"The sun in eclipse gathers together more mixes" (93 minutes)
Don't expect to hear the sound of summer 2011 because many of these tracks are at least a couple of years old (and are fairly well known -- there aren't many underappreciated jams that are waiting to be discovered here). I suppose what passes for a "summer mix" in my house is a mix where all the techno tracks come first, rather than buried somewhere in the middle.
The concept for the mix was born out of that simple, somewhat absurd idea ("put the techno first for once"), and from there I recycled a couple of transitions from older, private mixes, added a couple of tracks that I really wanted to work into a mix for whatever reason (Rough Trade, Liquid), successfully IMHO pulled off an audacious transition (Lil B to Explosions in the Sky), and 93 minutes later (longer than I intended, as usual) I ended up with a mix that I've been enjoying the hell out of lately. Hopefully you will too!
Soundcloud link
(more details appear in the comments)
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Sigur Ros, "Inni"
Summer is always a slow season for new releases, which means it's also a slow time for writing. I don't tend to follow new releases news either, I just can't get excited about so-and-so releasing a new album in three months and here we have the track list for you. I start anticipating when the album is about to be released. As in the day before it is released/leaked.
I usually ignore all the "click here for preview of Song X from their new album" too. Except that today, I got an email From Sigur Ros, entitled "Inni". Not "see the new video by Sigur Ros, 'Inni', from their upcoming album". Just "Inni". I clicked on the link and it led to a charcoal grey screen, barren except for the word "INNI" in block white letters. I started the video, and was greeted by a swarm of metallic howling and grainy black and white video images of whirring machinery. After the last Sigur Ros album (and Jonsi's solo album), I thought they were all set to go pop. Silly me.
The grainy footage was interspersed with individual shots of the members of Sigur Ros, frozen on stage over their instruments, surrounded by fog and haze. Sigur Ros, "Metropolis"? Believe it.
Suddenly the music switches to a gentler, instrumental piano melody, more along the lines of what you'd expect from them. The music creeps along but the images churn into motion as the band attack their instruments amidst the maniacally flashing lights. It's hard to figure out what's going on thanks to the rapid camera cuts, but it all ends in what seems to be an explosion of sparks. The audience waves their hands to catch the ashes, or whatever it is that remains of Sigur Ros and their semi-militaristic long coats.
Just like that, it's over, after barely a minute. And yes, I really really want to hear the album now.
I usually ignore all the "click here for preview of Song X from their new album" too. Except that today, I got an email From Sigur Ros, entitled "Inni". Not "see the new video by Sigur Ros, 'Inni', from their upcoming album". Just "Inni". I clicked on the link and it led to a charcoal grey screen, barren except for the word "INNI" in block white letters. I started the video, and was greeted by a swarm of metallic howling and grainy black and white video images of whirring machinery. After the last Sigur Ros album (and Jonsi's solo album), I thought they were all set to go pop. Silly me.
The grainy footage was interspersed with individual shots of the members of Sigur Ros, frozen on stage over their instruments, surrounded by fog and haze. Sigur Ros, "Metropolis"? Believe it.
Suddenly the music switches to a gentler, instrumental piano melody, more along the lines of what you'd expect from them. The music creeps along but the images churn into motion as the band attack their instruments amidst the maniacally flashing lights. It's hard to figure out what's going on thanks to the rapid camera cuts, but it all ends in what seems to be an explosion of sparks. The audience waves their hands to catch the ashes, or whatever it is that remains of Sigur Ros and their semi-militaristic long coats.
Just like that, it's over, after barely a minute. And yes, I really really want to hear the album now.
Thursday, August 04, 2011
John Cale @ Barby Club
John Cale will turn 70 next year, and his voice sounds exactly the same as it did 40 years ago. This, to me, is remarkable. The fact that he was never able to sing like a bird is besides the point. Cale wasn't born to sing, he's a virtuoso on the piano, a wizard behind the production desk, but sort of fell backwards into a singing career on the outer edges of pop -- all of this is also besides the point. People age, their voices change, or to be brutally honest, their voices deteriorate into a husky shell of their former selves. Which musicians from Cale's generation, Lou Reed or Mick Jagger or anyone else you care to name, can say they still sing as well as they did in the 60's? Hell, nearly all of those guys didn't sound like they did in the sixties twenty years ago.
Yet Cale keeps going, looking and sounding great. I went to see him in concert over five years ago and figured it was a good thing I caught him when I did. After all, he was getting up there in years and I probably wouldn't get another chance to catch John Cale live. And yet here he was, playing in front of a rapturous crowd at the Barby, still owning the "Gun"/"Pablo Picasso" medley, still making Matthew Sweet jealous that he didn't write "Perfect". Even the setlist was mostly the same, and songs from his new EP "Extra Playful" slotted in nicely next to a mixture of classics and songs from his last two albums.
After I got home I re-read my comments from the Lula Lounge gig in 2005 (probably for the first time since I wrote them) and was surprised at how little has changed about Cale in concert. You could practically copy and paste those comments into a review of yesterday's show. I do recall that he seemed angrier and more confrontational in '05, as if he had something to prove, or wanted to silence any doubters who didn't think he could bring the intensity. This time he seemed more relaxed, content to show off himself and his band and to play a nice mixture of old and new songs just like you've come to expect from an aging rocker when he's on tour. But only the most cynical of Cale fans would complain that he doesn't show up on stage wearing a hockey mask anymore. By any other, less extreme measure, Cale shows absolutely no signs of slowing down.
