ASM Sleeps Around
In 2004, Anti-Social Music inaugurated a commissioning/collaboration program they called "Anti-Social Music Sleeps Around," in which we approached artists working outside the concert music world and offered them the tools and assistance to write a chamber work. The first two installments, with the New Jersey hip-hop trio dälek and Detroit's His Name Is Alive, appear on Anti-Social Music's 2012 release, "Anti-Social Music Sleeps Around," limited to 400 copies of 180-gram vinyl (w/ download code), presented within a truly unique jacket: an exclusive paperboard edition of multimedia artist Scrapworm's interactive 3-D cube-like sculpture "electrons shifting." You can listen here: http://antisocialmusic.bandcamp.com/album/sleeps-around-collaborations-with-d-lek-his-name-is-alive
THE MUSIC
New Jersey-based indie hip-hop crew dälek weighed in with a 20-minute monstrosity of kidney-rattling low-end, as interpreted by the ASM orchestra, here with 3 strings, 4 winds, 3 pianos, amplified tuba, octave-dropped bass clarinet, and contrabass. Their original electronic piece, released on däm;lek's 2009 compilation Deadverse Massive Vol. 1 - Dälek Rarities 1999-2006 was transcribed and orchestrated by Anti-Social Music in 2005.
His Name Is Alive's "After Devil's Night," a late-Coltrane-esque atmosphere piece over a bed of rattling bells and percussion, is based on "the belief in an unseen power beneath the life and movement in all nature: the shapeless shape, the formless form. Instead of focusing on the quiet unconscious process of birds singing, suns shining, or clouds distributing rain, this piece explores the musical / political landscape of the city of Detroit and how its drifted along seemingly without goals and purpose for over thirty years." The first performance by ASM of After Devils Night in 2005 involved handmade "spirit boxes" and "cloud amps" described best here.
THE ART
'electrons shifting' was originally created with acrylic medium, silkscreen and paper on polycarbonate in 2006. States multimedia artist Scrapworm: "While the 13" unfolding book/package design grew from my creative goals to represent unfolding extra dimensions in a symmetrical 10 panel, open 'cube' for sculptural reshaping by viewers; the typed 'message' still seems a transmission from beyond myself. Transcribing as a shortwave listener would a numbers station, the text feels timely for distribution right know as we collectively spin on the wavespell spiral of 2012."
The original three-dimensional interactive sculpture has been reproduced in an exclusive limited paperboard edition of 400 to house Anti-Social Music's Sleeps Around vinyl release. The package includes instructions as well as adhesive dots that will help the user position and re-position the sculpture in various modes.
Scrapworm also created a video accompaniment to dälek's "Music For ASM," which can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiWnTCt6v_8&sns=em