Hii Magazine Hii-lites

Spurge chimes in from Art Basel on NFT and parties, while pointing back to Hii's June (not July!) mixer with Water & Music.

Investing a bit more money into one piece of technology, like a radio, that would provide countless hours of free entertainment is akin to folks today buying an iPhone.

Call-N-Response is the Hii Team's Image Association Game. Someone chooses an image and everyone else picks songs to match it. The image for this Call-N-Response was a Dodo, chosen by Kira. What does a dodo sound like?

Spurge chats about his return to the theater after the 2020-2021 CoVID-19 shutdown. "Hearing what felt like an actual room in the recording, along with one person leaping & constantly changing the performance of their voice to match the different characters, made this an especially intimate listening experience."

“Spencer often leads his artist interviews by asking about their earliest experience self-recording. The writing throughout Mirror Sound is so contemplative that my own answer automatically surfaces; my sister and me, very young on the floor of her room playing with a tape deck.” Alex speaks on our bestie Lawrence of LADdesign and Spencer Tweedy's literary project 'Mirror Sound'.

[Originally Published October 29th, 2021] Every commute feels the same...until it's not. 'Stand Clear Of The Closing Doors' is a story conceived by Hayley Livingston, written by TJ Boudreau, and realized with the voices and production of the Hii sound design team. In this narrative audio piece from Hii Magazine, follow our protagonist as she embarks on a train ride STRAIGHT FROM HELL.

[Originally Published October 28, 2020] OTB's first Halloween audio narrative piece in what has now become a series! "A special Halloween audio experience. Try not to catch a fright…Join us in a sonic exploration of Millennium Studios, an abandoned, rundown movie lot, that was, once upon a time, a famed East Hollywood mainstay. Or was it? We discovered a cassette tape with the story, and it's for you to decide." Best enjoyed using headphones. *In the recording, Spurge mentioned that Jackie! did the VO, but it was actually primarily Calvin Pia who did the VO for this piece.

[Originally published May 20, 2021] In today's installment of Phenomena, we're going to examine how cicadas make their signature sound? + Spurge goes on a tangent about the Muppets' Mahna Mahna song.

[Originally Published August 31, 2021] Contributor Max Alper remembers Lee ‘Scratch' Perry, pioneer of the dub genre of music and dub technique, one of many studio practices first employed by Perry that have become standard practice for all recording musicians today.

[Originally Published June 29, 2021] Contributor Max Alper highlights the importance of analog radio in Puerto Rico after a national outage in the beginning of June.

Guin Frehling peels back the layers on the brain and its relationship to sound & music for this installment of our Phenomena series.

[Originally published February 26, 2021] Phenomena researches sonic enigmas and collaborates with experts in pursuit of an overlapping art + science. Jackie! highlights the highly collaborative platform, Tiktok. Drawing comparisons to jazz standards, J! points to several remixable trends that are indicative of the platform.

Hii looks back to when ABC visited artist April Soetarman's public audio installation, The End of the Day. It could only be played at sunset and was a guided audio experience about a moment many years in the future, to a point where you would be looking back and reflecting on a life well-lived. "This past Sunday, I visited the park with simple instructions; on a bench facing the water, there would be a brass plaque with a phone number which I was to call at sunset." - ABC

[Originally published October 26, 2020] If you want to watch a scary movie but don't want to be scared, watching with the sound off might be your best bet, because the sound is what drives the terrors home.

[Originally published November 17, 2020] Andrew continues his list of worst sounds in the world, looking at airplane toilets and offering a grounded solution.

[Originally published September 10,2020] Wish You Were Here is a series of sonic postcards - a glimpse into the sounds of different scenes and happenings. In early September, Los Angeles witnessed record-breaking temperatures, taking the term “heatwave” to the next level. J!Z gives us s WYWH capturing that.

[Originally published July 22,2021] Colin Joyce peers into the culture of prescriptive practice: using prompts to initiate direction for making art, made famous by Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies.

[Originally published on July 29, 2021] How does one properly culturally exchange, not exploit, when sampling other's music? Contributor Max Alper explores this question through looking at the ethics of sampling.

