SUSANNA BOLLE

A fest for the brain

SUSANNA BOLLE — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:36:59 GMT

The triumphant second coming of Brainwaves
Before there was Pitchfork, Stereogum, Popmatters, or almost any other music site you can think of, there was Brainwashed.

NEW WAVE: Lichens will be playing the night of the Brainwaves fest that’s dedicated to Chicago drone and experimental-music imprint Kranky.

Songs unsung: Jon Whitney’s top five underrated releases of 2008. By Susanna Bolle.

Before there was Pitchfork, Stereogum, Popmatters, or almost any other music site you can think of, there was Brainwashed. Founded in 1996 by local Web designer and radio DJ Jon Whitney, it began humbly enough, with Whitney building sites for artists he admired — starting with the legendary electronic-music group Meat Beat Manifesto. But it would soon branch out in a multitude of different directions, publishing music reviews, hosting an on-line radio station, producing podcasts, streaming video, and even forming a record label. It was always one step ahead of the technological pack and one step firmly outside the musical fold.

"I'm a very direct, transparent person, and I think that's reflected in Brainwashed," Whitney explains as he sips a bit of wine in the near-darkness of Central Square's Enormous Room. "We simply try to cover things that we think are noteworthy. We definitely don't need to give anyone our time if they're already getting coverage everywhere else. That's been our basic æsthetic tenet from the beginning."

Two years ago, Whitney took on the role of concert promoter in a big way when he organized Brainwaves, an expansive, three-day festival of Brainwashed-related music and video. True to form, it was a monstrously ambitious undertaking.

"Brainwashed was 10 years old. For 10 years it hadn't really made any sense, so why not do a festival that didn't make sense? You know, we needed a party! And though it was two years in the making, all the work was worth it, since we eventually came up with a great group of musicians."

It was a group that very much reflected the Brainwashed ethos and Whitney's intense, personal musical tastes. There was a mixture of long-established acts with relative newcomers, international musicians with local performers. Boston's own ultra-theatrical cabaret rockers Dresden Dolls followed ambient drone artists Troum; the playfully eccentric (and thoroughly amazing) electronics of the Goodiepal sat on a bill with the sharp-edged noise of irr. app. (ext.).

Speakers and listeners

SUSANNA BOLLE — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:02:58 GMT

Odd Couple at the Speaker Project; Ouest at Open Sound
With the three-day Brainwaves festival in town, you'd think there'd be little room for anything else this week.

Best week ever!

SUSANNA BOLLE — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:32:38 GMT

Edgy gigs likely to be booked solid

Death rattles

SUSANNA BOLLE — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:25:33 GMT

Headhunter and Kid Blue so dope it’s scary

Unsettling business

SUSANNA BOLLE — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:26:42 GMT

Kevin Frenette and Ricardo Donoso sound off
Kevin Frenette’s playing is warm yet cerebral, and his music lies in the middleground between avant jazz and free improvisation.

Bubble and scrape

SUSANNA BOLLE — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:01:54 GMT

Chocolate Monk at P.A.’s, Preliminary Saturation at the Piano Factory

Booked solid

SUSANNA BOLLE — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:23:29 GMT

A week of deconstruction, dubstep, and drones

!!!!!!!!!!!!

SUSANNA BOLLE — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:00:38 GMT

Exclamation Point! diversifies its portfolio
The Exclamation Point! series started as an informal gathering of local poets, writers and theater folks, but this Saturday its organizers, the Fort Point Theatre Project, have broadened their scope and gone seriously eclectic.

School daze

SUSANNA BOLLE — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:55:53 GMT

Sonorous studies at Oxfam
The shows that Tufts University’s Oxfam Café has hosted over the past year-plus are not your typical sweat-drenched college rock shows.

Decisions, decisions

SUSANNA BOLLE — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:37:12 GMT

Excited strings, Swiss sound art and utter mayhem
Sometimes even when your cup runneth over, life still isn’t fair.

Up-tempo, downstairs

SUSANNA BOLLE — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:09:17 GMT

Beat Research’s DJ Flack goes underground
In the past year and a half, there’s been a small explosion of club nights in Boston devoted to bass-centric genres first spawned in the clubs of London.

