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I'm sorry I didn't extract the text while I had the access, but here are both pages of the NATIONAL AFFAIRS article. Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 |
Avant-Pop... and Space Ghost
I took a trip out to my city's antique mall this afternoon for the first time this year. When I arrived I was surprised to find two They Might Be Giants singles featuring exclusive tracks which were only otherwise available on the 1997 oddities compilation, THEN: The Earlier Years. (The set is fantastic - an absolute essential tour of the duo's earliest recordings.)
http://i.imgur.com/s5dATeMl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/tjD0adkl.jpg But the greatest value of my trip was, as always, my conversation with my favorite vendor, Bob the Record Guy. He always knows what titles to pull for me. I chatted him up for his knowledge about the music scene between 1976 and 1984, particularly the better parts of new wave, essentials of no wave, post-punk, avant/art-pop, and gothic/ethereal wave classics. He was happy to make a number of recommendations and sent me home with a few albums to get me started. I confess that many of the artists and albums listeners take it as read that I would know are entirely new to me at present. Born in '81, I was a touch too young for it all the first go-round and by the time I hit the age of history-combing musical discovery in college, the all-consuming craze was experimental electronic, ambient, and post-rock music. So while I'm well-versed in late 60s/early 70s synth music and 90s indie pop, my knowledge of that seminally developmental decade in between is limited to my memories of MTV flashback syndication and of dollar bin comp cassettes of 80s radio pop. (And damn it, I'm sick and tired of "Always Something There to Remind Me.") http://i.imgur.com/INTFxZgl.jpg Terrible cassette I purchased at a Lechmere department store in 1992. From what Bob had immediately available, he sent me home with Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's 1984 LP, Junk Culture, (with a startlingly-clearly labeled one-sided 7" single). While the band's first four LPs showcase OMD at the best, I was happy to pick up anything for starters. http://i.imgur.com/H1ljNKpl.jpg But it was the next record I was given which became my favorite discovery of the day. While discussing no wave and other manic, atonal music of the 80s, Bob pulled out a copy of Lounge Lizards' Big Heart - Live in Tokyo (1986). He explained that, while the album is certainly a far cry from the aggressive dissonance of albums like No New York, that it might serve as a fitting introduction to 80s exercises in what Ornette Coleman termed, harmolodics. http://i.imgur.com/7wehsUil.jpg For those unfamiliar, wiki says, "Harmolodics may loosely be defined as an expression of music in which harmony, movement of sound, and melody all share the same value..." resulting in music which "...achieves an immediately open expression, without being constrained by tonal limitations, rhythmic pre-determination, or harmonic rules." While I am well-acquainted with standards of free/avant-garde jazz, (I have many of the essentials in my record library), what I didn't realize was how this philosophy had been embraced by Sonny Sharrock and utilized in his composition of the theme to Adult Swim's Space Ghost Coast to Coast. Bob brought up the track as an example of harmolodics, and spun several tracks from Big Heart which sounded quite similar to the theme. While the first two selections from Big Heart fall a bit flat, those patient enough to go deeper into the record will find that it is arguably the best effort of their catalog. Home from our outing, I'm surveying my finds of the day and looking forward to more discoveries of albums I should have listened to ages ago. Bob also recommended that I explore the cassette-only label, ROIR (Reachout International Records) founded in 1981 for more great music. Thanks, Bob! |
It was through ROIR that I first discovered Glenn Branca. I remember actually calling the label on the phone and they answered questions I had about Branca's music. That was back before you could just google everything.
ROIR and RRRecords were both so cool back then. So was this zine called Sound Choice that was focused on the cassette culture stuff of that era. There was also Cityzens for Non-Linear Futures. |
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Long Slow Slippy / Eventually But
I've just given a first-listen to Underworld's limited edition special single for the new edit of "Born Slippy.NUXX" which appears in Trainspotting 2. The single arrived in a die-cut jacket with no inserts or download codes, confirming that this mix and its b-side are exclusive to this single. NME reported the tracklist for the movie soundtrack which features the b-side with a parenthetical 'Spud’s Letter to Gail’ tagged onto the title, and a shorter edit of the a-side, "Long Slow Slippy" will appear as the album closer under the title, "Slow Slippy."
