Tomorrow is Familiarisation Day at College where all next years students come in to 'taste' what's out there in the world of Further Education. The Theme in the Psych. Dept this year is "Messing With Your Mind", a somewhat shameless attempt on my part to dumb down the complexities of neuroscience into bite-size nuggets of psychobabble and casual abuse.
One of the sub-themes will centre around various experiments in synaesthesia including one based around my rambling here and, especially, here.
The students will have to listen in pitch dark to various songs chosen by me (I'll tell them the CD comes from a top Swedish Psycho-Think-Tank) and doodle whatever shapes the song 'takes' in their minds. We'll then collect the information and work on ways to categorise it (the boring Research Methodology bit - as Martin Sheen said in Apocalypse Now: "I don't see any method...at all.")
To join in, here's the track's I'll be playing them - they'll get about 30 secs each:
Smile Around The Face Four Tet
Quiet Pillage 23 Skidoo
Bowl Of Oranges Bright Eyes
Habanera Kahimi Karie
torment by the ghouls A.vomit
Pull Up The People M.I.A.
A.Y.O.R Coil
Where Is My Mind? Pixies
The Lighthouse Ana Da Silva
Further Back And Faster Coil
Kim Wilde Charlotte Hatherley
Orbis De Ignis Dead Can Dance
Dub From The Stars Serge Gainsbourg
Wake Me Up Girls Aloud
Single Again The Fiery Furnaces
Misery goats Pere Ubu
Blue Bell Knoll Cocteau Twins
Keek Venetian Snares
my baby's crying The Von Bondies
kelsomiinannaama Kemialliset Ystavat
One Perfect Sunrise Orbital
Oh Yeah Can
Look for the coils, the rounds, the edges and the lines and then get back to me...
Another sub-theme will focus on John Lilly's (the psychedelic dolphin chattering Doolittle) "Cogitate" experiments whereby the word cogitate repeated endlessly eventually starts to morph into all kinds of weird phrases, noises and sayings...
Well, education's all just crowd control now innit?
Oh, and if Kek's out there...me and Psychbloke are coming to Circle on the 8th...send me an e-mail (I've lost yours after a circuit bend in my Mac) if you fancy meeting up...
Oh and if Nick or any of the other West Country Mastif are around...
29 June 2005
26 June 2005
Mork and Mindy
Good to see the annual Shamanic-Depression Dance again... I tried myself last year after staying up all night trying to get tickets but stubbed my toe on a discarded chicken bone and felt the full power of Glastonbury Voudon bursting my skin at the seams.
Also a chance remark on a meme post at The Original Soundtrack set me off on a mini-bender in the comments box (i can see why people sometimes choose to turn comments off) which I figured I may as well use my own space to continue...
It concerned two books on Dance/Ambient culture which seem to sum up the two approaches to music in general.
For inconvenience, we'll call them Mork and Mindy:
Mork approaches rave culture from the standpoint of someone grateful to be ecstatic again. It's a social directive, one strewn with lost memories and impressions but essentially reflective. Mork looks back and tries to piece together not so much what he thought at the time (which is perhaps necessarily unspecific if you're in the midst of the flash) but how that experience has been attenuated after the fact. It looks back and allows music to be detached from private language; in fact implies the (Wittgenstein?) idea that private language, and therefore understanding/perception/assimilation, is essentially impractical if not utterly impossible.
It's a book written from a primarily social perspective, seeing music as an essentially communal experience, one best understood from the middle of a large crowd while trying to avoid that long haired guy from Mudhoney who's always auditioning for a Silvikrin hair-swish advert (target market: the homeless)
It is the same guy at all gigs where people move, isn't it? You never seem to see him anywhere else.
Mindy takes a more solipsistic approach, wandering through music like a lucid dream. It's written in a light-touch stream of consciousness style, aiming perhaps to evoke the old Mixmaster Morris misquote: "I think therefore I ambient".
Mindy writes as if the world existed of one. He travels alone with his ears tuned outwards only to suck information in. It's a black hole approach: nothing can escape. Even the cover seems to suggest a notebook approach, as if these are comprehensions written while experiencing.
I guess Mork's notebook fell out during his body-popping.
Mindy seems to experience music on an individual level, heading towards the drift of ambience as a means of getting out of the social world and into the inner. Mindy seems uncomfortable with the 'tribal gathering' aspect of music and instead of bitching about the kids decides instead to celebrate the spinal fluids that can be condensed when you're alone in a darkened room with nothing but your own mind for company.
Together these books act towards an understanding of the point of music and seem to illustrate its ability to act as internal working model for contemplation and for action.
Today, I went into the local shop (for local people) and the woman (think a post-op transsexual 1976 Darts Champion) said: "Is it me or is it hot in here?"
"Both of those things seem to be true," I replied.
Also a chance remark on a meme post at The Original Soundtrack set me off on a mini-bender in the comments box (i can see why people sometimes choose to turn comments off) which I figured I may as well use my own space to continue...
It concerned two books on Dance/Ambient culture which seem to sum up the two approaches to music in general.
For inconvenience, we'll call them Mork and Mindy:
Mork approaches rave culture from the standpoint of someone grateful to be ecstatic again. It's a social directive, one strewn with lost memories and impressions but essentially reflective. Mork looks back and tries to piece together not so much what he thought at the time (which is perhaps necessarily unspecific if you're in the midst of the flash) but how that experience has been attenuated after the fact. It looks back and allows music to be detached from private language; in fact implies the (Wittgenstein?) idea that private language, and therefore understanding/perception/assimilation, is essentially impractical if not utterly impossible.
