Extended Play

 

About

 

Extended Play (EXP) was/is a celebration of longer-form audio recordings; it occurs when one of Earth's poles is at max tilt toward the Sun, and takes form as a DJ style event. The first extended play was organized by Ben Sisto, who DJs under the name Robert Rhymin’. EXP is a public domain idea with no fixed rules, but for the first one, guidelines were:

  • Songs must be at least 10 minutes long

  • Play music for the longest duration possible (here, the venue hours were 4pm-12am)

  • Try to plan a set as close to the time avail as possible (8 hours)

  • Try to minimize the number of works (max here would be 48 10-min tracks)

  • Play music you actually like / would want to hear out at a bar

  • Consider the venue’s flow (after work crowd, what it’s like at 8pm, late into the night, etc)




EXP 001 Recap

 

Extended Play 001
Thursday June 20, 2024, 4:00 PM - 12:00 AM
Myrtle, East Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Runtime: 7:55:29; 26 works

John Coltrane, One Down, One Up (Live At The Half Note), 0:27:32
Soft Machine, Slightly All The Time (Remastered 2006), 0:18:10
Miles Davis, Spanish Key, 0:17:32
Erykah Badu, Green Eyes, 0:10:04
Nina Simone, Sinnerman, 0:10:04
Kendrick Lamar, Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst, 0:12:04
Fela Kuti, Up Side Down, 0:14:45
Brute Force, Ye-Le-Wa, 0:14:35
Le Super Djata Band, Fongnana Kouma, 0:10:57
Hugh Masekela, The Band Began To Play, 0:19:04
Grachan Moncur III, New Africa, 0:17:30
Konono No. 1, Mama Liza, 0:10:22
Tangerine Dream, Ricochet (Part One + Two), 0:38:15
Pink Floyd, Echoes, 0:23:23
NEU!, Hallogallo, 0:10:07
Television, Marquee Moon, 0:10:38
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, The Dripping Tap, 0:18:17
Iron Maiden, Rime of the Ancient Mariner (2015 Remaster), 0:13:45
Sleep, Dopesmoker, 1:03:36
Noothgrush, Daize, 0:13:56
Kraftwerk, Autobahn (2009 Remaster), 0:22:47
Autechre, Garbagemx, 0:14:11
Aphex Twin, sekonda e,+2, 0:10:44
Goldie, Timeless, 0:21:00
Donna Summer, MacArthur Park Suite, 0:17:47
Dominique Lawalree, Le Secret Blanc, 0:14:24

 

Note: Not all songs are on Spotify; playlist above is 30 min short.

 

Project Notes

 

  • Anyone can host an Extended Play event, so long as you have some long audio, a playback venue, and the program runs on the summer solstice.

  • Long is subjective. An eight-minute pop song might be considered fairly long, whereas it’s a normal runtime for a disco edit. Sleep’s Dopesmoker clocks in at 63:63 which is pretty long, but it’s short in comparison to John Cage’s in-progress As Slow as Possible. 23 Reasons to Play Grindcore from Bucket Full of Teeth clocks in at 4:24 which doesn’t feel long, until you compare it to other tracks that are 5-25 seconds long. What about DJ Screw’s June 27? A 24 hour field recording of a field, played back to the same field might be fun, if not confusing for the creatures living there. There’s really no rule—long form is whatever feels long to you.

  • Extended Play was founded by an artist called Ben Sisto, who also maintains this website. It is loose, decentralized idea subject to interpretation by anyone who’d like to get in on the fun. A good reference point is Rafaël Rozendaal’s Bring Your Own Beamer project.

  • Extended Play events are intended to be free and open to the public. Suggested donations are allowed so long as no individual would be denied entry based on lack of funds.

  • Extended Play is CC-O, or in the Public Domain. This means anyone can do whatever they’d like with the name, logo, concept, etc. Ben Sisto maintains this website, which you can think of as the first Extended Play website more than the only one possible.

  • Extended Play’s logo was created by Elizabeth Goodspeed.