Dead Cities on a White Lake Near America

More from M83, France's export-of-the-moment: "America" & "On a White Lake, Near a Green Mountain"

On a texturally-related note, when put to the task at an improv event, I ended up with this. You can listen to the whole thing and hear the early mistakes that worked out for me in the end.

Our Reece Dano

Here are two trial recordings of one of our distinguished ANALOG members.

Reece Dano's 24th Caprice (student recital)

Reece Dano's C#DG#BEC# G#F# D#ECD# (fourth movt. of version for string quartet)

"The title of the piece is the initial melody, which is a code stating "Pierre Boulez is dead!" The piece consists of four very short movements with the first three movements featuring a cacophony of agitated and contrapuntal lines based on commercial jingles and The Greatest Hits of the Baroque. It attempts to mimic the 20th-Century art music scene's disgust with he reality of American pop culture - in general, the thinking man's fear of our base instincts. The fourth movement concludes with a reworking of Machaut's Rondeau, "rose,liz, printemps, verdure" - celebrating a return to a non-neurotic embrace of life" - Dano on C#DG#BEC# G#F# D#ECD#

Rock returns to ANABlog

Brothers Grimm and ethnoneopostmodernism?! Come on!

Good stuff, but let's take a break with the kickiest Blink 182 knock-off that Sum 41 have produced yet: "Pieces" (Don't fret. It's just a coincidence that the last rock I posted was penned by Avril. I can't help it if she's dating the guy.)

Follow the Sum up with Lou Barlow's "Home" (Think the High Noon reference is intentional? Hope so.)


Then use M83's remix of Placebo's "Protège Moi" to ease yourself away from the rock. (Hey, nothing gold can stay.)


Finish up with the Chemical Brothers' "Surface to Air".

Repeat as many times as necessary to recharge the gray cells for your next Ethnoneo encounter.

Black Cotton

The greatest remedy that is used against a plan of the enemy is to do voluntarily what he plans that you do by force. - Nicolo Machiavelli

Linguistic XperiMint

Here's something by one of our distinguished members of ANALOG. It was presented during ARTSaha! this summer.

"Jacob Grimm, one of the co-authors of Grimm's Fairy Tales, is also well-known for discovering Grimm's law - a linguistic theory explaining how consonant sounds relate between different languages with Indo-European roots. Thus, the Latin word Pisces becomes fish in English; Latin p corresponds to English f. Similarly the Latin word flor, in addition to giving us the word flower, corresponds to the English word blossom, Latin f relating to English b. Obviously this does not work for all words, but is helpful in deducing a word origin.

Based on a simplified adaptation of this law, I have produced a version of the story of Rumpelstiltskin from Grimm's fairy tales. By swapping consonants from English to their corresponding letters in Latin according to Grimm's law, a new language is created that seems vaguely like English. In this version, the queen must guess the name of Rumbelsdildsgin and not Rumpelstiltskin." - Garrison

Rumbelsdildsgin by Geoffrey Garrison 2004

web-radio, from Kiwi-land

You kids have to check out 95 bFm. This is student-run radio at its best, operated out of University of Auckland, fresh from the city of sails, New Zealand's largest metropolis.

Where else can you listen in on the Prime Minister (also Arts minister), Helen Clark check in and talk about issues that concern everyday people ? (Every Monday around 8.50 am, by the way. Don't forget the time difference....) Of course, bFm plays an enormous range of styles - this is a station that is not afraid to lay down some decent house music at any time of the day.

Enjoy.

... more Swinging Addis

I was pretty hooked when I first heard the Swinging Addis. In case you are too.

Yètèsfa Tezeta

Lèzèlalèm Nuri

Ethno_Neo_(PoMo) Part II

From Japan to Ethiopia - there are times when the two distinct cultures almost stand side by side in their singing styles. I'm talking about a similarity between the ending section of Sugagaki Kuzushi from Part I (posted January 19) and the quivering vocals of Mar Tèb Yelal Kafesh from Swinging Addis, featured in Volume 8 of the Éthiopique series, out on Buda Musique.

Need more convincing? How about Hasab...

Unforunately my Amhric just isn't good enough to translate for you the lyrics - however as you conduct a more personal investigation, listen to Tchero Adari Nègn and Yebèqagnal.

