The (Right) Whale

Miniature (Encounter Music)

These are 1-minute pieces written and recorded for an experimental radio project called "In Determining John Cage." The project is part of 120 Hours for John Cage, a celebration of Cage's works for radio organized to mark Cage's centennial and curated by free103point9 and the John Cage Trust. 

"In Determining John Cage" is an experimental adaptation of Cage's1959 performance-essay "Indeterminacy." It consists of ten 1-minute stories and ten 1-minute musical compositions which were written entirely independent from each other and paired at random to create a 10-minute performance. Because the pairing of story and music is determined only by chance, it is unlikely that any two performances will be exactly the same.

"In Determining John Cage" is a collaboration between Michael Garofalo, Shonni Enelow, and Josh Hoglund. Michael Garofalo composed and recorded the music. Shonni Enelow wrote and performed the text with Josh Hoglund directing.

The final piece incorporating these ten tracks will be available publicly in September 2012. Michael Garofalo plans to develop extended versions of these tracks to be released as a full-length album in 2013.

*Empty lectern image by Sayak Nagata 

03 IN DETERMINING MUSIC

09 IN DETERMINING MUSIC

These are 1-minute pieces written and recorded for an experimental radio project called "In Determining John Cage." The project is part of 120 Hours for John Cage, a celebration of Cage's works for radio organized to mark Cage's centennial and curated by free103point9 and the John Cage Trust. 

"In Determining John Cage" is an experimental adaptation of Cage's1959 performance-essay "Indeterminacy." It consists of ten 1-minute stories and ten 1-minute musical compositions which were written entirely independent from each other and paired at random to create a 10-minute performance. Because the pairing of story and music is determined only by chance, it is unlikely that any two performances will be exactly the same.

"In Determining John Cage" is a collaboration between Michael Garofalo, Shonni Enelow, and Josh Hoglund. Michael Garofalo composed and recorded the music. Shonni Enelow wrote and performed the text with Josh Hoglund directing.

The final piece incorporating these ten tracks will be available publicly in September 2012. Michael Garofalo plans to develop extended versions of these tracks to be released as a full-length album in 2013.

*Empty lectern image by Sayaka Nagata

10 IN DETERMINING MUSIC

Released 2007 as a free103point9 Audio Dispatch. 

Music by Michael Garofalo and Patrick McCarthy.

"Solar Filters" was originally conceived as part of a song cycle about the sun and the way it influences Earth's atmosphere.  We abandoned the project when we realized the idea was more interesting than the music we wrote for it.  "Solar Filters" survived, though, and the shortwave radio textures that open the track (essentially, the sounds of the atmosphere) point to its origins.  During the time we were working on these recordings, cheap and toy radios were important to our performances -- often providing the only amplification for our instruments and voices.  Replicating the sound of these radios greatly informed our approach when committing the track to tape.

"Mother Evening" began, like most of our work, as a live improvisation.  When it came time to record and settle on lyrics, we turned to a type of spam email we were getting a lot of at that moment.  The emails were nonsense -- really just a collection random phrases and sentence fragments -- but there was something poetic about them.  So we took the lines that struck us as particularly sonorous and cobbled together a sort of collage poem.  Like the in-between-stations static on "Solar Filters," we incorporated this digital detritus (literally, junk mail) into "Mother Evening."

The etchings on either side of the vinyl records refer, albeit obliquely, to both the lost song cycle and the subject line from one of the spam emails we used.


 

Solar Filters

Version of experimental radio project called "In Determining John Cage" broadcast in September 2012 on WGXC. The project was part of 120 Hours for John Cage, a celebration of Cage's works for radio organized to mark Cage's centennial and curated by free103point9 and the John Cage Trust.

"In Determining John Cage" is an experimental adaptation of Cage's1959 performance-essay "Indeterminacy." It consists of ten 1-minute stories and ten 1-minute musical compositions which were written entirely independent from each other and paired at random to create a 10-minute performance. Because the pairing of story and music is determined only by chance, it is unlikely that any two performances will be exactly the same.

"In Determining John Cage" was conceptualized by Michael Garofalo, Shonni Enelow, and Josh Hoglund. Michael Garofalo composed and recorded the music. Shonni Enelow wrote and performed the text with Josh Hoglund directing.

In Determining John Cage

The Last of the Astrochimps (Mix 2)

Latitude/Longitude was a Brooklyn-based experimental music group. Michael Garofalo and Patrick McCarthy founded the outfit in 2004, and percussionist Jason Labbe began performing with L/L in 2007. 

Songs began primarily as live improvisations that, when recorded, were subsequently layered, augmented, contorted, cut down, reconstructed, and juxtaposed.

Latitude/Longitude worked with diverse sonic materials: test oscillators, homemade cassette tape and field recordings, radio transmissions (FM/AM/SW/CB), toy electronics (broken and functional), and percussive junk, as well as more traditional instruments, such as pedal steel guitar, banjo, mbira, drums, cymbals, and voice.

Other projects include Snake Oil, Zig Zags, and Michael Garofalo's solo and collaborative projects.