Disc drive

SUSANNA BOLLE — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:52:24 GMT

Semata Productions goes on record
Over the past year and a half, Semata Productions’ Coup d’Etat music series has become one of the go-to venues for new and unusual music in Boston.

Audiophiles unite!

SUSANNA BOLLE — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:16:11 GMT

The New England Phonographers Union + the BSC
This Tuesday marks the debut of the New England Phonographers Union.

Chance and dance

SUSANNA BOLLE — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:38:52 GMT

Tim Feeney + Eats Tapes
For the past three years, one of the prime centers for experimental, improvised, and new music and jazz in Boston has been the Open Sound series in Somerville.

Drone warrior

SUSANNA BOLLE — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:49:49 GMT

Greg Davis returns to Boston
Davis first made a name for himself in the local electronic-music scene and beyond for his sweet, melodic mix of guitar and computer processing.

One last waltz

SUSANNA BOLLE — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:33:41 GMT

Goodbye Conversions; hello Hair Police
Even under the most amicable of circumstances, breaking up is hard to do.

Accidents happen

SUSANNA BOLLE — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:03:32 GMT

Pole revisits a golden error
It all began by accident, when Stefan Betke’s Waldorf 4-Pole filter fell to the floor and began to malfunction, its broken circuitry producing strange, intricate patterns of snaps, crackles, pops, and hisses.

WHOOPS-A-DAISY: When Stefan Betke’s Waldorf 4-Pole filter fell to the floor and began to malfunction, Pole was born.

It all began by accident, when Stefan Betke’s Waldorf 4-Pole filter fell to the floor and began to malfunction, its broken circuitry producing strange, intricate patterns of snaps, crackles, pops, and hisses. Rather than discarding the damaged filter, Betke decided to use its subtle phantasmagoric rhythms in place of four-on-the-floor beats in his bass-rich ambient techno experiments. And thus Pole was born.

In the latter half of the ’90s, Betke released three mesmerizing albums of crackle-filled abstract dub under the Pole moniker. With beautiful monochromatic covers (in blue, red, and yellow), these numbered records were both spaciously minimal and, with their sinuous, ultra-deep bass lines, sensuous as hell. The influence of these three records — the cinematic Pole 1, the dub-heavy Pole 2, and the techno-inflected Pole 3 — continues to reverberate, surfacing everywhere from minimal electronics in Berlin to the dubstep experiments out of Bristol.

To mark the 10th anniversary of the release of the first Pole album in 1998, Betke’s own Scape imprint is reissuing all three early Pole records in a box set with four bonus tracks from the same period; it’ll be out August 5. Over the phone from his home in Berlin, the affable Betke (with much giggling over the course of the interview) explained that the rise of dubstep had produced a resurgence of interest in these early recordings with their cavernous spaces and phenomenal sub-bass. “It’s kind of an archive situation to provide access to this early work, so people can learn from it, understand it, or make it different. With the 10th anniversary, it seemed like it was time to do it. Last but not least,” he laughs, “I thought maybe I could get a little bit of income.”

The first three Pole records were the product of a fertile period in electronic music, one that saw a flowering of minimal, glitch and ambient techno, as well as now oft-maligned genres like IDM. By contrast, Betke’s assessment of the current situation is measured, tempered by age and the view on the ground. “With electronic music, almost everything has been said at this point. You can’t really do anything new. In the ’90s, techno itself was not that old, so there were spaces where you could sneak in and do your own stuff. Ambient was just becoming popular, and it was possible to find something new by accident — like with my broken filter. But nowadays it is not that easy, because, in a sense, the formulas have all been fulfilled.”

Dubstepper's delight

SUSANNA BOLLE — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:52:09 GMT

The Bug and Hatcha come to town
Prepare to have your ribcage rattled, as two pre-eminent members of London’s dubstep underground rumble through town.

Gimme swelter

SUSANNA BOLLE — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:48:35 GMT

The searing hot sounds of summer
Local composer, trumpeter, and electronic-musician Forbes Graham has been blazing in recent weeks.

Fringe benefits

SUSANNA BOLLE — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:52:31 GMT

The soft, experimental sounds of summer
There’s all kinds of ways to chill out at the beach. Herewith, something different for the dog days.