Yet Cale keeps going, looking and sounding great. I went to see him in concert over five years ago and figured it was a good thing I caught him when I did. After all, he was getting up there in years and I probably wouldn't get another chance to catch John Cale live. And yet here he was, playing in front of a rapturous crowd at the Barby, still owning the "Gun"/"Pablo Picasso" medley, still making Matthew Sweet jealous that he didn't write "Perfect". Even the setlist was mostly the same, and songs from his new EP "Extra Playful" slotted in nicely next to a mixture of classics and songs from his last two albums.
After I got home I re-read my comments from the Lula Lounge gig in 2005 (probably for the first time since I wrote them) and was surprised at how little has changed about Cale in concert. You could practically copy and paste those comments into a review of yesterday's show. I do recall that he seemed angrier and more confrontational in '05, as if he had something to prove, or wanted to silence any doubters who didn't think he could bring the intensity. This time he seemed more relaxed, content to show off himself and his band and to play a nice mixture of old and new songs just like you've come to expect from an aging rocker when he's on tour. But only the most cynical of Cale fans would complain that he doesn't show up on stage wearing a hockey mask anymore. By any other, less extreme measure, Cale shows absolutely no signs of slowing down.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Explosions In the Sky, "Take Care, Take Care, Take Care"; The Caretaker, "An Empty Bliss Beyond This World"
Explosions in the Sky impressed me so much with their last album that I continued onto the logical next step in musical fandom -- tracking down live recordings. I downloaded a bunch of gigs from the Live Music Archive but rarely found myself listening to them. That was partly because their music, like that of most crushingly loud guitar based bands, is very difficult to record live, especially via audience recording. Having seen them live on an earlier tour, I knew what the "real" EITS sounded like, and those recordings weren't it. But this wasn't the main reason -- after all, poorly recorded live bootlegs are a fact of musical life, and had never stopped me from obsessing over recordings of countless other bands, even "loud" bands (e.g. Mogwai). Rather, I wasn't listening to those gigs (and eventually deleted many of them from my computer) because they all sounded the same.
And that's pretty much EITS in a nutshell. Even their fans know they repeat themselves ad nauseum. Even their fans have to admit that they've been recording the same album over and over again for ten years. "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone" was almost exactly like their earlier stuff, only better. There's no logical reason why a band like EITS should continue to run in place for as long as they have. Ten years ago it made sense to dream about a beautiful, apocalyptic post rock future. But now? The music they were making ten years ago shouldn't work in 2011, but somehow it does. "Take Care, Take Care, Take Care" is fantastic.
The album's structure is more or less the same as that of "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone" -- a bright, triumphant sounding song for the opener, introspective middle, furious finish followed by a more relaxed coda. The opening track, "Last Known Surroundings", is the triumphal overture/self-contained mini-suite that also happens to work equally well outside the context of the album. The furious finish happens toward the end of "Postcard from 1952" and the coda is "Let Me Back In", although at over ten minutes long it's less of a coda and more of an extended comedown. In between, "Be Comfortable, Creature" is something of a surprise, with its pulsing, shuffling, multi-layered rhythms that could almost pass for Do Make Say Think.
Don't skip this record just because EITS don't bring anything new to the table. It's not as well-executed as "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone", but rest assured that it sounds the same as all their other stuff. For this band, that still tends to be a good thing.
----------------------------
I can't hear the new Caretaker album without picturing his harrowing but entertaining non-performance from MUTEK 2010. A friend offers to show you his picture album from his year in Berlin, but what should have been fun stories about the city's nightlife turned into an endurance contest of increasingly unsettling debauchery. There'd be fond memories associated with the images if everyone wasn't so wasted and could remember even the smallest details about the nights the pictures were taken. That's The Caretaker for you -- 1920's Berlin coated in layers of gloom and paranoia, ostensibly happy songs and moments that have been sterilized and had all the joy sucked out of them.
FACT magazine recently reposted an article about the "20 Best Ambient" albums that included The Caretaker's "A Stairway to the Stars" from 2001, and this comment about that album perfectly encapsulates his music -- "The entire LP is built from old 78s and 1920s dance records narcotized and bathed in hiss and gloom until they feel like a scene from The Shining (the one where Jack meets bartender Lloyd)." Or even better, the album is like that feeling you got in the pit of your stomach as the camera slowly zooms in on the black and white picture of a grinning Jack Nicholson at a party from the hotel's supposed golden era.
And that's pretty much EITS in a nutshell. Even their fans know they repeat themselves ad nauseum. Even their fans have to admit that they've been recording the same album over and over again for ten years. "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone" was almost exactly like their earlier stuff, only better. There's no logical reason why a band like EITS should continue to run in place for as long as they have. Ten years ago it made sense to dream about a beautiful, apocalyptic post rock future. But now? The music they were making ten years ago shouldn't work in 2011, but somehow it does. "Take Care, Take Care, Take Care" is fantastic.
The album's structure is more or less the same as that of "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone" -- a bright, triumphant sounding song for the opener, introspective middle, furious finish followed by a more relaxed coda. The opening track, "Last Known Surroundings", is the triumphal overture/self-contained mini-suite that also happens to work equally well outside the context of the album. The furious finish happens toward the end of "Postcard from 1952" and the coda is "Let Me Back In", although at over ten minutes long it's less of a coda and more of an extended comedown. In between, "Be Comfortable, Creature" is something of a surprise, with its pulsing, shuffling, multi-layered rhythms that could almost pass for Do Make Say Think.
Don't skip this record just because EITS don't bring anything new to the table. It's not as well-executed as "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone", but rest assured that it sounds the same as all their other stuff. For this band, that still tends to be a good thing.
