“Sound Characters stands as one of the most devastating aural artefacts of this or any decade.”
I found myself trolling the internet late last night as I usually do. Last night I had a bit of purpose as I am working on some playlists for a restaurant and wanted to dive into the world of dubstep music.
My journey brought me to Pitchfork and I got to reading this week’s Resonant Frequency on Pitchfork. Mark Richardson was writing about context of music on how our current generation of music lovers enjoy their music differently (and at time, at odds with the artist) than previous generations. In our world of iTunes and bit torrents and remixes, we can take another person’s art, and make it our own and and control the means of its presentation. Changing the artists intention to fit our own. Mark isn’t really saying that is a good or bad thing, only that it is the way it is. But “sometimes” having faith in the artist’ s presentation can yield a certain excitement and understanding of the work. He had some examples of artists where you really needed to experience their work on their terms to get it. Mark then went on about a now dead lady named Maryanne Amacher.
Reading about Maryanne got me very excited about sound and presentation. Maryanne experimented with noise and music and performance in some strange and wonderfully unique ways. One of ideas that really intrigued me, was the idea of otoacoustic emission.
Basically, Maryanne could play tones that would stimulate your inner ear. The result would be the perception that the sound you were hearing wan not originating from the speakers front of you, but rather, to quote this article, ” sound that filled not only the space but the listener’s skull, to the extent that the sound actually seemed to be pouring out of your ears.”
Wow, late last night I had to try THAT! Sadness, at 1AM or 2AM or whenever it was, I could crush my stereo to get the full effect. Today at the Zone, I hopped in a studio and pushed the dial and sliders to 11 and let the tones and noise wash over me, the effect was as described. Something I had never really experienced sonically. And that was just enjoying 30 seconds of a clip I found. I couldn’t imagine how a Maryanne Amacher “concert” might effect my brain.
I created a little podcast that features 30 seconds of Maryanne Amacher’s “Head Rhythm 1/Plaything 2” from her 1999 and only album Sound Characters (Making The Third Ear).
Download: Morning After Show – The Third Ear and Maryanne Amacher
The most important thing to do, to get it to work is listen to the sound clip contained on the podcast through speakers, not headphones. It won’t work with head phones, and ideally you can crank the tones.
You should get an interesting sensation in your ears and it should seem like your ear drum is making sound. You’ll get it for sure if you can crank it up on some good speakers.
I was able to get it to work on this 30 second clip I lifted off iTunes, but if you are intrigued like I am, I think her entire album of audio oddness will need to be purchased and figured out.
Go with yourself.
The Morning After 