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Archive for the ‘Stereolab’ Category

Jonathan Franzen–“A Rooting Interest” (New Yorker, February 13 & 20, 2012)

Posted in Anachronisms, Book Reviews, Clinic, Edith Wharton, Essays, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, Stereolab, Technology, The Who on March 13, 2012| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: CLINIC-Funf (2007).

I received this disc when it was donated to our library.  Clinic is an art-punk band from Liverpool.  This is a collection of B-Sides (that’s an unusual place to start when you’ve never heard a band before). As such, it’s hard to tell if this is what the band sounds like or if these are crazy experiments (because the songs are pretty crazy).  Even if they are experiments, they’ve got me very interested in hearing what the rest of their stuff sounds like.  And since these songs are all over the map I’m still not sure what their albums may sound like.

There are twelve songs on the record: only three are over 3 minutes long, the rest are just over 2 minutes (with a couple under 2 minutes).  This whole collection is under half an hour.  And yet it feels like they take you all over the place, music-wise.  The collection covers from 1999-2007, but they’re not in chronological order, so you can’t even tell if any of this is a progression in musical styles or just a bunch of experiments.  The willful obscurity is quite exciting.

“The Majestic” is a grand, building monstrosity.  It is full of pomp, which is immediately deflated by the slightly off-key organ.  “Nicht” is a 180 degree turn—a blistering hardcore song. It’s played very fast and yet it is not sloppy (and it’s 90 seconds long).  “Christmas” flips the sound again, with a delicate, slow song about, yes, Christmas.  “The Castle” has a lot of organ sounds, which reminds me of early weirder Who songs and even Stereolab.  “You Can’t Hurt You Anymore” is an instrumental (with cowbell!).  “Dissolution” has a distorted guitar and tribal drums.  It breaks after a few riffs to showcase some bizarre distorted spoken words.

Speaking of lyrics.  A lyric sheet is included which is very helpful because the lyrics are utter nonsense: “Pork pie had to know uncle now you can elope” “Diktat no fat fun eyebrow shhhh for the one and the one with horrors”  “Cheat the bored, cheat thee sup at the toast.”  I suspect they are just making sounds while they play and then figuring out what the words might be later.

“Magic Boots” returns to that punk sound with distorted guitar solos at the front (and distorted vocals in the back).  “The Scythe” has a kind of western guitar feel (simple, but interesting).  “Lee Shan” is the slowest song on the disc (spoken/chanting vocals are low in the mix).  “J.O.” is a slow keyboard song.  “Circle I” is another blistering noisy punk song. The collection ends with “Golden Rectangle” which is a slowish surf-sounding song, but with keyboards.

It amazes me that this band has so many full length records out.  They must have a cult following, even though I’d never heard of them before.  I’d really like to check out what their main releases sound like.

[READ: March 11, 2012] “A Rooting Interest”

Hot on the heels of Jonathan Fraznen saying he hates Twitter, I get to read how much he loves Edith Wharton.

It’s no secret that Franzen is a curmudgeon–he is an emotional guy who believes in authenticity; there is absolutely no surprise that he would hate Twitter.  And, while I think Twitter is good for some things, he is absolutely correct when he says, “Twitter stands for everything I oppose…it’s hard to cite facts or create an argument in 140 characters…it’s like if Kafka had decided to make a video semaphoring The Metamorphosis.”  [Actually I’m not sure that that simile is apt, but I get the point.]

He may be a little overstepping with the rest: “Or it’s like writing a novel without the letter ‘P’…It’s the ultimate irresponsible medium … People I care about are readers…particularly serious readers and writers, these are my people. And we do not like to yak about ourselves.”  I think there is some fun to be had yakking about ourselves, but the point is well taken.

It also seems quite appropriate for this article in The New Yorker in which he lauds a writer who wrote almost one hundred years ago. (more…)

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Max Barry–“How I Met My Daughter” (The Bulletin, December 18, 2007-January 8, 2008)

Posted in Babies, Max Barry, Stereolab, The Beatles, The Bulletin, Unlikable main character on March 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: STEREOLAB-Chemical Chords (2008).

You never really know what you’re going to get with Stereolab. Well, that’s not entirely true, you know you’re going to get some unusual sounding loungey keyboard songs with lyrics that are either in French or in highly accented English.  But beyond that each Stereolab album tends to go in its own direction.