It's a book written from a primarily social perspective, seeing music as an essentially communal experience, one best understood from the middle of a large crowd while trying to avoid that long haired guy from Mudhoney who's always auditioning for a Silvikrin hair-swish advert (target market: the homeless)
It is the same guy at all gigs where people move, isn't it? You never seem to see him anywhere else.
Mindy takes a more solipsistic approach, wandering through music like a lucid dream. It's written in a light-touch stream of consciousness style, aiming perhaps to evoke the old Mixmaster Morris misquote: "I think therefore I ambient".
Mindy writes as if the world existed of one. He travels alone with his ears tuned outwards only to suck information in. It's a black hole approach: nothing can escape. Even the cover seems to suggest a notebook approach, as if these are comprehensions written while experiencing.
I guess Mork's notebook fell out during his body-popping.
Mindy seems to experience music on an individual level, heading towards the drift of ambience as a means of getting out of the social world and into the inner. Mindy seems uncomfortable with the 'tribal gathering' aspect of music and instead of bitching about the kids decides instead to celebrate the spinal fluids that can be condensed when you're alone in a darkened room with nothing but your own mind for company.
Together these books act towards an understanding of the point of music and seem to illustrate its ability to act as internal working model for contemplation and for action.
Today, I went into the local shop (for local people) and the woman (think a post-op transsexual 1976 Darts Champion) said: "Is it me or is it hot in here?"
"Both of those things seem to be true," I replied.
22 June 2005
Backends
Two songs I've mentioned in here but never got around to posting:
Caribou - Barnowl gives us the missing link between Can and My Bloody Valentine. Lots of people have looked for this link before but it's proved strangely elusive until now. The musical equivalent of the head thumping baker who didn't invent sliced bread.
Four Tet - Smile Around Your Face - a favourite in the Loki household and my favourite track off the album. Unremittingly jocular, slightly spazzy: lots of gloopy sounds, overactive cymbolic manipulations, musical static, deranged sucker plops and, as featured previously on An Idiot's Guide to Dreaming, a mad little green guy running round in the background with a gong. The Best Song Ever.
both via the hyperchannel of Insound
both via the hyperchannel of Insound
21 June 2005
Club Foot Cabaret
Not even heard this yet but it sounded interesting so this is a reminder to my non working self to dip in when I get the time... it comes via the soft abusers.
Felipe and Forte - Serafoam
They talk of
"The union of man-made and machine-based sounds creates a truly fucked, purely psychedelic atmosphere of sonic scrawl and blistering fuzz. It's equal parts Oval, Boredoms, Alvin Lucier and Excepter."
which is more or less how I described the Bridgwater band Club Foot Cabaret when they played at The Second Annual Charlottes, Harlots and Car-Lots Free Festival as part of the SCMG raplets. That Club Foot lead eclectric banjo player Damien Dempsey left the band, disgusted with my critique (he spent a few hapless hours mouthing wordless obscenities through the gap between our front door and frame) only serves to feed my ego.
And while I'm on a banjo theme I guess it's only right to start plugging the Jewelled Antlerites:
The Skygreen Leopards - The Heron
Who sound nothing like Club Foot Cabaret but takes the Jewelled Antler abstract folk dynamics and pens it in slightly, like a fire-filled balloon pinned to the floor with silk thread and entrails.
Well, a little bit like that.
They talk of
"The union of man-made and machine-based sounds creates a truly fucked, purely psychedelic atmosphere of sonic scrawl and blistering fuzz. It's equal parts Oval, Boredoms, Alvin Lucier and Excepter."
which is more or less how I described the Bridgwater band Club Foot Cabaret when they played at The Second Annual Charlottes, Harlots and Car-Lots Free Festival as part of the SCMG raplets. That Club Foot lead eclectric banjo player Damien Dempsey left the band, disgusted with my critique (he spent a few hapless hours mouthing wordless obscenities through the gap between our front door and frame) only serves to feed my ego.
And while I'm on a banjo theme I guess it's only right to start plugging the Jewelled Antlerites:
Who sound nothing like Club Foot Cabaret but takes the Jewelled Antler abstract folk dynamics and pens it in slightly, like a fire-filled balloon pinned to the floor with silk thread and entrails.
Well, a little bit like that.
20 June 2005
Disc Machinations: Multiverse 2
Light night of the soul...no sleep for 48hrs and counting...first stage in misplaced attempt at inner/outer travel and self-imposed 24hr Aspergers Attack...
Sometime in the peak of the flash all these played through in a wir-click-wir:
SSSStarted well...
The End 17:46 The Doors
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amethyst Deceivers 6:33 COIL
Oh Yeah 7:19 CAN
Guru Song 2:49 Amorphous Androgynous
Suicide 11:03 Spacemen 3
higher than the sun (tone396 mix) 5:55 primalscream
Transcendental 4:46 The Shamen
...and the Day turned to Night 19:57 Shpongle
Astral Cave 6:46 Entheogenic
Blood From The Air 5:32 COIL --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
but between these lines the weirdest experience ever: the experience of total clarity and total normality: I felt like anything weird or odd in any way was intensely annoying and uneccesary, as if simple, cast-iron normality was something to be treasured... weird music was especially, almost criminally annoying; I wanted desperately some dull music..
