Welcome to the January 2008 issue of Networked Music Review Newsletter, a monthly review of some of the many events archived on Networked_Music_Review [to receive this via email, subscribe here].

It seems to me that play has become an ever more significant aspect of networked activities, and while much of this is brought about by the participatory nature of the work, it also exists in work that is “through-composed” or out of the hands of the listener. In the October 2007 Newsletter, I mentioned the performance piece, You Say Potato, I say Potato, a humorous study of the sonic properties of genetically modified potatoes, in which two research groups try to answer the crucial question: GM potatoes, they may be good for our stomachs, but are they good for our ears? That month, we blogged the Tomato Quintet, the sonification of 7 days of tomato ripening into 49 minutes of musical wonder by Chris Chafe (Music), Nikolaos Hanselmann (Visuals) and Greg Niemeyer (Cook). This month, vegetable humor is back again with the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra. In existence since 1998, the orchestra, composed of 11 musicians, a sound engineer and a video artist, performs throughout Europe and Asia on instruments made of fresh vegetables. As an encore, the audience is offered fresh vegetable soup.

And then there’s Vaibhav Bhawsar’s Udder Utter, an instrument that utters syllabic sounds derived from the Devanāgarī alphabet. Its playability is inspired by the gestures involved in milking a cow. And Lucier-in-a-Shower MP3s, an aquatic take on Alvin Lucier’s classic I Am Sitting in a Room Listening, that may not be intentionally humorous, but if you know Alvin, the idea of putting him in a shower has its humorous side.

A little more on the macabre side – and without vegetables, udders or showers – is Diamanda Galas’ upcoming performance on February 14th of the Valentine Day Massacre.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all.

Networked_Music Review also launched two newly commissioned works, More of the Same by LoVid, a work that loads copies of a single sound sample and explores fissures in the digital veneer as the spoken communication is played back repeatedly. And You’re Not My Father, by Paul Slocum, composed of a sequence of re-enactments of a 10 second scene from the television show Full House, overlaid with sound loops from the scene’s original music.

Finally, an interesting interview by Peter Traub with Golan Levin that focuses on his 2001 project, Dialtones (A Telesymphony), a concert performed through the choreographed dialing and ringing of the audience’s own mobile phones, can be found on the site. Peter and I both agree, it’s nice to see older work get a “second life”.