Square is the new circle

The Infinite Library

The Infinite Library is an ongoing project by Daniel Gustav Cramer and Haris Epaminonda.
It is primarily an expanding archive of books, each created out of pages of one or more found books and bound anew. The online catalogue serves as an index.

Website here

American Psycho

David Byrne, "Report from L.A." from The Kitchen Presents Two Moon July (1986)

Prânâyâma

Kirk was born Ronald Theodore Kirk in Columbus, Ohio, but felt compelled by a dream to transpose two letters in his first name to make Roland. He became blind at an early age as a result of poor medical treatment. In 1970, Kirk added "Rahsaan" to his name after hearing it in a dream.

Kirk played and collected a number of musical instruments, mainly various saxophones, clarinets and flutes. His main instruments were tenor saxophone and two obscure saxophones: the stritch (a straight alto sax lacking the instrument's characteristic upturned bell) and a manzello (a modified saxello soprano sax, with a larger, upturned bell). Kirk modified these instruments himself to accommodate his simultaneous playing technique.

He typically appeared on stage with all three horns hanging around his neck, as well as a variety of other instruments, including flutes and whistles, and often kept a gong within reach. Kirk also played clarinet, harmonica, English horn, and recorders, and was a competent trumpeter. He often had unique approaches, using a saxophone mouthpiece on a trumpet or playing nose flute. He additionally used many non-musical devices, such as alarm clocks, sirens, or a section of common garden hose (dubbed "the black mystery pipes"). His studio recordings also used tape-manipulated musique concrète, and primitive electronic sounds (before such things became commonplace).

Kirk was also a major exponent and practitioner of circular breathing. Using this technique, Kirk was not only able to sustain a single note for virtually any length of time; he could also play sixteenth-note runs of almost unlimited length, and at high speeds. His circular breathing ability enabled him to record "Concerto For Saxophone" on the Prepare Thyself to Deal With a Miracle LP in one continuous take of about 20 minutes' playing with no discernible "break" for inhaling. His long-time producer at Atlantic Jazz, Joel Dorn, believed he should have received credit in The Guinness Book of World Records for such feats (he was capable of playing continuously "without taking a breath" for far longer than exhibited on that LP), but this never happened.

Seasons (A.One Mind Winter-Summer - B.Ninth Ghost)

Island Cry

The Ragman and the Junkman

Breath-a-Thon

Black Root

(thanks to Francis Baudevin)

Best guitarist ever #3: John Fahey

John Aloysius Fahey (February 28, 1939 – February 22, 2001)

"From a social perspective, I am looking for friends, not acolytes." (JF)

Seven tracks:

Sunflower River Blues

What Child is This

Wine and Roses

Irish Medley

Oh Come, Oh Come Emanuel

The Approaching of the Disco Void

Funeral Music For Mississipi

Motif

Gerhard Richter, Seascape (Cloudy), 1969,

James Blackshaw, Arc, from "The Glass Bead Game" (2009)

So many things still left to do / But we haven't made it yet.

Chimère d'Arezzo, Musée archéologique de Florence

Transformer Man (Unplugged version)

In the album Trans, a vocoder features prominently in five of the nine tracks. Neil Young found that when using a vocoder when communicating to his son (who was born with cerebral palsy), he was able to elicit a better response. The emotional power of this experiment shows in the lyrics, particularly in the track "Transformer Man" with the lines "So many things still left to do / But we haven't made it yet."

Thursday Afternoon

Brooklyn evening light, August, 2009

Brian Eno, Thursday Afternoon (61 minutes version), from "Thursday Afternoon" (1985)

Thanks to Emmanuel M.!

Best guitarist ever #2: Robert Fripp

Robert Fripp and Brian Eno

Robert Fripp (born 16 May 1946 in Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England) is a guitarist, composer and a record producer best known for being the guitarist for, and only constant member of, the progressive rock band King Crimson.

Robert Fripp & Brian Eno, Swastika Girls, from "No Pussyfooting" (1973)

Robert Fripp & Brian Eno, Evening Star, from "Evening Star" (1975)

Robert Fripp, Remorse Of Conscience, from "Perspectives & Distortion" (1981)

Andy Summers & Robert Fripp, Hardy Country, from "I Advance Masked" (1982)

David Sylvian & Robert Fripp, Every Color You Are, from "Damage" (1993)

Drinks

Dan Mc Curdy - Detecting Drug Use

Loretta Lynn - Wine, Women and Song

Alan Parson Project - Wine from the Water

Tom Waits - The Piano has been Drinking (unreleased studio record)

Smog - Drinking at the Dam

Countdown to Ecstasy

20 of the most beautiful soft rock songs part. 1.

