S2E01: The Last Nine Yards References

Jan 31

Dee, Michael, and Anu talk discuss the dilemma of being almost done with a project, what being done means, and a whole lot of other stuff.

References

Charles Ives on Wikipedia.

Charles Ives works:

The Unanswered Question
This is perhaps Ives' most well-known piece, partially because it is brief and relatively easy to listen to, while simultaneously incorporating his notable ideas.

From Wikipedia:

Against a background of slow, quiet strings representing "The Silence of the Druids", a solo trumpet poses "The Perennial Question of Existence", to which a woodwind quartet of "Fighting Answerers" tries vainly to provide an answer, growing more frustrated and dissonant until they give up. The three groups of instruments perform in independent tempos and are placed separately on the stage—the strings offstage.

https://open.spotify.com/track/7umTDygSNRwDVYvdp9CGNG?si=09719abcafa345bd

Trio: II. TSIAJ
TSIAJ = This Scherzo Is A Joke. You will hear it includes a bunch of broken, fucked-up versions of a number of American popular songs from the time.

https://open.spotify.com/track/0zn6F4oct1ygFhgY0IVFhZ?si=82b0991614a1419e

Further listening:

Central Park in the Dark
Concord Sonata
Symphony No. 3

Frank Zappa was an Ives fan. Aside from the "difficulty" of Ives’ music, I think Zappa liked how Ives is not particularly interested in traditional rhythm or phrasing, opting instead for sort of clouds of sound, which are still rigorously written and planned.

Anu Kirk

Anu Kirk cannot escape music, no matter how hard he tries.

Starting with drums and oboe, he succumbed to the siren song of rock n'roll, guitar, and synthesizer during his teenage years.

He attended Dartmouth College, studying music under Jon Appleton and Christian Wolff and graduated with a degree in economics.

Nearly a decade in Los Angeles came next: performing in bands, producing, engineering, recording, scoring for film and television,and designing professional audio products. One (Spatializer Retro) was awarded Musician Magazine's "Editor's Pick" and another (Spatializer PT3D) was nominated for Mix Magazine's TEC award.

Anu has been involved with the Internet music business since its inception. He was one of the primary architects of Rhapsody, the world's first music subscription service. He also designed and built music services at Liquid Digital Media (formerly Liquid Audio) for Wal-Mart.

He was responsible for the development of MOG's award-winning mobile apps, and contributed significantly to the product design and strategy that led to a successful acquisition by Beats and subsequently, Apple.

As Director of Music Services for Sony PlayStation, he managed PlayStation Music Unlimited before helping the company pivot to a Spotify-based music platform.

Most recently, he served as Director and General Manager for Virtual Reality Platforms at PlayStation, helping to launch PlayStation VR, the world's most successful virtual reality headset.

He has also designed marketplaces for virtual goods, worked on video games, and integrated digital media platforms into virtual worlds.

One of the first to participate in the Duke University Talent Identification Program (TIP) when it started in the early 1980s, Anu returned to as an instructor in the early 2000s. His popular class “A History of 20th Century Music” (now known as "Bach to Rock") was later adapted to an educational CD-ROM, "Switched-On Sound".

He wrote “The Definitive Guide to Evolver”, a manual for the Dave Smith Instruments Evolver synthesizer, considered essential reading by its users.

Anu joined noted Internet electronic music collective Chill in 1998. Anu held the number one position in experimental music on MP3.com for 6 months.

Anu continues to write, record, perform and release music.

https://www.anukirk.com