Live zurla and tapan trio at discostan at Footsie's

Live Zurla And Tapan At Discostan 2 at Footsie's

Paperphone is an interactive system designed to augment performativity in academic paper presentations. This is an 8-second demo of Paperphone

Paperphone: demo of an interactive system designed to augment vocal performativity in presentations

Paperphone is an interactive system designed to augment performativity in academic paper presentations. This is an 8-second demo of Paperphone.

Paperphone Demo 1

Paperphone Demo 2

On a slow sound walk through the Menjia Night Market, I captured layers of nightlife cacophony saturating the bustling "Old Taipei." Sound sources in this location recording include pervasive pinball arcade, children's bantering over games, passing scooters, and pre-recorded techno music and sales messages piped in through lo-fi loudspeakers mounted discreetly in the semi-outdoor vendor's booths. I love how one could identify the human, mediated, and (analog) machine elements of these sound sources in the recording. This variegated texture signifies social multiplicity and technological vicissitudes as, I would argue, key meanings of renao.

More context: http://movableparts.org/nakashi-making-sound-and-place-from-taipei-to-los-angeles/

Sound Walk in Menjia Night Market

I captured a #fieldrecording of a looped musical riff from a semi-outdoor toy vendor in #LA #Chinatown after lunch 

Games & Passersby in a Chinatown Shopping Plaza In Los Angeles at Far East plaza

In this short location recording, you can hear the loop of music played back by an ice cream truck parked in front of a kids' birthday party in my friend Martin's Lynwood, CA. Looped music of a nursery rhyme interwoven with kids screaming out of excitement made a sonic expression of this contagious street-side exhilaration.

Ice Cream Truck In Lynwood

Stumbling on an ice cream struck is like finding a treasure box. This recording tells a story of my engaging with an ice cream vendor, bargaining to earn his trust to record his truck's while he played through the kaleidoscopic sound samples. 

My Encounter with an Ice Cream Truck in Highland Park

Sounds from Wednesday morning

Demonstrators chanted "Up Up Up Up With the People, Down Down Down with Trump" while marching across the 3rd Street Tunnel in Downtown Los Angeles on Saturday November 12, 2016. During this passage, our voices grew loud, reverberated far. This blending of voices amplified our feelings of solidarity. [This location recording was captured on an iPhone 6 using Voice Memo.]

Anti-Trump Protest in Downtown Los Angeles

Up Up Up Up With the People

One-man show on stage -- sappy love songs & Buddhist chants all at once

Wat Thai Buddhist Temple

This is a sketch of a new song that I'm working on. It currently lacks vocals and some parts of the song will be played live. I took the melody of "Mei Hua," an old patriotic song from the KMT (the Nationalist Party) in Taiwan, and then wrote tons of new parts based on the 8-bit aesthetics of nakashi cassettes that I've found in Taiwan and field recordings of machine sounds that come out of loudspeakers and tiny speakers in Taiwan. I have sampled a field recording of mini pinball machines that I captured in a small township south of Taipei where my grandparents are from. I will post a newer version of the song once my post-Dzian! band Bitter Party records it.


Kitty In The Tree (MIDI sketch)

I made this little clip of noise while navigating my way in Little Sound DJ for the first time. I call this "Noise Stamp" because it's a sample that can be placed over other sounds. Feel free to download it, chop it up, and stamp it on other sounds.

Noise Stamp

Archive of my guest DJ'ed set on Taiwan's street music on KChung Radio: nakashi, niange／唸歌 (folktale songs), light music／輕音樂, field recordings

WF Umi Hsu

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