faces of sound

VENUSIAN LIGHTENING

2012-01-29T02:30:00.003-05:00

ENTANGLEMENT BLUES

2012-01-23T13:26:00.002-05:00

pop
folding googles
birthroot gesturers
feel feel feel feel feel feel

Entanglement Blues by MattMarble

...some recent transmissions.

FACE-LIFTING: Mood Ring

2012-01-14T21:23:00.002-05:00

Starting to re-compose several of my pieces which were originally part of the "faces of sound" genus (social geometries, etc). Here's a remake of an early one - from 2006 in Portland OR - originally recorded at an outdoor park + beaucoup de overdubs...

ARTHUR RUSSELL: Radishes Flying to Jupiter

2012-01-13T22:37:00.006-05:00

Just discovered this awesome live Arthur Russell recording online (via, Greg Davis) at Achive.org from one of the bazillion incredible concerts (many by Arthur) that have been performed at Phill Niblock's soho loft, since its inception in 1972 (i went to an incredible show there just this past weekend). But... 1980?: Entitled "Radishes Flying to Jupiter", Arthur does a cosmic-comic cello solo over some fixed keyboard changes and percussion performed by Rome Neal.

You might notice the harmonies used here are also rooted in Russell's 24-24 Music (listen to the organ in "Go Bang"). Keep listening to "radishes" and you'll hear Rome gradually bring in the shaker, ultimately laying down a straight pulse, shyly pointing directly at the dance reference this music was moving into. Russell compiled this tape himself for group compilations, via EIF, that were sent off to numerous radio stations, if rarely played. The monologue, like the music, is pretty space-y stuff - definitely not born far from a marijuana leaf at this time, and god bless those loose joints. Regardless, there's something about those harmonies and that wanderous plucked cello. like a boat on the water. it so pleasantly floats.

LEWIS - L'Amour (1983)

2011-09-11T01:07:00.008-04:00

Lewis - Romance for Two by ObscureSound

I am totally mesmerized by this forgotten album by disappeared mononymous Californian singer: Lewis. The tunes are straight-formed, loosely held, and slowly given by Lewis' guitar, piano, uniquely expressive synth lines, and Lewis' own soft-souled voice. And the surviving digital recordings bear the cloud-static of its original vinyl pressing. As angelic and tender as the album's unabashed cover. The mood and some of the piano playing, though much simpler, reminds me also of the incredible Ethiopian pianist/composer (now a Christian nun in Jerusalem), Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou. Absolutely levitating...

LISTEN TO IT ALL...

ORLAND NUTT: I Am Into Your Fire

2011-08-31T20:27:00.004-04:00

Just completed sound/music for this wonderful new video by Portland, OR-based director Orland Nutt with performance by Amanda Riley. This is one in a series of videos of Orland's in which a poem is fantastically realized through cinema...

I am Into Your Fire from Orland Nutt on Vimeo.

You can seehear more of Orland's films here...

To Do List: Johnny Cash

2011-08-28T19:09:00.002-04:00

SHARK SLEEP: Aug 14th, 9pm @ NE Kingdom (Bushwick, NY)

2011-08-13T22:14:00.003-04:00

With myself, Jim Altieri, Bob Jones, and Jessie Marino: CLASSICAL!

PLANNING AND CITIES: Village Planning in the Primitive World

2011-08-04T15:35:00.009-04:00

Almost 8 years ago I discovered a series of (now out of print) architecture books published by the George Braziller Press: The Planning and Cities Series. At the time I collected all I could find through Powell's Books in Portland. My favorite of the series is one on village design in the "primitive" world, written by Douglas Fraser. The writing is clear and offers a fascinating cross-cultural perspective on how people structure the physical organization of their communities - including symbolic, religious, practical, and geographical perspectives. Beautiful writing, beautiful images: it deeply inspired some of my earlier social geometry music. Below are some of the many examples Fraser gives...

The Cheyenne community, like many American Indians organized their community in a circular formation. The circle was a common symbol of the continuity of life, the medicine wheel (path of the individual), and the four cardinal directions, among many other associative meanings. The actual arrangement is more like a 'C' than a circle, with the opening being intentional, to support a ritual 'opening' to the sunrise. "The camp circle was compared to the circle of the stars in the heavens and to a gigantic tipi, the door of which faced the East."

This (idealized) Dogon village in Western Sudan (above), is organized pretty uniquely according to the human figure.

This village of the Hili Mondregeraja in South Nias, Indonesia (pictured above) is organized in the form of stream of homes. They model their village on the form of the river...

"What remains fixed is the prevailing axial and cosmic aspect of the plan. The chief's house is invariably located at the upper end of the [main] street; this feature stems from the Nias conception of space as upriver/downriver and sunrise/sunset. For Nias cosmology, like that of many regions, is less concerned with actual directions than with symbolic ones." Above, a photograph of the village (with the Chief's home in view); Below, an ideal map:

The village I found most fascinating though was that of the Bushman in the Kalahari Desert of Africa. I featured this village design in the book of scores, Tools of Mind, I published through FOARM Magazine a while back (here).

Werfs ["camps" in the Afrikaans language] are built within range of supplies and waterholes. The 'headman' can live anywhere he likes, while family werfs congregate around one another, but there is no pattern. They often alternate the direction their werfs face based on their personal interactions. If you're feeling anger towards one of your neighbors, you would move your hut so the doorway faces away from them. 'Hiding' someone's posts on Facebook doesn't quite reach this explicit if indirect form of emotional communication in a social 'network' - but that's about as close as we get.

OUTDOOR MUSIC: Slow Float + For The Forest

2011-08-04T12:38:00.004-04:00

Coming up soon, I'll be participating in two wonderful outdoor music events, both taking place along the upper Delaware River:

S L O W F L O A T

Where: Upper Delaware River, Narrowsburg, NY
When: Sat, Aug. 6th, 2-5pm

A boat carries participants along the river. Along the way they'll be privy to several concerts, installations, and performances (including Tara Rodgers and Travis Johns). I'll be singing with Jessie Marino (cello) and Bob Jones (bass). The Delaware River is one of the most endangered rivers in America, filling a space with music and coming to listen and becoming aware of its wonderful flow is good medicine for all.

http://flowslow.wordpress.com/slowfloat-2011/

F O R T H E F O R E S T

Where: 10 Mile High BoyScout Camp, Narrowsburg, NY
When: Sat, Sept. 17 - TBA

Another environmental arts effort, this one supported by the UN and said to feature works by Yoko Ono and John Luther Adams. Not sure where I'll be fitting in, but I'll be singing at the boyscout camp. More info soon.

SUN RA: The Meaning of The Word

2011-08-04T11:23:00.002-04:00

BRONIUS KUTAVICIUS: An Out-of-Print (1997) Interview from ND Magazine

2011-08-04T10:52:00.005-04:00

Recently going through some out of print things. The Austin, TX-based ND Magazine, which stopped publication in 1997, still blows me away. Below are scans from an interview with Lithuanian composer Bronius Kutavicius, the only one I know of in English. For another intro to Kutavicius (++ audio samples) go here.

*********************************

July 10th, Portland, OR...

2011-07-08T15:50:00.003-04:00

LIVE @ THOMAS ISLAND

2011-06-27T16:13:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I spent the day with some friends on Thomas Island, a tiny tiny island in Upper Mount Beth, PA.

After an hour or two of Karoake sing-a-longs... With a battery powered amp (Marshall mini) and GigaDelay pedal, I snuck off to a secluded shoreline and sang a couple songs to or with the birdscape. Such a beautiful moment.

Not To Know:

To Another Wheel:

THE LATE(R) ALICE COLTRANE

2011-06-20T19:51:00.007-04:00

I think I already posted this, but have to again. I have been listening to the out-of-print cassette rip of the 1982 Turiya Sings by Alice Coltrane, since I first found it at the Root Stata Blog a few months ago. I've since been diving deep into this lesser known repertoire of the late Alice Coltrane (Swami A.C. Turiyasangitanada).

“Divine music is a curative virtue; it is a gift from God that brings healing and comfort to the soul. This music can uplift one’s spirit up to a higher dimension of being that is filled with peace and joy. Divine music is the sound of true life, wisdom, and bliss. This music transcends geographical boundaries, language barriers, age factors; and whether educated or uneducated, it reaches deep into the heart and soul, sacred and holy, like an Infinite sound of glory entering the Lord’s sanctuary.” – Alice Coltrane (1937 – 2007)

"Chanting is a devotional engagement, one that allows the chanter to soar to higher realms of spiritual consciousness. Chanting is a healing force for good in our world, and also in the astral worlds. Chanting can bring the person closer to God because that person is calling on the Lord. When one calls to even a friend, a mother, or any other relative in a kindly way, he gets the response, also in a reciprocal way." --Alice Coltrane/Swamini Turiyasangitananda in the original liner notes

Studying under her guru Sathya Sai Baba, Alice removed herself from secular life and founded the Vedantic Center Sai Anantam Ashram. Through the Ashram’s Avatar Book Institute she released a series of ecstatic Vedic chants: Turiya Sings (1982), Divine Songs (1987), Infinite Chants (1990), Glorious Chants (1995). Blending orchestral strings, choral chant, percussion, mind warping glissandos of synth, and a penetratingly deep beautiful voice (c.f. Nico, Sade), Turiya conjures a music that is raw and moving, immediate, and a true vehicle of ascension. This is some of my most favorite music in the world. Truly healing...

Here is a fantastic mix of some of these pieces, compiled by Frosty for RBMA Radio.

"Do you believe in God, Khansahib?"
Pause. Then, smiling, "Well, I believe in ascending and descending."

- Ali Akbar Khan

CIURLIONIS 2420 + JACK QUARTET

2011-05-15T14:40:00.004-04:00

The incredible Jack Quartet recently performed my first string quartet, dedicated to and inspired by the paintings of M.K. Ciurlionis. These two string quartet movements mark the beginning of an ongoing series of musical works inspired by his paintings... see/listen to the quartet... here

Jack was absolutely incredible to work with. I am so so grateful :)

WAY UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AIR

2011-05-15T13:39:00.007-04:00

Recently I was invited to perform a new work for NuitBlanche/Flash:Light Festival in the Bowery of New York City at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. Together with myself (prepared synth), Jim Altieri (accordion), Tucker Dulin (trombone), Bob Jones (bass), Andrew Lafkas (bass), Troy Herion (pipe organ), and Katherine Young (bassoon)... we spiraled through a simple score that left much to these players improvising skillz.

Way Up was originally inspired by the "merkabah", or divine chariot, which is the focus of Ezekiel's vision in the Old Testament. In this vision 4 creatures - each with 4 pairs of wings and 4 faces (man, lion, ox, eagle) - are each attached to a wheel-within-a-wheel (gyre), all together levitating a large crystalline platform that carries the Lord. This vision was written in light of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Often over-interpreted, I read it as a simple vehicle of ascension, a yantra of inspiration. Musically, I was interested in finding this levitation. Partly worked into the score, partly through the performers walking in circles throughout the massive cathedral, and through synchronicity, we found it.

The entire performance was wonderful, with the loudly social audience even quieting down when we finally came on around 1:30am. But it was in the last four minutes that I heard the merkabah clearly and we began to levitate. Thanks to Amanda and Tucker for the recording (parsed from a digicam vid of the show):

SING FOR YOUR DINNER: Bobby J-Bird Williams

2011-03-11T00:02:00.004-05:00

If you're ever in Greensboro, North Carolina... perhaps after checking out the International Civil Rights Museum, walk across Elm Street to Fincastles Diner. The food is o.k. (burgers, fried pickles, soda, etc), but there you will find one of the most sunny sirens around for miles, Bobby "J-Bird" Williams. He only went to jail for a few minutes and it wasn't his fault. He played gigs at Princeton University for years, and recals the time he danced and got kissy with then-graduate Brooke Shields. He works at Fincastles, sings classic soul around and out of town, and recollects his rich life to anyone willing to listen...

Somehow he managed to get the jukebox rigged with soul instrumentals and recordings of his own soul band, Soul Central. This means Bobby is singing throughout his shift, either as Karaoke to instrumentals, or as a double to his own recorded voice with Soul Central. Bobby doesn't stop singing.

It's not uncommon, especially when the place is packed, to hear all the diners joining in chorus with Bobby. His singing is infectious and highly participatory. Here he is getting my parents to sing along...

and here with some local army folk...

And here are some fried pickle droblets...

And here a portrait in the diner... with a Lisa Simpson doll... Bobby said we'd have to ask someone else about this story...

GECKO DREAM LEVELS: Matt Carlson, Jamie Potter (Ear-ee-oh), Brenno Murphy (Eye-ee-oh)

2011-03-10T21:16:00.005-05:00

Matt Carlson - Bird Level from Brenna Murphy on Vimeo.

bwoingan
feefs
sawmpess
moolah

Million Mists - Slangaer from Brenna Murphy on Vimeo.

...AMERICANS...

2011-02-02T10:33:00.004-05:00

"...repeating is in everyone..."

UPCOMING SHOWS (To Be Reiterated)

2011-01-31T15:00:00.000-05:00

March 19th, 8pm @ Roulette (NYC)

May 1st, 8pm @ The Stone (NYC)

May 10th, 8pm @ Taplin Auditoreum (NJ)

FLAME IN WINTER: WILLIAM GRANT STILL

2011-01-27T09:05:00.006-05:00

William Grant Still w/W.C. Handy

Recently my iTunes keeps returning to "Suite for Violin and Piano" by William Grant Still, which I came to through the wonderful Oxford American's Annual Music Issue (Arkansa Masters). I'm only just discovering the music of William Grant Still, a Mississippi-born composer who, from the 1920's until his death in 1978, crossed the modernist aesthetic with one reflecting African-American styles (jazz, blues, spirituals, and African traditional music). With my eyes reflecting snow and ice today, Still's music is a warm flickering flame.

The chamber orchestra versions "Out of Silence" and "Summerland" - both arranged for two pianos - aren't far off from French impressionism nor the orchestrations of Toru Takemitsu. Still seemed gifted at capturing both the lite and profound sides of serenity, but one always bubbling with emotion.

