The Journal of Popular Noise, under the direction of Byron Kalet, “is a semi-annual audio magazine inspired by the traditions of pop music, printed periodicals, and the delight of a finely crafted artifact.” Produced in editions of 300, each issue includes a hand-folded (by Kalet himself), letter-press printed broadside that serves at once as scholarly journal, musical score, and record sleeve holding three seven-inch vinyls.
According to their website, instructions are given to each artist to contemplate during the composition and production of their record. These instructions are completely open to interpretation by the artists. Loosely based on the pop song structures canonized during the mid to late 20th century, the order of appearance is according to the standard format of a traditional magazine. To read the instructions on each track, see http://www.popularnoise.net/
In an interview, Kalet said, “I grew up playing music in Seattle, but abandoned that path … to move to New York and study design. I found that there was a lot of common ground between the rules that go into a good printed composition and those that go into musical ones. I think people have been exploring this overlap for a while (Kandinsky, Cage, and Eno to name just a few) but I don’t think anyone really took it out of the experimental or academic realm and tried to produce some pop culture version of it…”
