Sound-Related Items of Interest

Posted by dave on Sun, 12/09/2007 - 4:03pm in

I wonder which member(s) of Radiohead are the Max/MSP programmers? I'm going to guess it's Thom Yorke, 'cause he's so hot for the electronic shizzle, and Jonny Greenwood, who's got the fancy-pants multi-instrumentalist credentials and classical training...but what do I know.
I managed to catch pianist Vijay Iyer perform with his trio last night at The Stone (a small venue far over in the East Village, run by avant-improv hero John Zorn). It was challenging for me, both because I have a hard time with that sort of virtuosic jazz for philosophical reasons, but also because, well, it was just sort of hard to listen to after a while: it was pretty "out" in terms of melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic structure.
On the other hand, I missed hearing Harry Partch's music performed at the Japan Society last week. It's a shame, because his iconoclastic micro-tonal music is rarely performed, both because of its difficulty and because of the logistical challenge of dealing with the improbable, unique instruments he designed and built for his work. Ah well, such is the glory and tragedy of living in NYC: always too much to do.