Hybrid Resonances: Tradition and Experimentation at the KSYME Contemporary Music Research Centre

The Synthi100 housed within KSYME/CMRC

"Through several events and commissions running 2019-2022, the Chronotopia initiative by Athens & Epidaurus Festival, Goethe-Institut Athen, and CTM aimed to highlight connections between experimental music, research, and media practice. From 2020-2021 an artistic lab titled Chronotopia Echoes / Αντηχήσεις engaged six sound artists and composers of electronic or electroacoustic music, selected via open call, who were invited to interact with the vast archives of KSYME / CMRC – the Contemporary Music Research centre in Athens – with the aim to create new works. The resulting compositions were premiered at the Athens & Epidaurus Festival in October 2021, and then reworked for the Chronotopia digital release. ..."


At the KSYME archive
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FirstLook: Beni Isguen, Algeria


"As a young college student in the 1980s, George Steinmetz hitchhiked in the desert lands of north-central Algeria along the Sahara. In 2009 he revisited the region, now as a world-renowned photojournalist working on a book about the world’s extreme deserts and the human adaptations and settlements in them. He recalled the hilltop city of Ghardaa and its unique architecture. This city is actually comprised of five villages, among them Beni Isguen, which in 1982 was inscribed as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site and regarded as the best-preserved example of the region’s traditional building styles and urban organization. The day before this image was taken, Steinmetz flew up to get a view of the town using the foot-launched, motorized paraglider—at less than 45 kilograms, the lightest motorized aircraft in the world—that allowed him to make uniquely close, low-altitude aerial photographs in remote regions. ..."




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The burden of remembrance: Patti Smith’s dedication to lost legacies


"The world should be thankful to have Patti Smith. As a musician, a writer and a vital pioneer, merging the worlds of punk and poetry into something fresh and exciting, the influence is immeasurable. But there’s also another role Smith takes on, somewhat accidentally but not unwillingly. She’s a historian, too, dedicating herself to the memory of her own scene and the stories of those who can’t be here to tell them. ... Instead, there’s a feeling of survivor’s guilt that colours her older life and the realisation that as the others couldn’t tell their story, she’d have to try and do it for them. On the simplest, smallest scale, that responsibility rules over her Instagram feed. Smith doesn’t let a date pass her by. She remembered birthdays, death days, publication days and more as she catalogues and celebrates the lives of her old friends through a grainy picture and a sweet caption, just to make sure her followers don’t forget. ..."


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Scenes of Protests Spread at Elite Campuses

Protesters gathered around Columbia’s College Walk as a speaker addressed them from the Sundial.

"Protests and arrests spread across some of America’s most influential universities on Monday, as administrators struggled to defuse tensions on campuses over pro-Palestinian demonstrations on Monday. Nearly 50 people were arrested at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., on Monday morning, following the arrests last week of more than 100 protesters at Columbia University in New York City. The arrests unleashed a wave of activism across other campuses, including M.I.T., the University of Michigan and Stanford University, as protesters sought their universities’ divestment from companies with ties to Israel and a cease-fire in Israel’s war in Gaza. The flurry of protests has presented a steep challenge for university leaders, as some Jewish students say they have faced harassment and antisemitic comments. Early Monday morning, Columbia announced a same-day shift to online classes because of the protests. Barnard College, across the street, followed suit hours later. Here are scenes from the protests. ..."






The encampment at Columbia was put back up by protesters after being removed the previous week.
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The mystery of the gilded glass booth outside Midtown’s St. Regis Hotel


"It’s an eye-catching piece of street furniture: a booth made of glass, brass, and copper, with a door like a Romanesque arch and a capsule-shaped side compartments. This unusual sidewalk booth can be found under the awning at the East 55th Street entrance of the St. Regis Hotel. Built on Fifth Avenue in 1904 by John Jacob Astor IV (the only son of the infamous Mrs. Astor), the Beaux-Arts St. Regis has long been one of Manhattan’s most luxurious hotels, heralded as 'the new shrine of the millionaire' shortly after it opened by the New York Times. ..."


