The concept behind the international mixtape project is simple and neat: every month, each participant receives the name and postal address of another person who's involved, whereupon they have the rest of the month to send that person a mix tape or cd; their details having been provided to someone else at the same time, they can also expect to receive a mix themselves on more or less the same schedule.
So, having signed up earlier this month, I've been thrown a bit of a curveball by this first mix, which is just what its title suggests - soul and disco stuff which I assume is period authentic (who would've thought that Barry White would one day make it into my cd collection?). This isn't the kind of stuff I've ever listened to at all, and to be honest, this mix hasn't done much for me - though I do like "Don't Leave Me This Way" by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, which I think is probably a bit of a classic of its genre, and also the Eddie Kendricks ("Girl You Need A Change Of Mind") and Voyage ("Souvenirs") tracks. But ultimately it's all about being exposed to music that I wouldn't ordinarily hear, and on that count I can't complain at all.
(from Ric in Portland, Oregon)
Saturday, January 27, 2007
"L'ensemble Young Rapture chante Laura Veirs"
Sweet - an ensemble of young schoolchildren in France singing Laura Veirs songs, selected from across the whole of her four-record back catalogue, sometimes solo (a gently affecting "Rialto" is a highlight) and sometimes in chorus. It has a chiming musicbox feel, aided by the simple, glittery instrumental adornment; unlike the recordings which emerged from the Langley Schools Music Project, technical proficiency seems to have been valued in making this music, and the result is quite lovely.
Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin
Atwood tends to leave me in two minds, and The Blind Assassin is no exception. It tells a story, well-told, and as such it's readable and interesting enough. But I never really got into it (although the second half held me a lot more than the first, as things gathered momentum and more of Atwood's subtle arrows struck home) and I'm still at a bit of a loss as to why Atwood is so critically acclaimed - I can see why she's widely read and well loved, but I just don't think she's as good as people make her out to be.
Perhaps I just don't respond to what seems to be her main theme, here as elsewhere - namely, the relationships of females (women and girls and those in between) with each other. I think that it's a strength of Atwood's that she's able to so vividly - and, though I wouldn't know, seemingly accurately - invoke these relations, but a consequence is that it's not generalisable to relationships generally, leaving me at one remove. That said, I'd be interested to know what others thought of Iris and Laura, taken as people/characters - I'm not sure which of the two I found more sympathetic (not that they're set up in such a way that the choice is necessary), and the pathos of Laura's character works both ways. Of course, it's fundamentally about storytelling, too, but I must say that while that theme is, of course, ever interesting and perhaps even unavoidable, there's a limit to the number of times that I can interestedly read the same old handling of it, even when (as here) done well.
Perhaps I just don't respond to what seems to be her main theme, here as elsewhere - namely, the relationships of females (women and girls and those in between) with each other. I think that it's a strength of Atwood's that she's able to so vividly - and, though I wouldn't know, seemingly accurately - invoke these relations, but a consequence is that it's not generalisable to relationships generally, leaving me at one remove. That said, I'd be interested to know what others thought of Iris and Laura, taken as people/characters - I'm not sure which of the two I found more sympathetic (not that they're set up in such a way that the choice is necessary), and the pathos of Laura's character works both ways. Of course, it's fundamentally about storytelling, too, but I must say that while that theme is, of course, ever interesting and perhaps even unavoidable, there's a limit to the number of times that I can interestedly read the same old handling of it, even when (as here) done well.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Harvest Festival, Sunday 20th January
I guess we all had visions of a languid afternoon spent stretched out in the sunshine somewhere in the winery district when we bought tickets for this, pleasant folk and alt-country music drifting in the air around us; for sure, the picture didn't include heavy rain and mud everywhere, but that's what we got. Still, it was quite fun and the music was good if low-key, split across the 'Johnny Cash' (a big indoor barn) and 'Gene Clark' (a temporary, smaller marquee) stages:
The first act I saw was the Sand Pebbles, who do a kind of psychedelic pop-rock thing - kinda reminded me of Died Pretty - and seemed quite good. Then, a bit of the Rich Family set - another outfit that I hadn't heard of, but they were a winning bluegrassy three-piece who did their thing with a tightness and a warmth which made me feel good. After them, (sometime?) Bad Seed Conway Savage played a set of mournful, theatrical piano ballads - much like Cave himself - which again seemed pretty good, but it was really pouring at that point which put a distinct, if not entirely inapt, complexion on the music. And then a duo called the Darling Downs, who worked a kind of raw rock and roll, bluesy in a way which reminded of the styles' common origins - the crowd got really into it and so did some of the people I was with, though I didn't work up a lot of enthusiasm for it myself.
Then, from that point on - this brought us up to about 3:15 - began the acts that I'd really wanted to see (with a certain amount of overlap in their playing times, necessitating some strategic stage swapping on my part). First, Lisa Miller: I didn't enjoy her set as much as the last time I saw her properly, in part because of the different circumstances, and she didn't play any of my especial favourites (though "The Boy That Radiates That Charm" always goes down well, and likewise "You Make Everybody Love You"), but still, she's wonderful and I was glad to see her.
I didn't stay for the end, though, because I didn't want to miss of Laura Veirs' set. Again, it wasn't as good as the last time I saw her, and again the venue was considerably less conducive (it was just her and drummer Tucker Martine, and the subtleties of her gentle meanderings were a bit lost in the large space), but she did enough to remind me why she's not just one of my favourite of the current crop of alt-country chanteuses but one of my fave artists full stop. Music at its best is magical, and Veirs' has that indefinable something, some of which translated even under those less than ideal circumstances.
Next, Mary Gauthier, whose music I'd not listened to before but who I was keen to check out, and she didn't disappoint, winning a standing ovation at the end of her heartfelt, passionate set (most of the punters were there for the long haul, set up on portable chairs or picnic rugs, especially in the 'Johnny Cash' stage area where Gauthier was). To be honest, I was only partly paying attention, and ducked out midway for a while (braving the needle-like drizzle to feel temporarily cleansed and purified, and also to buy an icecream - that latter being an instance of whimsy getting the better of good sense, obviously), but I was pretty impressed by what I heard and I could see why she has such a great reputation.