Chemical Chords creates its own poppy bouncy bliss, making it one of their most approachable albums.  “Neon Beanbag” even features the chorus: “there’s nothing to be sad about” over a set of the bounciest keyboard riffs around.  “Three Women” has a brisk pace and some bright horns.   “One Finger Symphony” has a minor key and as lightly sinister tone (but it’s only 2 minutes long).

The title track has some cool echoed vocals and a wonderful break in the song that allows a sweet little string section to sneak through.  “The Ecstatic Static” is another pulsing song that seems alive somehow and “Valley Hi!” is a short darker piece with cool sound effects.

“Silver Sands” is a wonderfully bubbly pop song–the kind that Stereolab does so well, with vocals that seem like they might belong to another song.  “Pop Molecule” is a great minor key instrumental, which is a nice introduction to the super pop of “Self Portrait with ‘Electric Brain'” another bubbly song with a cool break in it.  “Nous Vous Demandons Pardon” opens with a martial beat before it settles down into a groovy song with French lyrics.

“Daisy Click Clack” shows off Stereolab’s totally unexpected lyrics:  “Snap snap snap snap with your fingers/Off beat on time make it linger/Enriching the rhythm/Do away with skepticism/Come and join the hymn, tap/Sensing the symbiotic force.”  From nonsense to the sublime in just a few short lines.

The final song “Vortial Phonotheque” reminds me of “I am the Walrus” in the music, but the gentle lyrics change the tone completely.  It’s a wonderful disc full of all of the bright sounds Stereolab does so well.  This would be their second to last disc before they went on a hiatus.

[READ: February 28, 2012] “How I Met My Daughter”

Two baby stories in a row!

Those following closely think that I was done with Max Barry last week.  But there was one final piece for me to read.  Technically this doesn’t make the last post wrong because although this story was on his website, it was also published in a magazine called The Bulletin.

If I thought that last week’s “Cement” story was dark, it’s nothing compared to this one!  Barry, while a somewhat violent writer (his last book was all about surgical procedures), is usually quite funny as well.  But this story eschews all humor for a walk through the dark side of man’s nature.

It opens with this incredibly dark couple of sentences:

They dragged this bloody, howling thing from my wife’s abdomen, its limbs twitching and clawing, its face like an angry pumpkin, and asked me, “Do you want to take a photo?”

Yes. I want to take a photo, so I can look back on the end of my life.

This story explores the feeling that men apparently have when their baby is born–jealousy at the lack of attention they will now receive.  I didn’t experience this at all and frankly it seems like a fictional thing to me, because I don’t know of any men who felt real jealousy of their babies.  But it makes for an interesting story. (more…)

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Five Dials Number 20: General Interest (25 July 2011)

Posted in Advice, Alain de Botton, Austin City Limits, Books about writers, Craig Taylor, David Foster Wallace, Doni Gewirtzman, Essays, Five Dials, Gang Starr, Jeremy Gavron, Jon McGregor, Jonathan Safran Foer, Keith Ridgway, Kirsty Gunn, Mark Dow, Memoirs, Niven Govinden, NPR/PRI/PBS, Short Story, Stereolab, Them Crooked Vultures, Word usage on September 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:THEM CROOKED VULTURES-Live on Austin City Limits, Feb 13, 2010 (2010).

This set from Them Crooked Vultures is outstanding. I really like the album, but in a live setting these three (technically 4) guys are on fire.  They extend the songs a bit but are always tight as a drum.  Josh Homme is a great front man, even if he’s not that animated.  He shares guitar duties with Alain Johannes who is not on the album, but who gets some great sounds out of his guitar.

Dave Grohl is in his drum-pounding glory back there.  Man, he hits the drums hard.  And he seems to be really enjoying himself .

 And the biggest surprise (sort of, but not really) is John Paul Jones.  He fits in perfectly with the two younguns, and he really shows them how it’s done.  His bass work is phenomenal: fast, furious and accurate to a fault.  He also plays keyboards, an LED pulsing 12-(at least) string bass and a fascinating purple electric slide guitar contraption on “Nobody Loves Me and Neither Do I”.   Matt Rosoff from cnet explains this guitar here:

It looked like some sort of slide guitar with an electronic screen. I’d never seen anything like it before, so I did a little digging and found out from a March interview in Bass Player that it’s a custom-made axe created by Hugh Manson, who has been Jones’ tech for some time and who owns a renowned guitar shop in England. It’s essentially laid out like a lap slide guitar, modified so Jones can sling it over his shoulder and carry it around on stage, and with two extra bass strings at the bottom.

