Evan Merz: Why? Why start this sort of radio station right now? What was the inspiration?

NUMBERS.FM: The name of the station comes from those so-called “numbers stations,” shortwave radio broadcasts of people reading lists of numbers — probably encrypted dispatches to spies — that have been going on for the last 70 years or so. [...]

In Garret Keizer’s The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want, Keizer examines the social and political impact of noise. Noise is a touchy subject on this blog (and most of the blogs in the awesome links section to the right). Personally, I don’t really believe in noise. I believe in obnoxious and unwanted sound, [...]

As part of Make Music New York, six percussionist performed Persephassa, by Iannis Xenakis, on boats in Central Park Lake. It was an interesting interpretation of a rarely performed piece. The piece is rarely played, in part because of the unusual spacing of the ensemble. The six percussionists must sit in a hexagonal [...]

Black Allegheny is one of the first albums made up entirely of swarm generated music. The album was created using a swarm-controlled sampler called Becoming, which was programmed by the composer.

Imperceptible Time by Evan X. Merz

Becoming is an algorithmic composition program written in java, that builds upon some of John Cage’s frequently employed [...]

For the past few days, the internet has been all aflutter about Tristan Perich’s new album, 1-Bit Symphony. The album combines an aesthetic awareness that will appeal to intellectual musicians, and catchy uptempo synth lines that will appeal to everyone.

1-Bit Symphony is unique because it is being released as a live album. [...]

On Saturday, we lost a man who loved mathematics. He wasn’t responsible for any specific theories or concepts. He wasn’t a great theoretician or an iconoclast. Nevertheless, Martin Gardner was responsible for popularizing the idea of recreational mathematics. In fact, his Mathematical Games column, which appeared in Scientific American from 1956 to 1981, had [...]

Les Paul passed away on Thursday. He was 94. Musically, he was more involved with popular entertainment than with the kind of music that we write about on this blog. But he invented an instrument that, in many respects, defined twentieth century musical innovation: the solid-body electric guitar.

Beyond defining the sound of [...]