Just saw the film, Rip, last weekend. The movie explores new creative modes of music-making (and other art forms) enabled by present day technologies and cultural interests. It also uses this path into the creative world to cover most of the present day struggles with copyright and notions of ownership of “intellectual property.”

Although Rip addresses a wide-range of topics and ground, one of the points it drives home better than anything is the notion of remixing and mashups as art-form (or at least our modern conception of these methods). It’s important to understand this newish sort of muscial creativity is composition (though now it’s increasingly possible to perform this way as well).

UnKindness Of Ravens started this way. We labeled our method of composition, “exposition” because our goal was to find the right elements of sounds and then structure them in such a way that they’d expose the latent music ready to be heard. UKOR happens to also create of its sounds first, so we initiate our palette, but the compositional process differs little from people that operate on the remix/mashup principles the movie highlights so well with the music-making of Girl Talk. Groups or people creating music with the remix/mashup process simply start with a different palette–one composed of sound from other sources.

The movie presented the issues in a passionate way that will capture the imaginations of many people who otherwise wouldn’t care about the misguided laws of present day “intellectual property” and their destructive force on creativity.

“RiP: A remix manifesto is an open source documentary about copyright and remix culture. Created over a period of six years, the film features the collaborative remix work of hundreds of people who have contributed to this website, helping to create the world’s first open source documentary.”

Filmmaker Brett Gaylor encourages remixes of the film too.

Lots of news lately about Radiohead offering its newest album as a download (choose your own price). Saul Williams and Trent Reznor decided to do the same with their new album. They’ve made a lot of headlines, though Issa (Jane Siberry) has offered self-determined pricing for her music for some time. We’ve been offering our music online in download options of free or purchasable as high quality MP3/Ogg formats or physical CD for the last five years. I’m sure many other artists have offered their work this way but the method is getting large-scale attention and, it seems, acceptance.

UnKindness Of Ravens recently may have been heard by way of CKDU 88.1 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Ron Bates’s The Threat is an “eclectic show of noise, jazz, indie rock, and other avant garde weirdness,” which presented (among exciting bits of thumb-piano joy from Konono No.1 and well-placed rock) some UKOR too. Fortunately for those who missed it, there is a podcast (episode 35 from 19 Aug 2006). It’s not just back-scratching that I’m recommending downloading the The Threat podcast (more like skin flaying), Ron’s put together a solid history of interesting music.

Need something to download podcasts? The site recommends this ipodder program (for Linux, Mac, and Windows)–I’m using a great Linux app, amaroK.

Adam Gould’s aesthetic marries mesmer with manacles of a definite love sort. This is some fine video experimentation set to Gould’s own creative mix of UKOR’s “Softs” and “Backwards Cereberal Heartbeat.” Watch it courtesy of the Internet Archive.

Cheers Adam.

A subtle note to the reader. UnKindness Of Ravens (UKOR), while a little slow is far from dead. Material in the works will provide a double album within a year.

Relieve your pressing need for Spring with the noise of myth on a Ukorian stride.

Mike Keigher offers his UnKindness Of Ravens video-film (50MB) of Persephonian Thoughts, which is the tenth track of the Obsidian Smoke Rings album.

- Purchase the compact disc of Obsidian Smoke Rings.

- Purchase the MP3 package of Obsidian Smoke Rings, encoded in a high-quality, 320 kbps bitrate (instant download from Lulu.com includes liner notes and artwork – about 130MB).*

- Compare Formats

1. La Fée Verte
2. Backwards Cerebral Heartbeat
3. Time as a Pleasant Suicide
4. Pink Bayou Sunset Sunrise
5. Weaving a Melting Door
6. Mesmer Regression
7. Keyhole Deity
8. Softs
9. Fermented ESP Trigger
10. Persephonian Thoughts – video-film
11. Guinness Head Cascade
12. Drink Friends Drink

——
* Note:

If you’re not familiar with the Ogg Vorbis format, it is similar to MP3 (but Ogg is liberated). Our full album downloads are provided as a package of files (the individual album tracks, liner notes, and cover art).

