[live/WIP] MedMud: Radioland/Babylon project

[tetraplan]

Hi everyone,

It must have been 3.000.000 years[1] since I last posted a track.

The following is part of a growing project that i started for the Perfect World Project which is happening right now.

The first performance of Radioland/Babylon happened in the Onderbroek in Nijmegen which is a lovely (soon-to-be-ex-) squat run by some great people[2].
It is unfinished, and the track I'm posting is phase 1, in a way.

Version one is made with one hand-cranked shortwave radio and a computer running AudioMulch[3].
The process is fairly simple. I take the incoming signal, tear it into little snippets and the put them back together again.
There are roughly four parts: the original signal, at low volume to intoduce the piece. After that, the signal is cut up and the piece becomes rather rhythmic. Next, there's a transition which leads to the fourth part: the rhythm slowly decays into drones. The drones are the radiosignal, cut into somewhat larger chunks that flow into one wall of sound.

This version isn't complete (and different from the one Mystahr heard). After 10 minutes, the signal faded into white noise, and white noise fed into high-feedback delays and combfilters tends to become rather, um, noisy. During later performances I managed to hold on to the signal and the fouth parts were more interesting.
I forgot to record those.
D'oh!

Next weekend, I'll be using this patch with added vocoder plugins to combine vaious radio-signals into one. I have no idea how that is going to work out. That will be step two.

=====================
Radioland/Babylon version 001
Format: .mp3
Time: 14:09
Size: 20 MB (big! people on dialup: caution!)

====================

It's very rough and it starts very, very quiet. No postprocessing was added.
The introduction should be as loud as a radio playing in the background. It will gradually get louder. Mind your speakers.

Feedback welcome.
Oh, and everyone is invited to the exhibition in Tilburg, next weekend.

Groet, Erik

[1] or slightly less.
[2] If you're ever in Nijmegen, pay these folks a visit. It's a great place with very nice people.
[3] what else?

[vurt]

is this the piece mark saw you perform?
very interesting,but ill have o listen properly tomorrow,bit late here now

[shamann]

Feedback welcome.

Given what happens toward the end, I thought this was quite funny.

Very cool, Erik. I preferred the stuff once it got going. I find microsound bits always make me impatient. I know I'm violating the code a little on this, so be it. I used to have a Kim Cascone album, always was fastforwarding until I could actually hear something.

Some really great stretches in this. Happy to hear some new stuff.

Cheers,
Steve

[tetraplan]

is this the piece mark saw you perform?

Sort of. This was the first time I perfomed it, Mark saw my third performance. It had grown by then, evolved into something more complete.

very interesting,but ill have o listen properly tomorrow,bit late here now

Thanks, looking forwards to further comments.

Very cool, Erik. I preferred the stuff once it got going. I find microsound bits always make me impatient. I know I'm violating the code a little on this, so be it. I used to have a Kim Cascone album, always was fastforwarding until I could actually hear something.

Thanks.
I'm not sure about any code, by the way. If I understand the .microsound concept correctly, the drones would be microsound, too, due to their granular nature. Haven't read Roads yet, though, so I'm not sure (that book is big).

I find Cascone can be a bit hard to listen to, sometimes. Total generative madness.

Some really great stretches in this. Happy to hear some new stuff.

Thanks. Hopefully, Radioland/Babylon will lead to heaps of new stuff.

Groet, Erik

[mystahr]

Listening now, but yes that third performance was cool

[shamann]

I'm not sure about any code, by the way.

It was a veiled a joke, may be a local turn of phrase, meant in a way as "I have betrayed the sacred order of noiseglitch. In shame, I will hand in my membership card at the door."

I haven't read Roads either. It would require a special order, and it frequently just gets bump down the list of reading. One of these days, maybe.

[tetraplan]

I'm not sure about any code, by the way.

It was a veiled a joke, may be a local turn of phrase, meant in a way as "I have betrayed the sacred order of noiseglitch. In shame, I will hand in my membership card at the door."

I'm just very good at ruining veiled jokes, I guess. Oh, and if you'd please leave your membership card on the little table, to the left? Thanks.

I haven't read Roads either. It would require a special order, and it frequently just gets bump down the list of reading. One of these days, maybe.

Lots of formulas, IIRC. Or was that in Computer Music? Anyway, It was terribly intimidating. I guess I'll stick to playing by ear for a while.

Groet, Erik

[tetraplan]

Listening now, but yes that third performance was cool

I hope I'll remember to record the next performances. They'll not be very different, but different enough, I guess.

Groet, Erik

[dystonia_ek]

I like the deliberate primitivism of this piece - really picks up after the halfway point in particular.