http://i.imgur.com/MNtaoEJl.jpg Side A is fairly cut and dry - it's just born slippy.NUXX slowed down a bit. Not remarkable in its own right but perhaps it will have greater significance when I see its use in the film. (Sadly TS2 has yet to hit the States and I'd like to see it proper in the theatre.) The same goes doubly-so for the b-side. While there is nothing quite as slippy as the original .NUXX, I am fond of a few oddball/fringe mixes which have surfaced over the years. The first is the "Dictionaraoke Remix" by Stop Children, from around the time AVid's mixes were circulating. It's basically a Google Dictionary recitation of Karl's lyrics with the a canned backing beat. The mechanical delivery is really hilarious and worth checking out. The other is "Born Sleepy", an ambient downtempo interpretation of .NUXX. Nice for a bit of a wind-down. I don't see it on YouTube at present but there are still copies kicking about. But in my recollections of Slippy mixes past and present, there was a faint memory of Karl slowly speaking the lyrics in a measured, low-register tone - a track I hadn't spun in years and couldn't quite place. Thankfully, a bit of digging through my collection, (I have 16 hours of Slippy mixes, alone) produced the track in question - it was an official mix released exclusively on the Born Slippy remix CD [V2 – V2CP 166] issued only in Japan. The track is called "Born Slippy (Down Version)" and features the aforementioned ultra-slow vocals by Karl which work perfectly for this edit. Track it down - it's really enjoyable. http://i.imgur.com/mPZgeJ1l.jpg Where it all began - The original Born Slippy .NUXX on Junior Boys Own, UK May 1st, 1995 and the WaxTrax!/TVT US CD maxi single from 1996. |
ISB’s First Survey of Black Metal (courtesy of The Batlord)
http://i.imgur.com/pQ1zbsil.jpg
This evening, Batty kindly recommended a few tracks as an introduction to black metal. What follows are my initial impressions of each song. Drudkh- Wind Of The Night Forest From the very first seconds of the first selection’s introduction, it was instantly apparent that black metal has a strong focus on atmospheric elements. This hypothesis was confirmed by each of the tracks that followed. The vocals on “Wind of the Night Forest” are primarily guttural growling, but the low-fidelity mixing blends them awash into all of the instrumentation. I enjoyed it very much. Agalloch - In the Shadow of Our Pale Companion I’d anticipated a faster tempo to be the norm for the genre, but as UltimateGuitar.com contributor, Morgal notes in his Basics of Black Metal feature, there is quite a range of tempo in this genre. Morgal stated that it usually ranged between 140bpm (for bands such as Mayhem, Nargaroth, and Gorgoroth) up to 200+bpm (for Satyricon, Dark Funeral, and Dimmu Borgir). Coming from a position of preference as an ambient, modern classical, and downtempo electronic listener, I found the slower, instrumental selections Batlord shared to be perfectly enjoyable. Agalloch’s “In the Shadow of Our Pale Companion” was one of my favorites from his offering. It's dark but surprisingly melodic instrumentation and extended track length served for wonderful atmospheric sonic wallpaper to my research and writing this evening. Dødheimsgard - Ion Storm The third track, from Dødheimsgard was noticeably faster-paced, with relentlessly hammering percussion and a few noise elements which I could not place concretely but which definitely added intrigue to the selection. Despite the noise and clamor, there are still melodic characteristics which make the track approachable and palatable even for the novice. Deathspell Omega - Abscission Deathspell Omega was characteristically similar to the previous track, but with more coherent growling vocals which rise above the instrumentation instead of being soaked deep inside them. There is a more dissonant element to the composition here during the verse structure, which certainly piqued my interest. It’s always refreshing to hear a melodic structure depart from the traditional fixed musical phrases so overused in the 20th century. Blut Aus Nord - The Choir of the Dead “The Choir of the Dead” by Blut Aus Nord was by far the most punk-inspired of Batlord’s set. The track is stripped down to an ultra dirty, low-fi mix of mud and noise. Progressions are foregone and instead replaced with a few single notes moaning up and down in pitch. The