I'm not a clumsy person -- in fact, I'm kinda athletic.

But I have the spatial awareness of a toddler.

I often have a hard time visualizing how something is created if I'm trying to replicate that thing from written instructions, a diagram, or a video. My brain doesn't translate the info in a way that my fumbling hands can follow.

Matthew Shlian's superpower is spatial awareness.

The Ann Arbor-based artist has the remarkable ability to build stunning 3D paper sculptures that undulate, pop, jab, and ripple. He creates his art by gluing together small pieces of paper and then affixing them in patterns that create the illusion of movement. Shlian's deep understanding of spatial relationships and shading allows him to create complex patterns that still seem minimalist. 

Since 2011, Shlian has distributed many of his limited edition works through Ghostly International, which is best known for releasing electronic music but it's also had many partnerships with artists and companies to create branded pieces that run from shoes to a custom video-game console, as well as unbranded fine art from Andy Gilmore, Brandon Locher, and Langdon Graves.

Omoplata is Shlian's latest series promoted by Ghostly, and despite the artworks' delicate look, the design was inspired by a tricky submission move in Brazilian jiu-jitsu:

The Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor hip-hop scene is so prolific that it feels like there's not a day that goes by that doesn't feature a new single, video, or concert from one of its artists or collectives. From the Approachable Minorities/Northern Threat Entertainment/734 Saturdays faction and Duke Newcomb's Dojo to Louis Picasso's Hiiigherminds and numerous other associations of DJs and MCs, there's been an ongoing hip-hop renaissance in Washtenaw County the past few years.  

The KeepItG Records troop is among the most productive of these resolutely DIY groups -- and that's not even counting DJ Dyelow creating a beat every day of 2017. In addition to Dyelow, the crew includes producers/DJs/MCs Hi Potent C, DJ Cataclysmic, S.Delli, Aareus Jones, TwoFace Suave, and Caldane.

Many of these artists -- along with Denae, STY, Julia Furlong, and J. Donahey -- will come together on December 14 at Ziggy's in Ypsilanti for a breast cancer research fundraiser. It will also serve as something of a kickoff party for Dyelow and Hi Potent C's forthcoming album, War Medicine. The debut single, "Medicine," dropped December 5, and a new track is scheduled to be released every week until the album is fully out.

Below is a selection of 2019 videos, songs, and mixtapes by artists associated with KeepItG Records to help you play catch-up. 

Five Washtenaw County-associated audio recordings that have rung my ears recently:

➥ Ypsilanti rapper Louis Picasso is known for his live shows featuring a full band, The Gallery, and his tunes usually reflect this ensemble approach to making music. But for Picasso's new single, "I'm Not Sorry," he teams with Ann Arbor producer Brooklyn Beatz for a trap-influenced, studio-crafted song that shows off a bit of the rapper's singing voice during the chorus.

➥ ZZAVA and False Figures also hail from Ypsi and both groups play variations of flannel-wrapped indie rock, with the former upping the noise and tempo compared to the latter's twangier, more laconic leanings. Both bands have fine second albums out now -- ZZAVA's Casual Crisis and False Figures' Flat -- and fans of guitar-based songcraft will find much to enjoy.

➥ On the softer side of guitar-pop, Joanna and the Jaywalkers have had a quiet fall after a busy summer. Led by singer-songwriter Joanna Ransdell, the fluid group has absorbed some new musicians this autumn as others have moved on, and the new crew is working on a follow-up album to 2018's The Open Sea Before Me. But you can check out the summer version of the Jaywalkers in a 45-minute concert taped June 19, 2019, at the Ann Arbor Summer Festival by Dave TV's Zone. (In fact, Dave & Co. have recorded a LOT Summer Fest concerts over the past six years; check it out.)

➥ Rounding out this round of releases is a 7-inch that came out on 2019 RSD Black Friday: Larry Mullins + Mike Watt, "1969" (Parts I and II): A Tribute to Scott Asheton. Asheton was The Stooges' powerhouse drummer whose essential skins-smashing is sometimes overlooked because of his brother Ron's killer guitar and bass work -- or that Iggy guy's mean-mugging on the mic. "1969" is a Bo Diddley-fueled jam from The Stooges' self-titled debut, and I'm sure Mullins and Watt kill it on their version -- I just can't find the audio since it's a RSD exclusive. (Check with Encore Records, Underground Sounds, and Wazoo Records to see if they have copies). Mullins is not the U2 guy, but a frequent drummer for Swans, The Residents, Iggy Pop, and others. And Watt was the legendary bassist for The Minutemen who was not only a member of the reunited version of The Stooges, but a frequent performer on tribute concerts to the band, including the 2018 70th birthday bash to Ron Asheton at The Blind Pig. So, until we can find audio of the "1969" 7-inch -- or procure a vinyl copy -- check out the original version of the song set to live footage of The Stooges from the same year.