So what about that rectangular screen? According to a forum post on the EMG pickups site, it’s a MIDI controller that Jones can use to trigger stage lights. I imagine it could also be used to trigger various effects, similar to the modified Korg Kaoss controller that Manson built into a guitar for Muse’s Matt Bellamy.

If you’re already a fan of the band, you really need to check out this live show; they are amazing.  And if you’re not a fan, you will be after this show.  This is how I first heard  them and I was blown away.

You can watch the show online on PBS.

[READ: July 27, 2011] Five Dials Number 20

I didn’t expect to get caught up to Five Dials issues so quickly (has it really been 20 weeks already?).  This is the most recently releases issue!  They aren’t getting published as often as I expected.  Which is fine.  But the funny thing with this issue is that there were several printing errors in the initial run of this issue.  I don’t know if this has happened before, but it seemed so noticeable to me, that I had to wonder how it slipped by everyone.  The most obvious was that the front page had many ƒƒƒƒ characters (these were also evident in the Word Cloud later on).  There’s a word missing from the fiction “the thin cold stillness you got [  ] this part of the country” and there’s a crazy typo in the Fiction story later on. The errors have now been fixed.  But, the letter to the editor (and this has not been fixed) promises us a picture which isn’t there. “Here’s a photo of Doni at the reading – he did a brilliant job.”  I’ll assume they were partying too hard at the Port Eliot Festival to make sure  the issue was launch-ready

CRAIG TAYLOR-A Letter from the Editor: On Cable Street and General Interests
There were some serious race riots on Cable Street back in 1936.  Indeed,the head of the British Union of Fascists, Mosley, and his aggressive supporters were turned back by a noisy crowd (Irish women throwing fishy potatoes at them).  The rest of the magazine he says is general Interest, an anachronistic term from the 20th century before all magazines had to specialize in something.  I mentioned in my introduction that there was a photo error here.  Doni Gewirtzman performed a reading at the launch of Five Dials 19.  They couldn’t out the picture there, so they added it here.  Perhaps in Issue 21? (more…)

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Keith Ridgway–“Goo Book” (New Yorker, April 11, 2011)

Posted in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cibo Matto, Fears, Gangsters, New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, Stereolab on May 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CIBO MATTO-“Sugar Water” (1996).

We have been rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  In episode one of season two the (then) hip band Cibo Matto appeared, playing “live” at the Bronze.  It was the first time they had a “real” band on the show.  In season one there was an occasional live band, Sprung Monkey (they were in the first episode pretty prominently) but Cibo Matto were the first “national” band–with a hit single or two–to be on the show (and look, there’s Sean Lennon in a dress!).  The song works pretty well here for the atmospherics and moodiness.

I really liked Cibo Matto when they came out.  Sure, they were kind of a novelty, (two Japanese singers with an Italian band name who sung a bunch about food) but then the late 90s were all about novelty.  Of course, even within the realm of the alt rock 90s, a song called “Know Your Chicken” was pretty unusual (noisy and weird) .  “Sugar Water” on the other hand, is a moody piece.  It’s slow with delicate keyboards and a (very mildly) spooky verse.  But the overall feel is a kind of “space age” one for notes and tones.  It also has a kind of Stereolab-vibe (especially in the la las).   It’s a catchy song and I enjoyed hearing it again after all thee years.

Not to mention the video is suitably curious.

[READ: April 8, 2011] “Goo Book”

This is a strangely sentimental story for one that starts out with the sentence: “It was fucking hot.”  In fact, the story is strangely sentimental for a story about a gangster’s apprentice (and one which has so much cursing!).

The protagonist is a young man who is a petty thief.  Mostly he steals from tourists (I was pleased that when he took he thought was a wallet but which turned out to be a notebook, he then gave the book to a kid to make sure the tourist got it back–stealing money is one thing but returning the notebook showed a decency that I approved of).

