CHECKOUT: The Sound Team

Tim Hawkinson - Uberorgan (2000)

I've posted Tim Hawkinson's Emoter before, but this is undeniably his largest kinetic scupture. Crawling along hallway ceilings and collecting in the atrium of New York's IBM Building (see in this picture), this continuous inflated baloon is actually a working musical instrument. Multiple horns guard the balloon's openings, which are carefully tuned to various notes and open from a central brain that operates via a simple magnetic piano roll mechanism. The spectacle of a flying, breathing, groaning octopus gives tremendous insight into the beauty and naturalness of sound creation and the possibility for human coexistence with substantial contributions from interactive art.

The Sound Team outputs a different kind of music, pulled much closer to the floor and with a grittiness characteristic of the position. Matt Oliver is not afraid to get his knees dirty and screams like he's enjoying swallowing an emo raccoon, while the guitars have plenty to wail about in the background. Do you remember that second-grade mother's day craft project where you scoured the yard for pine cones that you later rolled in peanut butter and finally in birdseed? Well, it's sound is kind of like that... except they're found in a Texan desert, rolled in cigarette ashes and deep fried. Oh yeah and you hang them in your myspace for hipster friends to knaw on.

The Sound Team - The Fastest Man Alive (mp3)

The Sound Team - Your Eyes Are Liars (mp3)

The Sound Team - The Movie Monster (mp3)

Largehearted Boy points towards a couple articles dealing with the status of online music innovations, if you're at all interested. First is a Washington Post article covering some of the most popular music blogs (Music For Robots, Said the Gramophone, Fluxblog, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan, and Large Hearted Boy) and another piece about the beautiful (threateningly so?) You Tube and Hype Machine.

"We’re living in that Napster-like magic moment where you simply can’t believe the kinds of historic stuff available to you with just a simple search. Which means of course that it’s all gonna get shut down ANY MINUTE."