----------------------------
I can't hear the new Caretaker album without picturing his harrowing but entertaining non-performance from MUTEK 2010. A friend offers to show you his picture album from his year in Berlin, but what should have been fun stories about the city's nightlife turned into an endurance contest of increasingly unsettling debauchery. There'd be fond memories associated with the images if everyone wasn't so wasted and could remember even the smallest details about the nights the pictures were taken. That's The Caretaker for you -- 1920's Berlin coated in layers of gloom and paranoia, ostensibly happy songs and moments that have been sterilized and had all the joy sucked out of them.
FACT magazine recently reposted an article about the "20 Best Ambient" albums that included The Caretaker's "A Stairway to the Stars" from 2001, and this comment about that album perfectly encapsulates his music -- "The entire LP is built from old 78s and 1920s dance records narcotized and bathed in hiss and gloom until they feel like a scene from The Shining (the one where Jack meets bartender Lloyd)." Or even better, the album is like that feeling you got in the pit of your stomach as the camera slowly zooms in on the black and white picture of a grinning Jack Nicholson at a party from the hotel's supposed golden era.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Amy Winehouse RIP
Yeah, so this wasn't entirely unexpected. Like with Kurt Cobain, her death was paradoxically logical and unnecessary -- logical because we've all seen this movie before, and uneccessary needs no explanation. They slowly went about ruining their lives, died, and we all watched.
I actually had some hope for Winehouse after seeing the now even more infamous "performance" from Belgrade. She looked healthy, not emaciated like in years past. She was out of it, but she'd looked much worse on stage before. Instead of being half asleep and mumbling along in a drug-induced stupor, she seemed confused, maybe even a little bit scared, like she had no idea how she ended up on stage. She looked less like a drug addict than an amnesia patient. I felt a little bit sorry for her, which wasn't the case for past performances when she was even more obviously wasted.
Many people said that Winehouse had an extraordinary talent, but I never heard it. She was talented, yes, she had a great voice, definitely, but she wasn't a singularly great, arresting, stop dead in your tracks sort of talent. To compare her to someone whose name will be coming up a lot in the next few days, she didn't have Janis Joplin's voice. Joplin's voice still sounds blindingly powerful and unique even forty years later. However, while she might have been a success during her life, Joplin only became a phenomenon after her death. Amy Winehouse was a much bigger star than Janis Joplin, and she had a far greater influence on the music industry. Plenty of bands were peddling blues-y pysch in late 60's San Francisco. Winehouse carved out an entirely new niche for herself in the pop landscape, practically created and championed a new genre of music to an unsuspecting public, and sold millions of records via the twin threat of her talent mixed with her ubiquitous personality cult. She cleaned up at the Grammys like few female artists ever had, and "Back to Black" was the third biggest selling album in the UK in the 2000's. Before Winehouse, the music landscape was filled with far too many cookie cutter R&B divas with nary a distinctive voice or sense of fashion to be found (of course there are some exceptions, e.g. Pink). Without Winehouse, mega-hits like Beyonce's "Single Ladies" wouldn't have existed, and Adele would have had an immeasurably larger barrier to superstardom.
I actually had some hope for Winehouse after seeing the now even more infamous "performance" from Belgrade. She looked healthy, not emaciated like in years past. She was out of it, but she'd looked much worse on stage before. Instead of being half asleep and mumbling along in a drug-induced stupor, she seemed confused, maybe even a little bit scared, like she had no idea how she ended up on stage. She looked less like a drug addict than an amnesia patient. I felt a little bit sorry for her, which wasn't the case for past performances when she was even more obviously wasted.
Many people said that Winehouse had an extraordinary talent, but I never heard it. She was talented, yes, she had a great voice, definitely, but she wasn't a singularly great, arresting, stop dead in your tracks sort of talent. To compare her to someone whose name will be coming up a lot in the next few days, she didn't have Janis Joplin's voice. Joplin's voice still sounds blindingly powerful and unique even forty years later. However, while she might have been a success during her life, Joplin only became a phenomenon after her death. Amy Winehouse was a much bigger star than Janis Joplin, and she had a far greater influence on the music industry. Plenty of bands were peddling blues-y pysch in late 60's San Francisco. Winehouse carved out an entirely new niche for herself in the pop landscape, practically created and championed a new genre of music to an unsuspecting public, and sold millions of records via the twin threat of her talent mixed with her ubiquitous personality cult. She cleaned up at the Grammys like few female artists ever had, and "Back to Black" was the third biggest selling album in the UK in the 2000's. Before Winehouse, the music landscape was filled with far too many cookie cutter R&B divas with nary a distinctive voice or sense of fashion to be found (of course there are some exceptions, e.g. Pink). Without Winehouse, mega-hits like Beyonce's "Single Ladies" wouldn't have existed, and Adele would have had an immeasurably larger barrier to superstardom.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
P&J 2010 (One and Done): Maps and Atlases, "Perch Patchwork"
30 points, t-365, voted on by Ryan Wasoba
So this is it, I needed seven months to finish my 2010 year in review. That'll be a tough one to top in future years.
Seeing as I've never been impressed by bands who can play complicated, dissonant guitar lines in stop-start 13/8 time, I've never really given much thought to math rock. Bands like Slint and Chavez are sometimes lumped in with the math rock scene, but I've never thought of them as such. Without getting into the fine details of the border between post rock and math rock, those bands' propensity for making loads of noise and borrowing from the urgency and intensity of metal always seemed to fly in the face of the notion that they were oddball nerds trying to become rock stars the only way they knew how. Take away the noise/metal edge and instead infuse the music with a sense of folksy Americana that would effortlessly fit in with any outdoor mountain jam festival west of Chicago, and you've got Maps and Atlases -- the marriage of musical genres I can't help but hate.
