Rootmap & ccMixter

Following on from last month's conundrum over what to do for my MA practical project, I made my mind up quite quickly in the end and decided to go with the Lessig/ccMixter option. Given time constraints, etc, it seemed to make sense to go for something where the content had already been created rather than trying to also get a whole raft of new stuff made. On top of that, as a main theoretical component of the project will be drawn from Lessig's writing on remixes, a sound map of remixes of works that build on his words seemed like a pretty cool way forward.

It took weeks of trying to figure out how to get an audio player into a Google Map, but eventually I got there via the fantastic Map Maker tool at Donkey Magic (so simple too). However, I've also ended up having to skill-up on bits of HTML, CSS and Javascript to style the placemarks as I'd want them to be, which has added to the prep time.

Below is a sample of a couple of styled placemarks. Click on the lower one to hear Lessig's original spoken word file, which was used to launch this particular remix contest. Click on the higher one to hear one ccMixter community response to that file, a blues take from Admiral Bob. My project, which I've titled Rootmap, will be mapping the journey that the idea took - from one spoken word file on a website to around 70 full songs from several different countries.

The submission deadline for this piece of work is about a month away, so I do still have some time on my side. However, I'd expect that to go quite quickly and there's also another essay to be getting on with at the same time.

In the meantime (and something that I'd been meaning to do for a long time anyway), I've signed up to ccMixter and uploaded a few files to offer up for remix. The files are all mono vocal recordings/acappellas of a handful of lyric sets I've written over the past few years. There are no effects on them (nor music around them), as that is the format requested for the submission, leaving choices like that up to the producers.

It can make you feel somewhat naked from a musicianly point of view to publish such a part of a song without it being clothed in any of the rest of what might ultimately constitute a song! Still, I'm taking from others' work to create this project, and although the Creative Commons licences that the works are released under give me the right to do that, as with any community there needs to be some sort of balance between laws and practices. In other words, I'm getting so I think I should also give.

Going to each page of an artist that contributed a remix and clicking through on whatever links they've put on their profiles, I've managed to get something resembling locational data for most of them. I'm not looking for anything particularly detailed like full GPS co-ordinates as that's not the point of the project and I wouldn't want to plot uploads that closely (others may also not want their location published either). However, I'm aiming to at least have a city as a means of locating where the original remix contributor is from, in order to gain a sense of how far this particular idea spread and the scale of that journey.

The next major step is getting in touch with the handful of ccMixter members that I couldn't find any form of locational data for and asking them if they're willing to provide anything towards that. I'm also planning to let all contributors know about the project once I've got a bit more to show for it. As Rootmap is a kind of re-imagining of a series of remixes, it would be great to involve that community a little more in the final work than just presenting their music in a different way. Still, I didn't want to start approaching anyone at ccMixter until I had a little something to give too (thus the pella uploads).

Really intrigued to see how this project's going to turn out (as well as what might happen to my tracks)!

Remix Libya

  Libya Bloody Libya by dimitristuer

Being an aficionado of the protest song, I was recently wondering whether there had been any tracks produced about the current conflict in Libya, particularly from remix culture. 

I turned to SoundCloud - rapidly becoming my audio search engine of choice - and discovered two such tracks. The one above is by Dimitri Stuer from Belgium and the one below is from the British Dave McKeown (not his first musical comment on conflict, it seems).

  I wouldn't kiss that Camel for all the Oil in LIbya by Dave McKeown 

Have a listen and let me know your thoughts on the two tracks.

Control K on Best Of MySpace - wanna remix it?

I'm somewhat thrilled to announce that one of my tracks - 'Eloise Twisk' from the Control K album 'The Front Line (Redux)' - has just been featured in the latest episode of the 'Best Of MySpace' podcast by Gill Mills.

Apparently, Control K was nominated by a listener of the show - whoever you are out there, thank you very much!

As a younger musician, I always really wanted to get a track played on the John Peel show. This must the modern equivalent. While the music doesn't seem to be quite as diverse as his line-ups, it is nevertheless a fine selection of up-and-coming artists.

Jill described the track thus:

Well handled electronica from Japan, which, given the right remix, wouldn’t sound out of place on a global phone ad. As it stands you can quite happily drift off to this and imagine the summer you’d like to be having. Under water.

So here's a thought. If anyone out there is interested in remixing the track, perhaps we could nail some sort of licensing deal out of it. I'd be very interested to see what someone else would make of the track too, so here's a good chance to explore the collaborative power of the Web.

If you'd be interested in remixing 'Eloise Twisk', drop a comment on this post and we can take things from there.

For other visitors, do please have a listen. My track appears in podcast # 35 and can be found close to the end of the file. Clicking on the image at the top of this post will take you directly through to the Best Of MySpace page, where you can hear it and many other fine tunes. I've also added a widget to this blog too - scroll down to below the News section and listen directly from this page.

Control K remixes Ryuichi Sakamoto

The first new recording by Control K in two years is finally released, a remix of a Ryuichi Sakamoto song. Constructed over a six month period, 'Rokkasella (New Clear Mix)' is my first venture into remixing.

'Rokkasella' is a radical reworking of a track originally produced by Team 6, comprising of electronic music pioneer Ryuichi Sakamoto (YMO, 'Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence') and US-based Japanese rapper Shing02, amongst others.

Following in the spirit of 'electronic protest music' that inspired the debut Control K album release 'The Front Line (Redux)', this remix builds on the ambient dub vibe that ran through that album. It also draws clear parallels between the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the use of nuclear power, and weaves a narrative of US energy imperialism into the tale.

The track is available for free download from the 'Stop Rokkasho' website, included with the likes of Kraftwerk, DJ Krush and Mick Karn (formerly of 80's band Japan). It is available to listen to at Control K's MySpace page. All remixes in this project are also available for free download from the iTunes Music Store.

*****

The original recording 'Rokkasho' was intended to draw attention to the dangers of Japan's nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the North of Japan. Japan has previously commissioned reprocessing plants in Europe to reprocess its spent nuclear fuel and then shipped the waste back to Japan, but is now set to resume full scale reprocessing in Japan.

The reprocessing process releases large quantities of radioactivity into the environment. Extracted plutonium can be used in nuclear weapons and reprocessing entails clear environmental, social and safety risks.

An English language petition relating to the reactivating of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Plant that was damaged in the Niigata earthquake of 2007 can be found here.