by Gavin Blackburn

The release of the annual “Recording Industry in Numbers” by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) revealed that Germany ranks ahead of the UK in physical music sales.

Low digital penetration, a healthy CD market and a stable economy have all helped push Germany to number three on the IFPI league table. Sitting just behind the United States and Japan, it’s one of the world’s largest music markets - as well as the biggest in Europe – and beats the UK in physical sales for the first time in more than a decade.

The UK’s recent slip down the rankings has been attributed to an increasingly strong network of digital download platforms as well as the recent disappearance of high street heavyweights such as Woolworths and Zavvi, victims of the global credit crunch. All this has resulted in a dwindling interest in physical products. CD sales in the UK for 2010 totaled $1.38 billion, a staggering 11 per cent drop compared with 2009.

In contrast, physical music sales in Germany accounted for a whopping 81 per cent of all recorded music purchased, buying the market with a healthy $1.14 billion.

The news is welcome but scarcely unexpected, especially for those working in the independent sector. German indies commanded an impressive 26.7 per cent of the physical album sales market in 2010.

“I’m not entirely surprised,” Christof Ellinghaus, chief of Berlin-based indie label City Slang, told Deutsche Welle, “One strategy that people have been following in the UK much more aggressively than over here is to lower the prices of CDs to keep physical retail attractive. Unfortunately the outcome is the complete opposite, and retail has never been in a more dramatic state in the UK.”

British music executive Grant Box, co-manager of independent label Snowhite, has had experience of the music business both in his native England and in Berlin where the label he co-runs is based.

“With Germany being populated by 20 million more people than the UK, it’s a surprise that there were ever more sales in the UK than in Germany,” he said, “The UK is a trend-setter and more and more people in the UK are downloading music from iTunes and other platforms which will happen here but slightly later in the same scale.”

While physical sales in both countries continue to fall as digitally-generated revenue cuts into more traditional sales markets, both countries have quite different consumer landscapes.

While iTunes is the dominant platform for digital music in both territories, subscription numbers are higher in the UK. In Germany the shift from traditional buying to digital has been much slower. Ongoing negotiations between subscription services and the German authors’ collection agency GEMA has been cited as one reason the growth of the digital market has been sluggish. A recent revival of interest in domestic music has also helped keep the physical sales market healthy.

Germany seems unusually hesitant to embrace digital music buying. The current market is valued at only 13 per cent in value terms. With emphasis increasingly shifting to digital platforms, the UK’s infrastructure is already better suited to ride the change while traditional, cautious Germany may well soon lag behind again.

Music producer and label chief Mark Reeder has been active in the German music business since re-locating to Berlin in 1978. Having cut his teeth working in the flagship Virgin Records store in Manchester, he could immediately see a difference in the way music was sold in the UK and in Germany.

“Our shop would be crammed and we had the latest music blaring out, at that time mostly punk rock,” he explained, “It created an energy and raised adrenaline levels and it certainly influenced our sales. When I moved to Berlin, I discovered the Germans sold their records in a much different way. In the main, the shops would be neat, some almost clinical with cold racks of records crammed together. In our shop the music was loud but in German record shops the music just doodled somewhere quietly in the background and some shops didn’t even play music at all!”
But why are Germans seemingly so hesitant to make the switch to digital? Mark thinks the explanation may lie in the age of the people predominantly buying CDs.

“On the whole, Germans are usually very loyal when it comes to buying records by their favorite artists,” he said, “Usually they will buy every release regardless of it being good or bad. Germans obviously like something physical to have, hold and own. A CD is still something of value. But I think in Germany, like in the UK, young people are much more likely to download a track rather than buy it.”

While Germany can celebrate this leap ahead over the UK at the moment, its long-term position may not be so secure. The Mercury label – one of the world’s largest imprints and home to artists such as Elton John, Justin Bieber and The Killers – recently announced it would cease production of CD singles, a further sign that the market is increasingly turning its back on physical products and looking towards a digital future.

So what is the future of the physical format in Germany? It won’t necessarily disappear, but will possibly become more of a niche commodity.

“We’ll continue to do both (digital and physical releases),” explained Desi Vach, co-manager of Snowhite, “The customer should have the choice whether they want a digital track or something they can hold in their hands. We’ll still release on CD and of course on vinyl with really lavish packaging. That’s our point of service as a label.”

City Slang’s Christof Ellinghaus points out that his label will also continue to produce luxury line releases for hardcore fans who want a physical product and that with digital sales there comes a disadvantage: “It’s really a track-based business which is a shame as many of our artists like to think of their work in the context of an album,” he said, “But we do love the way you can link from just anywhere to a point of sale, be it from Youtube or Facebook. The direct link to a Spotify or iTunes or any other outlet really is it. It doesn’t make things much easier, does it?”

Text: Gavin Blackburn

posted by Gavin Blackburn for EYHO Blog Berlin
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VAGABONDO 2009

Over 4 virtual stages will run a program on the magazine’s website www.artrocker.tv from May 25.

Artrocker magazine invited a selection of bands to a studio to create original recordings for the festival.

The sessions can be streamed or downloaded for one week. Ambient, Spoken Word, Noise and Experimental pieces are performed by participants like

New York’s Suicide, Alec Empire & Nic Endo, The Aliens and others.