2 Foot Yard and Other Oddities

Last we heard from Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, there wasn't much violin to be heard, I admit. (What can I say? I've a soft spot for metal.) Rest assured, the outfit does employ a fine one in Carla Kihlstedt, also of Tin Hat Trio. Her solo debut is as curious as one would expect. The closing tracks are magnificent:
"On Waking"

"When Will Tomorrow End?"

Meditation in Three

Jon Johnson's Shaking from Within is a tripartite exploration of speech. Johnson calls for three samples to be played on a portable cassette recorder through a set of headphones. A megaphone pressed against the headphones amplifies the signal for the audience, while guaranteeing that the sound will be so distorted from its original source that only elements like tone and inflection remain.

This recording was made during an in-studio performance on Ray Terlaga's show at WPKN in Bridgeport, CT by Loop 2.4.3.

mater Unigeniti

I'm a big one on tracking artistic interpretation: Gould's Goldberg recordings, for instance, or say, Ray Charles' cover of "Yesterday". Penderecki offers an interesting opportunity to track an artist dealing with the same theme through completely different methods.

His setting of the Stabat Mater was one of his early attempts to return to "traditional" forms. The grief of the Pieta which is expressed in the prayer is the same emotion Penderecki retrofitted on his seminal string experiment from 1960. Originally, he was going to name it by its length, a la Cage, but upon hearing it, decided the anguish deserved a dedication, so he titled the piece, Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima for 52 stringed instruments.

Where the choral piece references constructs like D major and triads, the string piece is a hybrid of serialism and aleatoric processes. However, it's fascinating how fluidly both convey the unmistakable tone of the old prayer:

Stabat Mater dolorosa
iuxta crucem lacrimosa,
dum pendebat Filius.

(The grieving Mother stood
beside the cross weeping
where her Son was hanging.)

Ferrellany

"Wedding Singers"

"Wedding Singers (remix)"

Aqueous Diversions

The Seu Jorge gag works well enough the first time in The Life Aquatic, but when the pirates attack and he launches into his fifth David Bowie cover, there is absolutely nothing left in the Irony Tank. The covers themselves are all acceptable enough. I was pleased to hear my two favourite Bowie songs covered, one of which is "Five Years". And I'm always keen to hear a cover that makes me like a song that I've never had any use for, "Rebel Rebel" (a song that deserves another entry entirely concerning Theoretical Rockers like "Brown Sugar" and "Hells Bells": songs that should rock but don't). Stripped down to words I can't understand and a base accompaniment, the melody of the song is quite affecting. It was nice to see Seu in a new film after City of God, where he played Knockout Ned. I just wish he'd had more to do in this one aside from provide the LE Side chic.

The second time I laughed out loud during the film (it only happened twice) was during the counterstrike on the pirate stronghold, where the kooky techno tune"The Dance" gets an orchestral arrangement as Team Zissou makes its move. It's a nice opportunity for Mark Mothersbaugh to remind everyone that before he was scoring Wes films and Rugrats episodes, he transformed punk by coming straight out of Akron in Devo.

The final indication that ol' Wes isn't firing on all cylinders was the invocation of Sigur Rós during the moralistic appearance of the jaguar shark. Let Cameron Crowe do his thing, and you do yours, Wes. It's not that he's got to stick to precious pop obscurities, but the music cue was the embodiment of the floundering of the entire film. Still, it's always pleasant to hear the lads from Iceland sing in Hopelandish, and it made me recall their early efforts, before they helped Tom Cruise emote, before they wrapped themselves in paranthesis, before the new music establishment embraced them at BAM. Von was no masterpiece to be sure, but there was plenty of promise. On a song like "Hun Jord" you start off thinking, "reverse beats, are you kidding me?!" But by the end, you're hooked. Or at least I am.

Idle American Digs Canadian Music

Hire the right people, and you get quality stuff. Kelly Clarkson's second album abandons teen R&B for teen rock with the help of Avril Lavigne of all people. It's not quite heartwarming, but it's somewhere between Tiny Tim piping up and a Jerry Springer Final Thought to know that Avril's matured enough to sell her stuff to a pop star. Wife-beater-and-tie Avril would have spit at the very notion. The rest of the stuff comes from the kooky guy who quit Evanescence, and it sounds like it. That's fine by me. It means nice choruses like the one on "Since U Been Gone". Yeah, I know. I was hoping to hear her cover some Rainbow, like I was so hoping Christina would cover "I Wanna Be Your Dog" during her I'm-a-worthless-skank phase. But, this is fine.