If all you know of Jeff Hayner is that he's a sometimes controversial member of the Ann Arbor City Council for Ward 1, Jordan Stanton's Impulse Ann Arbor documentary will be an eye-opener. 

The film is primarily about the university-affiliated Michigan Electronic Music Collective (MEMCO), a group of student DJs, producers, dancers, and fans who support and promote techno via a variety of events, including the monthly Impulse party.

But Impulse Ann Arbor also explores the connection between the current techno scene and the people who helped launch it -- and that includes Hayner, who was a longtime co-host of WCBN's Crush Collision, which began in 1987 and continues to this day (Thursdays, 10 pm to 1 am, 89.1-FM). 

Hayner's DJ name was Jeffrey Nothing -- borrowed from David Lynch's Blue Velvet. In the early 1990s, Hayner and Crush Collision co-host Brendan Gillen (aka BMG, aka Ectomorph) were early enthusiastic supporters of Detroit techno and its offshoots, helping draw a line of influence to Ann Arbor from the Motor City (with a zig through Belleville -- home of electronica pioneers Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson). 

Gillen and Hayner are two of several talking heads in Impulse Ann Arbor, including current MEMCO members DJ Holographic, Cat Kenzie, Kavin Pawittranon, and others, as well as Shigeto, aka Zachary Saginaw, whose accent is so PURE MICHIGAN that it adds an extra level of local love to his affectionate words about the town where he grew up. They all pay tribute to A2's legacy as a progressive place -- musically and otherwise -- and the MEMCO DJs do a fine job of explaining the collective's mission to be inclusive and mentoring, passing knowledge to anyone who wants to learn how to create a dancefloor-filling mix. The 22-minute documentary also gives nods to the Nectarine Ballroom -- aka Necto -- which was an early Ann Arbor home for industrial electronic music and techno, and to WCBN's legacy as one the local scene's hubs in the 1990s.

Director Stanton is a senior at U-M and co-president of MEMCO, so it's no surprise his Impact Ann Arbor reads like a love letter to the organization he helps lead and the university town that supports it. But what's not to love about dancing the night away among friends, or DJing music that makes people from different backgrounds come together under the same beat?

Even councilmember Hayner still spins from time to time -- on the turntables. There are no politics on the dancefloor.

See Impulse Ann Arbor below:

We all have ways of coping with the holidays.

Some eat and drink in abundance to steel themselves against their uncle's ranting of conspiracy theories.

Others join their uncle in spouting said conspiracies.

And then there's you, the person who emotionally logs out by jamming headphones so deep into your earholes that the only thing you hear is whatever jams you're pumping at family-saving volumes.

Well, the Michigan Electronic Music Collective has some gifts for you, O' Blocker ov Bloviators.

The University of Michigan group more commonly known as MEMCO has had an active fall. In addition to throwing various dance parties and frequently holding down the Crush Collision radio show, MEMCO teamed up with the Maize Collective and WCBN for an event at Club Above on November 22 that raised $1,725 for The Avalon Village in Detroit. (MEMCO will also team up with the North Coast Modular Collective for "Getting Started in Electronic Music" at AADL on January 11.)

But what you need for the holidays aren't dance parties or fundraisers; you need Loud Uncle Blocking Mixes, which MEMCO members past and present have been cranking out this fall. Below are all the recent MEMCO-associated mixes the collective has posted to or flagged up on its Soundcloud page, plus a link to a Pulp article back in September where I collected all the mixes the group posted over the summer and at the start of school.

In other words, hours and hours of peace and non-quiet to get you through the holidays.

The Leo and Mary Sarkisian Collection at the University of Michigan contains a rich variety of artifacts from the longtime Voice of America broadcaster, whose creation, Music Time in Africa, is the longest-running English language radio program that broadcasts throughout Africa. There are audio recordings and documents from the Leo Sarkisian Library (on loan from Voice of America), as well as personal papers and musical instruments donated by the couple. 

But the latest addition came not from Leo and Mary, who died in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

According to a story written for the U-M Arts & Culture site, the current Music Time in Africa host -- and Michigan alumna -- Heather Maxwell let the Sarkisian Collection team know sundry tapes and scripts for old MTIA shows dating back to the mid-1960s were about to be boxed up and shipped to VOA's storage facility: salt mines in Western Pennsylvania. Knowing that if these items were sent to a cave, they'd essentially be inaccessible, Paul Conway, a U-M School of Information professor, and Kelly Askew, U-M professor of anthropology and Afroamerican and African studies, sprang into action.

