Uncopyable

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Moldover’s CD case: a working theremin.

In May this year, Brian Eno was writing in Prospect magazine about the current state of the music business as it continues to be assailed by digital technology. Among the things Eno discussed was the packaging of music:

The duplicability of recordings has had another unexpected effect. The pressure is on to develop content that isn’t easily copyable—so now everything other than the recorded music is becoming the valuable part of what artists sell. … That suggests to me the possibility of a refreshingly democratic art market: a new way for visual artists, designers, animators and film-makers to make a living. So, as one business folds, several others open up. (More.)

Having started out as an album cover artist (I wasn’t a designer back then), and working still as a CD designer, this is naturally an attractive thesis. Earlier this week John Walsh in The Independent wrote a potted history of the album cover and noted that the big record companies are also realising again that contemporary music as an artform is more than merely a collection of audio tracks:

Apple, creator of the iPod and the iTunes store—the sworn enemies of commercially-packaged music—is getting into bed with the four largest record labels, to help them stimulate album sales. They’re working with EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music Group on something called “Project Cocktail” that will produce all manner of extras to go with albums: interactive booklets, sleeve notes, photographs, lyric sheets, even video clips. Buyers will be able to call up album tracks through the interactive booklet, while leafing through pictures of the band and trying to make sense of the lyrics.

This, however, seems to be missing the point. Absolutely anything digital can be copied and passed on, and that applies equally to album extras as to the tracks themselves. What can’t be copied, of course, is a desirable object which contains the music. The lavish album sleeves of the 1970s were very much desirable objects which contained music, and no end of facsimile CDs of Physical Graffiti will match the impact of Peter Corriston and Mike Doud’s design for the vinyl release.

Which brings us to Moldover‘s extraordinary light-operated theremin-in-a-CD-case, a beautiful design and a really clever use of the wretched jewel case box. The music on Moldover’s accompanying CD may be swapped around illicitly but no one is going to copy the hardware. The “Awesome Edition” of this work costs $50 and can be ordered here.

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Moldover’s theremin is only an adjunct to his music, albeit a delightful one. Tristan Perich, on the other hand, like Fm3’s Buddha Machine, makes the case and the instrument one, and in Perich’s case (so to speak) possibly takes the 8-bit/chiptune thing to a definitive extreme. This is the kind of invention we could use more of, not some lazy Flash applications appended to a pop release then dumped onto the iTunes Store as an “exclusive”. It’s notable that the one thing all these works have in common is that they’re the inventions of no-budget independent artists, not big record labels.

While we’re on the subject of the Buddha Machine, the guys at Mountain*7 noted this YouTube loop work which extends the drone-loop idea into the audio/visual realm.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The album covers archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
Buddha Machine Wall
God in the machines
Layering Buddha by Robert Henke
Generative culture

Buddha Machine Wall

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I love my Buddha Machine, the music release by Fm3 which comes as a set of sampled loops in a plastic case looking like a cheap pocket radio. This is one music work which can’t be downloaded since the physicality of the thing is as much a part of its attraction and purpose as the loops themselves. It’s probably the most playfully inventive “album” since Chöre & Soli (1983) by Die Tödliche Doris, 8 miniphone records packaged in a box with a battery-driven player like those found in old talking dolls.

I only own one Buddha Machine so I haven’t had the opportunity to try creating a choir of the things with each playing a different loop. Robert Henke’s marvellous Layering Buddha album does this with considerable sophistication, processing the sounds through his bespoke digital filters. For those without their own Buddha Machine or Henke’s technology there’s now the Buddha Machine Wall which allows you to not only play with one machine but to also play several simultaneously. This is actually a lot more fascinating than I expected, it’s essentially an ambient music machine for the web, following the Brian Eno model of creating ambient patterns by layering loops. It’s great; give it a try.

Layering Buddha Live | Two free downloads from Robert Henke

Previously on { feuilleton }
God in the machines
Layering Buddha by Robert Henke
Generative culture

God in the machines

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Fm3’s Buddha Machine.

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The Electronic Qur’an.

• Compact, robust and easy to use;
• Long lasting battery life;
• Large LCD with blue backlight for night time viewing;
• Built-in audio speaker;
• Built-in DC adapter jack;
• Ability to record up to 3 hours* of voice;
• Follow and compare your own voice with the reciters;
• Excellent sound quality with AudiTrax technology;
• Inter-changeable audio plug-in system;
• Bookmark function;
• Repeat function;
• Search function;
• Full audio recitation;
• Approved/licensed Qur’an text in Arabic (Uthmanic font type);
• Approved/licensed Qur’an text in English (Mushin Khan’s translation);
• Approved Islamic contents in both Arabic and English translation.

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Modern Orthodox by Elliott Malkin.

Modern Orthodox is a working demonstration of my next-generation laser eruv system. An eruv (pronounced ey-roov) is a symbolic boundary erected around religious Jewish communities throughout the world. While an eruv is typically constructed with poles and wires, Modern Orthodox employs a combination of low-power lasers, wifi surveillance cameras and graffiti, as a way of designating sacred volumes of space in urban areas.

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Crucifix NG by Elliott Malkin.

Crucifix NG (Next Generation) is the principal work of the Faith-Based Electronics Group at the Interactive Televangelist Program (ITP). Crucifix NG is a printed electronic circuit board in the shape of a crucifix. This handheld, wall-mountable device houses a battery-operated transmitter that broadcasts an ASCII, non-denominational version of the Lord’s Prayer at 916 megahertz. (916 has no numerological significance – it is simply a function of the availability of low-cost transmission chips within this FCC license-free bandwidth.)

Previously on { feuilleton }
Layering Buddha by Robert Henke

Layering Buddha by Robert Henke

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Layering Buddha on CD and limited vinyl.

The Fm3 Buddha Machine is a low-fi loop playing device containing nine pre-recorded loops which cannot be changed by the user. Due to manufacturing imperfections, individual machines play the loops with a slightly different sound, pitch and duration. The built-in playback circuit, with its low sampling rate and bit resolution, produces a very rough sound, similar to ancient computer games or talking toys. Rich, spacious textures and moving echoes occur when many of these machines are played at the same time.

I recorded the sound of one single buddha machine at 96 kHz, using a state of the art A/D converter. The recording contains audio information up to 48 kHz, which makes it possible to transpose the loops down and expose otherwise inaudible hidden details. The pieces on this CD have been created by granulating, filtering, pitching and layering either the original loops, or new loops which were re-assembled out of parts of the originals. Most pieces are based on one single source loop. The pieces as they live within my computer are set up as continuously permutating structures and theoretically could go on forever, just as the loops do within the buddha machines.

I made quite long renderings of these permutations and later decided which excerpt of each structure to put on this CD. Therefore, the tracks are not closed works, but views onto a perpetual machinery.