Over an hour of new music, and it can only be yours, easily, if you want it. Not available for download (yet), if you must have this, you’ll also need a CD Player.
Hand made music! Discs assembled and duplicated, with covers cut / folded / stapled by hand! Limited to 50 copies! Reversible covers allow you too present this disc in four different ways!
The Ides of March was upon us, and rather than cower in fear – which seems to have been what we should have done – The Olsen Twins Ghostlight Ensemble convened for a Sunday morning recording session that just so happened to tickle our fancy. Hopefully, you enjoy this one, too.
This arrangement includes: Scott Eave (Guitar, Woodwinds), Kevin Van Walk (Drums) & Austin Rich (Ronald’s Luggage / Electronics / Synths).
The Lava Lamp Lounge has been a nice room to host a number of folks, and this particular arrangement is very nice. It sounds good, and I think we play well in this space. And this might be the primary way you hear us from now on, so we’ll continue to iron on the way we present these to you. Maybe we can improve the camera stuff in the future? Hard to say.
Perhaps you can pick up this recording, and help keep us in new strings and cables? It’s really our primary expense, and we want to keep bringing this to you, somehow.
I watched a movie with Marla that we both knew pretty well. On the whole, it was pretty casual.
I spent the day making merch. It’s looking good. You want one? Message me. There’s a limited quantity, and I want the people who will like this to get it. It’s a three-way split CD, Bast Awakening (Ellen & Chirs), DEATH MUTATIONS (Chris & Myself) and Mini-Mutations. All the primary work is done. All that was left was the printing, disc duplicating, folding, and assembling.
And, of course, thinking about how I want things to look, and where I want things to be, in the future.
Reviewing the last decade of Four Dimensional Nightmare releases offers a wonderful glimpse, and incredible insight, into what they have accomplished on this most recent release, 4DN 2020. And even that narrow window into the career or this artist probably omits some of the more impressive, and compelling, work. But that does us no good if we are looking for an entry point into this album. To suggest that we should examine the scope and sweep of their career to fully understand what this album is about is akin to saying, “You need to see 23 movies before this one will make sense.”
Consider it this way: if you’ve been following their carrer for any length of time, then this album continues themes and tropes that you’ve been picking up on for a while, and certainly is rewarding in that respect.
But that doesn’t do a new listener much good, does it? To say that 4DN is continuing to explore places they hinted at in previous releases is not a decent map for someone about to enter into the kind of darkness predicted by track 5, a beat-driven track almost unlike anything else you’ve heard on a Nightmarish release like this. Layered over the industrial rhythms and strange dance jams are these synth explorations that beg for scrutiny and consideration, and that doesn’t even address the ebb-and-flow soundscape that eerily weaves through the various performances, almost hinting at a Haunted House. This is a dense track, not exactly a great entry point if you were hoping to be eased into this artist, but is perfect for getting to know the mind of Four Dimensional Nightmare.
“Beta Tonic” shakes with a low-end pulse that really caused my head to turn, another track I love, but I’m not sure if it is the way “into” the oeuvre of this artist. Certainly, you are better off trying to catch one of their rare performances, as that, I think, better lets you get a sense of where this stuff is coming from, and perhaps, how you can get in synch. But “Beta Tonic” builds in a way that feels like something new, and I was excited to let it have it’s way with me.
It’s with repeated listens that this album really shines. The hallmark of any Four Dimensional Nightmare album is certainly density. There are layers and layers on any given song on any given album, and there is a weight to a 4DN track that seems heavy with multiple, nuanced performances. You need to re-listen to really get a sense of what’s going on.
What feels new this time around is there is a clarity to the layering, either through careful production or higher quality facilities, that gives you a chance to focus on the different synth lines as they dance around each other. This is a great record for leaving in your car, so you have to return to it over and over again, without needing to change anything. Each time through, something else sticks out, and these bits that catch your attention give you something new to dig into.
The production seems unmistakably first class, and to my ear, this is a major evolution. It’s no wonder Four Dimensional Nightmare makes regular appearances on Mike Watt’s program, as this album illustrates the strengths and boons that are the hidden gems on every 4DN release.
Certainly, the nerdiness is worn on the sleeve of this group, and that is probably never more apparent than on the opening track, “Pi,” which contains some of the first lyrics I’ve heard on a release is years. This comes with the territory; someone playing around with this many synths for this long is bound to get wrapped up in some of the more science-informed subjects, as time goes on. But there are also moments of pure joy and frenzy, like on “Beta BonZyard,” where the ferocity of the Nightmare comes into sharp focus, only to have moments of almost beautiful sounds come forward out of the burbling chaos.
