Because we like to do something different, with PS020 we have adventured into creating a mini-website for the release.
When you get there please remember to click on the left white arrow and scroll left all the way back to the year 2000 and enjoy the release!

Let us know what you think in the comments!

The PublicSpaces Lab team

Click here

| Release Summary |
| Release Lenght: 00:48:21h | 10 tracks available in Flac (Zip 274MB) or MP3 (114MB) ||

| Individual MP3 files on the SoundCloud Player below |

| Art by Fernando Mateus |

|Release Enconding and Release Production Jordi Urriaque @ the Lab |

| Release Details |

“We have rarely experienced here at the Lab the build up of expectation behind a release like we felt for this one. “Beats for the Subverted” was one of the releases that reached out from our usual listening base and brought other listeners to the Lab. Right after [PS012] was released we started to get asked, by mail, in talks or on twitter when the next release from Paul Croker would see the light of day. That moment has arrived and the wait was well worth it. Dustmotes delivers with his “Containment Sessions” a release that is a few notches above “Beats for the Subverted”. When listening to it for the first time I could feel a sound that is more confident and, but I might be wrong, I think that has a lot to do with all the positive feedback Paul got from his first ever release. Nothing in “The Containment Sessions” is out of place and the same attention to detail that Paul got us used to, is here. I feel privileged for being one of the few that got to enjoy this release before everyone else and it is my opinion that we all should be grateful to Paul for sharing his immense talent with us.”

Alex Mendez, Barcelona, April 18th 2010

“Primitive, raw and beautifully crafted. A collage – components collected and mounted with complete respect for their musical heritage on a cave wall (solid, dependable rhythms chipped, cracked and twisted into something new). More pretentious feedback you won’t have read for some time, but I want to convey something of what your music speaks (to me)!”

Kieron James, Twitter, April 19th 2010

[PS019] Dustmotes | The Containment Sessions by PublicSpacesLab

| Release Summary |
| Release Lenght: 00:52:02h | 10 tracks available in Flac (Zip 565MB) and MP3 (Zip 120Mb) |

| Individual MP3 files available here |

| Art by Fernando Mateus based on a photo by Michelle St. Sauveur |

|Release Enconding and Release Production Jordi Urriaque @ the Lab |

| Release Details |

DigiTube, a.k.a. Scott Lachance, returns to the Lab and, once more, we are thrilled by having him releasing with us.

After the really well received “Soundtracks for Media, Sound Tracks for Life” [PS016], DigiTube brings us a new EP that it is a true showcase of his talent. Relaxed, well humored and with moments of true musical genius, “Time to Chill” points out the future of the genre. To listen to in a relaxed environment with a daiquiri nearby.

[PS018] DigiTube – Time to Chill

[PS017] Subterminal – Bright Dawn Sketches by Subterminal

| Release Summary | [PS017] Bright Dawn Sketches by Subterminal |
| Release Lenght: 00:32:06h | 04 tracks available in Flac (Zip 127MB) and MP3 (Zip 77Mb) |

| Individual MP3 files available here |

| Art by Fernando Mateus | Release Enconding and Post Production Jordi Urriaque @ The Lab |

| Release Details |

“Bright dawn sketches” is an ambient album focused on exploring different environments, from urban solitude, sirens crying, ocean waves crashing in the shores and sunbeams reflected in the clouds. Some instruments were used (a crackle box and a sruti box), some composition techniques were also used (for example, minimalism and time stretching) as well as some software (iphone) and voice. All the tracks contained in this release were made with some concepts in mind.

1. A Vision
Inspired by a trip to Johannesburg in 2002, where these huge avenues were completely empty, and at night there were no lights in the 20 floors buildings. It felt like solitude could be touched

2. Awakenings
Another lazy awakening that stretches out from the factories’ smog and awakes gentle machines that start working, and all around dust in the air.

