Interior, Styx Project Space

12 Meter Power Chord — an installation/performance at Styx Project Space Berlin

Sound is a physical phenomenon. Three strings resonate at intervals to each other and activate the architecture they remain tensed across. But sound is also a cultural phenomenon. Three strings tuned at specific mathematical ratios create the infamous power chord–the signature sound of heavy metal guitar. “12 Meter Power Chord” walks the tightrope between the phenomenological and intellectual aspects of sound and space by sonifying the intervals found in the architectural space of the gallery using piano wire.

“12 Meter Power Chord” runs as an acoustic installation from 7-28 November 2008, with amplified live performances for the opening and finissage, 7 & 28 November, 19:00-22:00.

Other artists showing are SIX, with his “Pervateen” photo series, and Sue de Beer with stills from her “Hans und Grete” video.

STYX project space
Old Brewery Friedrichshöhe (2nd floor)
Landsberger Allee 54
10249 Berlin

Derek Holzer [USA 1972] is a sound artist working in Europe since 1999 with a background in radio, webstreaming and environmental sound recording. His installation and performance works focus on the creation of new kinds of sound-producing instruments, using digital synthesis, analog electronics and acoustic physics. These instruments work to uncover the hidden resonances in the objects and spaces around us.This approach could be considered an acoustic version of particle physics or genetics, because the idea remains the same–in the smallest details you will find a representation of the greater whole.

Now Playing

Kiss the Anus of a Black Cat – The Nebulous Dreams (Conspiracy)
Machinefabriek – Vloed (Sentient Recognition Archive)
Monno – Ghosts (Conspiracy)
Nekrasov – The Form of Thought From Beast (self released)
When – Svartedauen/The Black Death (Tatra)

Uh-uh-uh-uh stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive the next month by peddling my ass off to the (highest?) bidder at these fine concerts and festivals in Germany, Belgium and Croatia…

20 September – Das Kleine Field Records Festival, O Tannenbaum Berlin
29 September – Flachland Festijn Berlin, Club Joseph Berlin
21-24 September – Database Aesthetics, MAMA Zagreb
06 October – Experimontag presents Guitar Zero, Madame Claude Berlin
14 October – Almost Cinema Festival, Vooruit Ghent

Enjoy some fliers…

I am presenting the Tuned City Festival along with Carsten Stabenow next Saturday at the Full Pull Festival in Malmö. And with a little luck, I’ll be performing TONEWHEELS there as well. I’ll be first up on the Saturday night program, so don’t be late!!!!

Concert/performance schedule 5 & 6 September

Schedule, Friday 5.9

Doors open 20.00

21.00 Novi_sad
22.00 Shenggy
23.00 Antti Rannisto
00.00 Hild Sofie Tafjord

Schedule, Saturday 6.9

Doors open 20.00

On stage:
20.30 Derek Holzer
21.00 BJNilsen
22.00 Lost in Hildurness
23.00 Mark Bain
00.00 Pixel

Talks/presentations schedule 6 September

Schedule, Saturday 6.9, 14.00–17.00

14.00 Mathias Holmberg: Presentation of Full Pull 08 and Scaniaparken 2008
14.15 Brandon LaBelle: Social Music
15.00 Carsten Stabenow & Derek Holzer. Tuned City
16.30 Mark Bain: Sonic Architecture
17.00 End

Recording on Lake Michigan, 2006

Soundtransit.nl Field Recording Workshop: 22-23 August, Almere, the Netherlands

I’m giving a two day workshop on listening to and making field recordings as part of the SITE2F7 Festival next weekend, 22-23 August 2008.

The workshop will run from 17:00-23:00 or later on the Friday night. In the afternoon we’ll listen to examples of different types and approaches to field recording from the Soundtransit.nl website as well as various CDs. Then we’ll learn a bit about using professional sound recording gear such as the Sound Devices 700-series field recorder, DPA microphone capsules, Mid/Side microphone rigs, windscreens and more. Then in the evening we’ll go out and record the area around De Paviljeons, a temporary museum space in heart of Almere where the festival is taking place. Saturday, from 10:00-17:00 we’ll listen to, critique and edit for presentation the recordings of the participants.