If anything, this is the work of someone who has been at it for a while, and this release not only highlights the expertise with which Four Dimensional Nightmare produces new work, but the repeated listenability of a record that is as experimental as the genre actually suggests.
Over the last year, Mid-Valley Mutations has evolved from a mere idea to a flourishing weekly radio program that features music and live performances you cannot (and will not) hear via other venues. To that end, the program has featured a number of artists from all over Oregon, to highlight some of the incredible experimental acts that are right here in our own back yard, even if you don’t see them play very often. Until now, that is.
To help further the cause, Mid-Valley Mutations is launching a monthly live showcase in conjunction with The Space Concert Club, to give you a chance to actually see these acts, in person. Sunday Servicewill happen the last Sunday of every month, and offers a wide range of experimental artists that cover every kind of music: electronic, post-punk, noise, deconstructed folk, home-brewed and circuit-bent gear, and everything in-between. “Experimental” can mean almost anything, and our hope is that we can offer small slices of this world, every month.
While the phrase “experimental” can conjure up wild (and often inaccessible) performances, Sunday Servicewill offer intimate shows with performers who are dedicated to their craft, create art that is personal and meaningful, and would like to share this work with the world around them. While the music may be atypical, the intent is not to be obtuse or difficult. These showcases are presented to feature the beauty and joy in creating music, and the freedom that comes with following your muse, where ever that might be. Sunday Service will not just feature music, but will offer a chance to meet these performers, and find out more about what they do in person. These shows will be curated, organized and hosted by Mid-Valley Mutations mastermind Austin Rich
Our first gathering is March 26th, with the incomparable Guyve headlining the show, playing their first Salem gig in their 24 years as a group. And in April, join us for a rare performance by traveler and recording artist Eric Hausmann, who has called Portland, Ipoh Malaysia and Pittsburgh his home in recent years, . The spring and summer are full of surprises too, and we can’t wait to announce them once they are final.
Sunday Service Showcases are Free to the public, and are 21+. The Space offers a full bar, vegan menu, and a positive, inviting atmosphere for discerning and excellent guests.
Join us for Sunday Service: A Mutation Showcase every month to hear the best in experimental artists you can’t hear anywhere else.
There’s some choice experimental artists among the 53 who contributed to this collection, including friend of the show Uneasy Chairs, who kicks off this comp, and Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, who are incredible. I’m very pleased that they used my submission and I’m very proud to be included with so many other great artists.
The album is free, and if you like experimental music, this is a must have.
And there are 12 other volumes available, too. Collect them all.
We have been doing our best to provide as much quality entertainment as possible on the shoe-string budget that is best suited to these modern times, and with that in mind, we have completely updated our Bandcamp.com Store with new and exciting releases that are of interest to you.
In the period before I began at KMUZ, I was doing a show on an Internet station, Wanting To Be Cool In Beautiful Anywhere, Anywhen. While they became a very comforting home to me and my work when I was not on broadcast radio, in the time since they have become dedicated to documenting the work we’re doing, and capturing some of the performances that happen on our program.
To that end, there are now downloadable versions of the live performances and interviews we have had on Mid-Valley Mutations, where you can enjoy bespoke digital albums of each act, without the clutter of the rest of the broadcast that you have come to know and love. The albums contain full performances by the artist we’ve had on the show, and in a few cases, material you haven’t yet heard!
Two complete live sets by Guyve, including a lot of material that could not fit into the hour long show!
The Digital FM Split Tape! (Featuring live performances by Entresol & Entrail, including 15 minutes of music between the two of them that did not air during the boradcast!)
All of these albums are free to enjoy and download, for the time being. This is your chance to pick up a ton of excellent recordings that are unique to Mid-Valley Mutations. However, if you are so inclined, please make a donation for all of this excellent entertainment. Any purchases you do make will go to supporting KMUZ, and keeping that station on the air.
In addition to these, you can also pick up Interviews, which contains 13 different interviews with artists who have been on the program. These are extended conversations with musicians about the work of creativity and music in the 21st Century, and offer a chance to get to know the people we play on the program. You will not hear these conversations anywhere else, and it’s just another way we like to give back to the listeners at home.
