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:: Monday, June 23, 2008 ::

International Noise Conference

International Noise Conference

"The International Noise Conference has an admirable manifesto: "15 minutes or less per act / no lap tops / no mixers / no droning" and the acts on their recently finished US tour have the best band names I've ever seen. They're coming to Japan/Korea in September, and Europe in April 2009, so you've got time to get a set together."
[quote via music thing]

It's a shame the UK leg is already fully booked, I would have tried to sneak a Bristol date in.

When you are limited to 15mins to show your skills. At making noise. Without the most ubiquitous piece of electronic music technology, the laptop, and when drones are banned, what do you do to stand out? You have a stupid childish name of course! These are my Top 15:

15. In the year of The Pig / Hem of His Garment
14. Filthmilk
13. Loop Retard
12. Gastric Lavage
11. Fat Worm of Error
10. Venereal Sandwich
9. Storytime with Grizzleby
8. Squid Fist
7. Magic is Kuntmaster
6. The Heart of the Whore
5. Abercrobie Sex Trio
4. Pharoah Faucett
3. Unicorn hard-on
2. My Left Uterus
1. 200Yearoldwolfpussy

Labels: Electronic Music, Humour, Noise

:: Dan 23.6.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Clive Thompson on How Man-Made Noise May Be Altering Earth's Ecology

Bernie Krause listens to nature for a living. The 69-year-old is a field recording scientist: He heads into the wilderness to document the noises made by native fauna — crickets chirping in the Amazon rain forest, frogs croaking in the Australian outback.

But Krause has noticed something alarming. The natural sound of the world is vanishing. He'll be deep inside the Amazon, recording that cricket, but when he listens carefully he also hears machinery: The distant howl of a 747 or the dull roar of a Hummer miles way.

Krause has a word for the pristine acoustics of nature: biophony. It's what the world sounds like in the absence of humans. But in 40 percent of the locations where Krause has recorded over the past 40 years, human-generated noise has infiltrated the wilderness. "It's getting harder and harder to find places that aren't contaminated," he says.

This isn't just a matter of aesthetics. The contamination of biophony may soon become a serious environmental issue — Krause says that man-made sounds are already wreaking havoc with animal communication. We worry about the carbon emissions from SUVs and airplanes; maybe we should be equally concerned about the racket they cause. ...

Labels: Acoustics, Ecology, Noise

:: Dan 30.5.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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"We’re not just talking typical city noise," the article says, "but what scientists here say is more like living inside a factory."

Bldg Blog on noise in Cairo

"Provided I can ever get my act together on this, I've got a long and totally fascinating interview with Jace Clayton, aka DJ /rupture, coming up here on the blog, in which we discuss the sonic qualities of cities, focusing on New York and arriving there via Marrakech, Barcelona, and even Rennes, France."

That sounds really interesting. You can, incedntally, hear DJ/Rupture's appearnce on the Goatlab Radio show here:
GoatLab Radio with Parasite and special guest DJ/Rupture - October 2007

Bldg Blog continues, "I'm tempted to organize something called World Noise Day*. Make your city as loud as possible. Take advantage of car horns, personal stereos, supermarket broadcast systems, and the local radio. Play Merzbow† all day, cruising loops in boom cars. Rebuild Luigi Russolo's intonarumori. Install Japanese war tubas and British sound mirrors throughout the city. Turn on hair dryers. Yodel. Record the sounds of noise in the morning – and play them again that night, much louder."

* Of course our friend Shitmat already runs an annual National Noise Day here in the UK.
† And coincidentally I have a gig with Merzbow on Friday! He's playing at the Croft just before Goatlab starts (thanks to some strange booking thing I won't go into).
Look like the UK is one step ahead here.

Labels: Acoustics, architecture, Noise

:: Dan 16.4.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Noise more important than environment says NAT

Labels: Acoustics, Environment, News, Noise, Politics

:: Dan 21.2.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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BLDG BLOG is a brilliant blog of "architectural conjecture, urban speculation & landscape futures," that I have just discovered thanks to Natali linking to this post about Hot-Mapping. Apparently Haringey Council have been busy flying planes over their district taking thermal images of the area. The council explains it here and full maps of the region are available here. It's interesting to look over. I would genuinely be interested to see how my own house compared to others around it. I'm sure it would be exactly the same as all the others on the estate (it is new build) but I'd really like to know how it compares to houses of different ages and see how age and build vary. The comment on the blog bring up privacy issues, although I'm not sure how much heat loss your house suffers from is a private issue? As long as vigilantes don't start searching out energy loss offenders I think it's pretty harmless from that point of view and I think I'd like to see more councils doing it.