But he also worked for Mishazzo as his driver. (And I have to admit that perhaps the one flaw of the story is that I couldn’t follow the timeline at all).  Mishazzo is a gentleman who owns a lot of businesses.  And the driver was told explicitly that he didn’t know anything.  At all.  He just drove.  And the driver was fine with that.  He asked no questions.  And the driving was fine–usually to one of Mishazzo’s coffee shops for an undetermined  length of time.  So he started carrying a bottle with him in case he had to pee (he wasn’t allowed to leave the car), and started smoking like a fiend.  But the money was good, and he honestly didn’t know what Mishazzo was up to (he assumed it wasn’t good, but he also assumed it wasn’t that bad either). (more…)

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William T. Vollmann–“A Good Death: Exit Strategies” (Harper’s, November 2010)

Posted in Death, Drugs, Essays, Fears, Harper's, Religion, Stereolab, Suicide, William T. Vollmann on December 18, 2010| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: STEREOLAB-“Everybody’s Weird Except Me” (2010).

I was able to listen to another track from the upcoming Stereolab album Not Music.  This song is just fantastic.  It’s a faster, uptempo track.   Laetitia’s voice is backed by some other female singers (I wonder who they are, is it just Laetitia multitracked?).  And the propulsive beat is infectious.  The backing track of the music sounds like their earlier experiments with “space age” sounds.  Yet the guitar over the top is warm and inviting.

The song drops out at about the 90 second mark and offers a very cool respite from the bopping around that the song is doing.  After the break, the song seems to jump back and forth between this new mellow bit and the bouncy earlier part.  It’s a great track and a welcome opening to their last CD before going on hiatus.  Because, yes, according to the information on the NPR page, Stereolab is going on hiatus.

This CD is full of songs that were created around the time of their previous disc Chemical Chords, and it’s also packed with mixes, remixes and seemingly alternate version of some of those songs.  I haven’t heard the whole disc but it sounds like they’re going out with a winner.

[READ: November 15, 2010] “A Good Death: Exit Strategies”

I’ve mentioned before about my reader-relationship with Vollmann–I feel that I ought to read a lot more of him, yet I haven’t brought myself to do it (those books are huge!).  Nevertheless, I’ll keep reading the new pieces that I stumble upon.

So this piece is a nonfiction essay.  I’m tempted to say it’s more personal than the other pieces that I’ve read because it concerns the death of his father.  Yet from the little Vollmann I have read, it feels like he takes all of his writings very personally and invests himself pretty much bodily into them.

So, this piece, as I said, is sort of about the death of his father.  He died just a few months ago and Vollmann wants to find out a number of answers about death: should he be afraid of it, will he suffer, what should he expect?  So he interviews several “experts” in different fields:  coroners, funeral directors and many religious people of different faiths (Vollmann and his companion/translator are agnostic).  He’s given a vast array of answers, some of which are comforting to him and others just kind of piss him off. (more…)

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Barry Hannah–“Rangoon Green” (Harper’s, November 2010)

Posted in Barry Hannah, Esquivel, Funny (strange), Harper's, Huh?, Short Story, Stereolab on December 17, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: STEREOLAB: “So is Cardboard Clouds” (2010).

I’ve been listening to Stereolab for something like 15 years now.  They are definitely a “have to been in the mood” kind of band.  Their music is a blend of electronica, especially krautrock, but with an Esquivel/bachelor pad twist.  And, of course half of the songs are sung in French (and are often about politics).

Aside from a few stylistic decisions over the years, the band hasn’t changed very much in style (or substance).  And yet, each new disc is a cause for curiosity.  Will it be long and meandering electronic booping music or short and catchy electronic booping music.

NPR had a preview of their new CD Not Music until basically the day before I clicked on the link (I must subscribe to these new release streams).  But I was able to listen to a couple of songs.  The first I chose was “So is Cardboard Clouds”.

It’s almost four minutes and opens simply and quietly with a repeated motif under Laetitia Sadier’s vocals.  (One of the fun things about Stereolab is never knowing if Laetitia is singing in French or English.  Her enunciation of English words is so peculiar that it’s not always evident that she’s actually speaking/singing English until you read the liner notes.

At about the two-minute mark, the song jumps into a far more rocking style.  It sounds like horn blasts repeated over and over at a fairly fast clip.  And this sets the tone for the speedier second half of the song.  Then the rocking part and the bubbly beats merge until the end which is all instrumental.

Musically, there’s nothing as much fun as a song that catches you off guard, and the tone shift one certainly does.  Even after a couple of listens, that switch to the faster section comes as a surprise.  Each parts of the song highlights the different aspects of  Stereolab’s styles and they’re throwing in enough newness to keep it interesting.