There are also a number of other audio treasures over there, so poke around and see if you find something you like. We hope that you won’t be sorry.
And I Didn’t Get You Anything. But Really: You Should Have Already.
I never thought I would live to see this day. The insane (and, frankly, terrifying) thorny network of crufted together copyright laws that that have developed since 1909 has made all common sense go out the window when people looked at the claim made by Warner/Chappell Music Publishing when it came to this 19th Century song.
But rather than let reality speak to the common sense when it came to enforcing copyright, this song has became an symbol symbol for everything possible and everything wrong with the practice of copyright enforcement in the music industry. With the power that “Happy Birthday” wielded in the way Warner did, it sent a message to copyright holders that the songs in their rosters were “revenue streams” that should be exploited at every opportunity, rather than a way to protect the artist from outright theft when it came to song writing. While some arcane story existed about two old ladies that owned “Happy Birthday,” the truth has been that Warner has collected that money for decades, and has forced all manner of artist to compromise on the use of something that spontaneously breaks out at parties, without forethought.
And, finally, it has been dethroned.
Print Media (Maybe) Saves The Day
Far be it for irony to play a role in something that was already a pretty entertaining stage play acted out in the courtrooom, the key piece of evidence in this case happened to be a very old “songbook” that was published in 1935. In this digital age of .mp3s and free WiFi everywhere, it is nice to know that a physical book was the item that helped make the case, but in a typical turn of events, Sound Opinions reported that the book in question was reviewed using .pdfs, so we’re not quite calling this one a triumph for old media, either. Still, this tid-bit is sort of at the center of the real issue: old media law dictating the new media landscape.
The ins and outs of the trial seem a little insane, and the history of this song has been documented again and again. In much the same way that Capone was jailed for tax evasion rather than the real crimes he was guilty of, Warner had been committing worse atrocities with the way they were renewing this copyright, allowing them to insist on millions in payments from people who wanted to use the song in their film / radio program / digital media creation / etc. However, it was finally revealed in court that the 1935 copyright was invalid at the time it was originally filed.
“Happy Birthday” had, consequently, slipped into the public domain before 1935, and could not be renewed, legally. This invalidated Warner’s enforcement ever since, not only putting 80 years worth of money into their bank account that they shouldn’t have had in the first place, but creating a terrible example of how a company can throw around their weight to “protect” a copyright when there may not even be one to begin with. Publishers that get into the habit of being litigious when it comes to infringement need only look to Warner as an example of not only what, but how to enforce a copyright through a media smear campaign. Now that “Happy Birthday” is back in the Public Domain, hopefully we can take another step toward rehabilitating the rest of the Music Industy’s relationship to copyright.
But What’s The Big Deal? “Happy Birthday” Blows.
This isn’t just good for people who want to feel better about singing the song without compensating the copyright holder, or for a group of cats in birthday hats. It’s a good move for art and creativity on the whole. “Copyright” is a complicated legal world unto itself, and while there are absolutely good uses for it, on the whole copyright is used to collect money when another artist wants to use a work that is copywritten as part of another creative work.
(For example: My movie wants to use a song in it, and the song is copywritten. I pay the copywrite holder, and I can now use the song in my film, as I have compensated the artist. This scales down to sampling in music, and up to, “let’s show part of this other movie in this movie.”)
But the amounts charged for “cleared” copywritten material has alway been nebulous, and there are no real enforced rules or guidelines, except those established by the copywrite holder. How much a work can cost for use can fluctuate dramatically from work to work, and artist to artist. No one has ever paid to use a song I wrote in a film, for example, but “Happy Birthday” could run up to $5,000 per use, if not more.
Beyonce, most likely, is somewhere in the middle.
USA Constitution Parchment
Let’s Talk About Old And Irrelevant Paper Documents, While We’re Discussing Shitty Songbooks, Too
The larger issue of copyright has to do with the law itself. US Copyright law is complicated enough, but the core idea has not changed much, even since colonial times:
“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of The United States Constitution.)
However, our current copyright law was drafted in 1976, with revisions in the years since through to 2014. The 1976 law itself a law that was revising – and not by much – the law that had been in effect since 1909. Consider the cultural changes that have occurred since then, with a law we keep amending each time something comes up. These were written before The Internet, before Compact Discs, before digital file storage systems or Open Architecture. In someways it was written before mix tapes and podcasts, let along all the forms of media that are currently popular in our culture. They are certainly pre-blog and Facebook. The sharing culture of the Internet – something considered de facto and a part of the world as we know it – is something that is antithetical to the idea of copyright law.
