Playlist from 10-3-10

1. Bengal Spice Mix  by End.  From Percussions, Tigerbeat6, 2004.

This playlist starts off with a danceable bang.  Not to be confused with Canada's metal band The End, or the British band, or the US record label, this End (sometimes capitalized or used with a period behind the word) is the work of NYC's Charles Peirce.  I haven't kept up with his newest music, but I've long been a fan of his 2004 release, The Sounds of Disaster, which mixes dance and breakbeat music with rock, rockabilly, and cinematic-sounding music to great effect.  I was listening to that record a lot during a period of immersing myself in some of JG Thirwell's instrumental music as Steroid Maximus, as the two share a similar approach and sound.  In the case of this track from the Percussions album, the source music used is from jazz and exotica sources, so it's  a more mellow experience than the Sounds of Disaster, but still very good.

Here's a recent video for an update on what he's been up to since these records:

2. Sagaie by 1980. From Self Titled, Trendkill Recordings, 2009.

1980 is a French band currently working in that ever-interesting field between metal and jazz influences.  So far, they only have one self-titled album, and it's a great first record.  1980 isn't afraid to use longer passages of mellow/introspective music when the need arises, which I appreciate.  On the other hand, they can throw and and thrash with the best of them, too.  And the jazz influence is legit: this gets far beyond the fake walking bass and swinging ride cymbal routine that some bands consider the "Jazz Odyssey."  Another good recommendation for those into Naked City, Silencio, and some other bands we'll continue to explore in coming weeks.

3.  Erase Yourself by Ron Miles.  From My Cruel Heart, Ryko/Gramavision, 1996.

In my opinion, My Cruel Heart might be the most under-rated, tragically under-appreciated albums of all time.  The follow-up album, Woman's Day, is no slouch, either.  Ron is a wonderfully sensitive trumpet player and composer, and on this album I understand that he was interested in exploring some sound ideas that occurred to him one day in a practice room at the University of Denver (my alma mater).  The old Lamont rooms were less than perfectly soundproof, and legend has it that Ron stopped practicing for a moment and became aware of a cool sound combination coming from the combination of a trumpet player in one adjoining room and an electric guitar player in the room on the other side.  Those kinds of juxtapositions, usually done in groups of two instruments playing "opposite" other pairs, happen in several awesome spots on this album.
That's not to say it's a harshly experimental record, however.  If you like your jazz more straight-forward, there are plenty of moments you'll love on this record.  And Ron has a knack for making the weirdest experiments and juxtapositions sound truly beautiful.  He's a great communicator with his music and his playing, and I wish more people got to hear his work.  For the moment, though, the records of this period are somewhat difficult to find, as Gramavision (Rykodisc) has let both of 'em slip out of print.  Fortunately for all of us, Ron's newer work, such as the amazing Stone/Blossom double disc, is available from Sterling Sound.

4.  Right Away by Pattern Is Movement.  From All Together, Hometapes, 2009.

This band started life as a five piece?--four piece?--I don't remember.  They've been living as a duo for their last couple of albums, though (drums and keys w/vocals), and it's remarkable how rich and full they sound.  From math-y beginnings among other Philly and NYC avant-rock acts, their mature sound focuses on gorgeous melodies and rich, sonorous arrangements.  All Together is a short but incredibly potent album, and one of those rare records that manages to be "serious" while leaving you in a happier mood for having heard it.  These songs/melodies are incredibly memorable, too, so don't be surprised if you're humming half of the album as you walk down a street days later.

5. Le Silo by Le Silo.  From 8.8, Tutinoko, 2004.

This intense prog trio from Japan is lead by pianist Miyako Kanizawa, who also plays piano and sings for one of my favorite Japanese bands, Koenjahyakkei.  And like Koenjahyakkei, this music has an obvious French prog influence.  But the trio arrangements allow for maybe more intimacy than many of the chamber orchestra-sized bands the music references.  I think this album might be an appealing jazz/prog "crossover" album for folks who are generally into jazz but have an interest in rock/prog musical directions.

