i'm going to update my reviews for a few of these items that i'm backposting.
back in februrary, 2014 i wrote that the ambient sections on this record are amelodic, rambling and highly derivative of a post-rock formula that's been recreated hundreds of times, and angrily discarded comparisons to mbv as an insult to the impeccable craftmanship of that band. i may have given off the impression of a damning review of this disc.
that was not my actual intent. i will stand by initial statements, but i need to temper them with the acknowledgement that this is a listenable record, as badly flawed as it is through varying levels of cliche. time has maybe eroded the annoyance of the juxtaposition at the time and left something that is not entirely without guilty merit.
it's weak all around - in construction, in abstraction and even in grit at points, as that dull blast beat in the end just flattens out all of the dynamics. but, at this point, they might have even been still worth a beer to check out, and i thought about it a few times, but i never did.
so, i was harsh in my comments, but i'd have given it a C or something. and it's maybe even aged a little better than that, as the cliches just sort of fade backwards into some amorphous blob of previous existence.
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
this is actually my favourite beethoven piece that got canceled this weekend, although the piece is so important that it will no doubt be not very long before it appears again. while nothing else survived in the form of a listing for long enough to say much about it, i would have likely centered my weekend around this performance, somehow.
i've tended to avoid commenting too deeply on pieces of this sort, because what's the point? but, this is the one that was dedicated to napoleon, and then had the dedication retracted when he declared himself emperor. and, i love that beethoven did that - almost as much as i love the piece, itself.
all of the textbooks will tell you that this is also beethoven's turning point, from being a classical composer to being beethoven and that's likely a key part of why it's seen by so many, including myself, as being his best work. you kind of get both sides, and you get it fresh, before he kind of settled in this sort of routine.
that is to say that the piece is not just dedicated to a revolutionary in a revolutionary time, but is itself revolutionary, in scope - and therefore fit for the ears and minds of revolutionaries of any time.
if you haven't heard this, you really must.
Sunday, June 14, 2020
there was a cancelled bing & ruth show this week, as well.
i guess there's three ways to approach ambient music. the first is as purely background sound, in which case any sort of cerebral analysis misses the point. the second is as film music, which explicitly evaluates the sound in terms of how well it can be paired to a set of visuals. this second approach is of essentially no interest to me, as i have no interest whatsoever in the medium of film. the third is via active listening, which is the one i tend to default to, even when i know i should be interpreting the music as background. the ambience that i'm most likely to connect positively with is the type that maintains the aesthetic of the style, while still allowing for active listening; i don't want to eject the cerebral component entirely, i still want to actually listen to something. so, this is the kind of struggle i get in interpreting music in the genre - should i be listening carefully or not? am i listening too carefully and missing the point? i'm not interested in the visuals...
there was a time when i was more actively interested in this genre, but i had not heard of bing & ruth previously. when i went to check them out, i learned that they initially started with a large ensemble before slowly dismantling it over time. so, i thought it would be best to start at the beginning.
unfortunately, this ensemble seems to mostly be focused on the second approach, which is sort of out of my sphere of interest. as the music seems to mostly be intended to integrate with visuals, it is often actually too abrasive to function as background - it's too loud for that. but, after sorting through each of the three records, i've found nothing at all that is interesting enough for active listening.
he could use some counterpoint or something here and there....there's just none of it....it's just tonally absolutely bland, all the way through.
i will consequently have to excuse myself from this, and leave it to the film majors to enjoy, instead.
actually, i like this quite a bit, and would have probably checked it out. these are, in truth, the types of nerdy lyrics that i more readily relate to and, while it's a little light, it rocks nicely when it picks up.
it would have been next friday in detroit, but it's already cancelled.
yeah, i'm going to label this record top notch to groundbreaking, and we're constructing a sort of a theme for what might have been. this disc should be in your best of 2019 list.