In songs like this, the verse could be her grocery list. It simply doesn't matter what she mumbles on the way to the chorus. So, the album wears thin after a few songs where the chorus consists of her wailing on one note for two beats or more. But she flips the formula on "Gone", where the verse is the more interesting thing with its stuttering clip. I'll be keen to hear a remix of this one, or maybe a mashup with "Since U Been Gone". Between the two, there's a really outstanding pop song.

I know Kelly Clarkson's artistic evolution is not the stuff of blogs, but what can I say? Peep the header, and then console yourself with some Mates of State: "What I Could Stand For" or "The Kissaway"


And if the Clarkson still stings, wash it down with Animal Collective's "Who Could Win a Rabbit"

...more Takahashi

another track from Yuji Takahashi's "Finger Light" (available on the Tzadik label) to satisfy the inquisitive ear. Mimi No Ho is scored for shô (Japanese mouth organ), viola and voice. Enjoy.

More Problems

With only a few exceptions, Eminem has stuck to a very rigid, albeit rivetting, formula when he's behind the board. He skews towards thunderous beats and ominous, droning bass lines. Almost all of these songs have either one chord throughout or a bass pedal tone working the same trick. Now, I love this gimmick. Rimsky erred greatly when he cleansed Modeste's scores of pedal tones. However, there is only so much that it can do, and Eminem exhausted its possibilities long ago. He's not bringing anything new to his flow when he raps over productions like The Game's "We Ain't". Especially when The Game's debut listens exactly like the retread of Get Rich or Die Tryin' that everyone expects it to be, it's a pretty big disapointment to encounter tunes like this, as compelling as they would be without knowing he's done a dozen others just like them.

One of my favourite examples of his maturation as a producer is the brilliant cut from Encore, "Crazy in Love". At first, it looks like Em's headed for the formula heap. He'd sampled another classic rock cut on his last album, after all. The minor bombast of "Dream On" fit perfectly with Em's first efforts, offering up yet another track with a simple, booming beat and pedal bass. But right from the start, it's clear that he's going to do a great deal more with Heart than he did with Aerosmith. He cops the boogie in his flow, while using a half time bass line. Yeah, it's a one note thump, but the flow is completely different than what we'd come to expect from his ostinato bass lines, and the juxtaposition is thrilling. Then he has the good grace to go old school and let Ann Wilson's bridge be heard as he raps new words along with it. In an age where high-priced samples are trotted out like Ashanti hooks, it's so refreshing to hear someone have fun with his source material like this.

Ethno_Neo_(PoMo)_contemporary (?)

Ethnoneo what....?

How does one describe an experimental Music that is at the same time informed with the thinkings of Xenakis as well as hark back to the classical Japanese performance tradition? Yuji Takahashi's Sugagaki Kuzushi should get the thoughts going on this one.

Mathematic Mysteries

Télépopmusik rocked everyone's world with their last album. "Breathe" was just one of those perfects songs, wasn't it? They're new album, Angel Milk is all set to hit the stores next month. Here's the first reason you've got to buy it: Mathematics

Beth Gibbons solo departure from Portishead went largely overlooked, and I don't know why, given the strength of songs like "Mysteries"

2002: Arvo's Year

If you went to an art house at any point that year, the odds of you hearing Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel were pretty high. The piece was 24 years old at that point, but in the same creative synchronicity that leads to two Robin Hood movies being made at the same time, Spiegel im Spiegel was used in at least 3 films in 2002: Tykwer's Heaven; van Sant's Gerry and Ritchie's Swept Away. Gus van Sant's use of it in his trailer set off a slew of imitators who copped the piece for their own previews. Spiegel im Spiegel was unquestionably the idée fixe of 2002's "independent cinema".

Pärt is most well-known for another violin piece, but it was his choral music which first caught my attention: "Credo" from Berliner Messe (1991, revision)

Interstitial baubles

Overnight made think of its ostensible subject The Boondock Saints and its lovely title music: best part of the film, in my opinion.

Seeing Madonna perform "Imagine" on the Tsunami benefit made me wonder exactly how many utopian odes have ever been scribed in history. Lennon wasn't the first, but he certainly is the patron saint of the genre. The song that popped into my mind as a nice example of a minor effort is Roger Water's "The Tide is Turning (After Live Aid)", and there he was only moments later, singing "Wish You Were Here" with Slowhand.

