For Those in Need

Got any coin stuffed away in a digital mattress someplace? Asking for a friend…

Seriously, I am asking, because this is 10 of my April fundraiser, and baby I’m still out here raising. I’m a maker and a taker, and if you can skim anything off the top, it all helps. If I’ve ever helped you discover a new pleasure, if I’ve saved you money by pointing out a bargain on something you wanted to buy, I’d appreciate a cup of coffee (but not if you’re shit out of work, like me).

Case in point: if you have some money for new music, hold onto it until Friday, May 1, when Bandcamp is again donating all their fees to artists who sell music; buy something and the maker gets 100%.

Can’t wait? Brooklyn-based Temporary Residence, Ltd. label giving away an album a day, starting today (at Bandcamp, that means pay what you want, which can be $0). First up, April 27, is this rocking art-punk album from the Italian band Bellini:

Tuesday, April 28, you can get The Drift, by Noumena, and don’t miss out on William Basinksi’s ambient classic The Disintegration Loops (May 1), and then releases from Field Works in their series of albums based on and inspired by the field recordings of Stuart Hyatt. This daily sale is going to continue until there’s a COVID-19 vaccine, so the label is paying it forward in the extreme.

May 1 is also the release date for a new Field Works record, Ultrasonic, a collection of music based on Hyatt’s recordings of bats. I’m very excited about this one coming out, check out the preview below and you’ll “see” what I mean:

Experimental musician Howard Stelzer has brought out the back catalogue for two now defunct labels he used to run, Intransitive and Songs From Under the Floorboards, and he’s offering a deal on the full digital discography, 29 releases for $22.70. Go to any releases, like this excellent one from C. Spencer Yeh, and purchase the bundle from there. But maybe wait until May 1.

“George Grella, always on the money!”

G. Schirmer & Associates

“…Edgy models include Brooklyn Rail…”

San Francisco Classical Voice

Quarantine Hall: In the Fields

All the music venues being closed sets field recordings into acute relief. You go out to see a concert or a show, you tune into one from home via your computer screen, but field recordings bring the outside and the elsewhere to you, in your home, straight into your brain via mobile devices when you’re out in the streets. The performance ritual place becomes you, your own sensibilities, your own experience.

ISSUE Project Room has set up an Isolated Field Recordings Series—not performances but places their artists have captured and send to you. These are recordings ISSUE has commissioned from various artist, and the organization will broadcast them via their own website, Vimeo, and Facebook Live. The opening session is Thursday, April 23, 8pm EST, with a broadcast of 9 a.m. (Eternal), created by Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste from his mornings living in Crown Heights.

After the live broadcast, this piece and those that follow will be available in the archives. Here’s the upcoming schedule (EST):

  • QUALIATIK: 8pm Wednesday, April 29th
  • Shelley Hirsch: 8pm Thursday, April 30th
  • Bergsonist: 8pm Wednesday, May 6th
  • Andrew Lampert: 8pm Thursday, May 7th
  • Derek Baron: 8pm Wednesday, May 13th
  • Jules Gimbrone: 8pm Thursday, May 14th
  • Kim Brandt: 8pm Wednesday, May 20th 

And do check out ISSUE’s archives anyway for some amazing performances.

The scratch for the stir-crazy itch is to be elsewhere, and there’s nothing that takes you farther from where you are than sounds from someplace different than your own. Digital recording and distribution has led to a massive world of field recordings, straight, doctored, documentary, composed, or otherwise. For the curious, start by checking out the works of Kate Carr and Vanessa Rossetto, or this recent releases from the great Unfathomless label—Farol, produced by Thibault Jehanne, is the sound of approaching the 25 Abril bridge in Lisbon, Portugal. One of my very favorite recordings released so far this year.

“Anyone who can write with insight and authority about Alas No Axis, Sonic Youth, Elvis Costello…Missy Mazzoli and William Britelle, and…Mahler…is okay in my book.”

Darcy James Argue

“George Grella understood exactly.”

Robert Ashley