To Outer Space, to Cyberspace. The online life of obsolete media.

"To Outer Space, to Cyberspace. The online life of obsolete media." I had the pleasure to curate a small online exhibition with a big title for the Museum of Post Digital Cultures. Featuring among many other things  two very different golden records, the photo archive from one of the earliest computer animation labs (previously featured here), the NASA etc., and the whole is sort of dedicated to Laurie Spiegel and Lillian Schwartz. I might add one or two things, and there will be a stream performance on March 4th featuring Synkie, the open source reinvention of an analog modular video synthesizer. 
Click here: http://www.postdigitalcultures.ch/current

Festive mix: Zpívánky - Czech folk song TV show for kids

It'll be a good conversation starter at any christmas party to say that you're currently listening to a mix/edit of songs from a Czech folk song/folk dance/fairy tale TV show for children.

Download this mix here.

I stumbled upon this show on YouTube while looking for TV idents. Here's my YouTube playlist (the mix/edit is based on sound snippets from these videos).

If this puts you in a festive mood, you might also like this Eastern European fairy tale soundscape I made some time ago.

Mix: Soothing Sounds for J.

My first child J. was born this spring. To celebrate his 5 months birthday, here's a little mix to soothe the young and old folks.

With some Brazil bliss, Kraut Kitsch, Back-to-the-land romance, a Library Lullaby, greetings from the New Age, falsettos from the beach (J. loves when I sing along) and a healthy dose of sweet Morr Music from around the Millenium.

Listen on Mixcloud or download here.

Soothing Sounds for J. - Dispokino Mix October 2014 by Dispokino on Mixcloud

Tracklist:

F.S. Blumm - Schneeglocke

Raymond Scott - Music Box

B. Fleischmann - Drops

The Beach Boys - Surfer Girl

Michael Rother - KM3

João Gilberto - Undiú

Vashti Bunyan - Window Over the Bay

Jim Lawless - Vibes Lullaby

Laurie Spiegel - Appalachian Grove

Laraji - Essence (excerpt)

Isan - Clipper

Mort Garson - Rhapsody in Green

Bruno Spoerri studio visit

Bruno Spoerri (*1935) began experimenting with electronic devices 50 years ago (he mentions seeing Rolf Liebermann's piece "Les Echanges" at Expo 64 as an important moment of inspiration). First with simple, homemade effect machines, an Ondes Martenot and manipulated magnetic tapes, and later as one of the first musicians in Switzerland to own a big synthesizer system (an EMS Synthi-100) and use a computer. With a background in jazz - he has played and composed with successful jazz bands since the age of 17 - improvisation has always played a major role in his mu­sic, and as of the 1980s he began to speak of 'computer­assisted jazz'­. A trained psychologist, he was virtually self­taught as a musician and scholar of music technology. In the course of his career, Spoerri has not only given countless concerts and re­corded dozens of albums, but also forged a groundbreaking career in advertising, TV and film. Among other things, he was the inhouse composer and sound designer (before the term existed) of one of the first agencies for TV ads in Switzerland and composed the soundtracks for approx. 500 ads. Check this previous post for some of his TV ident soundtracks.

If you're a frequent reader of this blog, you know that I'm a big fan of Bruno Spoerri's work. I had the pleasure to work with him on several occasions, especially at the 2010 Shift Festival in Basel, where Bruno gave a concert and a talk and we showed a programme with film- and videoclips with his soundtracks. Here's some pictures from a recent visit at his Studio in Zurich.

After the Ondes Martenot (he had since 1965) came the EMS VCS-3 in 1970, and he still has it. He modified it: "I used a Pitch to Voltage Converter to control the VCS-3 with my Saxophone. I needed my hands to play the saxophone, so I added some sort of "presets". There are switches that gave me the approximate functionality of a Minimoog without the need to use the patch panel. I also added trimmers to the oscillators and filters with a 4-way switch, so I could change transpositions easily. I could e.g. play in a 3 voice polyphony and even reverse the voltage to play mirrored voices. But I had to control and re-tune the trimmers before each concert. Most of the time it worked, but sometimes it got horribly out of tune in the middle of a show."

The thing above the pitch to voltage converter and random generator is a home made unit to switch between the controllers saxophone, random generator and keyboard.

Bruno has a very well organised archive and has digitized most of his tapes. This is a page from the index of his archive of sounds and noises, showing recordings he made in factories for two of his great promotional records commissioned by the machine industry: Oederlin (iron foundry) and Lansing-Bagnall (fork lifts). The Lansing-Bagnall 7" was the first of Bruno's tracks popular among rare groove collectors.

Bruno is still experimenting with new technology, ever improving his unique "computer-assisted Jazz" setup. He creates/composes machines with software and hardware that leave room for improvisation (and chance). Here he showed me a composition that involves among other things Max/Msp (he's been an early adopter) a Buchla controller (not in the picture) an iPad - and a home made controller-ball inspired by Michel Waisvisz' "Hands" and Laetitia Sonami, as he told me.