[READ: November 14, 2010] “Rangoon Green”

I’ve never heard of Barry Hannah before; he evidently died in March.  This story will come from his final collection of stories.  And I wanted to like it.  I really did.

The epigram was quite enticing: “Rangoon Green, trophy holder third place in the national storyteller telloff.  Murfreesboro, Tennessee 2011”

The story then begins with Rangoon himself telling how pissed he is that he came in third.  Again.  Obviously, he explains, the first place winner slept with a judge and the second place winner was a local so of course there was cheating there.

I was really getting into this idea of a storyteller telling a story about losing a storytelling contest.  But then it want pear- shaped, with talk of arson and fireworks and all kinds of things and man it went on for a long time. (more…)

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Stephen Marche–“Lucy Hardin’s Missing Period” (The Walrus, November 2010)

Posted in Beck, Bjork, Canadian Content, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Funky Web Sites, Pregnancy, Sex, Short Story, Sinéad O'Connor, Stephen Marche, Stereolab, Technology, The Walrus on December 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG-IRM (2009).

Charlotte Gainsbourg is Serge Gainsbourg’s daughter.  Segre is, of course, known for his risqué songs–although Charlotte doesn’t fall into that same camp.

This is her third album.  Her first was released when she was 13.  The second was recorded with the band Air.  This album was written by and recorded with Beck.  And it’s a fantastic forum for her wonderfully complex voice and also just a great album of varying styles and textures.

IRM is the French abbreviation for MRI (she had a life threatening accident and was subject to many MRI’s). In fact, track two, called “IRM” is an electronic workout with sounds not unlike what you might hear in an MRI.  But the album is very diverse, from whispering vocals to soaring altos.  She has some scary/creepy songs as well as some sultry tracks.  Gainsbourg is also an actress and I like to think that her skills in film have allowed her to inhabit so many characters in these songs.

“Le Chat Du Café Des Artistes” (written by Jean-Pierre Ferland) is the only cover on the disc, and man is it great.   Whether it’s the French lyrics, which add a cool Stereolab-ish feel to the proceedings or the outstanding keyboards which are creepy and alluring at the same time, I don’t know, but this song alone makes the disc worthwhile.

Luckily there’s a lot more great songs here, too.  “Heaven Can Wait” is a duet with Beck (although really, Beck takes the lead).  It sounds like a great Beck track with a stomping acoustic guitar feel.

“Me and Jane Doe” follows with a sound like it belongs on the Juno soundtrack.  It gives Gainsbourg a great opportunity to show of her vocal tricks, since she sings with a flatly American accent.  “Vanities” is a beautiful string-filled track which emphasizes Gainsborugh’s voice (and has a kind of Bjorkian symphonic sound to it().

“Trick Pony” is a heavy electronic dance track, bringing an amazing sonic change to the proceedings of the disc.  And “Greenwich Mean Time” is a nasty sounding song where Gainsbourg is not afraid a to sneer at the listener.

The disc ends with “Dandelion,” a kind of slow blues, “Voyage,” a tribal track  (sung in French) and “La Collectionneuse,” which is not sung in French, but which is a piano based song that kind of creeps along on the edge of sinister.  The end of the song has spoken French words at the end and it sounds not unlike an early Sinéad O’Connor song

It’s rare that you hear an album full of so much diversity which actually holds together so well.  Gainsbourg doesn’t have an amazing voice or a voice that makes you go “wow,” but what she has is a really good voice that she can manipulate to convey a lot of styles, and I think that may be more impressive than an eight-octave range.

[READ: November 4, 2010] “Lucy Hardin’s Missing Period”

It’s hard to talk about this story as a story because of the gimmick that is attached to it.  This is a choose your own adventure story, albeit for adults.  In the magazine itself, there are two paragraphs.  You have to continue the story online here.  The technology involved is superb (you can save your story so that when you come back you can pick up where you left off) and each time you click to go to a new section, it fills in right after the section where you were reading so that the finished story looks like a complete (printable) story.

I tried two different stories and it became obvious that there are hundreds of story segments to choose from.  I’m rather amazed at the author’s ability to create what appears to be so many different stories parts out of these few characters (although I suppose realistically there can only be a half a dozen or so outcomes, no?).  And yet for all of that, I didn’t find the story all that interesting.

