Dan Kletter
A crucible of digital curiosities
“Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating.”
Harry Bertoia
This is Harry Bertoia (1915–1978). He was an industrial designer, printmaker and sculptor from Italy. Don’t recognize the name? That’s okay. You’re probably already familiar with his still popular chairs designed for Knoll 1952, and still in production today.
His tonal sculptures — mostly metal rods of varying lengths and thickness that could be played — led to a series of eleven recordings called Sonambient.
In 1993, the PSF label in Japan released Unfolding, a kind of best of CD featuring four pieces from the long out of print vinyl LPs. I was in my mid-twenties and a serious music collector with a voracious appetite. This record had a profound effect on me and still holds an important place on my short list of influencial recordings. The canon of drone music is as deep as it is wide, but employing entirely acoustic instruments to draw out sustained textures without the aid of any electronics is a bit rare.
Intruiged? Thanks to the terrific Holy Warbles blog, you can now listen to the entire discography. You should check it out now.
My Favorite Records of 2010
- The Alps - Le Voyage (Type)
- MDF - Vierzig (self released)
- His Name Is Alive - The Eclipse (Silver Mountain Media)
- Signals - Silverfish/What Dreams (Retard Disco)
- Date Palms - Of Psalms (Root Strata)
- Lawrence English - Incongruous Harmonies (Touch)
- Beaches - Eternal Sphere (Mexican Summer)
- Spoils & Relics - Dependent Arising (Mantile)
- Sickly Weaklings - Transcendtal Medication (self released)
- No Balls - Less (Who Can You Trust?/Streaks)
- Machinefabriek - The Breathing Bridge (self released)
- Gareth Davis & Steven R. Smith - The Line Across (alt.vinyl)
- Richard Chartier - A Field For Mixing (Room40)
- Chubby Wolf - Orinitheology (Digitalis)
- Chris Abrahams - Play Scar (Room40)
Captain Beefheart (1941–2010)
“If you want to be a different fish, you’ve got to jump out of the school.”
Voice—Sculpting Sound with Maja Ratkje
A cinematic feature documentary about Norwegian composer and performer Maja Ratkje by Ingo J. Biermann. It is not only the portrait of a singular musician and singer, but the film will explore the sound and the nature of the human voice in all its facets.
With Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje, Frode Haltli, Joëlle Léandre, Kathy Hinde, Stephen O’Malley, Arve Henriksen, Garth Knox, Spunk, Kristin Andersen, Hild Sofie Tafjord, Else Olsen Storesund, Håvard Skaset, Guro Skumsnes Moe, members of Trondheim Sinfonietta, Sylvie Courvoisier, Ikue Mori, Alessandro Olla and others.
Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson (1955–2010)
The dreamer is still asleep. You will be missed.
We are all only temporary curators of our present bodies, which will all decay, sooner or later. In a hundred years or so ALL the humans currently alive will have died. I take great comfort in knowing, with certainty, that thing that makes us special, able to enrich our own lives and those of others, will not cease when our bodies do, but will be just starting and new (and hopefully even better) adventure…
If we don’t get to meet in this Life, maybe in the next you can buy me a beer!
—Peter Christopherson
An Affinity For Grids
I really love the design of these album sleeves, utilizing a very well organized grid system with Avant Garde Gothic condensed for the type. It’s interesting that these albums are all released on Affinity, a jazz reissue label. I believe the designer is Bernard Higton, but I’m not sure.
UPDATE: The back of Mu Second Part credits Bernard Higton with “sleeve design”.
- Photo by Randy Yau
Here is an interview I recorded with John Duncan on 07/21/07. The interview is 35 minutes long. The rest is an exclusive mix sourced from older recordings of his to round out the hour.
As an aside, I couldn’t help but snigger at how frequently I used The Rundown method during this interview. Considering the subject matter, it seems entirely appropriate and I think it worked well even if I was a bit heavy-handed about it. Many thanks to John for being such a good sport!
