Well I made myself chuckle quite a bit walking to work today.

I have had a lot of bad luck with portable Apple gadgets of late. After smashing the screen of my iPhone a week ago and having to get it replaced I stupidly left a bag containing my aged iPod on Oxford Station on Monday night. I got the bag back the next day, minus the iPod of course. Anyway its no big loss as it was on its last legs and I had been meaning to replace it anyway, which I did this afternoon with a shiny new black number.

However walking to work today I needed music to listen to, and so I did something I’ve never really done, and loaded a couple of albums onto my new iPhone, and set off for work with the new Ezaki / Kinoshita / Murayama album playing. As it is a new iPhone though, and because i have not set up all of the sounds on it yet it occasionally makes noises for one reason or another that I don’t expect it to make. What’s more, while listening to music on the headphones, if a text message, an email or something is received while the music is playing the sound cuts in over the top of the music in your ears. I’m sure the more astute of you can guess where this story is going…

Well I had barely walked out of the front door today, and the trio recording was playing very quietly when an odd little series of chimes kept cutting across the music. Having spent most of yesterday listening to the Narthex album I think I was attuned to oblique sounds suddenly appearing amongst music and so I thought this new, odd sound was part of the music. After a while though it really began to get annoying, and as I couldn’t really concentrate properly I flicked the iPhone onwards to the only other piece of music I had loaded up, a disc of Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony. I twigged what was going on when, a few seconds into the first movement the sound appeared again, much to my surprise. I am still not sure what it exactly was that was causing the sound, but putting the phone into a pocket where it wouldn’t rub against the material so easily seemed to solve the issue and the sound stopped.

So I found myself smiling at my own stupidity and gullibility all the way to work. The only good thing in all of this is the fact I couldn’t stand the sound that kept appearing and turned the music off. Perhaps if I hadn’t realised my mistake I’d be discussing another post-modernist piece of concept art again tonight and have egg on my face tomorrow.

—
Tomorrow and Saturday I am hopefully off to Wilton’s Hall in London for the first of two nights that make up the Cut n’ Splice event that this year has the theme of “Living Rooms”. The C n S website oddly does not include a schedule of events amongst its otherwise very informative pages, but this is what I understand will be the running order:

Friday 19 June

Alvin Lucier – Still Lives
Tape That
Domestic Appliance Audio Research Society
Jason Lescalleet
Aki Onda

Saturday 20 June

Alvin Lucier – In Memoriam Jon Higgins
Bob Levene
Brandon LaBelle
Alvin Lucier – Bird and Person Dyning
Carl Michael von Hausswolff and John Duncan