Artrocker Magazine is really pushing boundaries with this projects, forcing the artists to leave their comfort zones and express themselves in ways they’d normally not do!

MAKE SURE YOU TUNE IN!

www.eyho-blog.com

Hello to the Sound Unbound crew!

I’m just writing to say a basic hi and to give you a tiny update about what’s been going on! It’s been a while since we all corresponded about Sound Unbound, and there have been many developments. We’ve had highly successful book launches everywhere from Melbourne, Toronto, Vienna, Capetown, London, Berlin, Naples, Paris, Rome, Milan, San Francisco, Washington DC, Yale, MIT and many spots in between, and the book has been pretty much one of MIT’s best selling books for the last several months. I still have to hit parts of Asia (Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Calcutta etc probably over the summer) and the Moscow/St Petersburg releases will be in the autumn.

We’re getting everything ready for the amazon.com Kindle release of Sound Unbound, and we’re getting the book geared up for a “remix” – all essays that were in the normal book form (except Simon Reynolds) will migrate to new electronic forms. To spice up the electronic editions, there will be several additions and many more web links (sound mixes, excerpts from compositions etc). You can follow details at www.soundunbound.com

We’re adding a short afterward by an old friend of mine, the renowned hiphop historian Jeff Chang, author of the best selling hip hop history “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop.” More on that in a little while.

During the interim, check out the book! It’s doing quite well in the academic scene!

It was very difficult to get everyone’s essay into the book, but it’s been a gratifyingly dynamic situation. The book isn’t really a “commercial” situation – it’s been a passion of mine to break down barriers between scenes, styles, and above all – genres. Where else would you find Pierre Boulez and Chuck D hanging out (by the way, I’d love to put you two together one of these days!). Call it “book as playlist entropy!” Anyway, thanks again!

in peace,
Paul aka Dj Spooky

www.eyho-blog.com

Monday was so full of optimism in Berlin-West. yeah… we are so glad we don’t need to go to school anymore…do you remember how it felt? A great day is passing by and some teacher trying to teach you a lesson about something outdated and boring?

HEY TEACHER!

The first one was for free….;)

check this one out….

click here to watch

more from insane UK VJ Duo “Addictive TV”

have a good week… sending lots of love to Billy Corgan.

Message of the week: PIRATE BAY! STOP LYING AND STOP TAKING ADVERTISING MONEY FROM CORPORATIONS! THIS IS NOT WHAT THE FREEDOM OF THE INTERNET IS ABOUT.

www.eyho-blog.com

click here to watch

Alec:”Please quickly describe for us…what is it that you do? Exactly? ”

Graham:” Well, we’re producers and audiovisual artists, a music act but we work with film too if that makes sense – I guess kind of ?think DJs but with added pictures?, though that?s a terrible description -

it’s actually much much more than that, but it gives you an idea. We produce all our own material based on audio/video sampling and remixing of films, concert footage etc. To us, the whole visuals thing is really a natural extention to our music and a logical progression of remix culture.”

Tolly:” We perform a fully audiovisual set of totally synced and integrated music and images, where everything you see, you also hear, and vice versa. Actually, a good example, is we?ve just created a drum ?n? bass track by sampling a classical Orchestra.

The idea came from the BBC series Maestro here in the UK, where famous people had to conduct an orchestra and Goldie took part and came second. I mean the BBC took Goldie out of his comfort zone of drum ‘n’ bass, by making him conduct classical music – so we thought we’d put him back in the world of drum n’ bass but with violins and cellos. So we remixed the orchestra, sampling everything from violins to kettle drums, and created a mad drum ‘n’ bass track made from those samples, with Goldie conducting.”

Graham:” And unbelievably, we found a perfect drum ‘n’ bass drum loop played on a kettle drum from the 1812 Overture! It’s amazing to see something like that just fit, I mean finding a bit of drumming written a couple of centuries ago that works as a loop for drum ?n? bass kind of shows that music at it’s very roots always follows the same rules.”

click here to watch

Alec: “Which is more powerful to you? the image or the sound?”

Tolly: “Both ? that?s the whole point with what we do! They work completely in unison ? if you see a film at the cinema, what?s more powerful? The images or the accompanying music? The answer is both, as they are working together, if you took either away, neither of them are as powerful on their own.”

Graham:” Yeah, our AV has to still work as music and follow most of the rules of musical composition, but at the same time following some of the energies and ideas of film-making. Say, when there?s a breakdown in the music which, say, then slowly builds back up into a heart-thumping dramatic crescendo; we might build that musical composition underneath a very specific dramatic sequence within a film remix, making full use of the dramatic power of the images that you?re seeing, into ?an AV experience? – for want of a better phrase – that in a club, music simply can?t do by itself.”

click here to watch more!

Alec: “When one thinks of remix culture, copyright theft and exploitation of other artists are mentioned often at the same time…where do you draw the line? How should our society handle these issues?”

Graham: “It?s a complicated issue, and maybe I would argue for some kind of a system that made it all simpler and clearer; something along the lines of an extended Creative Commons type approach, which allowed unrestricted artistic use of sampled content, but had the additional mechanisms in place to allow for commercial use, where percentages of profit could go back to the rights holder.