percussion is aggressive and minimalist, keeping the high-energy and speed of the track as its focused strengths. But unlike its punk brethren, Blut Aus Nord carries the track for nearly seven minutes until the listener transitions from active listening to a nearly-passive and more atmospheric perception. I can see how this might be a definitive characteristic of the genre. Katharsis - So Nail the Hearts Batlord saved the greatest challenge for last. There is still a punk-inspired spirit to this closing recording, particularly in the relationship between the percussion and the guitar. About a minute into the track the vocals decay into indecipherable demon-like speech, as if a mic with a heavy echo chamber was placed ten feet from the vocalist and his shouting was left to be consumed by all the instrumentation between himself and the mic. Without a focus on lyrical content, the track, however abrasive, once again takes on an atmospheric property which I found captivating. Melody is entirely forsaken. And it sounds as if the band is performing from deep within a pit and the listener is standing, gazing down into the blackness from where the reverberated howling comes forth. And clocking in at over thirteen minutes, the track certainly has an exhausting impact on the listener, most apparent when the silence of the room return as suddenly as it was broken. Thanks, Batlord - this was a most enjoyable experience! |
I most certainly did not expect you to actually like (I assume) all the tracks. I guessed you'd hate all of them tbh. Not that I was trolling you, but I kinda expected you to not really like what you heard but maybe appreciate aspects of at least certain songs. But if you're ever interested in more, then I or many other people on this site I'm sure would be happy to rec you more. Black metal is one of this site's specialities.
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You should should start a review thread.
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but there's reviews for days in here
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I meant a thread where he reviews other members' recommendations.
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I don't even remember yours tbh. |
the one in my journal :(
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Manhattan Research Incorporated - The Magic of Raymond Scott
Tonight's magical listening comes following a heartwarming post by The Bob Moog Foundation and The Raymond Scott Archives. The Archives had recently published a recording of Bob Moog talking about his time with Raymond Scott in the 1950's when Bob was barely 20 years old. Scott was one of the first musician clients that Bob had direct exposure to, and the experiences with Scott marked Bob's early thinking about the expansiveness of the musical universe.
Tune into the 4-minute clip here! It inspired me to pull my copy of the Manhattan Research Inc 3LP set issued by Basta Records in The Netherlands to revisit the wonders of Raymond Scott's work. For those unfamiliar, you may know Scott from the recording, "Powerhouse" famously used in several classic Rube Goldberg machine sequences in Merrie Melodies cartoons. The track was also sampled in the intro of Soul Coughing's "Bus to Beelzebub." Here is the original recording: And here is an official "machine montage" cut by Warner Bros and hosted by The Ramond Scott Archives: And Soul Coughing's classic track: Here's my copy of the 3-volume set. http://i.imgur.com/yU0iEwNl.jpg Fortunately, the entire set is archived on YouTube - check it out! It is also worth mentioning that the set features a collaboration with a young Jim Henson from around the time of Henson's existential college film, The Cube. You can watch the full film here - The short was titled, LIMBO: The Organized Mind and an animation sequence was produced for it in the early 60s. Enjoy! |
Salvador Dali RETURNS to Innerspace!
I've wonderful news, dear friends! Back in August of 2012, due to financial struggles I had to part with a magnificent piece of music history - a rare copy of Salvador Dalí's opéra-poème, Être Dieu. After discussing the piece with a fellow music lover, I revisited the market and as luck would have it, found what is likely the very copy I sold in 2012 available for purchase and at a very reasonable price. I wasted not a moment and placed my order, and today it arrived home safely!
