Ernst Karel

Wednesday 4-6pm Pacific time on @dublab.bsky.social

it's a movement!

“This year’s International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM-US) conference took place one week ago, as of this writing. The conference was in Washington, D.C., as it happens just across the street from the White House, and in a grim coincidence the United States began an illegal and impetuous war against Iran on Saturday night, just as the conference attendees walked past the White House and ventured out to dinner. The orders to begin the war, perhaps aptly, did not emanate from inside the White House itself, or from anywhere in D.C., but rather from a private club in Florida, far from the seats of government where grave decisionsเอส such as a declaration of war are constitutionally required to be collectively rather than unilaterally made. (Even 15 months into the American fascist experiment, we should not be so afraid of being labeled naïve as to avoid calling this out.) The fact was a reminder of how thoroughly the American government has been cleaved from the work of governing. Nonetheless the White House -- and the whole district, really -- teemed with actors, quite actually armed, performing security theater. Mobs of National Guardsmen clogged escalators to the Metro; Secret Service agents rode their bicycles in tight, endless circles near 17th Street; men with cell phone holsters and wraparound shades warily patrolled the tarps and holes of the erstwhile East Wing. Impunity and violence, work from the permanent collection, were on public view in the”

permanent collection, were on public view in the public galleries of the city, from which the actual government seemed to have long since absconded. This is what we study, isn’t it? Performance? The presentation of symbolic systems, for power, survival, critique. Artifice does real things, we know. IASPM explained the performances of Ellington/Roan/Veloso, the threading of impossible needles through brilliant stagecraft and persona-building, the doing of politics through artifice. Savvy to it, we stepped outside and became compulsory audience to the performance of police whose stagecraft was very really trained upon us, political power growing from (the display of) the barrel of a gun. Nothing could make me prouder, I thought during the conference, than to keep doing exactly what JPMS does, to think rather than concede thought amidst the performance of violence. This issue’s articles examine musical keepsakes (Lauren Alex O’Haga); musical labor and artificial intelligence (Will Mason); Peloton instruction (Rachel Allison and Braden Leap); and cassette tapes in East Bay punk scenes (Sean L. Peters). Each piece is politically attuned, and each is intensely curious. Authoritarianism does not look kindly on curiosity. We are not supposed to ask about AI, about capital, about memory and selfhood, or about the expressions of marginal kids, as these pieces respectively do. It is dangerous to recognize power as performance, performance as power. That is precisely why we must do it

Working on the intro to the next issue of JPMS, aware that we might be in altogether different humanitarian crisis by the time it runs

lmao direct hit

I'm pretty sure EVERYTHING ELSE IS NOISE is the best film Nicolás Pereda's ever made. It's like the very best Hong films: sculpted, sardonic, poetic, somehow both kind and pitiless.

Exclusive: AI Error Likely Led to Iran Girl's School Bombing Pentagon investigators believe a bombing of a girls' school in Iran on Saturday likely resulted from inaccurate information provided by AI.

Will people stop using AI because of this? Is there a red line? Is there any ethical standard, anything at all, that would be enough for people to simply say no to AI?

some AI garbage

and audibly and with the mouth open BLECH

john grzinich Artist, composer and creator of sonic worlds. Exploring sound and space, finding resonance between people and places.

for wonderful recordings of sonic environments in Estonia, check out the work of John Grzinich.
maaheli.bandcamp.com
One particularly straightforward collection of unprocessed recordings is this one: maaheli.bandcamp.com/album/covid-...

CREEPS

The most scathing critics of Silicon Valley circa 2014 barely scratched the surface of the treachery these companies have shown.

Providing your products to criminal regimes planning to use them to violate human rights on a massive scale is a choice!

We don’t talk enough about how morally depraved the tech industry turned out to be. Every single ounce of their self-regarding statements of values was an outright lie.

move slow and repair things

If you’re participating in Bandcamp Friday today, please do so in a way that’s safe and sensible.