3. Wailing sirens
The moods in the streets, like sirens wailing at 6am, oppressed by traffic lights.

4. Reflected sunbeams
Explore the ocean and the dawn, waking up slowly and bright. Being lazy. Textures that evolve, getting close to unfinished melodies, or almost rhythms like waves crashing on the shore, and sunbeams reflected in the clouds. This perceived gentle chaos unfolding, between laziness and melancholy. Words last like snowflakes in summer.

About the Artist

Subterminal musica is mainly focused on exploring the collision between soundscapes and poetry, using automatic writing expressions: WordSoundScapes. The automata is used on the construction of words/poems and sounds/music that jointly deliver messages to aid the society on one of the most important and forgotten concept: Reflection. Words and sounds have different meanings, depending on the listener, but only if they take sometime to delve in the complexity of what they are listening to will they be stimulated.

SubTerminal Website | Subterminal MySpace | Subterminal on Twitter

[PS016] digitube – Sndtracks for Media/Soundtracks for Life released by PublicSpacesLab

Release Summary

| Release Lenght: 00:55:28h | 10 tracks available in Flac (Zip 310MB) and MP3 (Zip 122Mb) |

| Individual MP3 files available here |

| Art by Fernando Mateus |Release Enconding and Post Production Jordi Urriaque |

Release Details
[PS016] digitube – Sndtracks for Media/Soundtracks for Life brings the work of Scott LaChance back to PublicSpaces Lab, after one of his tracks being featured on PS010.

Scott LaChance brings a fine and detailed ambient EP that calls for a careful listening to be repeated over and over again. Our general opinion is that this is that kind of EP that you take with you, to listen while traveling but also when reading back: These are indeed pieces of the soundtrack of our lives.

[PS015] Number Stations by Various Artists
________________________________________________________________________________________

Release Summary
| PS015 Various Artists – Number Stations | Curated by Jon Sykes for PublicSpaces Lab |
| Total Running Time 01:12:53 | 16 Tracks | Available in mp3 320 or FLAC (zip format) |
| Individual mp3 files also available here | Cover Art by Rita Monteiro @ PublicSpaces Lab |

Release Details

This is a compilation album based around the theme of Numbers Stations samples.

Number Stations if you are unfamiliar are shortwave radio stations that broadcast strange and cryptic content, often ordered or seemingly random series of numbers repeated over and over again. Other stations played weird music, and other still just repeated tones over an over. They were all the rage back in the Coldwar era and are often thought to have been spying agencies means of communication.

Probably the most famous Number Station sample is from the Wilco album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, partly due to the album being named after it but maybe more so because it lead to complex legal wrangles over who “owned” the recording, eventually settled out of court.

The most authoritative collection of Numbers Stations recordings is the Conet Project by Irdial Records, who make available the entire collection under their Free Music Philosophy. There are also plenty of other places online to find other samples that can be used in recordings as samples.

The challenge was issued to an international assortment of artists, with genres ranging from Ambient, to Dub Step to Interpretive. This compilation of tracks is the result. We hope you enjoy.

Curated by Jon Sykes for PublicSpaces Lab
Release Art by Rita Monteiro @ PublicSpaces Lab
Cover Photo by Slightly North via Flickr under a CC License by-nc-sa
Mastering and encoding by Jordi @ PublicSpaces Lab

Artists Information

01 | % | Pronounced owner/operator, % generates adaptive sound-patterns through an iterative, experimental process. | Website

02 | Fixate | Fixate is a solo musical project of Steve Young of Reading, Pennsylvania. He has been working in various electronic music projects in the local area for almost 10 years. For Fixate, he has borrowed from many different musical styles, including trip-hop, EBM, IDM and Industrial to form his current sound. Fixate has recently released “Hues, Vol. 1″, the first in a series of 5-song EPs exploring color and sound. It is available as a free or “name your own price” download on the Fixate Bandcamp page. Steve is currently working on a follow up that might be a full length, instead of starting the next Hues project right away. Live shows are also in the pipeline for the local and surrounding areas | Website