Summerland (1935)

But where Still hones his personal style most compellingly is in his Ennanga (1958), a 3 movement rhapsody for harp, piano, and string quartet. "Ennanga" is the Yugandan term for "small harp". Loosely basing Ennanga on his own conception of 'African folk' music, all of Still's rivers seem to be meeting here.

Ennanga, II (1958)

And I was happy to find some excerpts from his notebooks (mainly written around the time of his Afro-American Symphony (1930)...

Not On My Mind

2011-01-21T00:15:00.002-05:00

SHELLEY HIRSCH SINGS

2011-01-19T21:24:00.004-05:00

Having recently heard her perform with Phill Niblock and Katherine Liberovskaya at Michael Vincent Waller's series at Piano's, I kind of fell in love. And this track, from 1987, has been in my head for weeks now...

Why Do You Go There? (excerpt) by MattMarble

OPS: WITCH ANGEL SHAPE SANGINS

2011-01-13T01:54:00.002-05:00

WitchAngel from Oregon Painting Society on Vimeo.

JOHN MARTYN

2010-12-30T15:43:00.004-05:00

Some of us live like Princes.
Some of us live like Queens.
Most of us live just like me and we don't know what it means...
To take our place in one world...

DAVID LYNCH SONGS

2010-11-29T19:49:00.009-05:00

Since "Ghost of Love" - a song used in his Inland Empire - David Lynch has had an increasing presence in his songs (previously collaborating w/composer Angelo Badalamenti and singer Julie Cruise). 2 new songs - "I know" + "Good Day Today" - were released by the BBC Radio One DJ Rob Banks' label, Sunday Best, on Nov 24th. David Lynch sings with heavy processing on both tracks. Below the video links is a pretty great interview.

"In all my films, I have always been very involved with all that one hears. The creation of this record was a natural extension of my love of sound and music. I am very happy to be with Sunday Best with the songs 'Good Day Today' and 'I Know.' This feels like a good partnership and I'm looking forward to everyone having a good day today."

"I was just sitting and these notes came and then I went down and started working with Dean [Hurley, his engineer] and then these few notes, 'I want to have a good day, today' came and the song was built around that." DL

Available for download on iTunes...

> > > > > > > > > > > DL ON SONGWRITING < < < < < <

From: Here
Interview by Adam McKibbin - April, 2008

Was “Ghosts of Love” always connected somehow to Inland Empire?

No. It was the first song where I sang high - not high on drugs. [Laughs] With a high voice.

The cover for the single is pretty rock-and-roll - you’ve got the cigarette and the sunglasses. There’s a clip on YouTube of you singing with a big cowboy hat. I’m wondering whether there’s a persona at work.

There has to be a persona, otherwise I couldn’t do it. It seems like the cowboy hat and the sunglasses help a lot. It helps a lot.

You’ve talked in the past about how an audience’s experience of a film can be hurt by knowing too much personal stuff about the filmmakers. Do you feel the same holds true for music?

I think the whole thing is the purity of the experience. You don’t want to do anything to hurt people’s experience of going into another world. And so that should be protected.

What stage is the album in?

There are songs written. I’d say there are three songs ready to go, and about four or five in the works. We’re finding a groove, and it’s going along, yeah.

The expectation after an album release would be live shows.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ve talked about that. I can play things once. The problem is playing them twice. [Laughs] We’d have to get a band together and work stuff out. It’s conceivable, but there’s a lot of work to be done before the road show.

Some songwriters say that songs can arrive at any time, and others will say that they really have to be in the right mindset to get a song. What’s the process like for you?

Well, how it’s working now is that there are chords that are picked. Dean will program these chords into my guitar, and then we get a drum beat going. The tempo and the type of the beat, the sound of the guitar, and those chord progressions - that conjures a mood and makes you play a certain way. Dean will put on a bass track and we’ll throw out stuff and rearrange some stuff. And then listening to it, lyrics will come.

And when you finish is there a “Boom! Voila!” moment?

Yeah, yeah, yeah - same with everything. Painting, films, music - there’s a moment when you say “It’s done, it feels right.” There are some times when you go and listen to something really objectively later and you say “Oh, you know, I could maybe tweak that a little bit.” But mostly it feels correct.

How far back can you trace the roots of your love for music? Was there a parental inspiration?

Well, it was a little bit [due to] my parents, who loved music. My dad played the violin, and he played the tuba and piano. He liked to sing. I played trumpet and I loved playing trumpet - until I went to high school, where they forced all the orchestra people to join the marching band, which is when I quit. There went the trumpet.

But I really think I have a love of sound, and experimenting with sound. It seems to go hand in hand with picture in the world of cinema. I was always interested in sound, but wasn’t really a musician at all. But sounds go towards music, and I loved that area, of dancing closer and closer to music with sound effects.

Then I met Angelo Badalementi, and I always say that Angelo brought me into the world of music. Angelo liked to get lyrics and then he would write a melody, but I found that it was much better if I sat with Angelo while he was finding the melody. So it’s Angelo’s melody, but I would veto many different things - and that was cool with Angelo. And when he found it, man, that guy is a melody maker, a beautiful musician. I love working with Angelo.

Then we started working with Julee Cruise and made an album, and we did music for Twin Peaks and stuff like that. But I never played. I was producing stuff with Angelo. I always wanted a studio, so this was built in ’97. This is a place to experiment. Now Big Dean Hurley is the engineer, and Dean is a great engineer and he’s also a musician. He loves all the different parts of music. I started experimenting with my own music and I started singing - which is really, really strange to me. I always was super embarrassed to sing. But now I like to sing sometimes. So I would like to do a blues album.

You say you were attracted to sound, but not necessarily music. Does that mean you weren’t or aren’t an album collector?

No. I never really collected albums. I mean, I have hundreds of albums in the archives. I get them, but I never had time to listen to them. I listen to them sometimes, but I wouldn’t go into a room and get lost for hours in listening.

Were you experimenting with found sound, then?

Yeah, recording sounds and fiddling with them, manipulating them. The idea was that you could be in this room, with only a recorder and some outboard equipment, and write a symphony. You could create a whole world with just the sounds you could make. And now it’s way, way easier. There are billions of tools for endless experimentation.

Let’s talk about Angelo for a minute or two.

Sure. Angelo sent me twenty-two dollars for my birthday. Brand new, crisp dollars. He’s never sent me that much. He always sends me money, but usually it’s two or three, sometimes four dollars. Always new bills. He’s so right - they’re among my favorite presents. That’s something that Angelo knows: it’s so great to receive money in the mail.

How were you two brought together? He was a vocal coach?

Yeah, that’s right. We were in Wilmington, North Carolina - “we” being the film crew for Blue Velvet. The producer was Fred Caruso. I was in a studio in Wilmington with a band, ready to go, and Isabella [Rossellini] was going to sing “Blue Velvet” with this band. It needed to be kind of a hotel band in a way - it wasn’t supposed to be high-end. I think these guys could have done it, but Isabella had learned the wrong version of “Blue Velvet.” She learned the 1952 version. Totally different. Same lyrics, but not the same feel. Bobby Vinton’s version is what I wanted. So it was a bust in the studio. Fred said, “Look, let me bring my friend Angelo up to work with Isabella, and very quickly he can get her to the right place.”

So Angelo Badalamenti came down, and I didn’t even see him. He went to Isabella’s hotel, which was this boarding house kind of place. In the lobby downstairs, they had a piano. So Angelo got everything worked out in one morning, recorded it on a little cassette, like the kind you used to carry around, and he brought it over to the Beaumont house where we were shooting in the backyard. I met him and he played it and I said, “Angelo, that’s so great - we could cut it into the film right now.” He was very happy, I was really happy, and that might have been the end of it right there. But he would take Isabella to New York later and get session players and work the whole thing out. I think I went up to that session on the second day or something like that, and I heard it and it was beautiful.

But in the meantime, I wanted “Song To The Siren” by This Mortal Coil. But they could not get it - and I was dying. So Fred Caruso again said, “David, you’re always writing these little fragments on paper and stuff like this” - and I’m smelling a rat. He said, “Why don’t you send those to Angelo and Angelo will write you a song to use instead of This Mortal Coil.” I said “Fred, there are 500 trillion songs - I want This Mortal Coil. I don’t want another song - I want this song.” Fred said, “David, you can’t have this song, so you have to get another song.”

So I sent some lyrics to Angelo as an experiment, but sort of depressed that it had come to this. But they’re so smart, these guys. Because I was invested in it - those were my lyrics - I had a predisposition to like what came. Like psychological warfare. As it turned out, Angelo wrote a very beautiful thing. He says he thought my lyrics really sucked. He didn’t know what to do with them. He also saw it sung by a completely different kind of singer than what I was thinking of - but that did to lead Julee Cruise, that led to the song “Mysteries of Love,” and that did go in the film. To me, it’s beautiful. And I got This Mortal Coil for Lost Highway, later in time.

The ongoing collaboration with Angelo, then, sounds pretty unique. It’s not a case where you have a meeting and go off and work independently.

No, it’s working together. Like I always say, the bottom line is that the music has to marry with the picture. That’s a tricky business. It’s lots and lots of working together, experimenting, talking, doing a bunch of stuff. But with Angelo, it’s just always so much fun. Really good things have come from this working relationship.

There’s a debate now - heightened by the Radiohead release last year - about whether people should become accustomed to getting their music or their art for free.

I just saw this thing in TV where in some country - I think it’s an African country - they have taken to this idea that CDs are advertisements for people to come to their shows. They have these big shows where bands play to huge crowds. The CD is just an advertisement - and that’s the way it’s going more and more here. They’re way ahead of us. They never shot film because they couldn’t afford film, so they’ve been into digital video forever, and they’re making hundreds of films. Just like now a theatrical release is sort of an advertisement for the DVD. It’s just going that way.

Pretty soon film will be hit with the same thing as music - people will be finding feature films like they find tunes. It will be a different world. The problem with piracy and getting stuff for free is that pretty soon you can’t afford to make anything or live anywhere. So there will just be that many more homeless people. Even in LA, it gets chilly or rainy, like it is today. So you imagine, you’re with your cardboard box in the rain and you’re hungry, and you’re just not going to be making those albums anymore, you know what I mean? You’re going to try to get your next meal. And your tastes will probably change. Cheap wine will start to be just as good. [Laughs] You’re just looking for some cheap wine and a sandwich.

www.davidlynch.com

BENJAMIN BRITTEN: Winter Brood Bro

2010-11-26T01:51:00.004-05:00

I don't know of any composers (nope, nobody) since Benjamin Britten who have really engaged melody or song-form to the extent and gorgeousness that Britten did. I always return to him in the winter months and I'm always blown away. Anyways, I just want to see/hear all my Britten favorites in one place (pretty moody!)...

I would also include here...

"Oh Might those sighs and tears" and "She whom I loved" from The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Opus 35.

"Veggio co' bei vostri occhi un dolce lume" from The Sonnets of Michelangelo

and...

the Peter Pears version of Curlew River, a gorgeous under-rated opera of Britten's inspired by Medieval mystical plays and Japanese Noh Theatre.

CONVERSATIONS WITH TOM PETTY

2010-11-23T20:12:00.005-05:00

I'm a big fan of Tom Petty. I enjoyed this book very much...

"I think we kind of invented the New Wave."

"Yeah... I'm looking for purity. There's a thing about music: If you believe the singer, then the song is going to work. It's all about believability. If you can believe the singer, it will work. So I think our quest was for purity."

"I always thought when the full moon comes, I get some kind of charge from it."

"That's a lot of the fun in writing songs., or being a writer at all, is that you've got the luxury of grabbing anything around you. It's all floating around, and your job is to get as much of it in your net as you can. So when someone says 'I'm blocked up and I cant write,' the truth is that if you take a deep breath and look around, there's probably something really close that you could write about. It's just having the confidence, sometimes, to go after it."

"Free Fallin" is three chords the entire song. It's not because we don't know any more chords, it's because that was all that was needed. You have to sometimes watch yourself that you don't do more than is needed."

"I've got this thing where if you wrote a bridge, and it's not as good as the verse or the chorus, it really shouldn't be there. And the verse has got to be as good as the chorus. If you look at it in a modular way, you want all those sections to be equal."

"[T]here's something that makes me not want to give up on it. Because I know the bit that I've got, as much as I've got, is really good. But I can't quite find the line or two I need [...] to tie it all up. So I'm at a point where I'm almost tired of working on it. So I'll take a break for a few days, and then come back and work on it again. I think that if I could pull it off, it could be really good [...] I know what I want to say, I just don't know how to say it yet."

LOOKIN OUT FOR YOUR BROS (TP with Roger Mcguinn of the Byrds)...

PETER ANDROSCH KOMPONIST!

2010-11-17T18:35:00.007-05:00

I've been listening to Austrian composer Peter Androsch, or rather one work of his, since Michael Northam first shared it with me when I was 21. Today I heard everything else. What Michael first shared was Bellum Docet Ad Omnia: The Implosion of Values and it blew my mind.

Gorgeous, haunting, and visceral Bellum was a musical response to the massacre of 400 Soviet prisoners which occurred in February of 1945 in Mühlviertel, Austria. Not only does the music harness the funereal mood of such an event, but it ritualizes the work, situated in a church with a choir processing from outside the church to the altar throughout the course of the performance. Androsch's instrumentation features the Hungarian National Philharmonic choir with Soprano Maria Mzsaroff, whose lyrical melody, floating through the church, taps into an ancient sensibility and a moving incantation. Androsch also calls on rubber strips and wooden clappers (often used in place of a shot to start a P.E. race), which lends the auditory imagination to hearings of chopping and shooting (I recall MNortham and I thought they were chopping wood). It's not a piece I can listen to often, but rather one I return to occasionally with the deepest listening.

Bellum Docet ad Omnia (Peter Androsch) by MattMarble

While Androsch's work is one of the more varied of contemporary composers, Bellum goes to the heart of his trajectory. Political critique is infused within a vast amount of his works, and rather than it being overbearing ideology (or anti-ideology) or dry cerebral conceptualism, Androsch's politics clearly goes for the heart and so carries a uniquely human and emotional voice.