Then, Ed Kuepper & Jeffrey Wegener - unexpectedly great. Well, not unexpected exactly because I've always liked the Ed Kuepper that I've heard, and of course he's basically Oz rock royalty so you'd expect him to have at least a bit going for him, but still and all I was a bit surprised by how excellent his set was - churning, vivid, guitar-and-grooves rock, of that kind which is particularly satisfying to listen to.
And for the show-closer, I picked Jen Cloher & the Endless Sea over the Church, back outside in the tent, and it was totally the right decision. (Before that, saw the final two songs done by Danny George Wilson, a troubador in the impassioned-with-acoustic-guitar vein who seemed to have impressed the crowd.) She/they kicked off with a sweet rendition of "The Longing Song" and quickly took it up a notch in intensity, highlights including a rampaging cover of "Folsom Prison Blues", "Peaks and Valleys" (which they tore up in the way that the studio version suggests), "Fingersmith", and a couple of other songs, not from Dead Wood Falls, that I didn't recognise (no "Better Off Dancing", to my disappointment). Live, Cloher's voice is richer and more immediately compelling than on record (not that it isn't great on the album, but there it generally has more of a rasp and a smokiness), and she makes a striking frontwoman, tall and skinny and right into the music - this set was easily the highlight of the festival for me.
So as I said, it was all pretty alright despite the thoroughly inclement weather, which put a serious dampener on things. The 40-minute sets didn't feel satisfying for the acts that I'd been anticipating, but that's in the nature of these things, and all things told it was a good day for the music.
(w/ Wei, Julian F, Michelle, Darren and James O'D - but I've written of myself only above because I spent a fair bit of time wandering around alone, as usual at these things)
The first act I saw was the Sand Pebbles, who do a kind of psychedelic pop-rock thing - kinda reminded me of Died Pretty - and seemed quite good. Then, a bit of the Rich Family set - another outfit that I hadn't heard of, but they were a winning bluegrassy three-piece who did their thing with a tightness and a warmth which made me feel good. After them, (sometime?) Bad Seed Conway Savage played a set of mournful, theatrical piano ballads - much like Cave himself - which again seemed pretty good, but it was really pouring at that point which put a distinct, if not entirely inapt, complexion on the music. And then a duo called the Darling Downs, who worked a kind of raw rock and roll, bluesy in a way which reminded of the styles' common origins - the crowd got really into it and so did some of the people I was with, though I didn't work up a lot of enthusiasm for it myself.
Then, from that point on - this brought us up to about 3:15 - began the acts that I'd really wanted to see (with a certain amount of overlap in their playing times, necessitating some strategic stage swapping on my part). First, Lisa Miller: I didn't enjoy her set as much as the last time I saw her properly, in part because of the different circumstances, and she didn't play any of my especial favourites (though "The Boy That Radiates That Charm" always goes down well, and likewise "You Make Everybody Love You"), but still, she's wonderful and I was glad to see her.
I didn't stay for the end, though, because I didn't want to miss of Laura Veirs' set. Again, it wasn't as good as the last time I saw her, and again the venue was considerably less conducive (it was just her and drummer Tucker Martine, and the subtleties of her gentle meanderings were a bit lost in the large space), but she did enough to remind me why she's not just one of my favourite of the current crop of alt-country chanteuses but one of my fave artists full stop. Music at its best is magical, and Veirs' has that indefinable something, some of which translated even under those less than ideal circumstances.
Next, Mary Gauthier, whose music I'd not listened to before but who I was keen to check out, and she didn't disappoint, winning a standing ovation at the end of her heartfelt, passionate set (most of the punters were there for the long haul, set up on portable chairs or picnic rugs, especially in the 'Johnny Cash' stage area where Gauthier was). To be honest, I was only partly paying attention, and ducked out midway for a while (braving the needle-like drizzle to feel temporarily cleansed and purified, and also to buy an icecream - that latter being an instance of whimsy getting the better of good sense, obviously), but I was pretty impressed by what I heard and I could see why she has such a great reputation.
Then, Ed Kuepper & Jeffrey Wegener - unexpectedly great. Well, not unexpected exactly because I've always liked the Ed Kuepper that I've heard, and of course he's basically Oz rock royalty so you'd expect him to have at least a bit going for him, but still and all I was a bit surprised by how excellent his set was - churning, vivid, guitar-and-grooves rock, of that kind which is particularly satisfying to listen to.
And for the show-closer, I picked Jen Cloher & the Endless Sea over the Church, back outside in the tent, and it was totally the right decision. (Before that, saw the final two songs done by Danny George Wilson, a troubador in the impassioned-with-acoustic-guitar vein who seemed to have impressed the crowd.) She/they kicked off with a sweet rendition of "The Longing Song" and quickly took it up a notch in intensity, highlights including a rampaging cover of "Folsom Prison Blues", "Peaks and Valleys" (which they tore up in the way that the studio version suggests), "Fingersmith", and a couple of other songs, not from Dead Wood Falls, that I didn't recognise (no "Better Off Dancing", to my disappointment). Live, Cloher's voice is richer and more immediately compelling than on record (not that it isn't great on the album, but there it generally has more of a rasp and a smokiness), and she makes a striking frontwoman, tall and skinny and right into the music - this set was easily the highlight of the festival for me.
So as I said, it was all pretty alright despite the thoroughly inclement weather, which put a serious dampener on things. The 40-minute sets didn't feel satisfying for the acts that I'd been anticipating, but that's in the nature of these things, and all things told it was a good day for the music.
(w/ Wei, Julian F, Michelle, Darren and James O'D - but I've written of myself only above because I spent a fair bit of time wandering around alone, as usual at these things)
Pan's Labyrinth
Like we'd been led to believe, a dark fairytale, and really, really good. It recognisably invokes long-familiar archetypes and symbols while possessing the clear hue of originality, and it's grim indeed but there's a thin golden thread running through it, too - like the way fairytales were, one imagines, before they were sanitised and made suitable for children. Feels like a dream, shading closely into nightmare territory - some of the imagery is nothing short of breathtaking. Well-woven with the 'real world' enforcement of tyranny in newly fascist Spain, too. And I think it would reveal new layers on rewatching.