For those not familiar with this ill-fated opera, the title translates to “Being God.” The six-part work features Dalí as God, Brigitte Bardot as an artichoke and Catherine the Great and Marilyn Monroe doing a striptease. (Because dadaism.) Être Dieu suffered an astonishingly tragic history. It was originally published in an extremely rare 3LP box set by DCD, a small Spanish label with only 28 other releases to its name. It was re-released in a 3CD box published by German label Eurostar who subsequently went out of business, and there are few-to-no known performances of the work. Worse still, Dalí painted "Self-Portrait" (1972) to mark the composition of the opera, but the painting was auctioned by the United States Customs Service after being seized after Colombian drug lords tried to use the painting to launder money. (Salvador seriously couldn’t get a break!) But a few copies of Eurostar’s deluxe edition survived. This edition is packaged in a blue velvet box set with a metallic gold engraving of Dalí's signature, as well as a 326-page book containing scans of the original handwritten script, notes, and libretto in English, French, German & Spanish. While Dalí, himself experienced great misfortune with this work, I am happy to report that good luck has come at last with its return to the Innerspace library. Special thanks to the fellow listener out there who planted the seed of desire for me to reclaim this lost objet d'art! (Note - at present Imgur is experiencing difficulties, so if the images do not display below please visit again later - this is really a beautiful piece! Or you can view the original Wordpress feature with the images intact here.) http://i.imgur.com/xLm3oMol.jpg http://i.imgur.com/6ZM8vPkl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/OG6jdx0l.jpg http://i.imgur.com/a5Dt62gl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/GTri9HBl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/DIO0Rcpl.jpg |
Modern Classical Highlights of 2016
OccultHawk mentioned last night that 2016 was a fantastic year for modern classical and its related subgenres. As a tremendous fan of the genre who has sadly neglected its exploration for the last several years, I instantly set myself to the task of righting this wrong. A quick RYM custom chart instantly revealed new titles from modern classical mainstays which I know I'll have to pick up - Iceland's Jóhann Jóhannsson's nineteen album discography, (most recently the Orphée album and the film scores to Arrival and Sicario), Ólafur Arnalds' Island Songs, Max Richter's Sleep Remixes, and Nils Frahm / Ólafur Arnalds' Trance Frendz. Library Tapes' Escapism also sounded good from a brief sampling, as well as the 2015 album Yume by an old favorite, Helios (and his latest work titled Sometimes performing under his Goldmund moniker). Both projects are long-standing favorites of mine. In about 4 minutes, OccultHawk's comment inspired an entire weekend of exploratory listening. And this will be much-needed medicine for melancholy working through all that I have going on at present. Tune in with me if you'd like. It's wonderful stuff. I'll embed a few highlights below. Many of these are complete album playlists. Spoiler for Enjoy!:
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Thanks for the props, bro.
Lisa Suckdog- Drugs are Nice |
2015 release, but Field Recordings by Bang on a Can All-Stars is wonderful. Actually, just check out their whole discog.
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but even tho it was nice to experience it, there seems to be some strange need lately for some composers - younger ones like Jóhannsson and older guys like Gavin Bryars (whose "The Fifth Century" I saw live just 30 minutes later as well as "Jesus' Blood..." and "...Titanic" two days later) - to want to suddenly be the next John Taverner (the 20th/21st Century one, not the 16th Century one). The extra redeeming quality tho, for me, is that he is still young(ish) and willing to work with a nice cross-section of younger composers/performers that he seems to feed off of in a creative way. |
This is still by far my favorite journal. I think I'll live in here for a few days and find some good stuff.
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Perpetual Dawn: The Orb Has Arrived at Last!
