Aharon Varady : the simpletone project : spaceling records   : :  http://simpletone.com/cdi/aharon/ Since my move to Philadelphia in 1997, I've been interested in bringing together all the folks interested in new music, but who have been separated by their ignorance of what other artists have been doing in the area. I've always been somewhat disgusted in how fringe artists can typically find or create a small supportive clique; a clique which can provide marginal recognition of their work, but which ultimately keeps them socially and creatively isolated from their potential colleagues. Divisions exist in neighborhood, generational, and genre boundaries. If the Philadelphia Ambient Consortium is anything other than my attempt to dissolve these social boundaries, it is my conviction that the artists and events promoted via this website and through Consortium performances share something in common despite whatever obscure genre labels divide them. At the same time, as curator of simpletone.com and the Consortium, I impose my own outline of the bounds of what is in and what is outside of the Consortium soundscape. What exactly is common among everyone listed here? Is this an entirely arbitrary and subjective selection of Philadelphia sound artists? Well not really... I try to be comprehensive rather than selective. Very simply, my bias has been to exclude lyrical pop, light jazz and jazzrock fusions, and electronic music created for dancing rather than listening. I'm also constantly trying to find out about projects which I have missed, by going to performances, chatting with friends I have met through the Ambient Consortium, and by constantly engaging myself and others in projects like the Gate to Moonbase Alpha performance series. I've done this really for my sake as much as for everybody else. I'm an artist and devotee and a strong community means an easier time for everybody publishing, promoting, and enjoying each other. Assumption one: artistic communities are good for artists and listeners. Only if we are aware of each other, make friends, perform and listen together can we learn from each other, gain strength and inspiration from each other's efforts, and easily publicize our events. I understand there is quite a diversity of musicians, and sound artists here, and labels like psychedelic and ambient are only so helpful (and harmful). Still I believe that a community is essential despite our differences. A community is only as strong as we have knowledge of each other's work and are affected by each other. I am sure that in a community of knowledge and sharing, our similar creative intentions will displace any concern for our differences. Along these lines, I helped organize with Kevin McGillicuddy the Stupid Robot show at the Astrocade in January 1998. In February 1999 it was the Sonic Logos Festival with Toshi Makihara and friends at the First Unitarian Church. Since October 1999 I have curated the Gate to Moon Base Alpha performance series at the University of Pennsylvania. Soon after the Sonic Logos show, I was interviewed for an article in the Annual Music Issue of the Philadelphia Weekly. Here's the article (Philadelphia Weekly, April 15, 1999, Annual Music Edition - "Ten to Watch") PAC(MaN) Aharon N. Varady saw a gaping hole in the local scene. Specifically, rock clubs were chockablock with guitar bands and touring popsters, but the ambient/electronic/experimental music he loved wasn't getting the attention he knew it deserved. So Varady started the Philadelphia Ambient Consortium (Music and Noise), conveniently acronymized as PAC(MaN). "[The consortium] is an imaginary country," he says, "a mental map." While Varady does organize the occasional ambient show, his main focus is the dissemination of information. Through his Web site (simpletone.com), his Friday-morning radio show (on Drexel's WKDU from 9 a.m. to 12 noon), DJ gigs (under the nom de turntable DJ Spaceling), e-mail newsletter and digital discussion group, Varady is weaving an array of little ambient points of light into a semicoherent network. The goal? Ideally, Varady hopes for a Philly scene in which "the work PAC(MaN) does makes itself irrelevant." He envisions a local musical information infrastructure as potent as the one that hovers around the rockers. It's worth noting that Varady isn't seeking to elevate himself to a position as local ambient guru, around which his musical minions would flock. Case in point: Philadelphia ambient artist Adam DiAngelo was surprised to hear that his Web site, e-mail address and album info are linked to the PAC(MaN) site. Varady made the information available for the artist's sake, not to generate fanfare for his PAC(MaN) activities. At the core of Varady's PAC(MaN) plan is his refusal to accept any money for his consortium work: "Capital is a means of survival," he claims, "and I'm surviving just fine." —BRIAN GLASER I dj when invited. I've spun at parties and gatherings and before audiences, but most of my experience comes from djing on the radio. On the radio you never know if anyone is listening. This can be depressing. It can also be liberating. As an artist, you can play around, "experiment". Sometimes it sounds shitty but other times it is like the hand of God has helped you layer the most exquisite symphony. To what degree these miracles are chance or talent I can never tell, and that is sometimes frustrating from an ego point of view. Listening to my music while I'm mixing I get very excited because if it sounds good it is so brief and fleeting I have to use teriffic concentration just to appreciate the mix before it changes. And it constantly changes but I'm happy to be there to experience it, a moment of sound never to be repeated in the history of the universe. Did I make that sound? I'm spinning other peoples records on top of one another...its a collage, I can't take credit, but the mix wouldn't be there without me. So my sets aren't focused towards making people dance or helping people meditate. I just try to have a good mix and for me that means it has beauty, sometimes a beauty you can only hear by paying deep attention. I don't want this art to be "hard to get" but after a time I've learned that appreciation of some important music can only come by conditioning your ears to some abrasive or disturbing sounds. For me important music is music which leads towards doors you never knew existed. I still have a lot to learn, but I'd like to share what I've heard and see what happens by layering different sounds. I think the most difficult and dangerous things it to start to take it all for granted. Certainly there is alot of shit to weed through but there is also so much beauty it is overwhelming. You can sometimes just feel like ignoring it because beauty is so ubiquitous. But if you do give up then you can become a very sick person. Since March 1997 I've been host of a radio show on WKDU Philadelphia 91.7FM I called Amplified Harmonic Resonance. The show actually started in 1995 when I was a student at SUNY Binghamton and it was broadcast from WHRW Binghamton, NY 90.5). Everybody at the time was choosing spacey monickers for their on-air alias. My first dj name was Starfish, but I quickly changed that to Spaceling. I thought I was original but sci-fi author Doris Piserchia beat me to it (Spaceling, 1978).