(w/ Sid and Jade)
(w/ Sid and Jade)
Asobi Seksu - Citrus
It's been a while since I heard a new album that I was excited about, but Citrus is exciting. Let me be precise about this: there are at least two ways in which music can be exciting - in the sense that it promises new horizons of some kind (generic, sonic, emotional, etc), or by providing an immediate visceral rush. And while there's a bit of that first sense here, mainly I'm talking about the other - the dazzle and surge of the record, its glorious coruscating swirls. Following brief scenesetter "Everything Is On", the one-two-three of "Strawberries", "New Years" and "Thursday" is astonishingly good, but it's "Red Sea" which convinced me that Asobi Seksu are 100% the real thing (as I write this, it's still my first listen - near the tail end of the record now[*]), skyscraping melodies wrapped in shoegazer thunder and light. The album sounds amazing, and the band has songs to match - this is exactly the kind of thing I like.
* * *
[*] That was some time last week - Thursday (appropriately) maybe. Spinning it again tonight, it doesn't seem quite as good - but listening to the record still feels, I don't know, like being wrapped up in the taste of candy.
* * *
[*] That was some time last week - Thursday (appropriately) maybe. Spinning it again tonight, it doesn't seem quite as good - but listening to the record still feels, I don't know, like being wrapped up in the taste of candy.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Scarlett Thomas - Seaside
Her website doesn't advertise this (hmm!) but in addition to her lit fic novels, Thomas has written a series of murder mysteries focusing on Lily Pascale, charmingly idiosyncratic twenty-something literature lecturer. The premise is promising: one of two identical twins has committed suicide - or is is murder? - and no one is quite sure which is which; and it unspools rapidly from there with the confusion engendered by the twin-ness of it all being exploited to full effect. I liked reading this - it's clever and pacy and it does all the important things well. Also, Radiohead lyrics are an important part of the plot.
Amy Sedaris
Feeling pretty good about myself at the moment. Watching a bit of Letterman tonight [Wed 1am], my attention was caught by a sassy, fast-talkin' female guest in a black frock, dirty blonde hair and a girlish smile, quite adorable all told. So anyway, watching her I found myself thinking "this chick is like the way I imagine Amy Sedaris would be", followed in short order by "hey, I wonder if this is Amy Sedaris" - which, of course, it was. Hell, it's not even as if I know particularly much about AS nor that she looms particularly large in my imaginings...but I guess I'm always good on ideas of people and, perhaps, I know the type.
Dixie Chicks - Taking The Long Way
I've been thinking about how I'd describe this, the first Dixie Chicks album I've listened to in full, and I think that the best way of putting it is 'middle of the road fm radio country'. But that needs some explanation. 'Middle of the road' is normally a derisive sobriquet, but that's not the sense in which I mean it here, because I think that Taking The Long Way is actually very good - rather, I'm getting at the familiarity of the band's sound, at the radio-ready sheen of their songwriting and songs (though of course their falling out with US country radio has been well-documented: eg, here).
It's a set of sturdily-constructed, tightly performed country rockers, and one gets the sense that the Dixie Chicks are a really professional outfit - that they know just what they're doing. And, again, I don't mean this in a belittling sense - to suggest that they're simply going through the motions. Rather, it's as if they've honed their craft to a very fine edge, but that 'edge' is more in the way of a broad scoop of 'of the moment' country music than a really individually distinctive point - but they do it so well that one doesn't hold it against them. Highlights include the early dreaminess of "Easy Silence", the wide open roads anthem "Voice Inside My Head" (which has a bit of Sheryl Crow to it), and the swinging "I Like It".
It's a set of sturdily-constructed, tightly performed country rockers, and one gets the sense that the Dixie Chicks are a really professional outfit - that they know just what they're doing. And, again, I don't mean this in a belittling sense - to suggest that they're simply going through the motions. Rather, it's as if they've honed their craft to a very fine edge, but that 'edge' is more in the way of a broad scoop of 'of the moment' country music than a really individually distinctive point - but they do it so well that one doesn't hold it against them. Highlights include the early dreaminess of "Easy Silence", the wide open roads anthem "Voice Inside My Head" (which has a bit of Sheryl Crow to it), and the swinging "I Like It".
Mark Chadbourn - Jack of Ravens
I'm not really up with the various generic categories but 'dark fantasy' seems a safe bet for this one - or, at least, that's what it seems to be striving for. But while Chadbourn does enough to have kept me reasonably enthralled and pulled through the novel at a rapid clip, I never felt really wrapped up, held in its threads - Jack of Ravens doesn't have the compelling weird of the best examples of its type, the troubling dreamlands of Stephen Donaldson, China Miéville and, in a slightly different vein, Mervyn Peake. It slips occasionally into overwriting - especially intrusive in the first pages - and while its ransacking of familiar myths and motifs is probably meant to lend the novel a universality revisioned, it mostly comes across as a bit familiar (Puck, the Fates in their guise as three women, the Seelie Court, Templars, John Dee, Elizabethan spies, Victorian prostitutes and figures of nightmare - I've seen much of this recently in Mary Gentle's 1610 and more in Gaiman's work, especially the Sandman series). It's not bad at all, but lacks the extra craft and sparkle that would have made it memorable.
Richard Beasley - Hell Has Harbour Views
A couple of people have mentioned this lately, so I thought I'd give it a go - and, now that I'm a corporate lawyer and all (or, at least, well on that way), it seemed probable that I'd get at least some knowing smiles out of a satire of the lifestyle. But in fact it left me a bit cold, and I only got about halfway through the novel before deciding that there were better ways of spending my time than finishing it. Somehow, it just wasn't quite funny or engaging enough. The prickling of a guilty conscience on my part? Nah - I'm not wired like that. Hell Has Harbour Views has no pretensions to literary merit, and it's not successful as pure entertainment either, is all.