Relay Signals (Lucky Kitchen Records - lk026), by Tim Daisy 9 track album

New re-issue: recordings made in 2003 at Acme Studio in Chicago & originally released on Lucky Kitchen.

Jason Ajemian -bass
Ernst Karel -trumpet & analog electronics
Zoe Buck -electronics
Aram Shelton -clarinet
Tim Daisy -percussion/compositions

timdaisyrelayrecords.bandcamp.com/album/relay-...

Innards, by Blowhole 14 track album

Apparently I also have a new release for Bandcamp Friday. It’s a reissue of a cassette released on Apraxia in 1993 — edited via tapes-by-mail by Patrick Barber and Jeph Jerman. I seem to hear my trumpet and electronics setup mostly on tracks 2, 4, and 7.
blowhole-us.bandcamp.com/album/innards

Silent Flight An ideal reader and honest seeker dives into the world of Zhuangzi, the great Chinese philosopher.

A classic of world philosophy, the Zhuangzi revolutionized ethics and ontology forever with its Dao.

Now, in our latest issue, Rose Novick brings this masterpiece to a new generation of English readers with her magisterial translation & commentary.

strangematters.coop/rose-novick-...

Nmperign and Brittany Karlson/Nick Neuberg duo — Non-Event Non-Event is pleased to present a rare local performance by Nmperign, the saxophone/trumpet duo of Bhob Rainey and Greg Kelley, and the duo of bassist Brittany Karlson and percussionist Nick Neuberg.

Bostonians! This Friday... two amazing free improv duos... a. rare appearance by the legendary nmperign (Bhob Rainey & Greg Kelley) plus the fantastic Brittany Karlson/Nick Neuberg duo. Not to be missed...

www.nonevent.org/concerts/202...

Infra Brut, by Retribution Body 2 track album

I have hopped on the Bandcamp Friday bandwagon with the release of "Infra Brut," a recording of my concert at Boston City Hall. As an added treat, I've included both stereo and binaural mixes! (The binaural is a very fun listen on headphones.)

retributionbody.bandcamp.com/album/infra-...

Canary Records early 20th century masterpieces (mostly) in languages other than English. An hour in clamor and a quarter in rheum.

Bandcamp Friday
$70 annual subscriptions currently include 140 back catalog titles which is absurd. (Sunday I’m gonna pull it back to just 100 for new subscribers.)

Big help would be to tell friends about stuff you like. Thanks!

canary-records.bandcamp.com

Soroush Khazaei, audiovisual artist, killed in an airstrike in Tehran - CDM Create Digital Music People are not numbers, and so among the rising tide of wartime deaths around the world are some familiar faces from our communities. Soroush Khazaei was an audiovisual artist who gave generously to the Iranian scene. He was killed earlier this week in Tehran by US/Israeli airstrikes.

Soroush Khazaei, audiovisual artist, killed in an airstrike in Tehran https://cdm.link/soroush-khazaei-memorial/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_content=muz4now%2Fmagazine%2FMUSIC&utm_medium=mastodon #MusicNews

it’s even got that smarmy tone of voice, “should sit nicely” BLECH

No

When you click the "beautify slide" AI feature in Google Slides.

NOT A JOKE

"Alison Knowles stands out as the sole female artist among the founders of Fluxus, yet she has remained an enigmatic, underrecognized figure in the history of art. Performing Chance fills a gap in the record, bringing to 💡Knowles’s transformative body of work," from 🎨 to performance to poetry...

poster for FAYA DAYI, a film by Jessica Beshir, on Criterion.

FAYA DAYI, Jessica Beshir (2021)

www.criterion.com/films/32189-...

having a very synth-heavy #CasSunday

SEIDEL & MONTGOMERY - ExRotaprint Sessions - Berlin 4.29.2013 (Generations Unlimited) 2015

ERNST LONG (KAREL) & JIM BAKER - April 8, 1999 - Nervous Center - Chicago (unreleased)

#synths @sesamecircuits.bsky.social #jimbaker

I was wondering where that tape was!

also i refuse to call it 'claude', to personify it, without a conditional. it is not sentient or intelligent, it is fucking code