Jonathan Bepler - Music for Cremaster 2

Artist: Jonathan Bepler

Album: Music for Matthew Barney's Cremaster 2

Matthew Barney uses every available resource in his Cremaster Cycle of films. Composer Jonathan Bepler is no slouch in the "every available resource" department, either. For the Cremaster 2 soundtrack, he employed:

The Organ at Riverside Church. Gregory D’agostino, Organ.
The Norian Philharmonic Orchestra. Tabernacle Bass Choir.
A Hybrid Country-Western 2-Step sequence with singer Patty Griffin.
A Death Metal ensemble featuring legendary (Slayer) drummer Dave Lombardo, vocalist Steve Tucker (Morbid Angel),
and 200,000 honey bees sampled, processed and sequenced by the composer.

All of those things sound as awesome as you might imagine pulled into the same project. Totally insane, but it all works in these capable hands. The death metal piece alone deserves some kind of reward. Devoid of guitars and basses--most of the track is just bees and Lombardo on drums--it manages to out-brutalize most "true" DM bands. And I'm sure Barney was delighted with the idea if it wasn't his, as he's an avid death metal fan as well. An almost impossibly wide range of tastes--and the guy is married to Bjork. A class act.

Bepler's choral and orchestral arrangements are perfectly suited for the wild changes in scope and perspective through the Cremaster Cycle, too. His work with Barney might be the most underrated film scoring in the last decade. Massive writing, and perfectly controlled.

Now if only Cremaster 3 would be released on DVD, so I could study both the film and the music for about a zillion hours.

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The Cremaster Cycle

Einsturzende Neubauten: 1993 EPs

Artist: Einsturzende Neubauten

Album(s): Interim EP, Malediction EP

Reflections: EN earned their reputation in the world of industrial music more literally than many of their peers. Much of their earlier music features sounds generated by banging on various kinds of metal, wood, and glass objects, new instruments and devices built from found/abandoned objects, and an powerful live presence, sometimes staging shows where buildings and bridges could be incorporated directly into the performance or recording. Around the time of these two EPs, though, the band began a real metamorphosis, adding many gentle moments and passages of real beauty into their arrangements. These albums feature a few tracks from the 1993 full-length release Tabula Rasa with a few B-sides.

I found myself compelled to highlight these recordings especially because of the multiple language versions of "Blume." It is interesting to note that Tabula Rasa documents not only a musical transition in the music of EN, but languages other than the band's native German suddenly become prominent in the vocals. In addition to German, English, French, and Japanese versions of Blume (all of which also feature some Latin passages), there are English vocal versions of several other album tracks, and full translations between German and English in the liner notes. At the time, vocalist Blixa Bargeld reflected on the change:

"German is still my major language, but we are talking in English right now and the majority of our audience just doesn't speak German. For long periods of my life I don't even speak German. I go on tour with the Neubauten and with Nick Cave, and when I go on tour I almost never speak German. Talking in English comes naturally to me now. . .when I'm two weeks on the road in America I start thinking in English. I comes as naturally as it is thinking German when I am home. . . now trying to write everything in German would be the same kind of lie that writing in English ten years ago would have been. . .not to forget the alienating effect! More than writing in English I would like to sing in languages I don't actually speak just using some translations that somebody else did for me." --from Einsturzende Neubauten, Stampa Alternativa/Nuovi Equilibri Collana Sconcerto, Prima Edizione Gennaio 1993

Einsturzende Neubauten online

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Koenjihyakkei gets us started...

Date: 11-2-09

Artist: Koenjihyakkei

Album: Angherr Shisspa

Reflections: Koenjihyakkei is considered a "side project" of drummer Tatsuya Yoshida, best known for his work in drum/bass duo Ruins.  However, I think this band's work, and this album in particular, provide the deepest insight into Yoshida's influences and compositional impulses.  Angherr Shisspa is a study in contrasts: songs push and pull the listener, alternately nuzzling and biting.  The influence of the amazing French band Magma is obvious, yet Koenjihyakkei is capable of flying far above the sometimes plodding rhythms and frequent repetition found in Magma and other zeuhl-influenced bands.  Some folks might find this record a little overwhelming, but given time, I suspect that many can turn that feeling into a true sense of exhilaration.

...and it's just a pleasure to hear.  Like most Yoshida-related projects, there is always a sense of joy, delight, and play happening even in the most dense of passages.  When things go over the top, they're well aware of the situation--and how funny it might be, too.

This is a fun place to start this series--I am going to attempt to highlight artists and creative ways of making music that might be obscure around here, but I think a wider audience might find lots to love, new ways to experience music, and a heightened desire to seek out new kinds of creativity.

Koenjihyakkei online

Buy from Skin Graft Records, Koenjihyakkei's label