Those are complicated to put in place and collect of course, but not beyond the collective power of the creative industries to solve. If rights holders saw a monetary upside from allowing certain kinds of video sampling, then more people would allow it and the idea would spread. If it can work with sampling in music, it can be made to work with films and other mediums.”

Tolly:” More of a problem is the idea that certain artists or rights holders do not want their work messed with, and irrespective of money, would always say ?I created it that way for a reason, I don?t want it altered? and that?s more complicated to argue against. Everyone just has to come to terms with the fact that with modern technology artists will sample and use other?s work, but we just need a workable framework to do it in. But sadly life isn?t that simple?!”

it just does not stop….click here and watch this!

Alec:”How do you prepare your work?”

Tolly: “Generally we sit in the studio, look through the video, whether it?s a movie or a music video, and then sample it, and like any DJ or producer looking for great audio samples, what we look for has to sound good but also has to look good too. But with film remixing, there’s the added complication of finding shots that’s also help explain the narrative and essence of the story and characters! Thinking in two mediums at once can get complicated!”

Graham:” It’s not easy to describe our working process, and it’s something we’ve had to work out how to do from first principles to achieve just what we want. It’s a kind of cross between film-post production and music producing, the difference with us though is that we don’t separate out the processes for audio and video – we treat them as part of just one production process, creating them both at the same time, and we think that shows in the end results.”

Alec:”In this clip we can see you perform in a live environment. Can you react to the audience? Or do you plan out the crowd reaction beforehand?”

Graham:” Both – just like any band or DJ, we usually work out roughly what our set will be, knowing what works at times during a set, but can always change and adapt it, drop tracks we were thinking of playing and swap them for one?s we weren?t going to play and so on. We?re not fixed, it?s audio/visual but it?s not a movie.”

Alec:”I keep having the same conversations with film directors who feel that a film will never be able to compete with a live show of musicians, because a show creates a different atmosphere, an interaction with the crowd. While I find it very fascinating when directors manage to set up a scene which has such an emotional impact on the audience when it’s being screened at a later point in time.

Many directors sweat quite a bit when they are present at their own film premiere, because there is no chance anymore for maneuvering. What is your view on that and how do you deal with this? Will VJs be able to build the bridge and will they perhaps influence directors and musicians, inspire them to approach their work in new ways?”

Graham: “Film-making is a very different discipline to what we do. Film directors engineer their scenes to create an emotional response or sometimes it?s just narrative thrust, or hopefully it?s both at the same time and the composers film score illustrates or informs the mood, or sometimes it?s even the driving force. What we do is give a pr?cis of the narrative, in quite an abstract but musical way, and of course it?s the music that drives us because the music and visuals are in essence the same thing in our work.

We?re not constrained by the same rules and conventions as film directors and composers at all, and we can find new ways to tell a story in a more abstracted musical way; like I said, when we play live we react to an audience more like a DJ or band. And yes, it would be great for VJs and AV artists to influence cinema, I think there?s definitely a new kind of cinematic syntax being developed now by AV artists and I?d love to see this working its way back into mainstream film-making.”

Tolly:” But after making remixed trailers ourselves I?ve definitely now seen some TV ads and broadcast trailers in the last couple of years that have used a style which appears to be influenced by what we?re doing! But there?s been little hints of audiovisualness in films for a long time though, probably as long as films have been made. The old movie ?Bedknobs and Broomsticks? springs to mind, as does ?Mary Poppins?, and of course Disney?s ?Fantasia?, where sequences were inspired by the work of Oskar Fischinger who also worked for Disney on that film. I think sometimes modern VJs tend to like to think they?re cutting new ground but mostly they?re finding new ways to use old tricks!”

Alec:”When you watch films do you always stay alert to scenes that you might want to use later? (My brain always sends me messages, when something might be a good loop or something haha)”

Graham:” Yes, absolutely – it?s kind of hard these days now to watch films without thinking ?that?d make a great sample?!”

click here, just do it….

Alec:”Tell us about your remix for Slumdog Millionaire…how did that come about? I guess everybody is asking the question right now This will haunt you for the rest of your lives? what do you think?”

Tolly:” not sure it will haunt us – it was a great remix to be asked to do, but yes – everyone in interviews is now asking us about it! It?s phenomenal what?s happened to the film since we were asked to be involved, an absolute sleeper hit as they say.”

Graham:” I know, 8 Oscars, a bunch of BAFTAs, Golden Globes and dozens more awards. Crazy to think when we were remixing Slumdog Millionaire and told people about it, no one knew what we were talking about! It was something we are asked to do by the film?s distributors, and we’d only really done film remixes for the US studios up to that point with films like Iron Man, Take the Lead etc so it was great to work on a British independent film. British films have a whole different vibe to the Hollywood movies and Slumdog in particular is really fresh and brilliantly captures India and the slums in particular.

The film?s director Danny Boyle saw our work and wanted us to do it, and it was a fantastic film to work with, really vibrant, colourful, and full of energy. It?s one of those films that you would think would be really easy to remix but it was actually quite hard, it took us a couple of goes to get it right, to match the film?s energy and pace. Looking back now, it?s been a great ride and we?re really pleased to have been able to remix an Oscar-winning movie, particularly as it also means that the idea of film remixing has just become a bit less underground than it was before.”

