Research

In PROBES #29 composers turn to nature, not as pastorale but as concrete musical resources. Chris Cutler looks at animals, vegetables and one or two minerals as they are directly incorporated into musical works, as leading voices:  there are birds, wolves and whales, obviously, but also less cuddly creatures, plants, cacti, rocks and stones. We also consider some of the motives and ideologies at work, and hear minerals make sounds that are hard to credit.

In this new PROBES Auxiliary by Chris Cutler, Beethoven is reorchestrated with power tools and a variety orchestra partners with canteen equipment while radios, gramophones and telephones explore their new vocation as performing instruments, and become the subjects of formal composition.

in PROBES #28 Chris Cutler follows the incorporation into new works of saws, sandpaper and power tools, artisans and knitting machines – and goes on to investigate the repurposing of radios and gramophones as musical resources.

In this episode typewriters invade every imaginable musical genre, while hoovers, bicycles, lightbulbs, foley work, the Eiffel tower and mail-franking are all conscripted into musical employment in quest of novel sonorities.

In PROBES #27 Chris Cutler tracks the modern composer from the scrapyard to the office, then through the living room and into the kitchen in search of new musical resources - including scrap-metal, typewriters, vacuum cleaners, dot matrix printers, industrial quantities of paper, telephones, and the humble bean.

Chris Cutler sends a snapshot of a variety of integrated musical incorporations of car horns, auto-parts, doorbells, scrap metal, asphalt, foghorns and power tools, in the worlds of rock, pop, contemporary music, jazz and film scores.

PROBES #26 looks at the pioneers who drew the soundscape of the world into the realm of music and, in so doing, eased the way for the emancipation - or aestheticisation - of noise, which led to the inclusion of everything from helicopters to roofing felt, ice to polystyrene, scrap-metal to fax machines in (non-electronic) music compositions and performances.

PROBES #25 continues to trace the importation of non-instruments into compositions and performances as, in their search for new sonorities, early jazz and blues musicians, contemporary composers, film composers, rock groups, sound artists and improvisers hit the toyshop and the hardware store.

This auxiliary follows a variety of toys as they strut their stuff on rock stages, movie soundtracks, concert halls, galleries and recordings.

The convergence of mainstream and social media platforms sidelines traditional record labels and sparks new sub-genres from mashups to vaporwave, but also reinforces the perception of music as consumable entertainment. How are we being retrained to our new environment by an aesthetic that has become so pervasive as to turn itself nearly invisible? Never conclude a historical narrative in present time.