In a terrible Conradian moment I started to hallucinate that maybe I wanted to go see KT Tunstall at the Palace, Bridgwater after all...
The Horror, The Horror
Then... to spill myself back in there was a period of slight stasis:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One Perfect Sunrise 8:44 Orbital
AB/7A 4:29 Throbbing Gristle
Funtime 3:27 Danielle Dax
Magick Mother Invocation 2:06 Gong
Smile Around The Face 4:34 Four Tet pm
What You Waiting For (Jacques Lu Cont's IWD Mix) 4:58 Gwen Stefani
A.Y.O.R 3:11 Coil
The Seams Of GoodWill 10:30 The (Other) Door
Are We Here 15:31 Orbital Snivilisation
Where Even The Darkness Is Something To See 3:05 COIL
Running, Returning 4:33 Akron/Family
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
During which there appeared a slight loose tendril of uncertainty again - though by now I'd convinced myself that I'd taken everything I could from the stupidly named journeeeeeeeee and that this was as far as it ever gets.
One thing though: I finally figured out that my fascination wiht psychedelics comes from needing an UnReality Check - that I really am more normal than everyone else that I'm missing hang-ups and fuck-ups and personal detritus which normally keep everyone interested in their own psyches... - they are a way to understand what it must be like to WORRRRRYYYYYY about stuff all the time and thus gives me a little understanding on why the hell everyone gets so upset about things that I KNOW BEYOND ALL SHADOW OF A DOUBT WILL BE ABSOLUTELY FINE
then a brief period lasting approx:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1000 Mirrors - Asian Dub Foun 4:54 Sinead O`Connor
Jade Garden 7:36 Celtic Cross
Slash The Seats 7:17 David Holmes
Flute Thang 4:45 Meat Beat Manifesto
The Lighthouse 3:27 Ana Da Silva
Beached 6:44 Orbital
Mayhew Speaks Out 3:11 The Shamen
Habanera 3:38 Kahimi Karie
Lvblbz 3:51 Gutterbreakz
Big City (Everybody I Know Can Be Found Here) 10:51 Spacemen 3
Things Happen 4:22 COIL Love's Secret Domain
Kiimaniityn Kutsu 2:38 Kemialliset Ystävät
Warum 3:09 Giorgio Moroder
Master Builder 6:05 Gong
A Load Up At Nunney Catch 7:18 OTT
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
During which my wife and I seemed to have almost PERFECT CLARITY re our relationships with each other and everyone around us: family, friends, kids etc etc...
This was one of the most perfectly realised hours of my life: a time when two minds synccccccced-up beyond all doubt and....
With clarity: the world (universe?) is like a plate spinning on an almost endless tube - everyone in this circle somewhere in tube, heading upwards: this then is our definition of maturity - how far up the tube you've gone; how many of your friends/family you can see ahead of you in the light and below you in the half-light...
With my wife I digested how close each of our family members / friends were to our inner circle (i.e. how close in the tube journey); concluded with perfect honesty and love that our youngest is already spiritually closest to us, with the others very close behind and sometimes wrestling and sometimes slipping behind and in need of more help and love to keep them on the path.
One of our children is stuck between our spinning plate and another - oscillating wildly. We are nevertheless sure that he will join us very soon and nothing can ever be bad again ever: a total dissolution of worry which seemed to come into being on the night our last child was born; completing the circle...
(Other plates are spinning on different tubes - sometimes people make the jump over to your world, sometimes you make the jump over to theirs -the key seemed to be that the worlds can be at war but don't need to be)
During this time our seven year old came down worrying about dreams of Daleks and we spent a lovely 2 AM talk discussing how our family has a Dr Who style force field all around us that means we can never be harmed by anything and that we can always control the time vortex and simply ATOMISE any monsters away with a single thought...
He went to bed happier than he's ever been. He seemed so certain that things would be okay forever...
then...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chaostrophy 5:37 COIL
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Which has come to represent a massive part of my life and lead to a very frank (the first ever really frank) discussion of how much my wife and I missed some of our previous partners - in the process ditching so many of the weirdnesses / jealousies of the past (AT ONE POINT I WAS SURE I MIGHT HAVE BEEN A LITTLE CALIFORNIAN CIRCA 1974)
I mean, how often do you discuss ex-girlfriends with your wife?