And yet, the album isn't half bad. Most of it is quite easy on the ears and the band can write perfectly acceptable melodies when they're not trying to be too clever. The title track is by far the most charming example of this, it seems pre-ordained that it'll appear someday on the soundtrack of a Wes Anderson movie.
-----------------------
I used to shop at a record store that occasionally sold "mystery packs" of ten or twelve vinyl records, grouped together by genre and sold in cardboard packaging. They got to clear out old stock, the we got to enjoy the novelty of paying twenty bucks for music even though we had absolutely no idea what was inside the package. But it was tough to say you weren't getting your money's worth. The package would pay for itself if it contained just one or two great records -- underappreciated or unnoticed gems that you wouldn't have discovered on your own. Anything more than that -- so-so records that you probably wouldn't play out but were nonetheless interesting and worth keeping -- was just gravy, and beyond that, any records that were so intolerable that you had to throw them away were of zero consequence.
The Pazz and Jop "One and Done" experience was more or less like buying one of those mystery packs, right down the distribution of quality of the music. However, I can honestly say that I didn't dislike anything I heard, which is definitely not what I expected at the start (I figured at least two or three albums would outright suck).
I can sum everything up by grouping these ten albums into a few simple categories:
Listenable, but I don't feel the need to hear them again.
Achille Lauro, "Indiscretions"
Matt Boroff, "Reaching for Sparks"
Cathedral, "The Guessing Game"
Worth hanging onto
Maps and Atlases, "Perch Patchwork"
Shinyribs, "Well After Awhile"
Captain Ahab, "The End of Irony"
Mogwai, "Special Moves"
Good album, I will definitely play this from time to time
L'il B, "6 Kiss"
Something of a revelation
Gord Downie and the Country of Miracles, "The Grand Bounce"
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, "Up From Below"
So this is it, I needed seven months to finish my 2010 year in review. That'll be a tough one to top in future years.
Seeing as I've never been impressed by bands who can play complicated, dissonant guitar lines in stop-start 13/8 time, I've never really given much thought to math rock. Bands like Slint and Chavez are sometimes lumped in with the math rock scene, but I've never thought of them as such. Without getting into the fine details of the border between post rock and math rock, those bands' propensity for making loads of noise and borrowing from the urgency and intensity of metal always seemed to fly in the face of the notion that they were oddball nerds trying to become rock stars the only way they knew how. Take away the noise/metal edge and instead infuse the music with a sense of folksy Americana that would effortlessly fit in with any outdoor mountain jam festival west of Chicago, and you've got Maps and Atlases -- the marriage of musical genres I can't help but hate.
And yet, the album isn't half bad. Most of it is quite easy on the ears and the band can write perfectly acceptable melodies when they're not trying to be too clever. The title track is by far the most charming example of this, it seems pre-ordained that it'll appear someday on the soundtrack of a Wes Anderson movie.
-----------------------
I used to shop at a record store that occasionally sold "mystery packs" of ten or twelve vinyl records, grouped together by genre and sold in cardboard packaging. They got to clear out old stock, the we got to enjoy the novelty of paying twenty bucks for music even though we had absolutely no idea what was inside the package. But it was tough to say you weren't getting your money's worth. The package would pay for itself if it contained just one or two great records -- underappreciated or unnoticed gems that you wouldn't have discovered on your own. Anything more than that -- so-so records that you probably wouldn't play out but were nonetheless interesting and worth keeping -- was just gravy, and beyond that, any records that were so intolerable that you had to throw them away were of zero consequence.
The Pazz and Jop "One and Done" experience was more or less like buying one of those mystery packs, right down the distribution of quality of the music. However, I can honestly say that I didn't dislike anything I heard, which is definitely not what I expected at the start (I figured at least two or three albums would outright suck).
I can sum everything up by grouping these ten albums into a few simple categories:
Listenable, but I don't feel the need to hear them again.
Achille Lauro, "Indiscretions"
Matt Boroff, "Reaching for Sparks"
Cathedral, "The Guessing Game"
Worth hanging onto
Maps and Atlases, "Perch Patchwork"
Shinyribs, "Well After Awhile"
Captain Ahab, "The End of Irony"
Mogwai, "Special Moves"
Good album, I will definitely play this from time to time
L'il B, "6 Kiss"
Something of a revelation
Gord Downie and the Country of Miracles, "The Grand Bounce"
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, "Up From Below"
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
A to JazZ Festival, Liubo Ursiny at Yalta Club (02/07/2011)
Although the music at these events was very good, the atmosphere made both of them instantly memorable.
Bulgarians love music. Whether they love music more than other peoples and cultures isn't really the point, but it's clear they appreciate a good concert more than most. I've seen something similar in other places where musical events are at a premium -- I think you appreciate what you get even more, especially if a notable international artist is involved. Under communism, clubbing didn't really exist in Bulgaria, internationally-renowned DJ's didn't start visiting until the 90's, and even now, such visits are fairly rare. Perhaps the market can't tolerate more events, or maybe the asking price of big DJ's is too high, I don't know (Bulgarians can't, and won't drop 10+ Euros on cover charges each week). The point is that you suffer through a few weeks where nothing interesting happens, then one weekend there's a cool free outdoor jazz fest and/or a extended set by Bulgaria's most renowned techno DJ. The level of collective enthusiasm goes through the roof.
