replacing Hardly Baked whose feed is broken for reasons unknown. Original Hardly Baked + archive are here http://hardlybaked.blogspot.com/
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^"Really awful is more interesting to listen to than pretty good" - Eno
Showing posts with label STUDENT SELECTIONS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label STUDENT SELECTIONS. Show all posts
A student's suggestion for a DIY micro-scene of the 21st Century - Rominimal (Romanian minimal techno)
When I heard it, I thought this is a bit son-of-Villalobos and apparently he is the foundation stone of this sound.
Which is a bit of a for-discerning-types-only scene, I'm told - sophisticated. They drink wine on the dancefloor!
I'd never heard of this sound but the scene has had a smidgeon of attention from the electronic dance media.
As a child I had a phase of being really interested in Romania, or Rumania as it was often rendered then. But for other reasons - I believe it had and still has the largest area of wild forest in Europe and as a result a lot of cool animals (see I was into the idea of being a naturalist when I grew up - my other big obsession as a country was Canada, for similar reasons). Then a bit later I got really into the legend of Vlad the Impaler and did a school project, with the grisly bits penned in red Indian ink. Somewhere in the middle of that, I had a phase of wanting to go on a cruise - and one of the more intriguing ones you would see in the back of colour supplements and the TV Times and Radio Times was a Black Sea cruise that stopped off in Romania. And in our house, we were fans of Ilie Năstase, the literally dashing tennis player with an exciting style of net playing who brightened Wimbledon at a time when remorseless speed machines and baseline playing was starting to dominate. Got a faint memory that he might have soured in his old age, politically speaking, but I could be wrong.
Grown up interests related to that country: the philosopher E.M. Cioran (Oneohtrix Point Never's favorite), who extracted darkly witty aphoristic gems from his melancholy view of the world, a sort of post-Nietzsche Morrissey. There's a lot of cool electronic composers also from that country.
But I am unfamiliar with the popular music of that part of the world, or indeed the underground dance music.
Interesting thing I learned recently - Romanian is not a Slavic language as you'd expect with the Balkans, but a mutant form of Italian (Perhaps that's why it's called Romania - they speak Roman)
The return of Student Selection - a series that never really got started (just one post I think - actually two) but was intended to showcase cool music that my students have turned me onto.
Quite a few classes are based around a prompt - send me a clip of your favorite tune in such-and-such a genre, or sometimes a specific artist (Bowie or Joni). For a recent class on New Wave / Postpunk, a student who is very knowledgeable about the genre nominated this from a Japanese group that shamefully (what with being a postpunk historian and all) I'd never heard of.
Listening it struck me initially as "none-more-New-Wave" - like how could anything be more New Wave than this? The angularity, the synth bit, the strained vocals....
But then, listening more, I discerned an odd resemblance to Led Zeppelin - the beat reminded me of "When the Levee Breaks" (or Billy Squier's Zep-clone "The Stroke"). The vocals get quite soaring and Plant-y. And when the noisy guitarburst comes in, it's excitingly noisy but it's definitely a solo - not so far from something Jimmy Page might let loose.
And what d'ya know? As the knowledgeable student revealed, P-Model is a classic example of the Old Wave / New Wave switcheroo. Before, they had been an unsuccessful prog band and like so many Western counterparts (Police, Cars, etc) they wholesale embraced the New Aesthetic - sonically, sartorially, in terms of record design.
Geometrics heightened by the obi-strip
None-new-wavest of all time, possibly, this back cover:
And not least a significant element of the total make-over is the band name P-Model, which is "we are product" / "we are machines" in its oblique sleekness.
But you can tell these dudes can really really play - they got the chops and in classic crypto-Oldwaver fashion are shoving all that snazz into the strictures of the New Thing.
Listen to the demented clockwork virtuosity of this one
I suppose it's a pointer to the average age of people commenting at this blog that in the Inspirals-inpired thread about artists who take the name in vain of their heroes or heroes's work (as the Carpets did, ach, with "Bitches Brew" - the effrontery! the gall!), that nobody mentioned MGMT, who on a single album, 2010's Congratulations, have a song titled "Brian Eno" and another titled "Song for Dan Treacy".