Tolly: “Well even Iron Man was nominated for an Oscar for its special effects, so to have remixed that too for Paramount shows film remixing certainly isn?t underground any longer. As it happens, last year we were also asked to remix the Gus Van Sant film Milk as well, which Sean Penn won the Oscar for. Sadly it didn?t happen in the end, but again shows the people behind such high profile movies are thinking of getting their films remixed.”

Alec:”Please name 6 of your favourite films EVER!”

Graham:” Definately both ?Brazil? and ?Time Bandits? by Terry Gilliam! ?Brazil? might be a bit of clich?d answer I know, but it?s a visionary piece of film-making and still stands up to this day. In fact, in many ways it has more in common with what?s happening in the World now with terrorism than it did at the time in the 1980s. I?ve also always liked Michael Powell?s ?A Matter of Life and Death? amazing film and of course the original ?Star Wars? which really inspired me as a kid.”

Tolly:” I?d put ?City of God? in my list and ?The Lord of the Rings? – but that?s a trilogy, does that count?”

Alec:”What do you have in mind for the future? In times when storage and hard drives have no limits anymore, will you give us a 3h remix version of…let’s say all Kubrick films? Or what do you guys have planned for the coming decade?”

Tolly: “Not sure creating a 3 hour remix of anything is a good idea – we might send our audience to sleep! But in the coming decade, yes I can see something like this working. The more audio/visual sampling and remixing becomes established, I think it?s quite clear that live AV shows based on, say trilogies like ?The Lord of the Rings? or movies by one director, will happen. I guess someone just has to try it and see if there?s an appetite from audiences; if you could get it right then I think it?s a great idea. Yeah, maybe we should do a feature length remix of ?Mamma Mia? and make our fortunes!”

Graham: “Er, maybe not! It would be nice though to think that all our remixes in 10 years would be in 3D, with surround sound, a fully immersive experience. In reality who knows what will happen, I think things will develop in unusual and unexpected directions, that?s part of the adventure, there?s currently few rules and the way technology evolves tends to mean eventually the imagination becomes the limiting factor.

Time and money in practice always interfere, but in theory pretty much anything will be possible. Maybe we?ll all stay at home and send our avatars out on virtual tours of Second Life. That would limit our carbon footprint, but would be infinitely more boring.”

before we forget : click here!

check out these LINKS and suscribe (and get rid of our cable TV…NOW!):

www.myspace.com/addictivetv
www.youtube.com/AddictiveTV
www.addictive.tv

www.eyho-blog.com

ENTERTAINMENT AND PAIN. an interview with Miron Zownir regarding his film ‘Phantomanie’.

Preview Screening during “Transducers! Festival” in Berlin at Tresor on 12th of February 2009 was a success. We posted a German interview a few days ago. This is the translation by M.A.Littler.

After several attempts you have now made your first feature films. Why has it taken so long?

Zownir: “I had already written screenplays in the 80?s in New York and L.A. that anticipated several things that Tarantino then realized in the 90′s.
But my then producer Chosei Funahara insisted on doing a flic in the Philippines first because he hoped to be able to raise a larger budget for our film that way.

Unfortunately that film turned out to be a flop as I had expected and Funahara never recovered.
We had been preparing my film ‘The Contender’ for three years. We had a great cast lined up ? Peter Fonda, David Terriffick and Richard Edson (Stranger than Paradise).

When I got word that the Philipino film killed our project, I threw my videorecorder and television set out of the closed window and was arrested, tied up and almost killed by a fascist LAPD deathsquad.
After that my screenplay ?The Loser? was rejected by ?Das kleine Fernsehspiel?, claiming that the German audience could not be confronted with such violence and obscenities.
Even the support of internationally acclaimed actors couldn?t eleviate the fear of the financiers that my films would pass the boundaries of the tolerable.

What is ‘Phantomanie’ about?

Zownir: “I believe that today’s materialistic hegemony, the blind faith in progress and the uncontrollable globalisation of power and economy paired with the idolatry of fame and an anachronistic monotheism triggers our primal fears.

Who am I? How or based on who can orientate myself. Who can I still trust? How can I survive without becoming part of the inhuman machinery? How can I protect my emotions and individuality when everything can be duplicated and replaced.

Perhaps those are not the fears of the majority but much rather the fears of those who refuse to conform. But that?s probably the target audience I want to connect with and that I identify with.”

Natalia Avelon plays a prostitute in Phantomanie.

That doesn’t sound like entertainment.

Zownir: “My films are an amalgamation of entertainment and pain. You can laugh and cry about the helplessness, confusion and anger that my characters experience. But the mere fact that they fight back and have to find a way through the chaos of their psychotic dreams and illusions makes them rebels of sorts. Even if they fail, they have more in common with one of Crumb’s comic heroes than a good looking Hollywood loser.

They’re overdriven, distorted and far from the norms of mass production, designed on the drawing boards, that everyone wants to supposedly see. None the less they are realer than the common media puppets that the German televison networks force upon their audience.“

There is a particular passage in your collection of short stories ‘Parasites of Helplessness’, in wich a journalist tells a director: ‘you make films for lunatics, sadists and pilgrims on their way to hell. In how far does that apply to you?