Experiment
simpletone:
code experiment

 

Summary of Piserchia's Spaceling by Dani Zweig: There are invisible rings floating through the air, and people who can see them -- a recent mutation -- can step through them to other worlds in other dimensions. (If the world is too far from Earth-normal, they are transformed into creatures adapted to that world.) Despite the possibilities of these worlds, things are fairly grim on Earth -- social breakdown, resource depletion, a mysterious rise in the incidence of earthquakes -- though most of the problems remain in the background. Long ago I signed a pact with the Cosmographic Design Initiates, a super secret organisation devoted to hidden experience and exploring the infrastructure of reality. Childish as it seems to make up imaginary cabals, the Initiates reflected my loss in finding others to share my feelings with about ambient and abstract music, role playing, and other mind expanding experiences. So the Initiates was more like an invisible circle of friends, which over time, thankfully, has become more real as I've found more folk in Philly who are really passionate about these things. That was one important reason why I tried to create the Philadelphia Ambient Consortium (Music and Noise) -- because things aren't quite real unless they are shared. Some things can't even be shared. Only the direction to these things can be hinted at, and then if the person is ready, the direction can be perceived and maybe the thing even uniquely experienced. One thing I really felt like I shared with some artists was an understanding of how hidden things (things which no word for exists or can exist for), how these things can be transmitted. I've tried to explain this in some essays but so far I've failed. My best attempt so far has been in the manifesto of the Consortium. If you haven't yet read it, you can jump to it by clicking here . * In any case, I think that the folks at the Colorful Clouds for Acoustics label (Chris Rice, Jason Diemilio and friends) also understand and achieve this transmission often enough to consider them masters. I have an album planned for the Simpletone project: New Music for Ice Cream Trucks. So far I've only released one song which came out on the TBTMO-18 compilation. I've inluded a link to an mp3 of the song for you to listen to if you'd like. With all of the big names and cryptic baggage I bring into these projects I think they could at least be labeled somewhat pretentious. So here is an essay I've written called " An Apology for Pretense" Pretense is not so objectionable as long as we recognize it for what it is. Pretense, like any garment, is a superfice, yet a superfice should not be confused with the superficial or the shallow. A garment is a sign, a sign which is indexical to something deeper, which points to something or some context which must remain esoteric due to its complexity or fragile subtlety. Someplaces language is destructive because the signified spaces or patterns are too abstract too define without overstatement, without exaggeration, and without creating a new jargon for couterie culture. Since the signifier is dangerous to the subjective experience, a pretense should be used in place of someother symbol. This pretense will in effect be a signpost to the esoterically curious and schizophrenic mind. At the same time, the superficial veil protects that-which-must-be-hidden by directing attention to the path, ie. the conditioning appropriate to conceiving the abstract. Such machinations are necessary lest the otherworld be destroyed by the terrible faculty of language to delineate between objects. Not only is signifying the "object" dangerous because it objectifies the purely subjective, such an action is harmful because it pretends to show an object which does not exist and cannot exist objectively...yet. Some things are special, but special things themselves tend to be hidden by their veritable ubiquity. Out of desperate necessity, they must be framed for our sake and the sake of those who do not yet know, in the most appropriate way possible. There is more in the source code here...