The AM: March 28, 2022
This week's episode breathes in deep with meditative synths from Curved Light, Matthew Cardinal, and Charbonneau/Amato, digs into the ambient-adjacent sounds of Tape and the easy listening of Sven Wunder and Daniel Ögren. Unlike most weeks, there’s not much from the world of shoegaze and psychedelia here, but it’s maybe the most satisfied I’ve felt with the music side of the show in a long while.
Listen on Soundcloud (and avoid the BBC news)
Stream from CJSW
During the episode, a trio of songs tackling tricky emotions jumped out at me, from Alabaster dePlume, Body Double, and Gruff Rhys. It’s odd when unintentional themes come up on the show, and maybe calling three songs in a three hour show a theme is a bit of an overstatement, but yesterday’s Oscars have had me thinking a lot about the complexity of emotions. Especially how society expects men to handle emotions. Alabaster dePlume’s “I’m Good at Not Crying” hit me hard; the title sums up my approach to emotional maintenance in my teens and 20s.
For various personal and cultural reasons, I’d decided repression and detachment were admirable qualities, and I took pride in distancing myself from the world. It’s only been in my 30s that I’ve at all understood the value of feeling, and figured out that it’s possible to experience and respect an emotion without fearing that it’ll dominate me. I’m still not comfortable with large emotional displays—my extremes are still played very close to the chest—and seeing other people so overwhelmed by emotional impulses to the point that they’ll shout, let alone physically assault someone on a global broadcast, is something that tends to sit with me for a long time.
I’m not usually one to focus much on celebrity culture, but there is actually one moment from the Oscars that I’m trying to hold onto. It was right at the end, when Liza Minelli and Lady Gaga were presenting the award for Best Picture, and it quickly became clear that Minelli was overwhelmed and confused. I thought I saw a flash of fear on her face, but in an instant, Lady Gaga was reassuring her, filling in the gaps for her, holding her hand, telling her she was there for her. Maybe it was just the awkwardness of the rest of the show, but it felt so compassionate and supportive. It felt honest, someone whose only concern in the moment was to help someone that they care about get through a situation in which they were struggling.
It wasn’t about protection, at least not in the way that the earlier slap was about “protection.” It was connection and support and empathy and kindness, behaviours that aren’t modelled that effectively very often, especially in media meant for adults, and I was touched. I used to be good at not crying, but of all the emotional impulses to cut out of our lives, it’s silly that we give tears such a high priority.
Anyway. Track list follows. I hope you enjoy it.
Hour One:
Archives of Forgotten Images
Curved Light • A User's Guide To Existence
Stained Glass Sauna
Lynn Avery & Cole Pulice • To Live & Die In Space & Time
May 13th
Matthew Cardinal • Pieces: 2011–2019
All Rose
Charbonneau / Amato • Synth Works Vol. 2
Streetlights
Buildings and Food • Up Down Strange Charm
The Softest Machine
Korb • Ultraterrestrial / The Softest Machine
Phthalo Blue
Monster Rally • Botanica Dream
Four Steps I
Alexandre Bazin • Four Steps
Tune2
gerry • gerry EP
Uniform
Cylindricon • Technicolour
Hemispherectomy
UncleBibby • Inward Bound
Hour Two:
Une femme qui l’attire (instrumental version)
Bernard Grancher • Noires Sont Les Galaxies
A Little Longer
H A U N T E R, featuring Thanya Iyer • Dream the Day Away
Big Mato - Kalbells Remix
Bernice • Bonjourno My Friends
Produce Aisle
Green-House • Solar Editions
Dot Dot Dot
Various Artists, featuring Body Double • Chandra Mixtape Vol. 2
The Wild Palms
Tape • Revelationes
Hotels
Tape • Revelationes
Rakkasjokk
Daniel Ögren • Laponia III
Harpy
Applesauce Tears • Scores
why don’t you wait on the lawn
Flanafi • mite
Bootstrap Jubilee
Yves Jarvis • The Zug
Hour Three:
I’m Good at Not Crying
Alabaster dePlume • Gold
Mosaic
Sven Wunder • Single
The Positive and the Negative
Surprise Chef • Single
B Side
Khruangbin & Leon Bridges • Texas Moon EP
People are Pissed
Gruff Rhys • Single
Faux Punk
Persica 3 • Tangerine
Stayed
Sunglaciers • Subterranea
Growing Flowers by Candlelight
Loving • If I Am Only My Thoughts
Performance
Modern Nature • Island of Noise
Her Eyes on the Horizon
Do Make Say Think • Stubborn Persistent Illusions
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Oh, The Places You'll Go
Words: Peter "Uncle Bibby" Locke
So, I'm a music composer, among other things, and I put some of my music on a website called the Free Music Archive. It is downloadable and usable by anyone as long as they properly credit me. I can find examples of usage by searching for "unclebibby" on YouTube. Here are some of the videos where my music has ended up.