Eno and Television Personalities are are quite good pointers to their aesthetic, if you also factored in Todd Rundgren, Ariel Pink, Flaming Lips...
So they are Anglophiles but also Anglophile-philes, if you get me.
And maybe some Hot Chip is in there.
Here's the Eno tribute.
So tired, soul searching
I followed the sounds to a cathedral
Imagine my surprise to find that
They were produced by Brian Eno
Past the gates, quite stark
The roses trimmed and the windows dark
I see the walls through a limestone crack
Not red, not blue, not yellow but black
And all the spaces left for you
If the sky was synthesized you'd probably know
He taught me many things
The wisdom of oblique stratagems
The prophet of a sapphire soul
Presented through creative freedoms
And everything I say is true
'Cause if I was telling lies it'd probably show
I can tell that he's kind of smiling
But what does he know?
We're always one step behind him
He's Brian Eno, Brian Eno
When I was stuck he'd make me memorize elaborate curses
Tinctures and formulas to ditch the chorus and flip the verses
My whole foundation came unglued
When I tried to humanize by ambient light
Dipping swords in metaphors, yeah
But what does he know?
We're always one step behind him
He's Brian Eno, Brian Eno
He promised pretty worlds
And all the silence I could dream of
Brian Peter, George St. John
Le Baptiste De La Salle Eno
Well, all alone by the oldest stone
Where the shade trees grow
The creature by the water
Feature with a ghostly glow
Yeah, he's making sure that time's preserved well
We reap what we sow
We're always one step behind him
He's Brian Eno
Yeah, I can tell that he's doing well, yeah
But what does he know?
I'm always one step behind him
He's Brian Eno
Yeah, dipping swords in metaphors, yeah
But what does he know?
I'd like to see him plant a forest 'cause I don't know
Brian Eno
I can tell that he's kind of smiling
But what does he know?
I will always be a step behind him
He's Brian Eno
Yeah, he's making sure that time's preserved well
We reap what we sow
I'm always one step behind him
'Cause I don't know Brian Eno
And here's the Dan Treacy one
He spends his time or maybe half of his time
Or part of the time wandering
'Round the creeks and cobble stones
Of Hackney lanes
With a tear in his eye
As the children walk by, he's thinking of a song
Then stops to paint a picture of a frown
Walking around
Dan Treacy's smile, leaves you trying
To decide who's the victim, what's the crime?
No rest for the mind
That's seen it all before
And I don't know where he lives
But he's a myth of a man
And Texas Bob the cameraman
Is off to fix his seat before the show
Yeah, but where did he go?
To know when your time's up
You flip the glass and watch the hours quickening
Oh, oh, oh
In the back of the station
Fluorescent lights about to quit their flickering
Well, he speaks his mind
He says, "What is crime?"
Dan Treacy's eyes
Stop in the middle of the park
When the underground is dark
He's a poet, he's a lark
He starts thinking about a place that no one knows
And when the creeks run dry, he stays frozen in time
Strange lights in the sky start blinking
I can see the car outside but he's listening
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
He's listening
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
He's listening
Ah, ah, ah, ah
And he's making up his mind
He made his mind up
To get things done and overcome
He made his mind up
Yeah, he's gonna let it go
He made his mind up
In the park and at the station
He made his mind up
Yeah, he's gonna get it done
He made his mind up
Yeah, he's gonna get it done
He made his mind up
Yeah, he's gonna let it go
No matter the time, oh no
When the creeps run by, oh, no
He's making his mind up, oh, oh, oh
Yeah, he's gonna get it done, oh, oh
Yeah, when the creeks run dry, oh, oh
Said yeah, he's gonna listen to his soul
Said yeah, when the creeps walk by
"Come here, boy, look me in the eye"
Bow to the heart, back to the beat of Dan Treacy
I suppose it is the next logical extension of the TVP's own efforts like "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives"
But it also reminds me of the Mighty Boosh...
But yes I'm guessing nobody here listens to MGMT.... I only noticed these songs because a student did a presentation on the group and it reminded me how much I liked the radio hits and had always meant to check out the albums properly.