There will be a final presentation of the participants’ recordings as well as other works I’ve selected from Soundtransit.nl and other places at 20:00 that evening. There should be a few places left, and I think that it’s free… contact: festival@site2f7.nl

Das Kleine Field Recordings Festival: 20 September, Berlin, Germany

I. I started an Amazon list a couple nights ago at 5am, hit with a bad bout of insomnia and going through all the books in my head that I haven’t had time to read yet. I share it not so much for any reason of material gain (although my birthday is approaching…), but rather as a way of sharing some of my lasting or latest obsessions…

Macumbista’s Amazon list

II. My presence last Friday at White Rabbit seemed to trigger a strange new chain of events, which I can only attribute to the new mix of scenesters–beyond the usual noise-ghetto crowd I’ve played to in Berlin before–who turned up for the event.

I hope to put some documentation of the piece I did up soon… Suffice it to say that it was a 5 Meter Power Chord made of piano wire stretched between two columns in the room and run through a rat’s nest of distortion pedals before making it’s way to a borrowed Crown amp/JBL speaker cab pair which crudely functioned as my “stack”. My attempts to tune it to a Drop D were a little flawed, but the set went very well considering that I finished the instrument at 6pm that day!

A few gig offers were forthcoming, but the most interesting thing was the chance to do a 10 Meter Power Chord as a two or three week long installation at a project space near where I live in Friedrichshain. This could happen as soon as early November. Details as soon as they are confirmed!

Hair Entertainment & Macumbista present:

An Evening’s Redness in the West

Featuring:

Dead Black Arms (DK)
myspace. com/satanismaroundhollywood

Spastic Dementia (AR)
myspace. com/marceloaguirre

Macumbista (US)
myspace. com/macumbista

DJ: Chris Douglas /O.S.T. (iDEAL)
myspace. com/rougishscald

http://hairentertainment. com/DEADBLACKARMS/WHITERABBIT

15 August 2008
White Rabbit
Lobeckstraße 35, 10969 Berlin-Kreuzberg
21:00

Black Trashhhhh! DJ set 28.04.08

Next Monday I’m DJing some FUCKING METAL for a noise show organized by my favorite Attention Deficit Disorder victim in Berlin, Pato.

[click pic for big]

28/04/08 Black Trashhhhhh!

* xxxxx/mh/others
* Stupidity
* Penelopex
* Ent
* Macumbista DJ

+ guests

Madame Claude
Lubbener Str. 19
Kreuzberg Berlin
UBahn Schlesiches Tor
19:00

PD Sensor Workshop 26.04.08

April 26th 2PM: AVR/HID Sensor Input into Pure Data with Derek Holzer & Martin Howse

We will continue last month’s investigation of quick and cheap ways of getting sensor input into the Pure Data programming environment, using either USB game controllers or ATmega8 microcontrollers and the HID (Human Interface Device) protocol. Participants should bring the AVR/HID boards and/or hacked joysticks from the previous workshop. Those who did not attend the previous workshop are welcome, and ready made sensor boards can be purchased as part of the participation fee. Please RSVP to m@1010.co.uk if you plan to attend, and indicate whether you will need a sensor input board for Saturday.

A few (!) sample sensors will be provided, but participants are encouraged to bring their own sensors (light, pressure, motion, etc…) for experimentation. The Pure Data programming environment will be used to get the sensor information into the computer and map it to different parameters, ranging from MIDI to direct control of audio or video.

Windows users should be aware that the possibilities for input on their systems may be more restricted. GNU/Linux and Mac OS X users should not expect any problems.

Some links for those interested:

http://1010.co.uk/avrhid.html (AVR/HID board documentation)
http://puredata.info/downloads (install PD-Extended 0.39 from here!)
http://www.sensorwiki.org/index.php/Main_Page (comprehensive list of
sensors for musical use)

—What to bring:

Essential:

1) Laptop running Linux, OS X or Windows (be advised that Windows users may have fewer possibilities)
2) Pure Data Extended 0.39 installed from: http://puredata.info/downloads (please mind that it is Extended and 0.39!!!!)
3) Soundcard (internal or external, quality a non-issue)
4) Headphones
5) EUR 10 participation fee (+ 8 euros if you need a sensor board)

Recommended/Suggested:

1) Sensors of any kind
2) USB game controller of any kind
3) Microphones or other sound inputs
4) Your own project ideas for discussion

xxxxx_workshops

A (more-or-less) weekly series of constructivist workshops emphasising making and connection within the field of the existent. Workshops led by field-expert practitioners extend over realms of code and embedded code, environmental code, noise, transmission and reception, and electromysticism. Workshops solely utilise free software and GNU toolbase.

xxxxx, pickledfeet, Linienstrasse 54, Berlin 10119

Telephone: 3050187482.

