This volume of Muted Tones is full of firsts! Jessica Billey of Albuquerque, NM contributes the first piece with a film to accompany it, a wonderful work called “Rabidt Manifestor”. Listen now on Tense Radio or visit the site to watch the film!
January 2006 Muted Tones Available
Thursday, February 02nd, 2006 at 10:33 PM
Mark Benson of Lying in States brings profanity and sports (yes, both at once) to Muted Tones, in a strange and amusing piece called “This Ass Has Three Tales”. Seriously. Listen now on Tense Radio or visit the site to download.
800 Winters
Thursday, January 12th, 2006 at 10:32 PM
800 Winters is coming soon to Chicago. It’s a showcase featuring 25 visual artists, 5 musical artists, and a short play. We’ll celebrate Radiant Darling‘s new release, Cryptomnesia. The Notes and Scratches, Casey Meehan, Ben Clarke (of Lying in States), and Andy Wagner will be there too. Marika Mashburn and Chris Matthews of the House Theatre will perform Mashburn’s new play frost. There will be art all up over the place.
It’ll be awesome. Seriously. It’s Saturday, January 28th at the Subterranean. Stop by the site for more information or get your tickets online now.
New Newsletter and Newsletter Archive
Tuesday, January 03rd, 2006 at 10:56 PM
Soon we’ll be sending out our January newsletter, and you’ll notice quite a difference from our past newsletters. From now on they’ll be much much nicer to look at and read, including pictures of our latest releases and more links throughout. (If your email program doesn’t display HTML, don’t worry… A plain text version will automatically display instead.) Sign up now to make sure you don’t miss it!
We’ve also added a newsletter archive in case you’d like to check out our past newsletters, or you’d just rather look at them in your web browser. It’s weird to look back and see how far we’ve come… Thanks everyone for helping to make Tense Forms such a success in these five short years!
Uh-Oh one of Newcity Chicago’s Top 5 Local Albums of 2005
Monday, January 02nd, 2006 at 09:15 AM
Newcity Chicago has named the Notes and Scratches’ Uh-Oh as one of the top 5 local albums of 2005! Just a few of the many kind words the album has received.
December 2005 Muted Tones Available
Monday, January 02nd, 2006 at 08:36 AM
The Harvey Girls and crew mix things up and kick in the new year with the December edition of Muted Tones, a piece called “Don’t Go Stop”. Listen now on Tense Radio or visit the site to download.
November 2005 Muted Tones Available
Friday, December 02nd, 2005 at 01:23 PM
Chicago’s Steve Quantock brings us the November edition of Muted Tones volume 4, a piece called “The Stars are Shining Out Over This Broken Place”, with special appearances by the furnace, some wandering cats, and someone’s footsteps. Listen now on Tense Radio or visit the site to download. Don’t forget to subscribe to our Muted Tones Podcast!
Uh-Oh Now Available, Improved MP3 Quality
Thursday, November 17th, 2005 at 10:39 PM
the Notes and Scratches’ debut album Uh-Oh is now available in the Tense Forms Store for just $10 postpaid.
We’re also pretty excited to announce that we’ve increased the quality of all the MP3 downloads in our store. All of our songs are now encoded with LAME, considered by many to be the best MP3 encoder. The files are variable bit rate, generally ranging from 190 kbps to 245 kbps, resulting in top quality sound at small file sizes. These settings are considered to be transparent, meaning you’re unlikely to hear any loss in quality even on high-end equipment.
For a preview of this improved quality, head over to Tense Radio and listen to any of the Notes and Scratches songs in HI-FI, or choose the download option.
If you purchased an album from us with a lower bit rate, you can upgrade for free. Just send us an email with your name and any other information that may help us look up your order.
Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You
Thursday, November 03rd, 2005 at 03:46 PM
Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You is a kind of collaborative serial radio drama of read correspondence. We’re taking forwarded emails (submitted by people like you) and using a program to deconstruct and jumble the words of several messages. That jumble is then groomed into a script, an email dialog, which is performed and set to music.
Our pilot episode features Marika Mashburn from the House Theatre and Joshua Dumas, with a remix of a song by the Notes and Scratches. Head over, have a listen, sign up for the podcast, and please consider submitting some emails to the project!
October 2005 Muted Tones Available
Sunday, October 30th, 2005 at 04:02 AM
Jane Yakowitz of New Haven, CT brings us the October edition of Muted Tones volume 4, the hauntingly delightful “Worst Case Scenario”. Listen now on Tense Radio or visit the site to download. Don’t forget to subscribe to our Muted Tones Podcast!