ecrits bla bla bla

(((Actual writing)))

The Secret - Solve et Coagula/ 

2010/ 

Southern Lord

Some frequent visitors might find the predeliction for metal in this blogthing a little puzzling: indeed, compared to the more-ahem- “cerebral” chin-stroking pursuits of sound art, lowercase improv, electronic music, jazz, phonograpy, etc —-it may seem out of place.

But not really: heavy music was the first love. There’s a history of growing up an angry punk/hardcore kid in the cold Canadian prairies that helped the author inform his take on things. Specifically, that stretch of years when your friend in the hallway at school asks what you’re listening to on your walkman, you hand over your headphones only to have them thrown back at you in horror/disgust after five seconds with any variation of “Oh my god, you actually listen to that shit?!” Let’s just say between that and CBC’s Brave New Waves things opened up sonically at an early age, and like a young man should, the pursuit of more and more extreme music like Merzbow and the skronkiest of free jazz and etc (“The etc” running the gamut from detroit techno to gabber to ambient to drone to modern composers) was to follow.

In its wake came an appreciation for all (well, almost all) things musical: when you’ve experienced, say, the harshest of Japanese noise in one fucked-up headphone sitting and come out feeling changed, you discover a willingness to get taken so far off of the scale of what “music” is supposed to be, that everything else opens up, including an appreciation for silence, nuance and subtlety.  Some buddhist said something to the effect of music being nothing but a continual series of rising and falling, and from an inquisitive perspective, all bets are off in terms of what’s “valid” to listen to, and it becomes a matter of discernment. It’s just music, sound, whatever- either I feel it or I don’t.

So. This album will deffo fit squarely in the Year-End List that comes in about 6 weeks’ time. How to describe? In terms of reviewing metal albums there’s the usual formula: make sure to use as many stock adjectives as possible: brutal, punishing, crushing, etcetera- but in this case, Italy’s The Secret brings a noise that transcends the usual descriptors, and I’m left with nothing but cheap references:

Think the vicious live feel of Converge’s “No Heroes” taken up a notch combined with the cathartic (and I meen rattle-the-core-of-your-being-cathartic as opposed to Hatebreed-style-chest-thumping-cathartic) release of Neurosis and there’s a start. The press release spiels it thusly:

“…an output for rage, darkness and negativity, combin(ing) elements of crust/grind, primitive black metal, dark soundscapes and monolithic riffs to take the listener by the hand through an hallucinated trip towards a foggy and yet invisible tomorrow. …Definitely essential for sick fiends into raw, true, filthy crust. their sonic interpretation of a total loss of faith in social system, religion, personal redemption and every institution. “

So, um, yeah-  it’s an intense listen. Fucking ugly, really. And exhilarating. Perhaps because they’re plumbing the depths of nihilism and self destruction so you don’t have to, or at least putting on a good show of it so that whatever comes out on record moves beyond yer basic rarrrghhh’n’blearghhhhh.  Like the aforementioned Converge and Neurosis, there’s something pure, almost diamond-like: the album as a back-to-front listen offers a succession of vajra thunderbolt lightning claps, if I may get Tibetan-flakey and esoteric on you for the fun of it. This blog comes to you from the West Coast, after all, and I’m in a pretentious mood.

Aaaaanyways, maybe you’ll like it. Or not. Still, hats off to Southern Lord for consistently fostering upper-tier brutality and doom that leaves me picky about most other heavy music, and kudos for recognizing that heaviness done well is something organic, incalculable: an odd alchemy of forces that goes beyond simple chops and riffage.

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Cleo & Patra - Marcus Antonius On The Run

We’re not huge fans of the edit over here.  

In theory, it sounds great: Take an old gem apart and piece it back together for the floor circa now- but often,  the end result can be less than spectacular, which is a shame sometimes: especially since over at SolarFlares there isn’t the time nor the inclination to take amazing jams that fade out at the 2-1/2 minute mark and give them the extension they so rightly deserve (Think Suicide’s “Ghost Rider” or Spencer Davis Group’s “I’m a Man”—- both heavy hypnotic grooves where it seems like a crime that they wrap up so quickly).

Anyways.

The occasional edit does it right: Take the original, honor it by bumping up the best parts of the song and recreate it as something stronger, leaner, meaner.

Today’s track is exemplary: The mystery duo reworks legendary Paradise Garage hit You Got Me Running” by Lenny Williams, creating what we consider to be the bomb track of the year. Take the bass line, dirty it up even more over a hint of housey percussion, bring extra oomph to the kick drum, and let it work voodoo on the hips.  Larry Levan would be proud.

Expect to hear this at any future SolarFlares DJ gigs, preferably mixed in with some Super Discount, Motorbass or anything else wiz zat French Touch. 

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Zangetsu ／残月 - Nanae Yoshimura

Depending on your own sensibilities (and if you took that “Intro to Post-Colonial Theory: Ethnography and Empire” seminar class way back in second year of university), global music can be weighed down with a lot of baggage.

The problem with listening to a lot of traditional Japanese music is one of association: Gagaku can sound samey-samey until you actually concentrate on it. Shamisen-of which there are many varieties- seems indistinguishable until you do your research, and know the contexts behind each kind. Shakuhachi seems irrevocably tied to an appropriated, baby-boomer Westernized version of zen.

Koto music in particular is funny: its place in Western Culture has always seemed to siginify “Japanese-ness” with a capital-J, in almost Orientalist terms along with the taiko drum rumble or shakuhachi trill for effect in anime and samurai movies.  Composers like Toru Takemitsu in particular helped flip that for me, with his emphasis on merging Western approaches (including musique concrete and taking cues from modern composition as the film required it) with familiar Japanese tropes.

Growing up, Koto for me was always associated with the piped-in music that Japanese restaurants used in order to give it a more “authentic” vibe. Then I started to really listen: Koto music live, in particular is worth your while. Similar to some classical players, there can be a certain twist in their performance, a level of soulfulness that they lend to the instruments’ more traditional, stuffy aspects—- something that transcends its own historical weight while honouring its lineage at the same time. 

Anyways, this album is outstanding, and halfway in, this track does the same as above: it evolves into something that goes beyond a particular nations’ court music, while keeping its identity intact. During certain passages, I’m sure acoustic guitar boffins out there can hear echoes of the aptly-named Robbie Basho, and even John Fahey.

Ok, enough from me. Enjoy. 

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Infinity Factory Interview w/ Genesis P-Orridge

theunquietskull:

I remember, back in the days when I only had a modem, I’d discover hints and traces on the internet of shows that existed somewhere on VHS cassettes, clips that were almost impossible for me to watch, because it took almost a day to download and then it was still the size of a postage stamp. If the internet didn’t spaz out, that is, and I had to start again.

One of those shows was the Infinity Factory. After the jump, Genesis P-Orridge interviewed by Richard Metzger, I guess somewhere around 2000-ish…??? 

The info itch is an amazing thing when something grabs hold of you and you work with whatever’s at hand: modem, P.O. box, wireless….

I remember back in the day, around high school when I didn’t have internet in a cold city with no college radio and would stay up late listening to Brave New Waves: Zoviet:France and Psychic TV’s Themes 2 invading my dreamspace at 3 in the morning on a schoolnight. Having to tape-trade with people all over the world, mailorder zines, send IRC’s and wait 9 weeks for xeroxed TOPY literature to show up in the mail from some PO Box in Colorado, every record side taped onto a Maxell C-90 was some sort of powerful secret missive. It all felt so wonderfully hermetic and I loved being privy to it.

That said, yay internet all the same. Vuze is running as I type, the podcast folder is doing its’ weekly auto-refill. 

Question:

Does a shorter wait time for something reduce its’ magickal value? Or does anticipation, a long wait make things all the more precious when they materialize? Does it depend on the content? 

Just curious.

 va - deutsche elektronische musik (soul jazz)

Yeah, everyone’s probably tired of the neue-alte-kosmische-prog-motorik rehash and so forth, everything that could be unearthed or reissued has been uneathed and reissued but this comp is particularly solid.

You know when a friend would make you a mix tape/cd (remember those?) with a bunch of songs you already had on it, but something strange happened: the songs you already heard a thousand times were removed from your own familiar experience/context (eg: the album, your own mixes) where they got to rub up against strangers and in turn, you could listen to these old saws again- not exactly afresh but with a layer of familiarity peeled off….

This is all to say that this comp is well-curated: when the repeaters pop up, there’s little in the way of “Groannn, Veterano/Heisse Lippen/Hallo Gallo again?!?”

Worth your while.

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Tense Equality Problem -Men’s Recovery Project

via The Golden Triumph of Naked Hostility (VMFM 40, 1998)

So many to choose from when it comes to hardcore’s influential golden absurdists.

Influential? You bet. Pedigree: Vermiform records, Born Against, Sam McPheeters. Nuff said.

More? 

“In the early 1990’s, the independent/DIY music world was a very serious place. Enter MRP, intent on pulling the pants down and spoiling the soup of all that was well and good. When no one wanted guitars to sound like puking pigs, they did it … when synthesizers were being thrown out and ridiculed, they dressed up like Patrick Henry and ate them. The world was retarded and they were the geniuses.Formed in 1993 by Sam McPheeters and Neil Burke , M.R.P. was a signature live act of the Parkinson’s Generation.Men’s Recovery Project have released over 200 songs on thirteen records and have toured seven times across the lower 48, Alaska and Japan.”

Down the road, I hear MRP’s synthed-out sickness in The Locust and especially in the LIghtning Bolt/Load/Paperrad aesthetic: big loud, brutal caveman pound but in RGB/neon colours with art school to back it all up.

I would have just posted a vinyl rip of side A of one of their 7”ers in its entirety, but that little piece of history was taken in a B&E five years ago.  I thought of patching a string of my favourite blasts together in Audacity. Pass: pain in the ass.

Nope, you get one short song.

One of the reasons why I haven’t posted anything by the Locust, AxCx, or from Napalm Death’s landmark whirlwind grindocaust gwarrggghhh masterpiece Scum is because when it comes to daily audio posts up in this tumblr there can only be one.

Annoying? Maybe, but quality control isn’t supposed to not hurt. Anyways, I would like the post to be more than 20 seconds long. So the challenge is to find the most structurally-sound blast of spit and reflux, the best representative, especially for the uninitiated who might be listening, state a case, find that hook instead of just a half minute of WRRGHHKKKKKZKKKZKKRKKKZKKZGGGWARRRRGHHHH.

TL/DR: It doesn’t really matter. Lissen up.

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