Every few weeks, electronic musicians sling their laptops over their shoulders, pack up their drum machines and even drag their desktops through the streets of Chicago to take part in an Iron Chef competition. Calling themselves chefs for the evening, their main ingredient is an audio sample pulled from the Shenandoah Valley’s Stalacpipe Organ, an Epson Stylus printer or a retro Strawberry Shortcake record.
Participants have two hours to create a track from the time of the sample’s drop (“drop” referring to the five minutes the hosts spend scrambling to release the audio track on the internet, passing it out on CDs and/or handing it out on flash drives). The rules are simple: no guitars, no voices, no external sound whatsoever. Unlike the Food Network’s campy Japanese cooking show, these chefs aren’t allowed to work with anything but the main ingredient. By cutting and shifting the pitch, tone, tempo, speed, sound, dynamics. the chefs completely reshape the sample into a song. The pieces are surprisingly organic—as organic as digital music can be—and may bear little resemblance to the sample they’re derived from. Between them, the musicians have an entire album’s worth of new music by the end of the night.
There’s a veritable opus of music produced in the five seasons of the Iron Chef of Music, run by electronic/experimental label Kracfive out of Pittsburgh. “It started off as a couple of friends doing it,” current Iron Chef host Rodger Ruzanka says. But he wanted to make it more accessible. The experience expanded and three years ago, the competitions moved with Ruzanka from Pittsburgh to Chicago where they took place for a time at co-host Joe Hahn’s then-living space, the Heaven Gallery, in the Wicker Park neighborhood.
Since Hahn moved out of the gallery, the competitions have had trouble finding space and have become more sporadic. Both Hahn and Ruzanka itch for new competitions. They are constantly bugged by eager would-be competitors. Holding Iron Chefs at venues, as opposed to online, allows for discussion. Competitors can call out alleged cheaters and discuss technique. While they cook, they talk smack. Spectators, though sparse, can watch showdowns live. Although there’s no host narrating the competition in poorly dubbed English, viewers can stroll around and see how the participants put their tracks together.
The most recent battle’s main ingredient was a sample from the presidential debates. A woman in the audience asked the candidates, “How can we trust either of you with our money when both parties got us into this global economic crisis.” Tracks produced that night, from Michigan to Venezuela, played on every part of the sample: redefining the term party (Ruzanka’s track insisted, “Got money? You party,”) redistributing the speaker’s sentiments and sounds, and even setting her nasally emphasis on the crisis against a tonal dreamscape. The tracks not only prove the chefs’ flair for re-imagining a sample but also reflect a mixture of viewpoints on a textured issue.
For seasoned veterans of the electronic music scene, Iron Chef is a chance to hone their skills under intense time and material constraints and see how they stack up against their peers. For everyone else, it’s just a chance to hear new music and say, “Wait, this whole three-minute song is actually just the sound of rocks rolling down a hill?”
Paul M Davis
5 Comments
Laura
What a cool idea! And I don’t have money but I will still party.
04 Dec 2008 09:12 pm
Kelsey
This sounds really intense. I hope they find a space to host their next event, because I want to check this out!
04 Dec 2008 10:12 pm
royb0t
It’s such an experience to participate in an Iron Chef battle! Not only do you get to mingle with the IDM/laptop musicians of Chicago, folks on IRC can participate from around the world. And even though your restricted to manipulating only one sound sample in just 2 hours, it’s really incredible to see how everyone’s personal styles comes through despite what seem like such strict limitations.
I know when I participated finally for the Season 5 Battle 9, I was really satisfied my track didn’t turn into some washy noisey mess, but my taste for trippy rhythm and dancy leads could be extracted out of the originals ample. Protman and Ipaghost are definitely veterans of the battlezone, with always quality tracks they manage to pump out – clearly Iron Chef of Music maestros.
11 Dec 2008 10:12 am
protman
This week i figured out how to extract a saw waveform from noise. It’s as simple as 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 and some more.
11 Dec 2008 01:12 pm
Alison
this is so cool! i really want to go to this and just see what these geniuses whip out. someone should tell anthony about this! oh and praises to the author!
08 May 2009 11:05 am
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