Soul-Junk just put a bunch of his out-of-print stuff up on bandcamp. I've got a bit of catching up to do. Unfortunately, 1956 isn't one of those albums—well, unfortunate for everyone else, because I already have a copy of it.
...actually I didn't buy the one that's called "Ritzberry Fields", but I bought one with a track where the only lyrics are the above. The rest is humming. A capella humming. It almost sounds like a church piece.
Alt version can be heard here: youtube.com/watch?v=AftfvYHBlE0 (first track)
I am listening to the new Current 93 LP right now. Weird atonal piano, twangy slide guitars and snaky bassoon figures against Tibet's usual portentous sprechstimme. I dig it.
I am listening to the new Current 93 LP right now. Weird atonal piano, twangy slide guitars and snaky bassoon figures against Tibet's usual portentous sprechstimme. I dig it.
Definitely have to check this out.
Also, I picked up the album "a" yesterday, which collaboration between John Zorn and Thurston Moore of completely improvised material. I'm only halfway through the album right now, but the best parts of the album are where both performers lay back and the hectic busy performances give way to very slow meditative moments. Of what I've listened to so far, this is a really cool album and definitely recommended if you're a fan of either musician.
I was unaware of this until now, but apparently the great, strange experimental composer Robert Ashley died early last month. He was best known for "The Wolfman", which basically predicated power electronics in the early 1960's.
It's weird to realise how much R.E.M. were influenced by bands like Gang of Four early on, but then you listen to really early recordings of theirs and it kind of all falls into place.
On that note, here's the earliest known recording of "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville":
It's weird to realise how much R.E.M. were influenced by bands like Gang of Four early on, but then you listen to really early recordings of theirs and it kind of all falls into place.
It still amuses me how Michael Stipe actually sounds younger the further you go into R.E.M.'s career.
I'd also like to say that you can still detect post-punk influences in R.E.M.'s work as late as Reckoning - think "Harborcoat".
So Duck Sauce just dropped their debut album (which I was not aware was A Thing) and, uh, it's hella
If you liked "Barbara Streisand" (oo-wee-oo-wee-oo-wee-oo-wee-oo) at all, take a listen, A-Trak and Armand Van Helden have struck the gold mine big with this.
Speaking of A-Trak, his Dirty South Dance mixtapes are certainly worth picking up if you can find a way to acquire them legally. (And even if you can't, there's alwaysYouTube...)
So I found out about the album "Mozart meets India", which mixes Indian Carnatic Ragas with Western Classical(ish) music and it's pretty interesting. The whole album is available to listen to in the link I posted. Definitely worth checking out.
I've talked in the past about preferring Michigan because it's a more consistent album. I think I need to amend that. Illinois isn't as patchy, quality-wise, as I said a few years ago; but in terms of mood it's much more prone to extremes than anything else in Suf's catalogue. And that transition between the morbidity of "The Seer's Tower" to the exuberance of "The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders" still gives me whiplash. All the same, the individual moments are amazing, and that song suite that dominates the second half of the album (from "Prairie Fire that Wanders About" to "The Seer's Tower" with no hard breaks in between) is just as effective as it ever was.
To be perfectly frank, it's entirely possible that my preference for Michigan stems partially from a desire to distance myself from all those people who've listened to nothing besides Illinois.
Oddly, I really strongly associate this album with a particular period of my life (first semester of sophomore year in college) moreso than I do with any other Sufjan. Not sure why that is.
I've been listening to a fair bit of Hüsker Dü lately. Thanks to that, I now feel that Zen Arcade is one of those double albums that deserves to be a double album. The sprawl that results from that length actually makes the album more, rather than less, powerfully resonant. Simply put, it is the greatest accidental masterpiece ever.
So, because of the weird recurrence of references to lowercase in Mo mentioning not getting it and a passing reference to it in a Needle Drop video thing about getting into experimental music, I have been listening to a bit of Steve Roden.
I really, really like him. Maybe not love, but like quite a lot.
The thing is, the idea that "lowercase" is all just rustling paper and whatnot seems to undersell the level of detail in the work of someone like Roden. His work does tend to be fairly quiet and derives a lot of its content from found sound, but it is also diversely orchestrated and intriguingly structured. It's very John Cage-y, yes, but more Imaginary Landscape than 4'33" - the point is that the low volume makes you bead in on the textures by contrast, but not ache to hear them.
Actually, Morton Feldman is a better comparison, both in the simplicity and the low-key elemental emotions beneath the conceptualist approach.
* it's more black metal than their previous albums
* despite losing Arthur von Nagel (*who did a lot of their songwriting and was also the vocalist/bassist) they still sound rad as fuck (many, me included, were worried that they'd be kinda lost without him)
also the cover art is MORE DOPER THAN EVER BEFORE
LIKE HOLY SHIT
IM BUYING THIS AS SOON AS I GET BACK FROM DONATING PLASMA
kinda reminds me of what Robert Plant said about "Whole Lotta Love," which got them sued: "Page's riff was Page's riff. It was there before anything else. I just thought, 'well, what am I going to sing?' That was it, a nick. Now happily paid for."