then...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Four Tet - Twenty Three 2:24
We Are One 7:38 Entheogenic
Sundrum Ladies 3:31 Wooden Wand
A Sprinkling Of Clouds 9:03 Gong
Shall We Take A Trip 4:20 Northside
In The Lost Queen's Eyes 2:51 Comus pm
Destination Eschaton (Wiccatron's Offshore Tekfunk Edit) 4:35 The Shamen
Pick up (Fourtet mix) 7:11 Bonobo Zen Rmx -
Leysh Nat Arak 5:07 Natacha Atlas
Adrenalin 4:01 Throbbing Gristle
Keeping the Wolves From the Do 3:12 White Magic
Once Upon The Sea Of Blissful 7:30 Shpongle
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida 17:02 Iron Butterfly
Clouds Without Water 2:38 Psychic TV
Aquarius Rising 1:36 Thee Loaded Angels
Bon Voyage Au LSD 17:27 Acid Mothers Temple
Gloria 7:13 The Doors
Snow Falls Into Military Temples 16:50 COIL
Lovely Chimps 5:13 Chimp Beams
Teenage Lightning 2 5:09 COIL
CARIBOU-Barnowl 5:50 Caribou
No Idea 5:59 Earth Leakage Trip
Balkan Red Alert 4:59 Alligator Shear
Swallow Song 2:13 Vashti Bunyan
Thoughts For Naught 1:32 Gong
The Dead Side Of The Moon 21:59 Steven Stapleton & David Tibet
Ecstasy Symphony / Transparent Radiation (Flashback) 9:51 Spacemen 3
armadillo stance 5:04 manorexia
Constant High (Groove On) 2:44 Psychic TV U
A Hawk And A Hacksaw 4:37 Maremaillette
Here She Comes Now 2:04 The Velvet Underground
Irreversible Neural Damage 5:56 Kevin Ayers The Best Of Kevin Ayers
Cre 19:11 Dada IX Tab
Beija Flor 10:59 Shpongle
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
which was full of conversations I can't remember and lots of pitta bread and dips as dawn approached...
The Doors - The End
then....
Oh My Lord Jesus Christ No!
The Wicker Man of Work reared it's ugly head and I had to go and teach some 17 year olds how the mind works...
Sometime in the peak of the flash all these played through in a wir-click-wir:
SSSStarted well...
The End 17:46 The Doors
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amethyst Deceivers 6:33 COIL
Oh Yeah 7:19 CAN
Guru Song 2:49 Amorphous Androgynous
Suicide 11:03 Spacemen 3
higher than the sun (tone396 mix) 5:55 primalscream
Transcendental 4:46 The Shamen
...and the Day turned to Night 19:57 Shpongle
Astral Cave 6:46 Entheogenic
Blood From The Air 5:32 COIL --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
but between these lines the weirdest experience ever: the experience of total clarity and total normality: I felt like anything weird or odd in any way was intensely annoying and uneccesary, as if simple, cast-iron normality was something to be treasured... weird music was especially, almost criminally annoying; I wanted desperately some dull music..
In a terrible Conradian moment I started to hallucinate that maybe I wanted to go see KT Tunstall at the Palace, Bridgwater after all...
Then... to spill myself back in there was a period of slight stasis:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One Perfect Sunrise 8:44 Orbital
AB/7A 4:29 Throbbing Gristle
Funtime 3:27 Danielle Dax
Magick Mother Invocation 2:06 Gong
Smile Around The Face 4:34 Four Tet pm
What You Waiting For (Jacques Lu Cont's IWD Mix) 4:58 Gwen Stefani
A.Y.O.R 3:11 Coil
The Seams Of GoodWill 10:30 The (Other) Door
Are We Here 15:31 Orbital Snivilisation
Where Even The Darkness Is Something To See 3:05 COIL
Running, Returning 4:33 Akron/Family
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
During which there appeared a slight loose tendril of uncertainty again - though by now I'd convinced myself that I'd taken everything I could from the stupidly named journeeeeeeeee and that this was as far as it ever gets.
One thing though: I finally figured out that my fascination wiht psychedelics comes from needing an UnReality Check - that I really am more normal than everyone else that I'm missing hang-ups and fuck-ups and personal detritus which normally keep everyone interested in their own psyches... - they are a way to understand what it must be like to WORRRRRYYYYYY about stuff all the time and thus gives me a little understanding on why the hell everyone gets so upset about things that I KNOW BEYOND ALL SHADOW OF A DOUBT WILL BE ABSOLUTELY FINE
then a brief period lasting approx:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1000 Mirrors - Asian Dub Foun 4:54 Sinead O`Connor
Jade Garden 7:36 Celtic Cross
Slash The Seats 7:17 David Holmes
Flute Thang 4:45 Meat Beat Manifesto
The Lighthouse 3:27 Ana Da Silva
Beached 6:44 Orbital
Mayhew Speaks Out 3:11 The Shamen
Habanera 3:38 Kahimi Karie
Lvblbz 3:51 Gutterbreakz
Big City (Everybody I Know Can Be Found Here) 10:51 Spacemen 3
Things Happen 4:22 COIL Love's Secret Domain
Kiimaniityn Kutsu 2:38 Kemialliset Ystävät
Warum 3:09 Giorgio Moroder
Master Builder 6:05 Gong
A Load Up At Nunney Catch 7:18 OTT
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
During which my wife and I seemed to have almost PERFECT CLARITY re our relationships with each other and everyone around us: family, friends, kids etc etc...
This was one of the most perfectly realised hours of my life: a time when two minds synccccccced-up beyond all doubt and....
With clarity: the world (universe?) is like a plate spinning on an almost endless tube - everyone in this circle somewhere in tube, heading upwards: this then is our definition of maturity - how far up the tube you've gone; how many of your friends/family you can see ahead of you in the light and below you in the half-light...
With my wife I digested how close each of our family members / friends were to our inner circle (i.e. how close in the tube journey); concluded with perfect honesty and love that our youngest is already spiritually closest to us, with the others very close behind and sometimes wrestling and sometimes slipping behind and in need of more help and love to keep them on the path.