Bright Young Things
Surprising that I hadn't seen this before, but better late than never, I suppose. It's one of those types of films that I'm very strongly predisposed towards liking - a jazz age swirl of lights and music which rushes along and keeps you entertained in such glittering style that it's only afterwards that you realise how terribly sad it all was, really (though Bright Young Things at least allows itself a happy ending for the central lovers) - and I did like it. You might say that it's a bit insubstantial, but that's the point really, isn't it?
(at the Rooftop Cinema w/ Gary + David B and Kai + Neil)
(at the Rooftop Cinema w/ Gary + David B and Kai + Neil)
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Theory Trading Cards created by David Gauntlett
Chris T showed me his set of these a couple of years ago, with the comment that I would like them, and he was dead right. I didn't look particularly closely at the time, but I recently bought my own deck and have am delighted by the set (I've always had a bit of a thing for cards...one day I really will learn how to use that tarot deck that I was given years ago). Loosely mimicking the various trading card games going around, it advertises itself as a "21 card set featuring the most important social and cultural theorists of our time" - Foucault, Deleuze, Butler, Derrida, de Beauvoir, Adorno, Althusser, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Freud, and others. There's a headshot of each, and 'strengths', 'weaknesses' and 'special skills', as well as some more discursive detail on the flip side (Pierre Bourdieu, for example --> Strengths: Analysed class in intelligent new way. Weaknesses: For a people's hero, not very accessible. Special skills: Thoughtful, politically engaged sociology). Great fun. Also, why did no one ever tell me that I share a birthday with Derrida (v. exciting!) and Benjamin - 15 July, both of them?
Marie Antoinette
See previously, really - it's just as lovely on a second viewing, with the added pleasure of being able to anticipate favourite scenes and moments. Also, having listened so much to the soundtrack in recent days, the music served as a real connecting thread and it was nice to hear (and place) all of the songs in the context of the particular scenes in which they appear.
It came at a cost, though - I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night,[*] in part because of the images running through my mind and in part because first "Tommib Help Buss" (the dreamy, melancholy soundtrack to the morning after the birthday party) and then "Keen On Boys" were stuck in my head. Needless to say, a price worth paying.
* * *
[*] Sunday night - it's Monday night as I write this.
It came at a cost, though - I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night,[*] in part because of the images running through my mind and in part because first "Tommib Help Buss" (the dreamy, melancholy soundtrack to the morning after the birthday party) and then "Keen On Boys" were stuck in my head. Needless to say, a price worth paying.
* * *
[*] Sunday night - it's Monday night as I write this.
Spellbound
A pleasant way to spend an hour and a half or so. Spends its first section introducing its eight main protagonists one by one (all between 12 and 14 y.o., I think, and from all over the US), so that when the documentary moved to the national final of the spelling bee itself (249 kids in all, I think), I'd already decided which ones I was going for and which I really didn't want to win. Sadly, the one I was barracking for (Angela - the child of Mexican immigrants whose father doesn't even speak English) was the second of them to go; my next favourite, the taciturn misfit Ted had been the first to go. It's a very low-key documentary, but rather charming, and there is a certain drama to watching both the eight to whom we've been introduced and various others squirming on stage, feeling their way through words that they don't know/haven't studied and reacting as the ding of the bell indicates that they've got one wrong and have been eliminated. I don't know why Spellbound appealed to me, or to the many others who've apparently appreciated its charms, but there it is.
Nicole Krauss - Man Walks into a Room
In her debut Man Walks into a Room, Krauss's writing has, at its best, a kind of limpid quality which befits the subject of this rather cool, thoughtful, elliptically precise novel - the tale of a man who loses all of his memories from after the age of 12 and then begins to reconstruct his life (a wife, an apartment, friends, belongings, losses, none of which he can recall). It's quite episodic, which I admire when done well (as it largely is here), and again this structural/stylistic gambit is apt to the subject matter, creating a sense of a series of meditative, carefully impressionistic vignettes rather than a more conventional narrative - which, to me, invokes the perceptual and experiential streams constituting consciousness (also, the image of the mind as an undisturbed glassy lake).
And the ending. Ah, the ending. The History of Love had one of the most purely affecting endings I've ever read, and while the closing pages of Man Walks into a Room don't quite knit in the same way (at least for me), the brief epilogue has an elegiac poignancy which left me with a twist in my stomach and a slight catch in my throat.
I think that one of the reasons why I like Krauss's novels is that she writes a lot of sentences which are like the kinds of sentences that I try to write, and she puts them together in ways that I try to put them together. While I liked Man Walks into a Room, though, I found it perhaps too cool, too distant - it's not a cold book, but nor does it have the same warmth and generosity as The History of Love, and in the end it's not quite emotionally satisfying...it's very much a first novel, albeit in some ways quite a brilliant one. I find it much easier to admire than to love.
And the ending. Ah, the ending. The History of Love had one of the most purely affecting endings I've ever read, and while the closing pages of Man Walks into a Room don't quite knit in the same way (at least for me), the brief epilogue has an elegiac poignancy which left me with a twist in my stomach and a slight catch in my throat.
I think that one of the reasons why I like Krauss's novels is that she writes a lot of sentences which are like the kinds of sentences that I try to write, and she puts them together in ways that I try to put them together. While I liked Man Walks into a Room, though, I found it perhaps too cool, too distant - it's not a cold book, but nor does it have the same warmth and generosity as The History of Love, and in the end it's not quite emotionally satisfying...it's very much a first novel, albeit in some ways quite a brilliant one. I find it much easier to admire than to love.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Music of 2006
The tracklist to a cd of the music that I listened to most in 2006 and/or most strongly associate with the year. Very, very approximately, the first five are from the first half of the year and the last five are from the second half, with "The King Of Carrot Flowers Pt. One" in the middle as a kind of hinge track. For me, it was very much a year for songs rather than for albums, and I've written about many of these before - text where I haven't, or have something to add (in those cases, it was newly written on Christmas Day for the cd of these songs which is being distributed to musically-minded friends and acquaintances).
1. There Is An End - The Greenhornes (featuring Holly Golightly)
If there's one song which has soundtracked my year, this is it. ... it's just stayed with me all through the year as I've listened to it over and over, and it continues to make more and more sense. [*]
2. Hold On, Hold On - Neko Case [*]
3. Handshake Drugs (live) - Wilco
It feels as if Wilco were everywhere for me in 2006 (the same was true of '05, and probably '04 as well), and somewhere along the line they became one of my favourite bands; their live (double) album, Kicking Television, not to put too fine a point on it, kicks ass, and this version of "Handshake Drugs" is one of its many highlights.
