Cold left Cold
Sharps and rocks
Jen
laughing
and all with others
subtractive music
a massive extinction
brean malleable
worst pollen that I have ever tastes.
best bridge that I have ever slept on.
reddest room that I have ever seen
Kitchen ware storage
Is that it then I that how
I that how
Is that how
Is that It
then
Is that how
Rocky
The earth is made of rock
take and make
ride
ants
slim Jim.

The front cover is made of a relief print based on two separate toilets, which splits the collection in half. Six with a urinal and Six with a standard toilet. Each book is comprised of about 4-5 hours of work.

A gallery of all of the toilets is available for viewing pleasure here.

More information about the relief printing process can be found here.

My latest instrument or rather control surface is the Blipronome. It’s a combo of two technologies put together by Wil Lindsay at /* straytechnologies  */ namely, the arduino and the bliptronic. The whole idea of the monome is haptic feedback and it’s engine is buttons and leds. Making an array of switches is easy enough for sure, I am typing on one now but there is no feedback loop to the actual keys just to the screen, Monome is different you click a button and it toggles from off (clear) to on (red) (or anything really it’s all programmable).

Inside the Bliptronome is a grid of switches and leds, Mr. Lindsay has taken the liberty to take this I/O and send it to an arduino. The arduino is running custom software based on what the people have been doing over at Arduinome. This software registers each button press sends it to a Ftdi chip and also gets messages from the computer and inturn tuns on leds. The Ftdi converts serial data to usb.

Once at the computer the there is a conversion package called the ArduinoSerial that is responsible for turning the serial data on the usb into either Midi or OSC  (think midi 2.0). From there you can do anything you want, you can use the switches to control your blender or a garage door if you want, but most of the programs are dedicated to music, and most of those have been written in MaxMsp and of that most of the awesome ones have been written by Tehn and Stretta. Some of my favorites so far are 64Step, Mlr, a full list of applications can be found here on the monome site.

Why Bliptronome: According to Stretta’s post on the history of the Monome :

Sales of the first 256 and 128 were quite swift compared to the original 40h. The first run of 64s sold out in two minutes.

256
September 2007 (100 units)
August 2008 (100 units)
July 2009 (100 units)

128
December 2007 (100 units)
May 2008 (100 units)
January 2009 (100 units)

64
January 2008 (200 units)
October 2008 (200 units)
January 2009 (200 units) Only 200 units made!!!

There aren’t that many monomes out there and they are expensive a 64 is going for $600 dollar on ebay right now. Further the diy arduinome is around $150 + with no case, and the nomome (Novastation Launchpad) for all intents and purposes is the best option is $200.

The Bliptronome comes in as being the cheapest option at about $130, and it also comes with 4 potentiometers that can be useful to some.

Bliptronome improvements:

• The potentiometers I got in the kit didn’t have holes to guide the wire through which made soldering a real pain, this is an easy change the pots to ones with those little holes.
• The Ftdi is just loosely hanging out. I think putting it inside an altoid tin or similar would ease some minds and make the whole thing more durable.
• The play button is not used
• The original  functionality of Bliptronic is lost (this is not that big of a deal)

In the Flesh:

Collected Rocks: By Paul Sobczak

info

1. Iron And Wine – Around The Well
2. Tallest Man on Earth – Shallow Grave (2008)
3. Bela Fleck – Throw Down Your Heart
4. Decemberists – Hazards of Love
5. Varius Artists – Dark Was the Night
6. William Elliot Whitmore – Animals in the Dark
7. Amy Milan – Masters of the Burial
8. Antony and the Johnsons – The Crying Light
9. The Pines – Tremolo
10. Ben Frost – By The Throat

The post card book includes all of the photos from Iowa a Day plus one extra. Each of the discriptions for the photos are inculded on the flipside of the cards, which are indivudally detachable. The book also features a japanese stab binding. This post card book is ment to be used.

The first version of this mix tape circa June 2008 is also available upon request, but for that one you need to mail your request, if you need my address just ask.

“Four Moon Shoes in Scandinavia” is scheduled to come out in December 2010.

