Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0811162040580.17530@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: Majmua Music: 3 New Releases Pre-order Now!
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2008 20:41:25 -0500 (EST)
Majmua Music: 3 New Releases Pre-order Now! museumfire/FireMuseum/Fire Museum! xxxxxxxxxxx go to: http://www.museumfire.com/preorder for pre-order special, $15 (plus postage) for all 3! MM 7 My Country of Illusion - Jambient Excursions My Country of Illusion is back, hovering in the sonic stratosphere with Jambient Excursions! Now split between Rome & New Mexico, the duo here stretches out their high desert ~Sjambience~T to new peaks. First coming to the attention of discerning listeners with their contribution to Azadi!,their debut release ~TAmerican Dreamlife~T was hailed by Don Poe of EAR/Rational thusly: "This is surreal music, swirling around your head like a dream that makes you wake up on the underside of the bed. What is going on? I feel sick and keenly aware that I am very excited about this music. Guitars, drums and the usual done in a very unique way that chills me and makes my skin crawl. It isn't evil music, just very demented. A perfect soundtrack to the weirdest Spaghetti Western ever.~T This time out, they have largely jettisoned the samples of their debut to concentrate their efforts on a pure, enveloping sound. If one were to consider this record the logical extension of their first, perhaps it could be said they have aimed for the heart of the ~SDreamlife~T while leaving ~SAmerican~T soundbites behind. http://www.majmua.museumfire.com/jambient xxxxxxxxxxxxx MM 8 Susan Alcorn - Curandera A curandera is a Latin American traditional folk healer or shaman, dedicated to healing physical and spiritual ailments. The musical balm to be found here offers a similar result for those who will listen and surrender themselves to its deep well of sound. BIO: Susan Alcorn is a composer, improviser, and pedal steel guitarist active in contemporary music and free improvisation. She combines the techniques of country-western pedal steel with her own extended techniques to form a personal style influenced by free jazz, avant-garde classical music, Indian ragas, Indigenous traditions, and various folk musics of the world. Though mostly a solo performer, she has collaborated with numerous artists including Pauline Oliveros, Eugene Chadbourne, Peter Kowald, Chris Cutler, Joe Giardullo, Caroline Kraabel, Le Quan Ninh, Sean Meehan, Joe McPhee, LaDonna Smith, Mike Cooper, Misha Feigin, Ellen Fullman, and Johanna Varner. She currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland. "Alcorn is a great player who has mastered and redefined an unlikely instrument . . . With an exquisite touch she invoked the history of her instrument, extended its emotional and ethereal strengths, and explored its microtonal possibilities, drawing it out of contexts that traditionally render it invisible -- or generic -- and placing it into its own mature discourse . . . reminding improvisers that "free" includes the right to be romantic, melodic, and eight to the bar." - Chris Cutler, The Wire http://www.majmua.museumfire.com/alcorn xxxxxxxxxxx MM 9 Alan Sondheim - Boojum Boojum was our cat, who died recently at 18, and is missed terribly. Most tracks are recorded mono directly from a Yamaha keyboard output. This is the 'pure' sounding of the machine; there's no stereo enhancement or graphic equalization. I determine the state of the machine, that's called playing it. The accompaniment is automated but its figuration is not. The keyboard is touch-sensitive, but as you know, touch on an acoustic keyboard translates not only into volume, but also harmonic structures and envelope. Here touch is volume only. Note that all playing is live. Think of the real. Track 8 is recorded live on the same keyboard acoustically; you can hear breathing, key and nail sounds, and so forth. The recording is stereo. Here the machine gives way to the periphery of the human player One might place this configuration in the symbolic. The Cluster track is recorded from a very large Beowulf computer cluster which generates considerable electromagnetic radiation in the radio spectrum. These are recorded acoustically from a Realistic Patrolman SW-60 radio slowly tuned across various SW, VHF, and UHF bands. This is the sound of the machine in air, transformed into audio signals within the range of human hearing. Machine-states and machine exist in the imaginary. Emanents exist within and without the machine.. Think of the true world in all its glory. For Boojum. ~V Alan Sondheim "Alan the exprimentalist, meet Alan the lounge lizard?~T -Howard Frampton, Spectacular Times http://www.majmua.museumfire.com/boojum