Future Folk Records

Music Video: Adam LaMotte's "Buildings and Highways"

2009-07-30T12:50:00.002-04:00

Adam and I made a music video, hope you all like it:

Adam LaMotte - "Buildings and Highways" from Ben Seretan on Vimeo.

Sewing Machines on KCAL 9

2009-07-26T23:06:00.004-04:00

It looks as if we forgot to mention this, but...

Sewing Machines recently appeared on broadcast television!
Here is a still from the news segment:

You can see the entire clip here, though the band's appearance is quite brief.

What I Been Up to (Ben S.)

2009-06-14T19:12:00.003-04:00

Hey Future Folks,

Thought I might update the ol' blog on my goings on. As you may or may not no, I have my own blog under my nom de recording - Mute with Stupefaction. Below are some links and updates, featuring many of your favorite FFR artists.

1) I wrote a string quartet and some people performed it. You can read about it here and look at the score for it here. aliza_do_lots and Sylvia Ryerson also wrote quartets - looking forward to seeing them here eventually!

2) I've got a new song/demo up, recorded in the apartment shared by Green Grocer and Sewing Machines. You can hear it here. Special acknowledgment to this song goes to Asa Horvitz and Claire Staples, friends and contributors to Future Folk, whose theater production "The Secret Science of Forgetting" inspired the song. I also hope to see material from that production here eventually.

3) I have been doing a lot of photoshopping. Below is my take on Green Grocer:

4) Sewing Machines is going on tour!! Here's to you, America! Hope to see many of you soon.

BOOOSH,
ben

Future Folk shout out at Wesleyan commencement!

2009-06-03T17:50:00.003-04:00

Future Folk got a shout at Wesleyan commencement!

"Students recently founded the label Future Folk records, a label that rethinks the current music model to democratize the music industry." !!!!

Read it Here!

HELP INVISIBLE CIRCLE BOOK A TOUR!

2009-05-30T10:10:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone.

I'm currently planning a tour in August, and am looking for some help with some dates in the midwest and south. If any of you readers out there can help me and my friend Turner (www.myspace.com/rambletambleusa that would be awesome. Here is our tentative tour itinerary.

August 6th-Kickoff in Brooklyn
August 7th-Pittsburgh
August 8th-Cleveland
August 9th-Columbus
August 10th-Detroit
August 11th-Chicago
August 12th-Milwaukee
August 13th-St Louis
August 14th-Louisvile/Lexington
August 15th-Nashville
August 16th-Memphis
August 17th-Tuscaloosa
August 18th-Atlanta
August 19th-Asheville
August 20th-Winston Salem/Raleigh area?
August 21st-Lynchburg/Charlottesville/Richmond?
August 22nd-Baltimore
August 23rd-Philly
August 24th-NYC

Our first week is coming along well, except for Cleveland. The rest is a total mystery to me, although Turner, like a good southern boy, is working on those dates. Nothing is 100% confirmed yet though, so any contacts anyone can provide are most helpful.

THANKS!

Dave/Invisible Circle

And we're back!

2009-05-02T11:24:00.002-04:00

Future Friends, the internet has restored us!

so the site works again.

also, please check out the future folk artists who are on bandcamp! My apologies to Devin and the C.P. for leaving him out of the website down email!
http://consciousnessproject.bandcamp.com/
http://sammoss.bandcamp.com/
http://sewingmachines.bandcamp.com/

website down

2009-05-01T11:35:00.002-04:00

Hello dear future friends,

I'm writing to tell you that due to some technical difficulties, our website is currently offline.
we were trying to set up a SSL certificate for another site that is hosted on the same server as Future Folk, and the admins over at our hosting service messed up proper by redirecting all the traffic, which consequently breaks our site. Hopefully the site will be back soon, and no fear, we have no intention of going anywhere!!! untill then, consider future folk in a sort of spring hibernation/cleaningmode...

all my love,
Rod

Bread and puppet

2009-04-20T19:48:00.006-04:00

Just found this manifesto from Bread&Puppet theatre, vermont, from the 1980's. i think its fitting.

Holy crap we're in the Advocate!!!

2009-04-02T00:48:00.005-04:00

There's a new issue of the Hartford Advocate out today with another article about how sweet the Wesleyan music scene is. However, unlike every other article about that topic, this one pretty much gets it right (the introductory paragraph talks about Anthony Braxton three times as much as MGMT). Props are given to Kentucky Fried Doom, The Shade (featuring FFR's Adam Tinkle), and Precision Libido. Future Folk Records even gets a shout out!!!

Read it HERE!

Many thanks to Dan Barry for the kind words.