[Originally published on September 13, 2021] Rand Faris examines what the sound of poetry performed is, recalling her own initiation into poetry and the history of poetry leading up to the ‘Spoken Word' style.

[Originally published on August 25, 2021] Contributor Nyshka Chandran recounts how unexpected practices like karaoke, nightlife and debate club helped her overcome stammering in her speech, as well as find her confidence as a young adult.

[Originally published on July 13, 2021] Contributor Emma Camell explores how object-based audio is presented and produced in film.

[Originally published on July 07, 2021] MJ Ortiz talks firework sound construction and our need for big and loud despite obvious sonic consequences in this month's Phenomena.

Fellow sound explorers! Quick tip from us at Hii on getting lighting fast voice memo recordings on the iPhone.

[Originally published on August 27, 2021] Contributor Ruben Sindo Acosta makes the case for Hardcore, a genre of music often cast aside in academic contexts, to be rightfully studied and appreciated like jazz or The Beatles.

[Originally published on June 8th, 2021] Contributor Max Alper discusses a selected ethnography of audio tropes he has collected while scrolling.

[Originally published on August 11, 2021] The One Thousand Birds team discusses prominent and historical uses of audio misdirection that create the movie magic we as audiences know and love.

[Originally published on April 08, 2021] Lavender Suarez presents a PSA on the wheezing and clanging companions we've grown used to in our homes, like the notorious radiator.

[Originally published on August 08, 2021] "A round-up of some of the best music for August's Bandcamp Friday. In response to the global pandemic and its devastating effects on the music industry, Bandcamp started to periodically waive its fees for 24 hours and give 100% of proceeds from the site directly to artists and labels. After a hiatus this summer, the initiative returns through the end of 2021. Listed below are picks by the Hii staff for this month's Bandcamp Friday."

[Originally published on July 12, 2021] Jackie! Zhou reviews 600 Highwaymen's A Thousand Ways (Part One), which focused on providing physical immediacy while transcending distance…through a phone call.

[Originally published on November 18, 2021] Cuba, an island smaller than Pennsylvania, has influenced music from around the world. Contributor Ruben Sindo Acosta highlights three pioneers of Cuban music: Arsenio Rodriguez, Cachao & Maria Teresa Vera. Music by Ruben Sindo Acosta - “Como lo veo yo” or “the way I see it” from his short film Lending The Machete.

[Originally published on November 2, 2021] Contributor Bryndon Cook's ‘Genre Sounds' is back to present New Jack Swing, a late century collision of sounds and emerging technology that resulted in a short-lived but highly influence genre of music.

[Originally published on August 5, 2021.] Spurge interviews Queens rapper Deem Spencer before his 7/30/21 performance on the Hii roof.

[Originally published on January 27, 2021.] Phenomena researches sonic enigmas and collaborates with experts in pursuit of an overlapping art + science. Much thought has gone in over the years to perfecting the popular western expression of solidarity or positive affirmation known as a "high-five." Hii staff KT Pipal & Guin Frehling roll up their sleeves and take a phalanges stab at the "perfect high-five".

[Originally published on September 03, 2021.] A couple of weeks ago, in anticipation of August's Earshot installment, Spurge visited Crystal Guardian's Elliot Cash at Nowaday's in Ridgewood, Queens during a pop-up CG did before the club's heralded Mister Sunday event. Wish You Were Here is a series of sonic postcards - a glimpse into the sounds of different scenes and happenings. Find text here: https://hii-mag.com/article/wywh-cgfitting

[Originally published on July 02, 2021.] Contributor Mira Kaplan talks with Juan Wauters about how cross-cultural experiences influence his work and practice following his most recent release Real Life Situations. Find text here: https://hii-mag.com/article/juan-wauters-vocal-assimilation

[Originally published on July 19, 2021.] Hii Mag Intern MJ Ortiz visits Andrew Schneider at his studio to witness his exhibit, THE STARS, “an immersive experience for one person at a time”. Find text here: https://hii-mag.com/article/onsound-ortizthestars