the same way that Public Enemy’s Terminator X could rock an improvisational DJ set to a similar audience reaction/participation. Hearing J.S. Bach with that mindset allows one to experience his music with fresh and vibrant ears.

All I really long for in music is that musical environment in which the audience completely envelops the artist, so as to establish itself as one with him or her in the musical experience. There is no distance in perspective; nobody is better or worse than the other, and it is acknowledged that the artist hopes to dig as deeply into this music as the audience does. “A music made by everyone” as Cage would say.

Every beat in this set is named after some aspect of my childhood. This is in part a response to the legacy that Billy Martin (of Medeski, Martin, and Wood) set when he released his three volume set of breakbeats, with the third installment containing beats named after friends and streets from his home neighborhood. Yet I also did this because these simply instrumental beats remind of what music was to me before I got so deeply involved with it. Before I started writing essays about music, or practicing for hours a day, music was simple, easily accessible, and immune from various forms of judgment. While I am always striving to experience more from music in various ways, including writing about it or philosophizing for hours about its hidden meanings, I never forget those experiences that make me love the art so much.

I hope you can find some use for these beats, whether you want to rhyme over them, dance to them, or just listen to them while cruising. Music for use in a way Hindemith would never have imagined. GET DOWN!!

-Mike D. a.k.a. The Attic Bat, 2009

 

East 101 rehearsals, Garage band jams with my bro, hanging with Apeshit, pause tape Green Day mixes, bedroom jams at Melling Glen, Matt and I recording our voices and reversing them EMKCUFBOB!!!, The Green Boys with Andy Russell, Acoustic jams and singing with Burger, 48 hour albums, Broadway rocks!, playing with Mary G., first experiences with vinyl (Aerosmith “Dream On”), Attic Bat recording sessions with JKM, listening to Liquid Swords with Jon Briggs, Farspeeker recording sessions at Todd’s, Apeshit performing in CMs basement on St. Patty’s Day, recording with Perry and Amos, drumset jams and poking Matt’s eye out with a drumstick, John Herman and the Man Who Was Thursday, Martin Walker and the Meaning of Life, messing with Pat Boutwell’s Voyager, Soul Propaganda, guitar Fridays, parties in Fred’s basement, GIVE HIM YOUR COAT AS WELL, making dirty cymbals with Stake, RAW BEATS IN THE EPG

Yesterday's New Universe

As a follow-up to my previous post i'll give a couple seemingly contrary examples of what an ideal reconciliation of classical and romantic modes of thought might look like. 

To sum up my previous point I may simply say that too many people, especially in positions of cultural authority, take sides in so many divisions rather than attempting a true reconciliation of opposing views. While this idea of reconciliation may just seem like an easy way out of actually dealing with two sides of a debate, the way I envision it actually involves a much more personal journey into each opposing side of the division. It is not simply taking the moderate political viewpoint because one has not dedicated the energy to understand both sides; It could better be described as coming to cure a schizophrenic through the use of dogmatic reason. To truly live comfortably in both sides of a situation, not as an outside observer, but as one who has vested personal interests in multiplicity. 

The first example I will give is Brian Eno. With an extensive discography in both classical and popular worlds, underground and mainstream genres, as musician and producer, he epitomizes the whole concept of the dialectic. Two worlds constantly in dialogue; Eno fits just as well producing top hits in the pop music industry as he does sitting alone in the studio experimenting with spliced tape. Even more admirable, he has managed to sell these sound experiments to the same crowds that are buying U2. He did not have to tell the audience that he made "Music For Airports" by splicing together reel-to-reel fragments of varying duration, yet the sounds he produced were naturally accessible to his audience because one could recognize the quality that he put into it as uniquely Eno. There is no gimmick or bridge between the "intellectual" world of experimental music and the "sensual" world of popular music; It all exists as quality, limitless art.

The key concept I hope to stress is that art has always been limitless. The rules and traditions that we place on the music of the past come after the fact, and the reality is many of the artists society has come to view (on a very general level) as somehow stuffy or boring were radicals in their time. J.S. Bach was creating art as a prelude to rational, enlightened thought. The philosophy of the time taught the enlightened individual to apply reason and logic to his or her daily life in an effort to bring order to the world. Yet while we typically learn of him as a solely rational composer who laid the foundation for our Western tradition (in terms of our understanding of its technical elements such as harmony and form) we miss those little details about his work which stand as exceptions to our conventional understanding of him. Key concepts in this case include being skilled as both a sacred and secular composer, AND conveying the importance of the affect in both worlds. It is this way of extremely pursuing emotion to brink of chaos, which gave his music such an energetic, unrestrained quality. The harpsichord solo in the fifth Brandenburg Concerto stands as a perfect example of our failure, as a supposed tradition, to come to terms with Bach's perfectly synthetic resolution of multiplicity. Basically, the music reaches everybody because it focuses on quality and not dogma.