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Who killed Caravaggio and why? His final paintings may hold the key

The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew

"The National Gallery’s haunting new exhibition The Last Caravaggio has at its heart a sepulchrally toned painting called The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula. Caravaggio includes himself in it as a witness to a brutal murder – a pale, bleak farewell of a self-portrait set against Stygian darkness. An extravagantly armoured man, the chief of the Huns, has been rejected by the beautiful young Ursula. His response is to shoot her with an arrow at point blank range. She contemplates the shaft between her breasts as if she can’t believe what she is seeing: her own death. Soon after painting this, Caravaggio too would be dead. Sailing north from the Naples area to Rome in the heat of summer in a triangular-sailed felucca, he was arrested at a coastal stop and by the time he was released his luggage, including new paintings, had left without him.  ..."


2015 August: Caravaggio

The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist
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How Muddy Waters’ ‘Father And Sons’ Reinstated The King of the Blues


"According to Muddy Waters, 'Every time I go into Chess, [they] put some un-blues players with me […] If you change my sound, then you gonna change the whole man.' By 1969 Marshall Chess had to do something financially viable that would reinstate the real King of the Blues. ... When Mike Bloomfield visited Marshall Chess’ home, an idea began to form, 'It was Mike Bloomfield’s idea. He was at my house and said he wanted to do a thing with Muddy. He had talked about it with Paul Butterfield, too. Both of them had talked with [producer] Norman Dayron. Since Mike and Paul were coming to Chicago for a charity concert we decided that maybe we could cut an album then, too, and the whole thing just built up.' So, Waters, Otis Spann (piano), Bloomfield (guitar), Butterfield (harmonica), Donald “Duck” Dunn (bass guitar), Sam Lay (drums), and Paul Asbell (rhythm guitar) stepped into the studio to begin recording on April 21, 1969. ..."

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In Warsaw - Elisa Gonzalez

The End of Dinner, Jules-Alexandre Grün, 1913.

"In our new Spring issue, we published the short story 'The Beautiful Salmon' by Joanna Kavenna. It features one of the most disastrous-sounding dinner parties I’ve ever read about in fiction, which is a meaningful distinction; it is also very funny at times and slightly surreal and imbued with a kind of offbeat philosophical bent. 'People often talk about learning experiences and, in the days after the salmon-based fiasco, I wondered about this,' the narrator says, at the end of the story. And it’s a good question: What do we learn from an experience like this? Anything at all? 'The Beautiful Salmon' made me think of dinner parties I’d attended or hosted—ones that had gone well and ones that had gone quite poorly and ones that had gone just fine, so that they mostly escaped my memory except for the specific dish or the offhand comment that has stuck with me for years. ... And so I asked some writers we admire to write short essays on dinner parties they remembered, often long after the dishes were removed from the sink. —Sophie Haigney, web editor ..."


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Geoff Dyer: ‘A gas mask on a tree stopped me in my tracks – it shows the air itself can be toxic’

A memorial and a prophecy … A gas mask on a damaged tree on the road to Kreminna in Ukraine's Luhansk oblast.

"This photograph of a gas mask on a tree beside a track in Kreminna in Ukraine’s Luhansk oblast stopped me in my tracks. The original caption in the Guardian reads 'tree' but it looks like the remains of a tree, more like a planted post. Has the rest of it – the parts that make it a tree – been damaged by war? Whatever the explanation there is a hint, in the mottled pattern of the bark, of a giraffe’s neck, that vulnerable loneliness of the vertical amid the overwhelmingly horizontal. By a careful choice of angle the photographer has also imparted an animating slinkiness, a slightly feminine torsion, to the immobile wood. ..."




