If you meet the Buddha on the disc....

...I am not sure what the proper ending to that clause would be, exactly. Destroy the disc? Don't listen?

In his Monolake incarnation, Robert Henke [along with collaborators Gerhard Behles and Torsten Pröfrock, along the way] has been putting out fine music for a very long time. Although he continues from strength as his discography lengthens, I confess to a particular nostalgic committment to some of his earlier works such as Cinemascope or hongkong.

But it is often the "out of character" releases that draw my attention. In Robert's case, the recording of his that I most prize is beat-free, and scoured by wind, in tent, and choice to the very shape of Perfection itself: Gobi the desert EP. While his dub-rubbed and slow-cooked techno is up there with the best of them, the rumours of something off the beaten path from Monolake's regular output is an opportunity for joy. In addition to the languorous and finely detailed soundscape of Gobi, Robert has also turned his attentions to conjuring entirely different kinds of wilderness with Signal to Noise [the construction of the entirely artificial world in the piece "Studies for Thunder" by feeding pulses of filtered noise into networks of granular delay lines is amazing].

Robert's most recent release, Layering Buddha falls into that latter category, taking recordings of Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian's ambient loop player, the FM3 Buddha Machine, as its starting point, and then extracting and processing the sound of this pleasant and humble device to the edge of recognizeability and well beyond. The result is a great addition to Robert's catalog. The links above contain MP3 samples - even if you don't hear it on RTQE some Sunday evening, you can still find examples there. Well worth your time and attention.

Tips for Funktion Collectors (recent releases)

Anybody who's at all interested in the use of software algorithms for musical composition has probably run across the work of Gottfried Michael Koenig. Since I studied at the Instituut voor Sonologie, I guess I encountered his work a bit earlier and more thoroughly than some other people (Koenig directed the Institute for a number of years). Between studying and working with his computer composition program Project 1 and listening to his tape music, I found that I not only respected his work, I liked some of it. In particular, I was taken by his electronic compositions from the "Funktionen" series, and decided that I liked them enough that I would go about finding recorded examples of them [as opposed to going to the listening library at the Conservatory to hear them, which got a lot harder once I was no longer a Sonology student].

I was kind of surprised to discover that there really wasn't a single source that collected all of the Funktionen pieces. By far, the best place to start was a series released in the 1990s under the series name "Acousmatrix", one volume of which was dedicated to Koenig's electronic music. I picked it up, and discovered that although it was a fine representation of Koenig's work, it didn't contain a complete set of the Funktion pieces [the 2cd set included Funktion Rot, Funktion Grau, Funktion Violett, Funktion Blau, and Funktion Indigo, but not the "green" and "yellow" and "orange" pieces].

More recently, the Dutch label BVHAAST has reissued the entire Acousmatrix series, both as a 9 disc box, and individually. The Koenig release is BVHAAST 9001-02. More on this below.

Then, I ran across a Sub Rosa compilation "Institute of Sonology 1959-1969, Early Electronic Music" [Sub Rosa SR 164], which contained "Funktion Orange." So far, so good.

The package that showed up on my door yesterday afternoon completes the series. The recent Edition RZ release of Gottfied Michael Koenig's work includes both the missing Funktion Grun and Funktion Gelb pieces, in addition to some other early WDR studio releases I wasn't familiar with and a good sampling of his software-generated compositions in the hands of human musicians. In some ways, this might be the more interesting collection, since it highlights the
connections between his compositional practice in the context of both the "tape music" and "instrumental music" worlds.

If this is the kind of thing that interests you, the easiest place to find it is probably here, through Forced Exposure.

15 of the Top Ten of 2006

All kinds of people appear to either create or take an interest in "Top Ten" lists - publications (blogged and otherwise), retailers, media, and so on. In the microcultures I'm involved in, it customarily happens after the first of the year - it seems sensible to comment after the arbitrary time unit of a year has passed.

So it was with me in my role as the host of a community radio program, until I started getting calls from listener-sponsors asking for recommendations for recordings I found to be of personal interest. In some cases, they wanted gift ideas for "their cool weird friends," and in other cases, people asked them what they wanted.

Scary as it may be to go out on such a critical limb (although, to be fair, I'm just making a set of arbitrary judgements based on having listened to and broadcast a whole lot of music during the last calendar year on RTQE) and post things before I'd had a chance to look around at what all the cool kids were lining up behind, I decided to start doing my "Best of the Year" shows during the early part of December as a service to listeners. Somehow, the list developed a margin of error such that it wound up being fifteen recordings.

From a programming standpoint, it's enjoyable - one is always guaranteed two programs per year that are devoid of filler, as a personal matter. And, if the calls that come in during the program are anything to go by, people actually seem to appreciate it.

The official web page listing my not-quite-top-ten for the year is here.

The new downloads page

One of the only kinds of music I haven't played on my radio program RTQE is my own. I've just never been comfortable using a platform like my show to promote myself - a view that hasn't really changed much over the years it's been on. However, with helpful prodding from some friends, I have decided to create one on my website. It would appear from the website logs that people have actually found the page, which contains a number of MP3s of my solo work, and various collaborations with people I've been fortunate enough to know and work with. You can find it here.