It was Pledgemusic’s announcement which first alerted me to the monumental event which was pending in the summer of 2016. The Pledgemusic website reported that:
“On Friday 29th July 2016, electronic titans The Orb will perform their seminal debut album ‘Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld’ in full for the first time ever, to mark its 25th anniversary. For this very special sliver jubilee gig, Alex Paterson and Thomas Fehlmann will be joined on stage by the original cast of collaborators who helped create the magic on this influential, era-defining milestone, plus a special punk icon whose music heavily influenced The Orb. Paul Cook of Sex Pistols fame will guest on drums and fellow punk legend, original Orb member and ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’ co-writer Youth will join on bass. Psychedelic-electronic-prog heroes Steve Hillage and partner Miquette Giraudy co-wrote ‘Supernova’ and ‘Backside Of The Moon’, and will also bring their mythical shamanistic magic to this special show. If all that wasn’t coup enough fellow ‘Ultraworld’ contributors Andy Falconer, Tom Green and Hugh Vickers will also guest, whilst original Orb lighting wizard David Herman will transform Electric Brixton into a vintage fractal technical wonderland. Amidst the late 80s fervor of acid house The Orb explored their own meandering tangent, drawing on hip hop sample culture, krautrock, kosmische, ambience and a wealth of unusual and unlikely sound sources. In doing so they pioneered a more horizontally-inclined alternative to the jacking trax emanating from discerning nightclubs’ main rooms. http://i.imgur.com/pdnPQGdl.png Following a limited number of prototype 12”s from early pre-Orb incarnations, ‘Ultraworld’ was The Orb’s first fully formed, double album realization of the sonic sculpture they’d been finessing, amidst a punk-schooled period of fertile, no-rules creativity. The album was a critical and chart smash that soundtracked a generation. It still sounds amazing today and its influence on subsequent decades of dance music is immeasurable.” It had already been a thrilling year – The Avalanches reissued their album, Since I Left You in the UK and Europe to the delight of fans the world over, the Ann Arbor label, Ghostly International reissued Telefon Tel Aviv’s ambient glitch epic Fahrenheit Fair Enough on sky blue wax, John Carpenter issued the second volume of his Lost Themes collection, electronic music veterans, Underworld released Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future to great critical acclaim, proving they still have every ounce of their musical prowess, Klaus Schulze and the late Pete Namlook released a box set of the first four volumes of their ambient Dark Side of the Moog series, and Brian Eno outdid himself for the hundredth time with the ethereal and meditative album, The Ship which had the astonishing ability to stop time with each play. But it was the anticipation of this reunion of the icons of ambient house which captivated me for the remainder of the year. Sadly, there were delays with the production of the vinyl release. Many, many months passed with infrequent updates from the Live Here Now team. Eventually, the 3CD+DVD edition arrived in the States, but it was the triple blue vinyl edition I was really waiting to get my hand on. Thankfully, today – May 12, 2017 the long-awaited package arrived from the UK. http://i.imgur.com/riU8gqXl.jpg The Orb’s Further Adventures Live 2016 was available exclusively from PledgeMusic or at The Orb show at the Royal Festival Hall in London on the 21st of April 2017. The CD edition also features interviews with Alex, Thomas, Youth, Paul Cook, Steve Hillage & Miquette Giraudy, all of whom participated in the event. The 180g bright blue discs are housed in a heavy triple-gatefold jacket matching that of the CD+DVD release. The packaging and albums are of excellent quality all throughout, making this set well worth the wait. http://i.imgur.com/lSxfUg8l.jpg This is a wonderful treasure for any fan of The Orb, of chillout music, and for anyone who spent their college days on the backside of the moon. An exciting performance, expertly captured and mastered, documenting a real milestone event for all those involved. If you buy only one tripped-out exclusive dub-inspired space music anniversary concert album reuniting a generation of the gods of ambient house this century… make it this one. |
Music in Snaketime
The review below was drafted for The Album Club 2017 thread, which I highly recommend for anyone interested in discovering great albums suggested by our own members. It is an honor to participate in that discussion, and I felt compelled to share the review of my own album offering for the thread which has its turn at bat this very week for those who might not partake in the thread directly. Enjoy!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...g_album%29.jpg “Machines were mice and men were lions once upon a time. But now that it's the opposite it's twice upon a time.” Moondog is one of the most pivotal and iconic figures of the classical avant-garde. The man certainly commanded attention - a blind, long-bearded fellow often adorned with a cloak and Viking-style horned helmet living on the streets of New York City, he quickly earned the moniker, The Viking of 6th Avenue. But his eccentricity was far from superficial, and Moondog (1969) serves an as exquisite specimen of his unique compositional style and his expertly-seamless fusion of classical and jazz musics. And how many individuals can claim to have ascended from street musicianship to conducting the Brooklyn Philharmonic in their lifetimes? In the early ‘40s when Moondog moved to New York, he met Leonard Bernstein, Charlie Parker, and Benny Goodman, the influence of which is certainly evident throughout his catalog, but particularly so on Moondog (1969). The upbeat tempos and often humorous compositional style of this LP are likely the result of these encounters. The album's opening selections, “Theme” and “Stamping Ground”, (aka “that song from Lebowski”), are instantly indicative of the sort of ride you're in for with this record. The tracks are epic and theatrical, with a lush orchestral quality. But simultaneously, there is a humbling intimacy and a flare of smart minimalism at play all throughout the album, adding an understated intellectualism to the whimsical interplay of traditional and invented instrumentation. Tracks like “Symphonique #3 (Ode to Venus)” and the brief vocal interludes sprinkled throughout work brilliantly to counterpoint the captivating rhythmic energy of selections like “Symphonique #6 (Good for Goodie)” and “Lament I (Bird's Lament).” There’s a curious and mysterious mannerism to the music on this record, and its inspiration reveals the nature of its oddity. In an interview with Robert Scotto, who went on to publish his biography, Moondog described his music as being directly inspired from street sounds, characterized by what he called "snaketime", described as "a slithery rhythm, in times that are not ordinary,” and saying, “I'm not gonna die in 4/4 time". It is this snaketime that gives Moondog’s compositions their enchanting peculiarity. There’s an off-beat, quirky eccentricity and playfulness to every one of the songs here, and together they form a cohesive and rewarding listening experience unlike any other. 10/10 |
I'm listening to it now and really dig it. Thanks for sharing it!
