Ya can't win 'em all...

Kind of a cruddy review of the Electret Quintet, part one:

C. REIDER - THE ELECTRET QUINTET (PART ONE) (MP3 by Vuzh Music)
Of course we learned to appreciate the work of C. Reider as one of those drone meisters with lots of online releases. Here however he seems to be moving into a different direction. This is part one of a series of five, dealing with 'experimental explorations of the textures and sounds of analogue drum machines'. Two drum machines are used here, the Roland TR-808 and the Roland TR-727. There are fed through sound effects, computers perhaps and still operate in a rhythmic manner, although Reider doesn't want to classify his material as 'industrial, IDM, minimal-techno and noiseambient'. I must admit I had a hard time with this. None of the five tracks here worked very well. It seemed to me that Reider more or less freely improvised on his drum machine, and let the sounds slip into delay and reverb as well as some other sound effects, but none of the tracks were interesting enough to be played again. There is a strong lack of tension and structure in these pieces and it marches on end, even when the pieces aren't very long. I sense there is more to this, and Reider hasn't taken the material to its full capacity yet. Very close to a 'start' and very far away from a 'finish'. (FdW)

Can't complain though. I am grateful to have someone listen critically and say something, anything!

Sure it's kinda sad to have someone get down on what you've done, but that's what you put yourself in for when you submit something to critique.

I am a little surprised that the same reviewer disliked this one and did like "Fine Failures" which is a.) similar in style, b.) longer in length by thirty minutes and c.) I personally felt weird about, in that the pieces weren't very strong.

In this case I don't feel all that bad because his critiques are actually pretty accurate... this IS kind of an improvisatory work in some senses, it's exploratory and experimental in the real sense, I'm really screwing around trying to find out what works, and showing this to everyone as it happens. I also think the work treads a dangerous line between "beat" music and "experimental" music, a grey area that might leave fans of either genre completely cold.

I also don't think the series really gels until the third part.

BUT, I don't mean to complain or protest... I really do appreciate the review, I appreciate that he took the time to really listen in order to give a review that's honest. The bad review also resulted in a lot of website hits, so I almost think there's not really such a thing as a "bad" review anyway.

back-up

As mrdankelly points out, it's time to back up your journals:

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5124184/the-russian-bear-slashes-a-social-network

Quiet Noise

A while ago, I made up a genre term "Quiet Noise" to describe the genre I and others had delved into, one which was not quite ambient, not quite noise. I used it frequently to describe my music. Later, I thought maybe "Grey Ambient" might be another good descriptor, as it's in between "Dark Ambient" and the more tinkly, light mood ambient... I never really used the term "Grey Ambient" much, even though it's really as good as any other, and who doesn't like grey? Grey is awesome.

I stopped, however, being a real advocate for the term "Quiet Noise" a few years ago, when I realized that PBK had come up with the term "Noiseambient" which seemed to be catching on in some way.

In Disquiet today I've seen the first use of the term "Quiet Noise" outside of my own use (you'll find a lot of it on my website)

Interesting.

Not saying Disquiet cribbed it from me, but it would be weird if it actually became a descriptor in wide use.

Firefox UGH

I just downloaded the "LAST" update to Firefox for Mac machines using operating systems older than OS 10.4 Tiger, and the browser is suddenly completely borked.

I wish I could go back to the last release. Thanks for the stupid final FUBAR update Mozilla.

Courage!

This is what the Oblique Strategies tells me today:

Courage!

Meanwhile... sorry to those of you who are following both this journal and my newer blog... I'm still trying to figure out what goes where. There won't always be crossover posts, today there are two. Content provision is a sacred duty, and repetition is just annoying. Probably won't happen often.

...

At work, my boss (not the boss who pays the bills, rather her brother) has decided to start trailing me to learn how to do what I do. Fine. He's taking notes. Fine. I'm sure that a few notes will really help. He actually seems rather interested (the R*****'s are famously aloof), which is ironic given that he has been involved with the company for longer than I have... and has been involved at the management level, above me, for... three years? Has it been?

Fine.

Everything = fine.

Having someone peer over my shoulder while I work is just fine. Worrying about my job security is fine too.

...

Completely unrelated to the above, I need to get me an account on Discogs so I can fix the hopeless entries for Vuzh Music and for C. Reider, neither of which really jibe with even the half-assed discography that I have posted on my site.

...

Wish I had never upgraded Firefox to 2.0.0.20 :(

ETA: Just re-installed 2.0.0.19 and it's still screwed up. Poo.