4. Sylvie - Saint Etienne
Like all the best Saint Etienne songs, "Sylvie" sounds like ice cream and raindrops and dainty nostalgia, all at once.
5. Cupcake - Nellie McKay
Smart, sassy and, on "Cupcake", positively delirious - it's no wonder that I'm basically in love with Nellie McKay, and I find this song a particular delight. Also, if you're paying attention to the lyrics (always worth doing with this precocious songwriter), it waves the flag for gay marriage into the bargain, too! [*]
6. The King Of Carrot Flowers Pt. One - Neutral Milk Hotel
This album, when I finally listened to it earlier this year, basically blew my mind for a period of several weeks. I've deliberately avoided thinking too much about how/why it had and has such an effect on me - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea just feels like one of those records that should be left to stand, astonishing, on its own terms. [*] [**]
7. Elevator Love Letter - Stars
I was at a house party a while back, and I couldn't really hear the music from where I was standing - but for a while, the beginning of every song which played on the stereo sounded as if it was this one.
8. Black Cab - Jens Lekman
Oh Jens, so morose. Don't you just want to hug him? And anyone who quotes both the Smiths and Belle and Sebastian in the one song is alright in my books.
9. Talulah Gosh - Talulah Gosh
The whole thing is a gem, but the moment that best encapsulates Talulah Gosh's theme song is the unobtrusive emphasis with which frontwoman Amelia Fletcher enunciates the key word in the line 'now she is a pop star'. The song just makes me think 'yay!', and so does the band.
10. Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me - The Pipettes
The Pipettes are fabulous, and "Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me" is their most skyscrapingly glorious Pop! moment to date. Swoonfully great.
11. Thursday - Asobi Seksu
Widescreen fm radio glory, shimmering and throwing out light in all directions the whole time and then catching fire outright as it hits its climax. ... post-millennial starstruck shoegazer sparkle ...
(2005)
1. There Is An End - The Greenhornes (featuring Holly Golightly)
If there's one song which has soundtracked my year, this is it. ... it's just stayed with me all through the year as I've listened to it over and over, and it continues to make more and more sense. [*]
2. Hold On, Hold On - Neko Case [*]
3. Handshake Drugs (live) - Wilco
It feels as if Wilco were everywhere for me in 2006 (the same was true of '05, and probably '04 as well), and somewhere along the line they became one of my favourite bands; their live (double) album, Kicking Television, not to put too fine a point on it, kicks ass, and this version of "Handshake Drugs" is one of its many highlights.
4. Sylvie - Saint Etienne
Like all the best Saint Etienne songs, "Sylvie" sounds like ice cream and raindrops and dainty nostalgia, all at once.
5. Cupcake - Nellie McKay
Smart, sassy and, on "Cupcake", positively delirious - it's no wonder that I'm basically in love with Nellie McKay, and I find this song a particular delight. Also, if you're paying attention to the lyrics (always worth doing with this precocious songwriter), it waves the flag for gay marriage into the bargain, too! [*]
6. The King Of Carrot Flowers Pt. One - Neutral Milk Hotel
This album, when I finally listened to it earlier this year, basically blew my mind for a period of several weeks. I've deliberately avoided thinking too much about how/why it had and has such an effect on me - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea just feels like one of those records that should be left to stand, astonishing, on its own terms. [*] [**]
7. Elevator Love Letter - Stars
I was at a house party a while back, and I couldn't really hear the music from where I was standing - but for a while, the beginning of every song which played on the stereo sounded as if it was this one.
8. Black Cab - Jens Lekman
Oh Jens, so morose. Don't you just want to hug him? And anyone who quotes both the Smiths and Belle and Sebastian in the one song is alright in my books.
9. Talulah Gosh - Talulah Gosh
The whole thing is a gem, but the moment that best encapsulates Talulah Gosh's theme song is the unobtrusive emphasis with which frontwoman Amelia Fletcher enunciates the key word in the line 'now she is a pop star'. The song just makes me think 'yay!', and so does the band.
10. Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me - The Pipettes
The Pipettes are fabulous, and "Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me" is their most skyscrapingly glorious Pop! moment to date. Swoonfully great.
11. Thursday - Asobi Seksu
Widescreen fm radio glory, shimmering and throwing out light in all directions the whole time and then catching fire outright as it hits its climax. ... post-millennial starstruck shoegazer sparkle ...
(2005)
"Lost in Translation": Music from the motion picture
I realised when writing about the Marie Antoinette soundtrack that I hadn't yet noted this one.
So, what to say? Well, to start with, it's totally lovely - starry-eyed and broody and dreamlike, just like the film. Two unimpeachable classics in "Sometimes" and "Just Like Honey", new Kevin Shields which feels immediately as if he never went away (even if they're not the sonic odysseys comprising Loveless or the same chaotic beauty as the jagged slices on Isn't Anything), and some other incidental and song-type stuff which all coalesces into exactly the kind of downbeat mood confection that Lost in Translation requires, is, and depends on (though I could have done without the Phoenix and Happy End tracks in the middle). And it is also wonderful on its own terms.
So, what to say? Well, to start with, it's totally lovely - starry-eyed and broody and dreamlike, just like the film. Two unimpeachable classics in "Sometimes" and "Just Like Honey", new Kevin Shields which feels immediately as if he never went away (even if they're not the sonic odysseys comprising Loveless or the same chaotic beauty as the jagged slices on Isn't Anything), and some other incidental and song-type stuff which all coalesces into exactly the kind of downbeat mood confection that Lost in Translation requires, is, and depends on (though I could have done without the Phoenix and Happy End tracks in the middle). And it is also wonderful on its own terms.
Heavenly - Sarah Records 7"s
Three early 7"s, along with flipsides: "I Fell In Love Last Night", "Our Love Is Heavenly" and "So Little Deserve". Heavenly were the next incarnation of Talulah Gosh, and the music is a logical progression - a bit cleaner and less crashy, and with slightly more sophisticated songwriting, but still as sweet as ever.
