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  • Why Record?Life in the Age of Digital Performance
  • Click Nilson, LMJ18 CD Curator

Don't listen to the curator.

Despite Guy Van Belle's call in 1999 for the LMJ9 CD to be the final fixed product [1], the charms of fossilization accrue apace, and LMJ CDs are now doubly corrupt at 18.

Curating is overrated, anyway; I took on this project on late notice to help out LMJ, and with no real time for wide consultation and mailing list calls, proceeded to invite a bunch of artists from around the world, some of whom I knew already, and some whose existence was pointed out to me by various kind colleagues I consulted (many thanks to Rodrigo Sigal, Julio d'Escriván, Erdem Helvacioglu and Chris Kiefer for setting up contacts/pushing me in fascinating directions). That's it. There is no special theme, although all artists were made aware of the "Why Live?" issue mandate. Some of the invitations were no doubt inspired by this. Various laptop ensembles figure; I could not resist having a few live coding–related works; live performance is sometimes prominent above studio recording techniques (and this may be the case in works you do not necessarily suspect; for instance, Kassen's track is recorded entirely live, in one take). But other participants emerged simply from finding interesting projects and people around the Web Wide World, although I make no claims of discovery; it was my misfortune not to already know them!

I hope that, overcoming the inherently biased existence of a curator, this collection brings you a slice of zeitgeist, multiple personalities, glimpses of possible scenes. I leave you as much as possible to make up your own mind and impose your own categorizations.

Many thanks to all at Leonardo/ISAST and MIT Press, especially Patricia Bentson and that hammer-and-sparkler-wielding electronicist who keeps using a variation of one of my names.

I seem to have misplaced my life. I am only an algorithmic delusion. Please seek more exciting information elsewhere.

Click Nilson, LMJ18 CD Curator
E-mail: Imagine it's no email day Web: <www.toplap.org/index.php/ClickNilson>
  • Terumi Narushima:He resonates five toes . . .
  • Terumi Narushima (bio)

The starting point for this short study is the Sieve of Eratosthenes (named after the ancient Greek mathematician), a method of finding prime numbers through a gradual sifting process. A prime number is divisible only by itself and one. Many musicians working in just-intonation tuning are interested in prime numbers because of the theory of prime limits, an audible characteristic that is related to specific prime-numbered harmonics. A scale belonging to a particular prime limit has a distinctive hue that makes it aurally distinguishable from scales with other limits.

In this piece the tape part is built from a large set of harmonics (as well as subharmonics) from which different non-prime-numbered harmonics are sifted out, leaving just the primes. Against the ebb and flow of this sound mass is heard a koto, a 13-stringed Japanese zither, which has been retuned to Eratosthenes' enharmonic scale.

Acknowledgment

I would like to credit Warren Burt for recording my koto playing.

Terumi Narushima

Terumi Narushima is a Sydney-based composer who writes instrumental and electronic music. Her musical interests include exploration of alternative tuning systems and sound design for intermedia. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Sydney studying with Peter Sculthorpe and obtained a Master of Music from Sydney Conservatorium in 2003. She also studied koto with Satsuki Odamura. She currently lectures in music in the Faculty of Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong, where she is also completing a Ph.D. under the supervision of Greg Schiemer.

  • Theconcatenator:Placard XP edit
  • Diemo Schwarz (bio) and Etienne Brunet (bio)

Performed by Diemo Schwarz (real-time corpus-based concatenative synthesis software CataRT)and Etienne Brunet (bass clarinet). Recorded live at the Placard Headphone Festival, October 2007.

Time has passed, time is dead. You have to play live again (and again and again until you're dead) to taste this pleasure that no recording can convey. The precious 1/10 of a second linking past, present and...

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