Wednesday, May 17, 2006
The Grey Ghost Album
It's nice to see that musicians, who have been around since before Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura were state governors, since before Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura lit up the screen in "The Running Man", since before Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura duked it out with a space alien in "Predator", it's nice to see that these musicians, who have been around since before those halcyon days are now catching on to the possibilities made possible through recent technological advances. In this post-Grey Album world, I find it comforting that Neil Young is streaming his new anti-war album over the internet airwaves and that Brian Eno and David Byrne are making available some of 1981's "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" to be downloaded and misappropriated at will. So if you would be so kind, please put down that acappella "Black Album" you've been tinkering with for the last two years and have a looksy!
Brian Eno and David Byrne are offering for download all the multitracks on two of the songs from their "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" Album through a Creative Commons License in an effort to encourage the remix and sampling of these works. You are free to edit, remix, sample and mutilate these tracks however you like. Add them to your own song or create a new one. You are able to post your own songs that incorporate these audio files on the site for others to hear and rate, if you are so inclined.
To launch the Remix site click this!
Brian Eno and David Byrne are offering for download all the multitracks on two of the songs from their "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" Album through a Creative Commons License in an effort to encourage the remix and sampling of these works. You are free to edit, remix, sample and mutilate these tracks however you like. Add them to your own song or create a new one. You are able to post your own songs that incorporate these audio files on the site for others to hear and rate, if you are so inclined.
To launch the Remix site click this!
Music Recommendations from The PLI #5
1) J Spaceman - Guitar Loops
2) Evan Parker - With Birds
3) Coxon, Prevost, Wales - Acoustic Trio
4) Coxon, Parker, Sanders, Wales - Trio With Interludes
So this is one big mass recommend from the Treader label. Coxon and Wales are Spring Heel Jack, techno/drum'n bass provocateurs from way back when. Around 2000-2001-ish they abandoned all dancey stuff and moved into free jazz, recording an excellent series of CD's with Matthew Shipp, Evan Parker, William Parker, Han Bennink, Wadada Leo Smith and Tim Berne. If you don't own these four records, they are worth finding (Masses, Amassed, Live and The Sweetness of Water) They cherry picked the best improvisers in the world and blasted sheets of noise from their laptops and the improvisers were left with the task of using that as their start point.
Now they've started the Treader label. Each record has beautiful packaging. Pastel color cardboard with a gold embossed animal on the cover. Each record has some amazing qualities and these four are my favorites. Trio With Interludes is a busy kinetic powerhouse. Evan Parker With Birds is a beautiful collection of the sax player dancing with a bird song projected at him by Wales and Coxon. Acoustic Trio shows Coxon and Wales moving away from electro-driving jazz into AMM territory, thanks to Prevost. This spare record is anything but a lightweight however, they achieve some massive density. Lastly their best seller to date, J Spaceman's Guitar Loops, is exactly that, Spaceman's one take performance of some exciting experimental guitar work (I'm not sure if Coxon and Wales were heavily involved in this one) sounding anywhere between world music and Sonic Youth.
All these Treader CD's are very limited, so if you see one grab it. A very good article on Coxon and Wales was in last month's Wire. There's been talk of an upcoming Coxon, Wales and Bennink recording that's supposed to be a real blistering monster, I can't wait. Check out their site if you can't find them in a brick and mortar, www.treader.org
5) Parts & Labor - Stay Afraid
Finally a record that rocks and doesn't feel overburdened with cliches. This record reminds me of Death From Above 1979's record from last year. Take the Lightning Bolt/Sightings/Wolf Eyes template of hardcore arty noise and add songs on top of it is the formula both bands use. While DFA's songs sounded in places like bar rock, Parts & Labor swap that for sounding like late 80's mid west hardcore. They sound like Lightning Bolt covering Husker Du. I can't get enough of this record.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Music Recommendations From The PLI #4
This week's reviews circle around the issue of minimalism vs. miminal.