(Here)
(Here)
Paul Kelly with Uncle Bill - Smoke
Another Paul Kelly bluegrass record. This one's not as good as Foggy Highway (it actually came before that other), but there's nothing wrong with it at all.
Things We Believe but Cannot Prove: Today's Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty edited by John Brockman
Bite-sized ruminations by a bunch of folks (mostly scientists - names include Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker, and others) about, as title suggests, things they believe but cannot prove. Interesting, and because the individual entries are so short, all extremely accessible. They tackle the big questions, so there's a lot about (intelligent) life elsewhere in the universe, objective reality, religious experience and God, the distinction between humans and animals, the nature of consciousness, the importance of language, the limitations and possibilities of science, the nature of the universe (and reality, time, etc), human nature, evolution and design, and human society - all rather mind-expanding, the ones on subjects that I've studied/thought about as much as those on areas more or less completely new to me.
My favourite is the piece by Donald F Hoffman:
Hoffman goes on to elaborate these initial claims, and to me they seem intuitively and almost self-evidently correct (a big second step, but that is how it seems to me). The implication is that, as he suggests: "What we lose in this process are physical objects that exist independent of any observer. there is no sun or moon, unless a conscious mind observes them; both are constructs of consciousness, icons in a species-specific user interface." Most of this isn't particularly new to me - Husserl led me down this particular phenomenological garden path years ago. But the metaphor (which is actually quite literal) of the interface is new, and it's most apt.
My favourite is the piece by Donald F Hoffman:
I believe that consciousness and its contents are all that exists. Spacetime, matter, and fields never were the fundamental denizens of the universe but have always been among the humbler contents of consciousness, dependent on it for their very being.
The world of our daily experience - the world of tables, chairs, stars, and people, with their attendant shapes, smells, feels, and sounds - is a species-specific user interface between ourselves and a realm far more complex, whose essential character is conscious.
It is unlikely that the contents of our interface in any way resemble that realm; indeed, the usefulness of an interface requires, in general, that they do not. ...
Hoffman goes on to elaborate these initial claims, and to me they seem intuitively and almost self-evidently correct (a big second step, but that is how it seems to me). The implication is that, as he suggests: "What we lose in this process are physical objects that exist independent of any observer. there is no sun or moon, unless a conscious mind observes them; both are constructs of consciousness, icons in a species-specific user interface." Most of this isn't particularly new to me - Husserl led me down this particular phenomenological garden path years ago. But the metaphor (which is actually quite literal) of the interface is new, and it's most apt.
Scarlett Thomas - PopCo
Very enjoyable, this. A few months ago, I somehow ended up at Thomas's website (by way of either an interesting writeup or a rave review - possibly both at once) and was intrigued enough to put her on that mental 'watch' list that we all carry around; spotted PopCo at the library the other day and finished it yesterday with a rush. It's got a brilliant first chapter, establishing the setting and the distinctive voice of the narrator, the eccentric Alice Butler (who is the best thing about the book). Written in the present tense, like the rest of the novel, it reminds me of the Hélèna Villovitch story in the "Translation" Meanjin which made such an impression on me with its spiky, somehow airy accretion of details and offhandedly commented-upon impressions. The whole novel continues in much that same vein; moreover, it's totally hip and very contemporary, but never distractingly or irritatingly so (and I am particularly sensitive to that kind of stuff!).
The various threads are woven together interestingly, even if the ending suffers slightly from a sense of being overly neat. Two main threads - Alice's adventures as a 'creative' at one of the world's largest toy manufacturing companies along with a handful of others at a corporate retreat to which they've been assigned for the purpose of coming up with a new product which will crack the difficult 'teenage girl' market, and the mysterious necklace given to her by her father which supposedly contains the key to a hitherto unbroken code revealing the location of a hundreds of years old cache of pirate treasure (the latter of which involves her earlier life being related in episodes throughout the main narrative, which go a long way towards fleshing out her present-day character). Strong anti-corporate message comes through - no surprise that Thomas words up No Logo in the acknowledgements. Will definitely be reading more of her stuff.
By the way, is it just me, or is 'Scarlett Thomas' a great name?
The various threads are woven together interestingly, even if the ending suffers slightly from a sense of being overly neat. Two main threads - Alice's adventures as a 'creative' at one of the world's largest toy manufacturing companies along with a handful of others at a corporate retreat to which they've been assigned for the purpose of coming up with a new product which will crack the difficult 'teenage girl' market, and the mysterious necklace given to her by her father which supposedly contains the key to a hitherto unbroken code revealing the location of a hundreds of years old cache of pirate treasure (the latter of which involves her earlier life being related in episodes throughout the main narrative, which go a long way towards fleshing out her present-day character). Strong anti-corporate message comes through - no surprise that Thomas words up No Logo in the acknowledgements. Will definitely be reading more of her stuff.
By the way, is it just me, or is 'Scarlett Thomas' a great name?
The West Wing seasons 1 & 2
Everything I know about tv, I learned from my friends. Sid lent me the box set of season 1, and I flew through it once I'd got going (and likewise with season 2). Trying to break down why I like the show, I've decided that it has a lot to do with the fantasy it offers - a liberal president surrounded by a staff of brilliant, idealistic yet hard-headed types making decisions motivated by a concern for social justice and left-wing principles rather than political expediency and abhorrent values. Also (in a rather different vein) the idea that such a small group of advisors - Leo, Toby, Josh, Sam and CJ - could exert such influence over national policy. It's very well-written - even though most episodes follow the same basic structure, it doesn't come anywhere near feeling formulaic, perhaps in part because of the number of continuing story arcs developing over multiple episodes (and, indeed, multiple seasons - season 2, like season 1, ends with a cliffhanger, argh).
Josh and CJ are my favourite characters (though I also like Ainslie Hayes and Joey Lucas, who both add some nice sparkle); I find myself wondering whether I would be able to keep up with all of them were I a member of the White House staff, and the answer is a fairly unequivocal 'no'. The show runs through one issue after another, and handles them all sensitively and seemingly realistically. Alright, I'm hooked.