One of our children is stuck between our spinning plate and another - oscillating wildly. We are nevertheless sure that he will join us very soon and nothing can ever be bad again ever: a total dissolution of worry which seemed to come into being on the night our last child was born; completing the circle...
(Other plates are spinning on different tubes - sometimes people make the jump over to your world, sometimes you make the jump over to theirs -the key seemed to be that the worlds can be at war but don't need to be)
During this time our seven year old came down worrying about dreams of Daleks and we spent a lovely 2 AM talk discussing how our family has a Dr Who style force field all around us that means we can never be harmed by anything and that we can always control the time vortex and simply ATOMISE any monsters away with a single thought...
He went to bed happier than he's ever been. He seemed so certain that things would be okay forever...
then...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chaostrophy 5:37 COIL
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Which has come to represent a massive part of my life and lead to a very frank (the first ever really frank) discussion of how much my wife and I missed some of our previous partners - in the process ditching so many of the weirdnesses / jealousies of the past (AT ONE POINT I WAS SURE I MIGHT HAVE BEEN A LITTLE CALIFORNIAN CIRCA 1974)
I mean, how often do you discuss ex-girlfriends with your wife?
then...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Four Tet - Twenty Three 2:24
We Are One 7:38 Entheogenic
Sundrum Ladies 3:31 Wooden Wand
A Sprinkling Of Clouds 9:03 Gong
Shall We Take A Trip 4:20 Northside
In The Lost Queen's Eyes 2:51 Comus pm
Destination Eschaton (Wiccatron's Offshore Tekfunk Edit) 4:35 The Shamen
Pick up (Fourtet mix) 7:11 Bonobo Zen Rmx -
Leysh Nat Arak 5:07 Natacha Atlas
Adrenalin 4:01 Throbbing Gristle
Keeping the Wolves From the Do 3:12 White Magic
Once Upon The Sea Of Blissful 7:30 Shpongle
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida 17:02 Iron Butterfly
Clouds Without Water 2:38 Psychic TV
Aquarius Rising 1:36 Thee Loaded Angels
Bon Voyage Au LSD 17:27 Acid Mothers Temple
Gloria 7:13 The Doors
Snow Falls Into Military Temples 16:50 COIL
Lovely Chimps 5:13 Chimp Beams
Teenage Lightning 2 5:09 COIL
CARIBOU-Barnowl 5:50 Caribou
No Idea 5:59 Earth Leakage Trip
Balkan Red Alert 4:59 Alligator Shear
Swallow Song 2:13 Vashti Bunyan
Thoughts For Naught 1:32 Gong
The Dead Side Of The Moon 21:59 Steven Stapleton & David Tibet
Ecstasy Symphony / Transparent Radiation (Flashback) 9:51 Spacemen 3
armadillo stance 5:04 manorexia
Constant High (Groove On) 2:44 Psychic TV U
A Hawk And A Hacksaw 4:37 Maremaillette
Here She Comes Now 2:04 The Velvet Underground
Irreversible Neural Damage 5:56 Kevin Ayers The Best Of Kevin Ayers
Cre 19:11 Dada IX Tab
Beija Flor 10:59 Shpongle
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
which was full of conversations I can't remember and lots of pitta bread and dips as dawn approached...
then....
The Wicker Man of Work reared it's ugly head and I had to go and teach some 17 year olds how the mind works...
14 June 2005
Faustian Tat
The post at One Faint Deluded Smile (loads of MP3s there) rightly suggests that, in the rock pantheon (does this actually exist beyond Hall of Fame TV shows, Zeitgeist summaries and neon Planet Hollywood detritus? I mean is it somewhere you could go?), Faust "are often seen, ridiculously, as 2nd tier in comparison (to Can and Neu)". It suggests that the problem may lie in Faust's lack of 'songs' but I reckon it's more to do with the name.
Faust. Where do you go with that?
I've seen Neu-ish used a number of times in reviews as a metaphor for motorik rock music and as such it's a convenient simile for journalists describing new music - 'post rock' might never have got off the ground if it wasn't for phrases like that.
It's often banal and repetive but Neu-ish has at least an echo of meaning, even if it's often (over)used in wildly inappropriate ways (i.e. in the same way that anything which goes on a bit can be described as psychedelic). You buy something that's been compared to Neu and you've at least got a semblence of an idea what it might sound like...
And as for Can, well there's no Can-ish or Can-like in common usage but instead their sound has been co-opted by the term "kraut", although when new music is paralleled with krautrock often it seems the writer is referring to Tago Mago, Monster Movie, Ege Bamyasi drumming rather than Can's sound as a whole (cf; most of the reviews for Caribou's new album)
Faustian? No; means something else entirely.
Faustesque? Mmmm
But the name and its inherent uselessness to lazy journalists (i count myself among them, at least the first bit) isn't the only problem...
Faust are undoubtedly innovators and they have been undoubtedly influential but this influence has seldom elicited outright copy-catting; no one has attempted to reproduce even a part of their sound because, well, they don't really have one. Faust's sound is relatively distinctive, in the sense that you can often tell a Faust track is playing, but it is not definitive.
Oh Yeah by Can has the elements you need for a Can schema - that drumming, the out-there otherworldly vocals, the the repetitive pop of the guitars... - but there's no single Faust track that helps people grasp the essence; the nearest you get is someone naming a favourite album - normally The Faust Tapes or Faust IV - and that's not the same thing at all.