Nick S in comments points to the original EP version of "Time To Pretend" - more DIY fuzzy
Looking at the presentation, which includes these videos I'd never seen for the hits off the debut, the sort of DIY retro phantasmagoria look of the promos and the sound and the Maus-y / mousy Angloid vocals did remind me of Ariel Pink. None of the students could see the connection but then I found that another favorite tune, "When You Die" was actually a (pre-disgrace) collab with AP, which would explain the dark lyrics maybe. It's another cool video involving trippy animation and Alex Karpovsky, the actor who plays Ray in Girls.
I'm not that nice
I'm mean and I'm evil
Don't call me nice
I'm gonna eat your heart out
I've got some work to do
Baby, I'm ready
I'm ready, ready, ready to blow my lid off
Yeah
Go fuck yourself
You heard me right
Don't call me nice again
Don't you have somewhere to be at seven thirty?
Baby, I'm ready
I'm ready, ready, ready to blow my brains out
You die
And words don't do anything
It's permanently night
And I won't feel anything
We'll all be laughing with you when you die
sourced in this image from "The Heart of Man; Either a Temple of God, or a Habitation of Satan; Represented in Ten Emblematical Figures, an 1851 book by German religious figure Johannes Evangelista Gossner."
MGMT are one of those groups I could never pick out from a police lineup. Like Phoenix or Foster the People (whose "Pumped Up Kicks" very much struck me as a cleaned-up radio-ready rip on Ariel P - bouncy catchy retro-y tune, twisted lyrics about a school shooter). Or the Swedish chaps who do "Young Folks" - Peter Bjorn and John.
These are acts I know only from the rotation they get on modern rock stations in Los Angeles. Which was a lot in the first years we arrived here and were driving around, using the radio, whereas nowadays it tends to be Spotify or Tidal in the car. But you still do hear "Young Folks" or "Lisztomania" on the radio now and then.
Tempting to shove MGMT into the category of Clever Dick Pop just for the production obsession and the retro synth penchant, but I think there is some real feeling in there hiding behind the layered-ness.
They do seem unAmerican - I sort of imagined them being much more popular in France. In fact, Switzerland seems to have a thing for them judging by their chart placings - it was the only place "When You Die" was a proper hit.
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An earlier post on "bands from nowhere" aka faceless rockno bollocks
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update
Here's clever sod Momus with a newish song called "Life With Eno" off an album called Quietism
We did a class called Bring the Noise last week, for which I asked students to bring an example of, you guessed it, noise - however they wanted to construe it, not the genre noise but anything that irrupts sonic business-as-usual.
One student came up with the goods - an artist called Justice Yeldham (quel nom!) who uses shards of broken glass as a sound-making medium - miking it up and putting it through filters and wotnot.... but the catch being that he blows on it to start the vibrations off... and what with it being serrated, often ends up with a cut lip and blood streaming down his chin and throat.
Talk about suffering for your art!
In the grand tradition of Blixa "my body is a test case" Bargeld
The audience suffers too, sometimes - in this video he mentions one gig where he caused a woman to throw up!
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Avant-gardists using glass as a sound source has something of a scattered history
Experimental music sharity blogger Continuo had a whole series of posts on glass music, for which he made compilations - I think the links are expired but the blogposts are full of pointers to crystalline malarkey
I can't remember if he includes the Cristal Baschet as made by the Baschet brothers - it involves glass rods that got suggestively rubbed.
A little thing I wrote about it and them:
Les Structures Sonores Lasry-Baschet
Starting in the early 1950s, the sculptor François Baschet and his engineer brother Bernard built a range of “structures sonores” – a term variously translated as sound structures or sonorous sculptures. Among their creations was the poetically named Voice Leaf, a glossy metallic shield that transformed the performer’s voice into an unearthly keening wail. Most famously there was the Cristal Baschet, a glittering array of glass rods that produced piercing drone-tones when rubbed by the performer. Teaming up with the composer-musician Jacques Lasry and his organ-playing wife Yvonne as the ensemble Lasry-Baschet, they performed concerts and made records like Chronophagie. This TV program appears to date from the late Fifties and unless you understand French, your best bet is to skip to about six minutes in, when Monsieur Lasry appears looking a bit like a Gallic Keith Moon. Duetting with his wife, Lasry showcases the shimmering sight-and-sound of the Cristal in operation, his fingers periodically dipping into a bowl of water to keep his tips lubricated. If you are of a puerile, Viz-reading mentality, you might well find all this stroking of perpendicular rods suggestive and snigger-worthy, despite the angelic purity of the tones generated by the frotting fingers of the Frenchman. Among the many Baschet-related videos on YouTube, look out for a recent, full-colour clip of the Hope Ensemble performing Erik Satie’s Gnossienne no. 1.