03 | Catigator | Catigator is Alec Johnson. Alec Johnson has been writing, recording, and performing music since the age of 12. Starting with old-time country gospel and evolving/devolving through bluegrass, punk rock, new wave, idm, country swing, house, electronic, folk, ambient, and not necessarily in that order, traveling from Iowa to Wisconsin, Nebraska to Minneapolis, Texas to British Columbia, landing for now in a place that escapes classification, Indiana, U.S.A. Alec currently designs parks and produces music for film, radio, dance performance, and life.| Website

04 | Weather Balloons | Weather Balloons got his amateur radio license at age twelve. He spent many late nights listening in to shortwave transmissions that had bounced along the ionosphere from the other side of the world to his home in New Mexico. The messages made him dream about spies. Years later, he found himself standing in a dense winter fog at midnight at a railway station in eastern Ukraine, waiting for a train bringing people and money. He now lives in Brooklyn under the name of Dave Barber and makes improvised music on his monome. | Website

05 | Cassiel | Nick Rothwell is a composer, performer, software architect, programmer and sound designer. As a media programmer and software engineer he has built performance systems for projects with Ballett Frankfurt, Vienna Volksoper and Braunarts, and has worked at STEIM (Amsterdam), CAMAC (Paris) and ZKM (Karlsruhe). As a composer he has created soundtracks for choreographers Aydin Teker (Istanbul) and Richard Siegal (Laban Centre), and has performed with Laurie Booth (Dance Umbrella, New Territories), and at the Different Skies Festival (Arcosanti, Arizona), the ICA, and the Science Museum’s Dana Centre. Recent projects include performance systems for Quartet (with director Margie Medlin), interactive video for Troop at the Southbank (with choreographer Jane Turner), surround sound for the media gallery at The Public, interactive installations for Sonic Arts Network and TECHNE (Istanbul), a planetarium gig in Colorado, and a Portable Choreographic Artefact in collaboration with Ricochet Dance Productions. He also teaches media software and writes regularly for music technology magazines. He designed and implemented the ‘shado’ sprite rendering library for the monome, and is building two unrelated laser-sensing environments for sound art installation and dance performance. He is currently working on choreographic software agents for Wayne McGregor | Random Dance at Sadler’s Wells, and on audiovisual performance projects with body>data>space (London, Prague, Dresden) and Eddie Ladd (Cardiff).| Website

06 | Galapagoose | Based in Melbourne, Australia, galapagoose is the audio~visual artist moniker of Trent Gill. Using custom programmed software, and open hardware, galapagoose explores rhythm, texture and vibration of sound and light. While often traveling into ambient and jazz influenced harmony, the music always remains soulful and danceable. Drawing on influences far and wide from the hip-hop beats scene to 80′s New York underground, galapagoose’s sound is most commonly likened to the spacey beats of Flying Lotus, sharp edits of Prefuse73, or Fourtet’s melancholic melodies. Perpetually hard to pin down though, the sounds never stay the same for too long, always discovering new techniques and styles to pursue. Operating openly, new works of audio and video are constantly uploaded to his website. | Website

07 | Einpuls | Einpuls is a composer / musician currently living in Luxembourg. In addition to writing songs and releasing them on kyanbayani.com he is also composing music for film. | Website

08 | Oicho | David Harrow is a 80s electro pioneer, writer, producer and recording artist that produces under may aliases. OICHO is his a project with a moody throbbing dubstep infused with a california bounce. Drum ‘n’ bass fusionary David Harrow (birth name) these days aka James Hardway works most often with cool jazz textures, though he is largely immune to the purist poses of many jungle producers. Harrow has worked with an impressive cast of British producers, from Genesis P-Orridge to Adrian Sherwood and Jah Wobble to Andrew Weatherall. During the early ’80s he lived in Germany and acted in films before getting into the Berlin music scene. Harrow also appeared with Jah Wobble on the continent, but relocated to London by 1986, where he was swept up by the acid-house phenomenon.