And posting Anja's song, which geeked a few of you, made me think of her dad's little duet with the tabla master Zakir Hussain.

web radio-ing

For some rare - rare- albeit sometimes, astonishingly_beautiful experimental sounds, Check out Radio_Wandelweisser, a web vehicle of the Wandelweisser Composer Collective @ timescraper music This group consists mainly of a central European presence, its main US representatives being Craig Sheperd & Michael Pisaro, who is on the composition faculty of California Institute of the Arts

Ambisexuals & Your Stereo (Or How to Stop Leering and Just Dig the Music)

CocoRosie's "Not For Sale" reminds me of Mirah's "Dreamboat", which, along with songs like "Special Death", make her my favourite new Sophie B.

While Whaler is no Tongues and Tails (that's another post entirely), how cute is it when she sings the second verse of "Let Me Love You Up" in French? Very cute, in case you were confused. Though she pulled the "Live to Tell" gag and got a cute smash off the record, the voracious appetites of her breakthrough single are still ably represented with songs like "I Need Nothing Else"

You didn't feel the dents?

I can get down to Northern State. A song like "A Thousand Words" sounds like Sandra Bullock rapping old school for the big musical number in her latest romantic comedy. Nothing wrong with that, especially with a beat that good.

Now, Dälek is much more style. Production this antagonistic instantly calls to mind the Bomb Squad. I'm totally digging on "Voices of the Ether" right now.

Hangover Music

Ease yourself into consciousness with Aphex Twin's "Cliffs".

Take two doses of the Free Association's score for Code 46: "Shanghai" & "Inside/Outside"

and then if you're ready for it, slip into this remix of "What It Feels Like for a Girl", or, if you are really feeling back in the pink, Armand van Helden's "My My My"

Try fitting some activities like this into that regime, if you can:

Gorillas Under the Trippy Willows

You've got to love a CD booklet that juxtaposes talking points from Futurist manifestos with those of the Unabomber. Well, you don't have to, but chances are that if that strikes you as cool, so will the rest of the package, and indeed Sleepytime Gorilla Museum's latest album does not fail to live up to the promise of its liner notes. "The Donkey-Headed Adversary Of Humanity Opens The Discussion" makes you want to move your Bottom, and "Phthisis" sees the Museum getting their Lacuna Coil on, while they manage to resurrect the old name for TB (no matter how much of a jab it would seem to be at a lisper's attempt to say "physicist").

And if all that crunching's got you down, you can relax with Michael Finnissy's setting of "Willow, Willow", which was the first traditional English tune that Percy Grainger ever set. "Terekkeme" from the same disc hints at his more typical syntax, and it's just the thing to put your gorillas to bed.
(Hint: He's not the guy doing the screaming.)

triumph of the overt

The Aviator is finally a watchable Scorcese film. The best of his in recent memory. Finally his actors are acting the breadth of the film.

Stokowsky's rendition of Bach's Organ Toccata is offered here in honor of a couple triumphant moments.

What is missing from many movies recently is any sort of mystique. Lucas is the real culprit of over-explanation, and even my beloved Jeunet is leaning towards the overt in his "Amelie II, the cute go to war," or better known as "A Very Long Engagement."

Listen to Badalamenti's "L'anniversaire d'Irvin" from "City of Lost Children." Angelo Badalamenti's oaken, and rose-garnished strings appear again in "A Very Long Engagement."

Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego

Not only did Stockhausen's "Gesang der Junglinge" put to bed the East Coast/West Coast-style feud over electronic music (Things got so bad that Pierre Schaeffer put out a contract on the entire Cologne studio), by marrying the two competing styles, but it, more than any other piece, launched the second great revolution in 20th century music (Jazz being the first).

Any schmo who gets up on his two turntables and cuts between a Chic record and a James Brown break is in debt to Stockhausen and his contemporaries. This was Paul McCartney's favourite piece. The text ostensibly deals with the story from Daniel of the three men who survive an execution by furnace. But that's not the point, of course. The point is to encounter the sound of this kid's voice as an entity unto itself. It's still a fantastic listen all these years later (that would be 49, in case you're counting).

Charming Daughter

Anja Garbarek - That's All (Her dad is Jan Garbarek. Yes, that Jan Garbarek.)