Pop Thoughts and Telephone Ideas

2009-03-31T18:07:00.003-04:00

Dear Future Folk Fucks,
today I was surfing the radio looking for soothing sounds. I caught a couple goodies, then some sappy stuff, then I realized Michael Jackson owes his life to QUINCY JONES. Then I was listening to REM "Losing my Religion", and I remember liking it less than I used to, because I paid more attention to the lyrics, and really they are very whiny. Don't get me wrong- whining has its place, because after all life is very fucked. But that place is in your therapist's office, or on the phone with a friend or for being overly direct with a flakey stranger. I do not see it as necessary when I am pumping my jams crusin down the highway. Once again don't get me wrong- I like dark music, I like very dark music, but if its good it usually has a twist that either is so fucked up its psychotic or ironic. Case in point- next station next song I found "Daughter" by Pearl Jam, which I was totally digging- because even though the subject of the song isn't fit to be called "daughter" to some genetic father, it is all addressed with a very subtle tongue in cheek irony- not to mention Eddie Vedder is pretending to be a girl. But more important is that subtle irony that stabs the firmament of the eternal in tragic art.

On another note: I had an idea for Rod's proposed telephone game which is if someone is down to produce a beat I would try to "spit some raps". We could just agree on a bpm and I could email my acapella vocal to a willing mixmaster...if i can dooo it. In fact I could try the same thing with a improvisational guitar track(?) hit me up peeps

Disembodied Llama says.....

2009-03-27T21:39:00.001-04:00

Ray Four - To come slowly into manifestation after 2025 A.D.

4. The Lord of Harmony, Beauty and Art. The main function of this Being is the creation of Beauty (as an expression of truth) through the free interplay of life and form, basing the design of beauty upon the initial plan as it exists in the mind of the solar Logos. The body of manifestation of this life is not revealed, but the activity emanating from it produces that combination of sounds, colors and word music that expresses - through the form of the ideal - that which is the originating idea. This fourth Lord of creative expression will resume activity upon the Earth about six hundred years hence, though already the first faint impress of His influence is being felt and this century will see a reawakening of creative art in all its branches.

Adam The Moat

2009-03-24T21:42:00.003-04:00

So, FFR just put out this album called Humans Want Wrong, by this dude called Adam LaMotte. It's really fantastic; and while it's his first real album, it's far from the first thing he's recorded. He's been posting his songs on a podcast called "Live from Juneau, Alaska" for quite some time now, and those songs are all available for download from his blog. Czech 'em out, suckas!!!

Telephone

2009-03-23T13:18:00.002-04:00

Future Folks,

Some of us Future Folks have been talking behind the scenes about a Future Folk collaboration in the style of a telephone game. Aliza and I were talking about it and it reminded me of a similar collaboration I had with Joe (3SPDS) where we passed material back and forth, in a call and response style. The internet makes this type of collaboration much easier, as we all can be in different locations while working on it. Woody Leslie & Aliza Simons' new release "10 Pieces for Ukulele and Electronic Collage" is an excellent example of this type of long distance collaboration. (and is awesome on its own, you should check it out here!)

So what i'd like to propose is this: The Future Folk
community is full of awesome artists and musicians, and a collaboration in this style would doubtless yield sweet results. so lets plan it out. There are 2 basic models
of how this can work.
1. In a linear (traditional telephone game) fashion, one artist can make a piece, then send it to the next artist in the chain for processing/editing/recontextualization, which will then be passed to the next person in the chain. this continues in this way until all interested parties have had a go at the material, and then the results are presented as a sequence. there can be rules as to length of pieces, or more abstract rules, such as source material and the type of manipulations performed, but these will have to be hashed out in detail.

2. The second model is one where the message passing works more like a decentralized network. Artists
will create a short piece, and release it to the rest of the group for manipulation. The subsequent manipulations can be added and the new version is incorporated into the pool and becomes a source.

Obviously these schemes lend themselves to studio manipulation and editing more so than instrumentalism, at least at the later stages, but i'd like to encourage the Future Folk family to
respond to this post with any further ideas about this project. Its you all that make this thing work, so your input is essential!!! Lets talk about it!
Love,
Rod

We don't always wear this much plaid...

2009-03-22T22:29:00.005-04:00

Sewing Machines recently finished our northeast tour with a barn burner of a show in Kilpatrick House at Bennington College. Got some great pics from former FFR intern Zack Franklin uploaded to Flickr. Polaroids by Charlie Horwich and posters by Zack and Charlie to be scanned and uploaded soon!

See 'em all on Zack's Flickr.

The sweetest band ever.