UPDATE: Just noticed that Gutterbreakz has also been on a Faust, er, tip tonight... making a much better go of it as well... damn!
Faust. Where do you go with that?
I've seen Neu-ish used a number of times in reviews as a metaphor for motorik rock music and as such it's a convenient simile for journalists describing new music - 'post rock' might never have got off the ground if it wasn't for phrases like that.
It's often banal and repetive but Neu-ish has at least an echo of meaning, even if it's often (over)used in wildly inappropriate ways (i.e. in the same way that anything which goes on a bit can be described as psychedelic). You buy something that's been compared to Neu and you've at least got a semblence of an idea what it might sound like...
And as for Can, well there's no Can-ish or Can-like in common usage but instead their sound has been co-opted by the term "kraut", although when new music is paralleled with krautrock often it seems the writer is referring to Tago Mago, Monster Movie, Ege Bamyasi drumming rather than Can's sound as a whole (cf; most of the reviews for Caribou's new album)
Faustian? No; means something else entirely.
Faustesque? Mmmm
But the name and its inherent uselessness to lazy journalists (i count myself among them, at least the first bit) isn't the only problem...
Faust are undoubtedly innovators and they have been undoubtedly influential but this influence has seldom elicited outright copy-catting; no one has attempted to reproduce even a part of their sound because, well, they don't really have one. Faust's sound is relatively distinctive, in the sense that you can often tell a Faust track is playing, but it is not definitive.
Oh Yeah by Can has the elements you need for a Can schema - that drumming, the out-there otherworldly vocals, the the repetitive pop of the guitars... - but there's no single Faust track that helps people grasp the essence; the nearest you get is someone naming a favourite album - normally The Faust Tapes or Faust IV - and that's not the same thing at all.
UPDATE: Just noticed that Gutterbreakz has also been on a Faust, er, tip tonight... making a much better go of it as well... damn!
11 June 2005
For The Dead In Space
This looks like it might be interesting. It's a 3 volume tribute to Tom Rapp and Pearls Before Swine featuring an eclectic line-up of psychedelic newborn munkins like Kemialliset Ystavat, Fursaxa, Bardo Pond, Black Forest/Black Sea, Kawato Makoto (of Acid Mothers...), Dead Raven Choir, The Bevis Frond, Tower Recordings, Flying Saucer Attack etc...
Haven't got it yet but since most of these bands have been mentioned sometime or other on An Idiot's Guide it seems likely that I'll like most of the stuff and it's good to see Tom getting some notice other than Gen's dodgy (though, as ever, strangely affecting) vocal-take on Translucent Carriages on PTV's Pagan Day.
And I've been wondering what happened to The Bevis Frond.
Here's some sample tracks from the Secret Eye website where the album is available to buy:
Bardo Pond - Uncle John
Kind of a Spacemen 3 circa Sound of Confusion take, maybe with just a sprinkle of later period Jesus and Mary Chain.
Marissa Nadler - Ballad to an Amber Lady
A little Vashti Bunyan (without Animal Collective): mmmm dreamy.
Haven't got it yet but since most of these bands have been mentioned sometime or other on An Idiot's Guide it seems likely that I'll like most of the stuff and it's good to see Tom getting some notice other than Gen's dodgy (though, as ever, strangely affecting) vocal-take on Translucent Carriages on PTV's Pagan Day.
And I've been wondering what happened to The Bevis Frond.
Here's some sample tracks from the Secret Eye website where the album is available to buy:
Kind of a Spacemen 3 circa Sound of Confusion take, maybe with just a sprinkle of later period Jesus and Mary Chain.
A little Vashti Bunyan (without Animal Collective): mmmm dreamy.
08 June 2005
Memes and Comets
Memetics from Effay...
Now I don't know a lot about superheroes and I don't really know what I like but, what the hell, it's not for charity...
If you could have one superpower, what would it be and why? (Assume you also get baseline superhero enhancements like moderately increased strength, endurance and agility.)
The Silver Surfer's ability to make pretentious drooling and depressed wonder sound cool. This blog could use that kind of power. Being able to re-arrange matter at the molecular level would be cool too; think of the fun you could have on the bus.
Mostly, I'd quite like to have a tail.
Which, if any, 'existing' superhero(es) do you fancy, and why?
The 'existing' thing threw me for a few days of intense self-analysis and Being-trauma but I guess it all comes down to:
Wonder Woman, as featured on the best-selling TV series of the same name. Yes, other superheroes are cooler, smarter, have better outfits but when Summer put on a WW costume for Seth in The O.C. it sparked a long suppressed residual memory of carrying a photo, cut out from the paper, of Lynda Carter in my Warlord special wallet when I was about 7.
Which, if any, 'existing' superhero(es) do you hate?
Captain Britain because I dressed up as him on the Silver Jubilee and only came second in the fancy dress to some fat kid who came as Winston Churchill. And because the hot day and street party shenanigans caused chafing that I'm sure is even now waiting to catch me unawares...
What would your superhero name be? (No prefab porn-name formulas here, you have to make up the name you think you'd be proud to mask under.)
Loki's already taken so I guess something like: The Wicker Man (though, I guess me and the Torch wouldn't see eye to eye) or maybe Dendrite (special power something like Key23 in The Invisibles)
For extra credit: Is there an 'existing' superhero with whom you identify/whom you would like to be?