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Reflective Music - Learning How To Listen All Over Again
It began with a revisitation to Morton Feldman's Rothko Chapel / Why Patterns? album. Headphones fit cozily around my ears, I’d decided to disappear from my office environment one Sunday afternoon and explore the more thoughtful headspace afforded by Feldman’s tranquil piano melodies. I was instantly transported, and the record prepared me for some reflective and solemn music to while away the hours at my desk. Resultantly, I soon found myself compiling a list of essential listening I was keen to either revisit or to explore for the first time in the spirit of that mood.
http://i.imgur.com/5NLB6bol.jpg Morton Feldman - Rothko Chapel / Why Patterns? The list would be a survey of key recordings of German ambient music both classic and contemporary. Berliner ambient essentials including:
I was awestruck by the listening experience of the first three recordings, so much in fact that I remained with them for the duration of the week. I spent days and nights immersed in Richter’s Sleep, never tiring of the fundamentally succinct central theme which carries throughout the entire opus. And even now, six days later, I am still reveling in the gentle elegance of Frahm and Arnalds’ pastoral melodies. http://i.imgur.com/vPWQ71jl.jpg A distilled vinyl edition of Max Richter's 8.5-hour epic But more importantly, I found that I was not engaging these works as I had so often approached 20th-century music. I confess that I've routinely engaged recordings in an overtly academic fashion. I obsessed over structure, form, and socio-cultural context. I preoccupied my mind with where each composition fell in relationship to the artist’s other works. I examined music so critically, that I failed to experience it emotionally. There were notable exceptions to this standard - particularly those ambient recordings I chose to engage through music meditation. When consuming specific works of consequence for the first time, (and again thereafter if they became beloved favorites), I would don my circumaural cans, swaddle myself in blankets, extinguish all lamps, lay still in bed, and let the music fill me. The most recent album to receive this treatment was Brian Eno’s monumentally intimate album, The Ship from 2016. http://i.imgur.com/lNRw5Yol.jpg Brian Eno - The Ship What I found so arresting about these contemporary releases from the top of my list was that they explored the ambient genre differently than by their vintage predecessors. I quickly surveyed the albums and discovered that I had developed an affinity for post-minimalism. Borne of a reactionary movement to the impersonality of minimalist works in the 1960s, these artists aimed to resolve minimalism's often cold and over-intellectual nature by introducing more expressive qualities, often evoking the body and aspects of sexuality. The resulting works are intimately affecting, soothing, and serene with more organic sonic textures than the mechanics of traditional minimalism. It was that very quality which inspired in me such a novel and emotional response. Frahm’s Felt LP exquisitely embraced these organic elements, captured in its unique compositional process. http://i.imgur.com/mP1vjBhl.jpg From the ErasedTapes label’s website: Having recorded his last album live in a large, reverberant church, Nils Frahm now invites you to put on your headphones and dive into a world of microscopic and delicate sounds – so intimate that you could be sitting beside him.It is his emphasis of those very sounds, which in traditional recording would be trimmed away as nuisance rather than beauty, which make Felt such an intimate and captivating listen. To quote a card from Eno's Oblique Strategies deck - "Emphasise the flaws." I found myself holding my breath so as not to miss the curious “non-musical” sounds present in the recording. I permitted the music to create a space for pure experience, rather than considered analysis, which I found immeasurably rewarding and satisfying. And it is that exemption from quantification - the absence of left-brained cognitive study which freed my mind to just enjoy the music. I don’t feel compelled to pore over academic texts examining post-minimalism. I feel no urge to read critical papers from music journalists on the merit or inferiority of works of this musical category. I just want to experience it. And that is wonderful. |
The Lost Classic of Hip House Plunderphonia
"All sounds on this recording have been captured by the KLF in the name of mu. We hereby liberate these sounds from all copyright restrictions, without prejudice."
