Music & Vision's monthly column -
KEITH BRAMICH writes:

Finding the new ...

This month we face up to some of the very new sounds online ... if we can find them! Where is the newest music -- the so-called 'cutting edge'? What forms does it take?

Is music an expanding star system, it's perimeter ever widening, it's bright lights ever travelling in new directions? Or are we stuck in a box, recycling our limited permutations and perceptions of notes, concepts and ideas? Somewhere in between, I suppose, as with all the endeavours of mankind.

Tick Tock Bang

A sound essay by novelist Russell Smith, first broadcast on Canada's CBC Radio 1 in 1999, examines various genres and types of modern music. Read the script online or listen to the 68 minute programme complete in Real Audio, and find out about industrial (including Japanese noise bands), Italian futurism, minimalism, Rotterdam, Stravinsky, techno and trance.

radio.cbc.ca/programs/ideas/shows/noise

Urban Sounds

The current issue of this ezine exploring 'electronic music and beyond' deals with minimalism -- read various artists' thoughts and have your mind blown by issues such as 'minimalism towards transcendence', 'entropy as art', 'constructivism', 'technology: minimalism towards efficiency' and 'language: parallel motives'. Listen in Real Audio to complete tracks of music by Ester Brinkmann, Taylor Deupree + Richard Chartier, Richie Hawtin, Carsten Nicolai and Stewart Walker.

www.urbansounds.com

World and new

BBC Radio 3's 'world and new' home page has links to lots of programmes, videos and other resources. The station's various programmes cover various new and world musics -- of particular note are Mixing it and Late junction ... all crying out for exploration.

www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/world

Experimental charts

Top of the mp3.com experimental classical charts are Torn (further mix) by The Synthetic -- traditional sounding piano above weird sounds, and Harlequin Waltz by Symphonic Chronicles, a light-sounding fantasy piece for enhanced orchestra, which breaks out into a beat after two and a half minutes or so. Symphonic Chronicles appears many times on the first page, including the No 3 position with The Labyrinth. All this music seems rather lightweight and commercial, but maybe that's a consequence of the ranking system?

genres.mp3.com/music/classical/experimental_classical

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