The blog also has two noise related posts from the last week or so. This one following up an interview with neurologist Oliver Sacks about the affects of noise on people. It's interesting although, as with psychology generally, it relies heavily on the exceptional cases rather than the norm. I guess that makes things a lot easier to test and interpret.

This lowest common denominator approach is similar to the way the World Health Organisation Guidelines for Community Noise are based on preventing adverse health affects in the most sensitive population. From conversations with the papers co-editor Birgitta Berglund I know that children in particular are her largest concern. Perhaps by designing to ensure the protection of the most sensitive we can bring down average noise levels over a period of time?

(The Erik Satie anecdote sounds like he failed to do Eno was doing with Music for Airports etc. I imagine these days you could get away with it without anybody flinching. Sometime a space without background music seems odd.)

There is also a post about intentional additions to urban noise to make cities sound more "musical" and to help mask more unpleasant sounds. Soudscaping cities is a bit of a buzz word with architects these days and I've been involved in the soundscaping of some major district developments in the middle-east (without ever actually going there annoying!) I'm interested to see how this study pans out.

Labels: Academic, Acoustics, architecture, Art, Maps, Noise

:: Dan 30.9.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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There's an intriguing interview with a slightly lecherous sounding Lou Reed on Pitchfork. It focuses mostly on Metal Machine Music and in it Reed attempts to dispel the myth that it was a joke album intended to end his recording contract, and focuses on the inspiration it has provided for avant-garde noise art.

Labels: Electronic Music, Noise

:: Dan 17.9.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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"For anyone involved with work on anything that might involve exposure of musicians or employed staff to music noise the following web site has a lot of very good information and useful links. According to this week’s EHN the HSE has released this as a portfolio of draft advice for the industry. Comments on the web site are invited (there is a “Feedback” button on the home page) by 12 October. This is in advance of the provisions becoming applicable to the entertainment sector as of next April."

Music and Entertainment Sector Working Group in conjunction with HSE

"Sound Advice brings you the recommendations of the Music and Entertainment Sector Working Group. Experts from different sectors in the music and entertainment industry have worked together with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to identify good practice. On this site you will find out what you can do to avoid the harmful effects of prolonged exposure to noise - for yourself and for the people you employ or work with."

I have to deal with this problem from both ends, working as an acoustic consultant during the day and as a (very) amateur musician and DJ in the evenings. I've frequently had problems with levels when I've been playing in clubs, from being unnecessarily limited due to badly designed buildings to being uncomfortably loud (for both me and the audience) due to deaf club owners who keep bumping up the volume. I maintain my general advice to clubbers which is to wear ear plugs whenever you go clubbing, especially if you go frequently.

Labels: Acoustics, Noise

:: Dan 15.8.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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I found an article in The Guardian last week about The art of reducing your computer's noise
It's interesting, but contains appalling use of db rather than dB, an unforgivable offence in the world of acoustics, but at least there's no use of Db *shudder*
For more detailed advice here is Sound on Sound's guide to Advanced PC Silencing
And my personal favourite solution, the Oil Cooled computer.

Labels: Acoustics, Computing, Noise

:: Dan 18.6.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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The Wrong Music guys have declared tomorrow, 31st May, the UKs first National Noise Day.
"Inspired by tara pattersons National Noise Day in Berlin last year this event will feature live music, sound art and street performance.
Curated by Henry Collins and Set in the idealic uk location of brighton.
Featuring artists from around the globe doign weird and wonderfull things with sound, noise and music..."

If you can be in Brighton tomorrow night, which I'm quite upset I can't, you can see live music by:
Extreme Noise Terror
Justice Yeldham and The Dynamic Ribbon Device
DJ Scotch Egg
Trencher
The Nail Bomb Cults
Ladyscraper
Dylan Nyoukis
The Polly Shang Kuan Band
Greenmist
Knowledge of Bugs
Zan Lyons
Ninja Robot Dinosaur Bastards
Team Brick
Horacio Pollard
Shitmat
Permanent bag System
Minimal Impact Vs Kymoto
DJ Tendraw and the Gypsies Dog
The control group
Alex B
Sorry

Official website & myspace
The website is well worth a visit. Soem great videos and MP3s if you poke around.

Labels: Art, Music, Noise

:: Dan 30.5.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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