Charming Hostess - Aish Ye K'dish & Viva Orduenya (A new music group that has the balls to lean into their tropes. Of course, the fact that they are women makes me wish I'd rephrased that)

Seaside Rendezvous

This "Seaside Prelude" is a 30-minute collage I did for my sister's wedding. Upon reviewing it, a year and a half later, I thought it was tastefully subversive enough to post.

The Notorious Lamb?

I'd like to think that Puffy's use of Samuel Barber's "Agnus Dei" was meant to convey his sacrificial interpretation of Biggie's death. Either way, it was a brilliant intro for a brilliant song. Barber's Adagio has been redone so many different ways, but this is the only significant arrangement that Barber made of it. Another direction entirely would be William Orbit's remix.

(Which makes me think of sacred voices and beats and the Enigma-like remix of Peter Gabriel's "Don't Give Up".)

Did this guy die for rap's sins?

More from the Lab

For some years, Johnny had been in the possession of an unopened reel of film, and one of the goals of his trip to the NY laboratory was to score whatever was inside, in a sort of tip-o-the-hat/kicking-a-dead-horse-type gesture. While we're not opposed to minimalists, we do think their habit of rescoring old black and whites has gone way too far, and long ago ambled into the realm of the Mind-Numbingly Boring. Tongues in cheek, we gave it a whirl, and here's our score to An Untitled Reel of Film.

What we didn't realize was that it was a reel of the really old nitrate stock, and one of Johnny's Lucky Strikes hastened its end, and nearly that of the entire facility. We were lucky enough to put out the fire with only the additional loss of a few Playbills and a receipt, that, ironically enough, included Johnny's cigs along with five bottles of Gatorade.

So that leaves us with a score to a film that no longer exists, and which never had a title (that we knew of) in the first place. Luckily, I'm a meticulous note taker. And as we were fleshing out ideas, I made sure to jot down a timeline of the major events in the film. That's the best I can provide as you listen to the piece.

0:00 - Slow fade in on a darkened alley.

0:26 - Drunks amble past the camera. Prostitutes service their johns against lamposts and walls.

1:11 - Dog lurches into the alleyway. Foaming at the mouth, it makes a half-hearted attempt at attacking a rat.

2:12 - Lays down and dies

2:27 - Rats descend on the carcass, while people clear away in disgust

3:00 - Quick fade in on the offices of Dr. Virgil Lambert. He is transferring notes from a parchment into a journal.

3:46 - He stops to consider something. His agitation is evident.

4:09 - He drifts into a reverie.

4:15 - Slow dissolve to an idyll with a young woman

4:54 - Lambert pursues her through a forest. She playfully hides from him.

5:46 - Slow dissolve back to the doctor in his office

6:09 - Quick fade in on the doctor's back as he stands at the end of a pier, under a gas lamp.

6:50 - Quick cuts of woman in some state of grave illness. Doctor appears to swoon, but steels himself

8:00 - Doctor climbs into a rowboat. Lights a lantern, and places it on a post at the back of the boat. Rows himself out into the harbour.

9:00 - A barge passes him. At first just a shadow that cuts across the scene, figures can be made out. They are smoking as they work.

10:00 - More quick cuts of the woman, in even greater disrepair. Hint of foam on the doctor's lips. He splashes water on his face from the polluted river. It makes things worse and he passes out.

11:37 - Slow fade in on the doctor back in the forest with the woman. Instead of playing hide and seek, they are both hiding from some indeterminate predator.

12:53 - Woman gets separated from doctor. She panics and calls out his name.

13:30 - He frantically turns about, answering her calls. He gets more scared with each shout.

14:11 - Quick cuts of the dark predator, the doctor and the woman all running through the woods. The scene begins to lighten. The cuts slow down.

15:13 - Doctor is looking up at two of the barge workers who are lightly slapping him to in the rowboat. Doctor asks after the woman to the workers confusion

16:14 - Fade out

Barber's other adagio

He wrote more than one good slow movement. To wit:

Violin Concerto, Second Movement (Hillary Hahn)

Pin back your mum

I'm not saying this is THE mix for your turn of the year, but it won't steer you wrong, especially if you hit midnight during the Múm:

Supersuckers - Poor Girl
Pinback - Manchuria
Múm - Sunday Night Just Keeps on Rolling
Múm - Slow Bicycle