stavanger, norway, 1998

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liverpool, england, 2005

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cuxhaven, germany, 1997

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well, that’s if your local beach happens to be crosby beach in liverpool, a place which is now home to 100 of these 6ft+ iron men, scattered over a 2 mile stretch of sand and reaching out nearly a mile from the shore. this spooky crowd, previously installed on other beaches around europe but on a temporary basis, is called ‘another place’ and was created by antony gormley, the english sculptor also responsible for the angel of the north. following some controversy a couple of years ago the iron men are now set to stay on crosby beach for good, continuing to make nearby sunbathers feel uneasy.

while not as immediately frightening as the baby tower, there’s something brilliantly creepy about ‘another place’, a piece of art whose existence on crosby beach goes to prove there are some decision-makers who actually possess some taste.

check out the sculptor’s website for more similar work.

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i saw it for the first time a few years back and still remember how initially confused i was. maybe i blocked it from my mind to prevent nightmares. then this morning i, for some reason, had a flashback to that very day of discovery and actually got annoyed with myself for not writing about it sooner. anyway, better late than never. we’ll start the photos from afar and then get closer with each picture as i want to make the experience as creepy as possible for you.

žižkov television tower, žižkov, prague

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that last photo’s the clincher for me - creepy as hell - and the fact that there are 10 of these huge crawling babies permanently attached to a television tower in the czech republic really does make me happy. not since watching the tripods as a kid have i been so affected by a 3-legged structure.

on to the facts.

the tower itself, sans faceless toddlers, was built in the mid-late 80s and stands 216 metres tall. even without the babies it’d be a strange looking beast, but that didn’t deter the geniuses in charge of the tower from permanently attaching david cerny’s sculptures to its legs - in 2000 they were added as a temporary installation but the public loved them so much that they were kept for good.

on that note, i’d like to personally thank the people of prague for having incredible taste. this tower is a work of art.

just came across the left-hand photo on flickr by chance and was immediately confused and intrigued.

to be found in berlin, it’s actually a faithful recreation of one corner of karl schinkel’s bauakademie (building academy), the building which used to stand in the same spot before being damaged during the war and subsequently demolished in 1962 to make way for the ministry of foreign affairs. needless to say, that building has also since been demolished.

due to the importance of the original bauakademie (both culturally and architecturally) there are now, apparently, plans underway to rebuild the entire structure as close to the original as possible. what i’m not sure of is why the single corner that was built (before being surrounded by the shell covered scaffolding you see below) a few years back. according to some dodgy translations via google i get the impression that it was built as a restoration exercise, both to teach students about restoration itself and to show the public how faithful the rebuild could be.

either way, it’s a great monument that makes for a strange photo.

photo source

:: bauakademie on wikipedia

:: association for the promotion of karl friedrich schinkel’s academy of architecture

all other treehouses now pale into insignificance.

i received this picture from a reader a couple of weeks ago, along with the next 2, and couldn’t tear my eyes away for what seemed like hours.

after a quick bout of googling i discovered the origin of the larger photo: it was taken by darius kinsey, a guy i’d previously been unaware of, who was a ‘prolific photographer of logging activities in the pacific northwest’. this particular photograph shows a cedar stump house in edgecomb, washington, dates back to 1901 and has instantly become one of my favourites. the other 2 photos, i’m still not sure of - if anyone knows of a source to be credited, please let me know. i’m guessing the clearer photo is also by kinsey.

anyway, this got me wondering about other hollowed-tree residences and after much hopping i eventually came across tunneltree.com, a brilliant site rammed full of old photographs depicting exactly that and more. to cut a long and boring story short: the site’s now offline. hopefully it’s temporary. unfortunately i only saved a few of the pictures from the site and none of the info. i’m just gonna post the pictures below and hope the site comes back online, at which point i’ll update this post. in the meantime, if you happen to know anything relating to the pictures feel free to spout it in the comments section.

(below) as you may have guessed, the interior of the enormous tree on the left has been hollowed to hold a shop, as seen on the right, with a “ceiling 50′ high”.

(below) obviously not residences but a couple of incredible ‘drive-thru trees’.