During the late ’80s and early ’90s Harrow teamed-up with Adrian Sherwood’s On-U Sound System, working on studio projects by the likes of African Head Charge, the Barmy Army, the Strange Parcels, Gary Clail, Dub Syndicate and Little Annie. As a pivotal keyboardsman and programmer he also took to the road with On-U Sound’s 1990-91 “Pay It All Back” live show, some performances from which now grace several albums for posterity. Around this time Harrow and Sherwood provided a remix of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy The Silence”, while Harrow also managed to find the time to get involved with the burgeoning electronic community, working as a producer with Psychic TV and many others.

After ranging into jungle/drum’n'bass during 1995, he debuted his James Hardway guise with an impressive 1996 LP, “Deeper, Wider, Smoother, Shit”. Hardway displayed a talent for writing songs also, with a credit for Billie Ray Martin’s 1996 club hit “Your Loving Arms”. After the release of his second, 1997′s “Welcome To The Neon Lounge”, Hardway earned an American contract through Shadow. For the recording of 2001′s “Moors + Christians”, he assembled a virtual studio band by gathering recordings together from a journey to Cuba and Jamaica. Hardway’s recordings as Technova have also appeared on Andrew Weatherall’s Emissions Audio Output records. | Website

09 | Martin Backes – Obfuzzcation | Martin Backes, born in 1977 in Germany | Studies in Art, Design, Psychology, Communication, Electrical Engineering, Anthropology and Ecology in relation to Sound and Media at the University of Arts in Berlin | 2009 Master Program Sound Installation with Christina Kubisch | Besides his experimental media art and installation work, he is
working as a composer, sound director, audiovisual consultant, audio engineer, music producer, noisican and DJ | Lectureship since 2009 at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin for “Sound Communication and Design”. | Website | Myspace | Twitter

10 | Static | Pascal Savy is an electronic music composer who works and lives in London (UK). He started experimenting with sequencers and synthesisers in the late nineties influenced by Detroit techno, recording his output on tapes and mini-discs. After a long maturation period, he simplified his setup and decided to work exclusively on a computer. At the same time,
his sound began to evolve towards more ambient territories and broken-beats. His compositions often involve dense atmospheres and hidden, distant or floating melodies. He also likes to incorporate field recordings he makes, either in their raw form or processed beyond recognition. Recently he developed a strong interest in granular synthesis techniques and microsound compositions, which led him to incorporate granular textures in his ambient work and further to create tracks just made of processed granular streams. Since November 2009, his music is featured on internet radio diaxiom.com. | Website

11 | LongHead | Originally from Nottingham, England, Pat Cannon makes music of all genres, from orchestral to punk. Having listened to dubstep for the past 4 years he finally decided to get off his arse and make some, using the alias LongHead. Currently studying music just north of London, Pat Cannon is open for collaborations of any sort and can be reached via his website | Website

12 | Atciv | Starting at age of 13 Sebastian taught himself to write and create music, what began as teenage rebellion and a way of pushing his dad’s buttons quickly grew into a love affair with knobs, buttons, gadgets and the sounds he could derive from them. With a gift for making music from the most unexpected devices, Sebastian has taken cues from a vast group of musicians, ranging from David Bowie and Brian Eno, to Trent Reznor, Map Map, Brian Crabtree, Andrea Bocelli, Aphex Twin and Amália Rodrigues. Raised in Colombia, and full of passion, Sebastian’s music has always reflected this while also serving as a release for his thoughts and emotions. The result is unique ambient/experimental Electronica. Known as atciv on some of his more recent projects, and
currently based in Portsmouth, NH, Sebastian is continually crafting new sounds that continue to be equal parts passion, ingenuity, and the synthesis of his own thoughts. He is always looking for creative input from other artists | Website | Twitter