2009-03-21T16:47:00.003-04:00

Omnitards!!!!

if you look closely, you can see me dancing like a crazy person wearing a white hat. Youtube is wonderful, if any of you know of more future folk related videos, please post them here!!

this video is from the Omnitards invasion of Buttstock. they are playing in front of summerfields, for those of you familiar with middletown geography.

my newest ukulele hero

2009-02-26T01:10:00.007-05:00

It's 1:11 am and I'm waiting for some cinnamon-raisin bread I'm making to bake in the oven. I tested it with a knife, and it's still not done, so I have some time to write my first future folk blog post ever.

This guy I met used to work at the same community radio station I do recommended that I listen to ukulele-collage-ist Tune Yards (aka Merrill Garbus) a couple of weeks ago. And so I did. And then I listened to it again. And again. I've been listening ever since.

This is Tune Yards:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=5902638

Isn't it great? It reminds me of the recurring dreams I used to have when I was in middle school of swimming with my clothes on but staying dry: joyful and eerie and unreal. Plus, I'm just a sucker for the ukulele.

Okay, the bread is finally done! Maybe I'll bring the leftovers to my string quartets seminar class tomorrow.

-Aliza

2009-02-25T01:44:00.001-05:00

comet bon pa finger lift: limey pools swaddle lavenger mycronic fair and gold marsupial haggotry, your majesterial omnipotenf ronfurigator anreal regal feagan roundabout. i kite the bib found yowl ginlidge tym, witch four jayrhone gee, anbears Weber sympath A.V.???

you think you can joust? i’ll tell you who bought your mouse and you remind me about the letter frequency i detailed by satellite convergence-
FIRE SEA OF A FAD BAN

ominous tree vampages bungling blind drip stains portal precious conjunctions.
food stains on chin. eating to stop qua lude control regional kibble brace kit stong boss finger finnick. you argus finnick! wharkin zebetrim ping orlfayger podge. measels whyling crrinkicky pastlegess mon r key whinglipr.

advancing a stance

2009-02-24T12:53:00.002-05:00

Three Sundays ago
I went from brigadier General
to brigadier seminole-
I swear I am awful thirsty.

kind of luxor friendly,
conviviance snies.

true dear shin through
dear knee.

Awful oblong and oblagato.
Je cruz kai moleinda.

Walk your tracy train
as its greatest hits pulls in the station.

Sorely I’ve missed a view
and greased bills for naught-
but lace me away for I am prepped.

Tele van Angel
moped, turkey leg!
and agro-indicated lemming lowry....
dressing down the dialtones
miss Junior Executive.

cool water gown;
misty chips
and a side of legumes
with your pay increase.

Seeing Space

2009-02-16T15:50:00.002-05:00

Lebbus Woods; on Seeing Space

2009-02-16T15:35:00.003-05:00

Artist-In-Residency call for submissions. (Boston) "Willoughby and Baltic is dedicated to the advancement of physical computing and industrial arts as a medium by providing work space, education, public programming, and exhibitions. " Link

Tacheles

2009-02-13T16:09:00.003-05:00

Article about Berlin Art Commune/Squat

"interactive" tour of Tacheles

Arts Stimulus

2009-02-13T16:04:00.001-05:00

Interesting read about government funding for the arts.

news for news

2009-02-12T14:39:00.001-05:00

http://www.democracynow.org/

2009-02-10T11:25:00.003-05:00

An acquaintance of mine Manuel has been doing some crazy stuff lately with midi. He recently built a "mididuino" which is an AVR based midi controller running the Arduino Software so that its super easy to program for non-nerds. If none of that made sense, it is a midi controller that lets you easily make things like polyrhythmic sequencers based on the euclidean algorithm. (huh?) well, the theory of all music having mathematical formulas that govern their rhythms doesn't let you listen to Dancehall the same again. (Godfried Toussaint's paper called "The Euclidean Algorithm Generates Traditional Musical Rhythms" talks about this) Manuel is starting to do some cool things with generating sculptures and graphics from music too so his site is chock full of cool things these days.

2009-02-09T10:29:00.003-05:00

data is nature is a real cool site worth checking out. Its a blog about art, science, artificial intelligence, nature, and computers creating and working together.

More Boston Folk

2009-02-03T09:20:00.002-05:00

Hey all, Invisible Circle here.

Everybody check out Prince Rama of Ayodhya, a Boston band associated with the Whitehaus Family thing posted about earlier.

www.myspace.com/princeramaofayodhya

Their record, Threshold Dances, is pretty great, great tunes and great jams, and Taraka has a great voice. But to really experience this band, you've got to see them live. The drumming REALLY kills live, and they hand out instruments to the entire audience. One of the most fun shows I've seen in a long time.