6.  Silence Is Sexy by Einstürzende Neubauten.  From Silence is Sexy, Mute, 2000.

Neubauten is one of my all-time favorites, and they've covered a wide range of stylistic and conceptual ground throughout their career, which just reached the 30-year milestone!.  This album immediately follows their Tabula Rasa, the record which most clearly delineated a shift toward more songform-oriented compositions, and more gentle passages in the music compared to earlier periods in their work.  This song is a favorite of mine for the many long pauses in the music, and the beautiful recordings of quiet moments like lighting a cigarette that arrive just before the music kicks in many times.  And there's a great (unofficial) video worth seeing, too:

7.  Stampede by Godley & Creme.  From Consequences, Mercury, 1977.

Godley & Creme are probably an acquired taste for most people, but I seem to have finally added them fully to my palette. Though there are certainly many moments of bad and/or cheesy throwaway material mixed into almost all of their albums (and how could there not be with a TRIPLE album such as Consequences?), they do succeed in writing some truly epic stuff at times. This track, which aspires to combine some orchestral thoughts with both psychedelic and arena rock moments, is one of those successes for me. I love the Queen-esque harmonies that dissolve into musique concrete halfway through! Silence is Sexy, indeed...

8.  Lixiviate by La Part maudite.  From Our Balls are like Dead Suns, &Records, 2010.

I only recently heard about this band, but any group who names themselves after one of my favorite books by Georges Bataille (published as "The Accursed Share" in English) can't be all bad. Indeed, I find this project very appealing: trumpet/bass/drums trio. Bass and trumpet: heavy on the distortion. Drums: hard and heavy and mostly dry-sounding. It's a very free record at times, but there are some great riff/melody sections, too, bathed in some wild distortion. Looking forward to more!

The album title, by the way, comes from this Bataille poem:


“DE LA BOUSE DANS LA TETE...”

For sake the dung among the head
I detonate I execrate the sky
the clouds expectorate
it’s bitter to immensity
my eyes are pigs
my heart is ink
my balls become dead suns 

the fallen stars gone fathomless grown grave
I weep my language leaks
it imports no immensity’s a round
and rolled and bound in sound
I passion death petition it
in Holy Father’s butchery. 

—Georges Bataille (trans: Mark Daniel Cohen)

Sorry, unrelated to the band, but I simply must link to this rare video of Bataille speaking on the notion of literature and evil:

playlist from 9-26-10

This week, I'm going to try something new: if you miss(ed) the show, and still want to hear these tracks while you read this stuff, click here for a zip file of (most of) the playlist.  I may not do this every week, and may not include every track I play on the show, but this might be a fun way for people to check out music they haven't heard.  Let me know if you find it helpful!


I also put up zip files for my previous shows.  They're updated at the end of each show's blog post, but here they are in one place, too:


8-22-10
8-29-10
9-12-10
9-19-10


Now, back to our regularly scheduled mini-reviewing...


1. Black Black by Masses.  From Unreleased, Smother Nature sessions.

Masses is one of my favorite local bands, and if they continue to live up to their name so well, they won't be local for long.  This cut will probably be released on vinyl soon--I hear rumors of a tasty 10'' format (save me a couple of extra 10'' plastic sleeves, dudes--nobody around here sells 'em).

I don't like "post-rock" as a genre name because it isn't a descriptive term.  What should "post-rock" sound like?  I suppose Masses generally falls into this category as the term is currently used, but I think their music transcends the genre.  Sure, it's instrumental, guitar-based music, and it features the dramatic shifts in volume one associates with "post-rock," but there are other elements at play, both subtle and overt.  Masses manages a lot of dynamic control with subtle alterations in texture, for example, rather than always going for the "distorted/clean" switcharoo so common in the genre.  They're better at building and sustaining drone-based passages without losing musical momentum than most of their peers.  Melodic movement doesn't always take place with the highest notes being played.  Ultimately, you have the textural vocabulary of guitar-oriented bands like Ocean, but with the compositional control of a band more like Godspeed You! Black Emperor.  And they're snappy dressers.

2. A Man To Hide by Time Of Orchids.  From Sarcast While, 2005, Tzadik.

I am a huge fan of almost everything Time of Orchids released, but this track is surely one of the high points of their recorded career.  Each of their first three full-lengths features a fantastic guest artist: Marilyn Crispell on Melonwhisper, Kate Pierson on Much Too Much Fun, and the incredible Julee Cruise on Sarcast While.  This is my favorite of the tracks featuring Julee Cruise, whose voice you might remember from David Lynch projects like Blue Velvet or the Twin Peaks theme.

This is one of those songs that can take listeners through a novel's worth of drama in less than ten minutes, and it's hard to describe.  So listen to it for yourself:

3. Look At My Hawk by Make A Rising.  From Rip Through The Hawk Black Night, 2005, High Two.


This is another of my favorite bands from the incredible avant-rock Philly scene.  The music seems to have a "legit" classical/jazz background in places while spending lots of time in psych and Krautrock passages, too.  I love the arranging in this band--lots of instruments make appearances, but generally things are gathered into really effective "chamber groups" within the bigger ensemble.  The group also manages to balance impulses of being silly with being more serious sounding at times.