(more…)

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Fredy Perlman–[Week 1] Letters of Insurgents (1976)

Posted in Anarchy, Big Books, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Death, Epistolary Novel, Foreign Books, Fredy Perlman, Insurgent Summer, Prison, Stereolab, Violence on June 11, 2010| 5 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: STEREOLAB-Transient Random Noise Bursts with Announcements (1993).

Stereolab are a bizarre band.  They make bubbly electronic music, with all sorts of bleeps and whirls and buzzes.  They even describe their music as space age pop.   Their album cover art is overexposed or simply silk screened.  (This is a hi-fi needle getting dropped on an LP).  The back cover looks like it’s a hi-fi test record.

This disc is a bit less electronic than future releases.  It’s more guitar drone (appropriate circa 1991, frankly).  When the songs start, Latetia Sadler’s voice is angelic and beautiful.  Delicate and sweet.  And you sort of realize that you don’t quite understand what she’s singing.  Because the song is in French!  No kidding.

And then you get to “Jenny Ondioline.” It’s 18 minutes of droning guitars and noises.  It has several parts (the song actually stops at one point and at another it plays a sample from “Channel Recognition Phasing and Balance.”  And if you listen carefully to the lyric, you’ll hear:

I don’t care if the fascists have to win
I don’t care democracy’s being fucked
I don’t care socialism’s full of sin
The immutable system is so corrupt
What is exciting is the triumph as the new nation.

A little later on the disc, on “Crest,” there’s more subversive songwriting.

If there’s been a way to build it
There’ll be a way to destroy it
Things are not all that out of control.

This is all done by those sweet, yet alien-sounding vocals.  When she’s not singing in French, Sadler sings in a fascinatingly broken English, emPHAsizing the wrong sylLABes.

Although I think my favorite moment comes in “Golden Ball” when the CD skips like a vinyl record.  It’s surreal.  Electropop and Marxism: perfect together.

[READ: Week of June 11, 2010] Letters of Insurgents [First Letters]

And so begins Insurgent Summer.

This is the first week of my second Summer Reading Book series.  I’d never heard of this book before getting the invitation to read.  But when the book was described as 800+ pages of letters between insurgents, well, how could I pass that up?

And that is indeed what you get here: Yarostan (Vochek) has not spoken to Sophia (Nachalo) in twenty years.  And he writes to her to her because she had written to him twelve years earlier (when he was in prison).  He writes back to bring her up to date on his life and to find out what’s going on with her. (more…)

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Four Letter Word: Original Love Letters (2007)

Posted in A.L. Kennedy, Anachronisms, Audrey Niffenegger, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Chris Bachelder, David Bezmozgis, Death, Demons, Douglas Coupland, Dreams, Fantasy, Francine Prose, Gautam Malkani, Geoff Dyer, Gods, Hari Kunzru, Harper's, Humiliation, Illusion, Jeanette Winterson, Jonathan Lethem, Juli Zeh, Leonard Cohen, LGBTQ, Lionel Shriver, Margaret Atwood, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Neil Gaiman, Nick Hornby, Nick Laird, Peter Behrens, Phil LaMarche, Religion, Romance, Sam Lipsyte, Sex, Short Story, Sigur Rós, Sonic Youth, Stereolab, Super Furry Animals, Supernatural, Technology, Tessa Brown, The Walrus, Ursula K. Le Guin on September 3, 2009| 1 Comment »

LoveLettersSMSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-SYR 7: J’accuse Ted Hughes/Agnès B Musique (2008).

syr7The first side of the disc (for it was only released on vinyl) is a ballsy blast of music.  Ballsy because it was the opening track of their live set at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in 2000.  And who opens up their set at a festival that features bands like Super Furry Animals, Sigur Rós, and Stereolab (basically a who’s who in awesome Brit-rock) with this 22 minute shriek of noise?

The set was so derisively received that the cover of the NME (hilariously reproduced on the cover of the LP) stated “Goodbye 20th Century, Goodbye Talent.”

The noise is palpable: squeals and squalls and all manner of feedback.  Kim even gets a strange little spoken word section in the middle.  I would think fans might have enjoyed it for 5, maybe even 10 minutes, but by 23 it’s pretty numbing.  The rest of the set included instrumentals from the not yet released NYC Ghosts and Flowers.  It almost seems like the set was payback for the invitation.

