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Weird Ear Sampler

by Various

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    Selected tracks and excerpts intended to aid radio DJs in selecting sections of our longer pieces in particular, but also as a label showcase in general. Once downloaded, individual track information may be found in the "lyrics" section of iTunes, if desired.
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    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Mal Sed / Scy1e, Weird Ear's Fantastic Voyage (Autumn East Coast Tour), Metaphysiques Cannibales, Foom/Foam, Crust Immersed, On The Pedestrian Side, APOTHEOSIS PUTREFACTUM, Ida, and 12 more. , and , .

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1.
From WER-001 Alessandro Bosetti "Stand Up Comedy" http://weirdearrecords.bandcamp.com/album/stand-up-comedy On these recordings, Allesandro Bosetti utilizes an instrument of his own design (Mask/Mirror) to skew any intent to specific meaning asunder, as the mask/mirror has been engineered to chaotically interrupt and reconfigure speech in realtime, creating odd juxtapositions, abrupt interruptions, and a wholly arresting listening experience. As Mask/Mirror spits out phrases, isolated words, vocal tics, plosives, and the occasional guffaw, it convolves the starkness of that material in real time with bells, sine waves, percussive elements and other instrumental sound, effectively creating a tonal shadow that further blurs the divide between sound, speech, music and language. Side A of Stand Up Comedy is comprised of audio extrapolated from a tour of the US east coast in 2008. Portions of Bosetti's performances including audience interactions, interviews, and phoned in conversations with Mask/Mirror, are woven together into a seamless whole, the overall structure mimicking the recursive and mutating phrasings that Mask/Mirror can tend towards. A rich cross section of people interact with and become part of Mask/Mirror, as it saves portions of speech for later use, effectively keeping the listener guessing as to what may 'really' be happening in any of these interactions.
2.
From WER-001 Alessandro Bosetti "Stand Up Comedy" http://weirdearrecords.bandcamp.com/album/stand-up-comedy On these recordings, Allesandro Bosetti utilizes an instrument of his own design (Mask/Mirror) to skew any intent to specific meaning asunder, as the mask/mirror has been engineered to chaotically interrupt and reconfigure speech in realtime, creating odd juxtapositions, abrupt interruptions, and a wholly arresting listening experience. As Mask/Mirror spits out phrases, isolated words, vocal tics, plosives, and the occasional guffaw, it convolves the starkness of that material in real time with bells, sine waves, percussive elements and other instrumental sound, effectively creating a tonal shadow that further blurs the divide between sound, speech, music and language. Side B of Stand Up Comedy is a composition for voice/electronics, Violin, and Contrabass Clarinet. We hear a conversation between two anonymous speakers, transcribed and rerecorded in Bosetti's voice, played back through Mask/Mirror, recombinant and exploded in it's exploration of it's initial themes. The instrumental parts have been transcribed to shadow the utterances and meanderings of the Mask/Mirrors winding lines, as Bosetti struggles to keep the sometimes darkly comedic themes in check, and simultaneously copes with the danger of letting his instrument speak freely in front of a live audience
3.
From Glochids "Originals" WER-002 http://weirdearrecords.bandcamp.com/album/originals Glochids is one James Roemer, of Tempe, Arizona; Succulents field researcher, gamelan experimentalist, cross country cyclist, and bricoleur extraordinaire. James plays many instruments and objects, including gamelan (with his band sungsang), a language learning computer replete with old school punch card interface, cactus quills (glochids), street sweeper kalimba, and electronics. His field recorded snapshots of these sounds tend to blur with their backgrounds until focal point becomes the ear of the beholder. Upon receiving these extraordinary vignettes, we queried as to their method of realization, but coy evasions and sly allusions were all we garnered, though we know there to be a wealth of field recordings from South America (bus station cumbia, Chilean apartment keyboards, La Paz Museo de Instrumentos Musicales in Bolivia, kids playing by Incan ruins), as well as passages from snowy Wisconsin, a Sonoran desert campfire, under a freeway overpass, and we suspect there to be a recorder kept handy during lengthy cross country bike rides! The balance of delicacy, robustness, as well as the playful spirit in which these songs were created, is what attracted us to Originals in the first place, and what, even after innumerable listens, proves to retain the mystery and delight we experienced when encountering it for the first time. We hope you enjoy as much as we do!
