Author Archives: bjjahnke8

Matmos is a two-piece electronica project coming out of the eccentric Baltimore scene. With experience in writing albums utilizing a single sound source, their 2019 release Plastic Anniversary on Thrill Jockey Records embarks on an elaborate sonic journey using entirely the sound of plastic materials. Intensely rhythmic, colorful, and squeaky- the project sounds like aContinue reading “Listening #8: Plastic Anniversary by Matmos”

Three etudes: the first using a the cuckoo-clock sound which was so popular. The second uses two different recordings I made of some related (but different) chords on acoustic guitar. Sorry if this was cheating, I wanted to do something different. And the third is a drone made from the sound of a wind chime.Continue reading “Composition Blog #8”

Three sounds, turning my washing machine on and off, the cuckoo clock, and wind chime. Screen capture with OBS. Let me know if you have trouble viewing. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1C6ex_vmw_TBD4tneOyKZ8j7CqNzGVmu2

Helena Gough’s Mikroklimata is a four-track album spanning over 30 minutes of music. A rather consistent sonic aesthetic is present throughout the album, consisting of dark, buzzy drones interrupted by sharp, glitchy sounds. It creates such a vivid setting to me, like a distopian cyber-punk city devoid of life or some kind of malfunctioning electronics.Continue reading “Listening Blog #7: Helena Gough’s Mikroklimata”

I just did audio because I wanted to flex my ZOOM omni-directional mic. Posted on tumblr because WordPress was being difficult. Let me know if you can’t find it.

Here’s a quick(ish) video of a potential visual for me piece this semester (it took forever to upload, sorry for the delay). The music is Sketch for Winter VII – Abyss: For Cello by Louise Bock from Madison Wisconsin. Highly recommended for earilly still days. I just used Google Drive this time, so let meContinue reading “Composition Blog #6”

Living in a small town right on Interstate 95, it’s not hard to identify Lansky’s influence with this piece. Although the sound of the travelling vehicles may come as an annoyance to many in the town, I have often been fascinated by the way they reverberate and stretch across the corn fields. The wispy soundContinue reading “Listening #6: Space, Motion, and Paul Lansky’s “Ride””

In this blog I am only showcasing my workspace at home, plus some other things that I like. Enjoy this video filmed by my mom. (It’s split into two videos because of some issue while recording).

For anyone interested, you can find a more in-depth post about my own piece on my Tumblr music blog: musicblogben.tumblr.com So, at last, our group’s Planetarium-Electro-Acoustic-Extravaganza was cancelled. But the music lived on! I downloaded all the files far past my bedtime last night and listened to them beginning to end from the comfort ofContinue reading “Listening Blog #5: Concert!”

This week’s listening was of Michel Chion’s Requiem (1973). The piece contains ten movements, which are represented as individual tracks on the CD. Chion seems to divide the 10 movements into two larger parts, I (1-6) and II (7-10). Without diving too deeply into the aesthetics of the sounds just yet, it can broadly beContinue reading “Listening Blog #4: Michel Chion’s “Requiem””