‘A ghost of her former self’ … an image from Peter Mitchell’s book The Scarecrows 1974-2015
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Modulisme 104: Raoul Van Herpen


"Raoul Van Herpen is an electro-acoustic music composer and improvising musician from the Netherlands. In writing music he draws heavily on modern composing + improvisation techniques and loves to explore new 'territories' and play with noise, electronics, textures, Wurlitzer piano, clarinet, saxophone + flute and DIY Synhtesizers. Combining electronics, acoustics and silence. …"




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The Slits’ Ari Up laments the loss of “female rebellion” in music: “I didn’t know it would come to this”


"'Ari is wonderful and terrible in equal measure,' writes Viv Albertine in her memoir, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys. When The Slits formed, Ari Up (real name Ariane Daniele Forster) was just 14 years old. A wild child who’d only moved to London from Germany a few years prior -Up was a totally unique presence who was totally consumed by music. According to Albertine, she was 'loud' and 'boisterous' but also 'a talented and committed musician' who simply didn’t care what she looked like. She was the perfect person to front a punk band. Full of energy and dissatisfaction with 'double standards' and 'false people,' Up tore up the stage, screaming, shouting, jumping, dancing, and even pissing in front of eager crowds. ..."



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Three New York City subway stops, three different design styles


"How many ways are there to style a subway entrance sign? In New York City, dozens of designs and typefaces are used across the subway system—often with no rhyme or reason. Take this gold and white sign on William Street. It’s for a side entrance/exit for the Fulton Street station, affixed to a 20th century office building called the Royal Building. Its long tapered shape, the white block (a light?) at the top—I’ve never seen anything like it. ... This last subway sign image comes from the East 23rd Street 6 train entrance, I believe. The typeface and tile feels classical, and the V instead of a U is a nice Roman touch. Why this design for this stop? I don’t know—but I do know that all the variety of styles in the subway make traveling underground a little more interesting. ..."


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How do film cameras actually work?


"There’s no denying that there’s an unrivalled aesthetic beauty to film photography when compared to its digital counterpart. While there’s undoubtedly an advantage of convenience (and often cost) when it comes to shooting digital, the result of a well-shot and developed film photograph cannot be beaten. As society leans ever further into technological reliance, there’s been a pushback against digital modes of creation, with many artists preferring analogue devices and techniques, and nowhere is this more prevalent than in photography. But that raises the question, particularly in digital natives, of how a film camera actually works. ..."


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Subcontinental Synth: David Tudor and the First Moog in India

David Tudor, ca. 1974. Handwritten recipes from Tudor’s cookbook. 

"By all accounts David Tudor was a superb Indian cook. He was other things, too. Widely considered to be the finest performer of the increasingly demanding new piano music of the midcentury, Tudor, who died in 1996 at the age of 70, maintained a busy touring schedule as the accompanist for Merce Cunningham’s dance company for more than 40 years. ... He was in constant demand in the fifties and sixties for performances of contemporary works for piano, with ardent admirers, including Morton Feldman, LaMonte Young, Earle Brown, Christian Wolff, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Pierre Boulez; and in the late sixties, to Cage’s dismay, he moved away from performing the works of others and became a pioneering composer of live electronic music in his own right—a shift signaled by his visionary Bandoneon! (a combine), a complex early cybernetic environment that 'composed itself' using inputs from the eponymous accordion-like instrument, which Tudor used to activate a system of sound, light, video, and mobile sculptural loudspeakers. ..."

 
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Letter from New York: Greg Tate on the Art of Lockdown and Days of Rage - by Greg Tate (2020)

Burnt Sugar’s last gig, at the Apollo, before the Covid-19 lockdown.

"The four of us began quarantine in mid-March with, appropriately enough, a 'Last Supper' against the backdrop of a balmy, preternaturally quiet, and already desolate central Harlem night. The worthy constituents were myself and three of my besties: BG and HK, two academics who are also curators, and our host, the doyenne TC, a movie producer who has worked many years with various legendary Black indie filmmakers. TC and BG are both serious foodies and spectacular cooks; HK and I are both serious eaters, especially of their fine fixings. TC is also a much-loved thrower of grand dinner parties in her immaculate art-lined Harlem apartment. It’s where many of the neighborhood’s veteran boho-activist cognoscenti and ninjarati have spent several recent New Years’ Eves reveling until the breakadawn. ..."