4.
From Glochids "Originals" WER-002 http://weirdearrecords.bandcamp.com/album/originals Glochids is one James Roemer, of Tempe, Arizona; Succulents field researcher, gamelan experimentalist, cross country cyclist, and bricoleur extraordinaire. James plays many instruments and objects, including gamelan (with his band sungsang), a language learning computer replete with old school punch card interface, cactus quills (glochids), street sweeper kalimba, and electronics. His field recorded snapshots of these sounds tend to blur with their backgrounds until focal point becomes the ear of the beholder. Upon receiving these extraordinary vignettes, we queried as to their method of realization, but coy evasions and sly allusions were all we garnered, though we know there to be a wealth of field recordings from South America (bus station cumbia, Chilean apartment keyboards, La Paz Museo de Instrumentos Musicales in Bolivia, kids playing by Incan ruins), as well as passages from snowy Wisconsin, a Sonoran desert campfire, under a freeway overpass, and we suspect there to be a recorder kept handy during lengthy cross country bike rides! The balance of delicacy, robustness, as well as the playful spirit in which these songs were created, is what attracted us to Originals in the first place, and what, even after innumerable listens, proves to retain the mystery and delight we experienced when encountering it for the first time. We hope you enjoy as much as we do!
5.
From: A Magic Whistle "Vision Magic Voyage" WER-003 http://weirdearrecords.bandcamp.com/album/vision-magic-voyage A Magic Whistle’s “Vision Magic Voyage” is a clear-eyed gaze deep into the sun, visions of weaving, tangling trails stretching odd into the distance, pathways rising in the periphery, the flipback chromas that emerge and remerge, and the synesthesiac accompaniment that may be heard long after the first of the last paths have been traversed… The music airs merrily, resplendent in the care and joyous devotion to craft that it’s creator, Andy Puls, has poured into it. Each element swells with animation and character, the result of countless hours tinkering away in the Whistlehut, Andy’s home studio filled with all manner of self-built instruments, electronics, and odd pieces of gear which lend character and inspiration to his creations. Formerly of Neon Hunk (as Mossmaster), Andy has been fusing audio-visual synthesias since the 90′s, often utilizing an array of handmade electronic and electroacoustic instruments, as well as custom video processing and homemade costumery. These instruments are, more often than not, rendered in a soft psychedelic design that imbues each with their own personality, character and charm, lending an air of the otherworldly to the landscape one journeys to in Andy’s hands. Though Andy currently plays in several other projects, A Magic Whistle is his most personal and idiomatic endeavor, his vision here is pure and unqualified, save for the heritage of the early home studio/musician experimenters such as Joe Meek, Terry Riley, Brian Wilson, and Lee Hazelwood, whose rigor in the studio transcended craft and workmanship to define and shape their music from within. Perhaps also we may make exception to Andy’s deep appreciation and knowledge of a smorgasbord of global and indigenous musics, the influence of which may lay in his being a music of the land, evoking place, however surreally removed from terrestrial considerations…!
6.
From: A Magic Whistle "Vision Magic Voyage" WER-003 http://weirdearrecords.bandcamp.com/album/vision-magic-voyage A Magic Whistle’s “Vision Magic Voyage” is a clear-eyed gaze deep into the sun, visions of weaving, tangling trails stretching odd into the distance, pathways rising in the periphery, the flipback chromas that emerge and remerge, and the synesthesiac accompaniment that may be heard long after the first of the last paths have been traversed… The music airs merrily, resplendent in the care and joyous devotion to craft that it’s creator, Andy Puls, has poured into it. Each element swells with animation and character, the result of countless hours tinkering away in the Whistlehut, Andy’s home studio filled with all manner of self-built instruments, electronics, and odd pieces of gear which lend character and inspiration to his creations. Formerly of Neon Hunk (as Mossmaster), Andy has been fusing audio-visual synthesias since the 90′s, often utilizing an array of handmade electronic and electroacoustic instruments, as well as custom video processing and homemade costumery. These instruments are, more often than not, rendered in a soft psychedelic design that imbues each with their own personality, character and charm, lending an air of the otherworldly to the landscape one journeys to in Andy’s hands. Though Andy currently plays in several other projects, A Magic Whistle is his most personal and idiomatic endeavor, his vision here is pure and unqualified, save for the heritage of the early home studio/musician experimenters such as Joe Meek, Terry Riley, Brian Wilson, and Lee Hazelwood, whose rigor in the studio transcended craft and workmanship to define and shape their music from within. Perhaps also we may make exception to Andy’s deep appreciation and knowledge of a smorgasbord of global and indigenous musics, the influence of which may lay in his being a music of the land, evoking place, however surreally removed from terrestrial considerations…!