]]> http://themountainfold.com/?feed=rss2&p=374 2 http://themountainfold.com/?p=369 http://themountainfold.com/?p=369#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:54:16 +0000 themountainfold http://themountainfold.com/?p=369 Short picture book, only available online.

Scandinavian Toilets a collection by Paul Sobczak

This is a collections of toilets that I collected while living in Oslo, Norway in 2007. I traveled around Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark) and took pictures of the toilets that I used. There are 116 images in this collection spanning the following cities: Oslo, Fjærland, Tromsø, Kristiansand, Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Copenhagen. Each image is attributed with the location at which it was gathered as well as the date it was taken.

There is a book version of this collection that will have a relief print on the cover that is in the works, the book will be limited to 10 copies.

I just released Seven Sedimenting Backgrounds over on Canada Goose Records, the record is a collection of soundscapes or drones that I have created this year, at Canada Goose you can listen and or download the whole thing. The cover of the record uses the picture above which I shot in just outside of Fjærland, Norway, the greenness of the water is what it actually looked like, further it looks that way becasue of the glacier and the sediments the the glaciers create.

I also posted up the full downloadable audio for the Street: Volume the First If you haven’t heard or seen that I suggest heading over and taking a look, I am quite happy with the project, and I am really happy to have had the chance to record Mary Grace and Raphael and Friends – Different Shades. It’s a great song and really catches the spirit of this project and, well life in general.

I Can Eat Glass Project:

The I Can Eat Glass Project lets you discover how to say the phrase “I can eat glass, it doesn’t hurt me” in different languages.

The project was inspired by Ethan Mollick’s I Can Eat Glass Project. Mollick discribes his project with the following:
The Project is based on the idea that people in a foreign country have an irresistible urge to try to say something in the indigenous tongue. In most cases, however, the best a person can do is “Where is the bathroom?” a phrase that marks them as a tourist. But, if one says “I can eat glass, it doesn’t hurt me,” you will be viewed as an insane native, and treated with dignity and respect.

The site uses Gooogle Maps API, and some slick PHP that I learned to make it work. I hope you enjoy it.

Early 2009, I traveled to San Francisco on a trip that took me coast to coast across North America. Here is a short introduction to that trip, and to the city of San Francisco.

This recording starts out with two binaural recordings of the Fisherman’s Wharf on the edge of city, where I sat on a pier with a view of the golden gate bridge while people and a class of children passed by.  Next is a piece that features one of the trolley cars the city is so famous for.  This transforms into a train on its way to San Jose where you can hear a call for the Sunnyvale stop.

Now, back in San Francisco, we go underground and hear a bit of “I’m going to Let it Shine” from some street artists in one of the many the BART subway stations. A bus comes around I board and am joined with a San Fran native talking, there is no need for encouragement, he was just talking on his own to no one in particular, but every once in a while he directed a statement towards myself or the bus driver. Next, a bit of saxophone from a street artist playing on Mission St. at around 8 in the evening.

Then I travel to San Francisco’s Noise Bridge a member based electronic/hobbyist club where a member is talking about the “smart drugs” that he is taking, neuro inhibitors, and alcohol. Then I jump into a car and turn on KPFA one of my favorite radio stations out of Berkley, CA. This en route to Menlo Park on highway 101. The host, Robby Osman talks about Obama, Pete Seger, Big Bill Broonzy, amongst others, and plays some music. Back in San Francisco again, a short story from one of San Francisco’s homeless sharing some information about an event that impacted his life. The last recording takes us back to where we started at the Fisherman’s Wharf, where a street artist with a rather large curly mustache is plays some blues on his guitar that slowly fades away.

Paul Sobczak – Field Recording San Francisco 3/11/2009

This was recorded was made using the built in microphones of a Edirol R09HR solid state recorder and a pair of binaural microphones.

*Note this recording will be released on a yet to be formed net-label in the future.

I know the audio for the past shows is lagging; I have most of the files but I need to upload them. Before I do that I need to attack all of the audio that I have posted in the past the has fell victim to the weird right left pulsating audio effect. Most of all the older show pre-2008 are good. I was never able to figure out what was causing the issue in the recordings.