Consider the copyright lawsuits that have cropped up in the last couple decades. In the ’90’s, there seemed to be any number of cases regarding the way Hip Hop artists were being sued over and over again for using sampling, something that has slowed down tremendously in the modern world. More samples overall are cleared, these days many samples are used for free because it means free advertising for the original work, and culturally everyone agrees that sampling is not the problem it was seen in the year 2000. It should be noted that litigators are now looking toward Robin Thicke / Marvin Gaye style rip-offs, or in other cases, the Spirit / Led Zeppelin controversy. But sampling lawsuits are a much rarer breed these days, with the last big one in 2008.
If copyright law was written now, it would include sampling as a part of songwriting, something that is not currently a part of the 1976 Copyright law. (Updates to it account for sampling as something that can be cleared with the copyright holder, but rather than using the common sense approach that is is a part of the form of composition, the law has it written in as an exception that needs to be handled case by case.) This is just one example of the ways that copyright law doesn’t even aknowledge the digital world we live in, or the reality of people wanting to wish each other a “Happy Birthday” in the form of a convenient (and culturally well-known) song.
Even if the song is awful.
“Lemme ‘splain. No, There is too much. Lemme sum up.”
In meme terms, there isn’t a cute sentence I can slap on a .gif that can really get to the heart of the issue – for any side of it – that we can use to propagate a sensible copyright strategy that could stand up to scrutiny and 4Chan. But as things stand now, writing and art seem somewhat stymied by copyright, especially in a post-modern, digitally literate culture that are used to bite-sized YouTube snippets, paragraphs copies out of eBooks, and the creative re-arrangement of images and texts – of Star Wars & Dr. Who – that even Disney & Marvel are struggling with ideas of ownership when it just makes sense that Spiderman would show up in a goddamn Avengers movie, RIGHT? The idea that culture has costs is occasionally negotiated in stores and at the cinema, but at home entertainment is consumed in parallel, for free, and re-contextualized for discussion on Tumblr & Twitter later on.
The culture attitudes toward copywritten material has already dictated that they want it to be free. But negotiating the way this plays out in law would be like trying to, for example, legalize a drug due to public opinion.
In a world where entertainment and art are largely free in this sense, the only time money should come into play is if a copyright violation has actually occurred in a way that upsets the value of the work as a monetize-able entity produced by the original artist, but as sharing and reuse become creative works in and of themselves, where to draw that line becomes harder to define, and copyright law that doesn’t understand the nuance of a digital art work is not going to understand the difference between one .tiff and another.
An outmoded vision of copyright – like the vision Warner had for “Happy Birthday” – does not reflect the way art and writing occur in a creatively fertile world. No, this does not mean that I am going to take a recording of Frank Sinatra and try to sell it as my own because there is no law and I am an anarchist, though there are shades of that project that could be decontextualized as an art piece that may look suspiciously like me trying to sell Frank Sinatra’s music as my own. But that question should be one in the audiences mind, to consider the work and its attempt to make a statement that is unique and important. In the end, shouldn’t the art have to defend itself, rather than a legal bully coming in to say that something y is too close to something x, and therefore shouldn’t have financial merit?
To “sum up” Crosley Bendix, a protection that I would like to make sure the copyright holder continues to enforce is the outright theft of a recording, to be sold as something purporting to be owned by another artist. But if I want to make a Girl Talk style mash-up of a Sinatra and Crosby song, with some programmed drum parts, and then use it in a YouTube video that I share with my readers, then there needs to be some wiggle room in the copyright law to see that as a unique work that does not infringe, but creates, and expands the world of art. Let my ability as a mash-up artist be what is on trial, and not some archaic law.
And, And…
And, while I’m at it: really, “Happy Birthday” is an abomination. The tune sucks, the lyrics are dumb, and the rote reccitation of the song in groups is not only eerie, but depressing.
Please, take a page from me, and ask your friends to sing “Sailor Man” by Turbonegro to you instead. It is not only a far superior song, but try explaining to someone why a group of people just sang a very strange homoerotic punk song to a bewildered friend of yours in public.
It’s a new release for the spring, with new music from all your favorite Experimental Artists.
ACRONYM Inc. 