7.
From: Addleds "mottle" WER-004 http://weirdearrecords.bandcamp.com/album/mottle Addleds – the quartet of Kyle Bruckmann (oboe/English horn), Tony Dryer (double bass), Jacob Felix Heule (percussion) and Kanoko Nishi (koto) — explore timbral and textural extremes of distended instrumental technique via improvisation and open-ended compositional strategies. Their music tends towards a brutalist minimalism as informed by the noise underground as by recent developments in the field of free improvisation. Individually, the members have performed with other groups and regular collaborators across the gamut of new music both local (Basshaters, Ettrick, Ghost in the House, Jacob Lindsay, Pink Mountain, Jon Raskin, Gino Robair, Aram Shelton, Shudder, sfSound) and elsewhere (Michel Doneda, EKG, Boris Hauf, Giuseppe Ielasi, Lozenge, Polwechsel, Jack Wright, C Spencer Yeh). Together, they began developing their collective sound in 2010. This album digs deep into their strategies for working a sound brutlally minimal, improvisation informed as much by modern developments in reductionism as by the dank underground of noise that churns in basements across the land. Levied by passages of introspective calm, this album crushes at it’s own pace, grandiose swells of heavy bash and acoustic crunch beckoned our Weird Ear, and now yours as well.
8.
From: Addleds "mottle" WER-004 http://weirdearrecords.bandcamp.com/album/mottle Addleds – the quartet of Kyle Bruckmann (oboe/English horn), Tony Dryer (double bass), Jacob Felix Heule (percussion) and Kanoko Nishi (koto) — explore timbral and textural extremes of distended instrumental technique via improvisation and open-ended compositional strategies. Their music tends towards a brutalist minimalism as informed by the noise underground as by recent developments in the field of free improvisation. Individually, the members have performed with other groups and regular collaborators across the gamut of new music both local (Basshaters, Ettrick, Ghost in the House, Jacob Lindsay, Pink Mountain, Jon Raskin, Gino Robair, Aram Shelton, Shudder, sfSound) and elsewhere (Michel Doneda, EKG, Boris Hauf, Giuseppe Ielasi, Lozenge, Polwechsel, Jack Wright, C Spencer Yeh). Together, they began developing their collective sound in 2010. This album digs deep into their strategies for working a sound brutlally minimal, improvisation informed as much by modern developments in reductionism as by the dank underground of noise that churns in basements across the land. Levied by passages of introspective calm, this album crushes at it’s own pace, grandiose swells of heavy bash and acoustic crunch beckoned our Weird Ear, and now yours as well.
9.
From: Waxy Tomb "Infra Shape" WER-005 http://weirdearrecords.bandcamp.com/album/infra-shape Waxy tombs is a project which started in Davis, CA and has since become “program home” the next development located in San Francisco. Julia is a native SF and a prolific artist whose music performances center around the same sensory issues that her extensive work in visual arts have, namely the interface between the body and technology. Infra Shape was recorded at Andy Magic Whistles’ Whistlehut late one night after she had already played a show. Many, many cups of coffee were indulged in over the course of the session , mayhaps adding to the jittery flavor that imbue these distopian psyberneticicisms.The effected vocals a nod to early practicioners such as Throbboing Gristle or Ruth White , are tempered with a wholly modern palette of plastisized tones rendered in stark, nearly garish tones. Julia has recently relocated to Boston, MA and we wish her the best of luck out there!
10.
From: Waxy Tomb "Infra Shape" WER-005 http://weirdearrecords.bandcamp.com/album/infra-shape Waxy tombs is a project which started in Davis, CA and has since become “program home” the next development located in San Francisco. Julia is a native SF and a prolific artist whose music performances center around the same sensory issues that her extensive work in visual arts have, namely the interface between the body and technology. Infra Shape was recorded at Andy Magic Whistles’ Whistlehut late one night after she had already played a show. Many, many cups of coffee were indulged in over the course of the session , mayhaps adding to the jittery flavor that imbue these distopian psyberneticicisms.The effected vocals a nod to early practicioners such as Throbboing Gristle or Ruth White , are tempered with a wholly modern palette of plastisized tones rendered in stark, nearly garish tones. Julia has recently relocated to Boston, MA and we wish her the best of luck out there!