What I am doing to fix them is importing the stereo file and covering it to 2 channel mono, by grabbing one of the channels and copying it to the other. I know this does not totally alleviate the problem but sonically is sound a lot better and is virtually indistinguishable, from what it sound like when it was aired on the radio. The whole process takes a long time because I have to import the whole 100+Mb file into an audio program, then to the manupilation and save it all again, then upload, and link each one. So it will be awhile before I get around to it, but it is planned for the future.

February 20th 2010 Update: I have lost my hosting for all of the audio files, they were hosted at North Dakota State University, and in 2009 they decided to change their sever. I have made the decision to not to re-upload the files, I will maintain a physical archive, if you want one then ask me.

Audio:

Download

From more information: Rochester Symphony Orchestras Website

On January 6th I launched Twin Cities Maker, a website dedicated to realizing a high-tech maker shop in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.

The goal of the website is to find people interested in creating a maker shop, and give them an avenue to start talking about it.

A maker shop as I have coined it is membership based physical location where people combine their talents and capitol to create a workshop with tools and classes, that are out of the price range of the individual.

Think of a maker shop as a membership based gym like the YMCA but instead of racket ball courts and yoga lessons, there are CNC routers, and micro-controller classes.

Maker shops have been growing in the last few years here in the United States and abroad. Some specific movements to note are the NSF funded Fab Lab, the community based hacker spaces initiative, and California based Tech shop.

Each one of these maker shops are approaching the same idea from different angles. Some maker shops are have about 10 members and meet primarily on the internet while other maker shops have 15,000 square foot facilities with over 400 annual members.

The thing that they have in common is their community approach and their goal of making high-tech affordable.

At Twin Cities Maker we would like find out the interest level in such a maker shop and to see what type of high-tech equipment is wanted, be it laser cutters, 3D printers, or T-shirt screen printing presses. We also are starting the conversation on where the maker shop should be located and how to fund the endeavor.

I invite anybody interested from the Twin Cities or elsewhere to join the conversation and help the project get off its feet.

2008 Top 10+

1. Jim White – Transnormal Skiperoo
2. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
3. Hanne Hukkelberg – Rykestraße 68
4. Roma di Luna – Casting the Bones
5. Jeffrey Lewis – 12 Crass Songs
6. My Brightest Diamond – A Thousands Sharks Teeth
7. Matt Bauer – The Island Moved in The Storm
8. Herman Dune – I Wish That I Could See You Soon Ep
9. Bowerbirds – Human Hands
10.Why? – Alopecia

the almosts:
Astronautalis – Pomegranate
Various – Anthology of Noise & Electronic Music, Vol. 5
Antony and the Johnsons – Another World EP
Ane Brun – Changing of the Seasons
Man Man – Rabbit Habbits
Various – Art of Field Recording, Vol. 2 * would most likely be on the list but I have not purchase it yet.

Graduated and a Cylinder (12/16/08)
1. Tom Waits – Jack Keroac – On the Road
2. Devendra Banhart – This Beard is for Slobhan
3. Astronautalis – Secrets of the Undersea Bell
4. Bjork – Cant Help Loving Man of Mine
5. Múm – They Made Frogs Smoke ’til They Exploded
6. The Octopus Project – The Adjustor
7.Under Byen – Den her sang handler om at få det bedste ud af det
8. Jim White – Fruit of the Vine
9. Bon Iver – The Wolves (Act I and II)
10. Hanne Huckelberg – A Cheaters Armory
11. Roma Di Luna – The Romance of Wolves
12. Jeffrey Lewis – I Ain’t Thick
13. My Brightest Diamond – If I Were Queen
14.Matt Bauer – Dont Let Me Out
15. Why? – The Hollows
16. Astronautalis – The Wondersmiths and his sons
17. Man Man – Rabbit Habbits
18. Antony and the Johnsons – Shake that Devil
19. Ane Brun – The Treehouse
20. Los Campesinos – You! Me! Dancing

Audio

Giant Cheeto Photoshop Thread

See it Yourself.

CNN News Article

For photos