This week arrived two absolutely astounding additions to our library. Each is a milestone in its own right so I’ll waste no time getting right to them.
The first is a modern classic from the legendary NinjaTune label. Originally released in 2004, Skalpel’s self-titled double LP was repressed through beatdelete in 2013. The DJs behind Skalpel, Marcin Cichy and Igor Pudło were dissatisfied with the humdrum music of their native Poland.
“The Polish music scene is very poor at the moment. Nothing really interesting happens. The majority of music on TV and radio is kind of ‘World Idol’. Very little individuality – just copies of American music.” (interview, R4NT.com)
Their response was to create their own sound – “resurrecting the dusty & smokey spirit of polish jazz of 60s and 70s, re-imagined for 21st century audiophiles.” (NinjaTune.net)
I’d nearly pre-ordered the 2013 180g 2LP beatdelete reissue when it was announced, but had let the opportunity pass. Thankfully, a member of one of the vinyl communities I frequent recently posted a shot of the album which inspired me to give it a second listen. I was camping at the time, but came prepared with my Sennheiser circumaural studio monitors. Around 11pm I laid back, closed my eyes, and lost myself to the album. The 5-wheel camper and fold-out mattress was instantly transformed into something more like this:
By the middle of the third selection, I’d already tracked down a sealed copy and processed my payment – certain that this was an essential for my library.
Mr Tim G – my sincere thanks for re-opening my ears to this album!
The second (and equally-outstanding) recording is a selection from minimalist composer, Terry Riley’s catalog. I already have A Rainbow in Curved Air, The Church of Anthrax (with John Cale), The Ten Voices of the Two Prophets, and know very well that I need his most-celebrated work – In C.
But this particular record – Persian Surgery Dervishes, had escaped my radar. It was only after I saw numerous copies surface among members of a social network that I decided this was something I needed to hear.
At first listen, I was completely enveloped in a wash of pulsing electric organ loops. Each side-long track sounds as if it were an exercise in the tape loop technique developed by Riley and Pauline Oliveros (later popularized by Fripp and Eno). However, the rapid, cyclic melodies heard on each side of the album are in reality two LIVE solo performances of Riley in LA and in Paris performing on a just-intoned Yamaha organ. Even more astounding is that the second performance sounds far different from the first, but is simply Riley demonstrating the importance of improvisation. The two recordings are each of the same composition.
Dervishes is beautifully meditative and is really an album you can loose yourself in. Like most great minimalist compositions, the listener loses their sense of time and the piece becomes the atmosphere of the room.
Special thanks to all of the users who posted their copies of this exceptional record – Andrew G, Tintin E, Andrew T, Luke B, Chris A, and likely many others!
Ladies and gentlemen – it has been an outstanding start to the new year.
I received an invitation this morning from the Music Director of the UB Symphony Orchestra to attend a local musical Happening.
Daniel Bassin conceived and organized the event which took place this afternoon, January 1st at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo.
The Happening united a number of musicians, some natives of the city and others from around the country. Together they performed Terry Riley’s iconic piece, “In C” in this, the 50th year since its composition.
The first recording of “In C” was produced with Riley and The Center of Creative and Performing Arts at SUNY-Buffalo in 1968 so it was a fitting selection to kick off the local Happenings series.
From Mr. Bassin’s event summary:
Part composition, part improvisation, never the same twice, and beautiful to experience in person in a fine acoustic like our church’s sanctuary, this piece was composed in 1964 and first recorded by the composer alongside Buffalo’s Creative Associates in 1968.
“In C” consists of 53 composed musical melodies and gestures which players are to perform sequentially with one another, but each individual only moves on from melody to melody on their own, thus creating musical textures which are alternatingly delicate and dense, lush and hypnotic.
In the spirit of the original Happenings of the 1960s, audience participation was encouraged, and several children in attendance enthusiastically manned tambourines and standing drums adding a free and youthful energy to the performance.
Children were happy to lend a hand!
The UUCB was a fantastic acoustic space for the event, and Bassin encouraged listeners to roam freely about the church to experience the various changes in sound perspectives. One guest was delighted to discover an inviting bass-pocket sensation by hanging her head between the church’s pews.
Overall the Happening was a great success. We joined the performers for lunch following the event and discussed Bassin’s plans for future Happenings, one of which will feature the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen.
I am honored to have been a part of the first of what I’m sure will be many successful performances. Mr. Bassin is providing a valuable contribution to the local music scene and I can’t wait to see what else 2015 will bring.
Anyone who follows this blog with any frequency knows how much of a stretch it is for me to dig a contemporary recording, let alone a modern track by a “band” instead of a composer. Even scarcer still are the selections I enjoy which contain lyrics and any sort of verse structure akin to rock.
The above is particularly applicable at present as I’ve spent the past week delving deep into the masterworks of musique concrete and electroacoustic composition – recordings which not only abandon contemporary pop structures like lyricism and melody, but forgo the entire tonal system itself, instead favoring abstract and atonal plunderphonics!