With Didi...

Meanwhile, Androsch also forays into explorations of popular forms (think late-Scott Walker + Staukhausen + Leonard Cohen). Working with singer Dr. Didi Bruckmayr and lyricist Bernd Preinealk, Androsch scored a number of songs that push the boundaries of the genre. A taste of Dr. Didi in his element (unlike the more extended approach he takes with Androsch)...

Bruckmayr was also featured in Androsch's opera, Geschnitzte Heiligkeit, about composer Anton Bruckner being stuck in the afterlife prior to going to heaven. Here is the first couple of minutes. A pavlovian angst of panting and deep-throated sprechstimme.

Der Kalte Krieg (excerpt) by Peter Androsch by MattMarble

Axis of the Furnace...

The Axis of the Furnace has close ties to Bellum. A memorial to the townsfolk of St. Peter, Austria who were removed from their home in place of a steel factory to carry out Hitler's needs. Collaborating with several others, Androsch's music - a mixture of acoustic instruments, environmental sounds, and synthesized sounds - was installed along the long railways that networked through the steel factory, known as "the axis of the furnace". Audience members pass through on railway cars.

More from the mouth...

The vocals in Bellum and Geschnitzte made my ears hungry. And when I discovered Androsch's short choral piece, Prima Luce, I kind of imploded with inspiration...

prima luce (Peter Androsch) by MattMarble

Prima Luce moved swiftly from my own anticipations of worn avant-guard tropes for the voice immediately into a totally idiosyncratic and amazing four-minute beast. Channeling the sounds of a legion of animals, Androsch doesn't let the theatric novelty of the vocal sounds distract him from tying them into an ecstatic form that stands menacingly firm on its own four paws.

More from the more...

His chamber music is decisively more angular and more aligned with the trajectory of the European avant-guard. I am less inspired here in terms of the sounds of the work, but his conceptual approaches offer some pretty interesting sound for thought. For example, in the closing string quartet, L'Algérie, Androsch used the geographic coordinates (8˚W, 12˚E, 19˚S, and 37˚N) and the word "Algerie"-itself as a means to hone the scoring of the work.

He has had numerous roles as composer and sound designer for films, notably his work on The Quality of Mercy, a film by Andreas Gruber, which cinematically reflects on the same events that Androsch's Bellum was responding to. The sound design is fantastic and it is interwoven with an incredible orchestration (a seemingly full orchestra, emphasizing strings, as well as voices) and electronic manipulations. Tender and brooding, the entire film is available to view/hear (poor sound quality) on the You Tube.

Many of Androsch's recordings are available from Sammlung.

As well, Androsch is active in his local sound culture, working with the government to bring sonic awareness to the community. He is also active in the graphic arts, with several of his graphic scores presented in arts exhibitions and on these lovely postcards:

die große Sackmusik

bellum docet ad omnia

The website of Peter Androsch

WHAT I'M SAYING IS BORN FROM THE WEATHER: Excerpts

2010-11-14T17:02:00.006-05:00

Just finished my 3 night run with Rebecca Davis in her choreographed work for 7 dancers, What I'm Saying is Born from the Weather (a title taken from the awesome person and poet Eric Baus). Thanks to friendliness and a grant from AMC, I was blessed to play with Jim Altieri (violin), M.R. Daniel (voice/objects), Tucker Dulin (trombone), and Bob Jones (bass) in the beautiful space of Judson Memorial Church.

The music was based on a score of structured improvisation and chain reaction procedures. The dancers used ice percussion instruments based in a previous work I did in Portland, OR as well as a 'bell blanket' that I met in a dream. Judson poured honey over all the sounds...

Hair Pools > Bell Blanket...

I accidentally recorded this with hi mic sensitivity. And I accidentally love it that way ;)

Slow jam pre-show...

Jim Altieri, Matt Marble, Tucker Dulin, Bob Jones, M.R. Daniel

Hopefully more pics and video to come...

FOREVER IN DEBT, FOREVER INSPIRED: Stevie Wonder

2010-11-10T20:46:00.002-05:00

SOME INCREDIBLE M.K. CIURLIONIS SKETCHES

2010-11-08T17:53:00.001-05:00

M.K. CIURLIONIS: Continued...

2010-10-21T16:02:00.005-04:00

For some time now, I've been seeking images of these notational drawings by M.K. Ciurlionis for his folk songs - housed, I believe, in the Kaunas Museum in Lithuania. Found them here.

Vignette for the folk songs, "When we were growing up," 1909

Vignette for the folk song "The dark night will fall," 1909.

Vignette for the folk song "The dark night will fall" [second version], 1909.

Vignette for the folk song "Saturday night party," 1909.

Vignette for the folk song "On Yonder side of the Nemunas," 1909.

Transcription of the symphony poem "The Sea" for piano

ELEGANT THINGS: Orland Nutt

2010-10-21T14:07:00.003-04:00

Elegant Things from Orland Nutt on Vimeo.

A new short film, Elegant Things, a cinematic staging of poetry, by director Orland Nutt. Starring Ashby Collinson with sound design by Matt Marble (musical composition by O. Nutt).

HARRY PARTCH ROSE PETAL JAM

2010-10-21T02:05:00.001-04:00

from East of Borneo

SIXTH SENSING: Ciurlionis, Kupka, The JACK quartet, + Kiki & Bouba

2010-10-20T21:10:00.008-04:00

M.K. Ciurlionis - Lightning Flashes

I've been enamored by paintings recently. Returning again to M.K. Ciurlionis and discovering others who were actively connecting their vision with their audition, notably Frantisek Kupka and Stanton MacDonald-Wright.

Frantisek Kupka - Spouting (Swirling) (1920)

Stanton MacDonald-Wright - Dragon Trail (1930)

At the same time I am beginning to work on a new piece (set for late Spring) for the JACK string quartet, who have most recently put out an incredible rendering of Xenakis' string quartets on a DVD for Mode Records. They really are phenomenal. Intending to write a churning, galloping fantasy piece for them, the sound came to me as I returned to Ciurlionis' work. And I will be joyfully diving into this magical romanticism.

It's been fascinating revisiting "Visual Music" history: synaesthesia, sound poetry, synchromatic painting, color organs, sound films, and all manner of other terms we've developed to describe a simple and beautiful sensory collaboration. I have always identified as a synaesthete, but I have never believed that there could be some universal synaesthetic language. I once did a piece with filmmaker Randy Wakerlin and choreographer Emily Stone on the color orange. For that piece I based all the musical material on a synthetic scale I derived by averaging the most common musical pitches that scientists associated with the color orange. Taking the tone-color correspondences of 12 scientists, I was not surprised to find that there was little overlap. But then there's Kiki and Bouba:

People all over the world and of all ages, when asked to identify one of the shapes as "Bouba" and one as "Kiki", have almost universally had the same audio-visual connection. So there's something there, but I'm happy to simply make those connections without ever hoping to systematize it, and then reach a point where we're trying to legalize synaesthete marriage. But back to Ciurlionis... You can hear his paintings and see his music on the world wide web duh. Here is a link to his emo-epic, Jura (The Sea) - I personally love his piano preludes. And here are a few images because I won't wait for you to click another link:

FOXY DIGITALIS

2010-10-15T15:11:00.004-04:00

Hey, I was recently interviewed by the online music magazine Foxy Digitalis. Topics include: My own work and its influence from plant forms, Arthur Russell project, the Music Dept at Princeton University, and more.

Read it here

WITHOUT MERCY: Durutti Column (1984)

2010-10-01T18:17:00.004-04:00

Just reminded by T. how much I love Durutti Column (Vini Reilly). And all of today has been swallowed listening to his Without Mercy (1984) album. Produced by Anthony Wilson and Michael Johnson, here is the same fabulous guitar playing drenched in echo, reverb, and electronic beats, but now fleshed out with piano, marimba, cor anglais, oboe, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, violin, viola, and cello. Meandering at times, certainly tapping into some disco/balearic heartbeats, soaring glacially in a beautiful compositional economy, it is absolutely compelling and one of my favorite albums of all time.

A few months earlier we'd been approached by three classical musicians, kids from the Royal Northern College of Music and Manchester University. A trumpeter, a saxophonist and a ... "Has Factory got any work for us?" - "Who knows, maybe ......"

Factory had also struck up a relationship with the wonderful Pete Hadfield acting for statuesque cello player, Caroline Lavelle. (Where's the bloody tape, Pete?) An idea formed; a group of musicians for Vini to create for. Add to the mix Blaine Reininger from the Belgian connection - always on hand with his Michel Duval impersonations and electrifying violin work. The first meeting was at Alan and Annie's farm in Cheshire.

And the final ingredient turned up on the first day at Strawberry when the brass section brought along their 'arranger', the diminutive but 'taking no shit' Mr Metcalfe whose viola playing became such a part of the next cycle of Durutti work.

Since this was pop it had to be 'boy meets girl, boy loses girl' so we took Keats's 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' as the narrative - boy meets girl, boy loses girl and no birds sing.

- from the liner notes

Live:

+

EAT YOURSELF FITTER: Emma Lipp @ Lewis & Clark

2010-09-30T19:49:00.006-04:00

I can't believe I have to miss this...

Emma Lipp directs her latest work, Kinder, for the One-Act Festival at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon.

Music by Scott Goodwin (Operative), hand-made objects by Elizabeth Jaeger, bone necklaces, primordial unraveling, savage state, starts tonight, ahhhdfdjhsf - GO!

Thursday, Sept 30, 7:00pm
Friday, Oct 1, 7:00pm and 10:00pm
Saturday, Oct 2, 7:00pm

The fear of being eaten often walks a tightrope between the terrifying and the absurd.

Maria Tatar

EVERYTHING HAS POSSIBILITIES: James Washington Jr.

2010-09-29T01:40:00.007-04:00

So happy to discover James Washington Jr. (1909-2000)

Born in Gloster, Mississippi, in the late 1930's James would create the first WPA-sponsored exhibition for African-American artists in the state. In the early 1940's he met his wife in Little Rock, Arkansas. In Mexico, 1951, he picked up a stone at Teotihuacán on the path between the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon and began his own path of sculpture with this very stone. He was a 33rd-degree Free Mason of the Rite Consistory, a member of Hercules Lodge no. 17. Since 1944, James and Janie have lived in Seattle, WA, where James was active in the arts community until his death in 2000.

Sperm Pursuing the Egg, 1972

It could have been most anything coming out of an egg. It could have been a fish, coming out of an egg. It could have been anything. It could have been a human being, out of an egg. In other words, there’s no limit to it. This is the thing. All life come from an egg, and the stone is the matrix—or egg. And therefore you can show it partially revealed or completely revealed. It depend on what stage of development you want him in, and sometimes it has greater significance if you partly reveal it. You observe the innocentness of the thing in question. And that innocentness is that spiritual force that it takes to really energize or sensitize anything.

Animal Obelisk, 1976

All life comes from an egg. Or all life emanates from an egg. I had a doctor in my studio once, and he had commissioned me to do a piece of sculpture for his wife, and I showed him a bunny coming out of an egg, being hatched, and he said, “Washington,” he said, “a bunny doesn’t come out of an egg; a rabbit doesn’t come out of an egg!” I said, “Do you know, Doctor, that all life comes out of an egg? It takes only three things to produce life? And the egg is the largest cell, or the only cell, you can see with the natural eye? First, we have the egg, sperm, and the genes. Do you not know that?

Renewness of Life, 1965-66

Everything I see has possibilities, and my imagination is key to it. Every time I see a stone, I visualize its possibilities. I want to see what it is all about in the stone. On his animal sculptures: I wait until intuition moves me, and then… I get to the point where I am the animal… I release the spiritual force into the inanimate material and animate it. When this happens, I feel like I'm working with flesh rather than just stone.

Dorset Lamb Reclining

To me, art is a holy land.

STAMP IT: 'Are 'are

2010-09-25T22:24:00.001-04:00

I come back to this a lot:

DARK PEACE: Barney Hoskyns' Hotel California

2010-09-17T03:08:00.001-04:00

I'm just finishing reading Barney Hoskyns' Hotel California: Singer-Songwriters and Cocaine Cowboys in the LA Canyons, 1967-1976. For the most part it reads like a celebrity tabloid, one I can actually indulge in. Hoskyns lays out the drug problems, sexual webs, and personality flaws of Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Neil Young, James Taylor, Van Dyke Parks, Gram Parsons, Judee Sill, David Geffen, Jack Nitzsche, Jackson Browne, Linda Rondstadt, Tom Waits, Warren Zevon, Frank Zappa, and carousing hollywood folk (Jack Nicholson, Dean Stockwell, Harrison Ford, Steve Martin, etc). But much more than its tabloid-ish exploits, it shows the emergence of 1) the singer-songwriter in America, 2) the inception of country music into pop/rock and 3) the emergence of one of the most lucrative and successful record labels (Geffen/Asylum) in recording history.

The most fascinating aspect of the book is the way Hoskyns connects the dots to form the fascinating tapestry of talent and personality in L.A. at the time. As well, he intimately shows the interaction between the artists and the industry and how they developed together into a wealthy and powerful machine, with much negativity surrounding. And few leave this book unscathed. Also included is an essay by Hoskyns on Judee Sill, a wonderful overview of one of the many, and most neglected, artists whose masochistic tendencies combined with the pressures of the industry to prematurely mortal results. A wonderful book, with that rare living human breath felt in every word.

RINGS: Ray Charles

2010-09-16T01:01:00.004-04:00

I love circles, rings, rounds, mandalas. And tonight I was sitting in a "Texas" country bar in Manhattan and the band played Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire". Their version was good, but nothing beats this one by Ray Charles...