2021 December: Greg Tate

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Six Crimee, 1982.
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BSA Images Of The Week: 07.07.24


"... Could this be an advertisement for the new album by Future and Metro Boomin? A spectrum of emotions and styles, the new collection is from two guys whose collaborative efforts have been making significant waves in the music industry for a half decade. Debuting at number 1, as an album 'We Don’t Trust You' has been described as a monumental success, showcasing the synergy between Future’s distinctive rap style and Metro Boomin’s innovative production. The out of context graffiti message, 'We Don’t Trust You,' captures a poignant irony: while distrust might seem like a safeguard, history shows that a society where trust is deeply eroded becomes fertile ground for manipulation by autocrats and tyrants. And now, here are images from our ongoing conversation with the street, this week, including: Praxis, Homesick, Lexi Bella, Modomatic, Danielle Mastrion, Mort Art, Claw Money, Jorit, Isabelle Ewing, Paolo Tolentino, JG, Marthalicia Matarrita, Gia, and 1RL. ..."


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Skin Flesh & Bones Meet The Revolutionaries - Fighting Dub 1975-1979


"First recorded in 1975 with the original album featuring dub cuts of some of Lloyd Campbell's hits, this album was seen as the forerunner to the 'rockers' sound made famous by Sly Dunbar. Sly is in the band alongside Jackie Jackson, Hux Brown, Rad Bryan and Ansell Collins. There's also 8 bonus tracks, Jah Woosh, Vin Gordon /The Revolutionaries and four from Skin Flesh & Bones. Worth checking out."




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The Lord of the Rings The Motion Picture Trilogy (Extended Editions)


"... I preordered this and received it today, on the day it was to be released. Just finished watching The Fellowship of the Ring and there's definitely a noticeable improvement over the older blu-rays. Nice and clear picture, not grainy at all. Is it worth getting if you already own the original blu-ray set? I guess it depends how much you like this trilogy but it's definitely an upgrade and for $30 I'd say it's worth getting. All 3 movies come in one case and the case has a slipcover."


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Leon Keita - Limited Dance Edition No​.​16


"Midway through the Mandingue groove inferno that is 'Dakan Sate, Korotoumi' I knew I had found a gem. Hypnotic guitar solos, heavy bass riffs, psychedelic organ lines, and funky horns … what more could you want? That was in 2006. I was in Bobo Dioulasso, the second largest city in Burkina Faso and one of its major centres of Mandingue culture. Here the sounds of nearby Mali and Guinea had fused with local styles, giving birth to a rich musical scene: bands such as Bembeya Jazz, Super Djata Band and other Mandingue giants were among the best-sellers of the region, and record dealers had once imported them in great quantities from distributors in Abidjan or Cotonou, the cities where most local artists had their LPs manufactured. ..."



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The story of New York’s oldest Titanic memorial, unveiled exactly one year after the disaster


"The R.M.S. Titanic went to its watery grave in the Atlantic Ocean on the morning of April 15, 1912. Few cities felt the tragedy as deeply as New York City. At the end of its maiden voyage, the luxurious ship was set to dock at the White Star Line’s Pier 59, near today’s Chelsea Piers. Instead, 706 dazed survivors picked up by the R.M.S. Carpathia disembarked a few blocks away at Pier 54—greeted by a crowd of thousands desperate for news about the iceberg that sank the ship and the whereabouts of family members. St. Vincent’s Hospital tended to survivors; Lower Manhattan hotels put them up as guests. The Women’s Relief Committee, a newly formed group made up of prominent society ladies, raised thousands of dollars for stranded passengers, especially those in steerage. ..."


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James Joyce and Samuel Beckett’s favourite pub in Dublin


"'Oh, Ireland, my first and only love, Where Christ and Caesar are hand in glove!' the great James Joyce declared. Has any man ever loved his homeland as much as he did? He considered the landscape over and over in every piece of writing. It makes sense, though, that Ireland is richer than most countries in literature and art, giving the world some of the brightest talents it has ever known. Even tighter than a wide nation, some of the best minds even gathered in the same pub. Some cities have absolutely desecrated their literary history. Once beloved watering holes where writers would cosy up in the corner with their notepads are now Wetherspoons, or especially in the case of London, have been overrun by suits ruining the meditative, creative peace with rants about their finance jobs or loud football reactions. ..."