Zownir: (laughs) “Everyone should see my films. I have no reservations or fear of contact.”

Bruno S. performed in his first feature film in thirty years. How did you convince him?

Zownir: “I had already made a documentary about him and he trusts me. He plays a mixture of a moronic bum and an all knowing philosopher, a character that mediates between dreams and reality ? he does the same for himself in real life.”

Bruno is known as an icon of amateur acting, who no one wanted to touch after he made films with Herzog.

Zownir: “I freed him from that Herzog corsette, which is really limited to the poor, ridiculed outsider.
The scene in which Bruno becomes the werewolf-like strangler will most likely not please most of his fans. But Bruno is more than merely part of the Herzog mythology and I gave him the opportunity to prove that.”

What was your collaboration with Alec Empire like? He is known to be eccentric not unlike yourself.

Zownir: “When working with me every genius eccentric has a jester’s license’let’s say within the boundaries of what I am trying to say. With Alec I had to make no compromises because he understood the film better than I did (laughs). Our collaboration could not have been better.”

Your photographs, novels, stories and films are hard to digest for most people. Could one refer to you as an iconoclast?

Zownir: “I believe on your way to self-realization, you must first tear down all barriers before you know where it is that you want to go. As soon as I encounter taboos, I feel provoked, I get uncomfortable and try to question them. Looking at it from this angle, I haven’t learned all that much within the past thirty years (laughs). Call it what you will, but I believe what distinguishes me is the courage of the uncensored word or image.
The moral imperative of post-war Germany is hard to digest or to accept because their moral ambassadors, as we well known are the biggest opportunists and cowards.”

One of your lead actors Frederic Geay died during the post production of Phantomanie due to an asthmatic attack. In his part he continuously talks about death. Do you see a connection?

Zownir: “Freddy was a good friend of mine and I knew he was asthmatic. In a way he played himself and he addressed fears that tortured him his entire life. Yet at the same time he was optimistic, enjoyed life and defied it all with humor and charme. Freddy’s death was a shock to us all. Everyone that worked with him liked and respected him. I would have made many more films with him.”

http://www.mironzownir.com/
http://www.myspace.com/zownirradicalman

RJDJ IN BERLIN FRIDAY 12TH!!!!!

We assume you already know or at least heard of RJDJ for the iPhone. Like so many apps it’s hard to explain (no. it’s easy to explain), what we are trying to say is that until you experienced it, it’s hard to imagine.

Most apps are just fun…not more not less…but we shouldn’t underestimate the fun factor…because it can be a lot of fun!

You know that feeling you sit in the subway, underground, U-bahn or whatever, meaning you are caged in with other human beings that you want to be as far away from as possible. And you feel hate, controlled, depressed and you are trying to reach your inner self, go deeper into it to not go crazy. In these moments I always wanted to manipulate and change reality instead of just accepting it (or letting it out on other people).

RJDJ does exactly that! You can choose different settings and it puts effects onto anything audio around you.

I know this doesn’t sound completely convincing, but it is funny…I once got asked for my passport by some cop and his voice spoke in that mickey mouse voice to me, and even though I kept my Alec face (no expression at all) on, I was laughing so hard…

The thing as developed by Michael Breidenbr?cker. Since then they have been doing these kind of sessions called sprints, you can learn about how to program your own settings and more. The next sprint is in Berlin.

Friday 12th of December. 2008, 12 o’clock until Sunday, 14th of December 2008, 0:00 o’clock, Bl?cherstra?e 22, 10961 Berlin, at Moviepilot. You can find info here: http://rjdj.me/sprints/.

Watch this video…(It’s almost more hilarious than the program itself!!! )

yes, he is on lsd….must be……

A MAZE.JUMP ‘N RUN 03:

A MAZE. pr?sentiert am Mittwoch den 10.Dezember zwei Klassiker in einem neuen
Gewand. Der K?nstler ‘telematique’ verbindet ‘Pong’, die Mutter aller Computerspiele
mit Videotechnik und zaubert die Spieler ‘INSIDE PONG’. Somit hat der Spieler nicht nur
das Spiel, sondern auch sich selbst im Blick.
‘extrajetzt?’ hat sich ‘Snake’, dem Dinosaurier aus den 80zigern gewidmet und daraus
ein gesellschaftliches Ereignis programmiert. Mit Hilfe der Bluetooth Technologie wird
es 7 Spielern per Handy erm?glicht, gleichzeitig eine Schlage auf einem Public Display
zu bewegen. Gewinner ist, wer am meisten frisst und somit seine Schlange wachsen
l?sst. Der Preis ist die selbstverfasste Textnachricht, die auf dem Public Display dargestellt
wird.
Bitte kommt p?nktlich, um die Einf?hrungen der Projekte nicht zu verpassen. Die K?nstler
sind anwesend und offen f?r Fragen.

_Date: Mittwoch: 10.12.2008
_Zeit: 21:05 Uhr
_Ort: KIM, Brunnenstr. 10

F?r Computerspiel inspirierte DJ Sets sorgen die A MAZE. JUMP ‘N RUN Residents, Storno
(Roooar) und Computadora (http://bleepstreet.com).

