Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II

Author: Marc Weidenbaum
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1623567637
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 143

Book Description
Extravagantly opaque, willfully vaporous - Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II, released by the estimable British label Warp Records in 1994, rejuvenated ambient music for the Internet Age that was just dawning. In the United States, it was Richard D. James's first full length on Sire Records (home to Madonna and Depeche Mode) under the moniker Aphex Twin; Sire helped usher him in as a major force in music, electronic or otherwise. Faithful to Brian Eno's definition of ambient music, Selected Ambient Works Volume II was intentionally functional: it furnished chill out rooms, the sanctuaries amid intense raves. Choreographers and film directors began to employ it to their own ends, and in the intervening decades this background music came to the fore, adapted by classical composers who reverse-engineered its fragile textures for performance on acoustic instruments. Simultaneously, “ambient” has moved from esoteric sound art to central tenet of online culture. This book contends that despite a reputation for being beatless, the album exudes percussive curiosity, providing a sonic metaphor for our technologically mediated era of countless synchronized nanosecond metronomes.

Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II

Author: Marc Weidenbaum
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1623563437
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 92

The Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning

Author: Janice L. Waldron
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190660791
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 656

Book Description
The rapid pace of technological change over the last decade, particularly the rise of social media, has deeply affected the ways in which we interact as individuals, in groups, and among institutions to the point that it is difficult to grasp what it would be like to lose access to this everyday aspect of modern life. The Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning investigates the ways in which social media is now firmly engrained in all aspects of music education, providing fascinating insights into the ways in which social media, musical participation, and musical learning are increasingly entwined. In five sections of newly commissioned chapters, a refreshing mix of junior and senior scholars tackle questions concerning the potential for formal and informal musical learning in a networked society. Beginning with an overview of community identity and the new musical self through social media, scholars explore intersections between digital, musical, and social constructs including the vernacular of born-digital performance, musical identity and projection, and the expanding definition of musical empowerment. The fifth section brings this handbook to full practical fruition, featuring firsthand accounts of digital musicians, students, and teachers in the field. The Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning opens up an international discussion of what it means to be a musical community member in an age of technologically mediated relationships that break down the limits of geographical, cultural, political, and economic place.

Drawn in Stereo

Author: Michael Gillette
Publisher: Ammo Books
ISBN: 9781623260378
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Inspired by experience in the music industry and origins as an aspiring pop star, British artist Michael Gillette delivers his greatest hits, demos, and rare cuts of the past three decades in DRAWN IN STEREO. Showcasing pieces produced for Beastie Boys, Paul McCartney, MGMT, and Beck--among many others--DRAWN IN STEREO focuses on Gillette's ability to channel music into compelling visual art. Gillette shares a curated collection of artistic approaches, including installations, fashion sketches, music video animation stills, and magazine contributions for SpinandThe New Yorker. Filled with selections from more than 20 years of work created in Britain and America, DRAWN IN STEREO encompasses a wide spectrum of visual directions and celebrates many key projects. Featuring a foreword by Fred Deakin and interview by Elastica's Justine Frischmann, DRAWN IN STEREO reveals an inspired life, ranging from Britpop London and rooming with the Aphex Twin to a decade of creativity in San Francisco. "Life needs a backbeat, and that rhythm needs some visuals. So, I'll keep sharpening the pencils, listening for the muse to sing me a new song." --Michael Gillette

DJ Shadow's Endtroducing

Author: Eliot Wilder
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1441197443
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 111

Book Description
What resonated about Endtroducing when it was released in 1996, and what makes it still resonate today, is the way in which it loosens itself from the mooring of the known and sails off into an uncharted territory that seems to exist both in and out of time. Josh Davis is not only a master sampler and turntablist supreme, he is also a serious archeologist with a world-thirsty passion (what Cut Chemist refers to as Josh's "spidey sense") for seeking out, uncovering and then ripping apart the discarded graces of some other generation - that "pile of broken dreams" - and weaving them back together into a tapestry of chronic bleakness and beauty. Over the course of several long conversations with Josh Davis (DJ Shadow), we learn about his early years in California, the friends and mentors who helped him along the way, his relationship with Mo'Wax and James Lavelle, and the genesis and creation of his widely acknowledged masterpiece, Endtroducing.

J Dilla's Donuts

Author: Jordan Ferguson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 162356719X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 153

Book Description
From a Los Angeles hospital bed, equipped with little more than a laptop and a stack of records, James “J Dilla” Yancey crafted a set of tracks that would forever change the way beatmakers viewed their artform. The songs on Donuts are not hip hop music as “hip hop music” is typically defined; they careen and crash into each other, in one moment noisy and abrasive, gorgeous and heartbreaking the next. The samples and melodies tell the story of a man coming to terms with his declining health, a final love letter to the family and friends he was leaving behind. As a prolific producer with a voracious appetite for the history and mechanics of the music he loved, J Dilla knew the records that went into constructing Donuts inside and out. He could have taken them all and made a much different, more accessible album. If the widely accepted view is that his final work is a record about dying, the question becomes why did he make this record about dying? Drawing from philosophy, critical theory and musicology, as well as Dilla's own musical catalogue, Jordan Ferguson shows that the contradictory, irascible and confrontational music found on Donuts is as much a result of an artist's declining health as it is an example of what scholars call “late style,” placing the album in a musical tradition that stretches back centuries.

