Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Single-tone 'WOW' record takes minimalism to a new plateau

Single-tone 'WOW' record takes minimalism to a new plateau: wow (heavy listening)








Minimalists. There are people that spend their weekends flipping through sparsely-decorated images in design magazines, and then there are the true believers — people like artist and musician Carl Schilde. He calls his latest project, WOW, "the most minimal record ever made," a claim that certainly rings true to us. The vinyl LP contains just a single, ultra-low frequency tone sitting barely within the lower limit of human hearing — a sound said to be "more felt than heard."

Because the tone depends on the characteristics of the sound system on which it’s played, you can throw it on multiple record players in the same room and listen as the sound waves move in and out of sync (diagram above), producing a "rhythmic modulation…...
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