13 | Sam SquareWave | A long time resident of the North American Southwest, Sam started creating his own sounds some time around 1998. He was marched off to piano lessons as a child and marched in the school band as a youth. Through the last 10 years he has played in bands, created music for theater, and engineered and produced music for friends and strangers. | Website

14 | I am Genko | “what i’ve tried to do here is capture the essence of the samples, their linearity mostly, and also tried to keep the tempo a bit off, i don’t know why, but since day one i thought things would evolve a bit more organically if the was no quantization and if they had a general disregard for tempo… but without resorting to a total chaos… just sort of a controlled chaos.” | Website

15 | Maersk | MAERSK is Steve Burtenshaw based in Norwich, UK. Creating a downtempo musical blend of both acoustic and electronic sounds, using found objects and old instruments along with monome hardware and max/msp software. | Website

16 | Made By Robot | Under the pseudonym Made by Robot, Jon Sykes started out DJ’ing funk and lounge music in London in the mid 90’s. 10 years later, he reincarnated the name for his new electronically slanted, ambient, minimalist techno music. Using a variety of self created interface devices, centered around his trusty Monome, he creates soundscapes and emotions with his music. Jon is also the curator of this compilation. | Website | Twitter

Release Summary

| Artist: Swaying Smoke | EP: Unbroken Lantern | To be filed under: Drones,Ambient,Dark Noise,Experimental

| 5 tracks | 00h:44m:05s | Available in FLAC [193MB]  and MP3 [98MB]

(Zip files include Cover Art and Release Details)

| Cover Art: Rita Monteiro @ the Lab (concept by James Lowery) |

| Swaying Smoke website | Swaying Smoke on Twitter |

[PS014] Unbroken Lantern by Swaying Smoke

Release Details
This is Swaying Smoke’s follow up to “Hidden Beneath the Soil”, his first release with PublicSpaces Lab. James Lowery brings us, once more, a masterpiece where detail is everything. Purely a dark noise work, James manages to take us into a complex journey where emotions blend with sounds and where the listener always comes up winning, at the end.
When asked to describe this new work James tells us:

To create the album, I spent a few months recording a large bank of ambient melodies and drones. Each loop was recorded into tracker software, where I manipulated and refined them.

Once I had the bank of loops prepared, I loaded it into different software where I played them all together with a MIDI controller. The end result is a meandering and somewhat improvisational album of five movements. It is akin to an ambient/electronic symphony, if you will. Each loop was an instrument and I used them differently for each movement.

To be listened carefully, “Unbroken Lantern” is a delicate sonic work that reflects the growth of James Lowery as an artist and composer on his way to become, in our opinion, a name to be taken into account on this genre.

—-

Also available at the Internet Archive

| Release Summary |

| 07 Tracks | Available in FLAC [191Mb Zip] or MP3 [93Mb Zip] | includes release art  by adamned.age |

|Artist: adamned.age | Album: whiteout | File under: electronica, masterwork | MP3 Links |

[PS013] adamned.age – whiteout by PublicSpacesLab

Release Details
I am still surprised to learn that even some of my closest fellow netaudio enthusiasts never heard the name of Hanne Adam or her musical solo project ‘adamned.age‘. To me, Hanne is one of the most important and creative figures of an ever evolving scene, that still hasn’t reached it’s limits – and so hasn’t Hanne. When I first discovered her music, I was attracted by the fine sound design art that runs through all of her works. While cold at first glance, all her compositions are never repellent, in fact they contain a common hypnotic element that opens the door to deeper and deeper explorations that will never let you go again.

Like every great composer Hanne is an extremely fine observer, an attribute she also lives out in her work as a photographer. Together with her ‘partner in crime’ Tanja Dovens, better known as ‘Die Minimalistin’ to some lovers of fascinating drones and soundscapes, she is a part of Berlin’s ‘Urban Exploration’ scene, where she haunts in abandoned places in the eastern part of the city, which by now haven’t been found by investors or carpetbaggers to turn those pearls into money making appartments or expensive spas for the upper class of Germany’s lavish reborn capital. The pictures Hanne takes as well as the feelings she carries home convert to sounds, melodies and compositions that give these places an everlasting memorial far beyond the mere photographic moment.

