Category: Sounds (page 1 of 5)

This section features downloadable mp3s of poems and music, as well as links to other sound pieces published elsewhere online.

19 August 2012 / 0 Comments

ELO 2012: Electrifying Literature / Affordances and Constraints

During the recent K&D Stylings North American Tour, I took a detour to attend the Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) 2012 conference: Electrifying Literature / Affordances and Constraints, which was held at West Virginia University in Morgantown.

Actually, it wasn’t so much a detour as the second leg of my itinerary but WGAF. Anyways, I also presented a paper at the conference, and that’s what this post is really about.

The title of my presentation was suitably garbled: “Why ‘But is it e-lit?’ is a ridiculous question: the case for online journals as organic, evolving works of digital literature”. If you’re interested, you can read the full abstract.

A close up of the actual audience for my ELO presentation.

As you can see from the image above, my audience was vast. Again, I tell a squeaky little lie. This is what the auditorium looked like ten minutes before my panel started. Which was still at the godless hour of 8.30am on Saturday 23 June 2012.

Thankfully, a few hardy souls ended up arriving to witness me, Alexandra Saemmer and Clara Fernandez-Vara go through the motions.

Overall, I was happy with my presentation, which was on the subject of Cordite Poetry Review, the journal of which I used to be the Managing Editor, and its status (or otherwise) as a work of electronic literature.

I don’t have much to say about the content of the presentation itself, but hope I’ll be able to draw something coherent together for the EBR thread dedicated to the conference.

The conference itself was really inspiring—although as usual it just wasn’t possible to catch everything I wanted to see, even for an academic community as small and well-defined as the e-lit scene.

Highlights for me included Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux’s brilliant discussion of Dwarf Fortress, the goofy UnderAcademy College ‘panel’, the Taroko Gorge remix panel, Stephanie Strickland and Nick Montfort’s presentation about code commenting in Sea and Spar Between and Florian Cramer’s provocative keynote speech.

I also really enjoyed taking a few days out from an otherwise manic three city tour——NYC, Montreal and Chicago in less than three weeks: never again!——to experience the … serenity? … of Morgantown.

So my personal highlights included an impromptu country hoe-down at the local brew pub, the quaint old fraternity and sorority buildings on campus and … most of all … the infamous Morgantown PRT!

Anyway, you can listen to my presentation below. Comments welcome, as ever!

15 February 2012 / 0 Comments

Last Night Betty (Extender)

Davey Dreamnation featuring Stung, ‘Last Night Betty Extender’ (6.59).

If it seems like a long time ago that I wrote the poem ‘Last Night Betty’, that’s probably because it was. Is.

And if it seems like an eternity since I listened to this slice of mixed up toe-jam by Davey Dreamnation, a musical interpretation right up there with the rest of them, that’s probably because it is. Was. 

Until now. 

Featuring unauthorised guitar licks from Kiwi Sting impersonator Stung, and a drum beat from a nifty little app called the Rapmaster that I’ve not been able to find again, this little outtake is what in the industry is referred to as off the hook.

Strap yourself in and be prepared.

It doesn’t get much loopier than this.

19 October 2011 / 4 Comments

Madchester: audio

The Stone Roses
David Prater, ‘Madchester’, live at Babble (2002)

In the early 1990s, bands like the Roses, the Charlatans, The Farm and Happy Mondays were popular with a certain crowd of university students in Australia and elsewhere.

For proof of this, check out this screenshot from FB, where I recently asked friends to name-check UK indie bands from the 1990s, with extended results, although I should mention the criminal omission of Flowered Up.

I’ll admit to being a big Stone Roses fan. I can actually still remember where I was when I heard ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ for the first time, had the above poster on my wall and stared at it fanatically for hours on end, and once I even ventured out to a Manchester-themed club night, called ‘Madchester’ in Sydney in the early 1990s.

The Madchester ‘baggy’ sound could loosely be identified as being connected with the beginnings of rave culture in the UK, as well (perhaps more contentiously) as the hideous phenomenon that was the ‘indie-dance crossover’, an act on the part of some bands which was to seal their brief fate (hello Soup Dragons).

I don’t really regard the Roses as being indie-dance crossover or rave at all, unless one counts ‘Fools Gold’; I was always into the more stoned backwards-sounding tracks anyway, and only wished they’d continued the trend of ‘Something’s Burning’ (the b-side to their faux-dance single ‘One Love’) on The Second Coming instead of producing the cocaine-fuelled heavy rock with noodlings embarrassment album that they did.

Anyway, the track is a summary of my experiences at Madchester and beyond, and I don’t really have much more to add, except to say that this excruciating version was recorded live at Babble (Melbourne) in 2002. Feeling very old today.

7 October 2010 / 0 Comments

‘That’s Buddha’ (live in Montreal)

In addition to providing my editorial services for the latest edition of Melbourne’s literary spunk-fest Going Down Swinging, I was also lucky enough to score myself a spot on one of the two spoken-word CDs accompanying the magazine.

The track, ‘That’s Buddha’, was recorded live at le Fes­ti­val Voix d’Amériques in Mon­treal in 2009. The per­for­mance involved two Bud­dha Machines and me, was recorded on Wednes­day 11 Feb­ru­ary at the Casa del Popolo, and runs for about six minutes.

Thanks to Ian Ferrier for selecting the track!

If you’d like to hear what two Bud­dha Machines sound like, you’ll have to buy the CD, and you can do that by whacking your mouse over this big old photo:

Otherwise, you can read the original poem or listen to the track online at the untold Indiefeed Performance Poetry channel, which is profiling the GDS issue with a series of tracks over the coming fortnight. To hear the track, as well as some cute commentary from GDS editors Lisa and Nathan, get thee to Indiefeed immediately!

28 June 2009 / 0 Comments

Clint Bo Dean’s Live In the Bahamas leaks onto the Intranet

Clint Bo Dean, ‘Oceans (Lice)’ (3:50)

As NASA and other important organisations begin their preparations for the countdown to DNRC Records’ 100th release, tensions on the Tribesco peninsula have risen after the apparent leaking of an excerpt from Clint Bo Dean’s prescient masterpiece, Live in the Bahamas, onto the Intranet.

We reviewed the odd-ball LP here in May, but eager listeners can now get a taste of the contents of the record’s live ‘feel’ via the attached mp3 exclusive, which was apparently leaked a micro-second before the entire album was deleted from the DNRC Records archives altogether.

While the quality of the recording suggests that this is a bootleg rather than an official CBD release, one listen to the final ‘track’ from the album, the anthemic ‘Oceans (Lice)’ should set your mind at ease, at least with regards the burning question of whether the rest of the ‘set’ is worth listening to at all.

Hint: it isn’t.

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This is [d/dn], the home of David Prater, a writer and editor currently living in the third person.

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