WALDO INCAS: Elisabeth Waldo

2010-09-10T03:49:00.007-04:00

Having grown up in Washington state on a family ranch, neighboring to Yakima Native American Reservation, Elisabeth Waldo went on to formal music training at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philly and to perform as a solo violinist. Her life's work however has been based in preserving and creatively channeling the sounds of Meso-American and Chinese music traditions. More recently she has been artistic director to the Multi-Cultural Music and Art Foundation of Northridge (MCMAFN), California.

http://www.elisabethwaldomusic.com

Most definitely her music falls into the sonically colonial camp of exoticism, though she may be more positively viewed as a musical "archeologist". Regardless, her music just sounds good. I have no doubt she genuinely cares for the indigenous music she's sourcing and captures some of its spirit, but, more than that, a bit of her own spirit is channeled through that. Anyways, I just wanted to share a taste of her work (I was struck by her Realm of the Incas, which features authentic Pre-Columbian instruments, see below). Sits well next to Manos Hadjidakis, Erik Satie, and Ennio Morricone.

Listen to Realm of the Incas at my favorite music blog, Cabinet of Curiosities

MAP TO THE TREASURE: Laura Nyro

2010-09-10T03:18:00.003-04:00

Laura Nyro comes from the lineage of New York's Brill Building song production machine (which over time included the work of Neil Diamond, Carole King, Paul Simon, Phil Spector, and Burt Bacharach). They were churning out hits for the moneymakers and radio listeners. The sound was elemental pop often with a Latin and R&B influence: Yakety-Yak, The Loco-motion, River Deep Mountain High are early examples. Nyro's style reflects her interest in jazz and classical music (especially "impressionists" such as Debussy), while dating herself to the fellow works of Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Judee Sill.

Christmas and the Beads of Sweat (1970) was Laura Nyro's third in a trilogy of albums (including Eli and the 13th Confession and New York Tendaberry). Combining the upbeat composition of the former with the reflective qualities of the latter, Christmas settles into some interesting territory, which especially recall Kate Bush and Judee Sill. With Christmas Nyro finds herself between these two incredible musical personalities. But what else makes this album unique is the musicians who perform it. For here we have the unlikely pairing of none other than Duane Allman (of the Allman Brothers) and Alice Coltrane. Allman has a signature presence on "Beads of Sweat", while Coltrane's touch on the albums two most compelling tracks, "Upstairs by a Chinese Lamp" and "Map to the Treasure", crystalizes the calm depth that Nyro is working towards here.

A MEMORY FROM 2005

2010-09-05T04:02:00.000-04:00

COWBOYS GET LIFTED

2010-08-23T21:00:00.002-04:00

THANKS TO TYLER FOR SCHOOLIN!

Julius Eastman's "Evil Nigger" (audio excerpt)

2010-08-20T17:09:00.001-04:00

Evil Nigger EXCERPT by JULIUS EASTMAN (1979) by MattMarble

WITHOUT MUSIC: Composing for Rebecca Davis...

2010-08-02T21:36:00.001-04:00

DAILY LISTENING... Jackson Browne

2010-08-02T20:11:00.001-04:00

Jackson Browne - Fountain Of Sorrow Live
Uploaded by alexandru2006. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

MORE CRYSTALS: Crystal Springs, Mississippi

2010-08-01T19:39:00.003-04:00

Mama + Uncle + Mary Ella at farm in Crystal Springs, MS (1958)

ETERNAL SPARK: The Glass Art of Jon Kuhn

2010-07-25T18:22:00.006-04:00

Jon Kuhn is a glass artist based in Winston-Salem, NC. I recently encountered his work at the International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, NC, where one of his pieces is displayed. He has been commissioned by the Oval Office, the Pope, and numerous museums across the world. iDose, Spin, and shimmer (to soothing music sometimes)...

ARTHUR RUSSELL: Rare Audio Interviews

2010-07-23T09:17:00.007-04:00

A while back I stumbled upon Declan Kelly's Melbourne-based 3RRR radio special focusing on Arthur Russell. The special includes both available and unavailable recordings as well as two interviews, both of which were made around 1986, during the time Arthur was finalizing the World of Echo album. The tunes and interviews were shared with Declan via the co-manager of Arthur's estate, Steve Knutson, of Audika Records - Thanks for sharing Steve! [Note: I will be getting the details on these interviews]. I cut and edited Declan's files to feature the interviews, you can hear the full audio, including lots of great music here. Arthur's voice is hushed in both talks, and the second is brief with horrible recording quality; but what a privilege to hear his thoughts in his own live words.

from the "Music for Modern Ears" Program (1986):

AR interview 1986 1 by MattMarble

??? (1986):

AR interview 1986 2 by MattMarble

Again, the original post (including music) here

THUNDER IN EMERALD ISLE (NC)

2010-07-18T14:28:00.001-04:00

Thunder@ Emerald Isle, NC (July, 2010) by MattMarble

PAGAN POETRY: BRONIUS KUTAVICIUS

2010-07-16T00:43:00.034-04:00

Having been introduced to his work by Seth Nehil years ago, recently I've been returning to the music of Bronius Kutavicius (b. 1932, Molainiai, Lithuania). There is an extremely small amount of information on his work, so I will try to consolidate it here for the most part, leaving aside the more common notes of his pedigree, and focusing on the music itself.

His sound-world is wrought by a combination of traditional Lithuanian folk instruments, Western European orchestral instruments, field recordings, and the raw power of the human voice. His earlier works sought to dig deep into the folk and esoteric traditions of his native Lithuania. He is best known and best heard in his cycle of oratorios, which often involve folk and ritualistic elements within the music and/or performance: Pantheistic Oratorio (1970), Last Pagan Rites (1978) for children's choir, soprano, four horns, and organ, From the Jotvingian Tree (1983) for the Vilnius New Music Ensemble, and The Tree of Earth (1986)... He is often lumped in with Algirdas Martinaitis, Vidmantas Barulis, and Mindaugas Urbatis in Lithuania, alongside Pärt and Tormis from Estonia, as one of the Baltic 'Minimalists' of their respective generation. But Kutavicius shines in the vocal domain and the human expression he solicits there. He somehow ties together familiar melodies and evocative tunes with the avant-guarde tendencies to break speech down into its raw sonic elements. But unlike this tendency in the music of Ligeti, Stockhausen, Cage, and, for that matter, in Reich and Riley, Kutavicius is able to create an incredibly natural and rich texture out of these raw sounds and, more than that, imbue them with an intensely emotional expression (something often deeply lacking in American and European 'minimalism').

Other works in this vein:

The Village Burial Ground (1969)
Music for Seven (1975)
Little Performance (1975) for actress, 2 violins, and 2 pianos
Mėtaujėla (1976)

Before going on to Kutavicius' own music, let's listen to some of the more influential Lithuanian traditions that have inspired him. The sutartine (a 2-4 voice polyphonic practice, notable for its hocketed exchanges), which has been active since the 16th century up to the 20th. This music emphasizes a kind of hocketed call-and-response, which is emblematic in much of Kutavicius' music.

Sutartines mana vainikas by MattMarble

Similar to this folk practice, Kutavicius' music is rooted in repeated melodic phrases (ostinato), much as in the work of Terry Riley, while Kutavicius tends to ponder more compositionally on aspects of timbre and form.

Closer to the gradually expanding human dramas of Gorecki's symphonies, listen to this excerpt of Kutavicius' Tree of the Earth...

The Tree of Earth excerpt 1 by MattMarble

What does a magician do? Practically nothing, except wrap himself in mystery. Well, the past is the greatest mystery. In all my works I seek mystery. If it is not there, then there is no music. (BK)

Last Pagan Rites was my introduction, and I was totally blown away by this record. The instrumentation, melodic phrasing, and general musical style were derived from Kutavicius' extensive research into Lithuanian traditions. Listen to "Oh You Green Grasshopper" which explores a single shimmering chord (a dominant 9th) with voices, organ, and brass. Interestingly, the music in Last Pagan Rites involved a spatial choreography of musicians moving around the audience.

What’s important, is to make an impression - to stun the person, to 'knock him out' with sound, so that he leaves tottering...

Oh you green grasshopper excerpt 1 by MattMarble

The scores from this period are inherently symbolic and visually compelling, something I've noted elsewhere (**)

[Momma is currently falling asleep to "The Golden Girls" on television.]

Last Pagan Rites (score)

From the Jatvingian Stone (score)

My favorite work of Kutavicius is from another one of the oratorio cycles, From the Jatvingian Stone (Is Jotvingiu Akmens). Uniquely tuned plectrums, strings, staccato voices, and vessel flutes intertwine and rise into a calmly ecstatic atmosphere. This work was an ode to an extinct Baltic tribe, the Jatvingians, and Kutavicius evoked their imagined sound-world with vocal yalps and the percussive play of pebbles, clay pots, and bottles. I haven't heard music like this by anyone anywhere else ~ Pretty special...

From the Jatvingian Stone excerpt 1 by MattMarble

Another favorite work is The Gates of Jerusalem (1991-95), of which "Nothern Gates I" is the most memorable. A pulse (bass drum and chains) is joined with an animalistic chorus of strings, cascading across one another in their own time, and ultimately working themselves into a frenzy. This is one of Kutavicius' most simple and provocative works, and references the practices of Yakut shamans. This work sought to sonify the religious rites of various cultures from a geographical form (there are also Eastern, Western, and Southern gates).

[Hmm, Poppa is impressively falling asleep to this at the moment.]

Put your ear in it...

Northern Gates excerpt 1 by MattMarble

That was by the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra. Now try this version by the St. Christopher Chamber Ensemble, which moves at a slower tempo and, for some reason, lacks the underlying pulse of the previous performance (???).

Northern Gates excerpt 2 by MattMarble

Here is page 1 of the score for those inclined...

His most recently available work, Lokys The Bear doesn't carry the compelling aspects of his previous work, but deserves a mention due to the small amount of available recordings. As Kutavicius described his intention, he was seeking to compose "a nice romantic opera for the delight of every opera-goer". So if that is you, you may well be enchanted. Other, I do not have a strong recommendation here. Even more recently (2009) he has scored original music to Carl Theodor Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc". This is the only audio I've been able to find, with Bronius (I think?) conducting at the computer. More along the romantic Western European orchestral vein...

In America the closest affinity we have is Harry Partch. But Kutavicius shoots far ahead of Partch in his ability to tap into the originary sources that inspired him, whose simplicity and expressiveness can transcend the confines of experimental music circles, should it fall on ears outside of this woodland ritual ring. Kutavicius' music excells when it is expressed by his lands native instruments and tradition, though his own slow-developing lens, not at all for the novelty of its sound, but because of the deep understanding and natural expression that this music brings to the ear. I can only hope that some Mickey Newbury or Arthur Russell fan can stumble here and discover something outside their box... Bronius.

- - - - -

bibliography

Linas Paulauskis, Bronius Kutavicius Celebrates the Passage of Time: http://www.mxl.lt/en/classical/info/251

Šarūnas Nakas, "What is the Lithuanian Brand of Minimalism": http://www.mxl.lt/en/classical/info/307

SPIRIT PEOPLE: STEVE MARTIN

2010-07-14T18:56:00.003-04:00

You know, a lot of people come to me and they say, "Steve, how can you be so fucking funny?" There's a secret to it, it's no big deal. Before I go out, I put a slice of bologna in each of my shoes. So when I'm on stage, I feel funny.

SUMMER GLITTER (Mt. Tabor, Oregon)

2010-07-13T14:08:00.004-04:00

Marvin Gaye, "what's goin on", acapella ~

THE FUTURE ISN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE: MICKEY NEWBURY

2010-07-13T01:24:00.009-04:00

I'm just discovering Mickey Newbury, another rhizome from Townes van Zandt. Renowned song-writer, singer/performer. Opening for the likes of Sam Cooke, he sang with The Embers in his teenage years (1950's). Went on to work for Nashville's famous Acuff-Rose Music company, through which he penned numerous songs for others; and he put out several stellar albums until his death in 2002. His album, 'Frisco Mabel Joy (1971), produced by Dennis Linde, was a subtle jolt to the status quo of Nashville's current fare of country music production. A careful blend of field recordings, choirs, effected voices, and synths re-inforce Mickey's otherwise standard country-folk ensemble and his uniquely soulful voice. Listen to his song of the same name, notably long for the time... the chimes running throughout, the quiet rain field recording, and do wait to hear the sudden choral flower at the end...

It is sometimes very good to recall the basics:

"If I wake up and feel like writing and the sun is shining, I might start off with ‘…I woke up this morning and the sun is shining…’ or ‘…I woke up this morning and it was raining…’ Seldom does that wind up being the lead line, but it creates a thread that goes through the song and somewhere down the line the sounds starts.

It’s an old way of writing and I really believe in it because it’s the only way you can get into an unconscious flow. If you ever want to study a song and see if it’s inspired, take the lines and switch them around and see if they still have content and still make sense.

[Take my] “Sweet Memories” – My world is like a river, as dark as it is deep... night after night the past slips in, and gathers all my sleep... my days are just an endless stream, of emptiness to me... filled only by the fleeting moments of the memories.’ Now take those line and switch them around...

‘My days are just an endless stream, of emptiness to me... filled only by the fleeting moments of the memories... my world is like a river, as dark as it is deep... night after night the past slips in, and gathers all my sleep’.”

The unconscious mind, which retains 100% of its input, as opposed to the conscious mind, which retains only 15% of its input, is crazy as hell,” he says. “I loved that kind of writing…’cause you never know what’s gonna come out. Free flowing is the way to go (for writing a song)…but you can’t take credit for it and your ego doesn’t get stroked when you write like that. But it’s the source of the greater art if you can tap into it and are able to tap into it when you need it, you do it when you need it and then when you don’t need it, you are on another level.”

[Quotations from ***]

This 1 minute vocal intro to "How Many Times" (also from 'Frisco Mabel Joy] highlights Mickey's emotional delivery, which shows a strong stylistic tie to gospel. And again the production is subtly strange... that brief vibraphone pulse, the wash of reverb...

How many times (intro excerpt) by Mickey Newbury by MattMarble

Mickey's way of writing a tune shares much with a rhizomatic process. Every word or phrase can become the source of a new idea, or, reversibly, the product of another [A=B], adding up into a self-defining phrase, idea, or 'scene'. His process is not goal-oriented, progressing on a line towards an end result, nor servicing a "hook", but his is one of making connections; guiding and discovering. This is something I'm writing about in the work of Arthur Russell, and it is something that guides my own process whether in a song or in more abstract forms. Thanks Mickey.