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As I imagine is the case for many deputydog readers, I’m fascinated by anything that goes above and beyond the norm. Having hosted experimental radio for nearly a decade, I’ve had opportunities to hear many truly strange sounds. These are a few standouts of the unlikely and just plain odd recordings I’ve come across. All are beautiful in their own ways– I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

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How about an album featuring all-ice instruments? That’s the setting for Norweigan percussionist Terje Isungset’s 2002 disc “Iceman Is.” Recorded entirely within a studio constructed of ice (and kept at 17°F!), Isungset and sculptor Bengt Carling constructed a harp, trumpets, percussion instruments, and horns– all from ice. The result is as you might guess: fragile, organic, otherworldly. The best part is that Isungset recently re-released “Iceman Is” through his All-Ice label.

Link to All-Ice label page: http://www.all-ice.no/

If ice isn’t enough, there’s always Jamie Drouin and Lance Olsen’s “Snow:Field” double album, featuring recordings of the artists “interactions” with a field of snow. The second disc contains the remixes, for real.

Link to Lance Olsen’s blog, with sound samples of Snow:Field: http://www.lanceolsen.ca/index.php?itemid=143

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Not a fan of cold weather? Join Glenn Weyant sometime– if you don’t mind raising the ire of the US border patrol. Weyant’s “Sonic Anta” project documents his aural explorations of the US/Mexico border, literally playing the border itself with chopsticks and a cello bow. Never heard a virtuoso of corrugated fencing and barbed wire? Now’s your chance.

Link to Glenn Weyant’s Sonic Anta sound page: http://www.sonicanta.com/music.html

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Don’t think you have to freeze or sweat to death finding amazing music. Tom Johnson didn’t have to look any farther than the nearest piano to realize tremendous possibilities in sound. In fact, he played all of them– for his 1986 composition “The Chord Catalogue,” Johnson listed the 8,178 chords possible in a single octave. Starting with the 78 two-note chords, and continuing through to the single thirteen-note chord, Johnson reveals a set of natural facts under what listeners ordinarily think of as music. Think this sounds too simple? At present, Johnson is the only person who has mastered playing it.

Video of a performance of Tom Johnson’s “Failing: A Very Difficult Piece for Solo String Bass”:

Link to “The Chord Catalogue” score: http://www.editions75.com/FreeScores/TheChordCatalogue.pdf

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Surprisingly, “The Chord Catalogue” doesn’t take much more than an hour to play. For those interested in loooong recordings, Masami Akita’s “Merzbox” may be just the ticket. Akita, well-known to fans of the harsh noise genre as Merzbow, is remarkably prolific– with full-length individual releases numbering well into the hundreds. The Merzbox, however, is still a jaw-dropping acheivement. Comprised of 50 separate CDs (or 52 for original limited edition buyers), the Merzbox takes a little over 2 days to play end-to-end. And it’s a punishing 2 days; full of Merzbow’s full-tilt white noise blasts, endless loops, distortion, and feedback. For noise fans, the Merzbox is a wonder that keeps on giving. For everyone else, it’s a nightmare in a box.

Link for Merzbox: http://www.xtr.com/catalog/XLTD-003/

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Then again, isn’t 2 days a little… short? Try locating a copy of Farmers Manual’s DVD “RLA,” which compiles every available recording of the improvisational electronic music cooperative’s performances into over 3 straight days of listening fun. It’s quite possibly the longest-playing single disc available so far. Since its 2003 release date, many more hours of performances have been located– hardcore fans can download them free from the band’s “RLA” website to keep their collection up-to-date!

Link to Farmers Manual RLA wiki, with legal downloads: http://rla.web.fm/twiki/bin/view/Rla

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Sometimes, the strangest recordings are also the most familiar. Take, for example, the “mic-in-track” recordings accidentally made available during Napster’s heyday. During this time, a default setting to name saved audio recordings as “mic-in-track” resulted in the ability of Napster users to download masses of such recordings, often to comical end. What did they hear? If you said “kids unaware anyone would ever hear them being silly with a microphone,” you’d mostly be spot-on. The Evolution Control Committee has a nice section of “mic-in-track” downloads, for the morbidly curious.

Link to “mic-in-track” recordings (scroll down): http://evolution-control.com/culturejamming.html

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DaveX blogs about experimental music and sound art at Startling Moniker. In addition to hosting a long-running radio program of the same; he is a professional, licensed raconteur.