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Did he have these ones either?
however although the sounds are glassy and resemble the hovering tones generated by rubbing a finger on a moistened wine glass rim, and there is direct inspiration is The Glass Bead Game ("inspiration drawn from Hermann Hesse's novel, The Glass Bead Game (1943), as well as a childhood toy that Pade treasured into adulthood") I don't think glass actually is used in the composition of the pieces...
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A song with glass smashing in it
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The first time I came across the idea of music made from glass - unless we are counting novelty acts on light entertainment shows, New Faeces etc - would be when Paul Oldfield picked this record from a second-hand store in Oxford back in the early '80s.
They mis-spelled her name on the cover - or did she add the 'e' to Annea Lockwood later?
This week in the class we are doing Bring the Quiet.... you guessed it, ambient and adjacent soft-slow-still-serene musics... I could bring some of this along, it would fit fine
The Glass Worldwas reissued byLawrence English's Room40 label not so long ago
Release rationale:
“I have become fascinated by the complexity of the single sound.” - Annea Lockwood
A note from Lawrence English
To attempt to summarise the journey of Annea Lockwood’s life, as a composer and performer, is difficult if not impossible. For six decades now, she has carved out a multifarious and fluid existence that has orbited various musical movements and approaches. Hers is a life led by intuition, curiosity and listening, one in which passion is paramount and wonderment abounds.
If you were to reflect upon one aspect of her way of being that holds the greatest gravity in her day to day, it is perhaps listening that resonates most vibrantly. It is a practice that she has sought to deepen, with an unwavering dedication across her life, and a it is practice that has sustained her in the absolute. It’s here that Glass World comes into focus for it documents some of her first significant studies into sound, object and listening. It is a recording that captures her in a moment of profound fascination with a rather familiar material, glass.
This recording celebrates many things, amongst them Lockwood’s willingness to allow single sounds to resonate, fully. Across each of the twenty three vignettes captured here, Annea Lockwood invites us to lean into the material nature of sound with her. Glass World shimmers with an almost fanatical incandescence. It radiates a vibrational intensity that holds as strongly today as it did upon its original release in 1970 on Tangent Records. I had the privilege to re-master these recordings, under the guidance of Annea, and sitting with them so intensely was nothing but a delight.
In tandem with this project, Annea and I have undertaken a long-form in conversation, which is collected in the book which sits alongside this edition. The conversation splays outward from Annea’s work on Glass World and it deliberately seeks to visit upon her interests and passions, and through doing so revel a certain perspective that has guided her ways of being, and ways of making.
It’s an honour to have the opportunity to share this edition with you. I hope you too can catch Annea’s resonate curiosity and be as captivated by these sounds as I (and many others) have been.
When they do essays or presentations, or when we do a class organized around videoclips they've suggested around a theme or genre, my students often turn me onto things I've never heard / heard of.
This is a sporadic blog series representing these oddities and gems.
Occasionally they turn me onto something I do know about but have not heard this particular iteration
So it is with the inaugural offering - a fantastic live version of "Born Under Punches" by Talking Heads (my #3 postpunk band back in the day, after PiL and Slits). It's concert footage but not from either of the live albums / concert movies.
Suddenly I'm not sure whether I ever saw the Jonathan Demme movie... bit remiss if not, for a postpunk historian.
The idea of the concert movie has never really appealed to me, though.
Nor - really - the live album.
Qs for the massive
1. What are the great concert movies?
(Don't bother to say The Last Waltz - it is great, in places, yet also hugely aggravating on account of Robbie Robertson's smugness - and the final bit of The Band's music on a soundstage, with no audience, is some kind of cultural crime, or at least all-time Top 10 case of legacy-self-enshitenment) *
2. What are the live albums worth bothering with?
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You don't believe me? Gird thy earholes and eyeholes
