She's A Lady

The news reporter is watching you! Right there from his 1984 vantage point!

Charlotte Moorman (who has a much thicker southern accent than I ever would have expected) plays Nam June Paik's TV Cello.

This would take place in 1984. What a woman! What an instrument!

Sit Down / Stand Up

I'm sending you to a ten-minute interview with Matmos that is worth every precious second. I mean, how many times have you heard someone say: "So I went out and recorded a chin implant, three nose jobs, liposuction..."? Or how about: "We chained a piano to a truck and dragged it around the desert until it was destroyed"?

These guys are my heroes.

Check out more music projects at Snapshots Music and Arts Foundation.

It'll Be Just As Quiet When I Leave

I mean: the orchestra's just a construct, so why not deconstruct?

Concerto for Solo Conductor Without Orchestra
Composed: Francis Schwartz
Performed: Roberto-Juan Gonzalez

Everybody In The Place Get Wild / I Know That You Like My Style

In the words of youtube user seamusfinnigan2000: "sir please clone yourself!! aaaaa!!"





(Richard Grayson's youtube channel will steal your time and never give it back.)
(metafilter)

I'm Still Figuring Out What's Going To Go / In My Experimental Film

It's Experimental Music Wednesday, and today we're featuring The Friction Brothers: Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello), Michael Zerang (percussion), and Michael Colligan (dry ice). Yes dry ice can I get a what(?) It doesn't replace my fondness for the acoustic cactus, but it does expand the repertoire.



(Disclaimer: it's not as though Experimental Music Wednesdays are a regular feature on this blog. So why now? Because The Friction Brothers are coming to Madtown's Project Lodge TOMORROW. Who wants to go?)


(Review of The Friction Brothers from the Chicago Reader)

I'm Not Your Toy

Modified Toy Orchestra: exactly what it sounds like. Plus, the BBC's got a behind-the-scenes video article.

The interesting part about this: "we take these [toys] and learn how to play them as instruments." As if there is an instrument buried inside every object if only you know how to make it sound. I like it.


(special thanks to Kevin!)

Weeping Chandelier

It's not often that I post on just-music-that-I'm-listening-to, but I'm crazy about this particular album, and here's why:

1. It's a collaboration between the "world's foremost Death Oompah band," the Tiger Lillies, and the new music lovin' Kronos Quartet.
2. The instrumentation consists of: (1) avant-garde cabaret band (accordion! musical saw! theremin! falsetto vocals! percussion! contra bass!) + (1) string quartet.
3. All of the lyrics are culled from previously unpublished poems given to the band by Mr. Edward Gorey.

(If that's not of some musicological-literary note, I don't know what is.)
Bottom line: released in 2003, The Gorey End is weird and compelling. BOTH. And that is why I've been listening to it on repeat.




(Amazon)

This Is My United States Of Whatever

I practically inhaled Susan McClary's Feminine Endings on the plane ride home last week. And if I had a dollar for every time McClary mentioned Laurie Anderson, I would have - a chapter's worth of dollars.

The point is: I was pretty excited when metafilter pointed out this great Introduction to Laurie Anderson on the Awl's Difficult Listening Hour. Great selection of videos, great performance art, great intro.

Play That Funky Music

You didn't go to the Sxip Shirey metafilter post I suggested yesterday, did you?

IT'S OKAY.
Follow-up: an interview posted by NewMusicBox.org asks the question "Is Sxip Shirey an overly serious novelty composer or an underly serious experimental musician?"



And check out that hair, right?

Make It Up

I like this video because:
1. It's a new instrument! The Sxipenspiel.
2. Said instrument was created by Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer.
3. It just so happens that I was the Flohmarkt am Mauerpark yesterday.



(Metafilter contributor jennyjenny has a great post on musician Sxip Shirey. What a fantastic guy!: check it out.)