after sorting through their older singles & eps, i don't think the slint or sonic youth suggestions are that off base (and there's a lot of mbv & swans, as well). the blastbeats are not some kind of accident, but this is fundamentally some kind of early 90s alt-rock, and you know that's where my brain really lives...
it turns out they went to berklee, so the bent knee drop isn't totally out there, either.
it's really all over the place, which is refreshing. i miss when music was this diverse and creative, and disinterested in following rules or appealing to markets. so, tell them to come back...
so, their bandcamp page is misleading - it makes it seem like they have a large discography, when it's in truth just a scattering of singles. what i posted is really their first substantive release.
so, that's why i've never heard of them.
i listened through all of their early singles, and while there's bits and pieces of various interest, it's all just a lot of teases, without ever getting anywhere in the end. maybe if you strung them all out together, you might have something more interesting, but half of them are demos, there's a lot of overlap and the vocals were at about half the intensity through most of it...
rather, it seems like this record of theirs is actually quite a long time coming, which might have something to do with the detail present on it.
i'll post a final review in a bit. but, that's a show i would have likely gone to. alas.
speaking of more palatable approaches to "black metal"...
i've never heard of this band before, which is happening more and more frequently, enough that i'm starting to wonder if living in detroit is kind of cutting me off. nobody comes here anymore. there's nowhere to play.
in fact, this band was initially scheduled to play here in windsor tomorrow night, but it's not happening (even if they could have found a house to play at, they're not getting over the border). there's this guy doing local production, and i keep checking out the stuff he brings in, and not much appeals to me; this is both a pleasant surprise and arguably an exciting show, for downtown windsor.
i'm going to listen to their back catalog a bit more before i comment further, but this is actually maybe more in the same space as bent knee, in that it's diverse enough to almost be labeled as prog, but also in it's focus on songwriting over showmanship. or, at least, that's my impression from the first listen of the new record.
the black metal thing is...it's fashionable. yeah, i don't exactly get it either, but this is something that has happened, somehow. that said, if you'd never heard of black metal, you could get away with just describing that aspect of this sound as coming from a heavy blues influence; she screams like an angry punk here and there, but she more often sounds vaguely like a janis joplin or an amy winehouse, as the guitars screech out these pentatonic patterns. i mean, you can't unhear what you know, even if you'd rather you could. but, you could erect this out of, like, slint and sonic youth instead. even if it's disingenuous...
i'm going to give it a closer listen, but it's elaborate enough that i almost certainly would have checked it out. and, let's hope that happy little crowds brings in stuff that is this interesting more often in the future.
and, we need to be very fucking careful with our collective brains and what the fuckers are trying to do to them, right now.
i'll try not to post this every other day.
it's mostly about the part at the very end.
but, at some point, we have to clue in, we have to realize this isn't random, this isn't accidental.
they are exactly the same.
is there really footage out there of carroll spinney conducting an orchestra as big bird?
if not, there should be. and, i'm sure we could come up with a great program. some messaien, some bits of beethoven's sixth...
but, i almost feel like i should commission myself to do this, as though it needs something more specific that does not yet exist.
the ostrich overture.
with oscar on the cans.
wait for it.
(it could be a while.)
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
i need to reiterate something i've said a few times...
i don't think i've ever actually listened to a metallica record from start to finish.
if i have, it was at a party when i was young, and it was incidental; i don't remember it.
i mean, i have a general idea; enough to realize it's not worth bothering with.
but, i actually suspect i'd like their later material better than their early material.
so, interpret my reviews of self-identified metal-spectrum artists as you will.
there was, however, a show scheduled in detroit tonight that i may have made some attempt to make it to.
i think i've been crystal clear that i don't like the slightest thing about black metal - i don't like the culture, i don't like the music, i don't like anything about it. but, it's become this weird thing that you unfortunately have to deal with in some way or another if you listen to much of anything derived from punk rock, nowadays. i guess, in that sense, it's become the new emo - you can hate it to your core, and you can be right to feel that way, but you kind of can't avoid it. you just have to take it head on.