So it is with immense surprise and satisfaction that I state the following – A user contacted me on last.fm this week and shared an unsigned band’s recent video… and I absolutely loved it!
They call themselves Museum – four gents from Berlin who self-released their album, Traces Of on their own label – beat is murder.
Traces Of followed the release of two EPs – Exit Wounds and Old Firehand but the 2012 single “The Law” is the fan-recommended track which introduced me to their work. (They actually do the whole lowercase-sentence-fragment thing but I’ve capitalized their releases here for the sake of readability. Sorry lads.)
Their official site is inactive, simply stating that the album’s release is scheduled for Jul 6, 2012, however the band appears to be active with a performance scheduled at FiestaCity 2014 on Aug 29th – Place du Martyr, Verviers, Belgium.
This recording came onto my radar at quite an opportune time. The first thing I noticed from the first 20 seconds of the tune’s music video was that the band had incorporated elements of tape music and musique concrete as the very foundation of the track.
The lyrics did not detract from the layering of minimal, looped sounds, as they too were cut up in a fragmented presentation which would have made Burroughs proud. And while the kaleidoscopic video effect is nothing new, it works well with the track.
Check it out for yourself – “The Law” from Museum.
I began the week with the discovery of a historic jazz release in the Netherlands which should arrive in the post in the next 10 days (Stay tuned for a special feature with high-res photos once it arrives!)
I had been compiling data on the milestones of free jazz and was very happy to find one of them re-issued by Impulse! Records in 2011 – the same label which released the original recording in 1968.
The psychedelic cover art commanded my attention when I found it in a local record shop, and while I had never listened to Archie Shepp before I knew I had to check out this record.
I previewed it for a mere 30 seconds – whetting my sonic appetite with Shepp’s free jazz psychedelic tenor frenzy accompanied by five (count ’em – FIVE) talking drum percussionists. 30 seconds was all I needed.
I instantly purchased the record and added it to my jazz collection, delighted by my discovery but slightly irked that there was no mention of this album by any of the free jazz essentials lists I had compiled. That’s just further evidence that you’ve really got to get out there and dig.
But on to today’s theme – Music Lit. I knew it was going to be an intellectually stimulating week when I found Julian Cope’s legendary music crit, Krautrocksampler offered up on the Web in PDF format. As you’re probably aware, this title is long out of print and the author has sworn never to reissue it. Copies surface on various marketplaces for hundreds of dollars. Thankfully, a dedicated fan painstakingly scanned every page of the book, and while it is hardly archival quality, it is the only way most of us will ever see the book.
This will be a pleasure to peruse over the coming weeks, even in its crudely-photocopied form.
I picked up another jazz book from a local used bookshop as it was only a few dollars and I was curious to see what a writer would have to say about jazz in the middle of the era. The bulk of the text was written in 1962, with the “jazz-rock” chapter at the end likely added for the 1975 and 1979 printings.
Erlich’s perspective of jazz is hardly academic, and clearly it is not intended to be. The book’s approach is that of a simple love of the genre and acts as a guided tour through the history of its greatest influences, from African drum music to field hollers all the way up to the Third Stream and jazz-rock era.
From a historical context the book successfully builds a fundamental framework of jazz’s legacy. The language is elementary and makes for an effortless read, with a circular structure of artist introductions, childhoods, development, and lasting impacts.
However there are many titles available which better-examine what will soon be a century of jazz culture. There are very few references to What Jazz Is All About anywhere on the Web, and even fewer reviews. I’ve since moved on to better-known resources for further exploration of the genre.
The History of Jazz by Ted Gioia is Amazons’ best-selling jazz text. I’m enjoying it thus far, and was happy to see that it included a Recommended Listening index at the end of the book.
I also ordered two highly-acclaimed guides to 20th Century avant-garde music – The Rest is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century and Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music.
The Rest is Noise was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist and cracked the New York Times’ Top 10 Books of the Year. Audio Culture is a compiled volume of manifestos and writings from every music theorist from the first discussions of noise by Jacques Attali and Luigi Russolo to a piece about post-digital tendencies in contemporary computer music by microtonal composer Kim Cascone.
Best of all, Audio Culture includes a hefty index with a chronology of noteworthy recordings, a glossary and a Select Discography.
I also enjoyed watching a documentary film this week titled, In the Ocean – A Film About the Classical Avant Garde which sparked my further exploration of musique concrete.
One of the interesting things I took from the film was the discovery that Cage was really interested in Finnegans Wake (his 1979 mesostic composition, Roaratorio is entirely based upon the novel both in structure and in content.) And by delightful coincidence – what very title arrived in my mailbox just one day earlier?
The Law of Very Large Numbers is a beautiful thing in practice.
All these new music books inspired me to print up some appropriate bookmarks, so I made these… (extra points if you can name the jazz record which featured the Jackson Pollock print.)
So pick up the music books I’ve featured, check out Magic of Ju-Ju and I’ll be back next week with a fantastic new box set!
The Innerspace Connection 