LINDE MANOR: Looking For This!!!!!

2010-07-10T14:17:00.001-04:00

Find Me, Share Me...

WE MUST BELIEVE IN MAGIC: "Cowboy" Jack Clement

2010-07-09T18:37:00.005-04:00

"Cowboy" Jack Clement is a world-renowned producer, song-writer, and performer. He discovered Jerry Lee Lewis, he was buddies with Johnny Cash, he produced albums of Townes Van Zandt, Charlie Pride, and Waylon Jennings; and he was one of those rare beautiful spirits that floats through the industry like a friendly invisible bear. Clement brought soul, humor, and magic by the honey-pot full to the Nashville country scene. After Listening to his songs a bunch, I discovered this curious documentary: Shakespeare Was a Big George Jones Fan, featuring Jerry Lee Lewis, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Bono, et al...

I first discovered him a week ago, after stumbling upon his All I Really Want in Life album from 1978 [Elektra]. His voice is rich and vibrant, the studio production is gorgeous, and through most of the short tracks his signature use of choral support gives a friendly hello. His originals "Gone Girl" and "Queen Bee" inspire a hearbeat and a teardrop, while his covers of McDill and Reynolds "We Must Believe in Magic", Reynolds and Theoret's "All I Want to Do in Life" and Billy Jay Reynold's "It'll Be Her" sing out Clement's authority on these songs.

Dan Witz & The Wolves Of Périgord

2010-06-20T00:44:00.004-04:00

Wolves of Périgord (verses, sketch) by MattMarble

Thanks to the Leviathon blog

THISTLE ME

2010-06-06T21:16:00.004-04:00

Answers me (2009 piano arrangement of Arthur Russell original) by MattMarble

Just a brief moment to revel in a recent trip to Thistle Restaurant in McMinnville, Oregon... Fantastic! Plus a preview of a piano arrangement of Arthur Russell's "Answers Me" which I will be seeking re-mixers for...

REBIRTHING MUSIC

2010-06-06T20:19:00.003-04:00

Scott Mclean + Jarkko Cain (photo by Alicia Rose)

I remember, 7 years ago, when Scott Maclean, his first day in Portland, walked into the downtown pizza shop I was working in at the time. After a brief chat about the music scene, I asked what brought him to Portland, to which he replied, "I'm going to start a club". And he did. Holocene has been one of the main and most consistent of arteries within the Portland experimental music scene (with their natural bent towards the pulsating beat). In any case, Holocene celebrated their 7th birthday the other night, and the show, featuring Golden Retriever, Operative, and The Miracle's Club was phenomenal...

GOLDEN RETRIEVER

OPERATIVE

THE MIRACLE'S CLUB

Holocene birthday scene mix from Miracles Club on Vimeo.

THE PROCESS OF THE DREAMING: Kate Bush in the Studio

2010-06-02T03:15:00.007-04:00

Happy to find this tech-y interview, largely devoted to her album The Dreaming from a 1985 Keyboard magazine...

-- - - - - - - - -

Your image has changed dramatically from that of a pop chanteuse, as you were perceived on your first two albums, to that of someone with a very clear artistic vision, which is how people have come to perceive you since your third and fourth records. Is that an accurate assessment?

Even on the first two records, I was doing what I'm doing now as a artist, only (because I was a lot younger, and I didn't have the room and the space to be able to truly present my music. I had to work with a producer and within certain kind of set-ups because of the fact that- that's how it was, I wasn't powerful enough basically to be able to say, 'Look, I'm producing this myself. This is what I do.' And that's what I do now.) I think that if I had been a little older, and if I'd had the experience at the time, I would have done it then, too. (But I was--When I was making my first album, I was 18. I had never really worked with a band before, let alone a producer in a studio setup. So I just had--[laughs]--I mean I just about had the guts, you know, to sing and keep it together.) But you learn very quickly what you want. By the time the second album was finished, I knew that I had to be involved. Even though they were my songs and I was singing them, the finished product was not what I wanted. That wasn't the producer's fault. He was doing a good job from his point of view- making it sound good and together. But for me, it was not my album, really.

Is the album you're working on going to be a departure from The Dreaming, or is it a continuation of the ideas you developed there?

It's difficult for me to say, really. I think it is different from The Dreaming. When I sit down and write songs for a new album, that's one of the things that's important to me--that it's at least somehow different and hopefully interesting.

The album 'The Dreaming' was quite a radical departure from you previous records.

Yes, I think it is different, but I don't know if it's that different. It's very different from the first two albums, but the third album is where I think we started to get there. I think it was a progression, really. But perhaps not such an obvious one.

[Note: The following comment appears in the radio interview with regard to The Dreaming, but does not appear in the magazine interview.]

But it is quite...dark, I suppose, without meaning to be negative. I think it is saying...nearly all those songs are saying that people are great, but they really hurt each other, and you know, look at the things we do to each other. Why do we do this...you know, questioning. I think albums are like that, they're...they are little diaries. You know, you sort of sit there and write--not autobiographical things--but what you feel at the time, things that move you. I think it does say a lot about you at the time.

What were the differences?

I think the main difference was connected to my involvement. The more I get involved in the production, then the more I'm going to get exactly what I can out of it. Therefore, it automatically becomes a more demanding and personal project.

You started using a Fairlight on 'Never For Ever'.

Right, I didn't have my own Fairlight and we had to hire one in. (And really as soon as I met the Fairlight, I realized that it was something I really couldn't do without because it was just so integral to what I wanted to do with my music. I think I've always enjoyed synthesizers...I found them very interesting, but I never really enjoyed all the sounds. And what really gets me about the Fairlight is that any sound becomes musical. You can actually control any sound you want by sampling it in, and then being able to play it. I mean obviously, it doesn't always sound great, but the amount of potential exploration you have there with sounds is never-ending, and it's fabulous.)

Do you write songs around the Fairlight?

Yes, I do now. This is actually the first album that I've done that on. Up until now, I've always written on the piano. It's been a very important part of it. The songs came from the piano and the chords. But with this album, the majority of the songs have come from the Fairlight and working with drum machines and things like that.

It seemed that many of the rhythms on 'The Dreaming', especially the title track, came more from vocal rhythms. They don't seem keyboard-based at all.

You're quite right. ([Laughs.] That's not a keyboard-based song at all. It's very much based on aboriginal music that I'd been able to hear.) (And it does have quite a specific rhythm--that sort of slow, spacey thing. It's got so much space in it. And that was very much one of the things we wanted to get across, this... much like landscapes of huge deserted flatlands. That's what the music seems to say. It talks about, you know, where they --the aborigines--went; their environment.) That was actually an idea I'd had since the third album. I knew I wanted to write a song that was about abuses-the aborigines, the Indians, these tribes whose counties had been taken away from them by so-called civilized man. I wanted it to be based around the aboriginal style of music. Their music says so much to me about space, earth, and living on the land. So the whole thing is based around the didgeridoo. I have a rough sample in my Fairlight, and I sort of worked out ideas from that. Then we got people in and pieced all the other sounds together. It was quite a visual song, because you could see so many things that suggested to you where to place sounds.

But you actually used a didgeridoo player instead of the Fairlight sample on the track.

I think it would be insulting to the instrument to suggest that the Fairlight could do it better--I don't know if you realize the sort of circular breathing technique that's involved in playing it. (The didgeridoo is one of those incredible instruments with the circular sound that's incredibly...sort of rooted in the earth. And we got Rolf Harris in to play it, and he is a brilliant didgeridoo player. He could just keep it going for half an hour.)

What kind of things have you been doing with the Fairlight?

I use the Fairlight in a basic way, really. (What really appeals to me most is the idea of having any sound that is available put into the Fairlight. And I use it mainly as I would my piano. So it's finding the sound I want, which cyan take ages- that's the most difficult thing- and then working around it musically to make it suit the song. When I'm writing a song around it, normally I just use chords with a quite simple Fairlight sound. And then if I want to build up things, I'll do small overdubs just as we go throughout the album,) with the Fairlight being dragged in every other week. So in the writing process, the main Fairlight sound goes down even on the demos. You find the sounds that work for overdubs at a later date. For me, the ideal is the combination of Fairlight and acoustic instruments, rather than it being all electronic or all acoustic.

Are you using sounds that they give you with the Fairlight, or have you been sampling your own?

Some of the presets that they supply are actually quite good. But there's one favorite that everyone is using, called 'Orch. 5' or something. Every time anyone who has a Fairlight hears it they go, 'Oh,no! Not again!' There are a couple of good preset sounds, but I think that the most exciting thing is actually recording sounds and sampling them in. Quite often the nature of the sound changes when you put it in the Fairlight, but that in itself can be quite interesting.

You used 'Orch. 5' yourself in "The Dreaming" [single].

Yes [laughs], but as far as I know, at that time no one had used it. Of course, this was the early days of the Fairlight. Actually I'm surprised that so many people have used the same sound.

You seem to go for more natural sounds, rather than electronic ones, on 'The Dreaming' LP.

("There's a human element in that album that's quite a...sort of tormented human looking for, you know, how to sort out all these problems and pain. And I think it's... these sounds are right, the human sounds, the sensitive emotional sounds. It's quite an emotional album really, and I just want to suit it.) I think that the combination of very acoustic real sounds and very hard electronic sounds is fabulous too. I like to create contrasts and extremes for the atmosphere that you're building around a particular song.

You get those extremes in "Night of the Swallow", going from the Irish folk music played by the members of Planxty into a very sparse piano part.

It's always the song that tells you what to do. In my head, I' thinking that I'm finished with this, but the song will go, 'Look, you can't get this if you don't do this...' The song is controlling you. It's tell you what to do really. If it works, great. If it doesn't, it just keeps you dragging along behind it. It's strange.

When you're working out a song to a particular chord pattern you've come up with on a keyboard, what comes first, the lyrics or the vocal melody?

Quite often, I get the lyrics and melody in a short burst. Maybe I'll get the first verse or the choruses straight away. Then it'll take me forever just trying to piece the rest together, because you have to try to maintain a level of quality within the lyrics, especially if you're trying to tell a story. You have to get the phrasing right, but you're hoping your audience will be able to see where you're going. I find that the most difficult thing to do, especially if it's something like The Dreaming, [a song] which I found totally interesting. It was very difficult for me to do that and get what I wanted across. Some of the songs really do take me a very long time, although perhaps the initial ideas came rather quickly.

Your vocal arrangements are often complex enough to suggest that a keyboard instrument was involved in coming up with the parts. Is this the case?

Sometimes the backing vocals just come in automatically as part of a song when I'm writing it. Other times, maybe it won't be until I've recorded the main voice and a few events in the song. And then I'll think it needs something there. Those are really the two extremes: I either come up with the backing vocals in the initial writing, or I hear a hole that needs filling. Whether I build up a really thick, grand vocal depends on the song. If the song needs that, then I'll just overdub the voice and build the vocals up. If it's a very intimate song between the singer and the subject matter, then you'd write it with just one voice.

You process your voice quite a bit.

I'm sure there are quite a few people like me who really prefer the sound of their own voice when it's affected a bit. To hear your own voice absolutely straight with nothing on it can be very painful. Again, it depends on what the songs are about.

Where do you work your songs out?

I've had a home studio for the last few years. For this album, we put together a master home studio. The difference it makes is fantastic. The obvious difference is that we're not paying a phenomenal amount of money every hour for a London studio. That makes you feel so much more relaxed. The amount of pressure that the studio situation puts on you is quite surprising. You also feel a lot freer to experiment.

We understand that before, you'd do the demos and often not be able to duplicate the same feeling in the studio.

I think that's one of the most impossible things to do, and everyone in the business must have it happen to them. You do a demo and it's the song, the spontaneity of how you put it down, that little inflection in the voice there, or something in the demo says it all. Even though the vocals are rough and the drums are out of time, it's got the feel of the song. Them you come to master it and it's not there. It's too fast or too clean. It's just not the same. Trying to recreate the moods of something you did so spontaneously can be so impossible. What we've done on this album is make the demos the masters. We demoed in the studio so that there were no demos anymore. They've transformed into the masters.

When you started working with electronic instruments, did you start listening to what other people were doing?

Yes, you can't help but hear other people's electronic music. music is an inspiring thing to hear. But unfortunately, 99% of my time is eaten up listening to my own and nothing else. And then, it's only listening to what I'm working on at that moment. When I'm finished, I go through these big phases of listening to other people's stuff. It's so exciting.

Who do you listen to at those times?

I'm particularly into a label called Windham Hill. That's beautiful music--absolutely gorgeous. And there's a German label called ECM that has a lot of jazz-rock music. One of my favorite artists there is (bassist) Eberhard Weber. He's fantastic [Weber appears on The Dreaming]. I find that the most enjoyable thing for me to do when I get in from the studio, other than listen to music, is to watch videos. My ears are so tired. You get such a form of concentrated listening--you've got to listen for clicks and drums and the voice... So when you get back, you want to rest your ears and let your eyes watch rubbish for half an hour.

Why do you sometimes use other musicians to play certain keyboard parts on your records? Listening to your piano playing, you wouldn't have any trouble covering the parts that they play.

Well, I don't play the Synclavier. I play the Fairlight, but I didn't have a Fairlight of my own until the last album, and that was only towards the end of it. In fact, that's why I had to get people in. I had to hire their Fairlight and Synclavier and I had to have them play it as well - until I had my own.

What do you have in your studio?

We have a Soundcraft mixing deck, a Studer A-80 tape machine, lots of outboard gear, and Q-lock. We normally use 48 tracks now, even if it's for a vocal idea or something. 24 tracks doesn't seem to go anywhere with me. And the Fairlight, of course. We have a room simulator called a Quantec, which is my favorite. It would be lovely to be able to draw the sort of room you wanted your voice to be in. I think that's the next step.

Any other synthesizers besides the Fairlight?

I've got an Emulator, but I haven't really used that on any of the master recording--yet. It's the only other synthesizer I have in there.

You played Yamaha CS-80 on The Dreaming. Was that hired?

