SEMIBEGUN 012: GHOSTS AND MP3S

 

Air Date: December 7, 2022

What are the sounds lost through MP3 compression? Simply encoding detritus? What is the music that this codec deletes and what does it sound like? Composer Ryan Maguire sought the answer to these questions with Ghost in the MP3, an archealogical project to recover these lost artefacts and reformulate them into something new. Ghost in the MP3 revisits various test tracks used in the codec’s creation—Tom’s Diner, Fast Car, a Haydn trumpet concerto, and others—to confront the origins and limitations of the format. His music is at once eerie, beautiful, sensitive, incredibly sharp. Enjoy an hour of Ryan’s shimmering artifacts and beyond on this episode of Semibegun: Ghosts and MP3s.

TRACKS

  1. Ryan Patrick Maguire - $†@®

  2. RPM - Alright (Fast Car Ghost Convolved)

  3. RPM - O lucidissima

  4. RPM - "A" Train (Ellington's Ghost Convolved))

  5. RPM - Vega (Tom's Diner Ghost Convolved)

  6. RPM - moDernisT

  7. RPM - Harvest Light

  8. RPM - Points in Time like Stars in the Heavens

  9. RPM - formatBreak0

  10. A.D. Carson - Maybe Metaphors are Easier (Prod. RPM)

  11. RPM - L’Adoration

  12. RPM - Carrauntoohil

  13. RPM - Polonaise (Chopin's Ghost Convolved)

  14. RPM - Vienna (Haydn's Trumpet Concerto Ghost Convolved)

  15. RPM - free_language

  16. RPM - El Fuego (India's Ghost Convolved)

  17. RPM - slowTrill

  18. Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner (Acapella)