###

_INSIDE PONG by telematique:
http://telematique.de

Preview:
http://cb-film.de/home/telematique/clips/telematique-installation-inside-pong.mov

Sven Gareis ist seit 1998 mit seinen Videoinstallationen und Live-Performances Teil
der internationalen Kunst- und Clublandschaft.
Die Arbeit von telematique ist ma?geblich von einem experimentellen Ansatz gepr?gt.
Ziel ist es, Bildlandschaften zu generieren, die eine enge Beziehung zwischen dem
Pr?sentationsort, dessen Architektur und der Livemusik herstellen. Zu diesem Zweck
werden von dem K?nstler immer neue Arbeitstechniken und Steuerungstools entwickelt.
Das Ergebnis sind atmosph?risch dichte, ?berraschende Bildwelten, die sich situativ aus
pr?zise auf die Musik abgestimmten abstrakten Bildmustern und gegenst?ndlichem
visuellen Material zusammensetzen.

_RAVE SNAKE by extrajetzt?:
http://public-playing.de
http://extrajetzt.de

Preview:
http://public-playing.de/media/xj_you-doku-showcase_publicplaying_ravesnake_071127.mov

Public Playing:
Mit Public Playing wollen wir kreative Spielkonzepte mit neuartigen Technologien wie z.B.
Bluetooth, Wlan, SMS, QR-Code, GPS, Touchscreen, etc. f?r Gro?displays im realen Raum
entwickeln und evaluieren.

Extrajetzt:
Extrajetzt? produziert seit 2002 digitale und interaktive Inhalte f?r verschiedene Medien,
Plattformen und Kan?le wie Internet, Mobile, iTV, Out-of-Home und Big Displays.

###

Call for Bits:
Contact: thorsten@amaze-festival.de

###

Last AJNR Video:

Be A MAZE.D

?

Writer Nathan Meunier interviewed Alec Empire about his Gameboy album which originally was released in 1998. Since then game boy music has really developed into a genre of its own. We had some request from subscribers to re-publish the interview as it is hard to find on the internet.

ALEC EMPIRE ON “WE PUNK EINHEIT”

-How did you come to use the game boy as a tool for creating music?

ALEC: It was very obvious to me. When I started Atari Teenage Riot, I loved the idea of using a tool which is supposed to be a videogame only.

Of course the Atari back then was a proper little computer, like the Amiga. When Nintendo released the music programm I just had to get it. Since I started DJing in the early 90ties I was always playing video game music in my sets. Not the usual novelty joke stuff, serious game music which I find amazing as music to listen to.

-What game boy program did you use specifically to compose “We Punk Einheit”? What other game boy programs, if any, have you used to create music and what are your impressions of those programs. (The main programs I’m aware of are the game boy camera, Little Sound DJ, and Nanoloop).

ALEC: I did We Punk Einheit with the game boy camera. But then started to use Nanoloop live in all of my solo electronic shows. The programs are limited but it that’s the challenge of it. The feedback that I got from people was ‘how on earth did you come up with that on this little machine?’
I think it’s a mind set, many people look at an instrument like this and see it as a gimmick. I respect it in the same way I respect a piano or a guitar.
When I used the game boy live , and I use different ones, the first one, the second one and so on, because they all have different frequency ranges, I mean a different sound, I realized how powerful the machine really is when heard over a big P.A.

-How long did it take to create “We Punk Einheit”? Tell me about the composing and recording process used to create the record.

ALEC: I can’t really tell how long it took, because I did the record in between recording sessions for an album I have done called ‘Miss Black America’. I would guess I did one song a day. I remember making the music felt like when you reach a high level in a video game, old school video game, you reach a difficult level, everything goes fast and you react quick…it?s exciting, thrilling…your body releases adrenaline or something…that’s how it felt…very similar how I record music in general.
A lot of super quick decision making. When a pilot flys in a fighter jet, he or she can’t step back and think, because then it’s too late. You have to trust your instinct in that moment.

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-Musically or thematically what did you set out to do in creating this
particular record?

ALEC: There is a link to the old game Space Invaders or Astroids, also in the artwork. To me these were quite nihilistic games, because you could only lose.
The aliens would always take over. I loved that when I was a kid. The music and sounds that came with it. Very cold , like an unstoppable machine which destroys you, the player. You can be sure about that when you start the game.
We did game boy parties in 1998, they were called the ‘Out’ parties, DJs were called ‘bodysnatchers’ and not DJs. We played video game music, no wave and weird Japanese art records there. It was a strange atmosphere there in Berlin. With the double album I wanted to capture that vibe. We Punk Einheit ist he document of that time.
I was so bored with the British music press praising the Beatles on and on. At those parties we wanted to draw a line once and for all and reject the old tradition of music making which is (still) stopping or slowing down the evolution of music….if you know what I mean. I grew up in Berlin. The artists in Germany made a fresh start after the Hitler regime. They thought that if a society that evil came out from the art created before it, then we must invent a new way of thinking and creating. Sometimes you have to let go of the past, and this is what we did back then.

-What was your favorite and least favorite part of working with a gameboy to produce the record.

ALEC: I had a great time the whole time…because once I got in there, it was like composing in a little articifical world on its own…if you know what I mean. It felt like being in the world of 80ties space invaders or house of terror. When I was a kid, I dreamed about being in these worlds.

