Experimental
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If it comes as a surprise to hear that Andrew Weathers’ delightfully scattered Full Spectrum Records is celebrating its 10th birthday, you’re in good company. “We are just as astonished as you are,” writes Weathers in the email that accompanied the release. “If we’re being honest, there was never any real ‘plan’ when we started…
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There’s long been a tension in experimental music between the artist’s vision and their ability to communicate it to an audience. The size of that audience is inconsequential. But it is generally accepted that failing to consider one’s listeners is an act of self-indulgence. Which is to say that the avant-garde is often a balancing…
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France’s IIKKI has a ninth entry in its series of book-CD combinations. Visual artist Nieves Mingueza produced the former, The Humble Bee & Offthesky the latter. Like the eight releases before it, All Other Voices Gone, Only Yours Remains is described as a “dialogue” between the artists and is meant to be consumed either as…
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The locked groove was introduced in the early days of vinyl record manufacturing for a purely practical reason – to prevent record-player needles from running onto the paper label if left unattended. These locks were silent. Unintentionally locked grooves soon followed. Damaged vinyl records, in addition to skipping, sometimes had flaws that caused the needle…
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It is remarkable how little music instruments change over time. Percussionists still pound drums and various other found objects. Symphony orchestras, even those with the most modernist repertoires, are not fundamentally different than they were one or two centuries ago. And the synthesizer, arguably the 20th century’s most significant musical step forward is still operated…
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Niet f-n and Giuseppe Fantini describe their Kaczynski Editions label as “permeated with true punk spirit.” The label’s name is a reference to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. The former math prof killed three and injured 23 Americans with homemade bombs between 1978 and 1995. By way of an explanation, he offered up an anti-tech manifesto that…
The Moderns 