No, that was mine, but I must admit the Fairlight has taken over completely now.

What sort of piano do you prefer?

I think my favourite piano is the one I have at home. It's an upright Bechstein. It's absolutely beautiful, but it's not ideal for master recordings. For me, the piano is one of the most difficult things to record well. It sounds good in the room, but it doesn't always sound good coming through the speakers. We find that we have to do quite a bit of work on them to get them to sound good on tape. But I like Bechsteins, and I think Steinways are quite good. I find that it sometimes helps for the piano to be older. I have a Grotrian-Steinweg piano that I use all the time in our studio, and that seems quite nice.

What sorts of things do you have to do to get pianos to sound good?

It depends on the nature of the piano. Some pianos are very mid-rangey, so it's nice to get away from the mid- and go for the top-end and things like that. But there's only so much you can do. Hopefully, you have the nicest sounding piano you can find and you don't have to do much to it. It's also nice to have the piano in a live-sounding room with an ambiance mike on it. That helps a lot.

Who was the biggest influence on your piano playing?

In my teens, it was mostly Elton John. For me, he was the only person who was writing songs and then playing and singing them together. I thought his piano playing was fantastic and quite jazzy in some ways. What I liked was that his accompaniment was always so right for the songs. He was definitely a big inspiration for me in my teens. I think my favorite keyboard players are more keyboard players than pianists. And I love the stuff that Brian Eno does. The sounds he comes up with are really brilliant.

How did "There Goes a Tenner" come together?

That was written on the piano. I had an idea for the tune and just knocked out the chords for the first verse. The words and everything just came together. It was quite a struggle from there on to try to keep things together. The lyrics are quite difficult on that one, because there are a lot of words in quite a short space of time. They had to be phrased right and everything. That was very difficult. Actually the writing went hand-in-hand with the CS-80.

It's easy to hear how the piano was used for the verses, but what about the choruses? Those sections are very uncharacteristic of what you'd expect to be written on a piano?

That was really the difficult structure of the song. I could hear what I wanted, but until we put the Synclavier in there--which was played by Dave Lawson - I couldn't get the full picture. I really liked what we did in that.

How are you putting together songs now?

At least six or seven of the tracks on this new album have been done in totally different ways. There's one track that I literally wrote on the Fairlight and then re-did things completely with strings. And the drums, which were originally Linn, were re-done with a live drummer. Then there's another track that's completely different, where I'd write through a guitarist. It really needed to be based around a guitar and I can't play guitar. If I'd used a piano or Fairlight, it would've been wrong, so I literally had to write through the guitarist. That was fabulous.

What was it that made you decide to replace the Fairlight and Linn with real strings and real drums?

I suppose it's when I get the voice and lyrics on, they tell me what to do. (I thought, um...Although the Fairlight strings were interesting, they didn't have the...the warmth and the intimacy that the song required, and...it sounded a bit bland on the Fairlight.) That particular song was a very intimate one. (It needed...a wooden, human error, you know, the fact that it wasn't always on the beat, and that there was this group of people working together creating that sound. I do feel that in most cases when you've got a brilliant musician and an instrument you really...I mean, what's the Fairlight there for? I think it...it's a different purpose, to me anyways. I don't feel I want to create the world's greatest cellist on the Fairlight. You know, I'd rather get a really good cello player in, and record him with a good engineer, and then use the Fairlight to do something that complimented that.) The most exciting thing for me is the combination of real and natural sounds and extremely electronic synthesized ones. It's just the blend of two worlds that I find fabulous. In the next few years, it's going to be really lovely to see how people start working these things. We've been in a real synthetic era for the last three years. People have been interested in the new advances in synthesizers. It's really exciting, and I think it's got people so wrapped up in electronics that now perhaps will come the time when the blend will happen.

What about the idea that you may not be creating the best cellist on the Fairlight, but that you will be the cellist? It won't be Pablo Casals' expression, it will be Kate Bush's expression?

Yes, I think that could be interesting, but I also think that could be boring. On this album I've done so much of the work that I really enjoy other people's input. I find it boring, actually, to have to work with my ideas all the time. (The great thing, again, you can do with the Fairlight that I enjoy so much is I can write a piece on it, say, with an acoustic guitar or a cello, and I can write it out, and then I can get a musician in to actually play that. So he's playing what I've written, but he's doing it much better than I could do.) (You see, without the Fairlight, I probably couldn't have written these parts before. I would have written them on the piano and they wouldn't have had the feel of the strings, or acoustic guitar. And at the same time, you know I don't think me playing them on the Fairlight is as good as these people. But it's an interesting blend.)

Do you feel you have a better understanding of how these people play?

("Well, certainly in my experience, it's given me the most incredible insight into composing and how instruments work. And I think it's sort of...If you're not careful it can give you an arrogance as well, where you're sort of sitting there playing all these drums and thinking, 'Hey, you know, why can't you do this?', you know - like it's so easy. On the other hand, you know, there are little inflections that would be so difficult to get on the keyboard. I mean, you could probably get it to sound very close, but it... it might... just not sound like the real instrument. A lot of natural instruments, that's what it's about. It's the inflection of the musician, the way he works it, personalizes it. I mean, you know real instruments should never die. I don't think they can. That's what all these electronic things have come from. They should go hand in hand.")

Do you compose on paper or right into the Fairlight or tape machine?

It's really in my head first and then onto the tape machine. I only compose onto paper when it's an instance like a guitar or cello, where I play in real time to the track, and then when I like what it is, I'll write it out for someone to play. If it's me playing it, I don't bother to write it out. I work much better in my head. It takes me hours to write things out. I'm so slow. But writing it out is a very accurate way to get them to do what you want very quickly.

There's a depth of texture and complexity to your last two records that makes them bear up well under repeated listening. They reveal more every time you hear them.

That's lovely that you should say that. My favorite albums are the ones I love more and more with each listening. That would be absolutely dynamite if I felt that I was doing that for other people with my albums. Two of my ultimate favourite recordings are 'Magical Mystery Tour' and 'Sgt. Pepper'.

It's interesting you'd mention those particular Beatles' albums, because it seems that The Dreaming and Never For Ever harken back to that time of the concept album and the idea of stepping into a different world when you're listening to a record. There is a fantasy element to your imagery.

I always tend to resent that. I always feel that the Tolkien, fantastical images seem to suggest that they're not based in reality, which I can't help but feel that a lot of my stuff is. Not all of it, but a majority is based in reality rather than fantasy. A lot of people say this, and I can't help but feel that the first two albums set that impression. You know, the feel of the production, the high voice, they sort of had a floating feel about them. But few of those songs weren't based in reality.

You do make a lot of social statements in tunes like "Pull Out the Pin" & "Breathing".

My motivations are not social or political. It's an emotional motivation, where I'm so moved by something that's happening that I have to write about it. Apart from a few artists, I think that's how most of us feel about it. We're not necessarily politically minded. Myself, I'm not all. I find politics extremely destructive. I see very few good, long term productive things being done by politics. It's one of those things that seems theoretically very sound, but practically, it must be an impossibility. I think that's just an emotional situation. Like nuclear war is a political thing, but it's also incredibly emotional, because it means we could all be blown up. And no one wants to be blown up. That's basic. The reason that you have to care about politics is because of how bad people are to each other.

It's interesting that "Pull Out the Pin" was written from the Vietnamese perspective.

Yes, there was a fantastic TV documentary about a cameraman who was on the front lines. He was a brilliant cameraman and he was so well-trained a technician that he kept filming things no matter how he was feeling about it at the time. Some of the stuff he was shooting was really disturbing. Some of the Vietnamese guys would just come in and they were sort of dying in mid-air. And he'd just keep on filming. (It was a strange sort of irony that the Vietnamese who were fighting the Americans were very into Buddha... were Buddhists... And they would pop a little silver bullet that they wore on their neck - on a chain - in their mouth before they went into battle, so that if they died, they would have Buddha on their lips. This is the whole irony throughout history between religion and war. Religion, surely, would never regard killing as a good thing, and yet it is done so constantly, and so hand-in-hand as well. You know the fact that they...they would have the little Buddha in their mouth and the guns in their hands to go and kill, I found the imagery very striking.) Breathing is about human beings killing themselves. I think that people smoking is one of those tiny things that says a lot about human beings. I mean, I smoke and I enjoy it, but we smoke and we know it's dangerous. Maybe there's some kind of strange subconscious desire to damage ourselves. It would seem so if you looked back through history, wouldn't it?

WHAT I'M SAYING GIVES BIRTH TO THE WEATHER

2010-06-01T21:24:00.011-04:00

Rainmaker, Charles Hatfield (1916)

Ironically as the rain is NOT letting up in Portland, Oregon... I find myself reading up on rainmaking magicians as I begin sound sketches for Rebecca Davis' what i'm saying is born from the weather, an hour length work for 15 dancers and music, set for November '10 at Judson Church in NYC. As I dig into the actual music making, my research has lead me into the diverse ways folks have attempted to communicate with and control the weather, both Shamans and Scheisters... with an ear toward the sound of what is often a mimetic good time.

Listen to this sketch of "radial rain" as you read (rain from Astoria, OR)...
Radial Rain (sketch) by MattMarble

Singing and dance are common forms of atmospheric address; and the rain dances of various Native-American peoples is probably familiar to most readers. However, in general I was fascinated by the many ways people would simulate the weather in order to influence it. Burning incense (roots or lightening-struck tree-splinters) or running around to stir up dust to form clouds... clapping quartz for lightening sparks, and, more prevalently... beating or rolling rocks for the sound of thunder. Some descriptions came off sounding like a dream concert:

In a village near Dorpat in Russia, when rain was much wanted, three men used to climb up the fir-trees of an old sacred grove. One of them drummmed with a hammer on a kettle or small cask to imitate thunder; the second knocked two fire-brands together and made the sparks fly, to imitate lightning; and the third, who was called "the rain-maker," had a bunch of twigs with which he sprinkled water from a vessel on all sides. This is an example of sympathetic magic; the desired event is supposed to be produced by imitating it. Rain is thus made by "imitation" [Frazer 1981:13].

But again, stones (a variant of the drum) were the most common. Many simply clap them together. Others would roll round stones along the ground. While others would impale them into pitted boulders or "cup-mark" stone.

[I]t is proposed that the pits on the Gottville boulder resulted from the rock having been repeatedly pounded with a pestle or hammerstone in imitation of lightning, and that the rock thunder which resulted from this action was thought to attract rain to the area. A possible analogy is found in a Shasta creation myth. In the story, the Creator used a stone to bore a hole in the primeval sky, through which fell snow and ice, thus creating Mount Shasta (Anonymous 1972:30). The Klamath of southern Oregon and the Yakima of south-central Washington also utilized pitted boulders for bringing wind and controlling the weather (cf. Spier 1930:21; Benson and Hoskinson 1993:42-44).

Meanwhile, in Europe and non-Native American communities, it was believed during the 19th century that projecting smoke into the air would induce rainfall. For this some lovely smoke-projecting canons were constructed... of course, my auditory imagination just sees speakers...

1890's (?)

Stigger Vortex Rainmaking Canons (1900's)

As for my music... with the grateful grant-giving aid of the American Music Center, I will be working with a chamber ensemble performing with stones, water-tuned vessels, strings, synthesizers, and, something i've used before, rain-ice percussion instruments (mason jars w/adapted handles). Inspired by NY Times obituaries and... weather, Rebecca is choreographing for a dance ensemble of 15. It will be a fantastic show... more info soon...

Louise Bourgeois...

2010-05-31T19:18:00.003-04:00

CONTOUR EDITIONS, BEN OWEN, E/A

2010-05-31T19:02:00.002-04:00

Along with Seth Cluett, Richard Kamerman, and Civyiu Kkliu, I recently Participated in Ben Owen's graphic score 're-mix' for Contour Editions' e/a project...

100 ACRES (Part Two)

2010-05-20T20:56:00.006-04:00

Saturday 5/22 at 4pm & Sunday 5/23 at 12pm

A super production presented by GLITTERHEART!
With Jess Hirsch, Emma Lipp, Jacqueline Mention, Erin Perry, and Crystal Willer!

Music by Lindsay Kaplan!
Smells by OLO Fragrance!
Ceramic honey pots by Gretchen Vaudt!

A foraging bee, unable to survive on its own, returns home to the hive bearing the foreign nectars of blooming plants.
A colony, facing collapse, demands of its bees a continual search for new sources of pollen. I don’t know if you are interested in Poetry at all?
Inspired by the words + imagery of A.A. Milne.

Hosted by Nationale
811 E Burnside... Portland, OR

100 ACRES (Part Two)

100 ACRES (Part One)

MASTERS

2010-05-18T19:54:00.004-04:00

Ecstatic to say I am now an official candidate for the Phd in Music Composition at Princeton University! Path within a nest of paths. The present and future are glittering...

Love to the Bunny's Efforts...

Love to the Momma's and Poppa's...

Children Hold On To Your Dreams (by The Soul Children) by MattMarble

SETH NEHIL < < < Knives > > >

2010-05-15T20:36:00.028-04:00

Seth Nehil + Linda Austin (Bandage A Knife promo)

Listening to Seth Nehil's Knives - the first release off of Guiseppe Ielasi's new label, Senufo Editions - is like being compelled to dance in the face of a predator. It is beautifully compelling, and it is confidently frightening. Featuring 6 tracks - none that push much beyond 4 minutes - of deftly edited and richly textural mini-dramas... Knives is one of Nehil's best works to date; and it gives the recording-based sound art world an awakening and needed jolt of expressive inventiveness.

For this album Nehil relied on a hoard of collaborators (see bottom for more info), adding choral and instrumental resources to his palette in order to recompose them into the intricate atmospheric collages that we have here. On top of that, for the first time, he makes his own surprising vocal contributions. The name "knives" could easily describe the atmosphere of tension as well as the cut-up process involved in the album's composition. On the other hand, the album doubles as a audio document of Nehil's work, Bandage a Knife, with choreographer Linda Austin.

Bandage A Knife excerpt 3 from Seth Nehil on Vimeo.

