These pieces accompany the three-dimensional animation / data visualization work of Juan Francisco Saldarriaga, Spatial Information Design Lab, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University. 

Click the video links on the tracks to get the full effect.
http://vimeo.com/31298658
http://vimeo.com/36211223

All Juan's work can be found here: http://www.juanfrans.com/

Music for Data Visualizations

Cold War and Eastern Bloc themed project using intercepted radio transmissions, Eastern European folk samples, orchestral sounds and modern electronics.

Rob Viola (producer, writer, guitar, keyboard, beats)

VCheKa

Vocals and Lyrics: Vinny Lopez
Music and Production: Rob Viola
Samples courtesy of Freesound.org and: 
justinrobert 
www.freesound.org/people/justinrobert/sounds/74375/ 
acclivity of freesound.org 
www.freesound.org/people/acclivity/sounds/16981/ 
jcbatz 
www.freesound.org/people/jcbatz/sounds/33338/ 
Timbre 
www.freesound.org/people/Timbre/sounds/71078/ 
Recorded and engineered in our apartments, Brooklyn, NY - completed May 2011
Mastered by Harris Newman at grey market mastering, Montreal, QC, CANADA


FACULTIES EP

Walking In The Snow

Vocals and Lyrics: Vinny Lopez
Music and Production: Rob Viola
Sample used courtesy of justinrobert and Freesound <a href="http://www.freesound.org/people/justinrobert/sounds/74375" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.freesound.org/people/justinrobert/sounds/74375</a>/
Recorded and engineered in our apartments, Brooklyn, NY - completed May 2011
Mastered by Harris Newman at grey market mastering, Montreal, QC, CANADA



FACULTIES - Weekend Warrior

Vocals and Lyrics: Vinny Lopez 
Music and Production: Rob Viola 
Recorded and engineered in our apartments, Brooklyn, NY - completed May 2011 
Mastered by Harris Newman at grey market mastering, Montreal, QC, CANADA

FACULTIES - Cold Hands

Vocals and Lyrics: Vinny Lopez
Music and Production: Rob Viola
Sample courtesy of acclivity of <a href="http://freesound.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">freesound.org</a>
<a href="http://www.freesound.org/people/acclivity/sounds/16981" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.freesound.org/people/acclivity/sounds/16981</a>/
Recorded and engineered in our apartments, Brooklyn, NY - completed May 2011
Mastered by Harris Newman at grey market mastering, Montreal, QC, CANADA


FACULTIES - The Paranoid Style

FACULTIES - Another Wave

Vocals and Lyrics: Vinny Lopez 
Music and Production: Rob Viola 
Samples courtesy of:
jcbatz and Freesound.org
http://www.freesound.org/people/jcbatz/sounds/33338/
and
Timbre and Freesound.org
http://www.freesound.org/people/Timbre/sounds/71078/
Recorded and engineered in our apartments, Brooklyn, NY - completed May 2011 
Mastered by Harris Newman at grey market mastering, Montreal, QC, CANADA

FACULTIES - Blood and Sand

VCheKa - Darzhavna (roughmix)

This song and video combine:

"The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme" by John Williams
"Spoonful of Sugar" by Richard & Robert Sherman, sung by Julie Andrews and by Stephanie Boone
Video and sound samples from "Mary Poppins", "Star Wars", "The Empire Strikes Back" & loveyourwhitehoe's YouTube channel

Productions, beats and additional music by statikluft

Special thanks to Emily Viola for this idea and for creative input 

Spoonful of Vader (Star Wars / Mary Poppins mashup)

from John Darnielle:

"Well, pour some beer out on the curb for Haywood, because they've recorded their masterpiece and called it a day. Their final album, We Are Amateurs, You and I, isn't perfect, but it shimmers with occasional greatness like a magnolia just about to bloom. It's indie rock, all right; it sounds like Superchunk when it's loud and a little like the Sea and Cake when it's quiet, but it has its own voice, too, and in this way Haywood carries on the commendable indie-rock tradition of preferring modification to innovation. The new thing Haywood brings to the table is a keen, almost sadistic ear for wistfulness. Here, in "Hotel Bar in Moscow," the band finds fat, sorrowful minor chords to strike just when they're on the verge of becoming completely abandoned to the song's bouncing, dimly-lit-club-in-Waukegan rhythm. It's startling; it has to it the feel of a band that was onto something.

