Nebraska-born musician Christiaan Virant was in Beijing performing drone-like ambient music with his Chinese collaborator Zhang Jian, under the name FM3 (mostly in Chinese); as pioneers of the electronic movement in China, most of their money came from sound installations at art galleries, which entailed wiring up rooms with sound equipment. Mulling a simpler and cheaper way of doing this, Virant was wandering around a Buddhist temple in southwest China when he spotted a little plastic box on the altar (one such possible example), piping out loops of the tinny, digitized chants played endlessly at such places. Intrigued, he found two of the devices in the temple gift shop and bought both. The idea of an instant sound installation was born. That was almost four years ago. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Jan 17, 2009 - 26 comments

Jeffrey Lewis brings you The Complete History of Punk Rock and Its Development on the Lower East Side (1950-1975) in eight and a half minutes. [more inside]
posted by StopMakingSense on Feb 27, 2008 - 24 comments

Play that funky music Gameboy : An interesting little article on the lo-fi music scene. A synth made from an old dot matrix printer is certainly lo-fi! (via msnbc)
posted by starscream on Oct 1, 2003 - 22 comments