It's been a while since Make a Rising released an album, and members have moved away from Philly, but plans for a third album are still moving forward.

4. To Composer John Cage by Anthony Braxton.  From For Alto, 1969, Delmark.


For Alto is one of those classic albums whose influence on subsequent musicians is hard to measure.  If you haven't heard it, the title is quite literal: Braxton plays solo alto saxophone over 73 minutes, divided into 8 compositions named for folks Braxton admired.  Braxton's original liner notes for the album weren't used, but are available to read online from his label.  Having read some of his more recent texts, these were some oddly random notes!

This is one of those albums that creates its own world, its own rules, and its own language/grammar/syntax.  It might take a while to "break through," but once you do it's endlessly satisfying.  And I think Braxton is tragically underrated as a player--he plays the crap out of his horn on this album, with a lot more fire and passion than many folks touted as "masters."

Then again, you don't have to "get it" to love it, either.  It's a great album if you just want to hear a guy totally shredding on alto, too.  And an old pet of mine, a tabby cat named Mazzy, was positively entranced by this album and no other.  Whenever I would put it on, she would drop whatever she was doing, leap onto the top of a speaker, and lay her head out in front of the speaker to positively bathe in the music.  She never did it with any other record, but it happened several times with this one.  I wish I would've taken a picture.

I understand that Braxton intended each piece on this record to focus on different aspects of his new language: trills, multiphonics, "sheets of sound" ala Coltrane, and so on.  Notably, John Zorn used a somewhat similar approach on his (mostly) solo alto sax albums "Classic Guide To Strategy," Volumes 1 and 2.  Those are also great records to check out if you like this album.

5. Temptation by Either / Orchestra. From The Half-Life of Desire, 1994, Accurate Records.

Either/Orchestra is a really fun group, but I chose this song especially for the guest singer: Mark Sandman, best known as the frontman of the "low rock" trio Morphine.  Sandman delivers a great performance on this track, which evokes a bit of his band's approach mixed with a film noir vibe.  There are some great details in the production of this recording that help to establish its atmosphere, too: listen for the horn parts that interject with a very dry tone, and how disorienting they are on the rest of the reverbed-out mix.

6. My Prostate by Andrew d'Angelo. From Morthana With Pride, 2005, Doubtmusic.

This is a great slice of jazz/noise/skronk from the d'Angelo camp.  Mike Pride's vocal performance on this track really puts it over the top, as his vocal performances often do, while his drum work adds to the already crazy drumming of Morten Olsen.  Above it all, d'Angelo's alto sax squeals and gyrates and gets down, with the guitar work of Anders Hana adding somewhat violent punctuation with a punk approach.  This is kind of an unusual album, collectively, for the players it features, but it's proof that they can hang with bands like Zu or its related project Black Engine with bravado to spare.

Andrew d'Angelo has had a rough couple of years recently, ultimately requiring brain surgery.  Fortunately, he's on the mend and making great music again.

You're probably going to have a hard time finding a copy of this album now, but it features some really great packaging that I thought I'd share:




7. Novella by Noah Creshevsky.  From Hyperrealism: Electroacoustic Music, 2003, Mutable Music.

I've just been listening to Creshevsky's music for a few months, and I don't now how I feel about it yet.  I like the underlying philosophy of his "hyperrealism" approach, essentially making tight edits between lots of different performances and layers of performances to create an artificial but highly detailed sonic space, but I'm not sure if his music actually lives up to the philosophy.  There are moments where I think it works and creates one of those artificial but dreamscape-esque more-than-real moments, but at other times the edits seem too obvious to my ears, and the montage technique becomes more obvious than its desired effect.  Is there a way to intentionally make jarring edits and multitrack juxtapositions without drawing attention to the edits themselves?  To place the emphasis on the newly-created sound world?  I think there is, but it's been done better on albums like The Getty Address by the Dirty Projectors.  Maybe I'm just spoiled by that album, but it seems exponentially more successful as an artistic (emotional) statement than the couple of Creshevsky albums I've digested so far.  In fact, the sax punches in the Either/Orchestra track above also work toward this goal of creating a new "hyperreal" soundspace, like film noir within a dream layer.

Perhaps the issue is one of compositional intent.  When I listen to something like The Getty Address, I get the impression that the music was created to elicit emotional responses--to emote, to express.  In contrast, Creshevsky is coming from the academic music tradition, and I don't get the same emotional impression.  Instead, the music seems to exist for its own aesthetics, or for the sake of following its processes to their logical conclusion(s).  Is that enough?  I suppose it is, but for me it's the difference between "interesting" and "incredible" in terms of my relationship to the music.

