𝗜𝗻 𝗕𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘀, scroll to the bottom of the page to load all tracks before pressing play. 
𝗢𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗽𝗽, press play and click on the bar at the bottom of your screen. This might not work on Apple devices in the app, unless the playlist is downloaded.

***𝙇𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙬𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙖 𝙧𝙤𝙬 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙛𝙪𝙡𝙡 𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙚𝙙. 𝘿𝙞𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙙𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙘𝙚𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙙𝙞𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙨.*** 

PLAYLIST takes the playlist feature to an extreme by aligning the maximum number of 500 tracks, most of which are only around 100 milliseconds long. Due to this shortness, the buffering between the tracks becomes noticeable as the silence in-between the sounds. Because the buffering depends on the internet connection and other unstable factors, the changing playback speed makes these technological conditions of music streaming audible. Each track is equipped with its own image, which then turn into a low frame-rate film akin to a digital flip book.

SoundCloud Gazing: PLAYLIST

“Where do we find a point of such realization of a social that it is also the point of its collapse? It’s exactly like the stereophonic effect. We are all obsessed – and not only in music – with high fidelity; obsessed with the quality of musical (re-)production. Armed with the tuners, amplifiers and speakers of our stereo systems we adjust bass and treble, we mix, we combine, we multiply tracks in search of an impeccable technology and an infallible music. Where is the degree of technological sophistication, where is the high-fidelity threshold beyond which music as such would disappear? For the problem of the disappearance of music is the same as that of the disappearance of history. It will not disappear for a want of music. It will disappear for having exceeded that limit point, vanishing point, it will disappear in the perfection of its materiality, in its own special effect beyond which there is no longer any aesthetic judgement or aesthetic pleasure: It is the ecstasy of musicality and its end.”

“You describe the system, the most catastrophic or apocalyptic system but you can do that in a form that is not at all apocalyptic, that is very (maybe) singular. The form can contain and retain the singularity in the same time as it says something that is not singularity but it describes the non-singularity but the form must remain singular.”



Everything no longer has its own alive historical development,
but instead belongs to the patrimony in advance.

It directly enters the patrimony without passing through history or the real event.

This is our fate I think, also as humans.

Maybe it is a passive fate, or perhaps we may begin from it and invent new strategies which include this destruction in advance.

However, it would cause an inversion of time and we would have to begin everything from the end, in the opposite direction. 

-------------------------

By realising itself in the perfect sound, music has committed suicide. There is no such thing as musicality anymore, not due to a lack of education or the rant against it by experimental avantgardes. No. Its material, sound, has risen atop and covered that depth called music in an omnipresent surface. The end of music is sound.

This is the assumption on which my first album is based. For me, this was a catastrophic insight rather than a mere theory. I noticed that my own listening became increasingly subsumed by surfaces, styles, "aesthetics". Production. In classical music (where I come from) the score and the sound both point towards each other. The score is a representation that should point towards a sound. The sound of a performance references the score. However, the essence of music lies in neither of them but in this kind of mysterious, imagined relationship. Electronic music has no score. It is pure appearance. It's usually nothing but sound effects today. Yet everything truly worthwhile is beyond appearance.

From this emerged my desperate search for depth which resulted in these 20 pieces. Each of them is based on another piece as sound material: The first half is made from mainstream pop songs, the second of sacred Renaissance music. My point was to show that all of music that we listen to digitally and online is affected by this hidden apocalypse. In hindsight it appears to me that what I did in this album was threefold:

1. I committed the crime myself. I produced, polished, filtered, varnished former music into sounds.

2. I tried to make this silent disaster obvious and

3. make it rise to the surface, thereby nullify it. Just like it happened to what was once called 'music' before. 

----------------------------

originally released by Mille Plateaux January 21, 2020

Mastered by Cam Deas

‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ (Mille Plateaux)

Demonstrations

𝗢𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱
𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗳𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱
𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝘂𝘁𝘆.

Like personal memories, music leaves us with unfulfilled dreams.
They are the secret gifts we received from history which shine through the remains of their demise. They bear a promise:

The possibility to begin, to destroy and to carry on
without cynicism yet with strategy
without defeatism even after defeat.

Here and there, flowers have grown even behind the enemy lines. Through music we can be reminded of this.

released December 28, 2022
written, performed and produced by John-Robin Bold 2016-2022
'gift' uses a sample of Perotin's 'Sederunt Principes' performed by the Hilliard Ensemble
poem excerpt of 'Marilyn' by Pier Paolo Pasolini from 'La Rabbia'

josquin depressed

🔒 This track is private. https://soundcloud.com/johnrobinbold/name-your-track/s-8t8lH

TRACK originated from thinking about the common habit to look at a SoundCloud track's envelope and thereby anticipate its development. The envelope graphically represents a track’s climaxes, fade-outs, and build-ups. It tells the listener their current time position within the track and provides a rough idea of the musical form. TRACK was composed to address this audio-visual relationship’s effect on listener expectation and the experience of time. The envelope on a track’s page is always made of 273.5 grey/white bars which turn orange once played. Coincidentally, assigning each bar the length of one second adds up to a duration of 4:33 minutes and half a second. Henceforth, questions revolving around back- and foreground, representation and (dis-)appearance seemed inevitable. With frequencies beyond the auditory threshold, sounds too short for the envelope to detect them and comments masquerading as part of the envelope, the typical relationship between envelope and sound gets decoupled.

