Tense Forms // All

Tense Forms is done.

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:25:00 -0600

Thank you for all of your support over these past years. Please feel free to browse our past projects. If you have a question, contact us.

We also would like to acknowledge everyone who contributed their time and creativity to our collective: Mike Piontek, Joshua Dumas, Sarah Renee Bertsch, Craig Blakeman, Elizabeth Boyne, Kirk Bravender, Domenico Ferri, Susie Harkins, VJ Hyde, Nora McComiskey, Casey Meehan, Jaime Roche, Allison Stanley, Andy Wagner

We’re less tense, and now formless, but we’re still real busy making things. We hope to see you around.

March 2007

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:36:26 -0600

Pamela Martinez welcomes the spring with her work “Try to Love the Questions” for the March edition of Muted Tones. Yes, we’ve skipped right over February. It was just too cold, okay?

January 2007 Muted Tones Available

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 19:55:00 -0600

Whitney Johnson brings us a lovely piece called “Cicadas” for the January edition of Muted Tones.

Tense Forms Winter Button Up

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 18:15:00 -0600

The Tense Forms Winter Button Up, our 2nd annual winter showcase, is coming up on February 2nd! Featuring music by The Notes and Scratches, Ash in Pensacola, Casey Meehan and Ami Saraiya (of Radiant Darling). There will also be artwork on over 1000 one inch buttons by a mess of artists! It’s at the Subterranean in Chicago, 18+, $8. More info here!

December 2006 Muted Tones Available

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 18:24:00 -0600

Danny DeMaggio brings us “Narrator” for the December edition of Muted Tones.

Happy New Year!

November 2006 Muted Tones Available

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 02:53:00 -0600

Joshua Dumas fills in for Muted Tones volume 5 this month after our scheduled curator was unable to complete his work. Head on over and listen to “New Ends to Old Stories” while you check out Josh’s makeshift recording space. Danny DeMaggio has a start on December’s piece already—subscribe to the RSS feed and podcast for all the updates!

October 2006 Muted Tones Available

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 12:35:39 -0600

VJ Hyde kicks off Muted Tones volume 5 with a lovely work called “Our Voices Lost the Words Recovered”. Check out his log and subscribe to Muted Tones while you’re there!

Clsterfck on September 2nd

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 20:48:00 -0600

On September 2nd, Tense Forms proudly regrets our end of summer Cl*sterf*ck. Featuring the debut screening of Beach Asshole starring Mark Benson, new art produced exclusively on canvases forced upon the artists, and music by groups formed randomly for this one night event, all capped off with a headlining set by Where the Moon Came From. Click here for more information and a picture of an airplane crashing into a dancing woman with some sort of strange insect and/or peacock for a head.

March 2006 Muted Tones Available

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 17:41:10 -0600

Chicago’s Neil Jendon brings Muted Tones volume 4 to a close with a powerful work called “War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning”. This one includes a film as well, and I highly recommend you hear it that way first.

February 2006 Muted Tones Available

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 06:38:00 -0600

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!

Tense Log 2.0 beta and Tense Index 3.0 beta Released

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 19:00:00 -0600

Tense Log 2.0 beta and Tense Index 3.0 beta are now available. Head over to the brand new Tense Code site to get them. A Tense Log Uploader Dashboard widget is available now as well, for Mac users.

January 2006 Muted Tones Available

Thu, 02 Feb 2006 22:33:00 -0600

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

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 22:32:00 -0600

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

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 22:56:00 -0600

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

Mon, 02 Jan 2006 09:15:00 -0600

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

Mon, 02 Jan 2006 08:36:00 -0600

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.

Uh-Oh Now Available, Improved MP3 Quality

Thu, 17 Nov 2005 22:39:00 -0600

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.

November 2005 Muted Tones Available

Fri, 02 Dec 2005 13:23:00 -0600

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!

Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 15:46:00 -0600

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!

Two New Releases on the Way

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 04:19:00 -0600

We’re excited to announce that we have two lovely new releases on the way. The first is Cryptomnesia from Radiant Darling. We’re quite pleased to welcome Radiant Darling to Tense Forms. Cryptomnesia will be available November 1st from the Tense Forms store. Stop by now to preview a couple of songs!

Our second coming release is Uh-Oh from the Notes and Scratches. For a limited time you can download four free songs from the Tense Forms store! The album arrives on November 18th.

October 2005 Muted Tones Available

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 04:02:00 -0600

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!

Join us for the 2nd Annual Culture of Fear

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 16:55:00 -0600

Join us for the 2nd Annual Culture of Fear this Saturday, October 22nd, 8:00 PM at Open End Gallery. Tense Forms and Scary Bodega present an evening of film, art, and music featuring Chris Fuller’s score for Nosferatu, pre-show music by Annie Coleman, a short film by Kate Raney, photography and paintings by Kirk Bravender and Kelly Reynolds, music by the Notes and Scratches and DJ sets by C. Israel Vines and Marcus Battista. $6 donation. BYOB. Costumes are highly encouraged—this is a Macabre Ball my pretties! Doors at 8pm, films at 9pm and music at 11pm.

September 2005 Muted Tones Available

Sun, 02 Oct 2005 13:30:00 -0600

Chicago’s Nat Kundanis-Grow kicks off Muted Tones volume 4 to a rocking start with “The Ballad of Bobby Fitz”. Listen now on Tense Radio or visit the site to download. Then subscribe to our Muted Tones Podcast or RSS feed to keep updated!

New Tense Forms iCalendar

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 22:54:00 -0600

Those of you that subscribe to our iCalendar will want to know that it has moved and improved. Click here to subscribe to the new iCalendar. Unlike our old calendar, which was only updated a couple of times a week, this new calendar is always up to date.

For those that don’t know, iCalendar is an excellent open calendar format that’s supported by many applications including iCal, Outlook, Sunbird, and Mozilla Calendar. Thanks go to DreamHost for being one of the few web hosts to support WebDav, a technology that lets you publish and subscribe to calendars over the web.

Muted Tones vol. 4 Begins

Thu, 01 Sep 2005 11:26:00 -0600

This month marks the beginning of Muted Tones volume 4. Stop by the site to take a look at the roster, and while you’re there, subscribe to our new Podcast. You won’t find anything to download just yet, but our Podcast will ensure you get every month’s piece as soon as they’re available!