this is some kind of supergroup that is retreating away from the dumber aspects of the sound, and managed to integrate a cello player as an integral component of the band in the process. the strings are not a gimmick, as they usually are in rock music; the cellist is a part of the band. clearly.
i didn't find anything of interest on their first record. however, if you start with their second record and let it bleed into the third, it becomes progressively more interesting, as they slowly lose the cave man vocals and slowly embrace a more musical sound. they're kind of hamstrung by the fact that they're fundamentally a punk band, meaning they don't take compositional chances when they arguably ought to. but, put together, it's strangely compelling.
i don't know if my interest in this will be sustainable; if they realize they're losing fans and go back to being stupid, i could have missed my chance. but, this is strangely interesting to me as pop music. i guess there's been a few tries at something like this - we had deafheaven, we had liturgy and we had a bunch of other stuff trying to take the basic sound of this black metal scene (which has terrible politics.) and market it to people that aren't nazis, by mixing it up a little. out of all of the hybrid attempts, i think the only one i've found legitimately interesting is touche amore (who are generally not interpreted that way); this is, otherwise, maybe the closest to something i've heard that i can actually get into, and it's probably because it's focusing less on the avant garde and less on metal cliches and more on punk rock and musical romanticism, if not a little bit of baroqueness. it's melodic where those other bands aren't; it's coherent, where they're often not.
so, i think this would have been worthwhile to check out, if i could have worked it out in a way that made sense. it would have certainly been a good night to get out of the house on a bicycle and chill out in a park. alas.
i don't want to make it seem like i'm explicitly shunning music for small ensembles or something.
but a trio in a church is a little bourgeois for me, and none of these pieces really go anywhere interesting, although the brahms piece, which i'd argue is stronger than the beethoven piece, is again reminiscent of something, namely chariots of fire. i guess i'm just the last to know.
i just like my classical music a little more violent than this.
Monday, June 8, 2020
well, the weekend is over, and the temperature dipped a little, but it was actually fairly nice in detroit. it would have been nice to get out and do something, if there was something to do. while i'm sure a lot of things got cancelled last weekend before i got to them, the most interesting things were a series of beethoven/brahms shows, one downtown and one in the burbs.
the first show was downtown and ran on thurs-sat, i believe. the second was on monday in a difficult to get to place.
it would have started off with a short piece by a contemporary scandinanvian composer. this strikes me as sort of a period piece; it's in a style that is fairly dominant nowadays, especially in films, which is something that this orchestra seems to want to focus on. so, it's called drifts and that's more or less what it does, eventually building into a crescendo, when the kid is saved from certain death at the last minute, or something. lots of suspense, lots of development, yes - and admittedly fairly rich in detail - but, not much point, at the end. see, i'm going to say something like that for a large percentage of the music of this era, though; it is what it is, and if you like dramatic film music with abstract layers, you might like it...
beethoven's violin concerto is one of his pieces that i'm less familiar with. there is only one violin concerto by beethoven, and you can sort of tell why - while this is a violin concerto, beethoven's general use of strings is so intricate that it often seems like it's missing a lead instrument. maybe this could be somebody else's violin concerto, but for beethoven it just sounds like you forgot to mix the piano in. so, if you're like me, you just expect those romping pianos, and you're just not sure what to do without them.
beethoven was a master hook writer, though, and that little melody will get to you, if you let it. maybe you might want it to be bigger, more grandiose, more epic...but, if you give it a chance, it might grow on you.
so, it's a little light for beethoven, but it doesn't drag like his lightest works do. i have to say i wish i'd have checked this out sooner, but i can't listen to everything.
as an aside, i appreciate the dso's playlists. i'm not liking all of it, but it's helping me fill in gaps i should have filled in some time ago, even with some of my favourite composers.
and, we're back to brahms again, as though somebody is trying to get to me.