Conway and Askew initially sought funding to digitize 30 Music Time in Africa shows, but once they saw how extensive and well-preserved the collection was, the duo boosted their target to 900 programs. The Sarkisian Collection team is digitizing 10,000 reel-to-reel tapes, cassettes, and vinyl records -- as well as original scripts, scrapbooks, letters, etc. -- and the first batch of these preservation efforts are online at the Music Time in Africa website.

This story was originally published on May 9, 2018, ahead of Nellie McKay's May 13, 2018, concert at The Ark in Ann Arbor. McKay is returning to The Ark on Monday, November 19 in support of her new 8-song EP, "Bagatelles," which you can hear below in addition to her 2018 LP, "Sister Orchard."

Nellie McKay often seems like she’s at a loss for words.

During our phone conversation to promote the pianist-singer-songwriter’s show at The Ark on May 13, her answers were often preceded by a swarm of ums, uhs, I means, and various other utterances. And when McKay did get to the answers, it wasn’t necessarily in response to my questions, instead offering long vignettes about politics and the stark realities of being a full-time musician. 

On stage, McKay has a similarly discursive way of speaking, mixing funny anecdotes, political pleas, and stammering self-effacement.

But once McKay strikes a piano key, everything flows. Words stream from her gorgeous voice with confidence and warmth. The quirkiness that defines her conversations gives way to sass and power, and listeners get invited into her world -- which is not of this era.

Doogatron is one of three acts performing at the Ann Arbor Synth Expo (AASE) on Saturday, November 9 at AADL's downtown location. Below is an interview we did with the group earlier this year, prefaced by a band update written by synth player Stevie:

We've mostly been recording and trying different workflows this year. These new processes have yielded a few singles we're excited about releasing next year. Ann Arbor Synth Expo will probably be the only chance to hear some bits and pieces of those before we put them out. We also did some remixes this year that we're debating on releasing or just keeping in our back pocket to play at shows. The last of four EPs we're releasing this year is out on Friday, 11/15/19. The other three are currently available on our Bandcamp and all streaming platforms. Mike moved to Brooklyn in May so he won't be appearing with us at the AASE but he recorded with us quite a bit earlier this year and he might continue recording with us remotely.

Synth music is often a solitary exercise. It's easy enough for one person to program all the music and not have to deal with band dynamics.

Electronic music duos are more common and count influential acts such as Orbital, Mouse on Mars, Autechre, Boards of Canada, Coil, and many more in those ranks.

Less common is a synthesizer trio, quartet, or quintet, but there is a rich history of synth groups, too, from Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Harmonia, Throbbing Gristle, Add N to (X), and Hot Chip. The combination of personalities mixed with live playing over sequenced sections gives the music a more human quality, and Washtenaw County trio Doogatron is part of this lineage.

Stevie, Kyle, and Mike -- family names are for families -- make loose-limbed techno that mixes programmed parts on computer and live playing on vintage synths. The group's sound is elastic and trippy even as it's framed by linear rhythms. 

Doogatron's self-titled debut LP came out Nov. 2, 2018, and the group has followed that with a New Year's Day 2019 mix of original tunes, reworked album cuts, and earlier tunes initially heard on Soundcloud. In February, Doogatron will release the first of at least four EPs/singles scheduled for this year. "Each release comes from one continuous recording session," Stevie said, "so each track will serve as a part one, part two, part three experience," starting with "Before Subsidized Time" b/w "After Subsidized Time."

Stevie gave us the lowdown on Doogatron's history, name, and work process.

A piece of jazz history has found a permanent home in Ann Arbor.

Don Hicks, owner of the Blue LLama Jazz Club, won a auction on October 29 for one of three trumpets Miles Davis commissioned in 1980 when he was coming off a five-year performing hiatus.

Christie's auction house in New York City put a pre-sale estimate on the instrument’s value between $70,000 and $100,000, but as you can see in the video below, a flurry of bids pushed the cost to $220,000 -- and with the addition of Christie's commission, the final price for the trumpet was $275,000.

I went to the pond not to fish, not to swim, but to listen to experimental music.

And all I heard was silence.

It's not because the University of Michigan's Digital Music Ensemble (DME) was performing John Cage's 4'33". The group, under the guidance of Professor Stephen Rush, had worked up a piece inspired by Brian Eno's Music for Airports, the landmark 1978 ambient record that was built by having pre-recorded tape loops of varying lengths go in and out of phase with each another.

The DME's Pond Music XVII: Brian Eno’s Music for Airports -- or more colloquially on the promo posters, Pond Music for Airports -- was created by students who wrote and performed the short music segments that were then committed to tape. The DME artists then spliced the tapes and loaded them onto old reel-to-reel machines, which were set up in front of the retention pond behind the Earl V. Moore Building, which is the home of the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance, located on North Campus.