But there is another driving, darker force behind Hannes Adam’s music and her often abstract and bleak sound design: Pain, whether physical or emotional, has been a constant companion on her path through life and art. “Music sometimes was the only language that gave that pain a voice, the only thing that literally kept me in this life“, she confessed during a conversation we had in November 2009. It is in these precious moments of composing, of feeling that special occasion when a very private emotion transforms into a sound, when Hanne enters into a world without constant struggle and forgets about the defeats she suffers against enemies she can’t win against in her real life. It might be considered a sweet irony of her life that it is this pain, that actually leads her to her highest artistical summits. And her wise smile showed me she knows about this antagonism very well.

It is my pleasure to witness one of the most precious jewels of today’s netaudio scene coming together with one of the most caring netlabels around for the best release adamned.age had so far. Enjoy every sound, beat and emotion this musical giant has for you.

Thomas L. Raukamp in December 2010

You can follow  adamned.age on Twitter.

All tracks released under a Creative Commons license 3.0 by-nc-nd | Powered by  the Internet Archive |

| Release Summary |10 Tracks | Available in Wav [243Mb Zip] or Flac [135Mb Zip] |

| Downloading individual tracks from the Soundcloud player? The complete Graphic art is here [2.2Mb Zip] |

|Artist: dustmopes | Album: Beats for the Subverted | File under: ambient,trip-hop,downtempo |

PS012 – dustmotes – Beats for the Subverted by PublicSpacesLab

Release Details

Paul Croker is a versatile artist, reflected by his various musical influences from past to present.

His love affair with the vinyl format started at the age of 4, when he was given his first 7″ single, and would grow throughout the next few decades throughout the Hip Hop, Trip Hop and Big Beat movements.
During the early years, he ruined a few parentally-owned record players teaching himself to scratch and mix records. From the age of 14 he learnt the guitar, joining like minded friends from school, playing in
Zeppelin/Hendrix/Floyd influenced bands, gigging all over the country at pubs, clubs and festivals. Finding particular resonance with Eastern influenced sounds, he experimented with alternate tunings and backwards
phrasing, forming the core of his sound. In the 90′s after becoming immersed in the Big Beat scene in London and Brighton, Paul began to experiment with creating Digital based music, finding an affiliation with the use
of samples and loops to build soundscapes. DJ’ing in local clubs, he learnt to beat mix and also layer sounds within a live environment.

His first release, ‘Beats for the Subverted’ is primarily influenced by early DJ Shadow, Portishead and UNKLE. The simple aim was to set about recording a vinyl-only sample based work, overdubbing bass and
percussion where necessary. The result is a dark, ambient hip hop flavoured album, with a light social commentary.

Following the coherency that we have always sustained at the Lab, PS012 is not what you would call our typical ambient/noise release. In the same way that Paul approached us with his fabulous work, and surprised us
with his sound, talent and concepts we hope that you will also feel what we felt, the many times we have already heard these tracks. For those that still need a “logic” explanation the answer is very simple:
We love it! And that has always been the reason behind every release we have made so far and will continue to be for many more to come.
Paul would like to thank to:
My wonderful understanding family & friends, all at PublicSpaces Lab, my Twitter family, and Ableton & Technics..