Talking about Waisvisz brought us to the Crackle Box. Of course Bruno has one:

Some of Bruno Spoerri's electronic and experimental music is available through excellent compilations on Finders Keepers records. Some of his jazz band records were beautifully reissued by Sonorama.

Bruno is currently in a legal battle against Jay-Z and Timbaland because they used one of his compositions for the Lilith soundtrack from 1978 (with minimal modifications) for a track on Jay-Z's recent album without asking (he would have said yes and his phone number is on his website, would have been an easy thing). Read the story here. So, if you happen to know Jay-Z or Timbaland, please tell them to be so kind and give Bruno and Finders Keepers credits (and some decent money) for his work they re-used.

Previous Spoerri-related posts:
Irmin Schmidt (Can) and Bruno Spoerri about their collaboration
Exclusive Spoerri TV idents
Bruno's collaboration with artist Betha Sarasin
And in most of my mixes...

Die Welttraumforscher: exhibition, book, LP, 7"

When the Welttraumforscher* set out on 14 July 1981 no one could have realized that their journey would not be over soon. For more than thirty years now, Swiss Christian Pfluger(*1963) has been working on drawings, texts and songs for the fascinating universe of the imaginary trio, which is well populated with characters like Leguan Rätselmann (Iguana Puzzleman) or Kip Eulenmeister (Kip Owlmaster) and his astronauts of the spirit. In the course of that journey, among other things, over 35 music cassettes, LPs and CDs have been released, with music that the Welttraumforscher themselves call “Bretzelberg Pop” and “Space Folklore”. I think many of the approx. 400 songs the Welttraumforscher published are number one hits on faraway planets.

I have been fascinated by this cosmos for a long time and now I had the pleasure to curate the first big retrospective exhibition of the Welttraumforscher and edit the first monograph.
The exhibition takes place at Kunsthaus Langenthal in Switzerland until November 10th. Many of the drawings, sketches and archive bits have never been exhibited before.
There will be one of the rare Welttraumforscher concerts and a talk with Christian Pfluger on November 8th.

The bilingual (German/English) book “The World Dream Researchers. Songs, Signs, Explorations” is published by Traversion. There's also a special edition with a vinyl 7” single «This Could be the Greatest Love in Town/Mira II».
Content: Christian Pfluger in conversation with Raffael Dörig and Michael Hiltbrunner. Sebastian Reier (B-Music, Golden Pudel Club) “Space Folklore. Cosmic Music, or the Cosmos of the Welttraumforscher”, German/English (including translations of song lyrics), 50 images, 96 pages.
CHF 36.–/ EUR 28.–, special edition with 7” CHF 42.– / EUR 33.–
Get it directly from the publisher, via your local bookstore or through amazon.

At the same time, the fine people of A Tree In A Field Records and Planam have published the second of a series of beautiful LP issues of early Welttraumforscher cassette tapes. They also sell the back catalogue of die Welttraumforscher (online soon, I think) i.e. the original LPs and CDs that are still in stock.

*"World Dream Researchers" or "Space Explorers" (the German name Welttraumforscher is a play on the term Weltraum = space / Welt Traum = World Dream)


A previous Dispokino-post on the Welttraumforscher with some songs can be found here.
If you understand German, please visit the Welttraumforscher's own encyclopedia on their website. 150 Welttraumforscher related terms explained.


Inside the book:

Promo sheet for the first cassette "Herzschlag Erde", 1981

Cover of "die singende Sternlaterne", Cassette, 1983 (now rereleased on LP)

Cover of unpublished zine supplement to 1983 cassette "Reise nach Bretzelberg"

drawing from the "Bretzelberger Bilderbogen" series (1984-2002)

drawing from the "Bretzelberger Bilderbogen" series (1984-2002)

Promo sheet for the first LP, 1989

LP sleeve "Folklore des Weltalls", 1989

CD cover "Sideria" 1995

Drawing from the "Grosser Bilderbogen" series (2002-now; 50x70cm)

Drawing from the "Grosser Bilderbogen" series (2002-now; 50x70cm)

Leguan Rätselmann's cone house, sketch 1996

From "8 Tage unter Planeten", 1981

Guest mix: The Inner Voice And The Rhythm Of The Outside

My friend Tai aka dj/Artist made an amazing guest mix for Dispokino (it comes at exactly the right time since I'm moving house and all my records are in boxes). Tai's a DJ, master digger and runs an underground film club. He litteraly lives between thousands of the most interesting and weird records, I'm glad he chose and mixed some of them for us.
Download the mix here.
Say hi to Tai on Mixcloud or Facebook.

Ester Krumbachová

Some portraits captured while watching "Pátrání po Ester", Vera Chytilová's 2005 film about Ester Krumbachová (1923-1996).

Previously on Dispokino: Vražda Ing. Čerta (the fourth picture above shows her on the set of this film)