-Have you incorporated game boy sounds into any other records you’ve put out?

ALEC: Yes, I have on various ones….CD2 from ‘Intelligence and Sacrifice’ or ‘The Live Sessions in London 2002′. And more… I always have it ready to go, it’s sitting next to all my other instruments in the studio.

-Have you used a game boy in live performances and if so how was it utilized? Have you used other video game hardware to create music?

ALEC: I used the game boy many times live. I was even once attacked by another musician at a show in Helsinki at a festival. He was angry at me because he said it?s not ‘music’. Using the game boy can provoke many people in an audience.
It is looked at like the ‘anti-instrument’. Which is not right of course, because it is a mini computer with a synth. I have never used other video game hardware live. Mainly because the game boy really sounds good.

-what are your thoughts on some of the music out there that has been created using game boy hardware?

ALEC: I think people should stop treating it as a ‘fun’ tool and get serious with it.
To me that?s the part where the humour comes in. To go ‘haha this is a game boy , it makes ping pong sounds’ is a joke told too often already. It really reflects on the person using it.

- Thank you very much for your time.

NTR’s album will be available again next week at The Hellish Vortex
click here

check out Nanoloops website here
official NTR myspace

Delia Derbyshire (1937-2001) is a name virtually unheard of in Germany yet in the UK she remains one of the true pioneers of electronic music.

Derbyshire was born in Coventry and studied mathematics and music at Cambridge. This curious combination no doubt influenced her work as an innovator in the field of bringing logical, scientific approaches to the field of electronic music to create something new and inspired.

Her developing interest in music led her to apply for a position as a sound engineer at Decca Records only to be turned down on the grounds that the company didn?t hire women in their studios. Derbyshire subsequently accepted a post to work for the UN in Geneva before returning to London to work at music publishers Boosey and Hawkes.

By 1960 Derbyshire was working at the then fledgling and massively influential BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The unit was established in the late 50s at the legendary Maida Vale studios under the guidance of Studio Head Desmond Briscoe to provide new sound effects and scores for radio and television. It was in this highly experimental environment that Derbyshire?s creativity was allowed to flourish, enabling her to create some of her best-remembered works.

Perhaps her best-known composition from her years at the Radiophonic Workshop was her interpretation of Ron Grainer?s theme for the then brand new children?s TV series Doctor Who, which first went on air in November 1963. Derbyshire created a swirling, hypnotic interpretation of Grainer?s music utilising reverse tape loops and electronic oscillators. The process took weeks; each note had to be individually treated, recorded onto one-inch magnetic tape, spliced and then edited back together again.

The composition is often credited as being the first every purely electronic theme tune used in a mainstream television broadcast and was a sensation at the time of its first airing. Grainer was so surprised with how Derbyshire had interpreted his sheet music that he asked her: ?Did I really write this?? to which Derbyshire neatly replied: ?Most of it.? Nevertheless, Grainer was so impressed with Derbyshire?s work he attempted to have her credited on-screen as co-composer, something which BBC bureaucracy at the time prevented.

She also collaborated with musical luminaries such as Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono and was a founder member of the short-lived Unit Delta Plus, a group of like-minded musicians whose intention was to promote electronic music to a wider audience. They presented some of their works at The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave and at the Royal College of Art before disbanding in 1967. Derbyshire remained at the BBC until 1973 and created sound effects and theme tunes for numerous television and radio productions.

After her BBC years, Derbyshire turned her back on music working at various times as a radio operator, in an art gallery and in a bookshop. Her passion for music was revived in the late 90s and she was busy at work on a new album of compositions when she died suddenly of renal failure whilst still recovering from breast cancer in 2001.

And there the story should end. BBC procedure at the time meant that the majority of Radiophonic Workshop staff were uncredited and therefore unappreciated for their work and Derbyshire may well have sunk into the depths of anonymity. However, her theme for Doctor Who ? which has subsequently become one of the world?s most recognisable theme tunes ? and her magnificently atmospheric Dreams project set her aside from her Workshop peers. Perhaps more interesting is the discovery of a box of 267 8? tapes which have remained unplayed for over 30 years.

They were stored in Derbyshire?s attic until her death when they were donated to Radiophonic Workshop Archivist Mark Ayres. Now they are in the hands of David Butler from Manchester University?s School of Arts, Histories and Cultures who is currently digitising the collection in its entirety with a view to making it accessible to the public. Perhaps the most outstanding find in the collection is a nameless, experimental dance track.

Derbyshire herself introduces the composition by saying, ?Forget about this, it?s for interest only.? What follows is a track which could easily have been recorded in the present day. Paul Hartnoll, former member of the group Orbital, heard the studio outtake and told the BBC, ?That could be coming out next week on Warp Records. It?s incredible when you think where it comes from.? Indeed, for a musical throwaway from the late 60s it?s an incredibly foresighted composition and ranks up there with the best of contemporary left-field dance.

The introduction of the synthesiser in the early 70s has been cited as the main reason Derbyshire quit the BBC; it made electronic music much easier to produce, too easy in fact. Part of Derbyshire?s enjoyment in her work was her ability and need to explore, to experiment. She was a sculptor, a creator ? not simply a programmer. Once an element of ease had been introduced to electronic music then the scope for experimentation narrowed and Derbyshire?s enthusiasm lessened.

