rostasi

Well, excerpts of other performances of it (including its world premiere) can be heard online,
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.

Overcast

This is still by far my favorite journal. I think I'll live in here for a few days and find some good stuff.

Lots of good picks right there. I'm gonna check out the one I don't recognize.

Oh very nice, you're lucky. I'd love to experience Jesus' Blood live. It's one of my all-time favorites.

innerspaceboy

Thanks! I'll keep at it!

Such a classic! I still need the LP, as well as a few other key Obscure recordings.

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innerspaceboy

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.



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.



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.



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.

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innerspaceboy

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!



“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

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Zhanteimi

I'm listening to it now and really dig it. Thanks for sharing it!

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LetsTalkMusic

innerspaceboy

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.


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:

• Nils Frahm - Wintermusik and the post-minimalist Felt LP
• Nils Frahm and Ólafur Arnalds collaborative work, Trance Frendz
• British-German composer Max Richter's 8.5-hour post-minimal ambient opus, Sleep, as well as his critically-acclaimed Memoryhouse and The Blue Notebooks LPs
• Thomas Köner (a member of Porter Ricks and Kontakt der Jünglinge) - Permafrost
• Cluster & Eno’s self-titled 1977 album recorded in Cologne
• Eno/Moebius/Roedelius - After the Heat, featuring the haunting album-closers, "The Belldog" and "Tzima N'Arki"
• Alva Noto - Xerrox Vols I & II (the sound of desolation, itself)
• Highlights from Wolfgang Voigt’s recordings under the Gas moniker - Pop, Königsforst, Zauberberg, and his triumphant latest effort, Narkopop
• Popol Vuh’s choral classic, Hosianna Mantra
• Klaus Schulze’s space music debut epic, Irrlicht from 1972
• Hans Zimmer’s score to Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar
• Favorites from Tangerine Dream - the albums Zeit and Phaedra
• And for a taste of ambient darkjazz, Bohren & der Club of Gore’s Black Earth LP

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.


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.


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.



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.

Recorded late at night in the reflective solitude and silence of his studio in Berlin, Frahm uncovers a new sound and source of inspiration within these peaceful moments:

Originally I wanted to do my neighbours a favour by damping the sound of my piano. If I want to play piano during the quiet of the night, the only respectful way is by layering thick felt in front of the strings and using very gentle fingers. It was then that I discovered that my piano sounds beautiful with the damper.

Captivated by this sonic exposition, he placed the microphones so deep inside the piano that they were almost touching the strings. This brought a host of external sounds to the recordings which most producers would try their hardest to hide:

I hear myself breathing and panting, the scraping sound of the piano's action and the creaking of my wooden floorboards – all equally as loud as the music. The music becomes a contingency, a chance, an accident within all this rustling. My heart opens and I wonder what exactly it is that makes me feel so happy.

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.

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innerspaceboy

"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.



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.



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?


Photography by: The KLF

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innerspaceboy

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.



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.



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.


Photograph by Steve Gullick

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MicShazam

^ great post and I can relate.