The statement appears around the center label of The KLF's very first full-length recording, published under what would be the first of many monikers, The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. John Higgs notes in his book, The KLF: Chas, Magic, and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds that the name, lifted from The Illuminatus! trilogy represented "the principle of chaos working against the corporate music industry, a guerilla band of musical anarchists who existed to disrupt, confuse and destroy." The year was 1987, and Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty were pillaging the music industry with reckless abandon. The album, titled 1987 What The **** Is Going On? could never be reissued in today's world of militant copyright litigation. The record makes liberal use of samples ripped from massive artists who would be untouchable in the 21st century, including Stevie Wonder, The Fall, Beatles, ABBA, The Monkees, The J.B.s, Dave Brubeck, Sex Pistols, Scott Walker, Led Zeppelin and Bo Diddley. http://i.imgur.com/Xi5MK3El.jpg You don't make friends in the music industry by sampling just about the entire refrain of ABBA's "Dancing Queen", and the duo was promptly investigated by the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society, who in August of that year ordered The JAMs to recall and destroy all unsold copies of 1987. In an effort to salvage the project, The JAMs traveled to Sweden with the remaining copies of the album hoping to negotiate with ABBA. Sadly, the band wouldn't hear of it, and so, quite ceremoniously, The JAMs burnt the remaining LPs in a pyre in the Swedish countryside, the scene depicted on the front and back covers of their 1988 JAMs farewell, Who Killed the JAMs. The album featured the track, "Burn the Bastards," a sample-heavy celebration of the fire set to house music. http://i.imgur.com/YDIjhN6l.jpg 1987 stands as a piece of history - a snapshot of a sliver of time when an act of plunderphonia like this was still possible. It embodied the ideas of sampling, hip-hop, and Discordianism and somehow, it all made sense together. Higgs contextualizes the intent and the perception of this recording: "If and when The JAMs are remembered today, it is for their pioneering role in establishing sampling as a legitimate creative act in modern music. In many ways, that misses what it was they were doing." While today's understanding of sampling concerns itself with manipulating and reshaping elements of a recording and repurposing them for something new, The JAMs had something else in mind. "They took things not for how they sounded, but for what they represented," Higgs explains. "When they took parts of ABBA and The Beatles, it was not because of the quality of the sound, but very specifically because they were records by ABBA and The Beatles." The act was an exercise in what the Situationists called, détournement, which involves taking the cultural images forced upon us and using them instead for our own ends. Remix culture really came into its own in the digital age, where the technology to rip and reshape culture became democratized to the point where any 13-year-old can start remixing and mashing copyrighted works. But in 1987, just two years after John Oswald's Plunderphonics EP was released, and at the dawn of Negativland, this was still new and unplundered territory in the world of music. And the world is waiting for August 23rd, when The KLF will close their 23-year contractual hiatus, returning to the eternal question asked with their first release. What the **** is going on? http://i.imgur.com/vqYp0VCl.jpg Photography by: The KLF |
Pastoral Melodies for Tranquil Times
It’s been quite a period of transition for this audiophile. Developing a sense of love of self sufficient to purge toxic influences from my life, I quickly found that I no longer needed the endless pursuit of shiny black discs in a vain effort to fill a void that could not be sated with material objects, nor to strive hopelessly to outrun myself.