Brian Eno's Another Green World

Author: Geeta Dayal
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1441106413
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 135

Book Description
The serene, delicate songs on Another Green World sound practically meditative, but the album itself was an experiment fueled by adrenaline, panic, and pure faith. It was the first Brian Eno album to be composed almost completely in the confines of a recording studio, over a scant few months in the summer of 1975. The album was a proof of concept for Eno's budding ideas of "the studio as musical instrument," and a signpost for a bold new way of thinking about music. In this book, Geeta Dayal unravels Another Green World's abundant mysteries, venturing into its dense thickets of sound. How was an album this cohesive and refined formed in such a seemingly ad hoc way? How were electronics and layers of synthetic treatments used to create an album so redolent of the natural world? How did a deck of cards figure into all of this? Here, through interviews and archival research, she unearths the strange story of how Another Green World formed the link to Eno's future -- foreshadowing his metamorphosis from unlikely glam rocker to sonic painter and producer.

Believe in Magic

Author: Robin Turner
Publisher: White Rabbit
ISBN: 1474616518
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
'Heavenly is more than a record label, it's the absolute nectar of all that's brilliant in the culture of these island. I love the shit out of them and everything they stand for.' Irvine Welsh BELIEVE IN MAGIC tells the story of Heavenly Recordings in thirty vignettes, photography and ephemera, all of which relate to landmark records, moments and characters in the label's first three decades. A label responsible for creating satellite communities of fans around the world and at all the major festivals, Heavenly was set up by Jeff Barrett in 1990 after several years working for Factory and Creation as the acid house revolution was in full swing; early releases set the tone and tempo for the mood of the decade to come - their first single was produced by perhaps the most revered acid house DJ of them all, Andrew Weatherall; and this was quickly followed by era-defining singles from Saint Etienne, Flowered Up and Manic Street Preachers, music which perhaps captures the flavour of the early '90s better than any other. Heavenly was always tuned to an aesthetic that was sensitive to the anarchic spirt of the times; defiantly eclectic with a radar set to taste and a never-ending commitment to discovering new talent. In 1994 they set up The Heavenly Sunday Social, which became one of the most influential and mythologised clubs in recent British history, where the Chemical Brothers - then the Dust Brothers - made their name. For thirteen weeks, it was the hottest nightclub on the planet. For 180 demented acolytes in a basement room below the Albany pub. Over nearly 200 releases in thirty years Heavenly have consistently produced some of the most exciting music across all genres, and this book collects rare artwork and wild anecdotal evidence into a celebration of a label that is one of the most beloved institutions on the independent landscape. BELIEVE IN MAGIC includes contributions from Manic Street Preachers, Beth Orton, Doves, Don Letts, Edwyn Collins, Confidence Man, Mark Lanegan, King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard.

The Ambient Century

Author: Mark J. Prendergast
Publisher: Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA
ISBN: 9781582341347
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 498

Book Description
One hundred years of innovation in sound and music are chronicled in this challenging exploration of the most influential ambient revolution in history. 10,000 first century.

Angelo Badalamenti's Soundtrack from Twin Peaks

Author: Clare Nina Norelli
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501323032
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Book Description
When Twin Peaks debuted on the ABC network on the night of April 8, 1990, thirty-five million viewers tuned in to some of the most unusual television of their lives. Centered on an eccentric, coffee-loving FBI agent's investigation into the murder of a small town teen queen, Twin Peaks brought the aesthetic of arthouse cinema to a prime time television audience and became a cult sensation in the process. Part of Twin Peaks' charm was its unforgettable soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti, a longtime musical collaborator of film director and Twin Peaks co-creator David Lynch. Badalamenti's evocative music, with its haunting themes and jazzy moodscapes, served as a constant in a narrative that was often unhinged and went on to become one of the most popular and influential television soundtracks of all time. How did a unique collaborative process between a director and composer result in a perfectly postmodern soundtrack that ran the gamut of musical styles from jazz to dreamy pop to synthesizer doom and beyond? And how did Badalamenti's musical cues work with Twin Peaks' visuals, constantly evolving and playing off viewers' expectations and associations? Under the guidance of Angelo Badalamenti's beautifully dark sonic palette, Clare Nina Norelli delves deep into the world of Twin Peaks to answer all this and more.