It's the next number, though, that makes Haywood's demise seem like a real occasion for grief. A lounge-ready breeze of a song with some quietly harsh lyrics ("I want to be just like my dad/and marry the first real thing I ever had"), "Come On Tell the Truth Now" is a must-hear, the sort of skillful, pretty, intelligent song that makes a person want to boycott all major-label releases forever. It's got everything that's missing from the radio: passion, and subtle power, and the love that drives bands to practice illegally in storage lockers and garages weekend after weekend in pursuit of the song that will leave their distinct mark on the unremembering face of the universe. All of Haywood's last moments are worth hearing; some of them, like "Come On Tell the Truth Now," the mournful "Six Stars" and "Button Up Buttercup," are vital. All this and the best album title of the year, too. Make it a double: We've lost another one."

Haywood - The Last Days Of Baronov

Haywood - Button Up Buttercup

Haywood - Six Stars

Haywood - Plow

VCheKA - Cheka (roughmix)

The core of the drum track was built from the sounds of an olive oil can, played with my hands and with the blades of a scissors.

The clarinet solo is courtesy of "insinger":
http://www.freesound.org/people/insinger/sounds/25467/
http://www.insinger.com.ar/

VCheKa - Stuzba (roughmix)

This track is built around Nicole Hale's song "IV" from her albums Nicole Hale & Rough Recordings 2010. She played the piano and vibraphone parts that make up the core of the this track.

http://www.nicolehmusic.com/



VCheKa - ÁVO / IV (Nicole Hale)

These pieces accompany the three-dimensional animation / data visualization work of Juan Francisco Saldarriaga, Spatial Information Design Lab, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University. 

Click the video links on the tracks to get the full effect.

All Juan's work can be found here: http://www.juanfrans.com/

statikluft - Origins vs Destinations (New York City Taxi)

statikluft - Taxi!

VCheKa - OGPU

loud birds on newkirk ave

demonic christmas in E Elmhurst

A Happy New Year song from the Viola family! The vocals were improvised acapella by our six year old daughter Petra, and edits and music were supplied by Daddy Rob later that day. Our other daughter Nico is featured on coughing!

Petra Viola - My Happy New Year

This is another dark hiphop/dance piece built out of a Chinese spoken word recording. This time it came out as dubstep and more cold/spare/digital.

All vocals are sampled from Zhuang Shiguang's reading of "Thoughts I" in Hokkien, by Zhang Jiuling. The poem is contained in "Three Hundred Tang Poems, Volume 1," compiled around 1763, documenting poems written from during Tang Dynasty (618 to 907), the golden age of Chinese culture: religion and philosophy, painting and calligraphy, sculpture, architecture and music.  

http://librivox.org/three-hundred-tang-poems-volume-1-by-various/

statikluft - Thoughts

Folding chair closing in various rooms

Rhythmic fan noise at Desert Botanical Garden

Conversation at a cemetery in Armenia

percussion at 51st st subway

--------
Rob Viola:
Producer, Guitarist, Drummer, Writer, City Planner. 

Musical projects include: 
Night Powers, FACULTIES. The History Of Winter. VCheKa. Nine Hours To Yerevan.

Past:
Rob Viola played drums with Haywood, The Red and The Black, Carter Little, The Joey Sweeney, Matt Pond PA, Sackville and Ciao Bella; he played bass for Cherubino and Mister Coffee Nerves.

statikluft

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