In 2008 when electronic music across all genres is so popular, it?s especially important that we recognise the contribution Delia Derbyshire made to the development of its popularity, especially given the two sided problem of being a young, attractive woman working in a man?s world in the early 1960s and also having to create advanced, deeply atmospheric pieces from the most primitive of technology.

Delia we thank you.

For more information on Delia Derbyshire plus links to the BBC news site which features audio clips of the recently discovered attic archive, visit: www.delia-derbyshire.org
click here for weblink

NEALE LYTOLLIS

?I think it brings a lot of creative potential for the music industry, not just for the club. It has already proved its potential in museums and in cinemas and this is an experiment in a club. It?s new technology but I think it?s a start and I am happy that it takes place at Tresor.?

Dimitri Hagemann, owner of legendary Berlin techno club Tresor, is talking about IOSONO, a system being touted as the next big thing in audio technology and which saw its world club debut at Tresor last week as one of the few highlights of the Popkomm trade fair.

IOSONO is based on the concept of Wave Field Synthesis and is able to recreate natural sound waves as opposed to merely amplifying sound. Another innovation is the way in which sound is dispered within the club room. DJs use multiple audio sources in conjunction with a multitude of speakers ? in Tresor?s case, 800 ? with which they can position and move sounds to create a much more textured, 3D sound landscape. Gerald Moser, Business Development Manager for IOSONO, explains:

?In our case DJs open up their creative workspace by adding new sound sources. For example they use four CD players; two in a simple way creating their main mix and use the other two to play new sources into the system,? he said, ?We developed a new tool for the club experience which we call the IOSONO Multi-touch DJ Live Interface and it consists of a touch screen on which the artist just touches the sound sources and moves them on the screen which moves them in real time across the dance floor.

They can feed each single track of their production into the system and can switch it on, switch it off, move it around, use certain filters on it, and use everything separated as opposed to a usual stereo set-up where everything just comes out of two speakers.?

Four CD sources, six server PCs and around 800 speakers have all been installed for the system?s debut at Tresor and although the system is already in use in a limited number of locations ? the Haunted Mansion at Florida?s Disneyland being one of them ? this is the first time it?s been pressed into service in a club. Karlheinz Brandenburg, the man who gave the world the mp3, is also the brains behind IOSONO and was especially pleased to see his system used in this way.

?For me the basic idea in fact has been a dream for a long, long time. When we speak of hi-fidelity it?s two parts; it?s cleanliness of sound and it?s really immersion, the idea of being somewhere else. With Wave Field Synthesis this dream really became true. And I think it?s the next big thing in audio.?

The assembled crowd were then ushered into the centre of the dancefloor where surrounded by the newly-installed speaker system. It was not uncommon to see heads turning as people looked to locate the sound they?d just heard. Afterwards, the DJs took to the stage to show how IOSONO can be used as a means to build on the concept of the traditional DJ set. In addition to the basic mix were a number of additional sound effects and filters, all controlled via the touch-screen console behind the decks. Certain elements of the tracks were then keyed into the room from different locations ? After introductions from the IOSONO team, guests were treated to a jungle-themed presentation where animal sounds and the noise of rain appeared to move around the room. basslines appeared to throb overhead, breaks and beats shot from one side of the dancefloor to another, electro clicks and pops rippled through the room before shooting to the opposite side.

One of the DJs headlining the evening was Berliner Fidelity Kastrow; she?s played some of the hottest dancefloors throughout Europe and North America and certainly knows the difference between a good and a bad PA. She was definitely won over by IOSONO after her debut DJ set on the system:

?It?s amazing. It?s just really mind-blowing. You just get so many ideas of things you want to prepare and how you want to change making tracks. I think it?s just really amazing,? she enthused after her debut DJ set on the system, ? It?s challenging but it?s very intuitive but I am just in the real beginner, baby steps of learning what the system can do for DJs. It?s still a work in progress. It?s not done, it?s just beginning to develop.?

The reaction to the new system was also enthusiastic from the clubbers present:

?IOSONO is great. I never saw it before. It?s cool. I tried to grab some sounds but they were too fast!?

?I was surprised because there isn?t just one point where the sound is coming from, it?s everywhere and I don?t have to go away because it?s too hard. I have no problems with my ears because a lot of people have the experience that after a party my ears are destroyed, that?s not the problem with this sound.?

?I thought that it was a very impressive system. It has a lot of features. It?s kind of hard to tell what it?s going to become but it has a lot of potential for certain people.?

?I thought it was fantastic. I thought that Berghain was the top sound system here in Berlin but after listening to this it just blew my mind. A total surround sound experience; close your eyes, listen to the full effect of it and just go with the music!?

So clubbers and DJs alike seem to be won over by this revolutionary new approach to audio presentation and with the system due to be fine-tuned over the next few weeks, IOSONO at Tresor could really set the standard for a completely new clubbing experience. But with such a hefty price tag it?s unlikely that many venues will be able to afford it. Time will tell then if this really does develop into the Next Big Thing.

NEALE LYTOLLIS

Isono Website