The B-side is an 18 minute “soundtrack” of sorts.  Agnes B. is a French clothing designer and yet somehow the music feels like it could be for some scary kids’ movie.  It has a number of creepy elements to it.  I kept picturing people sneaking around a little cottage.

The liner notes are written in Arpitan, a steadily-declining-in-use language spoken mostly in Italy and Switzerland.

Not for the faint of heart (or the vinylphobic).

[READ: August 31, 2009] Four Letter Word

I read about this book in The Walrus and then I ordered it from Amazon.ca as it doesn’t seem to be available in the US.

The book is a collection of “love letters.”  What is so very interesting about the collection is the varied nature of the letters themselves.  It’s not just: “I love you XOXO” (of course).   There are letters to mothers, stepmothers, mountains, and the Earth itself.  There are letters of love, lust, anger and respect.

I was most attracted to the book by the great list of authors, some of whom I read religiously and many others whom I just really like (and of course a bunch who I’ve never heard of).

It’s hard to review a collection of short stories that is as varied as this, especially when the pieces are this short (as most of them are).  And, I guess technically, they aren’t even short stories.  They are just letters. I would never base my opinion of these authors from this work.  Although some of the authors that I know well definitely retain their signature style.  There were only one or two letters that I didn’t enjoy, but for the most part the entire collection is very good.  And if you like any of these authors, it’s worth checking out.

I’m going to list all of the authors, mention who the letter is to, and any other salient features (without trying to give anything away–several letters have a surprise in them)! (more…)

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Vladimir Nabokov–Transparent Things (1977)

Posted in Fatima Mansions, High Llamas, Microdisney, Short Books, Stereolab, Vladimir Nabokov on February 16, 2008| Leave a Comment »

nabokov.jpgSOUNDTRACK: MICRODISNEY-Big Sleeping House: A Collection of Microdisney’s Finest Moments (1995).

micro.jpgMicrodisney was founded by Cathal Coughlan and Sean O’Hagan. These two then went on to form respectively, the Fatima Mansions and the High Llamas (and O’Hagan worked with Stereolab as well). If you’ve ever heard Fatima Mansions and High Llamas, you will not understand how these two ever worked together.

If you haven’t heard them, then let me explain. High Llamas play beautiful, multi-layered, somewhat orchestral extended pieces. Their CDs, including Hawaii hawaii.jpg and Gideon Gaye gideon.jpg are really beautiful. Meanwhile, the Fatima Mansions play angry noisy rock, and perpetuate the slogan “Keep Music Evil.” Viva Dead Ponies fatima.jpg is certainly recommended, if you can find it! Clearly, these men started in one place together and drifted apart. However, you can see the kernels of these future bands in Microdisney.

Microdisney was a small Irish band (clearly flying under the radar of Disney, as they never seemed to get sued because of their name). They wrote short, pretty songs that often had bitter, funny lyrics. Cathal Coughlan has a great crooning voice, and a striking speaking voice (when he speaks, rather than singing, during the songs). It gets taken to pretty far extremes in the Fatima Mansions, but in Microdisney, for the most part he sings quite beautifully. And, when you put his voice with O’Hagan’s music, the tunes are catchy, the melodies are infectious, and you find yourself singing along. It’s only when you start to listen to the words that you realize how off center Cathal is.

Like the amusing lyrics of “Town to Town”: “She’s nervous and her; Best friend is waiting, She’s trying to pronounce my name,” that catch you off guard. Then, when you start singing the super catchy chorus “When the daily parade of the troubles you made gets you down, Just consider the fate of the wide open space from town to town,” you get lulled in. Until the verse: “Get Olso, get Glasgow. Hit Bonn and hit Bordeaux, Fry Dresden, miss Dublin; Why don’t you call me?I’ve got nobody.” Then you realize what you’re up against.

This is a greatest hits collection of a sort. They released five or so albums that are pretty much unavailable here (even the greatest hits may not be available). But they’re worth checking out nonetheless. And remember: Keep Music Evil!

[READ: February 6, 2008] Transparent Things.

Everyone has a thing to say about Lolita, whether they’ve read it or not. I read Lolita about ten years ago and I was surprised at how good it was. (I’d been led to believe that it was basically just porn–which it isn’t–or that you couldn’t or shouldn’t sympathize with a pedophile–but you might.) A coworker at the time told me to check out Nabokov’s Pale Fire, which I did, and which I really really liked. It’s a weird book, full of literary fun, and lots of quirks. A good summary is available here.

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