Sometimes, the booking equivalent of the perfect storm needs to happen. Tiesto, who's as big a DJ as there is, is spinning at an event this month near the resort town of Burgas, on the Black Sea. Tickets are 15-20 Euro, which seems like an absurdly low cover price for a Tiesto gig. Is Tiesto's asking price lower when a vacation at the Black Sea is part of the deal? Or are the promoters expecting a windfall of partygoers at the peak of the Black Sea tourist season?
Anyhow, the mood at the A to JazZ festival was great, and why not? What's better than free music in the park on a Saturday afternoon? People of all ages gathered in the Doctor's Garden, lounged on the monuments and stones of Roman-era buildings, beers in hand, and took in an evening of tributes to the best of American jazz music. Even though the park turned into a graveyard for beer cans, nobody acted up or raised their voice, it was like a festival atmosphere mixed with supper club manners. And nobody was the least bit fazed during the ten minutes when it rained. It's almost as if there was an unwritten rule -- complain and they might not ever come back -- so everyone decided to be on their best behaviour. Just in case something like this never happened again, everyone brought their kids so they could be shown a good time while there was still a good time to be had.
The Ventsislav Blagoev Mainstream Jazztet jam it out and cover a bunch of the greats (Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk), and JP3 followed with their "official presentation of their new album 'Poison'" which was one stylish, snappy melody after another. Both are Bulgarian acts, but I couldn't really tell if the audience knows who they are or whether it even matters who they are. There was a small photo exhibition by a local photographer who's been documenting jazz concerts (by Bulgarian artists and post-1993, concerts by an impressive array of famous names) in Bulgaria for the past thirty years -- suggesting there's a rich history of jazz fandom in the country. But history wasn't important on this night. Most people didn't trek to the park because they were big jazz fans -- me included. They were there because it was a place to be, and do you really need a better reason to have a drink and lounge in the park in the middle of summer?
------------------
Later that night, I lucked into catching an event by local promoters Elevate, on their "Elevate presents Blame" night at the Yalta Club. The club is something of an epicentre for the Sofia club scene. Located across the street from Sofia University in the historic downtown of the city, it was one of the first (the first?) clubs to host internationally renowned DJ's after the fall of communism. Liubo Ursiny is renowned for his heroically long sets and I was pretty much sold after checking out his softer side on Blame's podcast series and his harder side on any number of wild clips from his sets that were captured and posted on Youtube. On top of that, I should have known that something special was in the air when I got to the club, where a) the security were polite and helpful, and b) the organizers let me in for half price even though my request to have my name put on the guest list wasn't received in time.
This was a no bullshit club night. I mean, what's the point of going to a club? To dance and have fun, of course. The Yalta Club is a two story club, open in the middle, shaped like a semicircle, with the DJ's elevated platform in the centre of the ground floor. It's not a large club and with bars along the far edges of the room, and tables scattered around the fringes of the main floor, there isn't a lot of free space in which to wander around once the dancing starts. On the other hand, it means that the place feels full once more than 40-50 people are inside.
I walked in and the place was frenetic. People were dancing literally everywhere -- on the ground floor, on the second floor, leaning over the railings, next to the bars, there literally wasn't a single person just standing around enjoying his drink, trying to look too cool to be there. Not a single person was standing still, and they were all locked in step with the rise and fall of the music. If Ursiny cut the bass, people cheered, if he tweaked the EQ's to build up the breakdown, hands were flung into the air. Since people were dancing while literally draped around and over the balconies, the Yalta Club turned into the video for AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" every 10-15 minutes or so.
That's a no bullshit club. Nobody stood around trying to be seen. Nobody popped in looking to see what the scene was all about, danced for half an hour, and went home. People were too busy dancing to ogle the go-go dancers in the weird silver lamé outfits. Ursiny's mixing was flawless, and although his choice of hard clubland techno isn't something that I would listen to at home, he knows every nook and cranny of the music and knows how to work it to the fullest in front of a crowd. Considering that he probably plays to the same small hardcore crowd of Sofia techno fans every time he plays a gig, it's all the more amazing that he's able to work his magic in front of people who are already familiar with all his tricks. Or maybe they simply like to dance that damn much, and couldn't care less about falling for the same tricks over and over again.
Bulgarians love music. Whether they love music more than other peoples and cultures isn't really the point, but it's clear they appreciate a good concert more than most. I've seen something similar in other places where musical events are at a premium -- I think you appreciate what you get even more, especially if a notable international artist is involved. Under communism, clubbing didn't really exist in Bulgaria, internationally-renowned DJ's didn't start visiting until the 90's, and even now, such visits are fairly rare. Perhaps the market can't tolerate more events, or maybe the asking price of big DJ's is too high, I don't know (Bulgarians can't, and won't drop 10+ Euros on cover charges each week). The point is that you suffer through a few weeks where nothing interesting happens, then one weekend there's a cool free outdoor jazz fest and/or a extended set by Bulgaria's most renowned techno DJ. The level of collective enthusiasm goes through the roof.
Sometimes, the booking equivalent of the perfect storm needs to happen. Tiesto, who's as big a DJ as there is, is spinning at an event this month near the resort town of Burgas, on the Black Sea. Tickets are 15-20 Euro, which seems like an absurdly low cover price for a Tiesto gig. Is Tiesto's asking price lower when a vacation at the Black Sea is part of the deal? Or are the promoters expecting a windfall of partygoers at the peak of the Black Sea tourist season?
