Declose

For Disclosures Eileen Simpson & Ben White are producing Declose, a project to create a copyleft licensed 12" vinyl scratch tool containing a range of samples, beats and extracts made from the out-of-copyright blues, jazz and folk housed in the Open Music Archive.

The battle record will be launched at a live event in London on Thursday 27th March 2008 at Plastic People

The artists promote collaboration and seek to explore its significance and value for creative production. For Declose they invite producers and members of the Burnt Progress community to create new remix tracks, short vocal snippets, percussive noises, samples, breaks and beats - made entirely from the out-of-copyright music in the Open Music Archive - to make up the battle vinyl.

Elements for the vinyl are being created in Feb 2008. If you are a beat maker or a scratch DJ and would like to get involved it would be great to hear from you.
Email: info(at)openmusicarchive(dot)org

Background

Collaboration is central to the activity of the DJ who constantly combines, re-works and extends existing creative output. In the hands of a turntablist, the record player is revealed as a hardware instrument – one that needs vinyl software to operate. The DJ’s instrument can only be activated using a set of vinyl tools, in the same way that computer hardware requires an operating system and a suite of software to function. Unlike the conventional battle record, which samples unlicensed commercial recordings, the newly created scratch tools for Declose are assembled entirely from out-of-copyright material – and so exist outside commercial and bootleg economies. The project adopts the form and structure of the battle record to build open vinyl code – which, like free/libre and open source software, is distributed freely.

The project encourages open creative exchange and demands that subsequent creations are licensed under identical terms.

Downloads

Side A Side A 18.8MB MP3 (right-click/ctrl+click to download) 01 Hello Pinetop 00:16 02 Generosity by Collection Society 00:43 03 beat by Parkertron 01:31 04 archive elements 00:45 05 4 beats by Soundspecies 05:03 06 At The Ball by The Red Eyed Thief 00:49 07 beat by Steve Science 00:42 08 scratch noise 00:11

Side B Side A 18.9MB MP3 (right-click/ctrl+click to download) 01 archive elements 02:59 02 88 Bars by Breakplus 02:12 03 4 beats by Collection Society 00:58 04 2 beats by Trevor Goodchilde 01:47 05 Earlyman's Eddie's Twister by The Early Man 02:05 06 archive elements 00:39

Video

Video of Parkertron (Fingathing) using Serato Scratch Live to test battle records made from out-of-copyright samples from the Open Music Archive. Shot and edited by Kid Jenson

Download quicktime Duration: 13 mins / 43.1 MB (right-click/ctrl+click to download)

Read the entry for this video on Archive.org

Thanks

This project would not be possible without the help, advice and support of: Anna Colin & Mia Jankowicz, Tony & Gavin @ CDR, Parkertron, Selom @ Plastic People, Andy Soup, Colin O'Toole, Vincent @ Deal Real, Leo @ Kung Fu, Tha 4orce, Floating Points, Soundspecies, Tranqill, Ade @ Plastic People, Breakplus, Trevor Goodchilde, The Red Eyed Thief, The Earlyman, Berry Weight, Saul Richards, LA77, Nick Alexander, Karine Faou and Espen Haslene.

Disclosures is facilitated and organised by Gasworks’ residencies and exhibitions programmes in collaboration with interlocutors, advisers and partners involved at different levels. Disclosures is inscribed in the season of new media events under the umbrella of node.London in March 2008.