i put the first piano concerto halfway between beethoven and rachmaninov, but this symphonic piece is more like beethoven, as remixed by wagner. he's lifting melodies directly; it's shameless, really, because these are melodies that are so well known that you cannot for one second get away with it, and you'd think it was worse closer to the source. you get the guttural, beethoven-like attack in many parts, too, so it really is clear what he's starting with. but, he's also bringing in those proto-atonal string stabs that you'd get with wagner and then later with schoenberg, which i'm going to argue sort of drag down the piece. if you like the blunt attack of early romanticism, you could get frustrated by the way he draws this out; conversely, if you prefer the messier sound of the late romantic, you might interpret this as the best thing that beethoven never did.
but, it's also missing a lead instrument...
what do i think of brahms? well, i'm not reacting particularly badly to it, but, after exploring his first piano concerto and first symphony over the last few weeks, all i'm able to interpret it as is transitional. i guess i have to give him credit for his influence on rachmaninov, but i'm only ever going to get at that anachronistically. so, what does brahms sound like? i still don't really know, quite yet.
so, that was the first show, and if i could have made room for it, i would have likely attended. it's three moderately strong pieces that, together, strike me as worth experiencing.
but, i stayed inside and listened to it on youtube, instead.
Sunday, June 7, 2020
i have done a lookahead for june, but, i mean, everything's cancelled, and it's been cancelled for so long, now, that there's not a lot left to review.
the most exciting shows that i could find were at the dso, so expect some classical write-ups, and perhaps not much else.
Thursday, June 4, 2020
i'm still hoping this is temporary, as i don't understand what's happened to the existing site. it seems to continue to exist, but i can't log into it. so, is it frozen? disabled? i've received no communication from them at all...
did i get hacked?
in the mean time, i've set up a new site. this is a sort of a test. i suppose that if the site ends up frozen like the other one, i'll know that noise trade has frozen it. but, if it doesn't, i'm going to start to wonder if i got hacked.
there are fake deathtokoalas out there, and some of them seem to be unhealthily obsessed about it.
my noise trade site has kind of evaporated, and i don't know what's going on with it. i've sent an email to the site requesting some further clarification as to why i can't log in and why the files are unavailable.
in the mean time, i've put the files up at a google drive share.
this is temporary, but i don't want the files to be unavailable while i figure out if i'm being censored, or if there's some kind of systems glitch.
i wasn't on noise trade very long before they got bought by paste, but i'm not a fan of paste, and don't particularly like the fact that they're hosting the files on amazon. so, it's not exactly my preferred hosting solution. the question is whether there's anything better out there or not.
i'm not going to whine and bitch and fight with the server mods, i'll just post somewhere else, and encourage people to follow me there. it's just that they haven't communicated with me in any way at all, so i don't actually know what's even going on.
for now, the files are here. enjoy.
and, buy something at bandcamp if you want to throw me some cash.
this is the end of this for a while, as i pivot back into period three.
but, here is the complete readable archive of this blog for the first reconstruction phase, from july, 2013 to january, 2014.
the second reconstruction phase ran from february 1, 2014 to the end of june, 2015, when i looped back around to remaster the inri material from source. while the politics and music journal sites are largely reconstructed over this period, i do not intend to get back to rebuilding the travel or dtk blogs in any systematic matter or doing music journal releases until (1) i am in a comfortable flow with the alter-reality and (2) i am finished with period three, which ran roughly from the time i got back from bc in 2003 to the time i moved into the apartment on bronson in 2007. journal releases for the foreseeable future are going to be dated from 1988 or 1989 forwards.
so, that's what's coming up.
but, i need to get through another 11 liner note releases, and update at least inri022, probably others. the coming re-releases are inri031-inri034, inri036-inri041 and inri045.
unfortunately, noise trade did not work out as a hosting solution, and i never got a clear answer as to why. but, i decided in the end that the site was full of ads and unworkable, anyways.
