Ep. 3: Dirty Rat (Brian House)

This time we talk with a fascinating sound artist and composer Mack met at a recent meeting of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts. As his website puts it, "Brian House is an artist who explores the interdependent rhythms of the body, technology, and the environment. His background in both computer science and noise music informs his research-based practice. Recent interests include AI, telegraphy, and urban rats." If that description looks a little daunting on the screen, the work itself sounds really cool to cris and Mack. We'll listen to three pieces of Brian's: a composition that imprints motion-tracking data on collectible vinyl, a field recording from the Okavango Delta in Botswana, and an encounter with the wildlife that put the "burrows" in New York's five boroughs.Links to works discussed: Quotidian Record (2012), Urban Intonation (2017).Mack notes that it was incredible to edit this episode using Daniel Fishkin's daxophone arrangement of John Cage's "Ryoanji" (1983).The other music on today's episode is by Brian House and Graeme Gibson.
Transcript
[♪ ethereal music playing ♪][CRIS CHEEK]This… is… Phantom Power.[FEMALE COMPUTERIZED VOICE]Episode 3.[CRIS]Dirty Rat.[unidentified sounds raising and lowering in pitch, banging noises][CRIS]So, what are we listening to here, Mack?[MACK HAGOOD]What do you think we’re listening to here, Cris?[noises continue, Mack laughing][CRIS]I don’t know, what is that? Is that an owl, put through a filtering device or something?[MACK, still laughing]You think it sounds like an owl put through a filtering device? Let’s listen to some more.[CRIS]Oh, wow. So synthetic.[MACK]It sounds like an old theatre organ having a bad day.[CRIS]Oh, yeah, no, I’m hearing that now. A pipe organ.[MACK]Yeah.[CRIS]Or something that hasn’t got a lot of wheeze left in it.[MACK]Something sad is happening in the silent film.[CRIS]Something very sad is happening.[MACK]Harold Lloyd fell off the clock.[both laughing][CRIS]And so he did.[MACK]Alright, so… it’s… it’s rats.[CRIS]That’s a rat?![MACK]That’s a rat.[clanging noises begin, rat noises stop][MACK]So today we’re gonna meet the guy behind the rat recordings that you just heard a moment ago:  Brian House. He’s a composer and sound artist I met last November at the Conference for the Society of Literature, Science, and the Arts, which is this really crazy conference for interdisciplinary scholarship and creative experimentation. I met Brian, and when I heard about what he was working on, I just knew we had to have him on the show. His work uses sound to express relationships between bodies, human and nonhuman bodies, social relationships, geographic relationships, temporal relationships, and sonic relationships. So we’ll be hearing three different pieces of his:  a musical composition that traces human, urban, and transatlantic movement, a field recording from the wetlands of Botswana, and an installation that will take us into the underground boroughs of New York City. This is work that helps us make sense of relationships we normally can’t sense at all.[BRIAN HOUSE]Well, my name is Brian House, and I’m an artist based right now up here in Providence, though I frequently do work down in New York. Yeah, I’m up here at Brown University at the moment, working on my PhD in music.[♪ upbeat technological music ♪][CRIS]So, Mack – how does Brian get interested in rats when he’s working on music?[MACK]Well, I think in order to get into that, we need to understand more of his previous work and some of the themes tha...