The Vision, because of what happened here. He gave me some decent advice....
Pass it on. Three people please, and why they're the wind beneath your wings.
Kek - because he's like an odd blog twin who likes the same things I do and I only really like people who like the same things as me. Character flaw, I know: I'm working on it...
Psychbloke - because nearly all the comics I've read have either come directly from him or at his recommendation. And because Effay didn't pick him and I know he's disappointed.
oh and someone told me he'd chucked in his job so I guess he'll have some time on his hands...
Blissblog - because no one ever sends him this kind of nonsense and I bet he feels really left out...
And for those people wishing I'd get back to posting freebies here's some songs that I think are really nice...
Comets On Fire - The Way Down
Comets On Fire - Graverobbers
More music very soon....
Now I don't know a lot about superheroes and I don't really know what I like but, what the hell, it's not for charity...
If you could have one superpower, what would it be and why? (Assume you also get baseline superhero enhancements like moderately increased strength, endurance and agility.)
The Silver Surfer's ability to make pretentious drooling and depressed wonder sound cool. This blog could use that kind of power. Being able to re-arrange matter at the molecular level would be cool too; think of the fun you could have on the bus.
Mostly, I'd quite like to have a tail.
Which, if any, 'existing' superhero(es) do you fancy, and why?
The 'existing' thing threw me for a few days of intense self-analysis and Being-trauma but I guess it all comes down to:
Wonder Woman, as featured on the best-selling TV series of the same name. Yes, other superheroes are cooler, smarter, have better outfits but when Summer put on a WW costume for Seth in The O.C. it sparked a long suppressed residual memory of carrying a photo, cut out from the paper, of Lynda Carter in my Warlord special wallet when I was about 7.
Which, if any, 'existing' superhero(es) do you hate?
Captain Britain because I dressed up as him on the Silver Jubilee and only came second in the fancy dress to some fat kid who came as Winston Churchill. And because the hot day and street party shenanigans caused chafing that I'm sure is even now waiting to catch me unawares...
What would your superhero name be? (No prefab porn-name formulas here, you have to make up the name you think you'd be proud to mask under.)
Loki's already taken so I guess something like: The Wicker Man (though, I guess me and the Torch wouldn't see eye to eye) or maybe Dendrite (special power something like Key23 in The Invisibles)
For extra credit: Is there an 'existing' superhero with whom you identify/whom you would like to be?
The Vision, because of what happened here. He gave me some decent advice....
Pass it on. Three people please, and why they're the wind beneath your wings.
Kek - because he's like an odd blog twin who likes the same things I do and I only really like people who like the same things as me. Character flaw, I know: I'm working on it...
Psychbloke - because nearly all the comics I've read have either come directly from him or at his recommendation. And because Effay didn't pick him and I know he's disappointed.
oh and someone told me he'd chucked in his job so I guess he'll have some time on his hands...
Blissblog - because no one ever sends him this kind of nonsense and I bet he feels really left out...
And for those people wishing I'd get back to posting freebies here's some songs that I think are really nice...
More music very soon....
04 June 2005
...and the ambulance died
...and the ambulance died in his arms, the 'new' Coil live CD came yesterday.
It's a recording of the All Tomorrow's Parties gig and generally finds Coil in quiet mode - with the music simmering gently rather than ever really catching fire. That said, it's probably my favourite live performance so far - though Balance is better when he's in wailing/tongulations mode as at the start of Snow Falls into Miltary Temples rather than narrator since then he's immersed within the music, bubbling up through the clouds and electro-insect buzzes to appear suspended... when he talks the subtlety of the music is too easily overwhelmed.
Still, Coil were one of the few bands who really explored the live setting in an alchemical way(i'm amazingly pissed off that Balance died and I only got to see them once); trying new things, making new connections, reacting to the environment rather than trying to force it to their will. And they never seemed to bow to the Greatest Hits lethargy - the only previously heard track here is a radically re-worked The Dreamer Is Still Asleep - using the live dynamic as a means of cycling through changes, missing beats or altering perspectives. You never knew exactly what you were going to get : pastoral folktronica mode, gushing whorls of sound mode, beatless ambience or percussion heavy electro elf-chatter pop and there are so few bands out there now who are capable of digging out those uncertainties from concert goers.
In fact, I can't think of any other bands I've seen (other than, though often including, improv artists) who have any sense of dynamic beyond their latest album plus some fruity selections from their mental folders marked 'Live Favourites'.
Wonder why?
It's a recording of the All Tomorrow's Parties gig and generally finds Coil in quiet mode - with the music simmering gently rather than ever really catching fire. That said, it's probably my favourite live performance so far - though Balance is better when he's in wailing/tongulations mode as at the start of Snow Falls into Miltary Temples rather than narrator since then he's immersed within the music, bubbling up through the clouds and electro-insect buzzes to appear suspended... when he talks the subtlety of the music is too easily overwhelmed.
Still, Coil were one of the few bands who really explored the live setting in an alchemical way(i'm amazingly pissed off that Balance died and I only got to see them once); trying new things, making new connections, reacting to the environment rather than trying to force it to their will. And they never seemed to bow to the Greatest Hits lethargy - the only previously heard track here is a radically re-worked The Dreamer Is Still Asleep - using the live dynamic as a means of cycling through changes, missing beats or altering perspectives. You never knew exactly what you were going to get : pastoral folktronica mode, gushing whorls of sound mode, beatless ambience or percussion heavy electro elf-chatter pop and there are so few bands out there now who are capable of digging out those uncertainties from concert goers.