Bandage a Knife - a work of live dance + sound and video - took much inspiration from Japanese mafia (yakuza) films; and much of the sounds' foreboding and almost violent nature can be linked to this source. Besides yakuza and noir film, Nehil also references hip-hop production and musique concrete as inspirations. And his manner of translating these influences into his own unique voice is nothing but successful.

The Yakuza (1975)

Knives 02 is a highlight and also the most divergent from anything Nehil has done before. Weaving together bits of organ, cymbal, kick drum, flute, and electric bass, Nehil creates some dark dub for the deer in the headlights. The middle section (where the sample, below, begins) is stellar. Having just cut-off from the rhythmic flow, the way the amplifying and distorting drone seers over the re-entrance of the rhythmic tracks is masterfully done. Like Guiseppe Ielasi's Aix, all the "musical" elements are utilized here (be they rhythmic, melodic, etc), but they are barely holding themselves together. The disorientation this gives the listener leaves the ear hanging on with an anxious comfort. As Nehil has said, "These days, I am interested in making music that is equal parts dramatic and abstract, songs with all of the regularity removed."

Knives 02 (by Seth Nehil) by MattMarble

Knives 04 shows off Nehil's increasing use of the voice. In no subtle way is he referencing hip-hop's wordless "huh-huh-huh's" and "ooh's", used sparsely and often layered out of phase in rapid succession. There's a risk that the voice could become distractingly novel in this use, but the way Nehil integrates it with the other elements in the piece gives it the intimate quality of a musical memory or dream rather than surface compositional appropriation. The sparse use of bass gives the track a shadow of funk (yes, funk), but only enough to leave you doubting you heard it in the first place. And the high-range piano samples are used to great effect here as well... while the listener might not hear, for example, the labored process of altering their various self-echoings, it is easily savored, and anchors the work with its traces. Knives 04 is almost all punctuation. Imagine a text with all the words removed - all but a few wordless ums, grunts, and laughs - a forest of periods, commas, ellipses, question marks, and exclamation points...

Knives (by Seth Nehil) by MattMarble

[note: there are other audio samples at the Senufo site]

The undulous pulsation riding through the opener, Knives 01, aurally massages, while swells of strings, trombone, and synth merge out of nothing, as if to interrupt. This 'swelling' is a technique that Nehil has used a lot recently - e.g. in Flock and Tumble - and he uses it throughout this album: soft attack followed by a sharp increase in volume... more like a whoosh than a noise... there is movement... the sounds come from nowhere, lash out at you, and vanish.

Though Knives is much more condensed hear, the affinity it shares with the music of Morton Feldman - another's in which the onsets (and off-sets) of sounds are intentionally obscured - is quite audible. The care, subtlety, and serene fragility - not to mention the atmosphere of "anxiety" or even horror - that one hears in Feldman's music is all here as well, and the fact that Nehil can achieve such nuanced drama in pieces that last no longer than the average radio single is pretty impressive.

Knives 03 begins with a breathless fidgeting (inhalations and smashing bulbs) that makes ones' lungs question themselves. The music takes on an immediate physicality here, one that coerces the listener's empathic response. The mid-point offers a dramatic negative space coming out of the rustle, climaxing (with a buzzing fly?) into silence. The subtle, sparse use of sine tones and the punctuation of the ascending strings is a nice contrast to the largely noise-based textures of this track. Knives 05 is made of dove-tailing drones, crackles and tone clusters, studded with soft low bass thuds and other pluckings. The tidal rhythm of these dove-tailings with the ominous tolling of the bass give the track a deceptively nice flow.

Knives 06 is an ominous rainbow. The relentless percussions, grindings, and stridulations combined with the sparse melting chorus of voices, and the gentle dapplings of a fender roads and gongs creates a churning and diaphanous sound world. Nehil's voice returns again on this track, and here it's almost as if he's dropped the grunts and yells of a yakuza brawl into the mix.

Compared to Nehil's previous works, Knives is going down a pretty different path. Gone is the reliance on drone, phonographic purism, and ruminated textures. Here is the presence of a sound that grabs you. While there is still so much to actively listen to, the "active" listener is here given a jolt that throws off the pleasures of their internal meditation. Some may find it a little too jarring, but I think those with open ears will find it, like a good horror film, captivating from start to finish.

Nehil is currently working on a new (multi-media? performance?) project, with an even greater emphasis on the voice, inspired by Walt Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", Dario Argento's Suspiria, and Grimm's law of linguistic drift. Pretty exciting. You can read more of his progress here. Meanwhile, he is equally busy producing visual art that is just as intricate and beautiful.

>>>>>>>>>>

TRACKLIST

1. Knives 01 - 4:17
2. Kinves 02 - 3:11
3. Knives 03 - 4:09
4. Knives 04 - 4:03
5. Knives 05 - 4:26
6. Knives 06 - 2:54

All sounds, manipulations and compositions by Seth Nehil, 2009 except: Matt Marble, objects, organ and prepared synth (1, 3, 4); Mark Kaylor, trombone (2, 5); Mary Sutton, Jordan Dykestra, Bob Jones, strings (1, 3); Linda Austin, Anne Furfey, Bonnie Green, Rebecca Harrison, Lucy Yim, voice (3, 4, 6); Bethany Ides, Theodore Holdt, Andy Kennedy, JP Jenkins, Chris Hudson, Luke Wyland, Matt Carlson, Morgan Ritter, Adam Baz, Brenna Murphy, objects and voice (1, 4).

24 minutes, transparent vinyl. Edition of 180 copies in recycled chipboard sleeve with letterpressed sheet and insert (printed by Ben Owen / Middle Press),

"Knives has been influenced by cinematic sound design, hip hop music production, musique concrete and noir films, among other things. These days, I am interested in making music that is equal parts dramatic and abstract, songs with all of the regularity removed. I want to incorporate room tone, accidents, lack of control, mimicry, suggestion, tangentiality." SN

HE-LA-LO-LA-LAY-LU

2010-05-12T11:35:00.000-04:00

My book-length dive (truly beginning this summer) into Arthur Russell is turning me on to all kinds of new music that floated around the fringes and core of his life-line. After discovering a benevolently shredding new age music blog, I came across Allaudin William Mathieu, whom my memory connected as Arthur Russell's composition mentor during his time in San Francisco at the SF Conservatory of Music (1968-9). Was surprised to literally hear the connection. Mathieu, however, is also known for his writings on music (The Listening Book, Harmonic Experience, and The Musical Life). In addition he was a student of Pandit Pran Nath (also teacher to LaMonte Young, Terry Riley, etc) and started the Sufi Choir, which he directed in San Francisco until 1982.

Scales Of Scales by MattMarble

The music is solo prepared piano (with overdubs) and occasional vocalizations, Baroque-ly ornamented relaxation music, somewhere between Bobby McFerrin, and Robert Wyatt, Vince Giraldi (Peanuts), and African Kora playing. During a stressful time and odd weather, Mathieu's albums "Streaming Wisdom" (1979) and "In the Wind" (1982) have been a +++ in my background. I'm quite fond of the pieces where he sings. [n.b. You can purchase Mathieu's cd's directly from him via his Cold Mountain Music]

Upstream Home by MattMarble

http://www.coldmountainmusic.com/

I LOVE YOU BEST WHEN YOU'RE A LEAF

2010-05-08T01:01:00.004-04:00

Rest In Peace Pip Proud...

Looking Forward To Summer Reading...

2010-05-05T23:32:00.001-04:00

Flannery O'Connor

"Too Happy; Too Sad; I'm Still Gonna Get It"

2010-05-05T21:49:00.000-04:00

FRIENDLY POPS...

2010-05-01T03:33:00.001-04:00

RYAN SULLIVAN:

Criers on the phone (sketch) by RYAN SULLIVAN by MattMarble

SHAWN VANDOR:

Wild Ecstasy (SHAWN VANDOR) by MattMarble

THE MOVEMENT OF THE EARTH INCLUDES US

2010-04-30T20:16:00.004-04:00

Brenda Hutchinson is a sound artist with one foot in new york and one foot in san francisco (and a hand and heart everywhere else). Since the 1980's, she's been active as an improviser, performer, and instrument builder (the Long Tube, the Giant Music Box). She even did the soundtrack for the 1982 futurist film Liquid Sky...

"Me and My Rhythm-Box" from Liquid Sky (music by Brenda H)

But over the past couple of decades she has come to focus on a kind of musical ethnography, one aligned with the more recently emerging social practice aesthetics (which are rapidly becoming institutionally formalized, for example, at PSU). More than not this has her traveling and working in public settings with local community members.

Her Daily Bell project had her driving across the US in her honda with a massive 19th century School-bell in tow... ringing the bell at sunrise and sunset every day for a year (she still does this wherever she is with a collection of smaller bells she keeps in her purse - we did this in a Sushi restaurant the other night). A similar piece How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall had Brenda trecking across the US in a U-Haul carrying a piano and persuading folks to hop inside the truck to play the piano or tell a story about their relationship with the instrument. In The Fun Show project she worked with community members in a number of New York towns in a kind of talent show which often veered into the musical, while key makers and farmers shared their creativities. Many of her works have an ethnographic element, collecting peoples stories, creating a space of sharing... and she often returns to this documentation to collage and re-contextualize it in a final work. During her recent talk at Princeton she shared phonographic works that were based on: her sister's life in a private religious community (incredible chanting!), her own time spent working in a New York psychiatric ward (singing songs with the patients), and recordings of a patriotic songs sung by a gaggle of drunk homeless men on 6th Avenue in New York.

...

There's something that gently pierces through all of Brenda's work, a kind of radiant sincerity, a deep love of sound at its most raw human level, a willingness (almost an urgency) to step into and through vulnerability, and an openness that could choke the devil. This is what I hear in her works and what inspires me to share it now.

Along with A BUNCH of others, Brenda will be presenting at Portland State University's "Open Engagement" conference, May 14-17th. Brenda's involvement in Open Engagement is runs parallel with her residency at Project Grow, which I was happy to discover. A small farm in residential North Portland, they work heavily on integrating art, agriculture, and community, with programs involving the developmentally disabled...

The back of Brenda's "Daily Bell" card:

I am convinced that something as inarguable as the movement of the earth can by used as a point of unity and awareness among large groups of people who might otherwise find it impossible to agree.

SOUL MUSIC

2010-04-16T22:22:00.008-04:00

Happy to say thee Oregon Painting Society of Portland will be in action at the Tate Modern's "No Soul For Sale" exhibition... and everywhere else, all the time =)

HOW TO WRECK A NICE BEACH (How To Recognize Speech)

2010-04-08T20:00:00.004-04:00

I just attended a talk by Dave Tompkins as he travels for the release of his new book, How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder From World War II to Hip-Hop. Invented in Bell Laboratories in 1928, the vocoder's initial use was an encrypting device for, often secret, military and governmental purposes. He traces the history of the vocoder through its militaristic uses (in WW II, Vietnam, and elsewhen) through to Roger & Zapp, the muppets, and T-Pain. As Tompkins says, the vocoder is a "double agent of pop and espionage". Along the way we cross paths with Wendy Carlos, Alexander Solzhenytzen, JFK, Neil Young, Kanye West, and Walt Disney, as well as unlikely pairings such as New Kids on the Block and Sun Ra. Fascinating...

SORAMIMI SONGS

2010-03-25T23:23:00.001-04:00

Mondegreen = mishearing of word or phrase
Soramimi = Bi-lingual mishearing or homophonic translation

(funny...)

(funny...)

(not funny...)

The Palestinian patriotic song ""Blādi, blādi" (بلادي بلادي "Motherland, Motherland") was homophonically translated into Russian (as blyadi, blyadi = "whores, whores"). The rest of the song...

Arabic (original):

Ya blādi jawwek hādi.
Mā 'ah'lāki ya blādi.
Tlalek mal'ab lennajmāte.
Fiki beytghanna 'l'hādi.
Blādi blādi ya blādi.
Blādi blādi blādi.

Russian (homophonic translation):

Где бляди живут бляди?
Две мохнатые бляди?
Денег мало длинный шмель,
Ты в кибитку не ходи
Бляди бляди е бляди,
Бляди бляди бляди

English (translation):

Where do they live, whores
Two furry whores
No money, long bumblebee
Don't you go into a kibitka
Whores, whores, o whores
Whores, whores, whores...

Leoš Janáček: Cunning Little Vixen

2010-03-25T23:13:00.005-04:00

100,000 Honey Bees

2010-03-24T19:25:00.000-04:00

YES

2010-03-15T12:51:00.000-04:00

THE HAPPINESS PROJECT (Charles Spearin)

2010-03-09T19:36:00.002-05:00

more here

ECSTASY...

2010-03-08T01:45:00.006-05:00

Operative

Over the last 10 years Portland's experimental scene has gone from hit-or-miss free improv noise to incredibly inspiring dance music, and everything inbetween. But above all Scott Goodwin (Operative) and Honey Owens (Valet, Miracles Club) have recently been laying the ground for some some of the best work in the city. Please check out their Ecstasy blog, which features guest contributors, personal inspirations, updates on their own work, as well as audio links. LOVE it!!!

Miracles Club

MORE PLANT MUSIC...

2010-03-07T18:43:00.003-05:00

Mamoru Fujieda (b. 1955) is a Japenese composer whose music has blossomed a unique style through a minimalist and microtonal aesthetic. Patterns of Plants I (released in 1997 on Tzadik) was written for koto, gamelan set, sho, zither, harpsichord, and viola de gamba, in varying combinations. The music is Fujieda's intuitive composition within a variety of tuning systems and with the melodic patterns he borrowed from the plant analyses of botanist Yuji Dogane. Dogane was using electrodes to study the changing surface electric potentials on the leaves of plants. The result is a series of serene and delicate miniatures which flower through and beyond their conceptual origin. Listen here...