And maybe part of the issue relates to the origins of the music.  Creshevsky is combining pre-existing recordings in new ways, wheras Dave Longstreth wrote and recorded his own music for the Getty Address, to ultimately put through a similar process of "recombination" later.  That approach certainly makes for a more personal kind of music.

On reading gigantic books

Will I lose these 10 pounds by springtime?

I bumped into my good buddy Cliff a couple of weeks ago, and he got me thinking about "giant books."  He said that he has a list of large-form novels he's wanted to read for years, but he's been intimidated by their size and scope.  But now he finished one and loved it, and he's hungry for more.

I don't know if the change of the seasons inspired me somehow, but I too am excited about giant novels since this conversation. I decided to read some giant novels I've missed over the years and re-read a few I haven't read since college.  So I've stocked up on giant books for winter, like some kind of alopecic indoor squirrel.

Here's my list for the season:

William Gaddis - The Recognitions.  Never read it.  If I end up liking it, I'll add JR to my list, too.
William Gass - The Tunnel.  Never read it, but I'm impressed with the 30-year backstory on its composition.
James Joyce - Ulysses.  Read it in college, but it's been a while.
David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest.  Read in college, loved it, looking forward to entering that world again.
Joseph McElroy - Women and Men.  Never read.
Malcom Lowry - Under the Volcano.  Never read but heard it described as "a Mexican Ulysses."  Sounds great!
Richard Powers - The Gold Bug Variations.  Never read it, but I've read some other books by Powers that I really liked.

Along with some other reading I'm already doing, I imagine these will be more than enough for the season.  But if I finish those, I'll add:

Gilbert Sorrentino: Mulligan Stew.  Never read.
David Markson: Wittgenstein's Mistress.  Never read.

When I was talking with Cliff about huge books, I remarked how I would highly recommend reading them straight through, instead of feeling like you need to stop and look up every reference you don't already understand, keep track of every detail, etc.  Just get in the flow and read, and if you admire the overall work enough, you can always go back and read again to pull out more details.

I've heard lots of folks talk about how intimidating Ulysses and Infinite Jest are over the years, and I always got the impression they felt like they had to pull in every detail and layer as they read.  Indeed, that could make for an unpleasant and time consuming assignment.  But I guarantee you that if you like reading, simply reading the books straight through, staying with their internal pace and flow instead of hesitating, they're incredibly fun to read.

Huge books are like little universes all their own.  And no one expects you to "understand" a universe as a prerequsite to enjoyment or participation in it.  All of those details have to be there to create the universe, but just like getting through a typical day can be a complex barrage of sensory input, your brain can filter out the parts that aren't critical to your immediate experience.

But don't take my word for it.  Consider this great observation by William Gass from his introduction to Gaddis' Recognitions, which I think could apply to the reading of any large book:

"There's no need for haste, the pages which lie ahead of you will lie ahead of you for as long as you like them to; it is perfectly all right if some things are at first unclear, and if there are references you don't recognize; just go happily on; we don't stay in bed all day, do we? just because we've mislaid our appointment calendar.  No, we need to understand this book--enjoy its wit, its irony, its erudition, its sensuous embodiment--the way we understand a spouse we have lived with and listened to and loved for many years through al their nights.  Persons deserving such devotion and instinctual appreciation are rare; rarer still are the works which are worth it."

Or consider Mortimer Adler's perspective, co-author of the classic How to Read a Book:

"Dear Dr. Adler,

To tell you the truth, I find the so-called great books very difficult to read. I am willing to take your word for it that they are great. But how am I to appreciate the them if they are too hard for me to read? Can you give me some helpful hints on how to read a hard book?

---

THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE about reading is one that I have told my great books seminars again and again: In reading a difficult book for the first time, read the book through without stopping. Pay attention to what you can understand, and don't be stopped by what you can't immediately grasp on this way. Read the book through undeterred by the paragraphs, footnotes, arguments, and references that escape you. If you stop at any of these stumbling blocks, if you let yourself get stalled, you are lost. In most cases you won't be able to puzzle the thing out by sticking to it. You have better chance of understanding it on a second reading, but that requires you to read the book through for the first time.

This is the most practical method I know to break the crust of a book, to get the feel and general sense of it, and to come to terms with its structure as quickly and as easily as possible. The longer you delay in getting some sense of the over-all plan of a book, the longer you are in understanding it. You simply must have some grasp of the whole before you can see the parts in their true perspective -- or often in any perspective at all."

__________________________________________________________________________________

You can read the rest of Adler's commentary here.

My only concern now is keeping my bike upright as I transport these mammoths around while reading them!