Drive into the compilation here (108.59 MB)

Tracklist:

01. Stills-Young Band, Midnight On The Bay

02. Fleetwood Mac, Dreams

03. Paul Simon, Run That Body Down

04. Air Supply, Lost in Love

05. Looking Glass, Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)

06. Dan Fogelberg, Part of the Plan

07. Chicago, Thunder & Lightning

08. Supertramp, Sister Moonshine

09. Steely Dan, FM

10. Seals and Crofts, Summer Breeze

11. Wings, Goodnight Tonight

12. Donald Fagen, New Frontier

13. Michael McDonald, I Keep Forgetting (Every Time You're Near)

14. Phil Collins, Air of the Night

15. The Eagles, One of these Nights

16. Genesis, Tonight, Tonight, Tonight

17. Alan Parsons Project, Eye In The Sky

18. Todd Rundgren, A Dream Goes on Forever

19. Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Mideast Vacation

20. Chris Isaak, Blue Hotel

A few of these tracks have already been posted a few months, but as links have been expiring, here they are again.

re: Islanders

Crosby, Stills & Nash, Lady of the Island

Black Dice, Island

Devandra Banhart, An Island

Volcano Choir, Island, Is

The XX, Islands

Always and forever more exotica weirdness

Thanks to Etienne for the tip.

Sound & Vision: remember Bruce Conner (1933-2008)

A Movie (1958). Music by Ottorino Respighi.

Breakaway (1966). Music by Ed Cobb.

Mongoloid (1977). Music by Devo.

America is Waiting (1981). Music by Brian Eno & David Byrne.

Mea Culpa (1981). Music by Brian Eno & David Byrne.

"Bruce Conner, a San Francisco artist renowned for working fluently across media, died at his home of natural causes on Monday. He was 74. Mr. Conner was one of the last survivors of the Bay Area Beat era art scene that included Jay DeFeo (1929-1989), Wallace Berman (1926-1976), and Wally Hedrick (1928-2003). "We were all anonymous artists here in the '50s," Mr. Conner told The Chronicle in 2000, shortly before the opening of his retrospective "2000: BC The Bruce Conner Story, Part II," at the de Young Museum. Despite an enviably long record of gallery and museum exhibitions, Mr. Conner met with little recognition outside the worlds of contemporary art and independent film. Born in McPherson, Kan., in 1933, Mr. Conner arrived in San Francisco in 1957. Schooled in art at Wichita University, the University of Nebraska and Brooklyn Art School, Mr. Conner first got noticed for the short films he assembled from scavenged documentary and B-movie footage. Several of his films, including "A Movie" (1958), a sort of paean to human failure, and "Crossroads" (1977), are regarded as classics of independent filmmaking, even though Mr. Conner shot no original footage for them. "Crossroads" replays, at ever slower speeds, official footage of a hydrogen bomb detonation on Bikini Atoll, until repetition - 27 times - and slow motion transfigure its colossal destructiveness into something hypnotically beautiful. In the early 1960s, Mr. Conner made grotesque assemblages out of common household objects that ridicule consumer society's attachment to personal possession, including more precious sorts of artwork. They remain some of the most powerful inventions of their kind in American art. He went on to make obsessively detailed abstract drawings, large-scale photograms (with the help of Edmund Shea) in which his figure appears made of light, and collages of old wood engravings in the manner of Surrealist Max Ernst. Mr. Conner never stayed with one medium for long, resisting the art world's inclination to identify every artist with a style and a biographical myth. Asked once by a critic to mention some artists who influenced him, Mr. Conner said, "I typed out about 250 names," and instructed the writer to add that "limited space prevents us from printing the remaining 50,003 names on Mr. Conner's list of influences." Mr. Conner announced his own death erroneously on two occasions, once sending an obituary to a national art magazine, and later writing a self-description for the biographical encyclopedia Who Was Who in America. Mr. Conner is survived by Jean Conner, his wife of more than 50 years, and a son, Robert. No memorial event is planned as yet."

(Kenneth Baker, The San Francisco Chronicle, Tuesday July 8, 2008)

Thanks to Jens Hoffmann