Josh and CJ are my favourite characters (though I also like Ainslie Hayes and Joey Lucas, who both add some nice sparkle); I find myself wondering whether I would be able to keep up with all of them were I a member of the White House staff, and the answer is a fairly unequivocal 'no'. The show runs through one issue after another, and handles them all sensitively and seemingly realistically. Alright, I'm hooked.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Beirut - Gulag Orkestar
I more or less owe this one to Kelly - she pointed it out when it was playing at Ici a while back (at which time I thought that Beirut sounded a lot better than I'd imagined), and then set me up with a copy further down the line. And hey, it's really, really good.
I can take the back story or leave it - by which I mean that I don't really care about the process by which the guy behind Beirut arrived at this sound, or how young he is, or even (gasp) the broader implications of his appropriations. What I am interested by is how good the music on Gulag Orkestar is, reeling back and forth, rising and falling in waves of accordion, horns and some of the most lachrimose singing this side of Stephin Merritt and Jens Lekman ("Scenic World", incidentally, could totally have been done by either of the above). My favourites are the sun and shadows prettiness of "Postcards From Italy" and the merry-go-round lament "Mount Wroclai (Idle Days)", but it's the way the album holds together as a whole, cacophonously in places but always with an overriding sense of direction and vision, which makes it. I'm not in ecstasies over this album, but I like it a lot.
I can take the back story or leave it - by which I mean that I don't really care about the process by which the guy behind Beirut arrived at this sound, or how young he is, or even (gasp) the broader implications of his appropriations. What I am interested by is how good the music on Gulag Orkestar is, reeling back and forth, rising and falling in waves of accordion, horns and some of the most lachrimose singing this side of Stephin Merritt and Jens Lekman ("Scenic World", incidentally, could totally have been done by either of the above). My favourites are the sun and shadows prettiness of "Postcards From Italy" and the merry-go-round lament "Mount Wroclai (Idle Days)", but it's the way the album holds together as a whole, cacophonously in places but always with an overriding sense of direction and vision, which makes it. I'm not in ecstasies over this album, but I like it a lot.
The Knife - Silent Shout
Despite having listened to Silent Shout a fair bit over the last few weeks, I'm still totally conflicted as to how I feel about the record. Part of the trick, for me at least, is hearing the album as a pop record rather than, as I initially was, as a goth-tinged, vaguely song-oriented brand of techno - taken on those terms, I'm much better able to appreciate the pulsating movement, evocative, ominous, chilly, of tracks like "Silent Shout" itself, "Neverland", "We Share Our Mother's Health" and "Marble House". But still, I'm not completely sold.
Stephen King - Everything's Eventual
Suffocating in yesterday's heat (today is even worse), I made a quick trip to the library and picked up an armful of books including this one. It's one of King's periodic collections of short stories, and I don't think it's amongst his best (not that I can claim exhaustive familiarity with the oeuvre) but it's effective enough and did cause me to feel slightly nervous wandering around downstairs in the dark later last night.
Inga Clendinnen - The History Question: Who Owns the Past? (Quarterly Essay issue 23, 2006)
Read this a while back. Enjoyed it and found it a very lucid and readable account of a commonsense and in many ways appealing position, albeit one that runs completely contrary to a number of strong intuitions and beliefs of my own. Rebuttal and criticism would involve a fair bit of thought and no small amount of theoretical sophistication. But it's hot and I am lazy, so I'll leave it at this: ahem, I think that, in this essay, Clendinnen is engaged, intelligent, clear-headed - and wrong.
Spring cleaning
In the way of these things, I accumulate a lot of music. Usually, I get around to listening to it all properly in the end but, in the interests of clearing the decks, here are several that have been lying around for ages (with more probably to come in the near future as I dig them up):
• The Fire Show - Above The Volcano Of Flowers & saint the fire show
• Edan - Beauty and the Beat
• Tujiko Noriko - Blurred In My Mirror
• Destroyer - This Night
• Seu Jorge - "The Life Aquatic" studio sessions (yeah, these are the Portuguese Bowie covers)
• Big Star - Third/Sister Lovers
• Brian Wilson - Smile
• Coldplay - X & Y
• New Order - Get Ready
• P D Q Bach - Oedipus Tex & other choral calamities
• Talvin Singh - OK
It's not that I haven't listened to them - I have, and generally several times - but rather that I haven't done so in a way (or they haven't struck me in a way) which has inspired me to say anything about the music.
• The Fire Show - Above The Volcano Of Flowers & saint the fire show
• Edan - Beauty and the Beat
• Tujiko Noriko - Blurred In My Mirror
• Destroyer - This Night
• Seu Jorge - "The Life Aquatic" studio sessions (yeah, these are the Portuguese Bowie covers)
• Big Star - Third/Sister Lovers
• Brian Wilson - Smile
• Coldplay - X & Y
• New Order - Get Ready
• P D Q Bach - Oedipus Tex & other choral calamities
• Talvin Singh - OK
It's not that I haven't listened to them - I have, and generally several times - but rather that I haven't done so in a way (or they haven't struck me in a way) which has inspired me to say anything about the music.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Marie Antoinette original motion picture soundtrack
This is a great collection, both on its own terms and in its relationship to the film it soundtracks; it's one of those soundtracks whose constituent pieces seem continually to be echoing and referring to each other, and so it has the unity so necessary to records of this kind. Disc 1 contains most of the 'songs' - energetic post-punk and new-wave pop for the most part - while disc 2 is more contemplative and weighted towards the ambient, moody soundscapes of Aphex Twin, Air, Squarepusher, etc.
Part of the reason it works so well is that, while the music is essentially contemporary, it's also in a certain way unmoored from its own historical referents by the fact that the most recognisable of it was contemporary some 20 or 30 years ago (rather than right now), so that when it appears in the setting of a 'historical' film set in the 18th century, there's a sort of doubling - a ghostly mirroring - of the effect of strange familiarity. That is, if the music were thoroughly and recognisably of the post-millennial moment (or a more bowerbird-esque cherrypick of the history of popular music à la Moulin Rouge), transposed to 18th century Versailles, the effect could have ranged from jarring and thoroughly incongruous through to hyper-real and totally Up To Date, but the effect which is in fact wrought by the choice of New Order, Adam & the Ants, the Cure and so on - a distinctly backwards looking but nonetheless revisionistic reinvention - would probably not have been possible. The refractive effect of the 'period' songs is, too, augmented by the dreaminess of the instrumental and downbeat electronic works and their intersheaving with a couple of 'classical' extracts.