11.
From: Angela Sawyer "On The Pedestrian Side" WER-006 (Due Fall 2014) Angela Sawyer is the owner of Weirdo Records in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We first heard her music at the Weirdstock 3 festival (“We Are Guest Talk Free”), held in the Cambridge YMCA theatre in August of 2011; She took a seat in a corner of the room and announced that, since this is Weirdstock, and she always plays “Weird” music (see: Preggy Peggy and the Lazy Babymakers, Duck That, and Exusamwa), she would grace us with some relatively straightforward songs, which would then, be weird of her. She proceeded to play a baritone ukelele and sing six squeaky small songs for the next 15 minutes, to everyone’s utter delight and surprise. We later found out that these songs were slightly less unusual than had thought, when we learned of her early 2000’s group, The Phenemonological Boys, but even knowing that now, these ditties have a charisma and maturity that distances them from that group. We recorded her set on our iPhone, and had only a few additional listens before deciding to ask for studio recordings of this set; at the time, thinking an afternoon in a cozy space with her uke and a couple mics would get us recordings that would be release-worthy, little did we expect that 3 years would pass before we had a full release together! The album has been realized far more thoroughly than had hoped, replete with all sorts of odd instrumentation and arrangement, including sampled buss bass, bottle cap/vitamin bottle percussion, sleeping bag something, a good amount of midi instrumentation, and one presumes a good bit of sampled records from her vast and most likely overwhelming collection of vinyl from around the world. Additionally, she made the executive decision to leave a few of the original iPhone recordings sprinkled throughout the album, which I’m glad of, as the YMCA theatre has a great sound, the audience was appropriately attentive yet enthusiastic, and the album flows beautifully despite the shift in tone here and there.
12.
From: Angela Sawyer "On The Pedestrian Side" WER-006 (Due Fall 2014) Angela Sawyer is the owner of Weirdo Records in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We first heard her music at the Weirdstock 3 festival (“We Are Guest Talk Free”), held in the Cambridge YMCA theatre in August of 2011; She took a seat in a corner of the room and announced that, since this is Weirdstock, and she always plays “Weird” music (see: Preggy Peggy and the Lazy Babymakers, Duck That, and Exusamwa), she would grace us with some relatively straightforward songs, which would then, be weird of her. She proceeded to play a baritone ukelele and sing six squeaky small songs for the next 15 minutes, to everyone’s utter delight and surprise. We later found out that these songs were slightly less unusual than had thought, when we learned of her early 2000’s group, The Phenemonological Boys, but even knowing that now, these ditties have a charisma and maturity that distances them from that group. We recorded her set on our iPhone, and had only a few additional listens before deciding to ask for studio recordings of this set; at the time, thinking an afternoon in a cozy space with her uke and a couple mics would get us recordings that would be release-worthy, little did we expect that 3 years would pass before we had a full release together! The album has been realized far more thoroughly than had hoped, replete with all sorts of odd instrumentation and arrangement, including sampled buss bass, bottle cap/vitamin bottle percussion, sleeping bag something, a good amount of midi instrumentation, and one presumes a good bit of sampled records from her vast and most likely overwhelming collection of vinyl from around the world. Additionally, she made the executive decision to leave a few of the original iPhone recordings sprinkled throughout the album, which I’m glad of, as the YMCA theatre has a great sound, the audience was appropriately attentive yet enthusiastic, and the album flows beautifully despite the shift in tone here and there.
13.