Neither UKOR nor Phy-d’eau is responsible for making sure your system can support our downloads or file formats. We are providing this information only in an effort to help, but we cannot provide you with any deeper assistance in this regard.

To play Ogg and MP3 files:

Linux

- KDE media player Amarok
- Gnome media player XMMS
- Other Ogg resources
- Other MP3 players and resources

Macintosh

- OSX media player Whamb and from the Apple web site
- OS9 and OSX media player Ogg Drop
- Other Ogg resources

Windows

- Recent versions of Winamp (highly recommended) over Windows media player. Other Nullsoft
- Other Ogg resources
- Other MP3 resources and alternatives information

Splinter me out the jewel of a juicy black lime, lime, lime… (as it echoes off) this eruption came–brought us running, red-footed, across a molten earth, which bloomed in motion. We could see the pregnant future and drank to our loosening legs. We could youtheneyes our impulses and telekinized the seedling smokes hovering above our homes. We could architect monuments to melt back into their molten beginnings. After all, we vibrated a circle which revealed itself.

A new year swelled the Ukorian ranks to eleven people performing with more than forty instruments (handcrafted, traditional, and modern). Obsidian Smoke Rings is officially our third album (technically our fourth). We labored and loved passionately in transgressing manifold musical directions, for which we previously only caught glimpses. Please listen to the music and share it. We hope it will excite you as much as it does us.

the sounds of the Obsidian Smoke Rings album.

Cover Art:

Compact Disc:

Ensemble:

Unkindness Of Ravens musical aspirations transcend normalcy once again, even cell phones will bleed with aural anarchy!

Disgusted by the sickly sweet ringtones that came preset into my cellphone, I sought out to find a new one… my mission ended very near to where it began: in a sea of bubble gum pop designed for a yuppie world. I use a cell phone as you may have deduced, and I am embarrassed using this technology, largely due to the ringtones. I decided to compose my own! The motivation for the sound of my cell-song is disease, think of it as if you had a preset song, but a wire connected to the speaker of phone was loose. The result of my labor is a song that is not sickly sweet, but rather sweet and sickly.

A good site to learn about how to send ringtones to your phone (each phone is a little different) about.com

Drink friends, drink,
and friends let's drink again.
The bottle will be empty,
But not before the end.

I've traveled near and far,
and now I'm back to stay,
Had enough travelin',
enough of the wanderin' way.

I saw the stars o'er Mexico,
'neath her thighs spread wide.
She said, "Stay!", Lord I had to go,
Though in her belly grew my pride.

Drink friends, drink,
and friends let's drink again,
the bottle will be empty,
but not until the end.

Waking somewhere in the East,
I couldn't see nor feel,
Drinking hard, sans surcease,
With the devil I made my deal.

"Son, be careful what you ask,
take care with what you say,
You might try to fit the mask,
But the truth gets in the way."

Drink friends, drink,
and friends let's drink again,
though the bar be empty,
there's more 'fore the end.

"You can leave 'em in the alley,
You can leave 'em in the night,
But there ain't no son o' Sally,
Won't let you go without a fight."

Well I heard those words and they rang true,
Though the goat himself had said it,
I wanted out; to 'scape my due,
And profferred my soul for credit.

Drink friends, drink,
and friends let's drink again,
the promise may be empty,
a bargain without end.

The goat just smiled -- winked one eye,
Which kind of made me shudder,
"The answer's easy -- stay a while,
The end could be another."

When he was done and satisfied,
and we had shaken hands,
to his work he fled and hied,
to still my sired bands.

Drink friends, drink,
and friends let's drink again,
their bellies will be empty,
but thus it is an end.

I've got my hidden pleasures
hidden sorrows, hidden truths,
and nigh forgotten treasures,
that the whiskey never soothes.

Haunted by their ghosts,
and their long aborted cries,
though forgotten are their hosts,
yet remembered are their eyes.

Drink friends, drink,
and friends let's drink again.
The bottle now is emptied,
and so we're at the end.

Track Twelve of the Obsidian Smoke Rings Album.