Tonight, Spiral continues its multiweek exploration of ambient and experimental music that invokes or is inspired by cities. This week, we’ll start off with some nicely urban-inspired pieces by Palancar, ontol, Joe Frawley, Lucette Bourdin, GrĂ©goire Lourme, Lutz Thuns, and Team Metlay.

In our second hour, Mr. Spiral is planning to deliver a full-on Live Ambient Rant, based on Ephemeral City by Scott McGregor Moore and dreamSTATE. This iOS app essentially creates an ever-changing “album” that draws from a deep and fascinating library of sonic elements—always recognizable as what it is, but never evolving in the same way twice. The newest version allows users (both technologically and legally!) to process and modify the output even further within iOS-based music making frameworks, opening a world of possibilities.

As Mike plays with the audio of Ephemeral City, listeners can sit back and enjoy the stream… or play along with their own copies of the app (available for three or four dollars on the App Store, and well worth owning if you ask Mr. Spiral). If you own the app, start it up on one or more iOS devices—it runs on iPhones and iPads, even old ones—turn up their speakers, position them around your room, and listen to them add to the stream, creating a fully immersive ambient ephemeral cityscape that’s entirely unique to your listening space at that moment.

As always, the fun begins at 9/8/7/6 PM on https://radiospiral.net, and in the Orlov sim in Second Life. I’m not sure which holodeck we’ll choose; GypsyWitch hasn’t created a “seedy urban wasteland at night” sim yet, since there hasn’t been much demand for it… Anyway, we’ll see you there!

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