Electronic Music NewsThese club acts follow the beat of a different drum
The News Review:
- These club acts follow the beat of a different drum
- Music Preview: Experimental Parkins gets amplified at Wood Street
- Meat Beat Manifesto: Full-on sensory overload
- Top five from the rock band Lotus
- Students rated worst neighbours – press.co.nz – Get the latest local…
- Britney Against the Music
- Solange Knowles: In A Class Of Her Own Beyoncé’s Younger Sister…
These club acts follow the beat of a different drum
Rocky Mountain News – Apr 10, 2008
The ones who right or wrong take chances with their work regardless of what the rest of us might think. The ones who dare to be different. Matt “Math You” DowneyDowney makes electronic music – but not in the manner you imagine. He started in the traditional DJ scene true but this isn’t a person who’s happy remaining a part of any status quo; he’s more of an underground bomb-thrower constantly reinventing his work to the confusion of his enemies. He was among the first in Denver to DJ with a laptop but soon left that behind to experiment with ever more adventurous techniques like circuitbending (rewiring the circuitry of old electronics to make them sound broken producing a painfully anti-musical noise) and most recently chiptunes – or 8bit – a variety of electronic music produced by hacked-up Nintendos and Gameboys. That aesthetic informs his live performances as well: He’s done techno street art on the 16th Street Mall with a home-built briefcase full of electronic equipment and a 20-year-old boombox. * The influences: “Back before the public could access the Internet I was a computer geek that would use my modem to call BBS systems and I would trade MOD files.
Music Preview: Experimental Parkins gets amplified at Wood Street
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – Pittsburgh Post Gazette – Apr 10, 2008
I think about drones and stasis. The connection between performance and installation is important to me in my solo work and it’s taken me years to figure out how to do that. All the electronic music that Parkins originally created on tape and later moved to samplers is now contained on her laptop from which she does live sampling and mixing. Despite the high-tech gadgets in her setup Parkins also emphasizes raw physicality. “I’m a small person doing several things at once so there’s always been this feeling that what I’m doing is nearly beyond my capability to control. That used to bother me but now I think this whole physical awkwardness provides content to what I do.
Meat Beat Manifesto: Full-on sensory overload
San Francisco Chronicle – Apr 10, 2008
It turns out that in 1987 when Meat Beat Manifesto performed in London the show included burning a bag of hair. “And we had some CS gas (tear gas) as well and we got told off and it was very naughty” Dangers says. Dangers’ innovative performances use real-time improvisational video sampling to complement his electronic music compositions. Many bands that use video as part of their performance have a VJ or are playing to a DVD. Meat Beat Manifesto takes the technology a step further by using software that allows them to engineer and improvise moving images live. “You’ve got to be an obsessive compulsive maniac to even attempt to do what we’re doing” Dangers says. He has more than a thousand video samples ready to go at any time during live performances which he keeps track of in his brain along with making sure the music is in place.
Top five from the rock band Lotus
Rocky Mountain News – Apr 10, 2008
We had to know more so we caught up with them before their shows tonight and Saturday. All Rights Reserved.
Students rated worst neighbours – press.co.nz – Get the latest local…
The Press – Apr 10, 2008
suburban New Zealanders rate students as second only to squatters in a roll-call of undesirable neighbours such as party people sharing houses and families with teenage kids. A small on-line survey by property listings website allrealestate has "revealed'' that "doof doof'' parties — with lots of that electronic music that thumps monotonously — and students' reputations for long lie-ins and piles of dirty dishes around the sink alienate their middle class neighbours. Having such students as neighbours could devalue a home by up to 10 percent according to the website's Melbourne-based general manager Shaun Di Gregorio who said 59 percent of New Zealanders ranked students as the worst neighbours. "Students are notorious for having a good time and living in messy conditions'' he said in comments based on a survey of 242 people. Squatters fared worse scorned by 83. 5 percent of respondents and people sharing a house rate marginally better than students despised by 44.
Britney Against the Music
New Haven Advocate – Apr 10, 2008
Then there are the pop rewrites of La Boheme into Rent and Carmen as a "Hip-Hopera" for MTV. Yale's done more than its part in creating operas around larger-than-life modern celebrities. Ezra Laderman was dean of the Yale School of Music when his opera about Marilyn Monroe was an immediate sell-out success for New York City Opera in 1993. Over the years Yale composition students have frequently created pieces around topics in that day's news especially regarding war. Few of those works however get produced beyond an excerpt in Yale's wondrous oddball New Music New Haven series or get any attention off-campus. So Timberbrit is special. Jacob Cooper's opera which gets a public performance in New Haven Saturday afternoon at 5 p… in Yale's Sudler Hall is based on one of the most omnipresent media-fed legends of our times. It not only rips its libretto from the gossip pages and its score from the pop charts it employs cutting-edge electronic composition techniques. It's an artifact of the pop age with a score that deconstructs and builds upon the simplistic pop tunes and personalities that fuel it. But even Cooper's contemporary classical composing has its roots in the middle ages. "There was this piece I wrote last year" Cooper revealed in an interview at the Book Trader last week "where I took a medieval chant and slowed it down to one-fifteenth of its original speed" before adding his signature electronic embellishments. "It sounded really cool—a short vibrato slowed down becomes this long wavering note.
Solange Knowles: In A Class Of Her Own Beyoncé’s Younger Sister…
CBS News – Apr 10, 2008
The young talent says that she and her sister are completely different when it comes to music. “I think all artists have a different story to tell and no story is the same” Solange told The Showbuzz. “Our music is completely different. I think I would describe it as 60s and 70s soul music so it is definitely not something that you really hear. I don’t try to focus so much on defining how I am different (from Beyonc? I just focus on myself as an artist and the message that I have with my music is the story that I can only tell. That’s definitely mine and mine alone. Having performed alongside Beyonc?ince she was a little girl – a star known for her tremendous stage presence and confidence comparable to that of legendary Tina Turner – it’s no doubt that Solange has learned from one of the best… Despite the paternal tie Solange said that she has “more creative control” of her music which may not come easy with another manager. “He knows me the best; he knows what I stand for and he fights for exactly what I want and I know that it comes from an organic place it’s a good partnership” Solange revealed. Although “SoL – AngeL & The Hadley Street Dreams” which infuses electronic beats and Motown sounds will be released at the end of August fans can catch her music on the Web. Solange’s first single “I Decided” along with “Champagne Chronic Nightcap” and “White Picket Dreams” are available on Solange’s MySpace page. She also co-wrote R&B singer Teairra Mari’s second album. Solange has been influenced by various artists across the board such as Zero 7 Knarls Barkley Fiest John Legend Bilal Earth Wind and Fire and Marvin Gaye Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross. She has collaborated with Knarls Barkley Bilal Pharrell and Q-Tip.