1. "Cat has a face"
This is sorta like a music video for one of my songs, consisting of photos of a cat, edited to match the music's rhythm. The account's other videos are pretty much all video game videos, but this ain't no video game. It's a real dancing cat, man!
2. "Casa Sanremo Lancome | Night"
This fancy Paris nightclub apparently heard this song that is primarily me humming a melody I'm making up as I go along and thought "This is what we want to associate with our nightclub." Thanks, guys. Sorry, guys.
3. "人間は缶切りがなくても缶を開けられるか?"
I don't know exactly what this is but from what I can tell it's a young Japanese vlogger making a vlog about scraping canned foods against the sidewalk, for some reason. The title, when run through Google Translate, becomes "Do human beings are open cans even if there is no can opener" which makes me think he's trying to open the can without a can opener. You'll have to watch the video to find out what happens.
4. "Microfono Hard Disk • Fai da Te"
This guy is explaining how to rip apart a hard drive and turn it into a microphone. He just happened to use my music at the start of the video. Man, if audiophiles this hardcore like my music, I must be doing something right.
5. "Christmas Tree Beard - A How-To Time Lapse Video HD"
This video is about turning a beard into a Christmas tree. It uses a song I made on my iPhone using the Nanoloop app. I think this is the true meaning of Christmas.
6. "Our Winners Review All Good Scents Fragrances For Men!"
Of all the videos that use my music, this one makes me the most giggly. It features four young men reviewing two perfumes for their viewers. My music is used over the intro and played quieter over the actual review. I think the perfume probably smells like my music sounds.
7. "Mandala Stop Motion Animation"
This one is just plain cool. Someone animated their process of drawing a mandala and put my music over it. It reminds me of Chad VanGaalen's music videos.
8. "BTS | VASA Fitness | Photoshoot 2.8.15"
So, this gym made an advertisement and then made a behind-the-scenes video for the ad featuring my music. It's nice seeing my music associated with healthy people. Healthy people are few and far between.
9. "Building a fly brain (HD)"
This is a Taiwanese university simulating a fly's brain and presenting it using my music. I sorta wanna put this on my resume: "Composed music for Taiwanese university so their fly brain video sounded more magical."
10. "Greyhound plays Nintendo"
I forgot that this video had my music in it cuz it's the kind of video I would have watched regardless. It's a dog playing a video game, for real. And it has my music real quiet in the background!!!!! Holy crap!
BONUS: "Skweelo Gigas - Flippant on the Dancefloor / السكويلو الﭼﭼس ـ لا يا جدع, هو مدبوك"
I didn't immediately appreciate this video to the extent that I do now. My brother helped me realize that this is a young boy dancing to my music for a full two and a half minutes or so. This is amazing considering that it seems like they added the music in afterwards, which means he was likely dancing to no music whatsoever for a full two and a half minutes. This kid and his sister should get a Guinness World Record for Best Vid Eva.
I think what this teaches me is that people all over the world are in need of good music, especially if it's free. Everyone on Earth is a potential friend to everyone else, you just have to make the connection! And music is one of those connections.
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"Epigram" by Bear & Walrus. Keeping with our music-themed posts today, here's one of 10 tracks from the chiptune/baroquetronica group's new Image Poems album inspired by "early 20th century poetry focused around ideas about the precision of imagery and the simplicity of nature."
I wanted to feature this stuff, too, but my huge backlog of work stole all my time today (Tumblr's one-song-a-day audio uploading limit didn't help):
Dance Machine, Christian Montoya's free album full of "all-original dirty bassy dance music made entirely with the KORG DS-10/DS-10 Plus"
Cover of America's "Ventura Highway" created in KORG M01 by UncleBibby
Hear also: More chiptunes
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