In fact, I can't think of any other bands I've seen (other than, though often including, improv artists) who have any sense of dynamic beyond their latest album plus some fruity selections from their mental folders marked 'Live Favourites'.
Wonder why?
01 June 2005
Philosophy is Stealing
After reading Psychbloke's Philosophy Top 3 and Effay's response a few things started breaking open my head, or at least caused it to itch a little.
A comment from Psychbloke - "the worst place to start [reading Philosophy] is usually with someone else's introduction" - started me thinking because by nature I am a dabbler, a dilettante, a dipper into Philosophy; my attention span wavers at the slightest hitch (the same goes for my increasingly frantic/pathetic lust for Quantum Physics comprehension: the more I read the more I realise I don't understand - not in a good, Socrates way but in the infinitely simpler variation of utter stupidity)
For the record, I don't believe that knowing you know nothing equates to wisdom; plenty of retards all around who know full well and feel cleverer by avoiding inellectual challenges to their pure thought, plenty of people glorifying in their lack of understanding and issuing dismissals accordingly.
I may be doing the same right now...
But back to the issue: as a Philosophy ingenu I'm constantly impressed by the breadth of reading out there in Blogger land, though I suppose the closed circuit bending nature of links and cross-links was always bound to give people the space to breathe and talk specifics, away from their eye-rolling friends.
Anyway, I realised that my own Philosophical reading is so fragmented - I can't remember finishing a single original text - for reasons I didn't really appreciate. I always figured I had such a scattershot approach because I was going looking for supplemental soundbites; ways to impress, ways to manipulate text/arguments/discussions by invoking Old Masters and thus objectifying subjective experience: "You see, others think this too, I'm not alone..."
But then I realised my memory simply isn't up to it because I don't think I've ever consciously quoted a Philosopher in a discussion
((((I'm not including Freud here because my job forces the soundbites out of me and into 16 year olds: they need to pass before they need to understand and my anti-capitalist / anti-hierarchical leanings won't do them much good when they get a well-meaning and thoughtful C grade and end up at Roehampton Institute))))
Rather, I tend to absorb Philosophy (in bits) whole, perhaps the most dangerous of all approaches to reading. I get an impression (often wrong, I'm sure) and then simply use it as a basis for my own thoughts (or what I think are my own thoughts).
Is this a good idea? Not sure. Something makes me think I'm stealing other people's thoughts and distorting them for my own reasons before a process of cryptoamnesia makes me forget where they came from. The thoughts are mine now and K-Punk / Psychbloke style quotations / abbreviations makes me feel nervous because they hint at a reality behind the distortion, a mind at work that truly had purpose and a context.
Forgetting in this form seems to lead to potential ruin and damnation but I haven't yet read anything that tells me I need to care.
Now, must go and read three pages of Nietzche...
A comment from Psychbloke - "the worst place to start [reading Philosophy] is usually with someone else's introduction" - started me thinking because by nature I am a dabbler, a dilettante, a dipper into Philosophy; my attention span wavers at the slightest hitch (the same goes for my increasingly frantic/pathetic lust for Quantum Physics comprehension: the more I read the more I realise I don't understand - not in a good, Socrates way but in the infinitely simpler variation of utter stupidity)
For the record, I don't believe that knowing you know nothing equates to wisdom; plenty of retards all around who know full well and feel cleverer by avoiding inellectual challenges to their pure thought, plenty of people glorifying in their lack of understanding and issuing dismissals accordingly.
I may be doing the same right now...
But back to the issue: as a Philosophy ingenu I'm constantly impressed by the breadth of reading out there in Blogger land, though I suppose the closed circuit bending nature of links and cross-links was always bound to give people the space to breathe and talk specifics, away from their eye-rolling friends.
Anyway, I realised that my own Philosophical reading is so fragmented - I can't remember finishing a single original text - for reasons I didn't really appreciate. I always figured I had such a scattershot approach because I was going looking for supplemental soundbites; ways to impress, ways to manipulate text/arguments/discussions by invoking Old Masters and thus objectifying subjective experience: "You see, others think this too, I'm not alone..."
But then I realised my memory simply isn't up to it because I don't think I've ever consciously quoted a Philosopher in a discussion
((((I'm not including Freud here because my job forces the soundbites out of me and into 16 year olds: they need to pass before they need to understand and my anti-capitalist / anti-hierarchical leanings won't do them much good when they get a well-meaning and thoughtful C grade and end up at Roehampton Institute))))
Rather, I tend to absorb Philosophy (in bits) whole, perhaps the most dangerous of all approaches to reading. I get an impression (often wrong, I'm sure) and then simply use it as a basis for my own thoughts (or what I think are my own thoughts).
Is this a good idea? Not sure. Something makes me think I'm stealing other people's thoughts and distorting them for my own reasons before a process of cryptoamnesia makes me forget where they came from. The thoughts are mine now and K-Punk / Psychbloke style quotations / abbreviations makes me feel nervous because they hint at a reality behind the distortion, a mind at work that truly had purpose and a context.
Forgetting in this form seems to lead to potential ruin and damnation but I haven't yet read anything that tells me I need to care.
Now, must go and read three pages of Nietzche...
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