_________________________________________________________________________________________

PS011 “Cosecha” by Various Artists

Release Summary

|[PS010] Various Artists – Cosecha| Various | Release in mp3 or FLAC | 33m52s| 8 Tracks |

Artists: Kieron James, QuarterBit, Collin Thomas, Mr. Bitterness, ambienteer, Mr. Hoodee, Somió and Katsumoto

Mastering: Track 7 by Pure Tone @ Pure Tone Mastering Studios, UK | Tracks 2 and 7 by PublicSpaces Sonic Environments |

Graphic Design: QuarterBit for @PublicSpaces Lab * | Final Art: Rita Monteiro |

Release Details

Project Background by Kieron James

Background

The idea was sparked from eavesdropping a late night Twitter chat between @fjfonseca and @boomtopper about data bending – something with which I was completely unfamiliar, but which immediately caught my imagination.

I began to think about other ways which might exist for creating a sound from an unconventional source and how the sound might then be manipulated into something rhythmic, melodic, musical.

As I switched off the laptop and tried to sleep, my mind raced. How could I gather random data to create a sound? Then it occurred to me that the source had been staring me in the face the whole time. Twitter.

What a fabulous and relevant way to experiment in social sound design! I already shared a network with many people who would (hopefully) be interested in contributing.

Tweet A Sound

Tweet A Sound from Andrew Spitz seemed the obvious choice for generating the sound since it allowed me to break down the parameters into discrete elements and make several requests for random contributions. What’s more, Tweet a Sound had been created to promote social sound design.

I sent out 11 requests – one for each parameter listed below – to each contributor, randomizing the order in which they were sent and added responses to a spreadsheet as they replied. I then created the #tas file below using the parameters strictly in the order that they had been received.

• carrier frequency
• carrier wave
• wave shape
• modulation index envelope
• harmonicity
• time
• waveshape frequency
• volume
• waveshaper envelope
• amplitude envelope
• effects

The #tas string

#tas 295 988 1702 8 1337 7779 37 456 3009 532 3357 1459 1964 808 504 1986 7552 9848 88 5325 5150 7654 909 42 440 2103 22 6750 583 43 1 4091 37652 52 74 42 39 13 31 21 9974

If you’re a Mac user, download Tweet A Sound and enter the string above (including #tas) to hear the sound. Otherwise, just click the flash player below.

The Contributors

The significance of numbers submitted was often in evidence. Birthdays, anniversaries, Douglas Adams, 808s, 303s, album titles – they all featured (though I don’t think I had a 40 and with all the buzz about Akai’s imminent APC release, that was a surprise!) To me, the fact that numbers had meaning to contributors really enhances the project.

If you’re a contributor, you’ll spot some of your numbers above and you’ll notice that some you sent over aren’t included. Why? Well, I knew I had more contributors than required, and for certain parameters, only one value was needed. So data were incorporated on a first-in basis.

The contributors who kindly lent their time were:

@ambienteer @DavidMcSherry @boardyuk @mrbitterness @UBLF @auditorycanvas @fjfonseca @madebyrobot @DigitalDoyle @leeconnolly @groovecriminals @rozz3r @jaymoy @soundplusdesign @bigmanbeats @hugoverweij @sync24

The Remix Project

Kieron James made the resulting sound available for download at his website so people could play around with it. For those of you that don’t know Spanish, Cosecha means harvest and the name could not be better picked for the and for the release. We, at the Lab, were already fascinated by the concept of this (using social media to produce a sound) and took the opportunity to talk with Kieron about making, what is now,  this release. There was only one rule set by Kieron to all artists interested: the only sound source that could be used was the Cosecha Random Sound.

Those that responded to this challenge tell us, in their own words, what method they used to achieve their track:

Track 2 QuarterBit – Forget about the dog! Hurt my ears! rmx

QuarterBit

The challenge was one: use nothing but the original file to make a remix. For my project QuarterBit this was, without a doubt, something very interesting: It would allow me to take a file, that was built via a data gathering process and feed it to something that is mathematical but also personal. Kieron, apart from being an amazing musical talent, is also a runner. Yes, he is one of those guys that likes to run. (Why? I have no idea. I respect it but it just looks way too stressful to me). And not only he runs but he also posts on his website about his runs.
And on those posts you have data. Raw data. It was exactly that data that I used to program my Max/Msp patches. I also used geographical data (altitude, latitude and longitude) to feed into the system.
Regarding the name for this remix, I was getting really high frequencies and I cold only assume that some of them were out of reach for the human ear but that dogs might enjoy it. The result, to me, is this extremely loud-noisy, perhaps disturbing to some, but beautiful track. Use headphones wisely. tlhIngan maH!
(* QuarterBit also used the final wav file and turned it into the picture that makes the cover for this release, using a self developed databending software)

