After his previous appearance on Headphone Commute with an excellent modern classical mix, Later, Cole Pierce returns with a grab-bag of soothing summer tunes that cut through the heat, your ears, and your heart. Just like the last time, this mix is actually in two parts: Zombies and Vampires, presented here in one piece for your enjoyment. Expect the unexpected, smolder and rejoice!
The music blog that I co-author was just named 'Best Amateur Music Blog' by the Chicago Reader. If you haven't spent time with Field Mic, please do.
Chicago-based monolith Pitchfork has a profound influence on the gravitational field of the indie-rock universe, not to mention its own festival. But what about the little guys, who don’t pay attention to release cycles and aren’t driving the zeitgeist—the folks who don’t share the blogosphere’s obsession with being the first to cover the next new thing? Instead of slathering adjectives all over Best Coast seven-inches, Field Mic collects what it calls “sound from the field.” That means several posts a day that range from performances of music by little-known contemporary composers to video of oddball circuit-bent instruments and elaborate mechanical ensembles that play themselves, along with the occasional dude-and-guitar clip or actual music video. The blog is ecumenical in its tastes, though it leans a little toward the electroacoustic and ambient—and there are absolutely no reposts of clubby remixes of popular indie bands. Founded in April and curated by three far-flung editors—Chicago audiovisual artist Cole Pierce, Brooklyn-based New York Times blog specialist Jeremy Zilar (who also runs Silence Matters), and North Carolina collage artist and designer Able Parris—Field Mic doesn’t offer deep analysis, usually just a sentence or two of enthusiastic explanation. It’s heavy on reader submissions, and every page is charged with the thrill of someone with a brilliant new discovery he’s aching to pass along to the wider world.—Jessica Hopper
I'll be exhibiting some new work in a few weeks. Stop by, say hello.
Danny Think Tank
2628 2nd floor N. Milwaukee
Chicago, IL
Fri 4pm-11pm | Sat & Sun noon-11pm
Along 1.5 miles of Milwaukee Avenue
(between Kimball and California)
Cole Pierce refers to his track “Too Late Distracted” as a “textured electronic soundscape exploring a structure in flux,” and he goes a step further by employing the word “skittery” to qualify the effort.
The work in question is reportedly derived from a collaboration withTyler Carter, who like Pierce houses his music at the great community site soundcloud.com. Pierce is at soundcloud.com/colepierce, Carter at soundcloud.com/tyler-carter, and the two of them apparently can make beautiful jittery ambience (or skittery soundscapes) together.
Too late distracted by colepierce
Like many solid efforts in abstraction, the piece includes its own decoder ring. While it eventually expands into a spacious if serrated sound field, it opens with the sort of all-rough-edges effect that Pierce’s chosen adjective, “skittery,” suggests. The introduction’s distinction from the majority of the track is plainly evident in the waveform that appears in the SoundCloud player (see above); it’s the short, bottle-brush tail that wags the music’s dog.
That initial segment is all stop’n’start glitch noise, and it sets down the textural equivalent of a downbeat before Pierce ventures into more quasi-ethereal realms. While the work does achieve a certain level of cloudy haze, it’s still marked throughout by the stuttered, broken-glass vibe of its opening salvo.
Original track at soundcloud.com/colepierce. More on Pierce atcolepierce.com. He was previously featured on this site in mid-October of last year (disquiet.com).
The Triangle is the Strongest Shape (2010) 
