Carl Stone 9/28/24 Wesleyan

 Philip Glass? Yes. Brian Eno? Sure. Carl Stone? Well, no. That is unfortunate because of his place in the history of sampling and computer music. Stone studied under Morton Subotnick at CalArts in the 70s and started sampling and computer collaging music at roughly the same time as Grandmaster Flash.  Instead of turntables and scratching, Stone used an exacto knife and tape splicing to sample music and field recordings for his product. The storied California new music scene is the birthplace of the cream of avant garde composers, Terry Riley, Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveiros just to name a few. Stone collaborated and rubbed elbows with many of these music philosophers. His body of work has been under the radar until recent illumination by the great Unseen Worlds record label. Compilations of his decades of work starting with “explorations on the Macintosh” sounds comically outdated today. His recent anagrammatic release, Stolen Car has been embraced by hipster culture. Happy then for a rare concert viewing, as Carl spends most of his time in Japan. The show was supposed to happen at Wesleyan’s Crowell Hall, but was moved to the gamelan garage known as the World Music Hall. The uncomfortable subterranean cement igloo WMH was better suited for the slim crowd, but not for my 60 year old tailbone. The music is challenging and the introduction stated that the pieces were new. In concert, there is not much to view. A 70ish white guy dressed in black armed with a computer, an iPad and a card table does not portend for a stunning visual. The songs were compact with the samples difficult to discern. Metallic whooshes, sped up and slowed down splicing were present in each “song”. One tune sounded like a cement mixer full of teletubbies, another had a chopped and screwed Strangers in the Night. I was anxious to hear Stone talk about the evolution of technology on his craft, I mean can’t he just ask AI to spit out what a cement mixer of teletubbies would sound like? Like many polymaths, talking was not in the cards. The audience was left to imagine the source and process of this sound. While I didn’t hear “Paul is Dead”, I was able to be affected by these strange sounds. If Carl was Stoned, and spending his formative years within waft distance from Humboldt county it was likely, his next record could be Coastal Nerd, anagrammatically speaking.