I think lyrics are kinda overrated, personally. If you really want deep, thought-provoking stuff, you don't go to pop singers. Or you shouldn't, anyway.
I was looking at the Billboard year-end charts last night (?), and it's amazing just how many pop hits are Silly Love Songs. I guess there's a new crop of teenagers and bored, middle-aged housewives every year, huh?
Yes, that's him. Song was originally from his album Look Into the Eyeball.
In non-computer circles, he's better known for being the frontman of Talking Heads and for his collaboration with Brian Eno, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
If the previews are indicative of Wovenhand's upcoming album, then it's going to go even farther in the heavy post-punk direction that Ten Stones and The Laughing Stalk started, and it's going to be crazy awesome.
Copy of the album came in the mail today. At the risk of speaking prematurely, I think Refractory Obdurate might be the best album in David Eugene Edwards' entire career.
contents: The Banner Saga (soundtrack) DEVICE 6 Original Soundtrack Broken Age: Act 1 Soundtrack The Floor is Jelly OST LUFTRAUSERS OST Transfiguration Starbound: the Orchestral OST The Yawhg EP Magnetic By Nature (soundtrack) Escape Goat 2 Original Soundtrack Curious Merchandise Winnose: Original Soundtrack Eldritch Original Soundtrack Bardbarian – OST Tribes: Ascend (Original Soundtrack) Into The Box Soundtrack Soul Fjord (soundtrack) Dragon Fantasy Book II Original Soundtrack Ether One Original Soundtrack The Music of Junk Jack X
(everything from Transfiguration on downward is for $10; the first five are for $1 if you don' want to pay $10)
Comments
Soul-Junk just put a bunch of his out-of-print stuff up on bandcamp. I've got a bit of catching up to do. Unfortunately, 1956 isn't one of those albums—well, unfortunate for everyone else, because I already have a copy of it.
Finally have non-sucky internet, so it's on.
o/` ~Welcome to Ritzberry Fields~ o/`
Alt version can be heard here: youtube.com/watch?v=AftfvYHBlE0 (first track)
Both versions are little intro songs.
Also, I picked up the album "a" yesterday, which collaboration between John Zorn and Thurston Moore of completely improvised material. I'm only halfway through the album right now, but the best parts of the album are where both performers lay back and the hectic busy performances give way to very slow meditative moments. Of what I've listened to so far, this is a really cool album and definitely recommended if you're a fan of either musician.
Music news rather than music, but I found this interesting
Speaking of A-Trak, his Dirty South Dance mixtapes are certainly worth picking up if you can find a way to acquire them legally. (And even if you can't, there's always YouTube...)
So I found out about the album "Mozart meets India", which mixes Indian Carnatic Ragas with Western Classical(ish) music and it's pretty interesting. The whole album is available to listen to in the link I posted. Definitely worth checking out.
I've talked in the past about preferring Michigan because it's a more consistent album. I think I need to amend that. Illinois isn't as patchy, quality-wise, as I said a few years ago; but in terms of mood it's much more prone to extremes than anything else in Suf's catalogue. And that transition between the morbidity of "The Seer's Tower" to the exuberance of "The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders" still gives me whiplash. All the same, the individual moments are amazing, and that song suite that dominates the second half of the album (from "Prairie Fire that Wanders About" to "The Seer's Tower" with no hard breaks in between) is just as effective as it ever was.
To be perfectly frank, it's entirely possible that my preference for Michigan stems partially from a desire to distance myself from all those people who've listened to nothing besides Illinois.
Oddly, I really strongly associate this album with a particular period of my life (first semester of sophomore year in college) moreso than I do with any other Sufjan. Not sure why that is.
As heard here:
I think lyrics are kinda overrated, personally. If you really want deep, thought-provoking stuff, you don't go to pop singers. Or you shouldn't, anyway.
In non-computer circles, he's better known for being the frontman of Talking Heads and for his collaboration with Brian Eno, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
YNTKT
Unexpected benefit of Wovenhand moving to a new label is that the latest album is on bandcamp this time. Everyone needs to hear this.
http://www.gamemusicbundle.com/
contents:
The Banner Saga (soundtrack)
DEVICE 6 Original Soundtrack
Broken Age: Act 1 Soundtrack
The Floor is Jelly OST
LUFTRAUSERS OST
Transfiguration
Starbound: the Orchestral OST
The Yawhg EP
Magnetic By Nature (soundtrack)
Escape Goat 2 Original Soundtrack
Curious Merchandise
Winnose: Original Soundtrack
Eldritch Original Soundtrack
Bardbarian – OST
Tribes: Ascend (Original Soundtrack)
Into The Box Soundtrack
Soul Fjord (soundtrack)
Dragon Fantasy Book II Original Soundtrack
Ether One Original Soundtrack
The Music of Junk Jack X
(everything from Transfiguration on downward is for $10; the first five are for $1 if you don' want to pay $10)