If any of ya'll will be around Brookly/Queens on February 20th, Invisible Circle will be playing a show with Prince Rama at the Silent Barn in Ridgewood, Queens. Other rad bands too, and I'll be DJing world folk music with my pal Turner.

Oh hey, if anyone wants, I have this photoblog that I made while I was traveling in Asia. Check it if you want surprisingshocksofbeingthere.blogspot.com. I might even start updating it again.

Dave/Invisible Circle

Spring Mxxxtape

2009-02-02T22:26:00.003-05:00

I've been playing around with Opentape on my site which is like the short lived; but really cool Muxtape. So to get out of the winter slump here is my spring mixtape full of reggae and dub cuts.

Cool Folks in Boston

2009-01-30T12:58:00.002-05:00

In the whirlwind of networking and stress and calling in favors that is planning a last minute tour, I've found a diamond in the rough of the internet. Mr. Moss sent me a bunch of links of Boston venues, one of which is a little place in Jamaica Plains called the Whitehaus, who seem to have some pretty rad stuff going on. They're a venue/record label/artists collective-type thing, with lots of cool music that you can get for free or cheap, and a very friendly-looking kitty cat named Red. I miss my cat... Ethel, if you're reading this, I'll be back in CT in March. Don't pee on my stuff while I'm gone.

They recently re-posted a comp called the Whitehaus Family Sampler: Vol. 1 that is really quite great. Lots of lovely folky stuff with pretty voices and glockenspeils and stuff; the types of songs you would want/expect to hear at a living room house show that was also a vegan potluck and a bike repair workshop, or something. I've been listenening to it all morning.

Sewing Machines is gonna be playing their Hoot (short for Hootenany) on March 6, which sounds like it's gonna be an awesome time. So if you're in Boston then (or any other time) you should totes czech this place out. They do good things.

Also, they already linked to FFR from their website, which was sweet of them.

deeplocal + Encyclopedia Destructica

2009-01-29T13:12:00.002-05:00

My friend JonBro who just finished working on a dope book with Encyclopedia Destructica sent me this link about a cool old/new media residency program in Pittsburgh.

"Pittsburgh-based tech start-up deeplocal and artist collective Encyclopedia Destructica are now accepting applications by artists for the Old and New Media Residency. This 3 month corporate artist residency program was created to assist artists in producing, showing, and supporting new projects. The residency is sponsored by Encyclopedia Destructica, a Pittsburgh based group of working artists, and deeplocal, a Pittsburgh technology and design studio founded by artists, designers, and technologists. It represents a unique collaboration between a corporation and a working artist group. Applications are being accepted now through February 15th online at http://www.deeplocal.com/residency. Residencies begin on April 1st, 2009 and will last for 3 months."

Future Thinking

2009-01-28T23:56:00.001-05:00

Space Collective Could be one of my new favorite websites.

"Where forward thinking terrestrials share ideas and information about the state of the species, their planet and the universe, living the lives of science fiction."

2009-01-26T15:51:00.004-05:00

Future music from the past.

Tangerine Dream-Ricochet

Kraftwerk-Radioactivity

Design Rulez.

2009-01-22T02:57:00.006-05:00

I found this artist's page through MAKE's blog. La Chanh Nguyen's work has a healthy dose of Scandinavian design, but also a quirky pseudo practical slant. My personal favorites are the Moss Carpet and the Anti Mosquitos Fan. The future is gonna be sweet!

Q/A about The Future

2009-01-21T13:49:00.003-05:00

Ray Kurzweil (of Kurzweil synthesizers fame) on The Singularity.

regime change

2009-01-19T23:00:00.002-05:00

About 12 hours from now, we're going to be closing the book on one of the scariest chapters in American history. Nobody's expecting things to get better over night and blah blah blah, but it's hard not to feel at least a little hopeful now that we have a genuinely intelligent and open-minded president for the first time in... well, a long time.

So in honor of this momentous occasion, the good folks at Vosotros put together a compilation called ¡Yes We Puede! Posted last week on the (really quite awesome) Creative Commons blog, this CC-licensed comp features a bunch of LA bands and artists covering patriotic tunes in the public domain, and contains by far the trippiest version of "Swanee River" that I've ever heard (courtesy of Mooey Moobau).

On a related note, at the bequest of Moveon.org, DJ Z-Trip just put out his second Obama-themed, CC-licensed mixtape, Victory Lap: The Obama Mix Part 2. Seems only fitting, since we know the O Man is down with the cause.

Here's to patriotism being cool again!

Creative Commons License in 10 Steps

2009-01-19T20:23:00.007-05:00

This article is about negotiating a creative commons license with a book publisher; but there is some good information nonetheless.