Instead, with this new lens of perspective, I find myself investing my energy in self-discovery and in building mutually rewarding relationships. And in this new light, I’m able to enjoy discovering new music, and selectively choosing exceptional works to invest in, to actually play and experience rather than to sit upon a shelf. My collection no longer owns me, and that makes discoveries like these all the more satisfying. In months past, I’d only briefly acquainted myself with The Penguin Cafe Orchestra, primarily with their “Penguin Cafe Single” - their theme if you will. But the time felt right and I found myself in a space where I could really engage their music, and so I settled in one quiet evening and listened to their first two albums. http://i.imgur.com/OVpUXFol.jpg It was an exquisite experience. The music of The Penguin Cafe Orchestra is tranquil, eclectic, and magically pastoral. The albums are classified as works of minimalism but are impressively dynamic recordings. Rich with subtly and understatedly intricate instrumentation, their music is a seamless and masterful blending of an impressive roster of genres, weaving together classical and contemporary elements. The result is magical and elegantly surreal. Released as a double album set in Japan in 85, PCO’s first two albums are a wonderful pairing. The melodies are refined and artful but instantly accessible. There is no snobbery or exclusivity to this music - it is simply an enjoyable listening experience for anyone with a patient and open mind. http://i.imgur.com/SMsokPxl.jpg These records are stubbornly difficult to label or classify. Spanning a broad range of influences from classical to jazz, featuring middle eastern or perhaps Indian inspired drones, as well as Cajan, traditional folk melodies, African rhythms, and more, these elements blend seamlessly into marvelous soundscapes and musical vignettes reminiscent of Moondog's symphoniques. There is a timeless serenity to these recordings, and I'm grateful that I was at last ready to let them into my life at a time when they serve as a sensational complement to my headspace of late. For the purpose of this feature, I’ll focus on their debut - Music From the Penguin Cafe. The opening track is one of the project’s best-loved classics - the aforementioned “Penguin Cafe Single.” The track features the eclectic and surreal energies the group would refine and perfect on later albums with songs like, “Air À Danser” from their self-titled follow-up album and “Perpetuum Mobile” from Signs of Life. The second selection is far more explorative - the fifteen-minute “Zopf.” The track features multiple movements, showcasing an array of vintage instruments, a ballad with gentle vocals, and a strings segment, followed by a bizarre avant-garde section with strained utterances of the word "milk", seemingly random dissonant plinking, and vocal percussion. This curious section quickly transitions into a slow and sorrowful string and vocal ballad beginning marked by the words, "the queen is dead". The next segment is a lovely harpsichord melody which quickly builds to a playful conversation of traditional instrumentation. Upon its conclusion, for the final phase of “Zopf” a sparse atmospheric micro movement begins with an out of tune smattering of notes reminiscent of technostalgic telephone pulses or sounds from some similar 1960s electromechanical apparatus. A quick search confirms that the source is a tape loop of a UK telephone ringing - the sound of which was later sampled by the band Spacehog for the opening of their hit, “In the Meantime.” Next up is the beautiful and plaintive, "The Sound of Someone You Love Who's Going Away and it Doesn't Matter.” As the piece progresses it moves into fragmented and frustrated outbursts of notes before returning to its melodic refrain, brilliantly showcasing the dimensional complexity of the title’s emotional state. “Hugebaby” continues the album’s theme of gentle chamber music with a timelessness that simply cannot be touched. A magical theme by which to while away an afternoon lost in thought or dreams. The album closer, “Chartered Flight” unveils itself ever so slowly, unfolding over six and a half minutes to incorporate a variety of strings and blissful chamber melodies. The track is patient, ambling on reflectively with no particular hurry or destination - precisely the headspace it evokes for the listener. From start to finish, Music From The Penguin Cafe is a treasure of heady and engaging arrangements, and some of the most peaceful sounds you’ll ever hear. I really enjoyed an observation from a fellow listener named bpnicast who remarked, “The dispassionate, cerebral atmosphere here creates its own unique space that seems to slow time and demand hushed attention – an emotional connection achieved through stillness and abstraction.” That is precisely what I enjoy about these albums. It will be a pleasure to play them again and again and to share them with those who bring joy into my life. http://i.imgur.com/oDdAfDZl.png Photograph by Steve Gullick |
^ great post and I can relate.
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