1) Phill Niblock - Touch Three
Phill Niblock's music has a very direct, is what it is quality. I hate that statement "is what it is" but there are many cases out there, where there simply is no better way of defining the work. If you don't love what Phill Niblock does, you will most likely say if you've heard one piece you've heard thm all. All these statements aside, I don't know if I love Niblock's work, but I have purchased all of his Touch releases, and I have to say I enjoyed them all. His approach is basically this, record a musician playing a note, or frequency, then layer them, and slightly pitch shift. Though his technique may be minimal, his sound is monumental. He always encourages listening to his music at a high volume and I agree that there is a huge difference. Last week I was driving and I decided to blast this record. The music is all about the oddness of the overtones created by his layering techniques but when the loud frequencies caused distortion in my car's speakers, the music actually got a lot better, and it wasn't bad to begin with.
2) Keith Rowe and Toshimaru Nakamura - betweenElecro-Acoustic Improvisiation (EAI) fan need no introduction to the work made by these two. Keith Rowe, tabletop guitar surgeon and Nakamura, no input mix board player, make morse code like signals that float in the atmosphere. Weather Sky their previous pairing, was an amazing example of the possiblities of EAI. It's a record of such small minute sound events that most people may not even notice it, until one of Nakamura's outbursts. But the joy of this music is the examination of the interplay of minutia. Well, as hinted by their set on the Erstwhile balance box set, Nakamura has his outburst behind sticking closer to the microscopic movements that took up the spaces between explosions on Weather Sky. between's first piece, Vienna, Rowe lays it down with his squealing his, Nakmura drops tones in and out, but Rowe actually makes his presense more known by ever so subtley using his radio to bring in some odd samples. between is likely to be one of my favorites of this year, and it's nice to hear a record that's minimal, without being minimalist.
3) Ryoji Ikeda - dataplexIkeda has made some of the most schizophernic music, for being such an extreme minimalist. His Headphonics recordings on a pair of headphones could make you feel like your mind is broken. With dataplex Ikeda finds a place where he can use quick bursts of white noise, sine waves, and basically anything that sounds like a cd on fast forward to construct something that it almost funky. Mind you, it never actually forms into techno, but this record has the archeitecture of his work along the lines of techno, but made out of the most abstract sounds and challenging tones. I've loved most of his work and dataplex may be his best, it's definitely his best since matrix. It's worth it alone for Data.Adaplex, which features sounds and information that doesn't play back on every cd player.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Mechanized Elephant to Wander the Streets of London Tomorrow
A French arts and theater company, Royal de Luxe, has kicked off an event in London with the appearance of a spaceship crashed in Waterloo Place. "The Sultan's Elephant Show" will feature, among other visual oddities, a 40 ft tall mechanized elephant that will wander the streets of London tomorrow. So, if you're in London and hankering to see a 40 ft tall mechanical elephant tomorrow, this is a must-see!
Thanks to Boing Boing poster Cory Doctorow for the link!
UPDATE: Someone posted a video of the show's finale!
To: Kolin Pope, From: The Future (2018)
Pop quiz, hotshot. A man knocks on your door. He claims he's from the future and he hands you a package. What do you do? Chances are, if you're Kolin Pope, you man up and save the future. Here is an excerpt from Kolin's Future Shock website:It began on a very unremarkable evening in August 2003. I was nineteen at the time and in my room, when the evening silence was suddenly broken by the sound of my dog barking from downstairs. Moments later, my Mom strolled in, telling me calmly, "There's someone at the door for you. He says he's from the future."
Confused yet intrigued, I hurried downstairs to find a man of about twenty that I had never seen before in my life standing on my front porch. He offered me his hand and said, "Hello, my name is Zane Figiam. I am from the future. This is a package for you."
If you're reading this in the year 2018, please travel back in time and help me help you. I have excellent communication skills and would be more than happy to forward you a resume or provide you with references if interested.
Thanks to Spacegrinder poster Spacegringo for the link!