From: Trumpet Trumpet Synthesizer / Horaflora "Split" WER-007 http://weirdearrecords.bandcamp.com/album/trumpet-trumpet-synthesizer-horaflora-split A: TTS - ‘Oh Baby’ Trumpet Trumpet Synthesizer (feat. members of Cloud Becomes Your Hand, HAG, VaVatican), are based out of Brooklyn and bring some odd strategies to bear upon the often-stuffy tropes of improvised music - turns out, vocoder/synth and trumpet can get downright sexy if you let em drift just right! This sidelong piece, recorded between 2012 and 2013, marries the grit, spit, and oomph of Brad Henkels amplified trumpet and the hushed, baby-soft sighs of Erica Eso’s (Weston Minissali) vocoder/vocal/synth in a way that seems tailor made for quietly undermining any expectations. ‘Oh Baby’ goes through several sections that hang together tenderly throughout, though changing tone quite a bit before the piece’s completion - a nearly neo-soul beginning with warm subharmonic bass notes float right through extended trumpet work that simultaneously functions as off kilter beatwork as it does a tonal aspect of the overall sound. Later, an array of high pitches tangle into a knotty blast that stops just short of uncomfortable, dropping into a subdued section of sighs, whispers and distended tones that flicker out like the last candle in the latest evening.
14.
From: Trumpet Trumpet Synthesizer / Horaflora "Split" WER-007 http://weirdearrecords.bandcamp.com/album/trumpet-trumpet-synthesizer-horaflora-split B: HF - ‘My Acoustica’ Horaflora (Raub Roy, of Life Changing Ministries, Oakland), contributes another sidelong piece loosely based on, certainly indebted to, and specifically referenced to, Mauricio Kagel’s ‘Acoustica’ album and work in as that a variety of electroacoustic devices were invented and paired with backing pieces realized on a choir of small cassette players played back in a variety of spaces. This specific comparison may have been made at any point in Roy’s career thus far, but his stated intention to move away from exploring acoustic treatments in the future, provides an oppurtunity to make clear connections by way of this tribute. ‘My Acoustica’ starts, perversely enough, with an introductory section seemingly unrelated to the proffered concept, a down pitched laugh of unknown origin pitted against low, creeping, creaking and maybe some flute…? The piece begins in earnest a minute or so down the line, glissiando’ing tones from the ‘cassette choir’, a balloon-driven, bassoon-esque resonant horn tone interjecting with prepared speaker sizzling and sharply convulsing until everything comes to a sudden stop, and a woozy, wobbly, record player spins up and initiates another round of aleatoric interactions that push through some classic synth treatments (from the tape players again) and out the wormhole that ends the piece.
15.
From: Bhob Rainey / Chris Cooper / Vic Rawlings "Meets" WER-010 (No release date yet) A: Bhob and Chris Meet Bhob Rainey is an award-winning composer / performer. He has a long and well-regarded history as an improviser, known for a masterful yet often understated technique that transforms the soprano saxophone into an electronic-like, textural, or percussive device. He is also known for his ongoing critique of improvisational practice, which has brought influential concepts and stylistic components into the practice as a whole. While Rainey has worked with numerous improvisers globally, he is best known for his solo work, Nmperign (with trumpeter Greg Kelley), and his direction of the improvising large ensemble, The BSC. Chris Cooper plays prepared guitar in this meeting. He plays extended prepared guitar and electronics solo as Angst Hase Pfeffer Nase, and guitar in Fat Worm Of Error. Cooper also belongs to Rainey's improvising ensemble, The BSC.
16.
From: Bhob Rainey / Chris Cooper / Vic Rawlings "Meets" WER-010 (No release date yet) B:Bhob and Vic Meet Bhob Rainey is an award-winning composer / performer. He has a long and well-regarded history as an improviser, known for a masterful yet often understated technique that transforms the soprano saxophone into an electronic-like, textural, or percussive device. He is also known for his ongoing critique of improvisational practice, which has brought influential concepts and stylistic components into the practice as a whole. While Rainey has worked with numerous improvisers globally, he is best known for his solo work, Nmperign (with trumpeter Greg Kelley), and his direction of the improvising large ensemble, The BSC. Vic Rawlings is a composer, improvisor, teacher, and instrument builder based in Boston. He performs and teaches across North America and Europe. He uses instruments of his own design: an amplified/extensively prepared cello and a highly unstable electronic instrument with an array of exposed speaker elements. Heng ensemble, The BSC. also is a part of Bhob's improvisi

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Selected tracks and excerpts intended to aid radio DJs in selecting sections of our longer pieces in particular, but also as a label showcase in general.

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released February 14, 2014

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Weird Ear Records Oakland, California

Vinyl, tape, and digital music label dedicated to wide open ears.

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