"8. Provide sample verbiage

Make it easy for them. Give them the verbiage. Some legal departments are going to rewrite the contract. Others are going to create a rider. Cory Doctorow was kind enough to provide us with the verbiage his agent wrote: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/03/20/model-contract-claus.html This is the really simple language we ended up using:
“Publisher agrees to add the Creative Commons license designation to the Copyright page of the Work.”
This isn’t perfect, and we did have some further conversations when it came time to actually layout the title page. We probably could have been more specific about which license, but this is what their legal agreed to, and considering we were doing a CC-BY-NC-SA, which is the most restrictive, we were not super worried. "

Futurey Bread!

2009-01-16T13:49:00.005-05:00

I got a wonderful link today from My Friend Joe (3 of Spades) reagarding bread. I love bread, and bread has always been a mainstay of Future Folk Records in Philly. So, here is an interesting talk by Peter Reinhart entitled: "The art of baking bread" that you might enjoy (if you also like bread).

Future Sharing

2009-01-15T14:53:00.005-05:00

Hey Future Friends!
We found this video on the website promoting James Boyle's new book regarding intellectual property and policy. i'm not done with the book yet, but it seems to be dead on. and while boyle does not share my personal stance on the IP issue he provides an excellently balanced portrayal of many key issues regarding current IP policy.

Here you can download a PDF of his book available in PDF for free under a CreativeCommons license http://www.thepublicdomain.org/

and that video:

Bmore Club

2009-01-12T20:00:00.013-05:00

Where is Baltimore? and why are people still really into house there?

Bmore Club is the result of the cross-pollination of Chicago and Detroit House and Techno of the late 80s and the UK jungle/breakbeat/rave scene of the 90s. Adding in some miami booty bass and the chopped up samples of Ghettotech it results in some gritty stuff.

Paper Planes is clearly one of the most popular songs out there that has the Bmore club influence, produced by Diplo it has the kick and breaks that characterizes alot of Bmore club.

Original Paper Planes

Scottie B Remix

Scottie B is the proclaimed legend of the Bmore sound, and listening at the two versions of Paper Planes you can get an idea of what the sound, well, sounds like.

The Dance

Youtube is totally an anthropological goldmine. Just through youtube one can dive deeply into the most esoteric subculture you can think of.

Within all subcultures of music there is a complementary dance culture that exists. Getting dumb to hyphy, krumping to south central club bangers, dancing real dirty to New Orleans Bounce, or just doing a head nod to "intelligent hip-hop".

The dance that comes with Bmore club has spawned many youtube videos that show whats up in the mid-atlantic.

I like this guy, just kicking it in his apartment complex parking lot.

Links for Yetis

2009-01-08T18:58:00.003-05:00

find the weirdest news in the world at the High Weirdness Project newsblog:
http://www.modemac.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/Bulldada_Newsblog

2009-01-08T10:02:00.009-05:00

Sound Transit is like geo-tagging for sounds; tagging sounds according to their location rather than their content. What is really cool is this feels like a modern day equivalent to what Cecil Sharp did with recording English folk music, and more contemporary(-ish) some of the films made by John Cohen like The End of an Old Song (which is an intensely good film that I recommend trying to getting ahold of).

Cool Thing!

2009-01-06T14:11:00.003-05:00

Hey Futurey Friends!

I've been spending way too much time on the internet lately, and it has resulted in good things: The first of these is this website: http://freeculture.org/

These guys have a wonderful if not strongly worded manifesto up (i suppose though that by nature a manifesto leaves little to subtlety...) anyway, they're awesome and have been being awesome all over the place.

The second thing goes by the same name as this first group, and is equally cool, a book of the same name by professor Lawrence Lessig. Lessig is tied-up in the creative commons movement quite heavily, and you can download his book for free on the internet. then you could print it, i guess, and its kind of like a free book?

2008 Retrospectacle

2009-01-05T16:32:00.015-05:00

2008 was real weird.

These are some things that are worth paying attention to that were oh-eight-ish.

Crystal Castles + Creative Commons

Jay-Z goes open-source.

Tom Sachs x Hello Kitty

Diplo x Santogold Mixtape

PaperRad

..._...

sewing machines live video

2009-01-04T16:49:00.008-05:00

i met a dude called h2 at an open mic called q4 and he took this video and put it on a site called youtube.

ain't it cool? max lavine is playing drums.

h2 has also asked to tape another live performance with an interview this week, which i'm pretty stoked on. if you check out his youtube channel, he's got a bunch of videos of other performers from this show. good stuff. you should support him by watching his videos, since he's supporting us by putting them there.