Focusing on these two examples of Bach and Eno we begin to see the true importance of the Western tradition, aside from the myth of cultural "progress"; that being one of quality and synthesis of binary oppositions. Open-mindedness and dedication. Understanding why we actually care about the past allows us to approach the present in a fresh way. Of course, acceptance of this new understanding and the importance of diversity which it entails does seem to break down the conventional dialogue surrounding culture, but that has always been pretty boring anyway. Listen to Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" in its entirety, then listen to Eno's "Music For Airports." If you can get yourself to experience these two works on a purely aesthetic level, away from musical analysis or compositional understanding then you will get that much closer to understanding what I think is really missing from our culture in every sense. Yet you would then only be halfway there. Next comes form, compositional techniques, harmonic structures, tape-splicing, electronic music, and the fugal subject.

I think that's where we have always been as a culture and society. Halfway there.

One-Dimensional Man

A prelude: I do not plan on re-reading these posts after I write them. They mostly exist for myself so I may be able to somewhat organize my thoughts. I hope you can get beyond any grammatical errors so we may discuss the more important issues in the content, if you wish.

A middle-class family sits around the dinner table, long after the meal is done. There is a spirited discussion concerning nationalistic biases, social stereotypes, and political issues, with input coming from representatives of three generations. There is attacking and defending of perspective, morality, and personal values, but there is certainly an air of detachment in the dialogue which allows for all issues to be resolved while also allowing for quick and painless subject changes. There are big issues that arise for sure; issues that change the direction of an entire life. Yet there is a sense of conservative calm which, in the end, chooses to resolve the dialectical tensions that may have eventually forced someone to actually reflect on their own, personal world view. 

At one point in the discussion a generational gap was pointed out between the youth of the sixties and the youth of today, in regards to why my generation seems so apathetic. "Why aren't you guys storming the administration buildings like we did?" Moving completely away from this particular situation, I am going to provide an answer which hopefully synthesizes a lot of the ideas I have been reflecting on but have been too lazy to write down.

The entire history of Western thought has been a constant process of creating binary oppositions. The Ancient Greeks took the most famous philosophical binary of all, good versus evil, from the mythos (religion for the purpose of this discussion). Our morality is thus shaped in a way that we view good as superior to evil.  Another opposition which I find interesting is that of reality versus appearance, because although the division itself is certainly ambiguous outside of the realm of metaphysics, we still seem to blindly favor a "reality" which can always and absolutely be achieved by rational methods in some form or another. In as few sentences as possible, this is a two-thousand year tradition which has seeped through every aspect of our Western civilization, from the most psychological to the most universally accepted truths of society and culture. I'd love to spend more time on this thesis, but I'd rather apply it to a situation and give it some sort of social significance.

In reply to the question of our generation's assumed apathy, I presented this problem of binary oppositions and dialectical thought. It is our system of thought at it's very core and in it's most pervasive form which has defined our "modern" world. Yes, Marxism divided society into the "haves" and the "have-nots," favoring the revolutionary proletariat over the oppressive bourgeoisie, and from that point on the oppressed lower classes were forever limited to proletarian revolution. Unfortunately, Capitalism (which we have come to accept as superior to it's binary opposite) has created it's own division of society into the individual versus the collective. So now we have all of these multiple divisions working together to further and further divide. Yet although we can never (with objective assurance) pinpoint any individual into a specific category, we continue to hold onto this system of rational thought in hopes of finding some higher truth or reality which will somehow help us avoid living our lives based on appearances. 

Why am I not storming the White House to stop this? We are far beyond binary oppositions in terms of the way the younger generation naturally perceives it's world. We understand that the triumph of good over evil (or hippie over dean of college in this argument) is not so black or white anymore, and that the level of complexity in our cultural environment solely based on the fact that the internet exists has increased drastically. While this seems common sense to many, it takes a constant critical reflection of both the self and anything we consider "other" to really live up to the open-minded attitude which this ambiguity creates. 

Perhaps the most problematic division we have created is between what has come to be known as "high" and "low." In creating this division, the entire metaphysical tradition of critical thought and self-reflection has greatly limited itself. To even call academia "liberal" or "conservative" just plays into this dehumanizing opposition. What is needed is a true synthesis of the rationality of academia with the emotionality of popular culture, unfortunately the entire rational mode of thinking and dividing things into categories has crippled any path toward progress. Meanwhile in popular culture, the drive for money and profit has prevented critical thought and social progress in everything from art to healthcare. 

I don't expect this situation to change anytime soon, I think all I have ever asked of both myself and my society is to continue to critique our situation and to keep an open mind as much as possible despite everything. Unfortunately I have even marginalized many important things in creating this blog, yet I have a lot more to say with seemingly unlimited web space. Utilizing the technology of our generation also seems to be an important aspect of my life. You would be surprised at how many people of our age are still afraid of music made with machines.