Track 3 Collin Thomas – To a Swordsman rmx

Collin Thomas

To give you a little insight into what I did: I took the original cosecha file and cut it up into equal segments. I then “reconstructed” the segments with my Alphabet Method (for more info you can check out my website) using a Japanese poem and then processed the living hell out of it with lots of different plugs and effects.

Track 3 Mr. Bitterness – Blood Orange rmx

Mr. Bitterness

Using the source file I made 4 slices I called Burst, Drone, Ring, and Ambient.
Each of these was assigned to it’s own track, which I recorded a 16-bar loop with. On each track there is only a held note, i.e. no musical phrases, just long suspended tones.
With all but one track there is just a single “note”, one track had two notes held over the 16 bars. Everything else is accomplished by manipulating filters and resonance on the tracks and feedback on the delay.

Track 5 ambienteer – reap, eat rmx

ambienteer

For the ‘Cosecha’ project I approached the track just as I had for my ‘Eurovision Ambient’ series. Using Simpler in Ableton Live, I’d import the original file, created a few keyboard zones and set about manipulating the sample. One of the tricks I used was to zoom in to the waveform, then transpose the sample up so high, that the harmonies and artifacts become the prominent sound. I’d then amplify these strange noises.
These were then heavily processed using Reaktor 5 and Live’s internal effects (the ‘Ping/Pong’ especially). Although you may think that all sounds manipulated this way would sound similar, with patience, something special seems to emerge from each sample. The track itself is not musically complex at all, but that was not the point for me. This was all about uncovering a new method of sound creation that feels as fresh as the idea of the random sound itself. Now I look at every sound sample and think of it as a potential instrument in its own right.

Track 6 Mr. Hoodee – Open Handed Punch rmx

Mr.Hoodee

I thought the whole Cosecha project was a great idea and as I provided some of the parameter numbers to create the original sound I really fancied a crack at trying to make some kind of track from it.

I started by chopping the Cosecha sound into more manageable sized pieces then went to work with some heavy processing and filtering to shape the basic building blocks of the track – the drum sounds, some type of bass pulse for the low end and a handful evolving textures . The track originally started out as a dark, downbeat head-nodder but took an unexpected up-tempo turn that seemed to wok pretty well.

Track 7 Sómio – Naranjo de Bulnes

Sómio

Naranjo de Bulnes is my working of the Cosecha file. The track was inspired not only by the sounds generated by the random sound, but also the 2500m peak in the Picos de Europa.

After a couple of listens to Cosecha, I began to hear hard, edgy sounds and decided that mountains and the challenges they present would be my synesthesia. Pulling this piece together and referring to various photos of Naranjo de Bulnes has rekindled my interest in climbing. I might just have to pull that gear out of the attic and have at it again.
Cosecha has been a fantastic exercise in sound design – something very new to me. Having to work with only one source file to create all the elements of this track was a hugely enjoyable challenge.

Track 8 Katsumoto – Feeling Minimal rmx

Katsumoto

The process of making QuarterBit’s remix for Kieron, got me confronted with sounds that I kept aside, because they sounded interesting to me. I decided to take those sounds, treat them and put them into Ableton Live to see what happened. The first sound was what you will recognize as the bass line. Slightly panned it is a glitchy sound that has a groove to it that surprised me and made me enthusiastic enough to take other snippets of my experiments with Cosecha and make it a track of its own.
Beware! Old school glitch minimal track.