Popcorn Superhet Receiver

[proteanmix]

So when I saw There Will Be Blood, the score haunted me for a few weeks. I got the album and I didn't realize it was a/the guy from Radiohead.

I've been scouring the internet (not really hard but I got lucky tonight) and found a streaming version of his orchestral piece Popcorn Superhet Receiver. It's really screechy and dissonant but I like it. I'd have to listen to it before I went to bed because it just seems like the kind of music to go to be to. I got Bodysong, but I probably should've listened to all of it before buying it.

NYTimes:

"Popcorn Superhet Receiver" - its title taken from a shortwave radio catalog - is an exploration of "white noise," a form of electronic noise that embraces every audible frequency and can sound like hissing or static. In its purest form, all frequencies are heard at the same intensity, but Mr. Greenwood takes artistic license: even when the chords are at their densest, melodies emerge as the strings change pitches.

"Popcorn Superhet Receiver" could easily have been an electronic piece instead of an orchestral score. Mr. Greenwood began work on it by recording himself playing every available note on the viola. Then, using Pro Tools, a flexible digital editing program, he configured those notes into a piece on 36 separate tracks (one for each instrumental line) and shaped the attacks, releases and dynamics of each note. Once the recording was complete, he transcribed it the old-fashioned way, using pen and paper.

"I went in trying for it to be like a pure electronic experience, just sounding like white noise coming from the stage." Mr. Greenwood said. "But at the first rehearsal, it was obvious that that's impossible. So I had to start again and just turn it into a celebration of the fact that you can't get this blank mutual hiss from an orchestra. Instead, you get what sound like melodies and chords going on, just as an extension of what people are doing. And once you're in a room hearing it, it's a beautiful thing."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/newmusic/ram/bca_2006_greenwood.ram

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/wordlessmusic/episodes/2008/01/16

And!!! I really like one of the tracks from TWBB "Prospector's Quartet" It's a really lonely piece.

I just exhausted all of my knowledge of classical music. Although, this is modern classical but that's confusing like 20th century is really the 1900s and stuff.