James Ginzburg & Yair Elazar Glotman - Nimbes (clip)

Positive or negative, only time would tell. Life and death depended on the outcome but at present he remained calm, cool and collected. He had little choice. That plus or minus would determine the very course of his future, his existence, his soul. The hour would come, and soon he would know all. However, for now, he was happy to sit and wait, watching the wall, before an outcome was revealed. 
Flau is a record label of which you might be unfamiliar with. Based in Tokyo, Japan they have been operating since 2006 and have remained low key and under the radar of many. Mid June saw the release of 'Open Close Open' : a four track EP from Robert Lippok. And whilst we aren't in the habit of premiering music which is already out in the open, this seemed like a perfect opportunity to showcase something from the unknown.

PREMIERE: Robert Lippok - + [Flau]

Performed by Elisabeth Smalt. 
Released on the CD Subvoice - unsounds.com/shop/physical/subvoice

Music For Viola

a little video here: https://youtu.be/hpMK_iHt2p4

binaural summer gap

a study of gentle and lilting arpeggiation, through repetition and subtle variation. Working with this material, I was drawn to treating it with delicate care and an intuitive sense of humanity. The kindness and patience of others toward their art became a stimulus for my approach in this music.

Performed by Mira Benjamin and Philip Thomas at Music We'd Like to Hear in London on Friday 5th July 2019. 

Mixed by Adam Webster.

kindly, softly

Tawny Owl recorded in southern Sweden (Sep 2019) from 25 meters / 80 ft. by Mats Bentmar using the SCHOEPS Parabolic Dish Set (hand-held) with the SCHOEPS CCM 4 cardioid microphone + SCHOEPS ParabolEQ Plug In, FREE, with parameters quickly set for each recording:
+ Distance (Close to Far Off)
+ Aim Inaccuracy (ON Center to OFF Center)
+ Diffuse/Free Field (Pure Diffuse Field to Pure Free Field)
+ Microphone (CCM 4, CCM 2, CCM 21 or CCM 22)
+ Low Cut (ON/OFF)
+ High Wind Cover (HWC, Windjammer or no windcover)
+ Presets (Sport, Nature, SFX etc.)
NO OTHER POST PRODUCTION.
For more information please visit: schoeps.de/dish
Photo by Mats Bentmar: www.bentmar.com
Telinga Microphones: www.telinga.com

SCHOEPS Parabolic Dish Set: Tawny Owl, 25 m / 80 ft, MONO, SCHOEPS parabolEQ plugin

Debbie talks with V (formerly known as Eve Ensler) about her abusive father and how feminism has shaped her career.

Design Matters with Debbie Millman

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: V

Penghu Experimental Sound Studio
www.kalerne.net
by Yannick Dauby 澎葉生

Underwater Recording
Equipment = Zoom H5 / Aquarian Audio H2c with USB battery in underwater enclosure
Date/Time = from 25.07.2020 12:03 to 26.07.2020 15:42
GPS = 23.515714, 119.572440
Habitat = coral reef
Note = Autonomous recorder running during 24h. This extract was recorded on 25.07.2020 around 12:06 it features snapping shrimps (of course) and damselfishes and in the lower frequency (50-90Hz) a drumming sound that is probably the stressed warning call of Pomacanthus Semicirculatus (Semicircle angelfish). It was observed (and disturbed, sorry) when deploying the recorder and was swimming around. To be confirmed

200725 - Pomacanthus Semicirculatus

Music for Cello and Humming is available at https://blankforms.org/publication/judith-hamann-music-for-cello-and-humming-cd/

For her first album releases as a soloist, nomadic Australian cellist and composer Judith Hamann presents two collections of her sonic inquiries into shaking and humming. Her CD, Music for Cello and Humming, features two pieces for cello and humming written specifically for Hamann by composers Sarah Hennies and Anthony Pateras alongside Hamann’s own “Humming Suite” and “Study for cello and humming.” Having arisen intuitively from Hamann’s investigations into shaking, just intonation, psychoacoustic phenomena, and the voice in relation to the femme presenting body in performance, humming here also references dislocation, or ventriloquism.  Although teetering on the edge of audibility, the intimate and vulnerable closed-mouth sounding enters into subtle interference with her cello, drifting into acoustical beating and bringing instability to otherwise more formal grid structures. The capacity for rupture of this volatile fragility reaches its apotheosis on Hennies’ “Loss,” a piece that deliberately instructs Hamann to hum beyond the limits of her voice range. Going against the grain of chamber music orthodoxy, the guaranteed failure set in motion by this instruction yields a generative sound of effort reminiscent of Xenakis’ storied desire for an instrumentalist to play with the sorrow of knowing they can’t do everything. With an arc suggestive of sudden life change, “Loss” casts queer epistemology onto composition, positioning failure, undoing, unbecoming, and transforming as alternative ways of knowing or being. Hennies’ signature composite merging of individual components here brings oral sounds that include breathing and coughing together with humming, cello, and sine waves. Like Glenn Gould’s 1982 Goldberg Variations or Pauline Oliveros’ Accordion and Voice, this timbral meeting of bodily utterances with consummate musicianship imbues Hamann’s humming work with a breakable, human strand, here as humbling as it is uncomfortable.