Anyhow, the mood at the A to JazZ festival was great, and why not? What's better than free music in the park on a Saturday afternoon? People of all ages gathered in the Doctor's Garden, lounged on the monuments and stones of Roman-era buildings, beers in hand, and took in an evening of tributes to the best of American jazz music. Even though the park turned into a graveyard for beer cans, nobody acted up or raised their voice, it was like a festival atmosphere mixed with supper club manners. And nobody was the least bit fazed during the ten minutes when it rained. It's almost as if there was an unwritten rule -- complain and they might not ever come back -- so everyone decided to be on their best behaviour. Just in case something like this never happened again, everyone brought their kids so they could be shown a good time while there was still a good time to be had.
The Ventsislav Blagoev Mainstream Jazztet jam it out and cover a bunch of the greats (Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk), and JP3 followed with their "official presentation of their new album 'Poison'" which was one stylish, snappy melody after another. Both are Bulgarian acts, but I couldn't really tell if the audience knows who they are or whether it even matters who they are. There was a small photo exhibition by a local photographer who's been documenting jazz concerts (by Bulgarian artists and post-1993, concerts by an impressive array of famous names) in Bulgaria for the past thirty years -- suggesting there's a rich history of jazz fandom in the country. But history wasn't important on this night. Most people didn't trek to the park because they were big jazz fans -- me included. They were there because it was a place to be, and do you really need a better reason to have a drink and lounge in the park in the middle of summer?
------------------
Later that night, I lucked into catching an event by local promoters Elevate, on their "Elevate presents Blame" night at the Yalta Club. The club is something of an epicentre for the Sofia club scene. Located across the street from Sofia University in the historic downtown of the city, it was one of the first (the first?) clubs to host internationally renowned DJ's after the fall of communism. Liubo Ursiny is renowned for his heroically long sets and I was pretty much sold after checking out his softer side on Blame's podcast series and his harder side on any number of wild clips from his sets that were captured and posted on Youtube. On top of that, I should have known that something special was in the air when I got to the club, where a) the security were polite and helpful, and b) the organizers let me in for half price even though my request to have my name put on the guest list wasn't received in time.
This was a no bullshit club night. I mean, what's the point of going to a club? To dance and have fun, of course. The Yalta Club is a two story club, open in the middle, shaped like a semicircle, with the DJ's elevated platform in the centre of the ground floor. It's not a large club and with bars along the far edges of the room, and tables scattered around the fringes of the main floor, there isn't a lot of free space in which to wander around once the dancing starts. On the other hand, it means that the place feels full once more than 40-50 people are inside.
I walked in and the place was frenetic. People were dancing literally everywhere -- on the ground floor, on the second floor, leaning over the railings, next to the bars, there literally wasn't a single person just standing around enjoying his drink, trying to look too cool to be there. Not a single person was standing still, and they were all locked in step with the rise and fall of the music. If Ursiny cut the bass, people cheered, if he tweaked the EQ's to build up the breakdown, hands were flung into the air. Since people were dancing while literally draped around and over the balconies, the Yalta Club turned into the video for AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" every 10-15 minutes or so.
That's a no bullshit club. Nobody stood around trying to be seen. Nobody popped in looking to see what the scene was all about, danced for half an hour, and went home. People were too busy dancing to ogle the go-go dancers in the weird silver lamé outfits. Ursiny's mixing was flawless, and although his choice of hard clubland techno isn't something that I would listen to at home, he knows every nook and cranny of the music and knows how to work it to the fullest in front of a crowd. Considering that he probably plays to the same small hardcore crowd of Sofia techno fans every time he plays a gig, it's all the more amazing that he's able to work his magic in front of people who are already familiar with all his tricks. Or maybe they simply like to dance that damn much, and couldn't care less about falling for the same tricks over and over again.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Diary of Musical Thoughts Podcast Episode 2
"Realpolitik turns on itself - a mix" (115 minutes)
This was recorded about three weeks ago and the minor editing/sound processing was done in my hotel room in Milan. You know you're a rock star when you're writing/recording on the road, in hotel rooms in exotic locales. (yes, that's sarcasm)
I wanted to do a quieter mix this time around. I imagined music that would evoke feelings of aimless drifting, although I didn't want a mix of straight up ambient drone music. I relied on a bunch of older CDs that I hadn't heard in ages (e.g. Main, John Watermann), these discs were selected in advance and in some cases I pre-selected the candidate tracks as well, although the final track selection and ordering were all done on the fly. I also imagined a much shorter mix than last time, in the 70-75 minute range, but that didn't materialize.
To make for easier d/l'ing, I split the mix into two parts. However, the flow of the mix sort of lends itself to being split into two halves. The first half of the mix (which ends after the Plastikman track) seems to flow better, while I normally struggle to get through the second half without drifting off to sleep. But with a mix like this, I think that's a compliment though, or at least, the expected biochemical reaction of ending a mix with a sequence of very long, very mellow songs, including fifteen minutes by Earth at the finish.
More details appear in the comments section. Enjoy!
This was recorded about three weeks ago and the minor editing/sound processing was done in my hotel room in Milan. You know you're a rock star when you're writing/recording on the road, in hotel rooms in exotic locales. (yes, that's sarcasm)
I wanted to do a quieter mix this time around. I imagined music that would evoke feelings of aimless drifting, although I didn't want a mix of straight up ambient drone music. I relied on a bunch of older CDs that I hadn't heard in ages (e.g. Main, John Watermann), these discs were selected in advance and in some cases I pre-selected the candidate tracks as well, although the final track selection and ordering were all done on the fly. I also imagined a much shorter mix than last time, in the 70-75 minute range, but that didn't materialize.
