Webhamster Henry's Top 10 Imaginary Sound Events of 2009
  1. Bring Da Nose, Dr. Paul Chanel (Olfactory Synaesthesia Byproduct Labs: 2009)
    Taking advantage of new olfactory detection research, OSBL have put together a groundbreaking demo converting smell to sound. I was completely unaware that many animals, fish and insects which communicate by smell can emit complicated combinations of scents that act like hieroglyphs indicating the presence of danger, food, mates, shelter, oxygenated water, and more. Furthermore, the smells can be decoded into chords and even pulsed like a drumbeat. There have been a number of mechanical odor emitting devices over the years, but converting the smell to sound opens an entire new artistic landscape.
  2. Hej, Slováci! Ko smo mi? , Pascal Brzivić (Nove i Mrtvi: 2009)
    The Union of Serbia and Montenegro, the last remnants of Yugoslavia, existed for a short period in the 1990s. So short that they never really adopted a flag or national anthem. To help with this problem, aspiring Serb/Montenegrans were encouraged to submit songs to be sung at soccer matches and various state occasions. By the time the contest was ready to be judged, Montenegro had split from the union, leaving these entries behind. Remixed into a continuous oratorio on the impermanence of political boundaries, Brzivić left part of the mix unfinished on purpose, the ending a wash of shattered and skipping sound excerpts.
  3. @yousongs, Song Yu (Live on Twitter, 2009)
    A continuous piece from yousongs, the first all Twitter poetry band. Technologist "birdbrainstorm" has a twitter client program that turns the tweets into triggered recordings of actual bird sounds (songs, scratching, pecking...). Try it!
  4. Waterpower, Amy Ray Charles (Wetter Records 2009)
    Taking an expansive view of water, Ms. Charles starts by illuminating a drop of water with a laser, and picking up the light on a solar cell and using that wobbly rhythm as the underlying basis for a composition based on the dynamics of water motion at scales from earth satellites to electron microscopy.
  5. Now, Xe! (privately produced 2009)
    Blackwater by any other name would smell as sweet - not. And when they changed their name to Xe Services LLC, this was the industrial music track they sent out to their customers (us) and associates.
  6. Glock Grooves (Grebzil Gangsta Groove Records, 2009)
    No need to waste ammunition when you have Glockgroove: 80 lock groove tracks of firearms noises! Clear the dance floor really fast!
  7. Gramma Grammar (educational tape found in Salvation Army, 196?)
    An odd educational recording, with fables about how mistakes in grammar led to disastrous results. It's fairly well produced, with "Gramma" appearing suddenly amongst language mangling kids. Especially offensive is her encounter with hipster slang and Ebonics.
  8. Springtime Melody, Hideo Akimoto (Ektori Set, 2009)
    The live ensemble "Capsule Hotel," in a row of squeaky beds, put on a number of performances at the Berkshire Fringe festival. The show featured giant puppets, cooking, personal hygiene,audience participation and no sex (at least at the show I saw). The beds, though, stole the show: each mounted on a precise MIDI controlled set of servo motors evoking squeaks and squeals reminiscent of laughter, bird song, chalkboard scratching and bashing a well amplified spring reverb.
  9. Sell, McConnell, Sell!, Ed McCullough (Vodaphone Records, 190?)
    The label is missing on this classic vaudeville act 78, featuring a one sided conversation between a man and his stock broker, with the part of the stock broker done entirely in Morse code!
  10. You bore initially a bite (Esplusept Ltd, 2007)
    Recognizable folk and rock songs with their important words replaced by ones of the same grammatical form, seven or more places further in the dictionary.