Blazars are galaxies whose central supermassive black hole, weighing millions to billions of times our Sun’s mass, blasts a particle jet almost directly toward us at nearly the speed of light.

This track sonifies a decade of gamma rays from the blazar TXS 0506+056 detected by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope between August 2008 and May 2018. The percussive sounds match the energy of the detected gamma rays. Unprecedented flaring activity began in April 2017 and continued for months. On Sept. 22, 2017, an observatory at the South Pole detected a high-energy neutrino thought to have originated from the blazar. Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration., Matt Russo and Andrew Santaguida/SYSTEM Sounds

Blazar Flare Sonification

Copyright (P) Butterscotch Records, 2015.
Copyright (C) Butterscotch Records, 2014.

AFRIKANER BARISTA

Here again here again here again here again
with the rush of revenants who need to get amphetamized
Some mistake you for Australian
You correct the ones you like

Here again here again here again here again
The wit is closely calibrated
to bring about a blushing smile
I know exactly where you’re from
but I wanna be the one you like

African African
Afrikaner barista
barista

Here again here again here again here again
here again here again here again here again
Bloody, bloody subjugation
the history between us now
But origin’s not destination
You gotta move on somehow

African African
Afrikaner barista 
barista

I wanna be the one you like


02 Afrikaner Barista

This piece was composed starting with codons from the human genome.  In particular, I focused on oxytocin, the hormone which induces labor, as my wife was pregnant when I wrote it.  The 27 bases (9 amino acids) forming oxytocin are mapped to the repeating piano figure, the full oxytocin gene becomes the bass line, and snips of RNA inversions, transpositions, and gonadatropin pizzicato fill in the rest.

Human Genome: Oxytocin        

Genome Music

Oxy Fugue 9

Art is how we decorate space.
Music is how we decorate time.

Organize some noise today.

Oxy Fugue 9

Larry Lang

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