To make for easier d/l'ing, I split the mix into two parts. However, the flow of the mix sort of lends itself to being split into two halves. The first half of the mix (which ends after the Plastikman track) seems to flow better, while I normally struggle to get through the second half without drifting off to sleep. But with a mix like this, I think that's a compliment though, or at least, the expected biochemical reaction of ending a mix with a sequence of very long, very mellow songs, including fifteen minutes by Earth at the finish.
More details appear in the comments section. Enjoy!
Friday, June 24, 2011
Two live reviews
I have a lot of pet peeves when it comes to reading live reviews. Now admittedly, I don't always post very professional sounding live reviews on this space, but after all it's a blog and not an actual newspaper or journal, so sometimes I tend to goof off a bit.
But no matter what tone of writing I'm aiming for, there are some things I *never* do when I write about live shows, because these so-called criticisms and pointless and stupid in any context. This includes:
1. Whining about the setlist. Example: "why didn't they play [reviewer's favourite song by the band in question]?"
2. Complaining about the band's lack of interaction with the crowd, or disinterest in interacting with the crowd. Examples: "the singer had his back turned to the audience", "the band never said so much as a 'hello' or a 'thank you for coming'".
3. Lamenting that that X (who may or may not have been the opening act) isn't as famous as the headliner(s). Example: "I am so over the hype for the headliner, why couldn't X (who may have opened earlier in the night) have been the headliner?"
4. Beating a dead horse. Examples to follow.
I would hope that it's obvious why it's lame when a reviewer stoops to these sorts of lows, but here's a brief summary:
1. Why don't you just review the show that you saw, rather than the show that you wanted to see?
2. Silly platitudes are almost always irrelevant when it comes to the quality of the show.
3. Nobody cares about your forecasting. Just tell us whether the show was good or not, without trying to pimp your own agenda.
4. Yes, we know that already. We knew that ten years ago. Nobody cares about that anymore. We didn't even care back then. (examples to follow)
These annoying bits of reviewers' detritus were on display in a couple of recent reviews.
Bob Dylan's concert in Ramat Gan stadium near Tel Aviv (his first show in Israel in about two decades) was reviewed twice in the Jerusalem Post, both times by David Brinn. The short review (which appeared on the front page of that day's paper) was a simple puff piece with nothing but praise for the performance. The long review is a bit harder to pin down. A discussion about Dylan's perceived aloofness (#2) bookends the review and is presented as an obstacle that one must overcome in order to enjoy the concert. He also addresses the set list (#1), notes that there were no "left field" choices, and seems puzzled that some songs have been reinterpreted over the years and now sound different from the well-known recorded versions.
The review seems to have been written for the non-music fan who never goes to concerts but is nonetheless curious about what goes down at a stadium show by a major international artist -- which in fact, describes most of JPost's English-speaking readership to a tee. The third to last paragraph appears to be a take down of many of the sentiments that Brinn mused over in the rest of his review (has this article been edited since it was originally posted? This paragraph seems ... longer and different from what I first remember reading). I can't say I disagree, I mean yeah, if it's news to you that Dylan's voice sounds like a phlegmatic latter-day Miles Davis being choked under a pillow, then you probably shouldn't be going to his concert and complaining about his singing.
Steve Kerr's review of MUTEK 2011 for LWE is part text, part photo essay -- yeah, it helps remind me how much I enjoyed writing my own review of the festival last year. Let's begin with his extremely odd assertion in the opening paragraph that this year's festival was inferior to last year's because of the preponderance of "headliners either past their prime or commanders of cult fanbases". Um, doesn't that describe just about every MUTEK festival? Or most 21st century techno festivals for that matter? I could have sworn that I saw Nurse With Wound and Mouse on Mars headlining MUTEK last year. Anyway, the review hasn't even gotten going yet and he's already started complaining about the festival lineup (basically the same as #1).
Later on, he arrives to the Friday night event at Metropolis -- the marquee event of the festival -- and when it comes to discussing the headliner, he's all "I'm so over Plastikman at the moment, how about we check out some bass producers you've never heard of in the next room?" (#3). Eventually, he returned to the main room of the club, noting that "the floor was a mess and the atmosphere was appropriately post-apocolyptic". That line really whets my appetite for hearing more about the most anticipated performance of the entire festival, too bad Steve Kerr wasn't there to fill us in on the details because those of us who weren't there are dying to know ... oh wait, he WAS there but couldn't be bothered to watch and review the performance he (and/or LWE) paid $50 to see.
Kerr reports that some of Mika Vainio's gear was stolen, and comments that "perhaps as a result his set was entirely devoid of visuals, performing in near-darkness." Vainio never needed visuals when he performed as part of Pan Sonic, and anyway, nobody watching their shows could pay attention to a video screen because they were too busy trying to hold their skulls together in one piece thanks to the deafening volume. Nevertheless, "[i]n spite of this, he effortlessly proved that audiovisual spectacle is little match for technical mastery." Do we really need to say this in 2011, especially on a dance music oriented site like LWE (#4)? Perhaps we do, maybe people are so fixated on the quality of the visuals that are accompanying the performers and their music (i.e. the stuff that draws people to these events) that we need to have the whole laptop performances vs checking email arguments all over again. Was Kerr pleasantly surprised by Vainio's performance, or is he pointing out what his readership should already know about what makes for a top quality techno set? I'm not sure, considering on how many words he spills on describing the visuals in several other performances in his review. My views about this remain unchanged -- if the music isn't any good, then the visuals won't rescue the performance. It's never happened and it never will happen. Some might argue for exceptions like Caretaker's performance from last year's MUTEK, but when a guy stands on stage for an hour doing nothing other than taking swigs from a whisky bottle, it's clear that there is no performance apart from the visuals (and the whisky, and the decadence, which was the whole point of his video). And aside from all that, the music was great!
