From the brainchild of Kattt Atchley, Edgetone Records and others have erected a 15-track collection of original musical pairings, each one using Kattt’s brief, haunting humming-melody, “Late Night Phone Call (Original)“.

The set of pieces covers a rich and wide range of reactions to the melody, each one unique and composed with loving attention, specifically to the melodic subject. Each of the tracks is composed by a different person, most of us based in the Bay Area, including track #14 It’s Only Hummin by yours truly. The opportunity was an unexpected gift for me (and I bet some of my composer compatriots on the collection would agree).

Mikee Labash provided the graphic design for the release and it also includes some beautiful, whimsical artwork by Kattt, Alice Wu, and Dan Plonsey. Hats off to Myles Boison who wrangled the pieces and mastered the release. Nice job, thank you!

The release is available in both streaming and hardcopy (CD) formats. For all the info and access to the results, please check out Late Night Phone Call.

Devon Turnbull has designed a stereo setup for SF MOMA’s current exhibit titled The Art of Noise. I’ve been invited to take control of the “HiFi Listening Room” for the entire day on August 2, 2024. I will use the day to play some of the progressive rock, acousmatic, musique concrète, and electronic music that I have loved and been influenced by in my music-making lifetime. I hope to see you at the Museum on Friday, August 2nd!

The HiFi Listening Room (see photo) is only one of many aspects of this multidimensional, multimedia exhibit that runs from May 4 through August 18, 2024 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. There is also a room-sized exhibit of album and poster artwork from days gone by, another room filled with over 100 historic objects for the playback of recorded and live music, and the unique designs of the company, “teenage engineering”, that infuses the exhibit and the accompanying furnishings.

Different sound artists, musicians, and others were invited to choose and play recordings that they, and hopefully those who are present, will enjoy hearing over the high-fidelity stereo playback system, which is equipped with two turntables, a Revox A88 reel-to-reel tape recorder, a CD player, and a wireless connection enabling streamed audio to reach to the digital-to-analog converters on the system.

For details and tickets to exhibit, including the HiFi Listening Room and the daily schedule of people DJ’ing there, check out The Art of Noise.

My sonic environments at the Prelinger Library are now running into their second year. On Sundays at the Library, my “instrullation” — part installation part musical instrument — continues to infuse books and other texts with a sonic sensibility, giving visitors a unique library experience.

Every Sunday I host at the Library from 1:30 to 4 PM. During those hours I improvise with and on a 12-channel, spatially distributed, “musique concrète” instrument that I set up for Library in January 2022. It consists of around 600, mostly fleeting, sound recordings that are specifically tuned to this Library’s stacks, its contents, and its meaning as a symbol of a house of knowledge.

I am pleased to be a continuing Artist In Residence at the Library, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary at its present location in San Francisco, opening in 2004.

Prelinger Library
301 8th Street (at Folsom St.)
Suite 215
San Francisco, CA 94103

Matt Ingalls’s weekly sfSound concert series will present a Microfestival of Surround Sound Diffusion on June 9, 2024, featuring the members of the San Francisco Tape Music Collective. We will be controlling the spatial diffusion of pieces — works by members of the Collective as well as other composers — over 16 Meyer Sound speakers that will surround the audience.

The concert is June 9 at 7:00 PM
Dresher Ensemble Studio
2201 Poplar Street
Oakland, CA 94607