SoundCloud Gazing: TRACK

culture

𝙜𝙤 𝙩𝙤 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙥𝙖𝙜𝙚 & 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣

order

must

A perspective on historically communist music and music from a communist historical perspective.

ʜᴀɴɴꜱ ᴇɪꜱʟᴇʀ ꜱᴘᴇᴀᴋꜱ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴏᴜꜱᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴍɪᴛᴛᴇᴇ ᴏɴ ᴜɴ-ᴀᴍᴇʀɪᴄᴀɴ ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠɪᴛɪᴇꜱ

𝕁𝕠𝕤𝕢𝕦𝕚𝕟 𝔻𝕖𝕤𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕫 - ℚ𝕦𝕚 𝕙𝕒𝕓𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕥
Canon for 24 Voices

ℂ𝕠𝕣𝕟𝕖𝕝𝕚𝕦𝕤 ℂ𝕒𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕨 - 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝕃𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘
Each chorus member chooses his or her own note (silently) for the first line (“IF” eight times). All enter together on the leader’s signal. For each subsequent line choose a note that you can hear being sung by a colleague. 

𝔸𝕣𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕪 𝔸𝕒𝕧𝕣𝕒𝕞𝕠𝕧 - 𝕊𝕪𝕞𝕡𝕙𝕠𝕟𝕪 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕚𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕤 (ℝ𝕖𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕥𝕣𝕦𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟)

+ ꜱᴋᴇᴛᴄʜ ᴜᴘ ᴀᴅᴠᴇʀᴛɪꜱᴇᴍᴇɴᴛ

𝕋𝕖𝕣𝕣𝕖 𝕋𝕙𝕒𝕖𝕞𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕫 - 𝔹𝕖𝕥𝕨𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝔼𝕞𝕡𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕪 𝔸𝕟𝕕 𝕊𝕪𝕞𝕡𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕪 𝕀𝕤 𝕋𝕚𝕞𝕖 (𝔸𝕡𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕚𝕕)

𝕃𝕠𝕦𝕚𝕤 𝔸𝕟𝕕𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟 - 𝔻𝕖 𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕒𝕥

+ ᴡɪʟʜᴇʟᴍ ʟɪᴇʙᴋɴᴇᴄʜᴛ ᴀɴᴇᴄᴅᴏᴛᴇ ᴏɴ ᴍᴀʀx ᴀɴᴅ ᴍᴜꜱɪᴄ

𝔾𝕖𝕠𝕣𝕘 𝔽𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕕𝕣𝕚𝕔𝕙 ℍä𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕝 - 𝕋𝕙𝕖 ℍ𝕒𝕣𝕞𝕠𝕟𝕚𝕠𝕦𝕤 𝔹𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕜𝕤𝕞𝕚𝕥𝕙 (𝕊𝕔𝕠𝕥𝕥 ℝ𝕠𝕤𝕤)

+ ᴄʜʀɪꜱ ᴄᴜᴛʀᴏɴᴇ ᴏɴ 1ᴅɪᴍᴇ ᴘᴏᴅᴄᴀꜱᴛ

ℍ𝕚𝕣𝕠𝕟𝕠𝕣𝕚 ℕ𝕒𝕘𝕒𝕥𝕤𝕦𝕞𝕒 - 𝔼𝕞𝕓𝕣𝕪𝕠𝕟𝕒𝕝 @hnagatsuma

+ 1929 ꜱᴛᴏᴄᴋᴍᴀʀᴋᴇᴛ ᴄʀᴀꜱʜ ʀᴀᴅɪᴏ ʙʀᴏᴀᴅᴄᴀꜱᴛ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴠɪᴇᴡ

𝔹𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕋𝕠 ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕞 - 𝔸𝕟𝕘𝕖𝕝 𝕀𝕟𝕧𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕣 @blacktocomm

𝔸𝕟𝕕𝕪 ℂ𝕠𝕨𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕘 - 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕤𝕚𝕞𝕡𝕚𝕟_ 𝕥𝕠𝕠 𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕕 @andycowling

ℍ𝕒𝕟𝕟𝕤 𝔼𝕚𝕤𝕝𝕖𝕣 / 𝔹𝕖𝕣𝕥𝕠𝕝𝕥 𝔹𝕣𝕖𝕔𝕙𝕥: 𝕃𝕖𝕟𝕚𝕟 (𝔼𝕣𝕟𝕤𝕥 𝔹𝕦𝕤𝕔𝕙)

