Webhamster Henry's Top 10 Imaginary Sound Events of 2007
- Cassarole : Mash Covers (Honor Among Thieves, 2007)
Another step in the mainstreaming of mash-up culture: karaoke and live covers of popular mashups, done with a backing band.
- A Word With You (Parent Helper, 1959)
A 7" record dressing down potential Juvenile Delinquents, with a Chubby Checker label as protective coloration.
- A Bull in a China Shop 1-25 (Affected, 2007)
As hi-fi gets higher and higher, sound effects need to be more and more accurate. Here is the top of the line floating point 192kHz 5.1 series of sound effects, many of them super hi-fi recreations of old cartoon studio effects (boings, screeches, water splashes, trombone gobbles...), and many new effects (actually letting a bull loose in a china shop!) that are in themselves things of beauty.
- Bird's Ear View (NYBC, 2007)
A short passionate plea in favor of pigeons, BY pigeons. Tiny radio mics strapped to the birds' bodies as the go though the day, revealing just how much they interact with humans and how we interact with them. Also, some interesting financial information overheard on Wall Street which may or may not still be useful.
- The Nun Such: The Word You've Not Heard (Yeesh, Eva! Records, 2007)
In the 50s, the Gibson Bible Institute undertook a massive project to record the entire Bible on LPs and the tapes never made it to the record pressers. But here they have been excerpted, just the weirdest parts of the Bible: giants, orgies, sacrifices, plagues, commandments you've never heeded before, all underscored with a Hammond organ by the somewhat obsessive audionauts the Nun Such.
- The Lobby of the Siren Song Hotel, Kuala Lumpur (2005, D.K. Subrahmian, architect)
Not really a recording, but an acoustic installation built in the physical structure of the ultra modern Siren Song Hotel. The arrangement of walls and paneling near the "memory booth" features innovative audio lenses and reflectors, preserving your conversations without any electronics at all for about 15 minutes unless you open the damper and let it out to dissipate in a rumbling steel drum. Accompaniment is provided by Aeolean harps and wind driven marimbas.
- Tell-A-Man: Out of the Mouths of Babes (Look Who's Talking Recordings, 2006)
A short, but conceptually pun-ish piece from Tell-A-Man, and a nod to the excellent "Live in Bologna" by the Reveries, tiny receivers in baby bottles, activated by nipple sucking, play a melange of audio quotes from overexposed celebrity supermodels.
- Black Figure Audio Vol. 1: Amphorae (Ancient Audio, 2007)
We generally date audio recording to 1877 and Edison's "Mary Had A Little Lamb", but recent examinations of the peturbations of wavy spirals on ancient Greek black figure pottery suggested an audio wave form to Prof. Xenophon Auros, who made a precision scan of the Heraklion collection and turned them into audio. Ancient Greek voices actually popped out, mostly ordering new pots and complaining of the heat. Auros theorizes that the lines were scribed by a quill dipped in ink on a lathe, and while the lathe was turning, the feathered end of the quill caught the ambient air movements. He continues his investigations of Kraters in Vol. 2.
- The 6th Annual Car Alarm Fest, Crown Heights Brooklyn
The Car Alarm fest is a new tradition, this year concentrating on synchronization and phasing effects of alarms.
Conducted by sending instant messages, volunteer youths with baseball bats did a bang up performance, culminating in a chorus of air bags.
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Analog Broadcast TV Farewell Countdown 2008 (Ars Media Artis, 2007-)
Continuing into this year, the last of analog broadcast television, a dedicated pirate TV transmitter is counting down the minutes left, mixed with random channel selections of whatever is left on the air. About a minute of any channel is far more than anyone should be able to stand anyway. Tune to channel 3 and stare.