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Afropollination: Residency Power in the Global Underground


"In 2022 and 2023 Piranha Arts, in collaboration with Nyege Nyege, organized two six-week residencies in Kampala, Uganda and Hamburg, Germany. Thirty artists from across Africa and Germany came together to deconstruct and reimagine their art for a new generation of creatives. Practicing, performing, and exchanging in unlikely places, across languages and hemispheres, this residency program attacked ideas of appropriation, heritage, collaboration, and creation. Beyond difficulty and drama, past the ecstatic noise of festivals, this is a story of explosive creativity, diehard cultural exchange, and avant-garde community, from Kampala to Hamburg. ..."


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Herbert Kohl and James Hinton: Golden Boy as Anthony Cool (1972)


"Herbert Kohl and James Hinton’s 'Golden Boy as Anthony Cool,' published in 1972, is a seminal work in the study of urban graffiti and street culture. Not only an academic exploration; it’s a journey into the heart of graffiti as a form of personal expression, rebellion, and cultural identity. Kohl’s insightful essays paired with Hinton’s evocative photographs provide a window into the lives of young people in the urban landscapes of New York City and Los Angeles as they simultaneously boil, wane and flourish in the late 60s and early 70s. These vibrant and vibrating communities are chronicled, whether affluent suburbs or struggling neighborhoods, each appears to brim with stories cryptically told through tags and murals on walls and doors. ..."



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Echoes of the Jazz Age


"'Echoes of the Jazz Age' is a short essay by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald that was first published in Scribner's Magazine in November 1931. The essay analyzes the societal conditions in the United States which gave rise to the raucous historical era known as the Jazz Age and the subsequent events which led to the era's abrupt conclusion. The frequently anthologized essay represents an extended critique by Fitzgerald of 1920s hedonism and is regarded as one of Fitzgerald's finest non-fiction works. ... Fitzgerald's essay instead posits various technological innovations and cultural trends as fostering the societal conditions which typified the Jazz Age. He attributes the era's sexual revolution to a combination of both Sigmund Freud's sexual theories gaining salience among young Americans and the invention of the automobile allowing youths to escape parental surveillance. Echoing Voltaire's belief that novels influence social behavior, Fitzgerald cites the literary works by E. M. Hull, D. H. Lawrence, Radclyffe Hall, and others as influencing Americans to question their sexual norms. ..."



Flappers and patrons in front of The Krazy Kat, one of the famous speakeasies during the Jazz Age.
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(Djibouti Archives Vol. 1) Super Somali Sounds from the Gulf of Tadjoura; Mogadishu's Finest: The Al​-​Uruba Sessions


"In 2019, Ostinato Records became the first label granted access to the grand Archives of Radiodiffusion-Télévision de Djibouti (RTD), a vault of secrets and stories from East Africa. The first in our Djibouti Archives series is a seminal anthology of 4 Mars, a 40-member Somali supergroup behind the most streamed and downloaded track on our Grammy-nominated Sweet As Broken Dates compilation. The personal band of a political party, 4 Mars' sound reveals a brand new history of the world. ..."

"Seven years in the making, the official retrospective of one of Somalia's most famous and beloved private bands, Iftin. Digitized from cassettes recorded between 1982 and 1987 at the legendary Al-Uruba hotel's secret studio and the jams for the masses performed in the basement of Somalia's national theater. Banaadiri rhythms from Somalia's south, Mogadishu's finest vocalists, Dhaanto reggae-like guitar licks, and smoldering brass blend seamlessly with the sounds of Asia, the Middle East, and Africa to form one of rawest, most cosmopolitan eras of music anywhere. Iftin's Mogadishu is where the world's sounds begin and end. ..."

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