[primal tapes] Mammoths DNA - album ((oggs)

[Sam_Zen]

A hole in a cloud, a cloud in a hole
One of my earliest works (1973), made with analog synth and reel tape recorder.
Track one from the album "Mammoth DNA".



http://www.samshuijzen.nl/sam/mammoths/1_hole_cloud.ogg - 4:47

[uncloned]

first listen - sounds like people getting shot in a factory with a disembodied guitar :-)

[uncloned]

Some surprising sounds - do you remember how you obtained the low sound? Sort of bass note? It is very interesting.

This is a nice study in contrast - the punctuations are never anticipated.

[Sam_Zen]

low bass note is made with the synth.

[uncloned]

Ok, how did you sequence the samples with reel to reel?

Did you use the traditional cut and splice?

Actually there seems to be too much going on to be constructed on one stereo reel to reel.

[Sam_Zen]

I didn't use the traditional cut and slice much. instead I used 2 recorders.
In those days sometimes even with one tape running from one recorder to the other.
But to be honest, of some of these things I have hardly an idea how I realized it then.

[Nahkranoth]

I've got no meaningful comments about this track but I felt the urge of saying how great and tense this track is. Machinegun effect == WOW!

[psishock]

Beautiful sounds, indeed some factory-like feel the most of the time, but some big beast mobster is lurking somewhere around, i can hear it's deep groaning. I understand that the workers are trying to hunt it down with some hand-made weapons, and hope that the production goes well afterwards. The boss seems to watch the situation from behind. Gotta b careful with those interdimensional gates.

[Harbinger]

Notes as i'm listening:

Didn't like the initial sound (almost a Techno intro), but after that i loved the industrial machine that patrolled the warehouse. It seemed like a mammoth robot attempting to converse with the riveted walls of its prison. It is also EXACTLY why i asked for Sam's collaboration on a song i've been meaning to produce (called "Run Robot Run") -- until his computer betrayed him. His use of sound is the same way classical composers used instrumentation and chord progression. If there is only one thing i would have added is a seriously deep subbass quake every once in a while to give the metal atmosphere girth. But i can't understand the title's relation.....

[uncloned]

I agree about your observation of Sam's technique. The thing that I think kills academic electronic music is that it is too much about exploration instead of use as artistic expression as in Sam's pieces.

That gets me about microtonal music too - very often it is "in your face this is different and you will like it damn it because I say so" instead of - microtonal music makes sense to express this idea. Wendy Carlos Beauty of the Beast is artistic microtonal music - I've not found too much so far - but I'm still looking.

Somewhere in the 20th century the goal of the composer (almost all artists?) became to do something different for its own sake instead of to communicate something different. And the audience by in large was lost in the process.

[Harbinger]

*whispering*

Yeah, i know... i get the feeling Sam came from that old school where they just wanted to be different, instead of making listenable music. Then somewhere along the way he realized his music wasn't exactly appealing. So he starting using more popular techniques so that everyone can listen to it, without either falling asleep or feeling condescended-to. --

Shh! Sh!

Here he comes!

[uncloned]

I'm not sure I understand you - Sam, in my view, makes no concessions - he wields the material with a mastery I can feel/understand/perceive. Not every piece I guess (does anyone hit 100%?)

But for me most of the time it seems to be more than sound for its own sake. There is direction and composition.

I'm trying to strive for that myself. Sometimes (to be real often times)  I *do* just toss something together and say "ahhh, this is interesting" but it has no intentional communication. To me much music spawned in academia is just that - interesting but expresses nothing. Perhaps there is a place for that exploration but it must be hard to make that popular (in my view).

In the other hand - too often I listen to music on a venue like Traxinspace and find someone who created a very interesting soundscape or set of sounds only to find it goes nowhere for minute after minute and it becomes sterile and tedious for me.

[Sam_Zen]

2 Harbinger
Run Robot Run, nice, I did forget about that. Well, tell me more about the "seriously deep subbass quake every once in a while".
I run a pc again, and, although I am not at my home studio, I'm able to make things, having the Synth and the Casio sampler in the room.

2 uncloned
Nice observation. I have this text on my page with tips about Total Commander :
"If all is known of the terrain, then further Exploring isn't necessary any more. Then the Command-center takes over."

And if treated as artistic expression, then it's quite obvious to get the situation where the same author is communicating something different every time.
This is a challenge at the same time, because it's relatively easy to get the public to recognize a certain personal 'style',
by just making variations of the same Opus 000 and call it a new composition.
So the skills should be challenged within a wide range of categories. That's where the new sub-exploration should start, expanding this range.

(I wrote until here, while Harbinger came along again)

Sam came from that old school where they just wanted to be different, instead of making listenable music. Then somewhere along the way he realized his music wasn't exactly appealing.

Here I come..
Don't agree. I had the same approach as now already in that old skool, being surrounded by the 'academics'.
Indeed I noticed 30 years ago, that my work was not much appreciated. Better to say "not much understood how to judge it".
So it was just a matter of being patient, to get some positive reviews of some of my work nowadays.

edit : when revisiting, uncloned was ahead of me also.

[Harbinger]

I'm glad that you got the humor in my post....

Actually what uncloned seemed to be saying was that early electronic "experimental" music seemed to be more about creating new sonic structures than actually sounding "good" -- the science rather than the art. While i'm sure my exposure to that era is way more limited than yours, Sam, i know enough to know it wasn't appealing to me. And you've always struck me as being the "academic" musician (at least at one time).

And while much of your work to me doesn't appeal to me artistically, it always appeals to me intellectually, which is why i always give your music at least a listen. But far too much of your music, including this one, touches my aesthetic AND intellectual sensibilities, so if you WERE an academic musician, you've found a way to make that science a form of art.

I say all this not from a defensive posture, but from an explanatory mindset. Too often we never know what another thinks deep down, and it's always interesting to know other's perspectives on us. Not for validation, just because it's a secret never known.... :wink:


And as far as "Run Robot Run" -- that offer still stands if you find yourself in a position to collaborate.....

[Sam_Zen]

I can, so tell me how.
If a piece of mine would be judged as 'academic', I would consider that, at least partially, as a failure.

Nevertheless, sometimes I'll make things, not just to 'please' the listener, but more to challenge the mind.

Maybe some work could be labeled as "for composers only", like the very complex jazz LP of some bebop-musicians was called "for musicians only".