As to specifics, the string part grafted on to the beginning of Siouxsie & the Banshees' "Hong Kong Garden", which opens the record, followed by the pell-mell of the song itself, sets the mood; the opening bars of "What Ever Happened" vividly bring back the scene they track, as does "Ceremony" (which I've listened to most, even though it's not new to me); the appearance of "Plainsong" in the film caused an intake of breath on my part when it crashed in (and reminded me of the grandeur and majesty of the song); and the nicest of the new songs (which, though new, very much partake of the same mood and aesthetic) are Windsor for the Derby's "The Melody of a Fallen Tree", the Radio Dept's "Keen On Boys" (which I thought was JAMC when I heard it in the film) and Squarepusher's "Tommib Help Buss" (echoing the track on the Lost In Translation soundtrack).
This is basically the only thing I've listened to over the last few days; evidently I need to watch Marie Antoinette again, and soon.
Part of the reason it works so well is that, while the music is essentially contemporary, it's also in a certain way unmoored from its own historical referents by the fact that the most recognisable of it was contemporary some 20 or 30 years ago (rather than right now), so that when it appears in the setting of a 'historical' film set in the 18th century, there's a sort of doubling - a ghostly mirroring - of the effect of strange familiarity. That is, if the music were thoroughly and recognisably of the post-millennial moment (or a more bowerbird-esque cherrypick of the history of popular music à la Moulin Rouge), transposed to 18th century Versailles, the effect could have ranged from jarring and thoroughly incongruous through to hyper-real and totally Up To Date, but the effect which is in fact wrought by the choice of New Order, Adam & the Ants, the Cure and so on - a distinctly backwards looking but nonetheless revisionistic reinvention - would probably not have been possible. The refractive effect of the 'period' songs is, too, augmented by the dreaminess of the instrumental and downbeat electronic works and their intersheaving with a couple of 'classical' extracts.
As to specifics, the string part grafted on to the beginning of Siouxsie & the Banshees' "Hong Kong Garden", which opens the record, followed by the pell-mell of the song itself, sets the mood; the opening bars of "What Ever Happened" vividly bring back the scene they track, as does "Ceremony" (which I've listened to most, even though it's not new to me); the appearance of "Plainsong" in the film caused an intake of breath on my part when it crashed in (and reminded me of the grandeur and majesty of the song); and the nicest of the new songs (which, though new, very much partake of the same mood and aesthetic) are Windsor for the Derby's "The Melody of a Fallen Tree", the Radio Dept's "Keen On Boys" (which I thought was JAMC when I heard it in the film) and Squarepusher's "Tommib Help Buss" (echoing the track on the Lost In Translation soundtrack).
This is basically the only thing I've listened to over the last few days; evidently I need to watch Marie Antoinette again, and soon.
Philip Pullman - The Ruby in the Smoke
Before the His Dark Materials series[*], Pullman wrote a number of books, including a series of Victorian mystery adventures. I only found out about these a couple of days ago, but The Ruby in the Smoke is the first in that series, and it's a cracking tale full of plucky heroes and heroines. Not as dense as the His Dark Materials books (though I've seen the other three in the bookstore, and they're certainly thicker than this one!) but it reads very well and moves along at a rapid clip; nice, sly sense of humour, too, and a reasonably satisfying sense of grittiness and real danger.
* * *
[*] Last reading (and prior) here.
* * *
[*] Last reading (and prior) here.
"Michael Riley: Sights Unseen" @ Monash Gallery of Art
Browsing through The Age on Saturday, saw a picture of a cow standing in the sky and looked closer. It was an image from an exhibition of photography by Michael Riley, a contemporary indigenous artist, and since I wasn't doing anything that afternoon and it was a nice day, I decided to drive out to the Monash Gallery of Art in Wheeler's Hill, where it was showing.
The exhibition comprises several series, the most striking of which is the 'Cloud' series from which the cow image comes. That one is made up of ten large digitally manipulated photos, each depicting something in the foreground, apparently suspended in the air, against a very bright blue sky: as far as I can remember, the back of a stone angel, a bird, a bible, a bright red boomerang, a detail of the bird's wing, the angel's wing, a feather, a cow, a locust. The various items obviously comment on each other in various ways - connections and juxtapositions between Christianity, Aboriginal culture and their intersections in Australia especially (different symbols of spirituality and religion, the various iconographies of flight and connectedness with the land and otherwise) - and the images are strikingly lush and their colours very Australian.
(w/ Laura)
The exhibition comprises several series, the most striking of which is the 'Cloud' series from which the cow image comes. That one is made up of ten large digitally manipulated photos, each depicting something in the foreground, apparently suspended in the air, against a very bright blue sky: as far as I can remember, the back of a stone angel, a bird, a bible, a bright red boomerang, a detail of the bird's wing, the angel's wing, a feather, a cow, a locust. The various items obviously comment on each other in various ways - connections and juxtapositions between Christianity, Aboriginal culture and their intersections in Australia especially (different symbols of spirituality and religion, the various iconographies of flight and connectedness with the land and otherwise) - and the images are strikingly lush and their colours very Australian.
(w/ Laura)
Happy Feet
Good, and in a different way from what I'd expected. Strong environmental message and a subsidiary one about the dangers of unthinking acquiescence to authority (including of the religious variety), along with the usual line about being oneself and the power of one individual to make a difference; interspersed with the straight animation are some very striking sequences for a film of this kind - spectacular vistas (almost worthy of Lord of the Rings) and extremely dramatic scenes done with no hint of irony (the males protecting their eggs against the winter, the expedition struggling into the storm). Oddly paced, but maybe that comes of being a bit unformulaic.
(w/ family)
(w/ family)
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