http://pickledfeet.com

Other News: blackdronoisemetalove in Copenhagen

This past month I’ve been on the road quite a bit. First I went to Copenhagen to play a couple sets for the very cool folks at the Co-Lab Gallery with my friend Morten Skrøder. For the curious, I’ve posted some rough MP3s here, and I’ll be meeting Morten again in CPH on 5 May to do some more jamming and recording! Each recording is approx 25 min long…

Macumbista & Skroeder, blackdronoisemetalove I, Co-Lab Gallery Copenhagen, 22.03.08 (33 Mb)
Macumbista & Skroeder, blackdronoisemetalove II, Co-Lab Gallery Copenhagen, 22.03.08 (41 Mb)

Sorry, still waiting for photos… Listen for the part in the first set where the irate upstairs neighbor came down to bitch us out! The mics were next to the drinks, so you might also hear the occasional Kroner getting tossed in the box…

Other News: Pure Data in Croatia

Then I spent a crazy week on the Croatian island of Korcula to work on a beginner’s manual for the Pure Data software with Luka Princic and Adam Hyde (remotely). Results to be published soon at FLOSS Manuals. Here’s me, hard at work on my sunburn during one of the days we managed to escape the laptops…

Other News: Tuned City Performances

And for the next couple months I’ll be super-busy organizing the performance program for an event about sound and architecture called Tuned City, which will take place in Berlin from 1-5 July 2008. So far, we are very happy to be able to invite Randy H.Y. Yau & Scott Arford, Thomas Ankersmit & Antoine Chessex, BJ Nilsen & Chris Watson, Mark Bain, Staalplaat Sound System, Martin Howse, Jacob Kirkegaard, Leif E. Boman, Harold Schellinx, Lasse Marc Riek and many others… you can subscribe to the Tuned City news list via the website and get updates. Hope to see some of y’all there!

Now Reading

J.G. Ballard – War Fever
Phillip K. Dick – The Eye of the Sibyl: The Collected Stories of Phillip K. Dick Volume 5
Denis Johnson – Tree of Smoke

Now Playing

Daniel Menche – Glass Forest CD [Important Records]
Daniel Menche – Bodymelt LP [Important Records]
BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa – Passing Out CD [Helen Scarsdale]
Dead Black Arms – Like the Night of Thunder and Rain MP3 [Archive.org]

I’m off to Amsterdam tomorrow for a two week residency at STEIM to work on the TONEWHEELS project. On Monday 18 Feb Sara Kolster and I will do an informal, “performative installation” version of the project at DNK, and on Wednesday 20 Feb you can catch the full performance plus maybe a little lecture at STEIM. See you there!

ABOMINATIONS played as part of the Dark Alloy evening at Club Transmediale in Berlin on 30 January 2008, along with Utarm, Ives no. 1, Shit and Shine and Wolves in the Throne Room.

From the CTM catalog text:

This program draws parallels between various approaches to playing Noise and Metal. Although distorted riffs and guitar feedback play a major role in Metal, it is not generally in search of the chaotic sound signatures of Noise. The latter tend only to provide background in Metal, against which compositional rigor and the players’ precision can stand out all the more dramatically. This is quite different from Noise where the chaotic overlaying of the greatest possible amount of interference, feedback, distortion, buzzing, crackle, drone and their often unpredictable permutations is the actual material of the music. Despite this, since the advent of Black Metal’s preference for rich overtones in the high-frequencies, noise has become increasingly important in Metal – doubtless the fundamental reason why the marriage of Noise and Metal is currently producing so many exciting projects. Yet other influences are also helping catalyze new developments: the tendency to abstraction for example, or the transmutability of Jazz, or narrative elements taken from Folk and Gothic.

Metal and Noise: each is in search of an ecstatic catharsis, of purification by sound.

¡Muchos gracias a Pablo Sanz por las fotografías y video!

Now Playing

Sten Ove Toft – Lit De Parade (Roggbiff Records)

About a week before CTM, Sten Ove Toft sent me his latest disc, Lit De Parade in the mail, ahead of his appearance as half of Utarm‘s live set in Berlin. Sten joked that this was his “pop” record, as it appears to diverge from his heavier, full-on live sets which mingle elements of noise, experimental and metal in favor of impressionist scribbles of sound and deep moods hanging in the background. He told me that Lit De Parade was based on scraps of material gathered over the years which didn’t seem to fit into his other works. The CD come across as deceptively simple, and even though I was supposed to be doing about five other things that week, I put it on several times to listen, and each listening exposed new details which crept out of the mix. A fine work, and deserving of one’s attention.