PRINCE FAN (Jess Hirsch)

2010-02-28T03:29:00.002-05:00

Prince Ouija Board

Prince Altar

Prince Bust

Letter to Prince

more

RESPONSE TO SCOTT WALKER

2010-02-27T17:14:00.008-05:00

I have made a rearrangement of one of Scott Walker's later works, "Manhattan" (from the album Tilt). This will be performed alongside a new work in response to Walker's life's work. My response piece will be a mini-musical for string quartet, piano, guitar, percussion, and two vocalists (I will be playing guitar and singing). For both performances I will be joined by the ACME string quartet, Cameron Britt, Lainie Fefferman, and Kate Campbell. The musical tells the story of a bunny rabbit dreaming with the moon.

Where/When: Princeton on April 27th, 2010.

I hope you can make it - More soon!

Inspirations...

Song of the South by Disney

Au Hazard Balthazar by Robert Bresson

Forgetting Sarah Marshall by Judd Apatow

MOON RABBIT

2010-02-25T18:52:00.004-05:00

From the Apollo 11 crew just before landing on the moon:

Houston: Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning there's one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl called Chang-o has been living there for 4000 years. It seems she was banished to the moon because she stole the pill for immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit, who is easy to spot since he is only standing on his hind feet in the shade of a cinnamon tree. The name of the rabbit is not recorded.

Collins: Okay, we'll keep a close eye for the bunny girl.

rabbit's moon by Ruth Proctor

ABNER JAY

2010-02-25T15:53:00.002-05:00

A one-man band from Georgia. Turned his mobile home into a portable music stage. Had his own record label (Brandie Records). Lyrics like a friend. Made good good music.

LINK WRAY (1971)

2010-02-14T22:16:00.003-05:00

Well known for his rockabilly work in the 50's [his early instrumentals were often banned], and his Native-American pride [part Shawnee], Link Wray went on, in 1971, to put out a singularly spectacular self-titled album, which was unlike anything he'd done before. In a musical web that snared the spirits of Muddy Waters, Neil Young, Howlin Wolf, and Mick Jagger, Link Wray (1971) managed to tap into the main vein of a sincere and unpasteurized Americana. Wray's guitar playing is stellar while the arrangements are uniquely mixed, rich in textures, twinkles, and choirettes. It sounds like what it is, a bunch of guys shaking beans in a can, making music in a chicken shack, and dressin it up real good. The governor of Maryland, Robert Ehrlich, declared January 15 to be "Link Wray Day".

"Fire and Brimstone":

"Le De Da":

Thanks Alex for the tip!

2010-02-12T11:59:00.002-05:00

46. PS22 CHORUS

2010-02-10T00:07:00.000-05:00

"One Day" (Björk)

"Just Dance" (Lady Gaga)

45. CRAZY NIGGER, GAY GUERILLA, HOLY PRESENCE: Julius Eastman

2010-01-25T20:30:00.004-05:00

What I mean by niggers is, that thing which is fundamental; that person or thing that attains to a basicness or a fundamentalness, and eschews that which is superficial, or, could we say, elegant. . . . There are 99 names of Allah, and there are 52 niggers.

Julius Eastman (1940-1990) was a composer, pianist, vocalist, dancer, academic, african-american, and openly gay man. His debut piano performance was at Town Hall in New York and his voice was featured in Peter Maxwell Davies' grammy-nominated "Eight Songs for a Mad King". He worked with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, taught theory at the University of Buffalo, and was close with Czech-born coductor/flutist Petr Kotik with whom he co-founded the enduring S.E.M. Ensemble. He collaborated with Meredith Monk, Arthur Russell, and numerous others in New York. In 1971 he was asked by John Cage and David Tutor to perform a piece from Cage's songbooks. Julius' interpretation was apparently too liberal for Mr. Cage.

During the performance, Julius had extended his interpretation to slowly undressing his boyfriend on stage. Then, he moved to his (Julius’s) sister and attempted to do the same thing. His sister responded, “No Julius, no!” Julius moved on to something else. The next day during a plenary session John pounded his fist on the desk and shouted, “I’m tired of people who think that they could do whatever they want with my music!”

He was known for being a outrageous and eccentric, but kind and uncompromisingly honest. His music showed colors of the minimalist aesthetic and popular music of his time, though his synthesis was absolutely idiosyncratic or as Julius might say... organic.

ORGANICISM

This is a word that can make some cringe with its currency of over-use and swollen bio-romanticism in sound art, phonography, and general environment-based art. But Eastman was one of the earlier musical artists to pose "the organic" as an aesthetic and conceptual goal; and it was a refreshing alternative to the mechanical loop-based and aggressive rock-based minimalisms that were predominating. Eastman's version of organic minimalism was evident in how a single piece was composed - section by section, with each forthcoming section containing all of the information from its preceding section. DNA, sexual reproduction, a music derived from its own seedling materials, complexity born of simplicity, a good tune.

Julius' biography however is ultimately a sad one. After some failed job offers and a general decrease in musical opportunities and activities, Julius turned to alcohol and drugs. He was evicted from his apartment, his scores confiscated by the police (many lost forever), and he lived homeless in Tompkins Square Park until he died of heart failure in 1990, practically forgotten (no obituary was posted until eight months after his death).

He is little known today. However with the nostalgic mood for the "downtown scene" from the 70's and 80's there is all manner of resurrections occurring - Arthur Russell being one of the more successful ones. I've discovered Julius' work largely through Arthur's - he sang his operatic blasts on Arthur's "In the Corn belt" and "Go Bang". Like Arthur, Julius was an eccentric and genuine spirit with his heart in many different realms (be they musical, social, professional). And their music reflects their mosaic lives.

His scores were known for being unclear and hard to decipher; yet Julius was known for demanding clarity in the score and from the players. Regardless, this has made attempts to re-stage his works more challenging and less frequent. His Stay On It (1974) was an influential work that combined his organic principals with his love of popular music. Other best known works are a series of three works for 4 pianos, each with provocative titles. Their first pages below:

Crazy Nigger (1979)

Evil Nigger (1979)

Gay Guerrila (1979)

Composer Mary Jane Leach has been making an effort to collect and archive many of Julius scores, as well as photographs online: The Julius Eastman Project. I wish there were more recordings available. Here are two from the tube for a taste:

Gay Guerilla (1979)

Stay On It (1973) et al...

44. CELESTE BOURSIER-MOUGENOT

2010-01-21T15:16:00.001-05:00

43. SOLDIER, FIREMAN, FARMER

2010-01-19T23:11:00.004-05:00

Continuing with pomp and fireworks... I‘ve been listening to a lot of American marches, drum & bugle corps, and drum & fife music. There is a kind of effervescence and shimmer in this music, whose percussion is at the forefront.

JOHN PHILIP SOUSA

There‘s the “King of Marches“, John Philip Sousa, cheese connoisseur, author, and definer of the American march genre. Beyond all the works recorded under his baton, my favorite are those he composed under the spirit of freemasonry (e.g. “Transit of Venus March“ and “Nobles of the Mystic Shrine“), which have a subtle and savory eccentricity to them. On April 19th, 1883, at 4:00pm Sousa performed his processional, “Transit of Venus March“, at the unveiling of a bronze statue of the late physicist John Henry. “Venus and Mars, invisible to the participants, were setting in the west. At the same time, the moon, Uranus, and Virgo were rising in the east, Saturn had crossed the meridian, and Jupiter was directly overhead. According to Masonic lore, Venus was associated with the element copper, and Joseph Henry had used large quantities of copper to build his electric motors.“

Despite the recordings he conducted for, Sousa hated the emerging audio technologies and with somewhat correct predictions state: “These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy...in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left. The vocal cord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape.“

FIREMEN‘S CENTENNIAL PARADE

But my happiest find has been the Firemen‘s Centennial Parade (1965) compilation from Smithsonian Folkways. As stated on the cover of the album: “Incorporating the music of 16 marching bands, incidental sounds, at the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the Union of Fleetwing Volunteer Fire Companies at Lambertville, New Jersey, 54 fire companies participating.“ The liner notes included are extensive. The bands performing have a rawness to them which I relish, the individual lines slightly out of phase amidst the persistent sharp sounds of the snares and bass drums. Listen to some samples here...

OTHAR TURNER + THE RISING STAR FIFE & DRUM BAND

I‘ve also been returning to someone from my old stomping grounds in Mississippi, Othar Turner. Othar who died at the age of __ played fife since he was 15 and took the fife and drum tradition - one with military roots with some overlap with African traditions - into a context of social celebration. He was a farmer and would host large gatherings, many where he would personally butcher and roast a goat in an iron kettle with the fife and drum music going all through till late in the night, with friends, family, and eventually fans in attendance and often in performance.

Here‘s Othar on his farm, doing daily chores, making fifes from bamboo cane, making music from spirit:

42. MYSTIC MOODS, MOVIES, & MEMORY

2010-01-17T23:59:00.015-05:00

For the past few months now, I‘ve been savoring the atmospheric and dramatic. Sounds epic and emotive in the most simple and direct way. Synths and Orchestras. Flowers and Fireworks. The music that infects the child as soon as he‘s mediated, to real coherence and abstract fantasy. The music that the news uses to persuade feeble spirits into horror, hatred, empathy, and apathy. All: antonyms of the innocuous. For in the most banal and cliché are pollens of profundity. The following represent or reference the above, or they have simply been haunting me in some way...

In 1958 with studio guru Brad Miller, Jim Canella formed Mobile Fidelity (Sound Labs) Records (MFR). Miller was one the pioneers in introducing “field recordings“ into popular music during the emerging electro-acoustic experimentalism and geek-embrace of audio techologies transpiring during the 50‘s and 60‘s. Teaming with arranger Don Ralke (with a shifting line of arrangers later on), they formed The Mystic Moods Orchestra, which became the most successful releases for the MFR label and definitive for all oncoming new age albums. Their album Erogenous contained in its inner sleeve a nude couple in soft focus and a free pair of panties. New age, easy listening, environmental sound, muzaq, pure hi-fidelity schmaltz at its finest. Suits a winter in Portland, Oregon marvelously:

“Universal Mind“ from the album Awakening

“Nevada Smith“, from tha album Nighttide

Annunzio Paolo Mantovani. Conductor, orchestrator, entertainer... Again, hi-fidelity orchestral pop from the 50‘s. With composer arranger Ronnie Bing, Mantovani developed what has become his signature sound... “cascading“ strings. He developed this techniue to immitate the desired echo of various large halls and cathedrals. Melting worries, rising spirits, simple gestures. The arc of the line is all you are saying. If it were slower and less familiar sounding, it might be imbued with the same spiritual weight as the music of Arvo Pärt, but fortunately it‘s not; you can find that beautiful elsewhere. Here is his “Colors of My Life“, most recently used in David Lynch‘s Inland Empire:

T.V. themesongs. There‘s something powerful about these little tunes. They are portals. Peripheral fairies of nostalgia flying into, over, and around something more to heart. Even the ones we never see, but pick up incidentally. I never watched L.A. Law. I preferred Perfect Strangers. But somehow the theme song, reminding me also of the sound of ice clinking in my dad‘s bourbon glass, recently cropped up as a brass line in a recent tune I‘ve been working on.

And in a similar vein I should also include the Quantum Leap theme song. A show I watched obsessively:

Similar attractions abound in various T.V. news themes from the past decade, which more strategically use cascading lines, rapid tempos, brass and orchestral hits, and soothing piano (hurricane katrina, 9/11, etc) to capture attention, create (an almost royally credible) identity, and woo the willingly emotional:

Antoine Duhamel‘s film scores for Jean-Luc Godard (Pierrot le Fou & Weekend):

“Ferdinand Theme“ from Pierrot le Fou

Every second of Claude Debussy‘s opera “Pelléas et Melisande“ (1902). I watch/listen to it at least once every winter:

Lo-fi and anti-saccharine, almost the opposite of the works above, Nino Rota‘s score for Federico Fellini‘s Satyricon, a story of Roman debauchery, draws on generic primitivism, Noh theatre, ancient Greek modes, and experimental collage offering a visceral, savory take on the senses. One of Fellini‘s most visually lush and one of Rota‘s finest and most uncompromising scores for film:

41. THE BEST MUSIC MAGAZINE EVER

2009-12-31T11:54:00.009-05:00

“God bless America & God bless The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing“ - Dolly Parton

Elton & Betty White

I love music. I miss the South. And the Oxford American is the only magazine I know where I can discover or re-discover any number of obscure and popular southern musicians from Swamp Dogg (the first D-O-double-G) to The Feminine Complex (a teenage girl-group from Nashville) to my Mississippi highschool history teacher, Caroline Herring (who apparently went on to sing her own leftist folk tunes).

My momma first turned me on to this magazine around 1998. Thanks momma. It was first founded and published by popularly acclaimed author John Grisham. Begun in Oxford, Mississippi, it has since shifted hands and now operates under its own non-profit status out of the University of Central Arkansas. A quarterly magazine of top-rate southern literature, the OA also delivers their annual Southern Music issue, which includes a cd, typically of 20+ tracks. They are currently on their 11th music issue, which boasts 2 cds, one being the first in a series that focuses on the music of a particular southern state. This issue‘s state is the magazine‘s home base, Arkansas.

Imagine several generations of southerners coming together to make you a mix tape of favorites and obscurities, past and present, and you start to get the idea. In past issues I‘ve had the pleasure of (re)discovering... Jerry Lee Lewis, Bukka White, Esther Phillips, Bongo Joe, Willie Nelson, R.E.M., Ann Peebles, Henry Flynt, the Yo Yo‘s, Robert Mitchum, William Grant Still, Dolly Parton, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Wilco, and Sister Ernestine Williams, among so many others. Nevermind “Southern“, the OA Southern Music compilations are some of the most diverse collections of American music you can find anywhere, and without a doubt they are some of the very best.

It is one thing to have a collection of new and inspiring music; but it is icing on the cake, after getting lost in the music, to remember that there are entire articles on each of the often obscure musicians. The writing itself is typically stellar. To read the background on soul master Esther Phillips or the cosmically elated interracial music duo Elton and Betty White, well it‘s just special. I can‘t recommend these magazines and these cds highly enough. Go find them and share them.

40. When You Know Why You‘re Happy... MARY MARGARET O‘HARA

2009-12-24T21:15:00.003-05:00

(thanks bryan)

39. Peter C. Johnson

2009-12-12T02:23:00.001-05:00