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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.

warning: musical road ahead.

a few years ago in japan, members of the hokkaido industrial research institute started carving thousands of very precise grooves into nearby roads. the slightly loopy brainwave belonged to a mr. shinoda, a guy who accidentally cut a road in several places with a digger and then later drove over the damage in his car.

he realised that with some planning and time to kill he could create rows of grooves which, when driven over at a certain speed, would ‘play a tune’.

the results, the ‘melody road’, can be seen above and the grooves are between 6 and 12mm apart: the narrower the interval, the higher the pitch. these stretches of road, each playing a different tune, can currently be found in 3 places in japan - hokkaido, wakayama and gunma - with the optimum musical speed being a depressingly slow 28mph.

don’t expect a virtual orchestra - from what i’ve heard, it’s not exactly beautiful music, but it’s unique and it’s mental. a winning combination.

until they create roads which can sing, you can either listen to a recording of one the ‘tunes’ here or watch the video below for an example.

sources: 1, 2

well the inmates of a prison in the phillipines have just risen the bar…

brilliant.

love me long time

a documentary about sex tourism in thailand

superstars of speed

jeremy clarkson documentary looking at people’s addiction to speed (as in ‘velocity’, not the drug)

les paul

documentary about the american jazz guitarist / guitar maker les paul.

so i thought i’d share some of my favourite videos that display some kind of awe-inspiring timing or planning.

tracy thorn video:

starlings swarming:

synchronized swimming:

synchronized fireworks display:

the mass games:

samsung dance:

red arrows flying display:

incredible timed driving:

xmas lights:

group popping locking:

trained goldfish:

synchronized trampoline: