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Archive for the ‘Evangelista’ Category

Abhishek Sharma, Anant Singh, Eshita Ghosh, Harsho Mohan Chattoraj, Sidharth Panwar–Munkeeman (2011)

Posted in Abhishek Sharma, Adventure, Anant Singh, Carla Bozulich, Constellation Records, Death, Delhi-6, Eshita Ghosh, Evangelista, Gorillas, Graphic Novel, Harsho Mohan Chattoraj, Mad Magazine, Short Books, Sidharth Panwar, Tere Bin Ladem, Violence on May 20, 2014| Leave a Comment »

1352113437munkeemanSOUNDTRACK: EVANGELISTA-Hello, Voyager [CST050] (2008).

helloThis is Carla Bozulich’s first “band” on Constellation. I didn’t really care for her solo album because it sounded way too all over the map.  She has brought in some great musician to rein her in somewhat and it really helps.  This album is still loose and wild and uncomfortable and at times hard to listen to and also really cathartic.  It feels like there is direction to the madness.

The first song is probably the least appealing.  It’s almost a free form poetry slam, but there’s enough incidental music to make it feel like there should be more.–the music doesn’t necessarily follow what’s going on, as if the musicians were told to do what they wanted but weren’t listening to her.

That improv feeling exists throughout the album, but the other songs feel like they have a structure and a melody which really really help.  Like “Smooth Jazz” in which the drums keep a loud steady beat which regulates the tempo and makes her screams all the more intense.  Or “Lucky Lucky Luck” in which a beautiful vocal melody and backing vocal combine with pulsing bass to make a platform for the noisy guitars.  “For The L’il Dudes ” is a creepy string quintet.  But “The Blue Room” is a full complex song with a captivating melody and strings that really work well.

“Truth Is Dark Like Outer Space” is a heavy rock song with great distortion, while “the Frozen Dress” brings back the creepy and spooky sounds. “Paper Kitten Claw” reunites those minimal sounds with a mellow melody.  It feature the great lyric (and theme) “Every time you see the word never, cross it out.”  The disc ends with “Hello, Voyager!” Crazy noises open this 12 minute ramble.  Carla sounds like a crazy preacher and by the end it’s just a free form chaotic mind fuck.  But in a good way.

It’s not always fun to see where Carla’s mind will take you but in this case the crazy trip is disturbingly fun.  Not for the faint of heart.

[READ: May 18, 2014] Munkeeman

This comic came across my desk and I was intrigued by it.  I’ve never read a graphic novel published in India (and written in English) before.  One thing that struck me about the drawing style was how dark (full of a lot of lines and very little white space) the book was.  It’s very busy, demanding a lot of attention.  I prefer my graphic novels to be a little more open and less claustrophobic (okay, I’ll say it, more “white”–racist!–meaning I like more white space in the drawings because I find the heavily drawn dark lines to be a little too busy for me).  But having said that, I enjoyed this style.  The details were always interesting to check out, especially the crowd scenes were Sharma has a lot of fun with background characters (it reminded me of Mad Magazine a bit).

At the same time I was also somewhat surprised at how conventional the story looked.  I don’t know what I was expecting–something more decisively Indian perhaps, but this could have come from an underground comic publisher anywhere.

This is all background to say how much I enjoyed this kind of twisted book.

Incidentally Sharma also directed a film called Tere Bin Laden which is a comedy about an Osama bin Laden double and which sounds quite funny.  I’m going to have to give that a try if I can find it.

So the book starts with an explanation about Munkeeman–he appeared (for real) as an unseen villain in the Hindi film Delhi-6 (which I’ve never seen).  You don’t need to see that movie to quickly learn that there was a villain (the Black Monkey) who is now getting his story told from his point of view.  Especially since the prologue fills you in that nobody ever got a full glimpse of him but he was referred to as The Munkeeman. (more…)

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Jason Scott-Warren–“Reading Graffiti in the Early Modern Book” (Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 73, No. 3, September 2010)

Posted in Banksy, Carla Bozulich, Constellation Records, Essays, Evangelista, Huntington Library Quarterly, Jan Van Eyck, Jason Scott-Warren, Research, Scholarship on May 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: EVANGELISTA-In Animal Tongue [CST082] (2011).

Evangelista is probably my least favorite band on the Constellation label.  I’m especially surprised/disappointed in this because I loved Carla Bozulich’s earlier bands.  I’ve said before that I find her vocals to be weirdly and wonderfully disconcerting.  And when it’s played over aggressive confident music it works wonders.  But when it’s paired with music that is also kind of abstract and untethered, it just sounds like a mess.

After that introduction, I’ll say that this album is their best release yet.  Her voice (the Constellation site suggests her melodies are “largely improvised” (!)) sounds like it always does–unsettling, haunting, compelling, drawing you into whatever world she is invoking.   The title track is the most intriguing–the music is subdued, drawing you in even more.   “Black Jesus” is also compelling in that it is one of her more subtle releases.

“Bells Ring Fire” has the catchiest section, practically a singalong.  “Die Alone” reverts back to that old nebulous style where there’s just nothing to grab on to.  Indeed, “Enter the Prince” and “Hatching” both have interesting sound effects (especially “Hatching”) but they’re not really compelling as songs.

I think the real problem with these songs is that they’re all too long.  Since they don’t have any hooks in them, since there’s nothing to really grab you and make you want to like them, having them come in around 5 minutes is just too much to ask of the listener.  Some of these songs would be inetresting for two or three minutes, but by 5 I’ve given up.

Check it our for yourself here

[READ: May 15, 2012] “Reading Graffiti in the Early Modern Book”

This may be the most current scholarly article I have read from JSTOR.  Part of the fun of reading the JSTOR scholarly articles is that they are usually old enough that you can have either a) contemporary knowledge about what the author got right or wrong or b) a fun nostalgia based upon the word choices or references that are in the text.  So with this one, which is not even two years old, there’s neither of those possibilities.  What’s also interesting is how the article is clearly current–the references that Scott-Warren uses are contemporaneous (“the Banksy of his day?”)

So what is this article about anyhow?  Well, Scott-Warren looks at the notes and scribbles that people have written in their books.  But not just your average textbook or library book, he goes back very far to the “early modern” period and sees that people have been graffiting their books since there were books.  He mentions how anyone studying books from that era will see all kinds of things on the pages of the book, from scribbles to pressed flowers to even the rust outline of scissors.  But he wants to focus on what people have written.  And he wants to see of any of these notations are comparable to graffiti in the current sense of the word.

He discusses current definitions (including tagging) to explain that graffiti is all about saying “I am here.”  (He even interviews a graffiti artist named Claw).  Then he goes back to 1434 and sees a Latin inscription from Jan van Eyck on his painting Arnolfini Double Portrait that more or less says “Jan van Eyck has been here.”  Although it is his own painting it has a feel of graffiti, of making a public note that you exist.  Similar inscriptions can be found in many books of the period as well.  There is a 1565 edition of a book with a heavily flourished signature, there’s a 1548 edition book with a doodle that may include a self-portrait.  There’s even a bible that has been inscribed by every member of the family (daughter Mildred’s is stunningly ornate).  Another book has the owner’s signature about fifty times throughout the book.  Are these words to the world?  Public notations?  or something else?

Scott-Warren wonders if these markings can be considered “pen-trials”–pens were hard to use back then, the ink was homemade and paper was scarce.  Another possibility is that they were an attempt to prove and expand on literacy.  A third possibility was ownership. Like the graffiti in a 1685 Indian Bible, written in Massachusett: “I Nannahdinnoo, this is my book…I, I Nannahdinnoo, own this forever.  Because I bought it with my money”

I especially enjoyed the book that had written, under the name Walter Vaughn, “This book belongs not to Walter Vaughn but to James Vaughn because his later father John Vaughn gave this book in his last will and testament to the same James Vaughn and therefore the said James is the true owner of the book” (1582).

In addition to the I of graffiti Scott-Warren looks at the “was here” aspect.  In a 1549 History of Italy, there is an inscription noting that the owner had been to Venice.

The key to all of this seems to be its public-ness.  Some inscriptions were prayers that were clearly meant for others to read.  In another case, the person wrote his opinion about the booksmith where the book was purchased.  There’s even some graffiti that is like trash talking of others.

I enjoyed this article because there were lots of pictures of the inscriptions, although i could have used a few more, frankly.  It was also curious to think about why people wrote things in books long ago–who exactly did they think would be reading their copy of a book?  Was it just a public act of disobedience at a time when a public act had to be very self-contained?

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Padgett Powell–“Afraid to be Men” (Harper’s, June 2010)

Posted in Carla Bozulich, Constellation Records, Evangelista, Fears, Funny (strange), Harper's, Padgett Powell, Short Story on May 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: EVANGELISTA-Prince of Truth [CST061] (2009).

This is the second disc by Evangelista, the band fronted by Carla Bozulich. This disc continues in the vein or the previous disc, which is a little disappointing.

The disc is chock full of a lot of noise: stringed instruments, textures, layers, but they all add up to very little.  Bozulich’s voice is in another location entirely.  On most of the songs, there’s no real connection.

Two songs in the middle, “You Are a Jaguar,” and “Iris Didn’t Spell” are more reasonable attempts where Bozulich’s wild vocals are wedded to a more standard musical composition.  And those tracks work pretty well.  But when there’s so much directionless stuff floating around on the disc, it’s hard to want to listen to it.

[READ: May 25, 2010] “Afraid to be Men”

This is a conversation between two men.  They are given no context and are speaking abstractly.  These two things combines make for a less than satisfying read.

Admittedly, this piece is excerpted from a longer piece called “Manifesto.”  I’m not planning to read the longer piece, so I’ll never find out of context is given. (more…)

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