Music for Cello and Humming‘s sister release, Shaking Studies, is also available. Music for Cello and Humming is accompanied by an essay on both recordings by Nora Fulton.

Judith Hamann undertook her doctoral studies with renowned cellist Charles Curtis, with whom she is currently engaged in a discourse based project, ‘Materialities of Realisation.’ She has additionally demonstrated a superlative capacity for improvisation and engagement with sonic arts through work with artists Dennis Cooper, Éliane Radigue, Áine O’Dwyer, Ilan Volkov, Toshimaru Nakamura, La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, Golden Fur, Jessika Kenney, Anna Homler, Yvette Janine Jackson, and Lori Goldston, among others. Her recorded appearances include Tashi Wada’s Duets, Graham Lambkin’s Community, Alvin Lucier’s Illuminated By The Moon, and Gossamers, with Rosalind Hall.

Judith Hamann - Humming Suite III - Harmonics Étude For One Cello And One Voice

Andi Schnellmann - electric bass
Manuel Troller - electric guitars
David Meier - drums and percussion

SCHNELLERTOLLERMEIER "209 Aphelion" from "5" (Cuneiform Records)

What a strange, odd, mixed-up year it has been.  The yellow spanner of Covid-19 really wrecked a lot of plans. I was all booked to travel to Estonia to record, but it had to be cancelled.   Very noticeable was the sunlight, perhaps it was because there was few jet trails, but when the day was cloudless the sunlight could be absolutely dazzling, it had the strange effect of making it feel like we were living in paradise.     Because of the restrictions I am so glad the woods is only within a moderate cycle distance from my home.  I am very fortunate that I have two fairly good places to record relatively close by.  I even found a wild sand dune area not even five kilometers away,  I hope to record more there in the future.   Disc 1 track 2 is from a much longer recording, it is probably one of the best recordings made during the 2020 season, I had made a few recordings, near the stream, then a bit less close, then a bit further away and another even further away, as I wanted a sound where the stream was a suggestion rather than really dominating the sound picture.  The Blue Tits nested in a cavity block in the wall of my home, there is an vent on the inside of the block, so I only needed to place the microphone up to that to get a fantastic close perspective recording.  
I include two recordings of the Blue tits as they sounded so different when I recorded them a week later.  Sometimes I would get great results by leaving the old Marantz recorder hidden in a bushy place while I go not too far away to record with the new recorder, I love how I had no idea of what it has captured for me, only later when the track loaded on the computer did I get to see if it captured anything worthwhile.  This was the case with Blackbird - alarm calls (Track 3 on disc 2).  I think the peaks came in at about minus six db.  This year was my first time to use Contact microphones and a Hydrophone.    
At the beginning of April my dad Desmond died, he was 89, a great age.  Apart from Covid, we could see he wasn’t going to live much longer, he had been deteriorating noticeably for months up to that.  Why then are the covers for the two discs so strange ?  
A birdsong production should have birds on it !   My dad was big into sun power and indeed wind power even long before it became popular.  Over by my workshop he had placed a few sun power panels on the wall, these were wired into a small room to a panel on the wall with six switches.  I thought it a good way to remember him by including a picture of part of his panel for disc one front cover.  I was going to include the six switches in the picture, but my heart of hearts said no, it didn’t look good, too much scruffy brown, but I include it in the zipped folder (If you are buying it on Bandcamp)so you can see what I am talking about.  I had almost chosen it, as it occurred to me one morning that the six switches are like the levels of lockdown (I hate that term, but I have to use it here) thankfully we didn’t have a level six, maybe that is like in a movie I saw where the authorities came and boarded up a house with the people still inside.  In the end I used the part of the photo with the meter.   
The butterflies . . . Dessie we call him, was always interested in butterflies, that is where I got my interest in nature, as a child he used to bring us for walks up along the canal to see the wild flowers and butterflies.  The picture comes from one drawer of his small collection of Irish butterflies he put together maybe around the late 1940’s or 1950’s ??  Very few of them are even in one piece now, this drawer just looked the part, it was all mixed up and spoiled like the year had been, the summer we never really had, at least not the way we wanted or had planned it.

A Strange Year - Disc One - (Album Sample)

Design Matters by Debbie Millman features interviews with designers, artists and cultural leaders, including Lawrence Weiner, Barbara Kruger, Malcolm Gladwell, Eric Kandel, Stefan Sagmeister, John Maeda, Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones, Michael Arad, Milton Glaser, Massimo Vignelli, Paula Scher, Steven Heller, Jonah Lehrer, among others.

In 2011, Design Matters received the People’s Design Award from the prestigious Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards.

Subscribe to Design Matters for free on iTunes, where new episodes are uploaded weekly: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695