𝕂𝕦𝕣𝕥 𝕎𝕖𝕚𝕝𝕝 / 𝔹𝕖𝕣𝕥𝕠𝕝𝕥 𝔹𝕣𝕖𝕔𝕙𝕥: 𝕊𝕔𝕙𝕝𝕦𝕤𝕤𝕔𝕙𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕝 𝕗𝕣𝕠𝕞 𝕋𝕙𝕣𝕖𝕖-ℙ𝕖𝕟𝕟𝕪 𝕆𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕒

https://communistfuture.com/

'Communist Future' Mix at Peste, Manchester

first

continue

nothing

gift

“Where do we find a point of such realization of a social that it is also the point of its collapse? It’s exactly like the stereophonic effect. We are all obsessed – and not only in music – with high fidelity; obsessed with the quality of musical (re-)production. Armed with the tuners, amplifiers and speakers of our stereo systems we adjust bass and treble, we mix, we combine, we multiply tracks in search of an impeccable technology and an infallible music. Where is the degree of technological sophistication, where is the high-fidelity threshold beyond which music as such would disappear? For the problem of the disappearance of music is the same as that of the disappearance of history. It will not disappear for a want of music. It will disappear for having exceeded that limit point, vanishing point, it will disappear in the perfection of its materiality, in its own special effect beyond which there is no longer any aesthetic judgement or aesthetic pleasure: It is the ecstasy of musicality and its end.” 

“You describe the system, the most catastrophic or apocalyptic system but you can do that in a form that is not at all apocalyptic, that is very (maybe) singular. The form can contain and retain the singularity in the same time as it says something that is not singularity but it describes the non-singularity but the form must remain singular.” 



Everything no longer has its own alive historical development, 
but instead belongs to the patrimony in advance. 

It directly enters the patrimony without passing through history or the real event. 

This is our fate I think, also as humans. 

Maybe it is a passive fate, or perhaps we may begin from it and invent new strategies which include this destruction in advance. 

However, it would cause an inversion of time and we would have to begin everything from the end, in the opposite direction. 
credits
releases January 21, 2020 

Mastered by Cam Deas

Get it!

John-Robin Bold

@johnrobinbold
www.johnrobinbold.com

Earlier this year, John-Robin Bold released his eponymous debut album on the legendary and recently reactivated label Mille Plateaux. He now introduces us to his Demonstrations: four pieces that share a common compositional process exponentiating the discrepancies between sacred and pop music from four different perspectives. Both of these unique forms of music encompass their own excesses and subtleties into smooth lines in radical contrast with each other. Demonstrations presents a finely tuned focus on profoundly different yet eerily similar aesthetics.

The first stepping-stone of this work was the development of a unique compositional system during the summer of 2015. John-Robin Bold applied a reverb effect to a sacred polyphonic piece of the Renaissance. The process was then re-applied to the resulting recording and repeated over and over again. It created derivatives that were progressively drifting further and further away from the original sound that John-Robin Bold used to compose « I ». These derivatives were then selected, cut and pasted together to form a collage of perspectives; not unlike the methods used in cinema to mold a wider picture. This modus operandi was then expanded upon as it was either progressively refined or deconstructed with each piece over the course of five years.

The main advantage here is that such an operation generates a great range of outcomes when used on multiple different variables. John-Robin Bold has also processed various pieces from our contemporary hedonistic consumerist pop culture following this method. As a result, the artist showcases the non-intuitive similarities of two distinct eras with their own zeitgeists. The two aesthetics embody the respective belief systems of their time, with one aspiring to comprehend eternity while the other is focused on experiencing the present moment. Precisely for this reason however, Bold attempts to distill a universalism within these two sources that goes beyond critiquing their function for clerical or capitalist power.

The use of samples as signifiers enables the artist to adopt a specific historical frame, deliberately lodged amidst the development of western culture. However this framework does not follow any traditional bourgeois views of musical history: “I want my music to convey a sense of elevation, something with a universal potential. However, this seems impossible because today anything is subjected to a relativism of taste. I neither believe that universality in music can occur by returning to some kind of ancient ‘roots’, nor by orientating towards technological progress. Therefore, my music tries to set the scene for its own appearance, to write its own history.”
Demonstrations carries the visions and dreams of what can be created from such a novel vantage point.

Pre-order on Bandcamp

John-Robin Bold - III

A cut from John-Robin's eery yet enveloping new album, 'Demonstrations'.

Article

Premiere: John-Robin Bold - I

𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲
This profile contains both music and website-specific internet art from my series 'SoundCloud Gazing' which (mis)uses features of SoundCloud to explore how the platform influences listening habits.

- Booking: contact@johnrobinbold.com

Bold/Cowling with @andycowling
albums:
@achim-szepanski
@quanta-records
@mappaeditions

John-Robin Bold

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