Kerr's review ends much as it began -- "it seemed like a disproportionate level of attention was paid to marquee staples like Plastikman and Modeselektor, overshadowing exciting new artists such as Hype Williams and Elektro Guzzi who would’ve otherwise stolen the show." Yeah, a disproportionate level of attention was paid to them because they were the *headliners*. How can this be so difficult to grasp? Even so, his point is baseless because techno audiences aren't like rock audiences. Rock fans are much more prone to tunnel vision when it comes to the role of the headliner. Many fans don't even bother to show up for the opening band(s), and they're much more difficult to win over when they're watching a musician they've never heard of before. Techno fans aren't like that, and you can most definitely steal the show from an opening slot. Last year's MUTEK set by Actress (which Kerr praises in the first paragraph of this review) was second on a five-act bill.
Kerr has a lot of interesting things to say about the festival and did a fairly good job of explaining how varied and creative the lineup (and the attendees) of MUTEK tends to be compared to other electronic music festivals. But this? "Overall, MUTEK 2011 offered five days of superb, nuanced performances and fulfilled its promise, if not my fantasy line-up." Say it with me: "nobody cares what your fantasy line-up is ..."
Kerr has a lot of interesting things to say about the festival and did a fairly good job of explaining how varied and creative the lineup (and the attendees) of MUTEK tends to be compared to other electronic music festivals. But this? "Overall, MUTEK 2011 offered five days of superb, nuanced performances and fulfilled its promise, if not my fantasy line-up." Say it with me: "nobody cares what your fantasy line-up is ..."
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
P&J 2010 (One and Done): Lil B, "6 Kiss"
30 points, t-365, voted on by Andrew Nosnitsky (who gave 30 points to another album, but "6 Kiss" was listed as his #1 album, so it counts)
Wait, this is still on? And didn't P&J wrap up five months ago?
I just returned from two weeks in Milan and Rome, and I haven't any music-related things to report. An interesting looking one-day rock festival took place last week in Milan (Rock in Idrho), featuring Foo Fighters and The Stooges among others. I didn't go, although at 57 Euro, the cost was fairly reasonable. Groups of teenagers sometimes board the subways in Milan and ask for money. Except it's not for charity, it's their job -- they play in small musical ensembles, entertain a train car full of commuters for a couple of stops, and hop onto the next car. Some of them are fairly good! I also toured the La Scala museum, and on days when there isn't a rehearsal you can visit the boxes and see the main hall itself. So I can say that I "went to La Scala", even though it wasn't for a performance. The stagehands were busy hauling things on and off the stage, the lighting techs were testing a few things, and the orchestra members were slowly filing in and warming up. All that stuff would seem pretty pedestrian if you were watching it in an ordinary auditorium, but in LA SCALA it almost felt like a important occasion, a peek behind the curtain into how the sausage gets made (and in this case, you really don't mind seeing how the sausage gets made).
Parts of this trip were soundtracked by L'il B's "6 Kiss". Now it's no secret that I don't listen to much hip-hop, and won't pretend that I can recognize high quality forward-thinking albums in the genre from the rantings of your generic dick-grabbing MC. But I'm way past the point where I'd be disgusted or dismissive of music where the subject matter didn't extend much beyond line after line of talk about bitches and ho's. We're in DJ Assault territory here, which means that after the 105th mention of bitches take my dick and suck it please, I tend to view the whole thing as one big joke. And at 19 tracks, 77 minutes, "6 Kiss" takes its time running that joke into the ground*.
For the most part, the rhymes are fairly good, but it's the music that shines brightest on this album. "B.O.R. (Birth of Rap)" and "I'm God" make for a daring opening punch -- rather than slamming into you at full force, they gently rev the album into being with their soaring, angelic background vocals. It's like Dead Can Dance died and got into the rap game, or maybe the PM Dawn revival happened and I missed it. "Real Plexxx" is like a 70's R&B number remixed by one of the 90's electro or lounge techno revivalists, punctuated by Lil B's sizzling vocals, one of his best on the album. "What I Mean" features of the heaviest basslines I've ever heard -- it's a real bassquake, intended to make your speakers dance their way across the room on their own accord.
From "I Want Your Bitch" onwards, it's nearly all bitches, all hos, all the time. It's a killer track though, like a slowed down 90's breakbeat tune with 85% of the treble removed. "O My God 66" is a half-sung weirdo love ditty that manages to recall both Green Velvet's warped sense of humour and Sheffield Bleep.
But getting through the entire album in one sitting? Forget it. There's way too much fat on here (like the "Rolls Royce" through "What I Mean" middle section) but it's a fantastic listen if you keep your finger close to the skip button.
* I later noticed versions of this album with 22 tracks, so I'm not even sure I have the complete version of the album (or if there are extra bonus tracks, or ...). The album was an internet-only d/l, and Lil B released his first official album only this year (after years of making mixtapes and online-only material), so there's bound to be different packages of his music floating around.
* I later noticed versions of this album with 22 tracks, so I'm not even sure I have the complete version of the album (or if there are extra bonus tracks, or ...). The album was an internet-only d/l, and Lil B released his first official album only this year (after years of making mixtapes and online-only material), so there's bound to be different packages of his music floating around.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)